The vehemence in the druid's voice surprised Druz enough that she stilled her tongue.

"Loggers fell trees from forests," Haarn continued, "and they never give thought to replenishing those trees. Miners dig in the land and create holes that fill with rainwater that become contaminated and poison other areas. Animal species are hunted nearly to extinction and cause other problems with overpopulation. The sheepherders overgraze the land and render it useless for years. Still other places have been polluted by magical fallout. What happened to the Whamite Isles is a clear example of that." He looked at Druz. "Your cities are toxic in other ways as well. They provide a means and an area for eaters to live and reproduce."

"Eaters?" The term was unfamiliar to Druz.

"Eaters," Haarn repeated. "Civilized man simply eats nature's bounty and puts nothing back into the land. If they had to live off the land, struggle through the four seasons and keep themselves healthy, most of them wouldn't be able to."

"I could live off the land. I've done it before," Druz argued hotly, feeling certain that the druid had lumped her in with the Eaters he spoke of.

"But you've never learned to be happy living with what nature has to offer," the druid accused. "Otherwise you'd never go back to those cities and its laws and its taxes."

"I like the idea of a home," Druz said. The thought occupied her mind a lot. Her parents hadn't had much, but they'd been generous with what they had. For the past nine years, Druz had lived a mercenary's life: traveling from engagement to engagement, praying to the gods that she didn't get killed or maimed, and living in a crude barracks. "I like taverns and eating a meal someone else has prepared. I like the marketplaces, and I like seeing things from other lands."

"We're not intended to have all the world. You should learn to live where you are," Haarn said, raking his dark gaze over the slavers.

A small group of men sitting at a cookfire still talked and drank from a bottle they passed around. They'd arrived back in the camp a while ago. No one else had shown up, nor did any more bands seem expected.

"You've never had a… wanderlust?" Druz asked.

"Of course I have," Haarn said, barely paying attention. "I've wandered all over Turmish."

"Did you ever go to a city?"

"No."

Druz couldn't believe that. "How can you talk so badly of Alagh?n and other cities if you've never seen one?"

Haarn looked at her. "Have you ever been bitten by a poisonous viper?"

"Yes."

"You know the poison will kill you if left untreated."

"Of course," Druz agreed as she worked at her own bonds.

She found no looseness in the leather ties. Her aggravation at the druid increased, but she knew it was a byproduct of her own helplessness. Railing at their slaver captors wouldn't be safe or satisfying, and the druid's chain of logic eluded her.

"If you didn't see the viper that bit you," Haarn asked, "do you believe that the poison would kill you just as certainly?"

"Yes."

"That's how I feel about the people I've met who come from cities. I don't have to see their cities to know that they're unacceptable."

"That isn't fair."

"I don't have to be fair," Haarn said, then he started chanting.

The guttural words sounded incredibly old and harsh to Druz, but she felt the magic in them. During her sojourn as a sellsword she'd had several occasions to work around combat mages. Once at a fair in Westgate a seer had told Druz that she carried a hint of magic about her. Druz had chosen not to pursue that possibility-she didn't much care for magic, and mage schools were expensive-but she'd always known when magic was working around her, if it was close or if it was strong.

She knew the magic Haarn used was powerful just by the way it prickled her skin and tightened the hair at the nape of her neck. He spoke a single word at the end of the chant and a sudden cold feeling stabbed into Druz's stomach.

Haarn's features started to melt, collapsing and flowing like a beeswax candle. Feathers took the place of flesh as the druid dwindled in on himself, becoming smaller and smaller. In a matter of heartbeats, a great horned owl stood on clawed feet where the druid had been sitting only an instant before. The leather fetters lay on the ground.

The owl unfurled its great wings and leaped up. Though the winged predator's weight prevented it from speedily gaining ascent, the owl flew nevertheless. The druid in owl form sped toward the five slavers gathered around the cookfire. Druz heard the wings beat the air as the owl sailed over the sleeping slavers.

One of the slavers noticed the owl's approach and cried out in alarm as he dragged at the sword sheathed at his side. Without hesitation, Haarn raked his owl's claws across the man's face, savaging his features into a bloody ruin and narrowly avoiding the sword blow that cleaved the air for him.

The slaver fell back, squealing in pain and fear. The other slavers grabbed for their weapons and shouted an alarm. Even as the rousing slavers struggled to come to their feet and react, the huge brown bear broke the tree line around the clearing and charged into the camp. The bear roared and the sound was deafening.

The slavers yelled in fear and called on their gods. In the next instant, the bear was among them, flailing and rending with its great claws and fangs. Men dropped away from the bear's attack, and many of them never moved again. The bear was as vicious as it was relentless.

Haarn, in owl form, attacked a man who had fitted a crossbow to his shoulder and was taking aim at the bear.

The slaver dropped his weapon and screamed, "My eyes! My eyes!"

He stumbled back and fell into one of the campfires. Smoldering embers rose into the night air along with the man's renewed screams of pain.

The chain holding Druz's leather restraints jerked. She glanced down the line of slaves and saw that most of them had roused. Three of the men grabbed rocks from the ground and stood ready to defend themselves. Druz pulled at the leather binding her, but there was no way to get free. She watched helplessly, knowing that if the druid wasn't successful in killing the slavers, he might have doomed them all to harsh deaths.

The owl cut the air and glided over a small wagon that sat at a tree on the other side of the camp. A pair of horses neighed loudly and fought against the ropes and hobbles that held them. The owl dropped from treetop level and plummeted with folded wings. The druid touched the ground again in human form.

Haarn raced to the small wagon and went through one of the chests in the back. He located his scimitar and a small kit that Druz assumed he'd worn under his blouse because she hadn't seen it earlier. He also took out her sword belt. Firelight danced across his features and the wild black hair that brushed his shoulders. His face was cold and impassive, and the absence of emotion-fear or anger-made him appear like an alien thing.

The bear roared and growled deep in its huge chest as a crossbow quarrel took it high in one shoulder. The offending sliver of wood and fletching looked incredibly small against the bulk of the ursine. Turning its broad head, the bear snapped at the quarrel and bit part of it off, leaving only a few inches embedded in its flesh.

Haarn threw himself into the attack. Firelight glinted along the scimitar's length as the druid engaged one of the slavers. The fight lasted only a moment. Perhaps the druid had never been to a city to accept proper tutelage, but his bladework was some of the best Druz had ever seen.

Fiery red lightning strobed across the night sky like a hag's withered claws. Druz smelled the change in the weather as the humid heat that had plagued the day suddenly chilled. For a moment she believed the druid might have summoned the weather change, and she knew the slavers probably believed that as well.