The mood in the village square was somber and heavy. The shelter below the gathering hall had emptied onto the streets and residents were confronted with the devastation of their homes and businesses.

  A band of ogres is like a natural disaster to a civilized settlement. Houses were flattened or had busted walls, warehouses were ransacked and looted, goods strewn about the streets.

  Sixty militiamen had died, another twenty-one wounded, and eleven were unaccounted for. Twelve villagers who had not made it to the shelter were also missing. A dozen horses were dead, and a score of hounds had been killed.

  There would be no celebration of this victory.

  Sherriff Tansin’s expression was grim as he looked at the small pouch containing the ogre heads.

  “I thank you for saving the village, Pidwermin,” he said in a hollow tone. “I only wish the duke would have sent aid sooner. How will we defend ourselves now, with such losses and no front gate?”

  “Sherriff Tansin I am truly sorry,” the frog offered. “We engaged ogres at Badger’s Burrow then came here forthwith. As for your ongoing defense, I will not simply abandon you.”

  The sheriff nodded. The militiamen around him grumbled.

  “You have a bird trained to fly to Mezbah’s Hill I trust?” the frog asked.

  “We do,” answered the sheriff.

  “Good.” The frog handed over a scroll, rolled and bound “Send this; that is my personal instruction to send three rangers and a brace of mountain infantry here to Cobble Home.”

  Tansin’s eyes widened. “Thank you.”

  “They should arrive by sunset if you send that at sunrise.” The frog looked to the sky, which was shifting from black to dark blue.

  “Now, I must speak to my subordinate. We will wait until first light to depart.” The frog hopped to a nearby rooftop, then sprang again, covering a good thirty feet before rebounding from the ground.

  He continued past the edge of the village and along the footpath leading up a rocky slope to the barn, which was within the walled perimeter of Cobble Home. Effortlessly covering thirty feet per bound the frog zigged and zagged up the hill to the barn, then proceeded to walk into he barnyard.

  He waddled importantly over to his stoic companion, who stood with his back to the barn, facing the looming shadows of the nearby peaks. The barn animals had quieted, save the occasional protest of a cow.

  “Subordinate.” Kovak sounded intrigued.

  The frog waved a hand as if in explanation. “Appearances, youngling. Order and structure, people need to see such qualities in those who profess to see to their security.”

  “Are we seeing to their security?” the wolf asked. “Men died here while we assaulted the group at Badger’s Burrow.”

  “Tragic to be sure. We can’t be two places at once,” the frog agreed. “Your point?”

  “That is my point. Ten ogres coming down from the Gnaw at the same time. Since when? Not in the six years I’ve travelled this range and the coast to the north and west,” Kovak paused before continuing. “The stories about dragon things, and how many goblins have been exchanged for bounty in these last two months? Something is off. Troubles seem to be escalating, for lack of a better word.”

  “Wyverns,” the frog corrected.

  “Why what?” the wolf asked.

  “No, wyverns.” Pidwermin articulated. “The dragon things you mentioned. The reports are of wyverns, and to my keen reckoning there have been twenty-seven goblins brought to justice or bounty in said timeframe, sixteen of which you and I delivered. Are you complaining about the increase in wages? Or is it your pacifistic nature lamenting the violence?”

  “Both.” The wolf’s grasp of sarcasm fell only slightly short of the rather high bar set by his travelling companion.

  “Three rangers and a brace of mountain infantry,” the wolf reiterated the frog’s orders to be sent to Mezbah’s Hill. “Two flanks of light infantry with spears and axes with a locker of shortbowmen.”

  “Yes,” the frog confirmed. “I know what a brace of mountain infantry entails. Do you go to much trouble to eavesdrop like this or are your ears really that sharp?”

  “It only requires a small amount of trouble,” the wolf clarified. “Seems clear you agree with my sentiment of perilous activities,” Kovak explained.

  “Perhaps not,” the frog argued. “It could just make good logical sense to bring in a strong military response after so large a band of ogres has been met and dealt with. If there were ten on this raiding party might there be as many or more in reserve? Ogres are a vengeful lot, you know. I didn’t want to leave these settlements without proper defense in our absence.”

  “I see,” said the wolf. “Just good tactical planning and nothing more.”

  “I dare say.” the constable assured his ranger ward.

  “I envy your steadfast nature, constable.” the wolf said slyly.

  “What snide insinuation are you making?” the frog politely demanded.

  “It’s good to know you aren’t at all shaken by the concerns that assail me at the moment.” the wolf said innocently. “I should probably be ashamed, truthfully, to give a second through to the stories of the orc hordes moving again along the Northern Spine, and the vanishing of an entire Al Dandi village.” Kovak shook his head. “Such trivium shouldn’t unsettle me in the least. Nor should talk of Izrad and Sarda in the Far South clashing over the Sacred Sands.”

  The frog said nothing and did so deliberately.

  “My silly instincts suggest this is all related.” the wolf continued his self-deprecating satire. “Indeed, I am inclined to think it’s going somewhere in particular, yet I do not know where.”

  Kovak shrugged, then waved his hand in front of his face. “Nonsense I am sure. Better to take up heavy drinking than to burden myself with such extrapolations.”

  Pidwermin frowned, more from the heavy thoughts he entertained than in disapproval of the wolf’s words. “Orcs are always moving along the Spine. As for the religious politics of the loons beyond the Burning Sands, it’s only ever been a matter of time before they started slaughtering one another again. Very uncharacteristic of you to be worried, my friend. I don’t like it. What’s really troubling you?”

  “Therein lies the problem. Nothing is troubling me. I’m living the good life.” Kovak admitted. “Easy gold, plenty of practice with the sword, enough killing to sate my bloodlust and keep me... civilized.”

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  The frog chuckled. “Thank the gods for that.”

  “It’s the ideal arrangement for me. I sometimes wonder what you’re doing on these wayback trails, but short of finding a way home, this is the life I would choose until my bones grow too old to move. Yet I find myself,” Kovak exhaled emphatically, “I find myself troubled of late. I feel an ominous weight, like a presence, looming over the future.”

  A chilly wind, somewhere between a mistral and a zephyr, zipped through the barnyard. The breeze danced across the wolf’s fur and prompted the frog to give a shiver then pull the hood of his cloak up fro m the shoulders to partially cover his head.

  “Fall is here, my friend. A few weeks to winter.” Pidwermin half-feigned another shiver. “Brrrrrrr!”

  “I like the cold.” Kovak sounded distant, as if his thoughts were far from where he stood at the moment. “Reminds me of home.”

  “It reminds me that most species of frog unfortunate enough to live in a place visited by winter burrow deep into the mud and sleep for months.” Pidwermin complained. “I shall have to join them if I find myself on this range this time next month.”

  The wolf gave two deep turns of his head as if shaking the nostalgia from his mind, then stretched his neck out long and opened his mouth in a wide, canine yawn that ended with a shrill whine.

  “Not to worry, Constable Gauthier.” The wolf even added the proper, mellifluous accent to the frog’s last name as he pronounced it correctly: ‘go-tyay’. “Something tells me you’ll not grace these wind-worn ridges this winter.”

  “I see. Do tell?” the frog encouraged his subordinate.

  “Just that feeling I told you about.” The wolf shrugged.

  “Ah. Kovak the mystic returns to us, here in the humble village of Cobble Home. Oh, ye hairy oracle say to me.” The frog closed his eyes and glued his forearm to his brow, wrinkling his face dramatically. “Will it be that I shall see, lovely home to me by wintery?”

  “To be so damn smart you’re a lousy poet.” Kovak replied. “No, not home. We’ll both be somewhere quite different. I don’t know how good or bad any of this is, but I feel it. Strongly, and have for a time now.”

  “Fascinating.” No sarcasm in the frog’s voice this time. “Will I need a holiday wardrobe for our trip?” The sarcasm returned from its intermission.

  “Do you find it at all hypocritical, being a talking frog magic-user, and scoffing at the notion of premonition?” the wolf inquired. “Just curious.”

  “A little, yes.” the frog admitted. “In truth, I don’t scoff at all. I pretend to as a mechanism for concealing my anxiety. Your penchant for acuity in this regard is, bluntly, unnerving. Are the wolves back home all this adept in their foresight?”

  “We all have far sight, though it varies among us. Some can see far into the future. Some not so much, but they can see, know things in the here and now which are hidden from most,” Kovak continued. “There are others who can see deep into the mind and heart of a living being, knowing that individual’s secrets and motivations as if they were spoken aloud. In terms of latent abilities I am not remarkable among my own kind.”

  “In latent abilities you say,” Pidwermin pointed out. “But in your pursuit of the path of the mystical warrior – the seeking of your full psychic potential, you are among a smaller portion of the population. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” the wolf answered. “Not all of my kind believe the potential for psychic mastery and the awakening of all the inner abilities is possible for every wolf. I believe because I have been told this is possible since I was a small child, and I have seen those who have walked the path long enough to become .”

  “So interesting. Strange I’ve never asked about that before.” Pidwermin touched his chin with his finger the way he did while reading or working out mathematics.

  “You have. Many times. When you were blackout drunk. That’s why you never remember.” Kovak explained.

  “Blackout drunk??? You take me for a rookie, do you now? I haven’t been blackout drunk for nearly a century.” The frog faked a mocking chuckle. “Seriously.”

  Another breeze, less frigid and shorter lived than the first, whistled through the barnyard. A pig could be heard rooting in the mud not far from where the pair stood.

  “ I have been aware of your foresight, but we haven’t really spoken about the psychic thing before, right?” Pidwermin did his best to sound only slightly interested in Kovak’s answer.

  Given this apparent disinterest, the wolf didn’t answer immediately. “Just the one time. At Lady Mershod’s New Moon Feast.”

  “ Oh?” the Constable raised an eyebrow but immediately lowered it and cleared his throat in an attempt to obfuscate any interest he had just betrayed.

  “Just after the benediction to the Moon Elves and right before you got naked at the table and...”

  “Jackass.” The purple frog interrupted. “Now I know it’s not true. I’m far too shy to disrobe in public no matter how much I’ve had to drink.”

  Kovak gave a single, sincere laugh. Not laughter, which he rarely indulged. A single laugh. “Now let me ask you something.”

  “Of course,” said the frog.

  “We’ve never set foot in Cobble Home before, have we?” the wolf inquired, fairly certain he already knew the answer.

  “Actually no,” the constable replied. “Strange in all our time patrolling these ridges but the two of us have never come here together.”

  “I thought not,” said the wolf.

  “I see,” The frog touched his chin with his forefinger. “Why did you ask me that?”

  “Before when we split up and I moved to flank the ogres near the block-making shop I had the distinct feeling that I had been here before,” Kovak explained. “I knew I had not, yet I couldn’t escape the feeling; I even seemed to know a certain alleyway would be a dead end and avoided it.”

  “Curious,” said the frog. “Probably just your intuition again or those sharp warrior instincts.”

  “I suppose it must be one or the other,” the wolf conceded. “It was just very strange, as if I remembered trying that alley before and finding it closed off.”

  The pair stood in silence for a few seconds.

  “Anyway,” Kovak spoke up. “What’s our next destination?”

  “We meet Mlasha at the foot of Little Bowl. She should be there already, in fact.”

  “That’s a full day’s march,” the wolf noted, adjusting the cloak across his shoulders. “Best we start before dawn.”

  “I’m sorry, Kovak,” said the frog. “I told the sheriff we’d leave at first light.”

  “Fair enough.” The wolf looked at the sky.

  A white ribbon cut across the eastern night sky, with pale yellow glimmers just starting to shine above it. Sunlight would soon reach the valley below, though the sun itself would remain hidden for another hour.

  “What’s Mlasha got for us?” Kovak delayed the constable mid-crouch.

  “Dragon things.” Pidwermin responded. “She’s going after the bounty on a wyvern that’s scourging the Waywards.”

  The wolf’s pointy ears grew half an inch straight up and got even more pointy. “The Waywards. Anything else I should know about this trip?”

  “We are not going near the Swamp of Sorrows, I assure you,” the frog explained.

  “Good to know,” said Kovak. “I fear no living creature but will not seek out the dead as adversaries.”

  “You made that much clear to me when I suggested searching the swamp for that band of highway robbers.” The frog shook his head.

  “Just so we’re clear,” the wolf reiterated.

  “We are indeed very clear,” Pidwermin assured him.