They moved further west, deeper into the tangle and darker light of trees and undergrowth towards the base of a mountain.
The beastfolk walked silently, their paws scarcely disturbing the forest floor. Sometimes they dropped on all fours to walk.
Sonder followed them. Her own steps were louder and heavier; more intrusive, she thought, and it bothered her a little.
After a while, curiosity finally pushed a question out of her.
She turned to the bloodhound woman. "Was your brother a mage before he found the shard?"
The bloodhound woman shook her head.
"No. We have claws and strength and noses that can find a seed buried in winter snow. Magic is rare among us. Very rare. Those born with it are barely strong enough to light a candle without fainting. There are never any among us who ever rose as high as the wizards in legends."
"Like the Dread Mage… or the King of the Irath?" Sonder asked.
The beast-folk slowed, puzzled glances passing between them.
"The who?" asked the wolf-man.
"You've never heard of them? Either of them?"
"No," the bloodhound woman said plainly. "These names mean nothing to us."
Sonder fell silent.
That disturbed her. How could anyone not know at least one of them?
She filed the thought away. It didn't matter. People who had little to do with magic weren't worried about the fame of magicians.
They walked on.
"We tracked him at first by scent," the wolf-man eventually said. "Fear. Blood. Rot. They coated his trail like mud."
"But he does not smell like himself anymore," the fox added. "Not entirely. There is a second scent. Like yours."
In an awkward moment, Sonder smelled herself.
"Do I smell?" she asked.
Their ears flicked back in discomfort.
"You… don't 'smell.' You, yourself, smell mostly of nothing, which is a bit strange, but next to the taint of the shard, there is an acidic smell to you, like… rusty coins."
Sonder expected worse. She expected to smell of something rotten or something along those lines.
"That shard changed him," the bloodhound woman said. "He was always interested in the mystical. And it gave him power none was ever meant to hold. Not by us, anyway."
"He went west," the hyena growled. "Always west, and recently he began to move south. And we followed. Past our villages. Past the border stones. Into foreign lands."
"We do not think like wanderers," said the bloodhound. "Our territories are home. To leave them…" She exhaled, the thought unfinished. "We only continue because if we do not catch him, others will suffer what we have."
There was a thought in the bloodhound. "You do not seem to suffer like my brother does. And neither do you seem to want to inflict any suffering. How come?"
"I am a mage myself," Sonder said.
The beast-folk all turned their eyes toward her.
"A mage?" the hyena repeated, brow furrowing. "But you fought us like a warrior, strange."
"I had training," she said.
"And maybe because I'm trained in magic, I have more resistance to its influence. I've carried it for some time now and…" She paused, considering her own words as she spoke them, "It hasn't changed me."