“She’s awake, then?” Commander Blare was gruff as ever in the morning. His uncombed beard was a wild grey forest and his eyebrows were wisps of breezy cloud. “Good. Her fever has run most of its course so I’ll put her to work. Nobody lives here for free.”
        He was dressed as per usual. His studded leather chest piece was strapped tight around his large body and the clothes beneath it looked like they had been slept in—knowing Blare that may have been the case. His outfit was of the dark leather he always wore from breast to toe, as if he skinned a cow and rolled himself in its hide. There was no more plate and lobstered steel for him as he found their weight to be a bane to him during combat, yet he always complained that were he not feeble he would wear them again, as he did during the War. This complaint never made much sense to the rest of us, after all, how can you call a man feeble when you can’t get your sword anywhere near him, plate or no plate?
        His modesty worked with his sense of duty to form a respectable commander, one we were all lucky to have. Corruption is far too common in the higher ranks of guards and garrisons, including our own. Our two other War veterans would have responded to the destruction of Engal with no more than a shrug, and the girl we rescued would most likely have been put to the road. But not Blare. Blare was a paragon of lawfulness, not to mention the knot that tied together the garrison’s morals. Untie that knot and our noble virtue would no doubt fall to tatters.
        Yet even with the commander’s level of respectability I felt uncomfortable with his assessment. “It may be too soon, commander. Aye, her fever’s all but gone but that’s only one of many problems with the girl,” I said.
        “She still won’t let you near her?” He looked me over with his question.
        “As soon as her burn began to heal she saw no reason to be my friend anymore, it seems.”
        “If only you had been her friend in the first place.” Blare coughed out a sigh. The wrinkles on his face were soft, but hardened up again as he spoke to me. “Engal is a week destroyed, Argyn. It’s a short time, but enough to rid you of the most of your sulking. Her wounds will further heal, but now she has to talk.”
        The girl had still not found words to speak to me with aside from the day after we had brought her back. I had yet to learn her name, her age, or anything about what happened the night in Engal. And Blare expected -me- to question her. Everyone else had been so far removed from the girl, hoping if they kept their distance they won’t get roped into caring for her as I was. So far they were all lucky. Were only I so fortunate.
        “How long do we intend on keeping her here?” I asked, sounding tense.
        “You want to get rid of her so soon, eh? Well, she’ll have to stay until she finds her voice. As much trouble as it is to keep her, no one will take a sullen girl like that who can’t do her share of work. And in Veradan, Beren especially, work is all the denborn are good for.” He stopped and tightened a buckle on one of his chest piece’s straps, looking solemn as he did. “And we need her to tell us everything she knows about the travesty at Engal. She may have seen someone or heard something; any small bit of information will help our investigation, and at this point she may be our only hope for figuring out whoever caused this. Until she speaks, however, she’ll remain here.”
        “In my room? But what am I to do with her?”
        “Keep her close. She’s with you for a reason, Argyn, and that reason is that you’re the only one I can trust. The others would sooner toss her in the stables than give her a shred of care.”
        “And you think I’m any kinder?”
        “Gods blast you Argyn, of course you are. Half the recruits here are directionless fools that spend their monthly pay at whorehouses. What do you think they  will do when one of them figures they can get the same action here without spending a copper?” He turned to me and set an iron-clad look on his face. “You’re a fine soldier lad, one that deserves to be up on the wall at Titanspring than with these mucks down here. Might even be a knight one day, gods be good, and that’s a lot more than I can say about most of the people I’ve met.
        “You may not like them any more than the others but you’ve a tolerance for denborn and I’d see you use it. I want to know what happened in Engal before it happens again somewhere else and for that I need you to ask her questions, get her healed and keep her safe. Then we can move her out wherever.”
        “Is it really that dangerous around here for her, commander?” I asked. It’s more than a little awkward to hear your commander speak ill of his own subordinates.
        “Perhaps not,” he said, “but I’d rather not take any chances. She’s been through hell and I’d rather not see the others stress her out any more than she already is. The mind is a fragile thing and I’ve seen stronger men crack under lesser tragedies. We need a lead to go on, Argyn, and she may be the only key to this whole mystery.” He hooked his thumbs through his sword belt and turned to leave. “Gods protect you if Jarov comes back early, though. He’ll tear this place apart if he knows a denborn is staying with us.”
 
---
 
        The girl’s arm had begun to peel from the burn. I had a hard time discerning if was due to the burn or that she was merely shedding her skin the way a snake would; her arm was covered in scales, of course. The scales were soft enough, much like a snake’s but grew rougher and harder around her hands and knuckles and several points on her tail held the same rigidity.
        The shed skin came off like dry old paper. I spent an hour tirelessly picking it all off as she had no motivation to do it herself. The scales underneath shone with more intensity than the layer above had but there was still a significant difference between it and the unscathed arm whose green scales still glimmered with a rainbow sheen. The girl herself was still sombre, and her hair was still matted and dry from the fire a week ago. She had not taken a bath since before then and her smell was beginning to grow rank.
        “I have some tasks to do around the outpost but I was instructed to bring you along,” I told her. I was planning on drawing her up a bath but I supposed it would be wiser to do it after all the work is done. Although it seemed cruel to make a recently injured girl labour for room and board, it’s been said that denborn resilience is quite surprising. At the rate she’s healing, it was hard not to believe it. “Put on your clothes and I’ll show you to the stables.”
        She didn’t move all at once, in fact she sat for so long I thought I would have had to forcefully move her from my bed, but in the end she complied without argument. She slid into her clothes without ever lifting her eyes from the ground and followed me in silence.
        The stables smelled only slightly worse than the orphan girl, but at least it was a smell I was accustomed to. The horses reared up and whinnied at the stranger so I soothed them best I could. The girl herself stood complacent at the entrance, only walking further inside when I ushered her in, but as close as I came to her she always felt distant. I turned my back to her for a few seconds and found her sitting against the back wall with her arms around her legs and her chin resting on her knees.
        "I'll need you to get some water for the horses. Grab that pail there and fill it up at the well. Can you do that?" I asked.
        She didn't obey, at least not immediately. I wondered if she was going to move until she finally got to her feet and got to the pail. She tried to grip its handle—clumsily, as her hands wouldn't allow it to be easy for her—but eventually found her grip and slouched after the well in the yard. I watched her as she went, feeling exhaustion with a pang of pity.
        -How long will this all take? I would sooner be done if she didn't help,- I thought. -It will take some time for her to cope, no doubt, but her strange design will work against her at any task.- Even if she weren't sick she wouldn't be of much help. And I am supposed to be with her night and day until she's better.
        My sigh turned to crystal in the autumn air before me. The girl was sick, yes, but it was more than a simple fever. She was homesick, and homesickness was a disease that only has one known cure. But this is one cure she would never have, for she didn’t have a home to return to.
        She carried out her duties properly, if a bit slow. The horses’ water filled, their dung swept out of their stables, their hay stocks replenished. By the end our clothes gained a musky odour, one that blended with the girl’s smell to create something unfathomable. There was no longer an excuse to delay a bath, so I prepared some hot water and some new clothes.
        “Come on then. Unless you enjoy smelling like a privy,” I said to her as I stripped down. She had the grace to look away, but I wondered if she was truly embarrassed to see me naked or if it was simply done out of courtesy. “Personally I don’t, and the others here would rather only smell a horse when they have to.”
        Again she made no movement. I only waited a short while this time, then I pulled up my pants and went to her.
        “You first, then. Go on. I’ll leave you for a while so you can have it to yourself. Just don’t get any water on your burn, alright?” I tried to sound sympathetic.
        This time the girl did move, but in the wrong direction. She turned to walk out of the room but I caught her before she could leave with one hand holding up my pants. I wrenched her around, perhaps too quickly, as there was a split second of pain on her face before it melted away to her usual frown.
        Her disobedience made me sound more than concerned. “Sulking isn’t going to bring your parents back, girl,” I spoke tersely, angrily. She was silent ever since her sobbing a week before, and in bed the whole while. Blare wants answers from her and results from me and so far we both don’t have much of either, and the longer she stays quiet on the matter the longer she’ll be staying here. I need her to speak, and my patience throughout the day had grown thin. “I’m sorry to say but it’s true. They’re gone, and you will have to move on. It’s not an easy thing, but it’s something that needs to be done, and I can tell you that hiding under bed sheets won’t make the memories leave you be. They’ll always be there and the only thing you can do is accept them and look forward, never back, -forward.-“
        Tears had welled up in the orphan’s eyes, and before I could retract my statement they broke loose, spreading down her cheeks from both corners of each eye. Her stolid face broke into a mosaic of emotion and she began to whimper.
        Emotionally, it was hard to tell where I stood. A few parts sympathy, a few anger (not just at her but at myself), a few simple bewilderment at what I had done. It may have been some time since the fire but she had still lost her parents, her friends, everyone in the town she once lived in, and here I still had all three plus everyone here in the outpost. Considering the fact that I wasn’t a denborn and was in a land that didn’t revile me as such, I was living like a king in comparison.
        "I'm sorry. But you need to get washed up for the day. We've got chores to do and supper besides. You know how to cook?" The girl shook her head, sniffling still. "Then I'll have to show you. Not much we can make here but stew and spitted meats so you'll learn quick enough. As for washing, I assume you're okay by yourself?"
        The girl looked hesitant and glanced at the tub, but didn't break her silence. Instead she dug at the ground with her toe until I realized how she wanted to answer.
        "Right. Well, jump on in then," I urged her, feeling a little more uncomfortable than I did before. She undressed and got herself in the water soon after, but not before I noted the landmarks on her body.
        Scales rode down from her checks and converged at the nape of her neck, traveling along the middle of her back until they reached her tail which flowed outward like a green snake. Her arms were monstrous from the hands to elbows but from there they turned to flesh, easing into the delicate curves of a human girl of her age. Her messy hair hung down to her shoulders like dark stalactites and her skin was an unscarred, pale milky white.
        But her eyes seemed even paler than her skin. They had the colour of ice and shone like crystals when the light struck them. She averted her gaze to the ground when she noticed me looking at them, and I could swear I saw them cloud over to grey.
        For a while I scrubbed and cleaned her, spending a great deal of time untangling the knots in her hair and rinsing out any small branches or leaves (of which there was plenty; a bird could have built a nest with all the pieces I scavenged). At one point I rinsed a good swab of soap into her eyes and her weeping resumed, though at least there was a reason for it this time that I could relate with. Her hands couldn't properly grip the cloth I brought so she was unable to wash herself. It made me wonder how a race as clumsily designed as hers could ever survive on their own. Do her hands serve any beneficial purpose at all? What sort of god created such a dysfunctional being?
        "What sort of denborn are you? Your horns and tail and claws, I've never seen much like them,” I said as I poured a bucket of water over the girl’s head, washing the suds and dirt out of her hair. The water in the tub had turned grey and murky not long after she had dipped herself in, but I used it all the same. I never expected one wash would be enough to get her completely spotless, anyways.
        But the girl didn’t answer.
        I scrubbed her down as thoroughly as I could. I avoided her girl parts out of respect but gave everything else a once over. Before long her pale skin screamed pink from the scrubbing but she made no comment. Her scales were indeed soft as I imagined, at least those on her shoulders and cheeks, but as they made their way down the length of her arms and legs and tail they grew thicker, stronger. As human-like as she may be she is still denborn and those heavyset limbs can be very useful killing tools, as propagated by veterans of the War. Blare had mentioned once that many denborn didn’t use weapons in battle as they had been born with them already attached to their bodies. This girl has the equivalent of clubs for arms, should she learn how to swing them.
        On note of her arms, she made a peculiar response when I washed out her hands. Her hands had separate digits; four fingers and a thumb, all the same numbers as a human, but her fingers seemed to grow out of her knuckle and into a single point, giving the illusion that she had no fingers at all, only a spade’s scoop of an appendage sticking off her palm. The fingers themselves could only separate from one another by two centimetres at the tips, and only then by pushing them apart forcefully, not just with her hand’s natural dexterity. Oddly, the girl gave some bizarrely uncomfortable expression when I ran the cloth in the crevices between the fingers and I wondered if it was pain or something else entirely. It was hard to tell with all the wincing going on.
        “Does it hurt?” I asked.
        Her face seemed soothed by my words. She shook her head softly, her freshly washed bangs tilted side to side. Her eyes were still rheumy but her sniffling had stopped. She watched me passively and arched her back into my chest, bringing her head up to just under my chin. Her horns rose up on either side of me like armless trees twisted in their growth.
        For the first time the girl looked at peace. I grabbed her hand with both of my own and flossed between her fingers with a cloth which had once been a cream colour before this bath, but was now painted grey. With her free hand she twisted the ends of her hair, spinning and twirling the dark strands in and around her stubby fingers. She was no longer staring blankly, there was a glint of life in her eyes that made her look a lot less reproachful. She was still distant, but it looked like she was daydreaming.
        "When I was a boy, there was a lake by my home that my brother and I would swim in," I said, not knowing why the memory popped into my head the way it did. I supposed talking about my past might calm her some more, and continued: "we would swim in it daily, whenever our work was done. Well, sometimes even when our work -wasn't- done we'd swim as well. Our father always got angry at us for that, of course. But he told me that whenever we went out there by ourselves we had to be careful, and that I, the older brother, had to keep an eye out for my younger brother, Denrick.
        "There wasn't anything to be careful about, though. At least, that's what I felt at the time. The lake bottom was deep but we were good swimmers, there were shallows but not where we would dive, and after one tiring fortnight we confirmed there were no man-eating creatures hiding in the depths. To be sure, the lake itself was safe, so our father's warning wasn't at all necessary." I switched to her left hand now and began to clean, keeping the scalding water away from her burn. "That being said, this wouldn't be a very interesting story if something didn't happen, would it?
        "I had taken my father's warning to apply only to the water itself, and I had near lived my life in that lake so it all seemed redundant. But there were others that used the lake as well, and I ended up meeting one. A boar saw me, and didn't quite like the looks of me it seemed." I laughed as I held out my left arm next to hers. A ghostly white line tore its way down my forearm from the elbow nearly to the wrist. "Looks like you’ll have a similar scar, hm?”
        The burn had left a noticeably deep gash in her arm, most likely from a piece of burning debris during the fire. The gash was smaller than my scar and was at a sharper angle, but they were more or less in the same location on the backs of our forearms. She compared the two as I did and traced the line with her right hand.
        It took me by surprise when she spoke. “Did the boar do this?” she asked softly, her voice barely more than a whisper.
        I took a second to compose myself. “Well, no. He charged me and I ran, not noticing the root of a tree I forgot was there and tripped over it. The tree speared me with a hundred branches and I fell into the water below. I didn’t feel the cut until my brother near fainted at the sight.” I laughed aloud. “Nobody here has ever heard that story. I’d have told them the truth, but most just assume the boar got me with its tusk and ask if I killed it afterward. I feel it’s better for them to think I got this scar from a beast than from a stumble.” I remembered the pain I finally felt after noticing the cut and I winced at the memory.
        “Did you kill it afterward? The boar, I mean?”
        “Well, of course not. I had to get my wound dressed immediately, and my brother would get sick just from looking at it so I had to half-carry him back home. The boar ran off, I’m sure.”
        “If you were to find the boar that charged you, would you kill him?”
        I shifted in the tub a little as I thought. The way she asked the question made it seem like it had some weight to it. “No,” I answered, “I don’t think I would. He wasn’t there to harm me. I suppose he only came for a drink. And my brother and I were quite loud in that lake so I don’t doubt that we upset him.” I continued washing her as we both sat silently in the murky water. I wondered if my answer was acceptable and tried to figure out the meaning she had implied.
        And then it hit me. “Is that what happened with Engal? Was the town attacked because of some conflict with travellers?" Humans were always raising trouble in denborn settlements. I wouldn't have been surprised if one had felt slighted during a trip to Engal for whatever reason and decided to cobble together a few friends and brigands to help him put the town to the torch. But it would have had to have been a massive issue to provoke as much ire as it did for them to murder hundreds.
        Regardless, the girl said my theory was false. Even worse, she had no idea how it all happened. "One day I was helping with the crops and the next the town was afire," she murmured, her eyes watering up again.
        "So there's nothing you can remember about the fire? You didn't see or hear anyone suspicious?"
        ". . . I was sleeping when the fire started, and since the doors and windows were barred we couldn't even look out them to see who could have done it." I felt her tail curl around my abdomen and lightly squeeze me. "The fire spread quickly through our home. There was so much wood and so little stone . . . everything burned. My mama tried to stay away from the fire, tried to stamp it out, tried to smother it, but it caught her, too. They burned just like everyone else, and their screams, their -screams- . . .” She broke off into sobs.
        It was obviously a traumatic experience. I could only imagine what life would be like without my family, but to hear them as they die is something I’d rather not think about. But this girl, this girl that can scarce be called a woman had seen her family slaughtered by flames, flames caused by ghosts, as it were. They had struck in the black of night while the town slept and murdered hundreds. How many girls like this one had died that night? How many women, children, and babes had died? And who would even do such a thing?
        Her crying was quiet and didn't disturb anyone outside the room. I continued washing her down knowing that the water wasn't going to do much to make her cleaner considering how dirty it was, but I focused on the visible lines of soot and looked her over once more.
        Her breasts were small, budding things. I saw them before she entered the tub and could feel their size when I ran the cloth over her front. As I thought, she would have to be around thirteen, fifteen at the oldest. She had lived her entire life in a post-War world so there was a good chance she had always lived in Engal. Being relatively close to the Thicket Mountains and denborn lands it was probably one of the first denborn settlements in Veradan since their surrender in the War.
        The water soon chilled and I finished up. Thankfully, the girl had the mind to wash her nethers herself, so she saved both of us some embarrassment. As I washed her legs—the last of her that needed a desperate scrubbing—a thought came to me, and I was of a queer mind to actually voice it. "If we find whoever burned down Engal, we will bring them to justice."
        One of her horns cocked against my head but I never saw her expression. Beads of water sat pregnant on her shoulders, one lead a trail down one to her collarbone and then down the middle of her modest bosom. I watched it as if it held an answer, but I also wondered if I had been staring for another reason.
        "Kelna." Her response came methodically and tinged with hesitance.
        "Kelna?" I repeated.
        "My name . . . Kelna. Kel for short."
 
---
 
        The water was black as starless night by the time we left the tub. The surface held a film of grime that left a dividing line across our torsos and our bodies were flecked with fragments of soot and dirt, but it was all easily toweled off.
        The girl, Kelna as she proclaimed herself, looked well enough in her coloured linens and tunic, which was saying a lot considering her state before. She was still very obviously denborn with her horns and scales and tail but no longer looked like a vagrant child. The sun shined off her hair like bright ripples on a dark pond. Her skin in contrast was literally white on black, and in addition to having the dirt wiped off it was remarkably unblemished. As we walked along it seemed to reflect all light.
        Her gaze dragged along the floor and she made no effort to pick it up. Despite the progress gained in the bath it felt like I had stepped back to the beginning; she was silent and sullen and I couldn't find a wedge to pry her open with. Mentioning the town at all would only bring tears and sorrow and no guarantee of results.
        It wasn't a surprise to still have no leads. She had seen nothing but the flames engulfing her family, and heard nothing but their screams. Anyone that might have known about the arsonists most likely died in the fire.
        "Keep pressing," Commander Blare said. "You may yet find something."
        Kelna had returned to my bedroom while Blare and I had a chat below in the hall. He seemed pleased that I connected with her in a small way, but not with much else.
        "I'm not sure I will. She seemed fairly honest when she said she didn't hear anything. Having not been in a fire myself, I'm not sure how believable her answer is, but I feel it's truthful enough."
        "I didn't mean she was lying, Argyn," Blare stated as he pulled the boots from his sore feet after walking his patrol to Titanspring and back. "The mind does some queer things when it's terrified, sometimes going so far as forgetting key moments in time. There's a decent chance she may be unintentionally repressing some memories, and those memories may be our key."
        "Is there some way you can tell that's the issue with Kelna?" I asked, puzzled.
        "Kelna?"
        "Oh, the girl. That's her name."
        "Her name, huh." Blare crumpled his brow and brooded for a moment, then: "If I hadn't seen it so much during the War I wouldn't bother mentioning it. Trauma is a terribly prolific thing and has been since the War and perhaps even before it. The times we live in are unstable and unpredictable and most of the time we can't keep up with the changes." Blare fixed me with a stern look. "The mind is sharper than any sword and stronger than any steel but it is also more fragile than any glass. Be careful with hers or your hands might get bloody."
        "A few cuts on my hands won't stop me, commander."
        "Might not be your blood you find on them."
        The sun found a way through the clouds and had been relentless throughout the day, though it wasn't so much the heat as it was the humidity. Sweat beaded off Blare's forehead and he dabbed it away with his grey cloak. The rest of the garrison stayed in shelter as much as they could, many were seated in the feasting hall and had taken cheap wine to blur the day away. Blare said nothing to them as he walked by—his way of showing moderate displeasure—and his very presence sent them running off in separate directions to pretend to work on something.
        Whenever inquiring of someone, Blare had a certain look about his face. Both eyes would squint but his left would always squint deeper, leaving his face to be the asymmetrical picture of questioning. I always recognized this face, but this past week I had grown accustomed to it. For whatever reason I had become the link between Kelna and him and he expected me to come bearing answers to all of his questions. Whether he was annoyed by my slow progress or tolerant of it was beyond what I could surmise.
        Whatever his opinion of me he would still ask me what I had learned from Kelna, if anything. It was obvious he had been doing his own research into the matter, and I doubted his patrol to Titanspring this morning had been an uneventful stroll—a purpling bruise on the lower part of his right cheek spoke clearly about that. Though it didn't speak enough, and whatever he had found out was still his own knowledge and no one else's, and there were a myriad questions of my own that I wanted answers to but never had the chance to ask until now.
        "Do you honestly believe this is only just the beginning, commander? Will this happen again? Will there be more destruction?" I questioned.
        Commander Blare sat still for a moment, the sun making his leather look like liquid bronze. "There are stories I've heard, Argyn. From the north, the south, the west and even from the few cities that lie east, between us and the Thicket. There is a growing sentiment among humans that denborn are more use to us as livestock feed. That includes all races of denborn, anything non-human.
        "Engal seems to have been the worst so far, which is fortunate in a way. Other denborn settlements have been subject to harassment and vandalising, nothing too extreme . . . but I feel it won’t be long. No, not long at all. When word spreads of Engal people won’t be horrified as we were, they will see it as a well enough idea to rid their lands of the non-humans,” Blare took a breath and exhaled slowly, “how long will it be before towns like Tinmont and Scurge go the way of Engal I’m not too sure, but the seed has been planted. Others will copy this behaviour unless we do something to stop it. Gods know the guard won’t lift a finger.”
        He looked like a beaten man but spoke with hope. The hard features of his face seemed to lean into a more sombre expression. “But what is there we can do, commander?” I asked.
        “Might be nothing. But I figure if we can find the culprits—quickly, of course, before their act becomes too well-known—and hang them in town . . . might be we won’t be able to do that, but death is just what’s needed for the bastards. If everyone sees what kind of punishment is in store for committing such a crime, they might think twice before swinging a sword at an unarmed denborn. Or setting fire to their homes, for that matter.” The commander rushed his last words and sat up straight. He looked behind me and my gaze followed his to the denborn girl who had wandered in by my side. “So this is the girl? Kelna, is it? This is the first I’ve seen her out of bed.”
        “Aye, this is Kelna. Kelna, This here is Commander Endrew Blare of the northern garrison of Titanspring.” I waved an arm at him as I introduced the two. Blare seemed jovial enough but the orphan retreated behind my legs.
        Blare laughed. “The rumours were true then. You’re the only one she trusts here, Argyn. I’d say her judgment of others is harsh but then again I’m the same way. Seems you’re the only one who deserves some trust around here, anyway.”
        His statement hid more truth than it showed. He made me accompany him to Engal the night of the fire and entrusted me with the girl’s care. Something told me he wouldn’t have given the same honour to anyone else. If one could call it honour, that is.
        “How old are you, Kelna?” Blare tried to sound kind, but his deep voice and naturally intimidating looks gave Kelna the wrong impression. She cowered further behind me instead of answering. “Old enough to be wary of strangers, eh? Not a bad trait to have I suppose, especially considering what you’ve been through. It may not be much comfort, but we are hard at work on figuring out what happened at Engal.”
        The mention of her hometown brought fresh tears to her eyes and she hid her face behind me. I wondered how long before her well of tears would run dry.
        Commander Blare stood. “If she does know anything, you let me know at once. I needn’t remind you of our fleeting time.”
        “Aye, commander.” I didn’t have much hope for finding information and I wasn’t sure what he expected me to find, but I’d try anyway. “What about you? What do you plan on doing now?”
        “Can’t say I know. I’ve exhausted most of my usual information peddlers in Titanspring. No odd comings or goings in the city. Barely any new arrivals at all, but there are a lot of rumours.”
        “Rumours? Like what?”
        “Nothing that can help us,” Blare said bluntly. He gave a look of concern towards Kelna and said nothing, but it was clear that news of our garrison taking care of a denborn orphan had been spread. As if he could hear my thoughts, Blare added “I’m going to have two night patrolmen from this night on. Nobody will come close to the outpost without us knowing.”
        I was bewildered for a moment. “Is that necessary? The outpost isn’t in any danger, is it?”
        “Perhaps not the outpost, but she is. The scum that burned Engal to the ground were thorough; I doubt they’d kill two hundred denborn and allow one to escape and live, especially if they believe she might hold a clue to who they are.” Blare turned to leave. “Raiding a town like they did is a grave crime, one with punishment worse than death. They’ll want to cover their tracks to protect themselves, and even though Kelna might not have seen who they were they’ll want to silence her all the same. They’ll come, Argyn. Keep an eye out.”
        His boot laces dragged loosely behind him as he walked away. I felt Kelna’s grip on my shirt loosen a little and she stood beside me. This was the second premonition Blare had had about the fires. He was being extremely careful, but whatever reason it was for I couldn’t comprehend. I understood his words and meaning, but I couldn’t feel the sense of foreboding that he did. Engal was destroyed, over ten score of denborn lost their lives. The worst was over, wasn’t it?
        But there -was- a queer air of paranoia about Commander Blare as he spoke. He wasn’t taking any chances. I felt like I was in some kind of bubble of obliviousness, as if a tornado were raging all around me while I was stuck in its eye, unaware of the destruction happening—or of the destruction to come. The old commander had tried to imbue me with a sense of immediacy, to be ready for something to come, but I’ve no idea what could befall us. Would someone burn down the outpost as they did Engal, just to kill Kelna? And if so, why was Commander Blare so worried? The garrison is capable enough to protect itself as well as others. Even if the general opinion of our guest isn’t a positive one they’d protect Kelna all the same, so long as Blare is there to command them. But Blare sounded untrusting of someone or something other than just the threat of these arsonists. To me, it sounded like he had been through this before.
 
---
 
        The kitchen had not seen a proper cook since Rask Patton’s wife left him for a travelling singer. The singer’s statement held true when he boasted his voice could woo any lady with his ballads, nobility included. It didn’t require Rask’s woman to be born of royalty for her to fall for him, however, and in less than a fortnight Rask had lost a wife and us a cook. One by one we all gave cooking a try until we found out the only one halfway decent at making meals was Wes Bandiorr, who we stuck with the job, and he’d cook for us every night unless we had grown sick of the stew he said was the only thing he could make. Rabbit, deer, cow or horsemeat; it didn’t matter what he put in, it all tasted the same in the viscid slop he served.
        Wes had graciously handed over the duty of cooking to us tonight, stating that a girl would do a much better job in the kitchen than a man ever would, denborn or no. -Obviously he’s never seen her hands,- I thought, -how is she supposed to hold a ladle or a plate with those clubs?-
        Not that she had any intention of helping, as it were. She found a comfy seat atop a sack of flour and watched me go about my preparations, never offering help or even feigning interest. I figured it would have been a more desirable job than working the stables, but she didn’t seem to have much any desire to work at all. Not that I could blame her, with her emotional scars only just now healing up, but I figured this would be much like the stables after all. She only needs a push to get her to work.
        “Have you ever cooked before, Kelna?” I managed to say after what felt like a century of silence. “Did your mother ever show you how to prepare vegetables?”
        The very mention of her mother brought her to tears once again. I cursed softly, more at myself than her, and waited for her crying to subside somewhat.
        “Come and help me with these carrots, would you? It’d be best if you didn’t keep the others waiting, they get pretty flustered when there’s no food at dinnertime. And the sooner we get this done, the sooner you can return upstairs.” I said the last part as a joke, but it seemed to be motivation for Kelna and she hopped off the flour sack and joined me at the counter. She brushed the dark tangles of hair from her eyes and watched me slice up a carrot before taking up the knife herself. “Make sure you’re careful, alright? Don’t go fast and be mindful of your fingers.”
        She held the handle clumsily but steadily enough and she began to slice the carrots, but not before inspecting the blade. It was a dull and short knife, one that could only be practically used for dicing up vegetables, but she treated it with cold wariness, as if she sensed a danger within it as one would a sword. Each cut of hers was meticulous and slow, painfully slow, but not out of caution. She measured up her cuts so that each slice was the same thickness. It was gruelling to watch, but watch I did for a short while as I held onto a certain fascination with her devotion to her duty.
        “Not every slice has to be the same, Kelna. Nobody worries about the thickness of their chopped carrots, especially those eating. No need to be precise.” I grabbed a carrot and quickly chopped it up. “Same goes for the other vegetables. Just cut them up how you see fit. Carefully, of course.”
        Careful she was, and her pace was only a whisker above what it was before. I ignored my frustration and instead focused on other tasks. The girl was methodical with her dicing and before long the slow, constant beat of knife on board gnawed its way into my skull and thudded like a mammoth’s stomp.
        I distracted myself from the torment by posing her some more questions. “Have you ever been to Titanspring, Kelna? It’s coming close to winter, so you’d be better off with thicker clothes. Might be I’d buy you some if you do a good enough job here.” I studied her for a second. “Or perhaps you don’t need any? I’ve heard denborn are built tougher than us humans and some can withstand a blizzard.”
        Miraculously, she answered me. “Not my kind. We have different blood, like a snake or a lizard.” Her reply was brusque, if not informative in some way. But she continued, “In the winter we rely on fire. Fire means our life; cold leads to death. Humans have blood that warms them while ours just freezes when the cold gets in.”
        Her grim statement made me realize she had seen death before. Frozen death, quite the opposite of the fiery demise of her town. Fire may mean life for her kind in the winter, but too much fire is just as bad as too much cold.
        “I take it winter is a much less active season for denborn as it is for us, then,” I said.
        “Not all the denborn in Engal have cold blood,” Kelna said, then abruptly stopped. She had left out “but they do now,” but it read plainly on her face. Her mist-like eyes wavered briefly before she found a pause and breathed in deeply before continuing. “There are . . . were . . . Praxaurri that lived in Engal that would shear their wool off and give it to us cold bloods to keep us warm. We’d stuff it in our blankets and clothes to keep the cold off. It didn’t keep the heat in completely, but it helped.”
        I tried to remember the few Praxaurri I had seen, with their thick coats of wool covering most of their bodies. They had short, lightly coloured horns and hooves if I recalled correctly. They were like very similar to sheep, and in many cases treated no better.
        "If you have cold blood, why would your family move to where it's cold? Seems like a poor choice for your kind." The land here was warm enough during the summer, but in the winter it could very well be mistaken for a township in the snowy northern land of Vast, seeing how markedly cold it gets. Perhaps hundreds of years before when the denborn had true to their name built dens to sleep in during winter they would have survived, but their imitation of human living seems like it has its burdens as well as its positives. "What kind of denborn are you, anyhow?"
        "My mama said we are called Gandrens, and that our kind may have roots in Azlin. I don't know any more than that."
        Nor did I to be honest. As numerous as the denborn races are, the only ones I had heard of were either ones I had seen travelling to and from Titanspring or those that fought in the War that had many stories and songs about them. For a monster as uncoordinated as this Gandren, unsuited for battle and most other things, it was hard to imagine them being useful at all during a war.
        "Your mother was Gandren, of course, but what of your father? Gandren as well?" I asked as I prepared a pot for the stew.
        Kelna had finally finished with the carrots and began peeling the potatoes. I waited for her to finish a few before I began to chop them, realizing even with a head start I'd soon catch up to her slow pace. "No," she said, "human."
        My face must have shown my shock as she shied away from me a bit. A human father? It was rare enough for a human to love a denborn and even more so for his seed to take root. "Was he with you in Engal the night of the fire?"
        Kelna shook her head. "I never knew him. My mama said he passed away when I was little."
        The shock wore off then. It was something I had heard many times before, and a popular saying in denborn communities for illegitimate children. -A dark little lie, but a sweet one nonetheless.- It was better to say the father was lost than tell the child they're a bastard. It was doubtful her mother was a whore; denborn get paid very little and sometimes not at all. -She probably wouldn't have wanted to meet her father anyhow.-
        Of course it was all baseless speculation, but it holds more water than a human and denborn couple actually falling in love. There are stories of such—stories, nothing more—of humans wedding denborn. In the eyes of the kingdom, of knights and kings and common folk alike, the union is considered heresy, blasphemy, and in some regions, crime. When a human loves a denborn, they lose their rights and become denborn themselves in the eyes of the kingdom. Needless to say, I doubt Kelna’s father had much care for her mother, nor would he for the child he likely fathered without knowing.
        “How long did you live in Engal for, Kelna?” I tried to redirect the conversation away from her mother that perished in the fire, but every question on my mind seemed to revolve around Engal anyways. A lot of grief would come my way for asking such questions, I figured.
        “My whole life. “
        “And how long might that be?”
        She furrowed her brow in thought for a dozen seconds or so before answering. “Twelve years, I think.”
        Your age isn’t something you’d normally forget, so to see her unconfident in her answer unsettled me. Perhaps age wasn’t a big factor in the lives of denborn, for whatever reason. Either way, my estimate wasn’t far off its mark, though I still pegged her for being at least a couple of years older.
        She seemed to be confused about it as well. Her gaze wandered to the ceiling as she thought deeper about it and other things, but her hands continued their peeling as her mind drifted unawares. It didn’t take precognition to see what would happen next.
        The blade took off a round portion of scale from Kelna’s left hand as it missed its mark. A wet -shing!- reverberated throughout the kitchen, echoing softly as if chanting its cut. Dull though it was, the knife sliced cleanly through the scaly roughness near her thumb’s bottom joint like it was butter and the scaly fleck of skin flew off too fast for my eyes to track. The wound was clear for a moment before filling with red and the blood quickly ran its course through the scaly raceway of her hand.
        “Seems that knife was sharper than I thought. That happens to us all at some point, though. It’s probably better that it happened so soon, as now you’ll be more careful from now on, eh?” I admitted myself a smile for her sake and grabbed a dry cloth from the counter to put pressure on the wound. “Some of us like to think of it as initiation into the Kitchen Brotherhood. Some won’t let others trade dinner duty until one has suffered a cut like this. When I first went, I got a—“
        Her screams shook the little room and carried off throughout the outpost. Kelna screamed, and screamed, and screamed red bloody murder. Her left hand was stretched out as far as she could manage away from her body, as if she intended for it to fall off the end of her wrist if she willed it enough. The whites of her eyes were showing and her mouth was open and screaming like a hole to hell. For a second I wondered if Titanspring could hear her wailing.
        “Kelna!” I cried to her. She was walking backwards, trying to separate from her hand like it was a rodent carrying disease. I grabbed for her, not knowing what else to do but calm her down, and as I grabbed her the blade of the knife slid into my bicep. I felt, -heard- the blade bite bone and nearly reared back in pain, but instead I embraced the wailing girl in my arms instead and lost balance. We toppled together, ending up in a heap next to the wall, but I still held her.
        She continued her cries but they had diminished somewhat, and by the time her cries became bearable a chunk of the garrison had gathered by the kitchen entrance.
        “By the gods, what the hell happened here?” Jak Pondrey called out.
        “Argyn done went and popped the girl’s cherry, he did,” Wineskin Walt said, his eyes open as wide as his grinning mouth.
        “Not before me, he didn’t!” Wes exclaimed, and soon after the rest of the group had piped in and made their own comments on the show.
        I had crumpled against the wall, my rump sore from hitting the floorboards too hard, and the wound in my arm stinging like a thousand nettles. I held Kelna’s head against my shoulder and held her close. “Don’t all rush forward to help me,” I glared.
        “It’s not our place to come between a lovely couple,” Walt jeered, and the group laughed with him.
        Fenrey Dover was the only one to step forward, and I reached out to him with my good arm and he pulled me to my feet. Kelna’s leg had all but given out, however, and I had to struggle to keep her upright as the fire burned in my bicep. “Thanks,” I said, but he wasn’t interested.
        “She woke half the bloody kingdom, Argyn. And by the gods what happened to your arm?” I hadn’t realized the knife was still embedded in my arm until Fenrey wrenched it free. The world almost whirled into darkness but I kept my head and wits.
        “Next time, tell me before you do that.” With the girl crying into my shoulder her horns would smack me occasionally across the face. Within a few short moments I had gone from making dinner to performing a play for the garrison. “And I’d like to know just as much as you about whatever the hell just happened.”
        “She tried to kill him, she did,” Walt pushed forward. “A knife in your arm and the girl’s got a little cut of her own. That’s what you get for taking care of a bitch like she’s people.” His fiery red hair seemed to flare up as he walked up to me. Walt stood a head taller than me and was built like a castle. The stench of wine was on his every breath but there was no hint of drunkenness to his demeanor; he was always good at keeping his head while swimming in alcohol, hence why he got his name. “Give her here and we’ll give her what she deserves.”
        I stood up as straight as I could, my eyes coming up to his chin, but before I could rebuke him a bellowing growl shook the outpost even more than Kelna’s scream did. “-Gods blast you all! What is going on in my outpost?-“
        Commander Blare shoved through the rabble without losing a step. The crowd’s jeering turned to murmurs then to nothing, and in an instant the only noise was Kelna’s declining wail and Blare’s deep, enraged breathing. And he was getting louder.
        “Everyone, out! Out, or I’ll have your manhood on a spike, however small it is!” If not the words, his tone gave an urgency (and danger) enough to make the men scatter. Walt lingered for a second before his bravado drained from him and he followed suit. I, however, stayed put, as I had a feeling he intended to speak to me.
        “Commander, it was all an accident. She had cut herself and—“ I started, but Blare cut me off with a wave of his hand.
        He looked around him to make sure there were no stragglers, and then looked me up and down. No doubt he was wondering about the wound and the crying denborn orphan I was holding in my arms.
        “Never mind about that, Argyn,” he said, nearly panting as he did. Only then did I realize his face was slick with sweat and the remaining hair on his face and head was plastered to his skin. His face bore all the wrinkles and lines of his age and then some. “I had a feeling it would happen again. I knew they wouldn’t stop at one and they proved me right, the sons of whores. I dreaded it, for all the good it did me . . . Argyn, get that wound treated and then grab your armour. We’re heading out immediately.”
        Blare was a wreck and was speaking furiously. I gaped at him in confusion. “Commander, what—?”
        “Scurge, the town to the west,” Blare said after a gulp of air, “Scurge was set ablaze last night.”