"They weren't married. He married for political reasons, to strengthen the family. I have some half siblings, but we weren't raised together."

His tone is matter of fact.

"Did you have tutors, and lessons like I did? I had dancing, fencing, languages, poetry and many others."

"I --" Yala attempts to answer around a series of yawns "--used to, but Papa would always make me leave them behind when we moved on to another town. And if I didn't like them I wouldn't go. Sometimes it would be very ... dusty ... but then I got lost and I ate the fish. And so Papa hired Sister Hildreth." She shifts, making herself more comfortable leaning against the duelist. "Did you always want to grow up and kill people for a living?"

"I am very good at fighting, and it impressed my father. He wasn't a fighting man, but he enjoyed hearing about how good I was."

He smiles at Yala.

"Girls liked it too, which I can tell you is an important consideration for most boys."

He starts to talk in a lower tone, using his voice to encourage Yala to drift into sleep.

"The killing part wasn't anything I sought after, it was the excitement of the flashing blades, the thrill of being faster, smarter and more skilled than my opponents that is the draw. That does remind me though, of a story I heard when I was a little older than you, about a girl who wanted to be an acrobat . . ."

He starts to tell a tale, one he'd been told as a child, until Yala falls asleep.

Yala drifts off to the sound of Taddeo's story.

Outside, Zaljan is realizing there is nothing he can do for these two oxen. Their larger dose of poison has already done too much damage.

Zaljan looks at the dying oxen, then considers the group. He looks at Edric, limping on a holey leg; Punchy, still bleeding from unhealed wounds; Yala, weak from hunger and general malaise. To lose the oxen is to lose a cart; the group is in no shape to lose a cart; they can't go without the supplies and they can't make it if they have to walk. There is no choice.

Every voodoo man learns the method; must hope never to use it. Necromancy has the zombie, a corpse bound with a spirit, not always its own. Voodoo has the zombi. Zombi differ from zombies in two important aspects: first, the spirit is always bound to its own body; second, the body is dying, not dead. Even were the body not dying before, the process that creates the zombi dooms it; when it ceases to be a zombi, it ceases life. There is no going back.

Zaljan draws the powders from his deepest pouch. He forces the oxen to excise the poison, and then ingest a new one - the zombi powder. The poison kills the nerves that allow a body to feel pain - this is what makes the zombi a dying thing. Their spirits are bound to their bodies, unable to depart - the zombi is dying, but cannot die. Painless, deathless, choiceless, the zombi is bound to serve until it is needed no more.

Zaljan forces the zombi oxen to rise and leads them back to their cart - and the spirits tremble at his power and draw further away.

While Zaljan works, the archer goes over to the feral man and helps him to his feet. Together, they walk down the road toward Enche.

The party are left in their darkened camp, the fire out, with the dead bodies still lying where they have fallen.

Punchy goes over to Zaljan and his zombie oxen and pushes one out of the way.

"We dinne need dead oxies, Zal."

Punchy grabs the cart shaft and leeeeaaaans into it, the cart moves.

"Its nay problem."

"Zombi be alive," Zaljan corrects. "An' you need to rest an' heal."

Taddeo carefully tucks Yala into her bed roll and inches out of the tent, fastening it as he leaves. He stretches, muscles tight from the action and then enforced stillness he'd put them through. With a sigh, he starts to drag the corpses away from camp. They need to be a good way away from camp so that the scavengers they draw won't disturb the camp.

He pauses in the midst of dragging the first one, looking over at the others.

"You want to bury these, or leave them for the foxes?"

Punchy slumps down in front of the cart.

"Thank tha gods. I'm right fashed out, lad. Tha drinking an fighting es one thang, but all tha rest of et wears on a man."

Greenleaf watches as the Voodoo man does what he failed to do-- help the oxen. Though he doesn't quite understand the implications of Zaljan's actions he takes it personally. Some ranger I turned out to be. Master would have been able to make an antidote...

Greenleaf tries to coax the fire back to life but his meager skills are not match for the spirit's fear of Zaljan. Disgusted with himself and bitter, Greenleaf goes to bed.

As if on cue, something howls in the distance.

Edric frowns at the bodies, then peers out into the woods. "I want to bury them, Taddeo, but you know we don't have time." He then glances over to the witch doctor and his zombi (the plural of zombi, after all, is zombi), then shakes his head sadly. "No natural animal is going to come anywhere near Zaljan for a while. If we want to let the foxes have them, we need to move them out of the clearing." He shrugs. "Or, of course, we could just leave them here and move ourselves. I'm not exactly sure what Zaljan has done to those oxen, but I can tell they don't need to rest anymore. Maybe we could take turns sleeping in the carts as we make our way to Sael."

Edric frowns down at his leg, which has stopped gushing but definitely cannot support his weight. "I don't like the idea of using mostly-dead oxen to pull our carts, but it's better than dead ones. Maybe the elves will give us new ones in Sael." He frowns still more, looking over at Taddeo. "What do you think?"

Zaljan stirs the earth idly with a foot. "Leave bodies, here. Let meat be offering to forest - let spirits reclaim meat, as nature means." He shakes his head. "Zombi don' need rest, but other ox still live. Won't like walkin' with zombi, eitha, so zombi pull supplies, otha pull people."

After a moment, he adds, "I walk."

Eventually, everyone does what they need to do and then retires to bed. Far-off howls continue through the night. Morning, as always, comes too soon.