Today, it was Krolf's turn to bring water.

  It was half a miracle and half Amiri's expertise in camouflaging their meagre little camp that they hadn't yet been discovered, so close to the camp (or more like stronghold) of the Tiger Lords. But that didn't mean it wouldn't happen soon, continuing the streak of bad luck that accompanied Amiri's Glenebon adventure.

  Initially, she hadn't been fond of the idea of travelling with three men she barely knew the names of. Last time she'd done that, she'd almost paid with her life, and those had been her tribesmen. During the past year or so, adventuring with Guelder and her team, she'd almost managed to forget about that experience, but the company of Wigurd, Orik and Krolf had brought it all back with a vengeance. It was weird to think that she felt safer beside a female werecreature (technically, a monster) than with a group of males of her own kind. Not that she was afraid, though. She was more than able to take care of herself if bad turned to worse. She'd done it once, she could do it again. Still, it had taken a couple of days for her to accept that these men were actually tolerable. They weren't too happy about Armag's ambition and where those were leading their people, and most importantly, they were no match to Amiri in strength. Which was no wonder, considering the time they'd spent without food and drink in Vordakai's prison. They regarded Amiri with the respect she deserved, and pushed their limits to keep up with her, as it was meant to be. And they weren't even hard on the eyes.

  Then they'd arrived at the Flintrock Grassland, and it had all gone south so quickly that Amiri couldn't even say hello to Lady Jamandi.

  For some reason (probably in order to save face), General Kassil Aldori had decided to make Amiri into a scapegoat for failing to mobilise the Nightvale troops and march them to Glenebon in time. As if anyone had ordered her to do so. As if she'd been idling in Tuskdale, not fighting the undead threat just across the eastern border. Worse, her three Kellid companions had been called spies and traitors, not even given a chance to speak up in their own defence. Now that he felt Lady Jamandi's power behind his back, Kassil had gone completely crazy, handing out derogatory labels to his allies and would-be advisors like candy. After an ugly altercation, Amiri and her friends had been thrown out of the Brevan camp under pain of death.

  It had taken a day or two for her to come to terms with the new situation and make up her mind. She was not here for Restov, for Kassil or even for Lady Jamandi. She was here for Nightvale, her new tribe, for Guelder, her new chieftain, and also for her Kellid brethren sent to their deaths by a mad warlord. The fact that the Brevans were assholes didn't change that. If Kassil didn't want her advice, so be it. She would find another way to make herself useful.

  Krolf was staying away for far too long. Without water, Wigurd couldn't start the stew, and Amiri was getting hungry. For lack of anything better to do, she took a knife from her belt and began to practice her knife-throwing skills against a tree trunk.

  Her aim was flawless. The blade slammed into the trunk forcefully, sinking in to the grip, again and again, and the little walk there to free it and back to throw again helped Amiri release a little tension. Had the tree been an enemy, it would have been bleeding from several wounds.

  Until she missed.

  "Damn you, Amiri! You almost took my eye!"

  Krolf barreled his way out of the shrubbery, carrying something heavy on his shoulders. Alas, it wasn't water. Not even game for dinner. The thing he dumped on the ground was a human body that, on closer inspection, proved to be a young, unconscious Kellid woman.

  On even closer inspection, it proved to be Figri of the Six Bears. She'd grown since Amiri had last seen her.

  Amiri's wild eyes flitted to the body, then to Krolf, then to the others. She didn't realise for a few more moments that her mouth was hanging open.

  "I can't cook with that, Krolf," remarked Wigurd, shaking his head despondently.

  "I figured we could use a captive," said Krolf with a sheepish grin. "To find out what's going on in camp before we dive in headfirst."

  "Smart," grunted Orik, immersed in sharpening his axe.

  "W-wait a minute," said Amiri, slowly getting a grip on herself. "Why the fuck did no one tell me the Six Bears were here?"

  Krolf creased his brow. "What does it matter? We picked up a cartload of fragmented Kellid tribes on our way here. Apparently they, too, joined at some point after we left for the Tors. Why? What's so special about them?"

  "They are my tribe, dammit! I mean, my ex-tribe!"

  "Oh," said Orik. "Perhaps if you'd deigned to speak with us on the way here, instead of keeping your distance and pouting all the time, we might have learnt some details about you!"

  "I gather you didn't part with them on the best of terms," remarked Wigurd, looking up from peeling their last potatoes.

  Amiri looked away, her face hot as a furnace. "One could say that. But why are they here? What's in it for them?"

  "We'll find out once the young lady comes to," said Wigurd. "Until then, Krolf, would you mind actually bringing some water?"

  By the time Figri regained her consciousness, she was tied to the tree trunk previously brutalised by Amiri with a length of rope, wrapped around her multiple times, making her look like a pupa with a human head. For good measure, Orik had also gagged her. The stew was already simmering over the fire, its mouth-watering smell wafting in the air, so her captivity wasn't entirely unpleasant.

  Amiri was there at the first sign the captive was stirring, eager to see her reaction to a long-lost tribeswoman's face.

  "Hello, Figri. Long time no see."

  She wasn't disappointed. Figri looked every bit as surprised (and probably every bit as stupid) as Amiri had just an hour before. But she also looked scared, which Amiri was not. Or so she told herself. True, she would have preferred an encounter with six normal bears with fur and claws and everything to running into a single tribesperson of hers, but that didn't mean she was afraid.

  Finally, Amiri got bored of her whimpering into the gag, and removed it.

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  "Get away from me!" wailed the girl. "Go back to your grave and leave us alone!"

  "What the hell," muttered Orik. "Do the Six Bears have a Vordakai of their own?"

  "I'm alive, Figri," snapped Amiri. "Not for lack of trying on the part of you guys, though."

  "But... I was there at your funeral! We paid you the final tribute after the giant hunt. We were told you'd perished along with Rodgar, Esbek and Gessen..."

  "Well, I did not!"

  Amiri reined in her rage, however hard it felt. It was not Figri's fault. Even though the girl wasn't the sharpest blade on the rack, all too happy tending to the cookpot or the children and doing what she was told to do, that was no reason to lash out at her for the crime of those three dickheads and whoever had suborned them (probably Chieftain Akaia himself). Obviously, she'd been lied to. Just as Amiri had been lied to, when she'd been told that women couldn't be warriors. She'd proved the opposite multiple times.

  Also, it was best not to dwell on what had happened to Rodgar, Esbek and Gessen. It was not as if Amiri owed anyone the truth, or the like – and as she'd learnt from bouncing her tall tales off Linzi, the best lies were those closest to the truth. Far up north, in the frozen mountains, where the snow covered all the clues and tracks and erased them from existence in a matter of minutes, nobody could have told who'd killed her companions. She'd looted Ginormous off a giant's corpse. Who was to say the horrible wounds on her tribesmen had not been the handiwork of a giant wielding a similar weapon? Amiri had a nice and credible story up her sleeves, in case anyone was interested. Her tribesmen had left her behind in the snow, she'd lost her way, almost frozen to death, grown icicles on her eyebrows, but somehow made it to a settlement and decided never to return to her tribe of assholes. It could have happened this way. Nobody knew about her blood crime that should have made her an outcast. For all they knew, she'd been murdered by her tribesmen, who, in turn, had been killed by the giants they were hunting. If anyone deserved to be cast out from the tribe, that was Rodgar and his bunch, along with whoever had instigated them to get rid of her for showing the tribe's women a different path in life.

  Nobody, repeated Amiri to herself, nobody knew the truth. She hadn't shared it with anyone, not even with Guelder. Although, on second thought, the baroness would have understood. Most probably she was kind of a kinslayer herself. Her grove had been destroyed, and she couldn't remember anything about that... It wasn't portal science to figure out what could have happened there, in the deep forests of Kyonin. In Amiri's book, moon frenzy was basically a type of barbarian rage that worked similarly to periods. And it happened more often than not that a rookie warrior (or even a seasoned one, for that matter) couldn't distinguish between friend and foe in a fit of rage.

  Anyway, Guelder wouldn't be confronted by her old fellow druids, due to them being dead, but Amiri was apparently less fortunate.

  "I'm sorry," muttered Figri. "Thank the spirits you're alive. We could use another strong warrior, even if it's a girl. Don't tell Chieftain Akaia that I said so."

  "Oh," said Amiri, looking her up and down. "How come?"

  Figri lowered her gaze. "The tribe is cursed," she said softly.

  As well it should be.

  "Cursed how? Fruitless hunts? Raids ending in failure? Children born sick?"

  "The dead come back to haunt us. A giant among them."

  Krolf contracted his bushy eyebrows, trying and failing to hide his shudder. "You're not saying you're getting zombie cyclopes, are you?"

  "Huh?" Figri looked genuinely clueless. "What we're getting is mostly skeletons and... something that looks like a frost giant, but in a ghostly version."

  Wigurd let out a relieved sigh, audible even through the noises of the crackling fire and the simmering stew. "That's better," he muttered.

  "Better?!" exclaimed the girl. "They're decimating our men! This is why we joined Armag, hoping he'd protect us. Well, it isn't so simple. He beats the giant to pulp one day, and a couple of days later it's back again. Rinse and repeat. After the third time, the great Armag got bored. He said he'd send over some volunteers in need of extra workout, and offered a safe spot for us women where we could take the children at the time of the attacks, but he couldn't give us a final solution."

  Amiri couldn't suppress a grin of schadenfreude. A ghostly frost giant haunting their tribe? That had to be the spirits' punishment on the Six Bears for the way they'd treated her. Whatever befell them, they deserved it. Every single one of them, except for Nilak the songkeeper, her friend and sworn sister, the only woman who'd understood and supported her.

  "How about the Defaced Sisters?" wondered Krolf.

  "They never bothered to intervene," said Figri.

  "Of course not," remarked Amiri. "They're powerless against undead."

  "Do you know anything about Dugath?" butted in Orik, conspicuously bored with the Six Bears' internal affairs. "The cleric of Gorum who led us to the east. He should have returned here at least a week ago."

  Figri shook her head.

  "No. The Six Bears have a separate section in the stronghold. We don't really mix with the Tiger Lords. No offense, but it's best to avoid the Sisters."

  Orik went on asking questions about the morale in camp, any pushback against Armag taking shape, and so on, while Amiri exchanged worried glances with Krolf. Something felt wrong. Based on the last time she'd seen Dugath, his arrival in camp must have caused quite an uproar. Even more so if he'd confronted Armag about the mission to the Tors and the Sisters' shenanigans. And if his sober voice had been squelched...

  "How is Nilak?" she blurted out. "Is she all right?"

  "Sure," nodded Figri, her lips widening into a smile. "Chieftain Akaia is getting old. He remains the head of the tribe, but Nilak is the neck. She can actually make him listen to reason. Well, sometimes. She isn't too fond of the Sisters, though, or the entire war, and she makes no secret of it... Now that you're asking, I haven't seen her in a few days... which is kind of weird."

  The world turned with Amiri. Her brain all too readily supplied details as to what might have happened to Nilak under the Sisters' hands.

  "Release her," she said to the men. "Rub some life into your limbs, Figri, have a bowl of stew, and go back to the Bears before they come looking for you. And obviously, you've never been in this camp and never met us, least of all me. If you squeal, I will cut out your tongue myself. Have you seen my sword already?"

  "That's one monster of a blade," chuckled Krolf. "Totally unsuited to cutting out a human tongue."

  "Yeah. That's the point."

  The way she could make herself useful slowly began to take shape in Amiri's frantic brain. She still had a Potion of Invisibility, a gift from Guelder for occasions like this. That would allow her to look around in the Tiger Lord camp unnoticed, while her three companions could just walk in as stragglers almost late for the party. They could sniff out any discontent or even resistance afoot in camp, perhaps even the fate of Dugath, and she could check on Nilak, all the while soaking up any information she could. Unseen, unheard, unsmelled, staying downwind from dogs and out of the line of sight of Defaced Sisters, just in case. And if Nilak came to any harm, Amiri would challenge Armag to a duel and make him pay.

  Hell, she hoped Nilak was fine.