How Black the Sky

be wandering about, and I'll probably be up late working," Ess said. "So just let him know if you need something in the night."
Pierce bounced his eyes off her lips. Did she notice?
"Thank you," he said. "I think I'll be okay.
Ess gave a nod and turned to float silently down the hall.
What if I need you?

CHAPTER SEVEN
The Road to Grondell
The road to Grondell led through a dense forest dark and wet enough to remind Pierce of the Underlands. He shivered and felt the need to wash. Then he puzzled at himself. Though his time in that subterranean realm had not been pleasant, he found he was not loathe to return to it. In fact, a part of him was excited that this adventure might deliver him there again.
Maybe I'm too brash, he thought. Do the others think I'm just a stupid kid, letting my imagination run off with me?
They hadn't argued much with him when he'd defended the possibility of using the Skill of Folding to cross the Chasm. Did that mean that he'd affected their opinions on the matter? Or were they just dismissing him, refusing to discuss further in an effort to end his prattling?
He'd been aware for some years now that he talked a lot. That he tended to wander down mental rabbit trails, often leaving other people behind. In general he found others were annoyed by this, and when he remembered, he apologized, but often he was too engrossed in his thoughts to do so. They were like a flood, lapping at a river's banks, seeking new paths across strange lands.
Now that he knew about folding, he really might consider studying the Glorious Paths in earnest. Could he just skip to the Tenth Skill? Or was there some fatal trap along the way that required mastery over a preceding Skill? He'd encountered his fair share of booby traps in the wild reaches of Overland, traps that could have been circumvented by the throw of a switch or the deciphering of some ancient clue. None had yet killed him. Would skipping Skills be the thing that finally did him in?
Or maybe he could just learn really, really fast. Sometimes, things just came to him, especially physical skills. Growing up, the very week he learned to play hurtball with the other boys, he rose in their ranks to be team captain. It just came naturally to him, unlike careful learning and study.
It did occur to him in passing that formal education could be another adventure, however tame, waiting for him to conquer it and claim its spoils.
Maybe there'll be time someday, he thought.
"Now is the time for action," he said aloud.
"What?" Agrathor asked from astride his raptorion.
"Oh, I was just thinking about trying scholarship again, when all this is over," Pierce replied.
Agrathor grunted, or made a sound kind of like a grunt. "If we live."
"Oh I doubt anything could kill you, sir, if that gorgon..."
"But I don't want to be alone here!" Agrathor bellowed. "What would I do if Kash won and everyone else died? Join him? Keep trying to kill him? Bah." Once again, Pierce had aggravated the skeleton man, and he pulled his mount up ahead to join Axebourne and Scythia.
Pierce was slowly getting a better grip on Agrathor's demeanor. At first, he'd thought the man a warrior's warrior, brutal and professional to a fault. He'd thought Agrathor had just been giving him a hard time to put Pierce through his paces, initiate him. With each passing day he saw more and more that Agrathor was a truly passionate man, fiercely dedicated to his friends and his calling. Pierce was beginning to think that when anything touched on his meatless condition, the man's anger stemmed not so much from feeling insulted, but from being reminded that he had lost a vital connection to the rest of humanity - his flesh.
Pierce silently pledged to be more sensitive toward the man's loss.
He was still thinking over how he would tackle life as a skeleton when the bandits attacked.
There were few things a person could attempt in Overland more foolish than trying to rob Gorgonbane, but Pierce had to hand it to these bandits - they started with a pretty good plan.
First he heard the whistle of darts shooting through the air, and all the raptorions squealed in pain and surprise as several darts hit each of them at once. Pierce's mount, who he had named Gash, turned its head toward him with a look of pleading, just before its eyes glazed over and it crumpled beneath him in sedated slumber. Pierce leapt free and immediately scanned the forest around them for threats. All the raptorions were down, but Axebourne and Agrathor were both on their feet, falling together into a two-sided defensive stance, weapons drawn. Pierce pulled down his faceplate and edged up the road to join them and form a triangle.
Scythia's bloodhoof, Nova, had bleated when the darts hit it, but it showed no signs of collapse, or indeed of injury. There were no darts embedded in its hide. Must be tough. Scythia spurred it into a patrol pattern around the three guys.
Ess had no mount - she had simply been levitating as they travelled - and had risen up into the forest canopy to do reconnaissance.
A second volley of poisoned darts flew in from all sides, and this time Pierce saw them actually bounce off of Nova's hide. Amazing. He felt a few careen off his armor too. When next he saw Agrathor, several feathered missiles had become lodged in between his few exposed bones. His flame eyes swelled in anger.
"Five on the northeast, seven to the southwest!" Ess called from up above. Darts and arrows were flying up at her from the brush below, but some strange force caused them to fall in an arc before their velocity should have been exhausted.
"I am loathe to call the lightning," cried Agrathor. "It does not seem necessary or prudent to burn the