"They are coming," Findel said.

"The quth?" The voice was Tessiel's.

Vah awoke to their words. He felt as if he had slept truly and soundly. His feet and hands ached with his pulse, but his thoughts were clearer than they had been.

"Yes, but not just them. My brother comes."

Now Vah opened his eyes and tried to sit up.

"Rest, brother," Findel said, putting a hand on Vah's chest. "I did not mean to wake you."

"I can sit."

"If you can sit, you can drink this broth I have brought," Tessiel said. Her straight blond hair was pulled back behind her head from whence elegant braids fell down her back. The curve of her ears had flushed with a tinge of brown, as had the rest of her skin, its natural translucence gone. She looked so different. Seeing how his people had changed always brought to mind how he had not, yet there was comfort seeing that they had begun to care again for their appearance, as the braids demonstrated.

Vah realized he was thirsty, and he nodded to Tessiel. As she raised the bowl, Findel stopped her, stretching his hand over the broth for a moment. A curl of steam rose from the bowl, and with a nod Findel let Tessiel raise the rim to Vah's lips. He drank deeply. It was bland, a boiling of the few edible plants they had found in the land including the needles of the conifers, but he felt its warmth sink down into his chest.

"Isecan is coming?" Vah asked when he had sated his thirst.

"I sense him and the others."

"Why would they come with the quth?"

"They are behind the quth, I think, if quth they are. It is the will of the others in them. Isecan is strong." Findel shook his head. "I do not understand it, unless perhaps they hunt the quth. It may be that Isecan harries them, seeking to destroy them."

"Or drive them back to us," Tessiel said, a note of discord in her voice.

Vah squinted at Tessiel. Did she truly distrust Isecan? What had Findel told the others? Or made them believe?

"Stay with him," Findel told Tessiel. He rose and walked toward the edge of the copse.

"Help me," Vah said, putting his hands on the ground to try to push himself upward.

"Stay still," Tessiel ordered sternly, putting a hand on his shoulder. He batted it away with his forearm, looking around for his staff. It leaned against a tree nearby.

"Bring me my staff," he said.

"I must stay with you."

"Then stay with me where I go! Help me!" Vah snapped. He had no time to argue with someone who could not command their own will, not that it was her fault. Tessiel sighed, then retrieved the staff. With her on one side and the staff in the opposing hand, wrapped with two whole fingers and the stubs of three, Vah hobbled down the tir, following after Findel. His brother had walked out into the open ground past the trees and the green grass. There was a span of about a yard where the green, lush growth within Findel's embrace withered and turned to wind-blown rock and dried lichen. Findel crossed it, and the wind whipped his hair sideways, revealing streaks of viridian in the blond. He stared into the east and waited.

Vah stopped a few yards behind him, not wishing to brave the storm. He heard voices behind and turned to see that many of the Vien had followed them out, approaching warily, curiosity and caution mixed in their mannerism and expressions.

"All of you go back and wait in the trees," Findel shouted, his voice sounding unnaturally distant from the storm. Tessiel turned abruptly and left, letting go of Vah's arm. All the other Vien turned as well, disappearing back into the trees. Without Tessiel's support, Vah wavered and struggled to remain on his aching feet. He leaned heavily on his staff, clutching it with both marred hands, trying not to put pressure on the scabbed nubs.

It was not long before the line of quth emerged from the undulations of the distant hills. At least a hundred of them formed a line, not in file as he had seem them last but shoulder to shoulder, unburned apart from weapons. There was yet no sign of Isecan. The line approached at a steady pace. Even with as little as Vah knew about the quth, he knew something was wrong. Their pace was too slow and deliberate.

On they came, until only a few hundred yards separated them. Their long silvery hair whipped in the wind that did not reach Vah. They stared in silence. Vah had never gotten too close to one of the quth that had attacked them in the forest, which may be part of why he had survived. But he knew that they stood not much shorter than the Vien, perhaps only because they hunched, their arms hanging beneath their torsos as if they were ever poised to lunge. Their limbs were thick and strong. More than that, they were loud, at least when attacking or hunting. Yet now their silent stares unnerved him.

Findel stood as a lone figure in the storm, his arms at his sides. Vah heard the hoofbeats then and spun round. Tearing across the green turf around the edge of Findel's trees, horned-ones charged, horns down, bearing straight at them. Out of instinct, Vah tried to run but stumbled and fell hard. Some of the horned-ones bore riders. He recognized Elnwë and Selniel and Theniel. Another herd of horned-ones surged toward them from the south, manes whipping, horns gleaming, their strange screams carrying on the winds.

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Findel stood between the herds as they bore down. The quth charged forward, and Vah lay helpless on his belly. Findel raised his hands and tossed something into the wind, raising his voice into a wailing note of song.

Seeds—he had thrown seeds. Even as they scattered on the wind, it was as if the seeds underwent the growth of seasons in moments. Roots burst down into the ground from the air, rooting jagged trunks like spider's legs. Branches burst out toward the horned-ones. A few of the animals in the fore screamed as they were impaled. Others swerved. One went down, kicking and screaming as blood bubbled out from a wound in its chest, a broken branch jutting from the wound.

Vah shouted as one of the horned-ones leapt to dodge a bursting tree trunk, twisting toward him. He raised his hands over his head, but a branch jutted out above him, and the beast rolled over it, landing hard just beyond Vah. From the first branch, more sprouted, and in moments Vah was encased in a cage of thick gnarled growth. The horned-ones swept away, leaving Findel and Vah behind within a hedge of twisted trees and leaving the wounded beasts screaming and writhing.

The quth had broken their line and merged into a charging mob, shouting in a chorus of hooting cries as they converged on Findel. Findel raised his hands, now chanting rapid notes, forming a melody through gritted teeth. The quth were only thirty yards away, and their fur burst into flame. The shriek that rose pierced Vah's mind, and he clasped his hands over his ears as the quth fell to the ground, rolling and screaming and clawing at their burning hair. They were monsters, of similar kind to those that had slaughtered their people, but still the sight was horrible.

Findel turned and met Vah's gaze. His brother's expression was pained, and the whole right side of his face had raised and disfigured, full of bark-like nodules streaked with blue and green pigments of varied hues.

"Findel!"

Isecan strode through the wind from the south. Findel raised a hand of greeting to him, even as he looked around to see the others approaching. Dismounted now, the rest of Isecan's coterie arrayed themselves in a circle around Findel. Beyond them, the horned-ones stamped and snorted. Even upwind, a horrible stench filled the air from the burnt hair of the quth. Some of the monsters had managed to extinguish themselves in drifts of snow. Those who were able were fleeing east, badly burned. Others lay still, or rolled back and forth, releasing high-pitched gurgling cries.

"Let Vah go!" Isecan shouted, stopping a mere ten yards from Findel.

"Your attack nearly killed him," Findel said, his tone flat and stern. "I have protected him. How could you send these monsters against your own, brother?"

"We only seek to take you with us."

"Could you not have come and spoken in peace?"

"And let you capture our minds again?"

"You have risked coming all the same."

"Together, we resist," Isecan said. His face was twisted in an unmoving grimace, as if carved there.

"I am not your enemy, Isecan."

"Prove it. Come with us."

"I will not go to your Wellspring so that you can enslave me."

"We seek only to free the others."

Isecan's group ringed Findel round, their eyes flashing with hatred, sparing no glance for Vah in his living cage. Their bodies were marked more than last he'd seen them, their hair streaked with violet and green, their arms traced with pigmentation, but none were anywhere as disfigured as Findel. Selniel stood behind Findel, all the tendons strung taut in her graceful neck, her usually smooth brow wrinkled, her eyes fixed on his back.

"Look," Findel said, motioning to Vah. "Our brother not touched by the Wellspring, and yet he chose to stay here."

"And you have maimed him."

"That was your doing, not mine. You sent him back to die in the cold."

A flutter of doubt crossed Isecan's face, and he looked to Vah.

"Please, brother," Vah said. "Stop. Stop. Findel did not harm me."

"Does he still steal the will of the people?" Isecan asked.

Vah hesitated, giving Isecan his answer.

"We will stop you, Findel."

"You are far from your Wellspring. It has marked you too strongly. Even together, your grip here is weak."

"We have prepared."

"Let us speak, instead," Findel said, lifting his hands to implore. "We are brothers. Let me explain to you my heart."

Isecan faltered. The pain was clear on his face. He looked at Vah again.

"Please," Vah said. "Let no one be hurt."

An injured horned-one, a branch protruding from its thorax, tried to rise at that moment, screaming. Findel looked over at its struggle. Behind him, Selniel raised her hands.

Vah did not fully grasp the next moments. The earth broke asunder beneath them. Branches and trees shattered and grew. Ice and air swirled. Elnwë sank to his knees, clutching his head and screaming. Clothing burst into flame and then sprays of water, leaving bodies bare, marked by pigments and growths that pulsed. A discord of song cut through the storm, notes of disparate melodies. Vah's ears popped and he felt dizzy, but there was nowhere to fall; he lay on the ground within his cage of branches. Shivers of horror wracked his body as the world moved as it ought not.

Findel strode forward naked, his hands raised toward Isecan.

"Stop!" he shouted, but roots burst up and clung to him. The roots withered, and Findel stepped again toward Isecan. Selniel vomited and turned away. Theniel and Ieloe were down, jabbing at the sky with their hands and jabbering, while Elnwë stumbled away toward the horned-ones.

Isecan raised his hand and his voice, calling in song. Branches and roots burst forth around him, twisting to spear toward Findel, but Findel's song rose in discord, and the stems split and turned and roiled. Spikes of living wood grew outward, some aimed toward Findel, others toward Isecan, creeping toward each as the brothers' songs pierced the storm.

Vah clasped his head with his hands, trying to shut out the preternaturally loud cacophony. The spears of living root and branch neared his brothers, now mere inches away, and Isecan's eyes grew wide. He raised the flats of his hands and shouted:

"Wait!"

And in that word his song ceased, and the spines shot forward and rent his body. Findel's song changed to a wail as he raced to his brother, pushing aside the branches that withered away from his touch. But when Findel reached him, Isecan was already gone from the broken sanctum of his flesh.

Vah wailed and pulled in vain at the roots of his cage, not caring that the ends of his finger-stubs reopened and bled. The woody spines that had pierced Isecan's body fell to dust, and Findel took his brother in his arms and wept. Elnwë lowered his hands from his head, and Theniel and Ieloe stopped their babbling. Elnwë pointed at Findel and drew in breath to sing.

"Findel!" Vah shouted.

Findel did not even turn. A root burst up from below Elnwë and drove him through, piercing from his groin through the top of his skull and bursting into coniferous life above him. The others of Isecan's companions fled toward the horned-ones as Findel sobbed over his brother's body.

Through his own tears, Vah saw the spiny growths protruding along Findel's naked back, the mutations still creeping over his flanks and up his arms. Rootlike protrusions burst from his shoulders as his skin changed. His hair grew, reaching the ground and pooling beside him. His fingernails and toenails curled even as they turned a deep iridescent blue. When at last Findel raised his face to weep at the sky, Vah could barely recognize him. Nothing remained of the translucent skin of his people. His features were distorted and hardened. There remained only the abstract form of a Vien beneath the mutations.

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