They trudged for several miles along the snowy path into the heart of the Ashenwood. The last time Addie had seen a wood this dense, it was a days journey north of Port Llast in Duskwood. The snow in Rashemen was deeper and harder to walk through, but at least, she thought glumly, there was no gnome to slow her down. Kaelyn and Gann were both burly and tall, and Okku was... a bear. Safiya, too, was deceptively agile, considering that her talents did not lie in her physical form. They made good time into the very heart of the Ashenwood, where they paused at a clearing.
"Do you smell that?" Adahni asked, sniffing the air sharply. It was cold and dry, and carried the faintest scent of woodsmoke.
"I'm afraid I don't," Kaelyn said, raising her nose to take in the breeze. The rest of her companions did the same.
"Nothing here," Safiya said.
"Nope," Gann said.
Okku stayed still, his snout to the sky, for almost a full minute. He lowered his eyes, and looked suspiciously at Adahni, "You're right. I smell woodsmoke. To the south."
"You don't suppose someone is living here, do you?" Adahni asked.
"Hunters have been known to come to these woods," Gann said, "It's not unheard of... but, to the south is a great forest fire that has been burning for years. I think that must be what you're smelling. I say, you do have a powerful nose."
"Yeah," Adahni said, "A forest fire burning for years? That doesn't sound natural."
"This is Rashemen," Gann said, "Nothing just happens here."
"I don't think the Wood Man would spend his time in the midst of a forest fire." Kaelym said. Adahni searched her voice for a hint of irony, but found none, "But nor would he spend it in a blighted forest."
Adahni looked at her curiously, "A blight?"
"I can sense it, that something is amiss," she said.
"Were you a druid in a past life?" Adahni asked.
Kaelyn shook her head, "I simply observe the world around me as the Gods have wrought it."
"The next time you think about giving me a non-answer like that, do me a favor and keep your mouth shut," Adahni replied, sighing irritably, "Look, up there, there's a tree significantly larger than the others. May as well check it out, right?"
The small band tramped through the snow towards the tree that Adahni had spotted. The woods thinned out, gradually, the small birches and spindly oaks giving way to larger and larger glades. Eventually they reached a clearing, around half an acre in size. At its center was an ancient oak, its trunk thick as ten men. Something else had been dogging Adahni as they approached it though. Under the chill smell of snow and the edge of acrid smoke from the mysterious fire to the south, was something else. Something dank and rotting, sort of like the smell of the Mere back home, but somehow more sinister. It was not the smell of human flesh – gods knew Adahni had smelled enough of that – but it was unpleasant and deathly all the same. It grew stronger as they approached the clearing, and Adahni found herself utterly distracted by it.
"What is that?" she asked, making a face.
"What is what, my lemming?" Gann asked.
"That smell!" she said, "It's disgusting. Like compost or rotting manure..." Without warning, she doubled over and vomited. Having eaten nothing but hard biscuits and dried meat for the last seven days, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but unpleasant all the same. She emptied her stomach, and moved away from the mess she'd made, "It's awful."
"I don't smell anything, Addie," Kaelyn said.
"I do," Okku said, "I suppose we can all sense the blight in different ways, Kaelyn. You felt it. Adahni and I can smell it. This should be where the Wood Man dwells... we old gods have our preferred haunts, after all. But I can't imagine he'd be here, what with it smelling like it does."
"Are you all right, Addie?" Safiya asked, "I'm getting worried about you. It's not like the famed slayer of the King of Shadows to sleep seven days and then vomit at a smell the rest of us can't even sense."
"You heard what the hathran said," Adahni sighed, "I'm not myself. I am not one, but two. The spirit eater curse is riding on my shoulders. Gods know what it's doing to me."
Safiya nodded, but shouted as her attention was drawn elsewhere, "Look there," she said, "Now there's something I haven't seen."
"What?" Kaelyn asked.
"A telthor person," Safiya said. The ragtag band followed her as she rushed up to the translucent figure of a man. He was a hunter, from the look of him, but he did not have the garb that the soldiers at the outpost did. His clothes looked rougher, his weapons cruder.
"What a fate," Adahni muttered, "To continue to wander Faerun after your body is rotting underneath the stones."
"There are worse fates," Kaelyn said, "Would you find it preferable to be lodged in the Wall of the Faithless until your very being is rent asunder?"
"You know," Adahni said, "All of those stories seem so farfetched, I'm not sure if I really believe that part of the teachings."
"And that is how one winds up in the Wall of the Faithless!" Kaelyn cried. It should have sounded triumphant, Adahni thought, a religious fanatic making her point to a prodigal and haphazard half-believer. But it wasn't, her words struck a dull tone like a poorly shapen bell, as though Kaelyn were upset by the fact that the non-believers were punished so.
"Careful as you go there," the telthor man, whom they had approached, intoned. His voice was hollow and unearthly, not unlike how Nadaj's voice had sounded in that moment in the outpost where Addie had been so rattled, "These woods are no longer under spirit protection."
"Protection from what?" Adahni asked.
"Wild things... animals driven mad by one thing or another, spirits no longer bound to the land, roaming freely and feeding where they will," the telthor said, "Such things as tend to happen in a land where the boundaries between here and there are not so solid... "
"And things slip back and forth that oughtn't in any sensible part of the world," Adahni added.
"Sensible is relative," the telthor sighed, "As for my, It used to be... long ago, that there was a sanctuary, a place where the spirits of this forest could hide without fear of being molested by strangers. I do what I can to protect those who still remain here, but I am not half as powerful as the guardian used to be. I was once called Grigor, though there are none left to call me that..."
"The guardian," mused Adahni. That was the title that the Illefarn had given to their ill-fated creation that would become known as the King of Shadows. Both names were inadequate to describe the sheer power and horror of the thing, but hearing something called 'guardian' reminded her of it, "What was your guardian?"
"A dryad," the telthor said, "It was she who bound me to the land here, as I lay dying at the bottom of that pool." He pointed to the northwest. When she looked hard, Adahni could see through the spindly and leafless trees the shimmer of water in the distance, "I was a hunter in these woods. Many years ago... A dire wolf had carried off two lambs from my village, further south into the Ashenwood. On the third day, it carried off a child, a little boy named Alexy. I and my companions came tracking it through here. My companions gave up after the third day, but I would not."
"It was your child," Adahni observed.
The telthor nodded but did not comment further, "I found the wolf on the island over there, and what was left of my boy. Before the day was out we had each given each other a mortal wound. The wolf staggered off to the west to die. I stumbled into the pond, holding my guts in with one hand. I knew that dying in the cold of the water would provide an easier end than waiting while the wild things carried off parts of my body while I was still around to feel it. It was then that I felt her arms encircling me, bearing me up and out of my body, and to the woods here. It's not a bad existence. For a long time I was able to protect the wayward spirits who wandered here, as I could not protect my Alexy... after two hundred years it has eased my pain somewhat..."
"But that changed."
"The dryad was the truly powerful force. Some years ago, quite a different creature than the usual ones came through these woods. On the surface, he was a man, but underneath... he was something else entirely. He came to the sanctuary, on the island in the pool, and the dryad did not know to not let him in, for he was confused and frightened. But he was carrying with him a curse, a blight, a hunger that tore our guardian from her place and devoured her whole."
"It seems part of you has been here before, Addie," Safiya said.
"Lovely," Adahni said, "And so what's happening now?"
"There were none to protect the spirits, save I and a few of my more stalwart companions," the telthor said, "And now the sacred space has been defiled by creatures of the mortal plane... Frost Giants." He wrinkled his translucent nose, "They are not intelligent creatures, but they are large, and they do not care for the niceties that even those among us who are dead do. I cannot cross the water to fight them, for they have desecrated the sacred tree, and I am not safe."
"And if we got rid of the Frost Giants?" Adahni asked, "Perhaps you could?"
"If you cleanse the island of its taint, yes, perhaps I could... perhaps a new spirit could take in the power of the island, and create the sanctuary anew."
"Are you sure this is something we ought to get involved with?" Gann asked, "Frost Giants are... well, giant."
"You heard Okku," Adahni said, "He can't imagine the Wood Man would return to his rightful place with the taint upon the woods making it smell like it was. Remove the Frost Giants, we strengthen the spirits. We strengthen the spirits, the blight becomes weaker. You see what I'm getting at?"
"I don't know what dark place you pulled the connection between the spirits and the Frost Giants and some dead dryad that one of your predecessors sucked into the oblivion out of," Safiya said, "How do we know it's even related?"
"In Rashemen, nothing just happens," Adahni said, quoting Gann, "It's all connected. It has to be. You heard the dead hunter, the blight is a recent happening. The more we can do to set the woods to rights, the more likely the Wood Man may want to return."
"It's as good a theory as any," Gannayev put in, "And I've never seen a Frost Giant."
"They look like every other giant," Adahni said, "Just gray."
"Still, all the same, it is exciting to see something new," Gann said as the band of them walked towards the pool. Closer up, Adahni could see the reason it had not frozen was that it was not a pond at all, just a place where a mighty river with a swift current and bent and twisted around a hill, leaving an island in the middle. The island was barren except for a few trees, and a place where an elder tree had once stood, its stump standing three or so feet off the ground from where it had been cut. Adahni imagined a crazed spirit eater, hacking at the tree until it disgorged the dryad who lived within, and then sucking out her life's essence. She wondered how that would taste.
That's disgusting, Addie, she chided herself, "How are we getting past this water?"
"We shouldn't swim in this cold," Okku said, "That's how people lose toes."
Safiya sighed, and began rolling some ball of magic between her fingers like a child would roll modeling clay into a sphere. It grew larger and larger, a pale blue orb, and she tossed it into the water. The cold spell that she had woven froze the moving water solid, and the companions strode comfortably across it to the island.
"What exactly are you planning to do with the Frost Giants?" asked Okku, "They aren't known for being very welcoming, and will probably not be terribly pleased that you intend to drive them from their home."
"I have my ways," Adahni said. The beginnings of a plan were beginning to grow in the back of her mind. It was just crazy enough to work, but she knew that if she told her companions about it they would at best, tell her it was a terrible idea, and at worst, actively sabotage it, "You just hang back and watch. Worst case scenario, we'll have to fight them, which has always been the worst case scenario."
Her companions did not have time to respond.
"Who dares trespass on this island?" a voice bellowed. Adahni looked to the stand of trees, and realized that the shapes she had taken for boulders were actually a group of ten or fifteen Frost Giants, who must have been seated in a circle. One of them, only slightly larger than the others, but who was distinguished by the dull metal crown that encircled his enormous head, walked up and looked down at them, "Ohh look at these! Little mice with shiny swords, ja?"
"Yeah, sure," Adahni said, "You're pretty far from the mountains, no? Don't Frost Giants prefer mountains?"
"Ja," the giant replied.
"What's your name?"
"My name is Torval," the Frost Giant leader said, "I is the jarl here. You show me respect."
"You're the jarl of a fifteen-giant tribe far from your homeland. I don't know what kind of power you think you hold, but I, for one, is not impressed. Am not impressed," she corrected herself hastily, embarrassed to have inadvertently repeated the giants' poor grammar.
"You is not impressed with me? A little mouse is not impressed with me?"
"Well how are we to know you are truly worthy of being jarl of this tribe?" Adahni asked. In her brain, the gears were turning, remembering everything she had read. In an old compendium of research on the giants that Daeghun had kept, she had read the rituals of Frost Giant leadership. Each band was lead by a leader called the jarl, and the band would get a new jarl if the old one were defeated by a stronger challenger, "What about you there!" she pointed to another giant, who was smaller in height but broader in shoulder, "What's your name?"
"Joki," the giant replied.
"Don't you think you ought to be jarl? You're so much stronger and handsomer than Torval."
"I is?" Joki asked, looking down at himself.
"Well, it seems like your jarl has taken you far from your homeland, am I right?" Adahni asked.
"Well, ja," Joki said, "He defeated our old jarl... but then..."
"Then what?" Adahni asked.
"Then that runty little Didrik defeated him while he was still wounded from the fight," Joki said, furrowing his brows, "It wasn't fair."
"It is true," Torval said, "Didrik cheated. We did not want to follow him, and so we were exiled."
"So let me get this straight," Adahni asked, "You're following a jarl who was defeated by the runt of your tribe?"
"Well... ja," Joki admitted. He looked around and his companions, each looking as baffled as the he was.
"Surely that can't be true!" Adahni exclaimed, "Why, word of the noble strength of the Frost Giant has reached the ears of all. I cannot believe that a band of you valiant creatures would be so weak as to follow a leader who was so ignominiously beaten! Surely there is one among you who would be better suited to leading such a courageous tribe!"
The tribe members scratched their heads and looked at each other.
"You, what's your name?" she asked pointing at another giant who was standing next to Joki.
"Burda," the giant said.
"How do you like living on this island in Ashenwood?" she asked.
"I don't like it. No mountain goats to eat," Burda said.
"Well have you ever thought about being jarl?" Adahni asked, "You could take them back to the mountains."
"No!" Joki exclaimed, "No, I want to be jarl."
"But will you keep us here to eat little maggoty badgers?" another giant piped up, "Perhaps I should be jarl."
This set up a chorus of giants bellowings, like frogs in the springtime. "I want to be jarl!" "No, I want to be jarl." "No, I should be jarl!" "I challenge Torval!" "Well I challenge the winner if you fight Torval!" "No I called winner!" The bellowings soon turned to blows, and within minutes the island was one massive Frost Giant free-for-all. The dull metal crown changed hands a few times, but none seemed to be a clear winner.
"And now we wait," Adahni said. She dusted the snow off of a large rock on the ground, sat down, and waited for the problem to take care of itself. Her companions sat themselves around her on various other rocks and stumps, Gann shoving her over to share her seat.
"You turned them against each other so easily," Kaelyn observed, "It's actually rather frightening. I suppose it's a good thing that Frost Giants are such brutish and unintelligent beings."
"You'd be surprised at the brutishness and stupidity displayed by even those who fancy themselves high-minded," Adahni said, "And how easily the natural hunger for power can be turned to ones own advantage."
Next to her, Gann shuddered, "You are too conniving by half, my lemming."
"Would you rather have your had popped like a ripe tomato by a giant's club?" Adahni asked.
"I suppose not," Gann said, "Desperate times, desperate measures and all that." He was silent for a moment, stroking his chin, "I wonder, if you could do so so easily with giants, and you seem to have some sway over humans... I would dearly love to see you go up against hags."
"I doubt I'd want to," Adahni, "If a hag is persuasive enough to get a human man into bed with her, I don't think I'd ever want to be in the same room as one. She'd probably have be dancing a jig in my skivvies if she wanted to."
"Now that I would pay to see," Gann said.
"Hush," Adahni scolded, "Look, the fight seems to be dying down."
Fights among Frost Giants were short and brutal, the victor declared almost immediately. The first giant she had singled out to challenge Torval, Joki, came up to her, the crown of the Jarl on his head.
"I is the jarl now!" he declared.
"Good for you, Joki," Adahni said, "I know you'll do great things."
"I is doing great things. I is moving this tribe off of this little island and back to the mountain stronghold where we belongs. Didrik will not defeat me as he did the weakling Torval."
"That's a wonderful plan. Have a nice trip," Adahni said.
"Goodbye, little mouse," Joki said. He signaled for his band to follow him, and they tramped off through the woods, shaking the ground as they went. As the last of them disappeared into the trees, Adahni breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well I'm glad that worked," she said.
"Addie, look!" Safiya pointed. Through the woods, from all directions, spirits came over the land in a shimmering river. They swam the pool and arrived on the island, chattering and tweeting and making all the noises that they would have made in life. After a few minutes, Grigor, too, arrived.
"You've somehow managed to rid us of them without further bloodshed," Grigor said, "How?"
"I convinced them that it was in their best interest to leave this place, and head back to the mountains from whence they came," Adahni said.
Grigor nodded, "Now it is only a matter of finding a spirit to protect this island... the sacred pool is there. Do you know of any spirit brave and true enough to protect us?"
Adahni walked up to where he pointed, the stump that had once been a great tree. Looking into the hollowed out trunk, she saw a shimmering pool of water, glowing with otherworldly energy.
"I think I do," she said, looking up at Grigor.
"Me?" he said, and laughed a hollow laugh, "I do not think myself worthy, nor powerful enough..."
"You have guarded the spirits of these woods, even after your protector had perished," Adahni said, "You lost your mortal life protecting the lives of those in your village. I cannot think of a worthier being."
"Two hundred years I have roamed these woods," he said, "It would be nice to... change." He walked hesitantly up to the trunk. He climbed up to the top, and looked into the water, "Very well." He dipped one foot in, then the other, and he began to glow with supernatural energy. Light poured from his skin. Around him, the dead tree gave a great shudder, and began to grow. Around them echoed laughter, first from Grigor's voice, and then joined by the bubbling laughter of a toddler. The tree sprouted branches, and trunk grew taller, enclosing the telthor, and growing back to its impressive height. The animal spirits around them ran to it, rolling in the snow at its base.
As the final branch stretched to the sky, the magical light was finally contained.
"Thank you, stranger,"a voice similar to that of the telthor Grigor, but with a greater weight and gravitas, "You have restored some of the balance to this place of spirits."
"How does it feel?"
"As though the weight of the world is suddenly bearable," the new guardian replied, "But I can sense now, a greater foreboding. To the south, a fire has burned for far longer than a fire ought to burn. If you wish to find the Wood Man, you must find a way to end the burning. Know that you may always find sanctuary here, on this island."
"Very well," Adahni said, "We still have several hours of daylight. We'll set out to the south and make camp closer to where the fire is burning. It should at least be warmer there."
"Sounds like a plan," Okku said.
"Farewell," Adahni said, waving to the tree. They walked across the frozen pool and back into Ashenwood. It had been easy enough to fix that part of the taint. Perhaps the rest of it would be just as simple, and she could get the answers she thought.