The Things They Don't Teach You

The Things They Don't Teach You

When they got to the village it was almost night and the rain was coming down so hard it hurt. A wind had risen from the North and it sang like an Augurey, a high, plaintive note that inserted itself into Sirius's head like a knife. They stood at the mouth of the village, just a small cluster of shacks amid the foot-hills with a mud road down the middle, their robes wrapped tight around their bodies against the down-pour, their shoulders hunched against the wailing wind and their hands on wand and knife. Morgan looked at Sirius with a sidelong glance and the taller man nodded. They moved forward in long strides. From a small building to their left came the sound of talking, music and clinking glasses. They made for it without a word.

~*~

There are some things they don't teach you. Sirius had learned that fast when it all came down around him. They don't teach you how to survive when they put you in hell, when your mind starts to come asunder a piece at a time and you actually pray for death. They don't teach you how to bear the dreams that haunt you in the darkest hours of the night, when you have finally learned to sleep through the screams and the cries and the gurgling babble of those who have already gone insane. But he had learned. He had taught himself. He would retreat into the beast inside, sit with his head on his paws, his more complex, human mind deep, deep down, away from the brutal reality.

After the escape he had found that there were more surprises, more things that he had never been taught. All he had ever known was the wizarding-world, wizarding-kind. All of a sudden he was an outsider. He had placed a small amount of money in a safe place before his imprisonment and he retrieved it, knowing that without it he would not last a day. With the Dark Lord gone, the world should have been a safer, more welcoming place, but it wasn't. It couldn't be, not for him. He had run and found places where no one would look. Dark places. Border places. You see, this was one of the things you aren't taught by your parents, or by the teachers at Hogwarts. There are places where the worlds meet, where the rules break down, where boundaries blur. Places where the wanted can go, where no one asks questions. He had found these places almost by instinct. At first he had been shocked and disturbed. Once, when they were sixteen, he, James and Remus had made their way down Knockturn Alley, simply because they had been told never to go there. They had been thrilled at the decadence, the hint of depravity in the air. They had sat in a filthy bar and drank dusty bottles of a fiery substance, and James had been propositioned by a bar-maid whose breasts had been clearly visible through her low-cut top. If she hadn't been so hideous, James had laughed, he might have been tempted. Sirius now knew that there were places in the world that made Knockturn Alley look like a children's fair-ground. He and Morgan were making their way into one of those places now: the village of Mangletorn in the lowlands of Scotland.

~*~

He had met Morgan around a week after his escape, which made it two months now. He had been sitting in an inn in Barringfield, an area in London which was one of these peculiar no-mans lands. He had learned that they existed everywhere, these places that were neither wizard nor Muggle, and where creatures of all kinds gathered and mingled and fought and died in the squalor and the filth and the misery. He had been sitting in the corner, a broad brimmed hat he had found pulled down over his face to avoid undue attention, a pipe clenched between his teeth stuffed with goblin tobacco, a glass of fire-whiskey at his elbow. The goblin tobacco had mild sedative qualities, helped him to relax, something he was finding increasingly difficult. The fire-whiskey eventually knocked him out. He had come to rely on it more and more. As he sat, a shadow had fallen over him, and a voice had growled: "Black. Sirius Black."

He had looked up, and found that the shape before him was so vast his vision could not take it all in at once. The figure, swathed in a coat of some kind of brown fur seemed to go on forever. He was reminded of Rubeus Hagrid, the Keeper of the Keys in Hogwarts and an old friend, but Hagrid had a face that spoke of kindness and compassion. This creature was all malice and venom and pain. Its hair and beard were a kind of filthy yellow, and its eyes were tiny and set far too close together, and they glittered with an evil intelligence that chilled him to the bone. He felt the effects of the tobacco and the fire whiskey leave him immediately and his stomach shrivel and turn over on itself. The creature held a huge machete in its shovel-like hand, and it brought it down on the table, cleaving it in half with a crash. The other denizens of the inn shut up their mutterings and made for the door, all except a small man with a close cropped head and a thin beard, who turned to watch from the bar with an idle interest.

Dammit, I've no wand! Sirius thought desperately as he rolled sideways, avoiding the next swing from the machete. This was another thing they don't teach you - a wizard can just as easily be killed by a knife in the back or the loss of a limb as he can by Avada Kedavara if he is too far from medical attention. Before everything went bad Sirius had been reckless. Now he realised that life and limb were not to be gambled so foolishly. He jumped behind the monster and drove a punch as hard as he could into the region where he reckoned its kidneys must be. He instantly regretted it. It was like hitting a brick wall and he reeled away, nursing a hand that felt like it had been pulverised. The creature rushed him, moving with a speed that was eerie in something that appeared to be so bulky and he was caught by its shoulder and flung backwards into the bar, feeling the structure splinter and a piece of wood whisper into the flesh of his arm. All the breath was knocked out of him and he wondered momentarily if his left leg had been broken, as he had no feeling in it. He opened his eyes groggily and the thing was standing over him.

"Black. Sirius Black."

Its voice was so deep as to be almost unintelligible. It was almost off the aural register.

"You seem to have me mistaken for someone else..." He managed to gasp back, trying to catch his breath.

"They have a price on you," it grunted. "Same dead as alive." It made a noise he took to be laughing. It raised the blade over its huge, monstrous head. "I prefers dead!"

Sirius tried to roll aside but his body wouldn't work. He covered his face with an arm, thinking desperately: No, not like this, not now...the blow never came. There was a sickening crunching sound, then nothing. He peeped out from under the arm and at first could not believe what he was seeing. The small man from the bar was sitting astride the giant's shoulders with his arms wrapped around its head, which had been twisted at a strange angle. The behemoth was swaying and just before it toppled backwards the man jumped clear with the nimble grace of a cat. He stood amid the detritus of the wrecked inn, flexing the muscles of his back and stretching the tendons of his fingers. Sirius attempted again to move and still found he couldn't. Without looking, the little man reached back a hand and heaved Sirius to an unsteady upright stance. Sirius, when standing beside him, even bent over as he was, was more than a foot taller.

"Thank you," Sirius gasped, massaging the leg that was only now gaining feeling in the form of pins and needles. "I've...I've never seen anything like that before...you killed him with your hands..."

The man still wasn't looking at him. He walked over and kicked the machete away from the prone body.

"His name was Murdoch. He was a bounty hunter," the little man said.

He turned suddenly and looked at Sirius and the wizard was struck by the depth of the blue eyes that gazed at him. "You're going to have to get used to them with that price on your head, you know. There'll be more of them. There isn't anywhere you can hide from the likes of him. They go everywhere and see everything."

Sirius found a stool and sat.

"My name..."

"I know who you are."

"Why did you...?"

The man laughed without mirth and went over to a high stool that had been knocked over. He pulled a fur lined cloak from under it and slung it over one shoulder. Sirius noted the glint of a long knife strapped inside and was amazed that this strange person had chosen not to use it on the bounty hunter he had called Murdoch.

"I have no love for his kind. Bottom feeders, living off the misery of others. They come here, take who they please and leave for other places. Lighter places. They leave only pain behind." He spat on the corpse. "You were in Azkaban."

The name made Sirius shudder. He hadn't heard it spoken aloud since the escape.

"Yes," he rasped.

"I was there once too. I killed a man a long time ago. The wrong man. A man who did not deserve to die. You escaped."

Sirius nodded.

"How did you do that?"

"It's a long story."

"I'd like to hear it."

Sirius had placed his head in his hands and almost cried then. He didn't know why. This man who had plucked him from the jaws of a brutal death and who looked at him as if he could see into his heart was the first person who had treated him as a human being in more years than he cared to remember. He blinked back hot tears and looked up.

"I need somewhere to stay. I'll sleep on your floor. I'm...I'm afraid...I have no wand and hardly any money and...I need help."

They don't teach you how to ask for help, he had thought then. I've never had to ask for help before. Now I know how.

The man reached out his hand again. He smiled at Sirius, almost a paternal look.

"I am Morgan," he said. "Come with me."

~*~

That night Sirius had talked and Morgan had listened. The little man kept a flat in a grimy, rat infested back-street. The room was rough and ready - a table and chair, a threadbare couch, a narrow bed and a trunk - but he had given Sirius the couch to sleep on and a woolen blanket to cover him. Morgan spoke little of himself, but Sirius gleaned that he had been released from Azkaban five years before. He was a Squib, who made a living doing what he could in these border regions and in the darkest depths of the wizarding-world. Sirius was struck by the fact that this man seemed totally alone. Sirius was learning about loneliness. In Azkaban, survival was about trying to find some level of peace amid the voices in your head and the feelings of abject misery the Dementors caused in your soul. Friendship and companionship were far down the list of priorities. Since his escape, Sirius was cruelly struck by how lonely he was. He had never really been alone and now he had no choice. He did not dare seek out those he loved. Not yet... But Morgan was alone by choice.

As they sat, Sirius again nursing a glass of fire whiskey, he said: "I have to go to my God-son. He needs me. I'm all he has...and he's all I have. His father and mother, my friends, I failed them. They died and now he's in danger. I must go north."

Morgan had nodded. He had not poured himself any of the liquor, and sat with a cup of green tea cradled in his small hand.

"Everyone will be searching for you. Not just bounty hunters. The world knows your face."

"I can make myself into a dog. I told you."

"I can show you places they won't be looking. Places like this."

Sirius eyed him with something approaching suspicion.

"Why would you help me?"

Morgan sipped his tea and produced a long cigarette from an inside pocket.

"I told you that I am not a wizard. I'm a squib. I have had to survive with my wits and with a blade."

Sirius continued to look at him, at those strange blue eyes.

"From when I was very young, I have had the ability to see things, people, clearly. For who they are. I can't see thoughts, but I can see into your heart. When a man is bad, I know. When a man's heart is true, when he means to do good even if he doesn't know it himself, I know."

Sirius nodded. He had met wizards who claimed to have the sight. That fool of a teacher in Hogwarts, but also those who seemed to really have the ability. He didn't put much store in it himself, but if it meant he would have some support, he wasn't going to argue.

"You are an innocent man, Sirius. I can see it in you. You aren't a good man. You have very much anger in you. You are full of it. Anger and vengeance. But you are a man of honour. You want to do what is right, or at least what you believe to be right. The weight of Azkaban still weighs heavy on you."

Sirius looked away from him.

"How did you stop it from driving you mad?" he rasped, feeling his chest fill up with that coldness again.

Morgan drew deep on the cigarette. The smoke was of dark, foreign tobacco and some herb Sirius did not know.

"You managed by becoming a dog. I do not have that ability. I had to learn to hide inside my own mind. I taught myself to shut down all that was conscious, and live where they could not find me. It was not unlike what you did, I just did it as a man."

"I need to start for the north tomorrow."

"We will leave before it gets light. You should stop drinking that poison. You need your wits about you."

"I need a wand."

Morgan got up and walked across the room to a trunk he had under the only window. He opened it and displayed a carefully stowed array of belongings: books, pots, blankets, clothes, and sitting on top of it something long and thin wrapped in oiled cloth. Morgan picked it up and tossed it to him.

"I've never had any use for it. Take it. A gift from one convict to another."

Sirius again thought he would cry, and this time a tear escaped his blinking eyes and rolled down his stubbled cheek. He unwrapped the wand and held it aloft. It was made of a dark, almost black wood and was engraved with what looked like Celtic symbols. It was a thing of intricate beauty and he felt the power of it course up his arm immediately. He flourished it and a shower of deep blue sparks trailed from it into the darkened room.

"I can't ever repay this Morgan," he croaked. "But I promise you, I will be in your debt for as long as I live."

Morgan nodded and closed the trunk.

"Let's see what our road brings to us. You may yet repay me in ways we can't foresee."

~*~

Morgan was an easy companion. Sirius had always been prone toward melancholy, and the solitary days and weeks and years in Azkaban had made him even less used to conversation. Morgan tended to only speak when he had something of import to say, so as they moved ever northwards together, whether on foot or aboard freight carriages on unsuspecting trains, they settled into an easy, companionable silence that suited them both. Now that Sirius had a wand again he felt more like his old self. Cockier, stronger, even happier. Although he slept with it in his hand, he found sleeping easier and the dreams that had terrorised him before seemed less threatening. They had decided that it would be best to remain afoot once they crossed the border into Scotland. The wilderness areas were largely unpopulated, primarily due to the proliferance of giants and dragons, but Morgan seemed to know his way easily enough. Sirius, who had never been the outdoor type and whose muscles had become wasted during his incarceration, suffered miserably. The rain was incessant and the terrain increasingly more and more difficult. When they reached Mangletorn Sirius was secretly delighted. The fact that the place looked so unwelcoming phased neither man. It was better than another night under the unrelenting downpour and they were both hungry and tired.

Inside the bar was dark, crowded and smoky. It was populated mostly with humans but Sirius noted some goblins in a far corner, though he doubted they were from Gringotts. Nobody looked up when they came in. Truth be told, they fitted in quite well: soaked to the skin, dirty and weathered looking. Adjacent to the bar a fat man and a painfully thin woman were playing folk music on a guitar and violin. A small contingency seemed to be listening and clapping appreciatively along, but the vast majority were totally disinterested and talked loudly amongst themselves. A fire was roaring in a large hearth, and they made their way to it quickly. Cloaks were thrown aside and Sirius could feel the heat seep into his aching and tired body. Morgan had his eyes closed and his arms spread out so that he presented a wider surface area to the heat and turned slowly, like he was on a rotisserie. Steam rose from him in clouds. Sirius shook water from himself, smiling as he thought of himself in canine form, and realising that the traits were becoming more prevalent since his extended stay in dog-form. Mindfully he sniffed the air. It smelt of spirits, ale, tobacco, wet clothes and mingled body odours. But there was also a more wholesome smell under it: stew.

"Food," he said to Morgan. "They have hot food."

Morgan shrugged.

"Grab a table, I'll get us some."

Morgan cast about for a free table and spied one in the shadows of a small alcove. He whistled piercingly and Sirius turned, saw where his friend was gesticulating and nodded recognition.

The bar itself was small, and was made of a plank sat atop some barrels. All spirits and ales were in bottles or drawn straight from wooden kegs kept behind the make-shift counter. A filthy looking man with a bald pate and straggles of greasy grey-brown hair was behind the bar, his towering belly hanging over an apron that had once been white but was now grey, streaked with beer and food stains. He was arguing with a mousy looking man about an unpaid tab. Sirius waited for the argument to end, but when it didn't he lost patience and cleared his throat loudly.

"Wha'?" The fat barman looked abruptly at Sirius.

"Two plates of stew and a bottle of whiskey."

"Wha' kind o' whiskey?"

"I don't care. My friend likes tea. Will you brew a pot?"

"Tea?"

"Yes."

"Your friend wants tea?"

"He does."

The barman stifled a guffaw and turned away.

"I'll bring it over. Take a seat if ye can find one."

Sirius made his way back to where Morgan had found the table. Before long, the barman was shouting and pushing his way with a laden tray toward them. He deposited the food and drink on the rickety table. Sirius uncorked the whiskey and took a long drink, feeling it burn its way down into his gut and explode there like a smoldering fire. Morgan was smoking one of his cigarettes and pouring tea into a filthy, cracked porcelain mug. He sipped it and grimaced.

"I don't know what this is supposed to be, but it isn't tea."

Sirius looked at the food that was steaming on two plates in front of them.

"Any idea what kind of meat is in that?"

Morgan picked up a grubby fork and speared a piece of brown gunk that was obviously meant to be the meat in the stew. He chewed ponderously.

"No. No idea. But on the positive side, it's completely tasteless."

They ate and drank in silence, although Sirius found the food sitting in his gut in a lump.

When they had both eaten as much as they could stomach, Morgan rolled two of his cigarettes and tossed one over to Sirius, who lit both with his wand.

"I don't think I can drink this," Morgan said, pushing the mug aside.

"D'you want some butter-beer?"

"Water will do."

Sirius nodded and made his way to the bar, where a jug of water was kept replenished to use as a mixer for those who needed it. He grabbed a smeared glass from behind the bar and filled it. He held it to a candle to see if it looked drinkable in its unmixed form and deemed it safe enough. He was making his way back to Morgan when he spotted two men in close conversation over a table, their heads together and whispering nervously. He was turning away from them, a smile already forming on his lips, about to make a comment to Morgan about the quality of the service when recognition jarred him back and he almost stumbled. He knew these men. Knew them well. It was only the context that had stopped him from recognising them immediately. He stopped in his tracks and stared at them. The last time he had seen them had been before Azkaban, during the war. He and James had arrived after these two had finished their work on a young family. He had seen the faces of these monsters twisted in a pleasure that was almost sexual just before they Disapparated, had witnessed the mother, a Muggle, blood trickling from both ears due to the hemorrhage brought on by the Cruciatus Curse. The daughter, a blonde child of three years, dead, her eyes rolled up in her head to show only the whites. The husband, vomit drying into a crust on his chest, clinging to sanity and life with all the will he had left. "Can you save them," he had asked. Sirius had frozen then, had looked at James, not knowing what to say, what to do. James had gone to the man, held him, talked to him quietly, as to a child. "Shhh. They're just asleep. It's ok now. You must rest. Rest now." And Sirius had seen the man relax and let go, the life seep out of him as he died there in James's arms, a smile of release on his face.

Sirius thought, as he stood amid the throng of the inn that he was going to pass out. He suddenly realised that he had the wand in his hand and he was shaking. Then a voice spoke in his ear, quiet yet strong and calm.

"Sit down. They aren't going anywhere."

Morgan was standing behind him. Sirius turned, his face a deathly pale, shaking with anger and fear. He allowed Morgan to lead him back to his seat.

"Tell me."

He did.

Morgan listened, those keen eyes boring into Sirius as he haltingly told the story of this episode of the war, like so many thousands of others, but no less horrific for it. He found himself becoming cold as he spoke, emotion draining from him. He gulped more of the liquor to try and staunch the flow of iciness, but it didn't help. When he was finished, Morgan asked him:

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to kill them. They deserve to die."

Morgan nodded.

"Have you killed before?"

"Yes."

"In battle is different. It's faceless. Have you ever looked them in the eye before you took their lives?"

Sirius fumbled with the cigarette and dropped it, causing a shower of ash to burn his hand. He realised he was still shaking like a leaf.

"No."

"It will be a new experience for you then. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes. I really, really want to do this."

"They are sitting over there."

Sirius looked over. The two men were still talking earnestly, unaware of anything else going on in the room, it seemed.

"Do it now and we'll get out of here."

Sirius nodded and stood up.

They don't teach you about killing. Not in Hogwarts, not even during the war. He remembered talking to Remus after a particularly frightening battle with a decidedly vicious group of Death Eaters. They had surprised them, four men and one woman attempting to break into Remus's house one night, whether to steal some files or to lie in wait and kill him they didn't know. Wands had been drawn, and he had felt Avada Kedavara whisk past him so close that his hair ruffled. He and Remus had killed the five that night and afterwards they had sat, trying to make sense of it. They could not. "You do what you must do," Remus had said. It had been like that back then, somehow simpler. It was kill or be killed. Sometimes they had tried not to. Had tried to take them alive. It was not always possible and then you did what you had to and you lived with it. He felt no guilt for that. He had never killed in anger, had never killed because he wanted to or because it would make him feel better. He had killed because the situation called for it.

This was different.

These men did not have to die. He was not cornered, he was not under threat, not from these men at least. They were probably on the run themselves. No, this time he was killing because he could not suffer to allow these men to live. It made his insides feel greasy, it made him feel sick and the food seemed to bubble and boil in his stomach. Something told him he would regret having eaten it. The distance from his table to where the men sat seemed so vast all of a sudden. He felt tired and sick and old and all the aches and pains and weariness of the last few days returned like the hammering of a thousand drums in his back and at the base of his skull. Then he was there, standing in front of them. They still paid him no heed. He didn't know their names. He never had. The family, he suddenly remembered, had been the Joyces. All muggles. They had been killed for fun, nothing more. The little girl had been called Maisie. He wondered did these men even know that? He reached for his wand, and to his surprise, his hand was steady.

"Gentlemen," he said, clearing his throat. "Could I ask you something?"

The pair looked annoyed at the interruption. He could see now that he was close to them that they were certainly on the run. Their clothes were worn and they had beards thicker than his own. One had a fresh scar running over his left eye, a mark of having lived in these border regions for a while.

The one on the left arched an eye-brow at him.

"How can we help you? We were just having a quiet drink and a chat. We don't want any trouble."

The man spoke with a clipped intonation, as if he were used to his words being listened to carefully and his orders taken without question.

"Well I hope there won't be any trouble," Sirius said, smiling. "I was just wondering, did either of you know her name?"

The two men looked at one another, puzzled, then Sirius saw the realization dawning that there would be trouble. He uttered the curse and jumped aside as both men drew their wands and fired on him, people screaming and running as the spells bounced wide of him. He brought one down with the first blast, the man screaming gutterally as he died. The other was crouched behind his over-turned table, shouting at him:

"Do you think we are alone? I have friends, and they're on their way here now. We were waiting for them!"

Sirius saw Morgan make his way slowly toward the door and bolt it from the inside. He nodded and began to walk slowly toward the table. The man was still talking, pleading, threatening. Sirius was on top of him before he looked over the top of his shield again, and by then Sirius had him by the scruff of the neck and had hauled him out. The man fired off another curse which bounced harmlessly off the ceiling and then Sirius grabbed the wand from him and broke it over his knee. The man sobbed and grabbed at him, but Sirius threw him to the ground.

"I asked you a question," he hissed, the shakes returning and a red mist descending on his vision. "Did you know her name?"

The man cowered, his hands over his head, crying openly and almost uncontrollably.

"Who's name?" he almost screamed, looking up at Sirius through a film of tears and mucous.

Sirius kicked him in the gut with such force he was thrown into the air and flipped over, spraying blood and snot from his nose. Sirius drove his knee into the mans chest and placed the wand against his temple.

"Fifteen years ago," he said through clenched teeth. "Sherman Terrace. Family called Joyce. Muggles. Husband, wife, little girl, blonde, blue eyes, had a...a red ribbon in her hair...you Crucio'd them until they died. I arrived with my friend just as you left."

He wiped tears from his eyes and rammed the wand into the man's cheek, leaving a red gash.

"Did you know her name?"

"No!" the man screamed, his eyes clenched shut, his body wracked with sobs.

Sirius closed his own eyes, a terrible sadness descending on him.

"It was Maisie," he said, and uttered the curse, the force of it throwing him back as it took the Death Eater with it into the void.

He lay there for a long time, crying for himself and for James and for a little girl he never knew and wishing that all this violence and murder and insanity had been visited upon someone else's life. Then Morgan was beside him, shaking him gently.

"There are people outside. Maybe they weren't alone after all. Come Sirius, we must go. There is a back door."

~*~

There are some things they don't teach you.

In a room in a boarding house a little way outside the village, he tried to sleep while Morgan kept watch. He had thrown up the stew and whiskey as soon as they had gotten outside and had half-stumbled half ran through the mud until they were sure they weren't being followed. By the time they were safe in the vile room they had rented he was almost incoherent. Morgan had laid him out on the bed and left him. Visions had swam before his eyes: James, Lilly, Harry as a baby, the child Maisie, her father, looking at him with those helpless, pleading eyes, a Dementor, hovering outside his cell, waiting for him to break...

Just as he thought he was finally going mad, merciful darkness took him.

When he awoke, the room was in darkness except for the red tip of Morgans cigarette. He sat up, reaching for the wand that had dropped from his hand and was on the floor by the bed. He was cold and he wrapped the filthy blanket around him, not caring about possible parasites and made his way over the window where Morgan was perched. He sat on the floor.

"Are you feeling better Sirius?"

"Yes. Can I have one of those?"

Morgan handed him the half-smoked cigarette and rolled another.

"I didn't know it would be like that," Sirius said, inhaling some of the fragrant smoke, holding it and then releasing.

"It is always different. You weren't just killing them. You were trying to kill the Dark Lord. You were trying to kill the one that betrayed your friends and who escaped you before. You were even trying to kill a part of yourself, the part that is still in Azkaban. You can never kill any of these things. The Dark Lord is out there somewhere, and I do not think the job of killing him will fall to you, that is for someone far greater. The Judas, well, you may have your chance with him, if what you tell me is true. As for yourself...I think you want to live. How do you feel, my friend?"

He considered the question.

"Empty. Numb."

Morgan nodded and motioned with his chin to the wand. Sirius ignited the tip and lit the cigarette.

"That's about normal," the small man said, still looking at the heavily clouded sky.

"They don't teach you that," Sirius said, wrapping the blanket tighter. "They don't teach you about things like that where I come from."

"They don't teach you that anywhere," Morgan said. "A man must learn that for himself."

"Does it get easier?"

Morgan smoked and turned those incredible eyes on him.

"For you, I think not."

Sirius looked back, holding his companions gaze with his own.

"It will be morning soon," Morgan said quietly. "We must continue north in the morning."