Part 3: Over the Hills and Far Away

Luan was sitting hunched-up, his knees under his chin. His back was to the rest of the group. He might be keeping watch for them unasked, or looking for his missing comrades. Or else he might be in shock. Lila remembered how she had felt after the first githyanki attack.

Returning her gaze to Elanee, she wondered whether to risk a little mage light to see if the russet had come back to her long hair. With the road still less than a mile away, she decided against it as being too liable to announce their location to their enemies. But once they were on the far side of the hill...perhaps just a glimmer...

"How is she?" Eyepatch asked in a whisper.

"Out like a light. Breathing well, though. She'll be fine," said Lila, surprised at how confident she felt as she said it. "She just overdid it a bit, and her body's resting. I've seen it happen a couple of times before with Qara..." Qara wasn't a druid, hadn't changed colour, or become cold to the touch, but never mind about that. If Elanee lived, she could explain what had happened. If she died, then it was a loss that Lila wouldn't find difficult to bear, for all the long history of their shared travels and travails.

"What's the plan, Captain?" The sardonic edge to Eyepatch's voice that had reminded her of Bishop was gone; vanished, along with Chantler.

"North over the hill. Then west for at least ten miles. If the coast is assuredly clear, we can try dropping back onto the road. Otherwise we keep going west through the hills till we're back within a mile of the Keep."

"Sounds good to me," said Eyepatch.

"What do you think?" Lila asked of Katriona. "You did say you were native to these dales."

The blonde had been wrapping Elanee's slight body in a summer cloak. Now, hesitatingly, she began to speak. "...Let me think...yes, that should work. We can either wade across the rivers – they looked shallow enough yesterday – or take an old track I know. It had some old pack horse bridges. Partly tumbled down, but usable."

"Don't fancy wading across a river in the dark. Is your track easy to get to?"

Katriona considered, then nodded. "We could pick it up just by walking north, as you said, Captain."

Given that their group was barely large enough to qualify for its own table at The Phoenix Tail, the insistence on sticking to military etiquette in front of the lower orders - all two of them – seemed faintly bizarre. Yet, since Katriona had just helped to fight off an army of shadows before carrying their unconscious saviour up a near-vertical slope, she had really earned the right to call Lila whatever she wanted.

"Are you read-"

Katriona was already hoisting Elanee back up into her arms.

"Okay, clearly you are. But if you get tired, tell me and I'll take over. My gloves may not be in the same league as that torque of yours, but they're enough for one elf, I think."

"Yes, Captain."

Luan had still not moved. She didn't dare call over to him. Instead, she crept across to where he huddled, and bent down. "Time to go," she whispered. "How are your legs?"

"Like butter. That's better than before. Before I couldn't feel them at all."

"Ah, that's not too bad then. Just don't try and eat them with bread and pickles."

"No, Captain. With Chantler – not here – they're definitely safe." It was too dark to see his expression. That came as a relief. "Captain?"

"Yes?"

"He could still be alive, couldn't he? I never saw his body."

Lila hesitated, torn between the kindness of truth and the kindness of hope. That must be how Retta Starling had felt when a swamp child tugged at her skirts and asked how much coin would be needed to bring someone back from the dead.

Last year, she would probably have lied.

"I don't think so, Luan. And if you do ever see something that claims to be him – then don't trust it. Despise it. Shadows like to take the form of the people they've murdered."

"I left him there..."

"We had to leave him."

"If I'd gone with him to the horses..."

"...then you'd have died there too."

He turned his head fully towards her. "Why did you let him go?" His voice moved from a whisper to a volume that made her nervous. "You told him it was a good idea!"

"It seemed so, at the time. I thought the shadows were only to our east, not looped around us."

"But -"

"Be quiet, soldier!" Katriona hissed. Luan became quiet. "And stand up!" He stood up.

In mute accordance, they began walking. There was just enough light to see where they were putting their feet. However much the straps of the haversack threatened to pull her down the slope, however much they chafed her shoulders, it was good to be on the move again. The further they got from the site of the ambush, the happier she would be.

As they reached the summit, the short grass came to an abrupt halt; they were into the heather. The hill's broad top was covered in it. Here and there patches of gorse and bracken broke through the thick, wiry blanket.

The summit was not as distinct as she had expected. In fact, it proved to be rather long and almost flat, like the upturned hull of a river barge. Ahead of them, the moon shone through the diamond gaps in a limestone wall. It blocked their path. There might be a gate... she looked in vain for one. From her position and in the summer night, it was impossible to locate.

Clambering over the wall dislodged a few chunks of rock; most was mortared together only with moss, and earthen matter. Her boots scrambling, trying for footholds, she scraped off a layer of grime from the surface, but the structure itself held firm. She landed on the other side. As her legs still tingled with the impact, a curve-beaked bird flew up from its nest in the gorse, scooting around the sky, whooping in indignation.

Eyepatch, already perched on the wall to help Katriona pass Elanee to Lila, nearly dropped the elf directly into the heather. Before the attractive force of Toril could deliver her to a hard landing, Lila caught her head and arms. Again.

"What was that bird?" Luan asked. Eyepatch spread his hands wide in a gesture of nescience. Mentally, Lila imitated him. Had it been a dunlin? A lark? A cousin of those cranes that had stalked through the waters of the mere in ever decreasing numbers? Those pools would be empty now.

A quiet voice rose from between her arms. What it said was too soft to be intelligible. The shoulders resting against her elbows twisted and turned.

"Elanee! Welcome back!" said Lila. Grabbing the edge of the wall, the druid pulled herself up a little, so that she was neither prone nor sitting upright.

She spoke again, more audibly. "A curlew. The bird is a curlew. And – please give me some water."

Lila handed Elanee her flask, from which she drank unaided. A good sign. "What happened to you?"

Putting the flask to one side with a hand that trembled from the effort, Elanee sighed. "A special prayer. To place all the power my god grants me...into a single spell." She let herself sink back into the heather. "Foolish," she said.

"Brave," countered Lila. "It saved us."

"For a little longer," said the druid, allowing Katriona to scoop her up again without seeming to notice, "for a little longer, maybe." Her head tilted against Katriona's shoulder.

"Has she blacked out again?" Lila asked.

"I am resting," came Elanee's muffled reply.

Once they had left the wall far behind them, and the hill was turning into the slope of a shallow valley, a sound began that resembled both the purring of a cat and the snorting of a piglet.

"She's asleep," said Katriona.

"As I hear," said Lila.

Eyepatch guffawed. "I didn't know elves could make that kind of noise."

"Well, we've all learned something new tonight, then," she said. A current of laughter sang in her blood, and swiftly faded, and she remembered that she was sick at heart, and in danger. She watched Luan's silhouette recede, becoming smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter, as he let the slope set his pace for him. He was moving at a speed beyond what common sense would suggest was wise for the descending of hills without a lantern at night.

She considered calling him back. "Are there any cliffs hereabouts, d'you recall?" she asked Katriona.

"The steepest one is that crag we climbed. There's nothing else for a good five miles in any direction." She seemed to realize why Lila had asked. "He'll be fine."

They continued the descent. Katriona's track was supposed to lie just a few feet above the valley floor. Although the sun had finally finished its setting, the full moon cast a light over the landscape sufficiently bright to illuminate its shape. It felt as if they were walking through a long, still twilight. Lower down, grasses and ferns began eating into the heather, but trees did not grow on this side of the hill, except in a few isolated clumps, pruned into jagged diagonals by the prevailing wind.

Luan had almost made it to the bottom when he toppled sideways, and rolled the remainder of the distance. Concern melted into amusement, as Lila saw him spring back to his feet, and shake himself to get rid of the stalks and leaves that had stuck to his clothes. He stalked back up the hill to collect his sword. Clearly, his legs were feeling better. There was a lot to be said for letting people learn from their mistakes.

"Well done, Luan. You've found the path first," Katriona observed, after they'd caught up with him.

"And in a rare old style," said Eyepatch. Lila reminded herself to stay aloof. Instead of joining in, she squinted at what must be the track that Katriona had promised. It was about ten feet wide, and ran as straight as an engineer's measuring rod from the east to the west. She had expected the track to be covered in packed earth or grass. But it was almost the reverse, for on either side there were growing lush grasses. On the track itself, however, heather bushes were sprouting, lying low and thick on the ground, filling the space entirely as if the plants had been deliberately set there.

"Step away from it, Lila." Elanee was awake again, and on her feet, albeit leaning heavily against Katriona. Her hair, shining in the moonlight, displayed a reddish tint once more.

"Why? It looks like just what we need. We can follow this straight to the Neverwinter Road." But she obeyed the druid anyway, moving back, recognizing that the tone of the instruction had been anything but light.

"It's not a track. I can feel it. It belongs to them. It belongs to him."

"I've walked this way more than once," said Katriona, stung. "Farmers use it all the time to herd their sheep to market."

"They aren't here now," said Elanee. "And this – this thing – was not built with farmers in mind. It feels as the claimed lands feel. Afflicted. Lost. Don't set foot on it, Lila."

Nodding, she trod the edge of the broad line of heather, careful not to trespass beyond the grass. She pressed her fingers to her breast, as near where the splinter lay as she could manage. There was nothing. She felt nothing. She very rarely did.

It was very slowly that she became aware of their companion. On the opposite side of the heather, a ragged heron was standing in frozen expectation, as if waiting to spy a fish darting through the prickly twigs and briers that lay below its beak. The bird was indifferent to its new audience of four clumping humans and a sickly elf.

As Lila shifted uneasily, the toe of her boot struck something solid. She bent down. After knocking back a few stray ears of barley, she found herself staring at a heavy metal ring. It was quite blackened, and fixed at one end to the surface of a broad piece of limestone. Not a lump, but a shaped mason's block. For all that it was half-obscured by obstinately waving grasses, and at midnight, she could recognise that.

"We're going," said Lila, not looking again at the heron or the metal ring. A mooring ring, she realized. Like the ones that lined the banks of the Never and seafront near her uncle's tavern. It was insane, but that ring had been used to moor boats. Elanee's instincts were right, this time.

The others followed her without complaint. Turning west-by-south, Lila tried to get as far from the ring as possible, while keeping to a course that would ultimately bring them nearer to the Keep, the crossroads, and the army. Fear of the shadows on the road warred with anxiety about the unmoving line of heather to her right.

Over her shoulder, she could see her four companions trudging in her footsteps. Elanee's legs were working, though she walked sandwiched between Katriona and Luan. So far she was keeping up the pace her escort set.

"What did you see back there, Captain?" Eyepatch asked. His good eye shot a glance at her that flashed in the moonlight. "You sounded spooked."

"I was a bit surprised," she lied. Her heartbeat was still faster than it should be. "I almost fell over this big metal ring. And I suddenly remembered speaking to a scholar-" to Ammon, in fact, and it had been last year, in the war room near the fire after everyone else had gone to bed "-and this man said that the Illefarn Empire was famous for its engineering works. Harbours, light houses, tunnels – and where the rivers weren't deep enough for cargo, they created canals. Huge ones that went on for more than a hundred miles, sometimes."

"And that track through the heather – that was one of 'em?"

"Yes. It must have been. But it can't have been, you see, because it should be well under the earth. Not sitting there like a daisy as if the mason and his team had set it there a decade or two ago."

"Coulda been the work of storms..." Eyepatch suggested without conviction. "They can strip the soil right off the land and down to the bedrock."

"It must have been a very localized storm. Unless Talos was honing his hand-eye coordination..." She kissed her fingers and pressed them to her forehead in appeasement. A slighted violent deity was something she could do without at present.

Katriona broke into the exchange. "It's the first I've heard of such things. I never saw any masonry or old metal rings when I was walking that way."

The moon was full, and shone across the hills. Between the sky and the heather, along the edge of the horizon, the deep blue of the night had taken on a purplish hue. At the limits of hearing, Lila, straining, thought she detected the heavy, regular beat of wings. "No – I'm not sure that this is quite the same land that you crossed."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean – I'm not sure what I mean. It doesn't matter. Whatever's happening, we can't linger."

"You are right," said Elanee, as she leant on Luan's arm. "I do not like it here. The atmosphere was – clearer – on the hill-top."

"We can't go back south over the hills already," Katriona snapped. "We'd be walking straight into our enemies waiting arms – or wisps or tentacles or whatever it is the cursed things have. At least the orcs could bleed."

"That is not what I wished to suggest," said Elanee. "I would only say that -" she closed her eyes, looking suddenly exhausted "-that with a real choice between high ground and low ground, we should ascend."

"Noted," said Lila, taking control to diffuse the impending quarrel, "Now let's go."

They kept to the same contour for several miles, until with the night deepening around them, and a chill colouring the air, they descended through birch and willow towards the sound of running water. The line of the canal had disappeared, thankfully. But when she saw how wide and fast-flowing the river that lay ahead of them was, she felt ready to sink to her knees in despair.

Katriona didn't even pause. With the aid of a long branch that she'd broken from the side of a young tree, she clambered down to the water. Seeing that it came no higher than Katriona's ankles, Lila took heart and followed her sergeant's footsteps.

"We're safe from the shadows here," she remarked to Luan, as they waited for Elanee to pull off her moccasins on the bank. "They don't go into running water."

"Not if the water is pure. This is not, I fear" said Elanee. "This river is called the Selverwater by the human farmers. It has its spring in the Sword Mountains, but no mouth, save for its tributaries that water the Merdelain."

Lila looked to her left, watching the river in its southern progress. Keep going downstream, and before long you'd be passing under the Great East Road. Further, and you'd be in the marches of the Mere of Dead Men. Innocently, gently, as if to say that it knew nothing of the shadows and stagnant pools that awaited it, the river sparkled and trickled over its beach of cloud grey pebbles.

"I've never seen a river shine like this one does. It's like the stars are caught in the water," said Luan. He put his hands into a rush of foam and drew them out wonderingly. "Selverwater – silver water, right?"

"There aren't any silver mines round here," said Lila; she'd briefly toyed with the idea of buying shares in a mining company before the Keep had been dropped on her, and everything had changed.

"The river bed here is full of quartz, flint and chalk," said Elanee. "And most of the Selverwater is broad and shallow. Light reflects on the rocks and creates a shimmering effect." She slid down the bank feet first, not even rustling the ferns that grew there, but her innate grace let her down at the end, for she staggered as she landed. Luan came to her aid. Without seeming to notice, Elanee continued, "This is the first time I have seen the reason for the Selverwater's name with my own eyes. Her children in the Merdelain are channelled through clay and peat. The day I found a piece of flint washed up on the side of a stream was the day I decided to follow you to Neverwinter, Lila. The only flint I ever found in the heart of the merelands. Fire in a damp country."

The druid could sometimes surprise her. Lila smiled at her, before returning her mind to their situation. Katriona was halfway across already, but had slowed her pace. She was testing each step with her branch. The water was still not up to her calves; an expanse of calm to her left hinted that not everything was finger-deep.

Eyepatch had crossed further upstream, and was on the western bank, waiting. His speed had been paid for by a ducking. His breeches and tunic appeared soaking wet. At another time, that would have provided her with much entertainment. At another time – if things were different – she'd have thrown herself into the deepest pool she could find, and danced in the icy water from the mountains.

Instead, she kept one eye on Elanee, who was moving more slowly than was her wont, and her other eye on the river bed just ahead of her. She wished she'd had another eye to spare for Luan, as he walked in front of Elanee, but stopped and turned back to check on her so frequently that she was in danger of falling over him.

Quickly they advanced to the midpoint. The pebbles were free of algae, free of weed, and offered no treacherous footing. Lila glanced to her left, where a pool had been eaten out of the river bed by the eddies that swirled round a boulder. Near the surface, a shoal of young fish darted to and fro with the practised conformity of a volley of arrows. Below that...

Below that was a face. Huge. Composed of angles and broad planes. The hollow eyes gazed mournfully up at her.

A cloud scudded over the moon, and when it had passed, and twilight was restored, she had lost sight of the face in the pool. She crouched, shaking off one gauntlet and using her bare hand to lend her additional balance; the water really was freezing. She leaned forward, squinting into the pool. Looked into every cranny and drip. The face wasn't there. Nor was there the material from which an overwrought mind could have built the illusion of a face.

"What is it?" Elanee was at her side. Lila pushed herself upright, and took an unplanned step back. Water flooded over the top of her right boot. She shuddered, and shook her hand, trying to restore feeling to the numb fingers.

"I thought I saw a face. The face of a statue that Luan and I saw earlier by the camp. It was in that pool, but it's gone now."

Elanee's eyes followed Lila as she pointed at the pool's base. She shook her head.

"I see noth-"

A fish mouthed the surface. Ripples circled outward over the still water. And in that instant, lasting for not longer than it took the outermost ring to vanish into the foam on either side of the pool, the stone face was there again. Lila saw it, and when Elanee trembled, she knew the druid had seen it too.

They exchanged looks. "Do you know what it is?" Lila asked.

"I am – not sure."

"But you have an idea?"

"The beginning of one. Not more than that. I think you do too. Lila, the others are waiting. A discussion cannot help us at this point. The one helpful act now, is movement."

The pool was empty again. Empty of all but mountain water, fish and pebbles. Lila readjusted the straps of her haversack wearily. Her ankle twinged. "You're right," she said.

"What were you doing out there?" Katriona inquired of Lila as they pulled themselves up the western bank.

"Observing the fish," Elanee answered, while Lila shook water from her boot.

"Observing fish!" was all the reply that Katriona could muster.

"What was special about them?" Eyepatch asked. "Or are all fish special to you druids?"

Elanee shrugged. She paused, gazed about her for a moment, then started walking, westwards and up. Her steps were still much heavier than they normally were. Katriona followed her, then Luan, then Lila formed a rearguard with Eyepatch, which allowed her to commiserate with him over the chill of the Selverwater, though still not to find out his name.

They walked and trudged and limped through the deepest part of the night. Climbing, always, but never to a clear peak. Leaving the green plants of valley and waterside behind, they ascended again into the moorlands, jumping over narrow streams that split the heather, and following any sheep track that promised to lead in the right direction. Katriona's mood improved as the summit of a boulder-strewn ridge loomed over them. After they came upon a kind of meadow that rippled with limestone rills, she began to jump almost merrily over the hollows in the rock.

"Is this natural?" Lila asked. "I can't decide whether it's made by the weather or by craft." If it did turn out they they were walking over the foundations of an ancient hall, it would be time for another change of direction.

Katriona laughed a short, harsh laugh. "You don't need to be a druid to know that. Time and weather made it, and have made many such wonders. Though when I was a child, my grandmother used to say that they were made by a giant king that a clever orphan boy challenged to a competition – to see who could grow the most barley, of all things. The boy ploughed his little plot of earth on the banks of the river; the giant took his club and dragged it over the shoulders of the hills – and that's what made this what it is." She stamped her foot on one of the limestone ridges.

"So what happened then?" Luan asked. "The boy won, didn't he?"

"Well, yes. To a degree," said Katriona. Lila noticed that there was no insistence on the use of her military rank; the sergeant was forgetting to be a sergeant. "The boy grew five bushels of barley. The giant king grew none. All his seed was eaten by birds, or died in the shallow soil. But he was so furious at his humiliation that he caught the boy as he claimed his victory, and tore him apart. The boy had put too much faith in his own cleverness, and put his pride over his survival."

"Oh," said Luan.

"I was hoping for something more uplifting," said Lila. "Possibly involving marriage to a princess, fame, fortune and a happily ever after."

"The giant king lived happily ever after," said Elanee, who must have been listening too.

"But he didn't deserve to," said Luan.

"Why not?" Elanee retorted. Lila suspected that the druid was being mischievous. Yet it was so hard to tell.

"Because he was stupid, proud and a bad loser," said Luan. The young man appeared to have taken the story rather personally.

"The boy was foolish to invite a competition with a short-tempered giant. But I would have preferred an ending that was less brutal. They could both have won. Or both lost, and learned from it," said Elanee.

"That can't work," said Luan. "What kind of competition is that? Imagine a foot race where everyone wins or loses. Or throwing a coin, and whatever side you call, heads or tails, the result is the same. Someone must win and someone must lose."

"It's true that general harmony and agreement don't make for the most popular stories," Lila remarked, surprised by Luan's sudden vehemence. It was so far from his usual manners.

"There is another ending to the story. I heard it from folk who weren't my grandmother," said Katriona. "It goes like this: after the giant king had torn the boy apart, an old goddess looked down on all that was left of the clever orphan, and was sorry for him. She gathered up all the pieces that she could find, and laid them together. And she said to the bones and the flesh: 'If I restore you to your original form, the giant king will catch you and kill you again. Instead, I'll give you a different shape, so that you will be safe forever, and every year you can do what you most longed to do – outwit the king of the giants.'

"The sinews of the dead boy reknit themselves, but as his limbs joined together, they shrank and changed. His legs bent, his ears grew long, and fur sprouted from his skin. Breath from the goddess reanimated the body, but it was the body of a hare, and not a peasant boy. And the dalefolk, when they hear the summer thunderstorms raging, they say that it's the footsteps of the giant king as he chases up and down the hills after a little brown hare he can't ever lay hands on."

Katriona coughed. "Anyway, that's an old nurse's yarn," she said, sounding unusually self-conscious. Lila guessed that story-time hadn't figured a lot in her troop drills. "But it's why the hill we're on is called Haresrun. And Haresrun lies about a third of the way between the camp and the Neverwinter Road."

The old story from Katriona's childhood had been a welcome distraction. Reminded of the here and now, the weight of her haversack redoubled, the chafing from her wet boot returned, her calf muscles protested with every step, and she became intensely aware that she eaten nothing since the afternoon of the previous day. Katriona had probably expected her news to be heartening; for Lila, however, the thought that more than half the distance already covered lay ahead of them before they reached security lowered her spirits still further. She tried to restructure her feelings into something more hopeful using the technique she had developed in her wandering days. So they had walked about ten miles. That meant that after just five more miles, they would be half-way home. And after that it would be easy; every step would be taking her further into a landscape of familiar objects, further into secure territory. They might even run into a scouting party from the Keep.

Her mood improved a little. She at least regained enough energy to examine the condition of the group. Eyepatch was doing well enough considering his dowsing; he had removed his boots and stockings and was walking barefoot. All four of them were stooped, frowning, stiff. Even Katriona was starting to look tired.

They were still crossing the long flank of Haresrun when Elanee tripped, staggered, swayed. She did not fall, rebalancing herself quickly, but immediately afterwards she let herself sink down onto a thick patch of heather.

"Let me carry you," said Katriona.

Elanee shook her head in exhaustion. "No. I will be well again shortly." She tried to stand, failed, lent over and retched. Katriona took the water flask from the druid's belt and tilted it to her lips. While she ministered to Elanee, Lila watched the sky. The moon and stars were at their brightest. Soon enough they'd begin to fade with the short midsummer night, and it would be dawn. Already the air smelled different.

"We'll keep going a bit longer, till we find a good place to camp," she said.

"You think we can afford to stop?" said Eyepatch.

"When the dawn comes, I want us to be lying low somewhere. Somewhere discreet and defensible, in preference."

Katriona nodded as she knelt by Elanee. "The druid needs rest. And food. We all do."

The talk of rest made Lila want to collapse at once onto the springing heather, and stretch all of her aching muscles to their limit, like a cat rolling on a sunlit terrace. How far would it be before they found a suitable site? Please gods, let it be soon.

Katriona helped Elanee to her feet and gave her an arm to lean on. "There are dozens of shallow caves in that part of Redfell over there," she said, pointing to the hill that lay to their north, higher and steeper than Haresrun. Dark as it was, the spaces of total blackness on its sheer southern slope marked out the locations of a few.

"We'd be heading in the wrong direction," said Lila. "And I don't like caves. Once you're in them there's nowhere to run. Your enemies can bottle you in and wait till you can't resist anymore." She'd once done that to a band of smugglers on the coast. They'd run out of food on the first day, out of water on the second, and on the third day they'd run out of fight. They were lucky in one sense, and had been allowed to surrender. The youngest one she'd cut loose on the journey to Neverwinter to save him from the gallows. "What's to the west?"

"There is another river," said Katriona. "Perhaps two or three miles further on. Before that we'll have to go down into a valley."

"So, let me guess, after the river we'll have to climb straight up the other side of the valley?"

"Yes. Then over a few more hills and down to the banks of the Dardeel. After that we can follow the river almost to the crossroads, or ford it to reach the Neverwinter Road more quickly."

"It doesn't sound that bad. No mountains, no fire giants, no dragons..." If she wasn't aching in so many places, if she hadn't lost what might be four fifths of her soldiers, she'd be almost light-hearted. She was certainly light-headed.

"We should stop before the next descent," said Katriona.

"Agreed. I feel safer on the high ground."

They went on, and the heather changed back to turf under their feet. Where the ground dipped between Haresrun and Redfell, reeds had colonized the undrained soil. A dozen rabbits grazed the lush grass at the sides of the bog. On the further side, below Red Fell, a cluster of powder puffs marked the presence of drowsing sheep. The passing of five members of a foreign species, stalking heavy-footed and clumsily over the higher slopes, left the native population indifferent and unaffected. At most, they were worthy of a bored roll of the eye.

"I wish I could dig a warren like these rabbits have done," said Luan. "So deep that smoke and dogs couldn't chase me out. I'd sleep in it through the winter on a pile of hay, and come out in the summer to nibble on the grass near the mouth of my tunnel."

"That life has a certain appeal..." said Lila. "Aren't there gods that let the spirits of their followers return to Toril in a different form? You could probably file a request at the temple to be remade as a rabbit."

"You'd end up on a plate with a bunch of parsley sticking out of both ends," said Eyepatch. "Or looking after hundreds of ungrateful kids in a small burrow with enough grass for two. And the bigger rabbits next door eating all your clover..."

"Have you got hundreds of ungrateful kids?" Lila asked, grinning. She was walking on his right side, and the grin would have to be heard rather than seen.

"Never hung around long enough to ask," he said.

A grey pall lay over the night sky. An insomniac bird sang on the hilltop. Dawn was coming.

"There are druids in the Amtar Forest who live in warrens," said Elanee faintly. She sounded entirely serious.

"Really?" said Lila. "Why?"

"They belong to a sect that believes a connection to nature is best achieved by trying to understand the totality of one particular animal. Another branch – a gnomish sect from Lantan, I believe – decided to adapt the mountain orc as their project."

A moss-covered knoll lay in their path; it presented a challenge that Elanee wasn't equal to. Yet it did seem to Lila that Katriona swung her over the obstacle with undue force.

"There's nothing to understand about them," the blonde said in a tone that was not just lacking in amusement, but was verging on the savage. "Hatred and violence in a flesh box."

"The gnomes' tribal dances are said to be quite impressive," said Elanee, continuing the conversation unconcernedly as soon as she was able to touch the ground again. "People travel from far and wide to view them."

"I bet they do!" said Eyepatch.

Something was nagging Lila about Elanee's little excursion into druidic lore. "Did you learn about that in the merelands?" she asked. She couldn't quite square what she knew of the Circle of the Mere, unsmiling high priests of doom and gloom to a man, with gossip about the eccentric practices of distant cults.

There was a pause before Elanee spoke. She seemed all at once embarrassed. "No. My education in the Merdelain was more...focused. I discovered that account in the Blacklake Library. She paused again, before adding, as if the admission was being forced out of her, "I have a reader's pass."

Lila smiled to herself as the darkened hillsides pressed against her vision. How near the brightly lit atrium of the library felt in her imagination, and the arcade of stained-glass-windowed shops that lay around it. The lake and the lamps and the pleasure boats bobbing on their moorings.

They walked on, and Lila kept her eyes on the slight figure of the druid. Of all the flowers to bloom in the mere, this shy little elf might be one of the strangest. If they survived the next day, she promised herself to put more time into understanding her. For the longest time, she hadn't been able to forgive the druid for not being Amie, her friend dead these three years who had so much wanted to go travelling.

"Stop!" said Katriona. She had come to a juddering halt, and flung up a hand in warning. The memory of Amie fell away, and she hurried to join Katriona.

The latest sheep track they'd been following had terminated, as had the ground. At her feet there was an immense, abrupt hollow in the earth. Here and there boulders protruded from its sides, but for the most part, the slope at her feet was dry, smooth and sandy. The side opposite her was no side at all; it was open, a natural window hanging over the next valley on the west. Was the hollow as dry at its base as it was in its upper reaches? There was only one way to be sure. She sat down on the rim, and carefully lowered herself down the steep banks.

For the first part of the descent, she kept control by digging the base of her palms into the loose surface. For the last fifteen feet, she simply slid and rolled until she had reached the bottom. Down here, it was a mixture of grass and shale. Well-drained, as she had hoped. A stream probably trickled out of the exposed western side in wet weather, but at present all was as dry as old bones. She turned, desirous to see if it was possible to leave the hollow by the way she'd entered it. This site might be a place to wait out the dawn.

An accelerating streak of dust and pebbles sped towards her. She sprang to the side as Eyepatch arrived at her level. He picked himself up and dusted himself off.

"I thought you were an ankheg," she said.

He inspected a rip in this leg of his breeches. "Is this the campsite?" he asked, squinting around in the dim light. "Not bad."

He moved to the western side of the hollow; Lila followed him, as the noise of pebbles being dislodged above them gave warning of more potential collisions. Standing at the gap in the sides, she could see the next stage of the trek spread out ahead of her in hazy receding lines. A low flat valley. Long grasses crowded into small flood plain. The light of the fading moon shining on water. And beyond that, more hills, of course. A wave of them moving towards a precipitous crest at their northern end.

Mountains intimidated her. She had been raised in a flat country. Its variations were in depth, not height. The Sword Mountains had created no favourable impression, being barren and orc-ridden in the part she'd visited...and as for the Crags, it was her fervent hope that she would never need to set foot there again. But these dales were something else. They were the foothills of the Sword Mountains, yet she would never have guessed that from the sight of them. These dales were their own place. Their own realm.

"We're almost at Hunters Brook. At last," said Katriona, joining Lila at the door to the west. The narrow river was becoming visible without the reflective assistance of the moon. A layer of mist lay over the surface, and laced through the valley grasses.

"Hunters Brook," Lila echoed. Her voice cracked from the lack of moisture in her throat. "Let's see...was there a hunter who drowned in it?" Although the question was supposed to be playful, what left her mouth just sounded depressed.

"What? No!" said Katriona. "Hunters used to tie their day's catch to rafts and send them down this river. It's not wide, but it gets deep fast after it rises in the mountains. The Selverwater's too shallow to transport anything for most of the year, and the Dardeel's too wild."

"You know a lot about it. I couldn't tell you anything about the eastern reaches of the merelands. Except that the inhabitants were held to be fumble-fisted inbred types by the cultivated folk of West Harbour. I don't even know if there was ever an East Harbour."

"I've been in this area more than once. The last time was with a friend from the Old Owl Well militia. We were gathering supplies, and camped on the bank a few miles upriver, I think. It was a summer's day. The water tasted sweet – much better than the acrid stuff at the Well."

Katriona stared at the river flowing darkly between reed-thicketed banks. Lila too felt the draw. "Perhaps it's not tainted like the Selverwater?" she croaked.

"Perhaps," said Katriona.

"How much drinking water do we have left?"

"He's got one," she said, nodding to where Eyepatch had hunkered down. He was sharing his flask with Luan. "And there's whatever's left in the flask you gave Elanee." Not much to last five people through a fifteen mile hike in the afternoon sun.

"Well, no one has ever died of thirst in a few hours," said Lila, mustering her remaining powers of optimism. She walked across to where Elanee lay, intending to ask her about the river water. However, the druid had rested her head on her arms, and appeared deep in sleep. That sight offered some hope. The sooner she recovered from her exertions, the sooner she'd be able to facilitate their flight with her spells. The presence of an elf pulsing with magic would mean that their group's survival was finally a matter of likelihood rather than wishful thinking.

Luan and Eyepatch were both drowsing; soon they'd be as far gone as Elanee. Lila watched Luan a little. At rest, hair hanging in limp curls across his forehead, the soldier boy looked like the first human to have crossed directly from infancy to manhood without first having negotiated the laborious journey through adolescence. Eyepatch, too, had lost about a decade. He was sleeping on his right side, and seen from above in profile, his face seemed whole and unscathed. She shook her head. Mustn't get attached.

Careful not to nudge the men back into wakefulness, she pulled Eyepatch's haversack towards her. Inside was another bag, and within that was a loaf of bread and a large hunk of cheese. Using the dagger she wore on her thigh as a breadknife, she cut two fifths from the loaf, and the same fraction from the cheese; the remainder she replaced in the haversack. She picked up the flask that lay near Elanee and shook it, which made a satisfying sloshing sound; it could be over half full. For a while she dithered over whether to take it at all or to leave it for later. But she needed energy; for energy she had to eat; to eat she needed a throat that wasn't as dry as the wastes of Anauroch. Thus resolved, she took the flask along with the food and returned to the natural window where Katriona sat, still looking out over the wafting grasses in the valley. She sat down opposite her and passed her half of the bread and cheese.

"I was going to ask you if we should camp here," said Lila, "but the other three anticipated the decision."

Katriona leant her back against a shelf of weathered rock that contributed to the hollow's unusual form. Her right leg was stretched out down the western slope that led to the river. A steep slope, but not so steep that a hasty exit might prove difficult.

"This place will do," she said. "It's not ideal. No campsite in enemy territory ever is." She didn't seem interested in the food. Lila admired her composure. All her self-discipline was necessary to keep her from falling on her own hunk of bread and cheese like a wolf and finishing the lot in a few bites. Instead, she distracted herself by pulling off her boots and stockings, and burying her raw toes in a patch of sandy soil as deeply as they'd go. Next, she peeled back the shoulder of her jerkin and inspected the bruises that the straps of her haversack had inflicted. In a couple of areas, the skin was broken. She was capable of two minor healing spells. With Elanee not yet recovered, it wasn't wise to use them up on something so trivial.

"You should let Luan carry that for you," said Katriona. "The lad's not made of glass."

Lila shook her head. All her instincts shouted "No!" at her before she could try to put the reason into words. "I need to feel the weight on me. It's a reminder that this can still be worthwhile. And Luan has none of the powers of the statue, and hasn't had all the practice at escaping that I've had. I'm not sure how long he'd last if the shadows mobbed him."

She couldn't hold out anymore. Uncorking the flask, she took a deep draught. For as long as she could, she held it in her mouth, letting the water sooth her dry tongue and palate. After swallowing, she replaced the cork, and put the flask on the ground near Katriona. That would have to suffice.

The bread she tore into small chunks to spare her jaws from extra work. It was black bread, no doubt chosen for the expedition because it kept better than the white cottage loaves that the kitchens of Crossroad Keep could turn out by the hundred. The crust on this one was as thick her little finger. As she ate, chewing each bite slowly to delay the point when she had no more left, she listened to Katriona.

It felt like eavesdropping on a private discussion that she wasn't meant to hear, for Katriona spoke quietly, and didn't seem to be addressing her thoughts to anyone in particular. For the first time, Lila noticed the dark hollows under her sergeant's eyes. Was what she had taken a few moments ago for a will of adamant in fact not more than the effect of extreme exhaustion and stress?

"Once we start moving again, it'll be quite easy...the worst will be behind us. After five more miles, we'll be back within the area we regularly patrol...and those last ten miles aren't challenging ones. The climb after Hunter's Brook is steep, but still easier than what we did last night, when we had to ascend almost from nothing. After that, we can go south-west over the hill, or follow our course west until we've found the Dardeel. My vote's for the Dardeel. The northern face of Hollavel has a bad reputation among the villagers. Sheep go missing...people go missing...and the Dardeel won't be in a troublesome mood...not liable to tricks, not with so little rain."

"You should drink some water," said Lila in a state of some concern. "And eat. You never know when you'll be called on to carry another unconscious elven druid over a hill."

Her lips twitching in cautious amusement, Katriona accepted the water flask. While she ate and drank, Lila took over their limping dialogue. "It's funny," she said, "to be here. I can hardly believe it myself. Even after the fight with Lorne Starling, I convinced myself I was going to find work at the Neverwinter playhouse, or open my own shop. But here I am." She changed tack. "And here you are. We're lucky you decided to come with us at the last minute like that. We'd be dead without you. Elanee certainly, and me most likely as well."

Katriona was gnawing half-heartedly on a piece of crust. A light frown passed over her face as she listened, but she didn't respond. So Lila tried again with a different bait, that was neither fully in play nor in earnest.

"Lord Nasher will be impressed to hear of it. If he hasn't been impressed by all that you've done for the Keep so far. If you had your eye on a title or land – the honourable Countess Katriona of the Eastern Marches, for example – you could have them for the asking ."

Lila patted her sergeant's back as she choked on a lump of cheese. When she had recovered, after taking a swig of water, she shook her head. "I did a grand job here, didn't I? One of our best soldiers dead, and seven others could be too. Besides, I don't want anything from Nasher. The old fox has already started to take all the credit for Old Owl Well. You wouldn't think a local militia had spent years dying there to hold back the orc tribes. You watch out, Lila – he may not be a total brute, but deep down he's not so different to the orc chieftains, even if he doesn't realize it himself. His favour will last just as long as your usefulness. What he gives, he can take away."

"And you agreed to fight for him anyway."

"It's not him I'm fighting for. His favour and tithes and gold -"

" - I. O. U. s these days, I think -" put in Lila before she could stop herself.

Katriona ignored the interjection. "None of that matters. It's all rare tripe, and neither use nor ornament."

"Then was does matter?"

"Neverwinter. Highcliff. Leilon. Phandelin. Conyberry. It's taken decades – centuries – to reach the point where civilization – proper, established civilization – can thrive again on this part of the Sword Coast. For the wilderness to retreat. For caravan traders to take the road north without first going to the notary in Athkatla to have their will confirmed." She unhooked the ties that held back her long hair, and shook it out. It came almost down to her waist. With impatient hands, she rebound it more tightly, so that not a single blonde wisp could curl next to her cheeks. "But I've said enough. What about you?"

Lila shrugged. "The gith or the King of Shadows or the Luskans would hound me to death if I ran. Or visitors from the lower planes," she said, thinking of who might send them. "And I really like my bed at the Keep. It has thirteen separate layers. I counted them last week. If I stopped being Knight Captain, I don't think Lord Nasher would even let me hold onto the counterpane with my initials on."

"That's not what I'm talking about, Lila. I know all that. But why did you decide to lead this mission in person? You have people who could have done this kind of fetch-and-carry for you. It doesn't make sense."

It was a question that Lila would have preferred to remain unasked. To return a flippant answer, however, would mean that Katriona would spend the rest of the war never deviating from the strictest military etiquette. She closed her eyes. Opening them, she let them dwell on the river valley as it grew steadily brighter, instead of on Katriona's wide, pale face. "Do you know how long it's been since I went out on a proper mission?" she began. "I do. It's been a month. And that was just to go to Highcliff, which barely counts.

"A couple of weeks ago I found myself in conversation with Torio Claven. She was on top form. Bursting to say how grateful everyone was at the Keep because I'd been giving thought to my safety. What a relief it was that I'd stopped rushing into danger, and had accepted that my survival was crucial to victory. And so on. Later that evening I walked past the mess and heard them singing "The Goblin Drums". You know, the song about the general that flees in terror when a child plays his drum outside his bedroom window."

Lila came to a stop. Her cheeks felt hot as she remembered Torio's expression. It hadn't been her intention to go into so much detail. Hitherto, she'd mentioned her encounter with the former Luskan ambassador to no one, not even Khelgar and Neeshka. She chanced a look in Katriona's direction. The sergeant was staring at her in astonishment. "Well?"

"Gods preserve us, Lila. And I thought you were clever!"

"But – what, really? Clever?" She wondered if she should be angry or flattered. In so far as she'd assumed Katriona had an opinion of her, it was that she should be seen and not heard.

"To let yourself be mislead by the needling of that Luskan creature! And as for the song – soldiers are always singing it, and others of the same kind. It's how they cope. The only messes where you'll find them chanting psalms about the merits of their officers are the ones where there's a dark figure in the corner with a whip and a set of finger clamps under their cloak."

Lila shook her head, unconvinced. "The needling was only able to affect me because it was true. When I was given Crossroad Keep, it wasn't because I'd sat so fabulously on my backside in The Sunken Flagon, and let other people risk their lives at my suggestion. Whatever plans there were, I helped to carry out. Half the folk in Neverwinter got it into their heads that I was some sort of divine avatar sent down to the Prime to save them from their enemies, and they had no idea who I really was, or what I really looked like. What I'm trying to say is -" she breathed in deeply, and searched for the right words, so that she could bring this humiliating experience to a close as quickly as possible. Remembering that Luan and Eyepatch were sleeping not far away, she dropped her voice to a hoarse whisper.

"Realistically, I know, and you know, that we aren't likely to win this war by conventional means. Neverwinter can barely afford a standing army strong enough to resist Luskan. But the Greycloaks at the Keep don't seem to realize how doomed the whole undertaking is. How probable it is that we'll be overwhelmed and they'll be killed. They've heard the stories about the ten-foot warrior that can slay dozens of necromancers before breakfast. And even though the men know me – they can see it must be nonsense – still, I think, part of them goes on believing. Believes that I'm their lucky charm. That while I'm around nothing irrecoverably awful will happen to them.

"I need them to believe in me, because I need to believe in them. Do you remember at the big party last summer - the moment when Casavir and Bevil lowered the last stone into place on the curtain wall?" Katriona's eyes brightened in the affirmative. Of course she would remember that. "It was a perfect day. We had the Greycloaks in their new armour lining the courtyard and the wall-walks. As the stone came to rest, Shandra and Neeshka were up on the tower, hoisting the flags. And I stood just outside the gates, listening to the band playing and taking in the sight of this vast fortress, at the corners and curves and levels and cornices, and at the sun shining on the cuirasses of the guards...and I thought that as long as this Keep was ours, we'd be okay. I'd be okay..." Her throat was too sore to continue. In any case, she'd run out of matter. She wiped her brow.

For the first time, Katriona smiled at her properly; it was a smile that dimpled her cheeks and made creases unfold at the corners of her eyes. "We'd better get these returned to your magicians, then," she said, patting one of the Illefarn statue heads through a layer of canvas. "After they've done their work, we can picnic in the courtyard while our enemies turn to dust in the moat." She paused. "Oh, and you've set me straight on one thing."

"What's that?"

Katriona's smile curled in mischief. "I assumed you insisted on leading this mission because you wanted to impress that warlock friend of yours."

Initially, Lila's instinct was to deny the existence of any friendship with Ammon. Then she reconsidered. Denial would make Katriona retreat to her usual distance, and would close the door to further confidences on the sergeant's part, when there was one thing that Lila still very much wanted to have corroborated. And they were sitting in a hole between nowhere and nowhere else as the war's climax approached with ever hastening steps. A few rumours couldn't do any harm.

"That thought," Lila conceded, "may have encouraged me." She let her lip curl into a half-smile. "Just a bit." Katriona looked happy to have her guess confirmed. "He's a hard man to please. The only thing he values is victory. That's what I'm trying to bring him today." She lifted her haversack and let it fall. It was now or never. Putting her head on one side, Lila asked, "And you – you came so as to bring back Elanee, didn't you? You'd heard the arguments and expected trouble. So you volunteered at the last minute, and you've been making sure for the whole terrible night from the ambush on that she'll get back to the Keep – and to someone who values her."

The new warmth that Lila had lately noticed on Katriona's face had disappeared. Had she gone too far? But soon, the other woman nodded. Slowly and sadly, but without anger. "Yes," she whispered.

They seemed to be standing at the edge of a long silence. Or semi-silence. Now that the conversation had worn itself out, Lila could detect a regular wheeze issuing from the area where Elanee slept. The elf was lucky to be able to sleep so easily. Even if Katriona took the watch alone, Lila's anxiety would keep her wide awake.

"I knew," said Katriona. Before Lila could express her bewilderment, an explanation was granted. "I knew that elves snore. From long before I had the druid buzzing away under my ear. In the militia at Old Owl Well there was a moon elf from Waterdeep. Alcuin. An odd sort of elf, but brave as a lion. He actually asked me to marry him. I asked for time to think about it. And then Casavir arrived, and I refused. Because I realized that whatever happened afterwards, it could never be fair to say yes. Anyway, he's a fine snorer, is our Alcuin...snores almost as well as he kills orcs. He was in Callum's field hospital when you and your crew showed up. Driving everyone else in the tent half-demented with the noise he could make... I don't know where he went after he got better. Perhaps home to Waterdeep. Wherever he is, I hope he's safe."

Lila wasn't sure how to respond. Her suspicion had been confirmed and more. Pity surged through her. For Katriona. For herself, and her own predicament. "Waterdeep's doing well," she said. "It's had a better five years than Neverwinter, for sure. If he's there, he'll be safe enough."

Katriona smiled once more, and then closed her eyes. Her head began to lean towards her right shoulder. It wasn't a deep sleep, but at least she was enjoying some kind of repose.

Afraid of being drawn into the general somnolence of the hollow, Lila shifted her position, going from sitting to kneeling. To keep her mind occupied, she used her dagger to sketch out a rough map of the area in the sand and grit. After adding all the topographical features, waterways and man-made structures that she knew, she drew little stick figures to represent herself and her companions.

She checked the sky. It still seemed too grey and intermediate for it to count as morning. They'd have to wait longer...

About to start on a map of the Mere of Dead Men, she paused, stuck her dagger in the ground, listened. A feeling of intense dread assailed her. Her skin prickled.

She stood up and stared at the rim of the hollow above her. One moment ago, it had been deserted. Now, from one end to the other, it was lined with shadows.