Of all the children in Diang who had homes, Hudyn, Katuo, and Ramii spent the least time in theirs.

  The townsfolk believed they were street kids, seeing them roam the town day after day with an appearance shaped by life on the streets, while scarcely anyone knew anything about their families.

  Ramii’s mother told him to claim he was an orphan. Katuo’s grandsire forbade him from revealing where they lived. As for Hudyn, he could not even remember what his parents looked like. What he called home was, in truth, an old monastery known as the Blind Hen, a refuge for children who had lost both parents in the war. Most of the elders there regarded him with disfavor, particularly because of his upright russet hair, square and stubborn face, and a mouth ever ready with a retort.

  Hudyn’s presence at the monastery was a constant headache for the monks. He cared little whether anyone liked him or not. Each day, he would hastily finish his labors in the garden, then slip away, sometimes vanishing for days at a time. No elder deigned to inquire after him, nor did any take note of his absence.

  ~~~

  Throughout the city, no place accessible to the trio was free of their footprints.

  They roamed every street, tavern, bazaar, merchant’s stall, and pastoral ranch. They often stole into the schoolhouse, though none of them studied there. Their chief aims were to enlist potential warriors for their team—and to tease the girls. Both tasks they carried out with unabashed enthusiasm. Truth be told, “they” here referred only to Ramii and Hudyn. Katuo always objected to his friends’ off-color jokes.

  Certain townsfolk held them in disfavor, while others held them dear. Despite their mischievous pranks, the trio’s good deeds throughout the city redeemed them in many eyes.

  They often went to the bazaar together and helped the vendors unload goods, pack them, and deliver small items. They also pitched in at taverns and cleaned up or served. Sometimes they repaired old furniture, put up fences, whitewashed walls, and even dug graves. They did whatever was needed for anyone who asked, whether hired for pay or not. Most people treated them fairly, paying for their work or giving them plenty of food. A few took advantage of their enthusiasm to get free labor, but the children cared little for such reckonings. They regarded these labors as ventures in experience; once engaged, they played hard and gave it their all.

  The noisiest corners of the city, thick with chatter from idle men, matrons, and wandering travelers, were among the three boys’ usual haunts. Wherever such voices gathered, one familiar subject was always heard: the “Divine Healer Tlyna” and the “Labyrinth of Venomous Thorns.”

  “Divine Healer” was the most common among the many praise-filled titles bestowed upon Tlyna—aside from the derogatory ones. Diang, though but a modest city, swelled with strangers and silver in the years of her renown. For more than a decade, lines of the wounded and the desperate had wound their way to Diang from the surrounding lands.

  Mr. Rono often recounted tales of Tlyna to the children. The triumph of the southern Bidueng war host owed much to her peerless healing arts. In those bygone days, Mr. Rono had been carried to the Hunchback Horse infirmary, where Tlyna and many volunteer healers tended the wounded. Many a warrior, carried in upon stretchers and believed beyond saving, was taken into the Thorn Labyrinth—and thirteen days later, walked out on their own feet.

  When Mr. Rono was brought in, he lay in delirium, his left leg blackened. It was Tlyna herself who amputated it, pulling him back from the edge of death. Yet not all the wounded were so fortunate. Many died before Tlyna could reach them. War victims from far and wide were buried in the vast field beside the Hunchback Horse infirmary. The field that never seemed to stop growing.

  Amid the ceaseless wars, the land of Bidueng was often stricken by Marsh Ague, a cruel sickness that carried off many lives. By Mr. Rono’s telling, such pestilences tended to follow seasons of scorching heat and heavy rain, leading locals to whisper that demons laced the downpours with sickness to afflict mankind. In those days, many, steeped in superstition, were so gripped by dread that they dared not set foot outside once the rains began.

  Only when Tlyna, together with learned healers, discerned the source of Marsh Ague and found a remedy in the bark of a certain tree did the plague begin to slow and finally wane. Before then, with each season of prodigious rains, the afflicted converged upon Diang in search of succor. Yet fewer than half were saved.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The origin of the region’s largest cemetery likewise traced back to these events. Like the infirmary, it too came to bear the same name among the townsfolk: the Hunchback Horse.

  “Ever have I been tormented by my failure to express my gratitude to Lady Tlyna. When they carried me out of the infirmary, I had only just regained consciousness and never saw her again. I was fortunate, for she saved my life. But Katuo’s mother was not.

  After my son’s passing, my daughter-in-law succumbed to Marsh Ague. There were simply too many sick souls in those days, and Tlyna could not tend to them all. My grandson was left bereft of both parents while still of tender age. If it were possible, I would gladly trade my life for hers.”

  Mr. Rono often uttered such words to the children whenever he was drunk. Each time Tlyna’s name was spoken, his gaze would drift toward Ramii’s eyes. Those long, deep-brown eyes always reminded him of his savior’s. Once, Mr. Rono pressed him, asking whether he bore any kinship to Tlyna—but Ramii always denied it, insisting he knew nothing of her.

  ~~~

  At the Drunken Pinecone tavern, where the trio often came to lend a hand, the atmosphere was livelier than usual that day. A chess final among retired soldiers was underway. At the square table in the center, a grizzled former general faced off against an opponent scarcely old enough to be his grandson.

  The old man’s brows could draw no closer together. The crease between them never loosened throughout the match. Now and then he murmured a few words beneath his breath, words only he himself could have understood. Meanwhile, the boy’s forehead remained smooth, his eyelids easy, almost half-lidded as he gazed down at the board. His left hand was loosely cupped before his mouth in a thoughtful pose, though in truth it was meant to keep his opponent from reading his face.

  Around them, a crowd looked on with keen interest, though some seemed more taken with chancing their coin than with the game itself.

  “Press on, Ramii! I’m backing you with two coins—that’s my whole fortune. Lose this, and you’re toast with me!” Hudyn growled from behind Ramii.

  “Come on, let him play in peace!” Katuo jabbed his elbow hard into Hudyn’s side.

  Ramii had learned chess from Mr. Rono. In the old days, he would visit each week to play with him. When Mr. Rono could no longer best him, Ramii roamed the streets in search of new opponents. He challenged players across the city, one by one, or joined chess circles of veteran soldiers.

  ~~~

  “Witch in human skin!” a woman deep in her cups wailed from a corner of the tavern. “Long have I suspected her. None in this realm are so virtuous. No miracles exist here—only foul sorcery! Just yesterday, he stood robust as a bull, yet by morning he was a green corpse. O my husband, how could a man so kind perish without a single farewell?”

  Every eye in the tavern turned toward the woman sitting alone. She was not the only widow mourning a recently lost husband. Her spouse, once a cavalryman, had gone to war more than a decade ago. Only last year, in this very tavern, she had extolled Tlyna as a rare savior and said her husband’s life had been spared by the healer’s grace.

  “How pitiful,” a man spoke up as the woman continued her anguished moans. “I knew her husband, a comrade who stood with me through the fiercest years of the war. Show some compassion for this poor woman. Only by witnessing it yourself could you grasp the depth of her torment. His corpse bore a sickly green hue, as though cursed by some malevolent spell, and no one dared go near him but she and I.”

  “I’ve heard of such deaths lately,” an old veteran muttered. “A few were men I knew from my cavalry troop.”

  “So it turns out my own brother wasn’t the only case,” slurred a drunken man, his flushed face turning ashen. “I laid out his body with my own hands not long ago. It felt… cursed. I haven’t told anyone until now.”

  “B-by the third day,” a young man faltered, “b-before they could bury the body, it had already begun to rot... It dissolved into vile green slime. Was it the same for your brother?”

  “Aye, exactly as you described!” the drunken man cried out. “Utterly horrific!”

  “My father once miraculously escaped death at the Hunchback Horse Hospice,” the young man went on, voice breaking. “He was covered in wounds back then. Now, healthy as ever, he died in his own bed, in his own home.”

  “We once served in the same company during the war…” another voice added.

  “They were all soldiers once!” someone exclaimed.

  “Death is coming back to claim us!”

  “Didn’t the Divine Healer Tlyna cure them all?!”

  “Could I be next?!”

  …

  The murmurs inside the tavern grew ever more agitated, the din steadily mounting. The two chess players could not help but lose their focus. Still, the impatient bettors pressed for the final match to be carried through to its end.

  Ramii abruptly rose from his seat and conceded the contest midway. Without a word, he strode out of the tavern, leaving the onlookers stunned.

  Hudyn stood rooted to the spot. He stared blankly at the chessboard that had just cost him his only two coins. Only moments earlier, he had grinned to himself, certain the game was tilting in Ramii’s favor. It was not until the bettors demanded their money that he snapped back to his senses. Fuming, he bolted after Ramii, but his friend had already slipped away.

  ~~~