Ricky TooHigh walked barefoot down the road with his staff held far from his shoulder. The top of the staff smoked black now, not gray, and the wood under his palm felt like a kettle left too long on the fire. Three nights running it had woken him with sparks. He was old. His silver braid was thin. He had one job left before he could rest, and that was to hand the staff to someone who could carry it. Tonight it might burn through his hand before he found that someone. He saw the inn ahead and made for it. The sign said INN in iron letters. Warm light spilled from the windows. He needed a hearth big enough to bleed the heat off the staff, and a roof over his head while he tried. Inside, a young knight in red and black armor sat alone by the fire, sword across his knees, shield propped at the bench. Ricky knew the shape of that jaw under the helm. His grandson. Hunter TooHigh, who had not spoken to him in six years, since Ricky refused to teach him the staff at sixteen. Hunter looked up. His hand went to the sword, then stopped. "You're smoking up the room, old man." "I know." Ricky set the staff against the stone hearth. The wood hissed. A patch of the floor blackened. "It wants to go out. I can't let it." "Then drop it." "It's the last thing I have to give." Hunter's mouth tightened. He stood. The bench scraped. "You told me I wasn't ready." "You weren't." "And now?" Ricky held out his burned palm. The skin was red and cracking. "Now I'm out of time, and you're the only blood I have left." Hunter stared at the staff. The smoke climbed the chimney in a hard black rope. He set his sword on the bench. He pulled off one gauntlet, then the other. He walked to the hearth and knelt beside the old man. "Tell me how," he said. "Put your hand under mine. Don't grip. Let it choose." Hunter slid his bare hand beneath Ricky's. Ricky lifted his own away. For a long moment the staff kept smoking. Then the smoke thinned. The wood cooled. The black at the top faded to gray, then to a steady curl of white, the way it had smoked when Ricky was young. Hunter did not move. "It's warm. That's all." "Yes." Ricky sat back on the stone. His hands shook. "That's all it should ever be." Hunter looked at him across the fire, still holding the staff. "You're not walking out of here tonight, are you." "No," Ricky said. "But you are. In the morning. And I have a lot to tell you before then." Outside, the road went dark. Inside, the staff smoked white, and the old man began to teach.

By dawn the staff still smoked white in Hunter's hand. Ricky sat by the hearth wrapped in his cloak, teaching his grandson the small words that kept the wood cool. Hunter listened without moving. He had not slept. The bench beside him held his sword, his shield, and the red and black helm he had not put back on since the staff first steadied under his palm. The door opened before the innkeeper had swept the ash. A tall man stepped in from the cold. He wore black plate under a crimson cape. A long sword rode his hip, and a red wooden staff hung from his left hand. His ears came to soft points under dark hair. He looked at the smoke curling from Hunter's staff the way a starving man looks at bread. "So the rumor walks," he said. "A smoking staff that answers a new hand. I came a long way to see it." Ricky pushed up on his elbow. His burned palm shook against the stone. "He's not ready for you." "Then he shouldn't be holding it." The stranger set his own red staff against a table. He drew the long sword an inch, then let it drop back. "One pass. If he keeps his feet, I leave. If he doesn't, I take the staff off the floor." Hunter stood. The polished knight's armor he had traded into last winter caught the firelight, gold trim along the plates. He was a head shorter than the crimson mage. He set the smoking staff across his shield arm and drew his sword. "Grandfather. Stay down." "Boy—" "Stay down." The crimson mage moved first. His blade came in a low red arc that hummed. Hunter caught it on the shield. The impact drove him back two steps. He did not fall. The staff on his arm flared white, then held. He shoved off the shield and cut once at the mage's knee. The mage stepped clear, easy as breathing. They circled. The mage feinted high and cut low. Hunter took the second strike on the shield again. A plate cracked at the rim. He grunted. The staff on his arm went from white smoke to a thin thread of gray. Ricky saw the gray and understood. The staff was reading the fight. It was deciding. "Yield the pass," Ricky called. "He kept his feet. You said one." The crimson mage lowered his sword. He looked at the gray smoke, then at Hunter's face inside the open helm. Something in him settled and sharpened at once. "He kept them," the mage said. "Barely." He sheathed the sword. He picked up his red staff. "I'll be on the road when he's ready. Tell the old man to teach faster." He walked out. The door banged. Hunter lowered the shield. The cracked rim hung loose. The staff on his arm smoked white again, but slower than before. "He'll come back," Hunter said. "Yes," Ricky said. "And I have less time than I thought."

Three days after the crimson mage left, Ricky TooHigh could stand again. He leaned on the inn's back rail and watched his grandson work the yard. Hunter TooHigh swung the smoking staff in slow arcs, one hand, then two. The wood no longer flared white at every motion. It held a steady thread of pale smoke, like a banked coal. "Wider stance," Ricky said. "The staff pulls where your weight goes. If you lean, it burns." Hunter reset his feet. He cut the staff down. A line of frost split the mud where the tip passed. He looked at the frost, then at his grandfather. For the first time in six years, he almost smiled. "Again," Ricky said. They worked through the morning. By noon Hunter could hold the cool-word for a full breath. By dusk he could hold it through a shield turn. Ricky sat on the step and felt his own hands, which no longer shook. The staff's heat was leaving him for good. He did not know if that meant he had months or weeks. On the fourth day the road brought company. A huge man came up the track first, bare-chested under a fur mantle, a battle axe over one shoulder. His beard was braided in two thick ropes. He saw Hunter in the yard and roared a laugh that startled the chickens. "TooHigh! They said you were dead in a ditch. I rode a week to spit on your grave." Hunter dropped the staff into his off hand and gripped the big man's forearm. "Casius. You smell worse than the horse." "The horse died of shame," said a second voice, low and dry. A dwarf came around the corner with a wrought iron hammer at his belt and a mud-caked hound at his heel. The dog went straight to Hunter and shoved its head under his hand. "He walked the last two days. Complained about it every step." "Duran." Hunter's shoulders dropped an inch. Ricky saw it. He had not seen the boy set down a guard since the inn. Casius Orcbane looked at the smoking staff. Then at the old man on the step. "So this is the grandfather. The one who wouldn't teach you." "He's teaching me now," Hunter said. Duran sledge crouched by the frost line in the mud. He touched it, sniffed his finger, and stood. "A crimson blade mage passed us on the south road. Half-elf. Red cape. He asked if we knew a boy with a hot stick. We said no." He looked up at Hunter. "He's two days out. Maybe three." Ricky closed his hand on the rail. The wood creaked. Hunter set the staff butt-down in the mud. The smoke thickened, then thinned, then held. "Then we have two days," he said. "Grandfather. Teach faster."

That night Ricky TooHigh sat by the inn's hearth and drew a shape in the ash with his toe. A cave mouth. A tunnel. A room at the end. Hunter TooHigh set the smoking staff across his knees and watched. Casius Orcbane sprawled on the bench with a mug. Duran Sledge whittled by the fire, the big hound asleep on his boots. "There's a cave two days north," Ricky said. "A troll lives in it. Slow thing. Skin like river stone. Behind it, in a dry chamber, there's a suit of armor. Green plate, silver inlay. I saw it forty years ago and left it where it lay." "Why?" Hunter said. "I had no need. You do. That armor turns fire. The crimson mage burns with a red blade. Your own plate is already cracked from the last time he swung at you. Wear this, and you keep your feet." Casius set the mug down. "A troll and free armor. That's my kind of errand." "You're not going alone," Duran said to Hunter. "The old man can't walk that far, and you need the training days. We'll go. We'll bring it back." Hunter looked at his grandfather. "You're sure it's there." "It's there. The troll sleeps most of the day. Come at it from the south mouth. Keep your torches low. Don't strike the walls." Ricky rubbed the ash from his foot. "The armor sits on a stone rack. Take it and go. Don't open the other chests." They left before dawn. They were back the next night, muddy and blood-flecked, with a long bundle wrapped in Casius's fur mantle. Casius dropped it on the taproom table. Duran limped in behind, the hound's fur singed along one flank. "Troll's dead," Casius said. He was grinning through a split lip. "Took my axe and Duran's hammer both. Thing wouldn't lie down." Duran unwrapped the bundle. The armor lay in pieces on the wood — greaves, cuirass, gauntlets, a helm with a narrow visor. The green plate caught the firelight. Silver ran through it in thin veins. Hunter lifted the cuirass. It was lighter than his own. He set it against his chest and the straps seemed to know where to fall. Ricky came down the stairs slow, one hand on the rail. He looked at the armor. He looked at his grandson holding it. His face did something it had not done in six years. "Try it on," he said. "We have one day left. Maybe less." Hunter carried the pieces to the back room. Casius poured himself another mug. Duran sat down hard and let the dog climb into his lap. Outside, on the south road, a rider in a red cape was closer than Ricky had promised.

Hunter came back from the back room wearing the green plate. It fit him like it had been forged for his shoulders. He set the helm on the table and sat down across from his grandfather. Casius pushed a mug toward him. Duran shifted the hound off his boots and leaned in. The taproom quieted. A few travelers by the door turned to listen. "Tell it," Ricky said. "All of it. I need to know what the armor cost." Hunter turned the mug in his hands. "The south mouth was where you said. We put the torches low. Casius went first." "Went first and stepped on a bone," Casius said. He wiped foam from his split lip. "Cracked like a dry branch. Troll came out of the dark before we cleared the tunnel." "It was faster than a stone thing should be," Duran said. He held up his bandaged hand. "Swung a fist the size of a shield. Took Casius off his feet in one blow." "I got up," Casius said. "You got up slow." Hunter nodded. "I put my shield between it and Casius. The fist came down and split the boss. My arm went numb to the shoulder." He set the mug down and rolled his sleeve. A dark bruise ran from wrist to elbow. Ricky looked at it and said nothing. "The dog saved you," Duran said. "Went for the back of its knee. Bought us a breath." "Bought me a swing," Casius said. "I took the axe to its hip. Chipped stone. Didn't cut." "Hammer worked better," Duran said. "Iron on stone. I broke its jaw on the third strike. That's when it turned on me." Hunter picked it up. "It had Duran against the wall. The dog was on its back, biting nothing. I got behind it and drove my sword up under the ribs. Found something soft in there. It went down on top of Duran." "Took the three of us to lift it off," Casius said. "Dog helped." "Dog watched," Duran said. Ricky did not laugh. He was looking at the bruise on Hunter's arm and the singed fur on the hound. "And the armor." "On the rack, like you said," Hunter told him. "We didn't touch the chests." Ricky set both hands flat on the table. "You nearly died for it." "We didn't," Hunter said. "You will next time, if the mage is faster than the troll." Ricky stood. His knees creaked. "Bed. All of you. We drill at dawn with the plate on. Every strap, every joint. I want you moving in it before he crosses the last hill." Casius drained his mug. Duran whistled the hound up. Hunter gathered the helm under his arm and followed his grandfather toward the stairs. Outside, hooves struck the road and did not slow.

Dawn came gray over the inn yard. Hunter stood in the packed dirt with the green plate buckled over his gambeson. The emerald breastplate caught the weak light and threw it back in silver curls. Ricky walked a slow circle around him, tugging straps, testing the shoulder joints with two fingers. "Bend," Ricky said. Hunter bent. "Squat." Hunter squatted. The plate moved with him. Ricky grunted. It was the closest thing to praise he gave. Casius leaned on the fence with his axe across his knees. Duran sat on the trough with the hound at his boot, chewing a strip of dried meat. "It fits him," Casius said. "Troll had good taste." "Troll had it stolen off somebody better," Duran said. Hunter drew his sword and ran the drill Ricky had shown him. Cut, step, guard. The staff was propped against the post behind him, thin smoke curling from its head. He moved through the forms three times before his grandfather raised a hand. "Enough. You can breathe in it. That's what I needed to see." Hooves came up the road then, slower than the rider two nights back. A boy on a lathered pony pulled up at the gate. He slid down and clutched the rail to keep his knees. "Message for the knight in green," he said. His eyes went to Hunter and stayed there. "From the innkeeper down at the crossroads. Two dark elves came through his taproom at moonrise. Silver armor. Blue capes. Bows on their backs. They asked after a man with a smoking staff and a grandson. He said he sent them the wrong way, but they'll double back by tomorrow." Duran was on his feet. The hound stood with him, ears flat. "Arcane archers," Duran said. "I've seen the kind. They put shafts through plate at two hundred paces." "The mage sent them ahead," Ricky said. He said it flat, like reading a bill. "He wants you softened before he arrives." Hunter fished a copper from his belt and pressed it into the boy's palm. "Ride south. Don't stop at the crossroads. Tell no one you spoke to us." The boy nodded and was back on the pony before the coin warmed. Hunter turned to the others. The armor held him upright in a way the old kit had not. "We don't wait for them in the yard. Duran, you know the ground north of here?" "Every rock." "Pick us a place with cover. Trees close. Something that spoils a long shot." He looked at Casius. "You and I take the front. Duran and the dog on their flank." Casius grinned around his split lip. "Now we're working." Ricky watched his grandson give the orders and did not interrupt. He picked up the smoking staff from the post and held it out. Hunter took it. The smoke thinned to a pale thread. "Move," Ricky said. "Before they choose the ground for you."

Duran led them to a bend in the road where pines pressed close on both sides. Hunter set Casius at the front with him. Duran and the hound took the ridge. Ricky stayed at the tree line behind, staff smoking in his hand. They waited through the middle of the day. Then the crimson mage came down the road on foot, cape dark against the dust, long sword drawn. The two dark elf archers walked at his flanks, silver armor bright, bows already strung. "He didn't wait for them to soften you," Ricky said. "He wants it done today." The mage stopped at forty paces and pointed his red wooden staff at Hunter. "Give me the staff and the boy lives," he called. Hunter answered by drawing his sword. The dark elf on the left loosed first. The arrow cracked off Hunter's green plate and spun into the dirt. Casius roared and charged. The other archer, the drow woman, pivoted on the ridge and put a shaft through Casius's thigh, then a second through his neck. Casius went down four steps from the mage and did not get up. Hunter shouted something without words. Duran's hammer came down from the ridge and caved in the first archer's helm before she could nock again. The hound leapt at the drow woman and closed its jaws on her bow arm. She drew a thin blade and drove it into the hound's ribs. The dog fell. Duran roared and swung the wrought iron hammer two-handed. Her silver breastplate folded. She dropped beside the dog she had killed. The crimson mage came for Hunter through the mess of it. Red fire ran along his long sword. Hunter met him with the smoking staff in his off hand and the sword in his right. The mage cut. Hunter took the blow on his shield-arm plate and drove the staff's head into the mage's chest. The staff flared white, not red. The mage's own staff cracked in his grip. He stumbled. Hunter's sword went in under the crimson cape and came out clean. The mage folded onto the road. The red fire died. The smoking staff in Hunter's hand went quiet, then warm and steady, the smoke thinning to nothing. Hunter turned. Ricky was sitting against a pine, one hand on his knee, the other loose in the pine needles. His eyes were open. His chest was still. Hunter knelt beside him. He put the staff across his grandfather's lap out of habit, then took it back. It stayed cool in his palm. Duran came down the slope with blood on his beard and the hound's collar in his fist. He looked at Casius. He looked at Ricky. He said nothing. Hunter closed his grandfather's eyes. The staff did not smoke. It was his now, fully, and the road was quiet.

They buried Ricky and Casius under the pines before the road grew cold. Duran carried the hound himself. When it was done, Hunter took the smoking staff and walked south, and the country walked with him. Word ran ahead faster than any rider. The crimson mage was dead. The old wizard was dead. The boy in green plate carried a staff that did not burn him. By the time Hunter reached the castle his grandfather had once named to him, the banners were already up. Red cloth hung from every merlon. The people had done it themselves. They wanted a king, and they had chosen one before he arrived. Hunter stood on the steps in his green plate with the silver inlay catching the sun. The staff rested in his off hand. It did not smoke. It had not smoked since the road. He looked out at the crowd and did not know what to say, so he said nothing, and they cheered him anyway. Duran stood one step below him, wrought iron hammer across his back. The dwarf's beard was combed for the first time in a week. He watched the crowd the way he had watched the ridge. He did not smile. "They came from the north farms," Duran said. "And the river towns. And places I don't know the names of." "They came fast," Hunter said. "They were waiting." An old woman climbed the first step and pressed a loaf of bread into Hunter's shield hand. A boy laid a crown of pine at his boots. A farmer knelt and would not rise until Hunter touched his shoulder. Hunter did each thing slowly. The staff stayed quiet against his palm. A herald called him king. The crowd took the word up. Hunter TooHigh, first king of Greshia. The sound went across the courtyard and out through the open gate and did not stop. Hunter turned his head a little toward Duran. "He wanted me to carry it," he said. "He didn't say anything about this." "He wouldn't have," Duran said. "He didn't live for this part." Hunter looked down at the staff. It had been his grandfather's final teaching, placed in his hand on a dirt road, and the old man had died before finishing the lesson. There was more. Hunter could feel there was more. The staff was warm and steady, but it was waiting. He raised it once, briefly, so the crowd could see. They roared. He lowered it before the sound peaked. "I need someone," Hunter said, quiet, only to Duran. "He would have wanted me to find someone. Before I'm the one who's too late." Duran nodded once. "Then we start looking tomorrow." Hunter stepped back through the great door of the keep. The cheering did not stop behind him. He was king of Greshia now, and the last lesson was still his to pass on, and he did not yet know to whom.

Morning came gray over the keep. Hunter met Duran in the map room with the staff across his knees. A single candle burned low. The dwarf had not slept. His wrought iron hammer stood against the wall, and a young hound sat at his boot, ears up, watching the door. "New dog," Hunter said. "The old one's buried," Duran said. "This one found me at the kennels last night. She'll do." Hunter looked at the hound. She was broad in the chest, brindle, one ear torn. She did not blink. "Name?" "Peaches." Hunter almost smiled. It was the first time in a week. He stood and set the staff on the table between them. It gave off a thin curl of smoke, then stopped. "He didn't tell me how to find one," Hunter said. "He didn't tell me what to look for. Only that the staff would know." "Then the staff will know," Duran said. "But it can't walk the roads. I can." Hunter drew his sword. Duran watched him without moving. Peaches did not move either. "Kneel," Hunter said. Duran knelt on the stone. His beard touched his chest. "I've got no priest and no crown ceremony," Hunter said. "I've got this sword and a room no one else is in. That's enough." He laid the flat of the blade on Duran's shoulder, then the other. "Rise, Sir Duran Sledge. First knight named by the king of Greshia. Go and find the one the staff will answer to." Duran rose. He did not thank him. He picked up the hammer and slung it across his back. "How will I know?" Duran said. "Bring them here," Hunter said. "I'll put the staff in their hand. If the heat steadies, it's them. If it doesn't, we keep looking." "And if I find no one?" "Then you come back before I burn." Duran nodded once. He looked at Peaches. The hound stood. They went to the door together. At the threshold Duran stopped. "There are rumors out of the river towns," he said. "A girl who put out a barn fire with her hands. A boy who talks to smoke. Farm talk. But it's a place to start." "Start there," Hunter said. Duran opened the door. Cold air came in. Then he and the dog were gone down the corridor, and the sound of the hammer against his back faded before the candle guttered. Hunter sat alone with the staff. He put his palm on it. It was warm. It was waiting. He had chosen his first knight and sent him out to hunt an apprentice he could not name, and the search had begun, and the staff had not yet answered.