Bearers of the Black Staff

Panterra reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. “Guess I’m becoming a little too predictable.”


She moved between his arms and hugged him. “Well, that’s not a bad thing, Pan. Not a bad thing, at all.”



NIGHTFALL CAME SLOWLY, the day dragging in spite of Pan’s anticipation. He thought afterward about what he had done during its long, seemingly endless hours, and could remember barely anything. He spent some of it with Prue, but a lot of it alone, thinking. He stopped by to reassure a dour Trow Ravenlock that he had not changed his mind and intended to make his report as promised. The latter just shook his head and turned away. He thought about visiting his oldest sister, who lived with her husband and two boys in the next village over, but rejected the idea out of hand. Visiting meant explaining and explaining meant a whole new round of arguments about the advisability of what he had decided to do.

So the day passed and dusk descended, and all of a sudden it was time.

He went looking for Prue and found her waiting for him at the end of the walk, just come from her own house. She was wrapped in warm furs and wore beneath them her Tracker’s leathers. She smiled cheerfully and took his arm. “Are you all ready?” she asked.

“Me? I thought you were the one who was going to tell them,” he joked, and gave her a shove.

They walked over to Council House, the village meeting hall and the building in which most community business was conducted. It was another longhouse, similar to the one in which the Trackers gathered, only much larger. This one could easily hold five hundred people, if you filled the balcony seats as well as the floor benches. Panterra had expected a reasonable turnout; meetings such as these were open to the public and always drew some interested parties. But he was surprised to find the hall packed to the rafters. Every seat was taken, and those who had come late were forced to stand in the back or on the sides against the walls, where they crowded in two-and three-deep.

Apparently word had gotten out that he intended to speak. Those attending had at least an inkling of his news. He saw in the looks directed at him and the whispers exchanged that they were not happy about it.

His gaze swept the hall swiftly, taking everything in. The room was hot with bodies crammed together and the fire that blazed out of the massive stone hearth at the far end. Torches threw down pools of flickering yellow light from brackets affixed to the walls around the room. Great ceiling fans carried the smoke away through ceiling vents, their blades turning slowly on pulleys hand-operated by men in the corners. The ceiling itself was high and dark, and the rafters were dim forms in the shadows of the center beam’s vaulted peak.

Panterra glanced at Prue, who suddenly looked scared. She was a loner who preferred life lived outside villages in the wild, where she felt free and unencumbered. This was more people than she had seen in one place in years. Clearly, she didn’t like it.

“Don’t look at them,” he whispered to her, bending close. “Look at me, if you have to look at someone.”

They saw Trow, who beckoned them forward to chairs directly opposite the council table. Several members of the council were already gathered, chatting with one another until they caught sight of him; then conversation ceased momentarily as they stared. Pan didn’t like how that made him feel. He already sensed an undercurrent of discontent from those gathered. He kept reminding himself he was only the messenger, and the message was not his own.

But Panterra Qu was no fool. He knew this was not going to make any difference, that the message was going to become his the moment he voiced it.

Prue gripped his arm and hung on to it as he made his way forward. They sat down next to Trow, who nodded without speaking and looked away. Panterra felt a pang of disappointment in the Tracker leader. He should have been more supportive; he should have tried to do more for the men and women he led. It seemed to Pan that he had decided to do nothing, that he had made a conscious choice to distance himself from this entire business.

He looked around for Aislinne, but there was no sign of her. The only ally he might find at this gathering, and she wasn’t even there. He wanted to ask Trow where she was, but he resisted the impulse.