As dusk settled under the giant bone arches of Kesh, the town did not bar its shutters as it might have in border country. Instead, rope-crews climbed the wooden ladders lashed to the lower tines of the dead beast’s antlers and hung hundreds of oiled paper lanterns from the bone hooks. Viewed from the cracked wooden shutter at the back of the chandler’s stable, the high curve of the gorge looked as if a flock of warm yellow stars had nested beneath the snow-line.
“It’s the Feast of Returning Gods,” Osha said, pausing with a waxing-brick in her hand as the smell of roasting chestnuts, burnt sugar, and hot turnip broth drifted through the gap in the boards. “Every autumn before the high passes freeze shut, the mountain towns hold a night for the small deities that come down out of the pastures to winter in the cellars and cattle-sheds.”
Pip left its pile of slate chips and padded over to the narrow alley window. The shutter had warped from years of stable steam, leaving a split about two fingers wide near the bottom hinge. Keeping the rest of its body well back in the deep shadow behind the water-butt, Pip propped its chin on the damp sill and peered out with one amber eye. The original field mouse hopped out of its box, scrambled up the rough curve of Pip’s green-and-white shell with a familiar, slightly lopsided hop of its bad hind leg, and perched behind Pip’s left antler-root…
