It was the Wit that had let me discover this about Forged ones. So deadened were they to all sense of kinship with the world that I could scarcely sense them at all. The Wit gave me a certain access to that web that bound all creatures together, but the Forged ones were separate from that net, as isolated as stones, as hungry and merciless as an unthinking storm or a river in flood. To encounter one unexpectedly was as startling to me as if a stone rose up to attack me.
But Verity only nodded thoughtfully. “Yet even wolves, animals as they are, attack as a pack. As do tearfish on a whale. If these animals can band together to bring down food, why not the Forged ones?”
I set down the bread I had picked up. “Wolves and tearfish do as they do by their nature, and share the flesh with their young. They do not kill, each for his own meat, but for meat for the pack. I have seen Forged ones in groups, but they do not act together. The time I was attacked by more than one Forged one, the only thing that saved me was that I was able to turn them against each other. I dropped the cloak they desired, and they fought over it. And when they came after me again, they more got in one another’s way than helped one another.” I fought to keep my voice steady as the memory of that night rose up in me. Smithy had died that night, and I had first killed. “But they do not fight together. That is what is beyond the Forged ones; the idea of cooperating so that all might benefit.”
I looked up to find Verity’s dark eyes full of sympathy. “I had forgotten that you had had some experience fighting them. Forgive me. I don’t dismiss it. There is just so much besieging me lately.” His voice dwindled away and he seemed to be listening to something far away. After a moment he came back to himself. “So. You believe they cannot cooperate. And yet it seems to be happening. See, here,” and he brushed his hand lightly over a map spread out on his table. “I have been marking the places of the complaints, and keeping track of how many are said to be there. What do you think of this?”