"I do not like surprises," cooed the dark elf woman as she crouched to examine the messy column of tracks winding through the mud of the Mere. One long, spidery finger traced the outline of a footprint. "Four digits, wide gait, definitely humanoid but not human". Or elf-kind, for that matter, she added to herself.
"How many?" The voice, curt but smooth, came from behind her. Sighing, Azaemona stood and faced Althemon, brushing back the hood of her cloak. "I cannot say," she responded. "It could be as few as fifteen or as many as two hundred. This filth they call the Mere swallows too many secrets for me to be sure, and they were moving in columns to conceal their numbers. That's not what worries me, though."
The wizard Althemon arched one eyebrow, as eloquent a request for her to continue as she was likely to get from the man; he was not known for being long-winded. Unlike most wizards and workers of the Art, he was neither showy nor pretentious. Quiet and to-the-point, Althemon was; Azaemona considered it one of his better qualities. One of few. An errant smirk curved her lips at the thought.
Gesturing him closer, Azaemona turned and nodded her chin toward one set of tracks. "The ones here – thick-footed, short and wide gait, are almost certainly dwarf-kind, but I know of no clans near here. It could be some sort of scout or expedition from the Ironfist clan, some thirty leagues north and east, in the mountains, except for this…" Here she stooped again and described a circle over another set of tracks, the ones that had earlier caught her attention.
Althemon stared blankly at the tracks, then back to her. "Lizardmen?" came his inevitable reply.
"No," she replied testily. "Their tracks are different, Al. Bipedal, yes, but their tails tend to leave a circle-swerve pattern as they move. These have none. Besides, why would lizardmen be accompanying dwarves? Preposterous."
The half-elf wizard smiled and extended a hand to brush away a fleck of mud from Azaemona's cheek. "I have told you, my dear," he said, "I despise it when you call me that."
Azaemona snorted and took a step back, out of his reach. Clearly he did not seem overly concerned with the prospect of meeting hostile strangers here – at least none that together they could not handle. And yet… Somewhere out in the distance, beyond sight, an animal issued a call; hoarse, guttural, and deeply unpleasant to the ear. A call for a mate or a signal of danger? The Mere swallowed the sound.
"Come on," Althemon said, stepping past her and moving briskly down what in the Mere passed for a road, mud squelching under his booted heel. "We're wasting time. Keep an eye out for any other tracks, but we can't dally. We have to reach the Harbor quickly."
Moving along to follow as she scanned the fog-smeared horizon, Azaemona fingered the limbs of her bow. Anxious, that's what she was. Anxious and ready for this to be over and done with. To her mind, there had been too many oddities and unexpected twists on their journey already – enough, in her opinion, to warrant forsaking the road and turning back. First, the incident in Tethyr with one of Althemon's colleagues—she was still unclear on the details, but evidently there was a great deal of dissent in Althemon's decision to leave the Tower, a position which Azaemona herself shared—and then the problems at the docks of Neverwinter City itself, so full of thugs, braggarts and strong-arms that they had had to be especially wary during their entire brief stay. Twice they had had run-ins with Moira's famous "Blue Salt" band of thieves.
And oh, thought Azaemona as she and her lover trudged steadily through the mud and muck, let us not forget the reports of undead all along the road! Thus far, they had only encountered one small, shambling group of minor zombies—easily dispatched by Althemon's magic her arrows, of course, but any run-in with the undead was one run-in too many, in her eyes. Where there were undead, there was either a demon's curse or some mad wizard with aspirations of godhood or world domination.
It would be best to avoid the area altogether, she had reasoned, only for Althemon to object, stating the necessity of their journey. The man voiced so few objections, evening obliging Azaemona's strange obsession with acquiring songbooks and tomes of lore with his own hard-earned coin, that she was compelled to swallow her thoughts and merely humor him. After all, what possible ill could befall that between the two of them could not be cured? He with his magick, she with her arrows and sword; a ranger and a mage, two lovers and friends. A deadly combination in any arena.
Out in the misty half-light, an animal called again. Azaemona tightened the grip on her bow and continued walking, one eye trained always on the horizon.