Prophet of Moonshae

16

Sir Gwyeth felt considerably heartened now that he was clad in his suit of plate mail, mounted atop his eager, prancing charger, and trailed by a column of more than one hundred men-at-arms. He had doubled the size of the party he had originally planned in order to make certain they could deal with any threat.

The presence of the cleric Wentfeld, riding beside him, did much to enhance his confidence. Whatever the nature of the ensorcellment transforming the Moonwell, the knight of Blackstone felt certain they would make short work of it. Even the rain, beating against his armor and trickling in icy rivulets down his skin, couldn't dampen his enthusiasm.

The column, which included the cantrev's ready men-at-arms plus more than threescore hastily recruited troops from the militia raised in the town itself, marched out of the manor's gatehouse several hours past dawn. Most carried swords or axes, though some two dozen carried heavy crossbows. Sir Gwyeth was taking no chances.

The sky remained gray, and a chill wind blustered, bringing frequent squalls of rain. All in all, it was miserable weather for a march, but even that didn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm of the footmen. Perhaps Gwyeth's enticement of ten gold pieces for each member who remained with the expedition through the completion of its task served to warm the souls of these avaricious guardsmen-or perhaps they all sensed the danger that the resurgent Moonwell and its attendant faith presented to the mines that were their means of living.

In any event, the men raised a crude marching song, which the cleric pretended not to hear. Gwyeth felt as bold as any general who had ever embarked upon a war of conquest.

"Have you any clues as to the nature of this enchantment?" he asked the pryat as they made their way along the broad trail that preceded the narrow, steeply climbing path leading directly to the Moonwell's vale.

"Dark magic, undoubtedly," noted the cleric, who had given the matter little thought once he had received his pouch of gold. "But with the faith of Helm behind us, we'll make short work of it, I'm certain."

The good pryat knew that Helm, as one of the New Gods of the isles, was inherently superior to the primitive Earthmother the Ffolk had once cherished. Though Helm was not an evil god, he was ambitious, and a resurgence of any rival was something that ever vigilant deity regarded with little pleasure. Therefore it pleased Wentfeld doubly, for the profit and for the knowledge that he served his master's will in this endeavor.

"What can we do to reverse the effect?" inquired the knight. "It seems to be potent sorcery."

Pryat Wentfeld reflected. "Polluting the pond will be the most effective tactic, I believe. It was done successfully to a Moonwell many years ago with coal, but I should think a mountain of ashes would serve as well."

"The trees-we burn them and dump the ashes into the pool!" Gwyeth liked the idea.

"Correct. If we have to, we persevere until the thing is nothing more than a patch of grimy muck!"

"Hold-what's this?" demanded Gwyeth as the trail curved around a steep foothill.

"Where goes the path?" inquired Pryat Wentfeld, also puzzled.

The valley floor, which they remembered as a bare and rocky expanse, vanished behind a choking growth of forest. Oaks and pines, tangled with trailing creepers and densely packed among bristling thornbushes, filled the expanse from one steeply sloped side of the valley to the other.

"This is the trail, as the gods are my witnesses! It follows the stream! Backar-come here, man!" Gwyeth called to the sergeant-at-arms who had led the abortive expedition to the Moonwell two days earlier.

Backar, who marched near the head of the footmen, hastened forward at his knight's command. "Yes, my lord! What is it?" He saw the wooded tangle before them and gasped. "Curses to the Abyss, sir-this was plain and clear two days ago!"

"Are you certain you came this way?"

"Aye, lord. There is no other good way!" Backar, still stinging from his previous failure, swore his sincerity.

"Go and seek a path, then!" commanded Gwyeth. The man, with several assistants, hurried forward to examine the wall of dense growth. From his position on his proud charger, the knight could see no suggestion of a break that would have allowed a small child to pass through the overgrowth, much less a band of armed men.

The sides of the valley, to the right and the left, rose unusually steep at this point to form a pair of rocky bluffs standing like gateposts. The forest formed the gate, and Gwyeth had the unsettling impression that the wood had been placed here, where it would form the most effective barrier. The clouds capped the valley, covering the heights with oppressive weight and yielding their steady wash of rain over the increasingly disheartened humans below.

Backar and the others hunted across the face of the tangle, pressing back branches, hacking away creepers, and trampling thorns. After some minutes, during which Gwyeth grew increasingly restless with the delay, the man trotted back to report.

"There's no path, sir. It's solid as a briar patch. From the size of the trees, it could have been here for years, but I swear it-"

"I know!" snapped the knight. "Well, stop making excuses. Get out your axes and hack us a path!"

The song of the men had faded away when they discovered the inexplicable barrier, and now the knight and the cleric heard muttered curses as a dozen men shouldered axes and advanced to the wall of the thorny forest. They began to chop at the wood that closed over the path, slowly carving a tunnel-like path.

"Wider!" demanded Gwyeth. "I've got a horse to get through there, imbeciles!"

In the meantime, Pryat Wentfeld dismounted and advanced to the edge of the wood. He removed a small pinch of flour from a pouch at his side and muttered a short, arcane command. At his words, the particles of flour whisked forward with magical speed and stuck to the nearest leaves, sticks, and trunks, outlining a small area in white.

"As I suspected," he reported, returning to Gwyeth's side and remounting. "The forest is magical in nature."

"That helps a lot," growled the knight sourly. "Can you make it disappear the same way?"

"I have an enchantment that will dispel magic," the cleric responded, ignoring his companion's tone. "But I can cast it only once per day. I fear it would be unwise to expend it here, when we don't know what other obstacles might be placed in our path farther up the trail." The priest didn't add another disturbing thought in his head: that the power behind this enchanted forest might well be too great for his own magic to dispel.

Gwyeth had to agree that the priest spoke the truth, though his men chopped their way into the forest with agonizing sluggishness.

Two hours passed before a drenched Backar trudged back to the knight, who had dismounted and paced beneath a few stunted cedars that grew beside the trail.

"Sir Gwyeth, we can see light through the trees now. It would appear that we near the end," reported the obviously fatigued guardsman.

"Redouble your efforts, then!" snapped the knight. "We've wasted more than enough time here already!"

"Aye, my lord." The man headed back to the work party as Gwyeth and the cleric mounted, urging their horses forward. They waited with growing irritation as yet another half an hour passed before the men finally broke through.

The knight saw gray daylight at the end of a tunnel of verdant darkness, and though he had to duck his head beneath the trailing vines overhead, he spurred his steed forward in his eagerness to press on. The column of men fell in behind him, and in another minute, he had passed through the barrier, which proved to be no more than a hundred feet thick, though in width it was sufficient to seal off the valley.

"Press on! We'll make up the time lost. Double march!" He turned to command his men to follow and practically fell off his horse in astonishment. The men of the column gasped and shouted in consternation at the same time.

The forest had disappeared! Even as the footmen worked their way through the narrow tunnel, the tangled shrubbery blinked away. Making no sound, leaving no sign of its previous presence, everything from the greatest trees to the smallest thornbushes simply vanished, as if it had never been there at all.

"By the gods, man! What deviltry is this?" demanded the knight, pointing for the cleric's benefit.

Wentfeld looked momentarily nonplussed as he studied the transformation, but then the priest turned and squinted around the valley ahead of them. He saw no one-only a small ground squirrel that scampered out of the path of the approaching humans.

"It's not only sorcery, as I told you," Pryat Wentfeld explained, "but someone controls it-someone within our sight, for the dispelling was cast as it occurred."

"Find the varlet!" shouted Gwyeth, drawing and waving his sword over his head. "Form a skirmish line. Take him alive!" he shouted at his men.

The footmen drew their swords, except for the two dozen with crossbows, who held back from the others and covered their advance. Next the footmen moved into a well-spaced line across the narrow valley and partway up the steep and rocky sides. The formation slowed their progress considerably, but no person could have remained concealed in the path of the diligent search. Gradually they probed and prodded, combing the valley without success.

"He may well be gone already," said the cleric. "Or lurking on the heights, above our reach."

Gwyeth looked at the craggy slopes looming above them to either side and realized that Wentfeld spoke the truth. Still, having ordered his men into the search, he would not embarrass himself by revoking the order. Instead, he urged them forward with curses and abuse, trying to hurry them over the rough terrain.

A shout came from the far right of the line, and he urged his charger there at a gallop, hoping to find some sorcerous wretch in the grip of his men. Instead, he saw that the cry had come from a clumsy oaf who had scrambled too far up the steep wall in his search. He had fallen into a clump of rocks and now lay there moaning, with his leg jutting to the side at an unnatural angle.

"Fool!" roared Gwyeth, incensed at the further delay. "I am surrounded by idiots!"

Pryat Wentfeld went to the man and cast a healing spell, which straightened the broken leg enough that it could repair itself properly.

"It will be too weak for him to walk," the priest explained when he returned to Gwyeth. "And it would be premature to expend my healing magic for this accident."

Reluctantly Gwyeth agreed and ordered two men, both of whom accepted the assignment with obvious relief, to carry the injured man back to the cantrev. Already, he knew, it was well into the afternoon, and yet they had progressed only a quarter of the way up to the Moonwell.

"Now, move!" he bellowed, spurring his horse into a trot that would easily outdistance the trudging footmen. "Pick up your feet and march!" Wentfeld, the only other horseman, followed his brisk pace.

Several of the veterans among the men-at-arms added their own curses to the nobleman's orders, and slowly the column picked up speed, worming along the trail, the footmen marching with collars raised against the chill and wet. Many of the Ffolkmen cast headlong glances back at the place where the forest had stood. Those who had chopped their way through the tangle looked at the blisters on their hands where they had grasped axes and remembered their keen steel blades hacking into firm and unyielding wood, and they muttered under their breath about unnatural dangers.

For an hour, Gwyeth maintained the brutal pace, reining in when he got too far ahead and exhorting his troops with insults and invective. Finally the cleric drew up beside him and spoke, in a voice that carried to the knight's ears alone.

"My lord, they will be no good to you if they all collapse from exhaustion before we reach the well! We must allow them to rest and then resume at a more humane pace."

It took a supreme effort of Gwyeth's will to suppress his sudden anger toward the priest. After a moment of enforced, cool reflection, however, he realized that the man spoke the truth. In frustration, he looked before him.

The rocky valley curved to the right, and the gray clouds scudded past the granite tors that loomed to either side of the trail. The path here was smooth, albeit narrow. In several places, herdsmen in years past had cleared the brush on either side, and one of these clearings lay a hundred paces ahead, beside the valley's clear, shallow stream.

"We pause for water and a few moments rest!" Gwyeth announced, leading his men to the spot. "Check your weapons, here. Our next march will conclude at the Moonwell!"

Most of the troops flopped to the ground, while some of them knelt beside the brook that ran through the center of the valley. A number of men sat beside a great pile of sticks that had been piled at the edge of the clearing by whatever shepherd had cleared it in the past.

Gwyeth himself dismounted, removing his helmet and gauntlets to stretch and pace. The men-at-arms avoided him as much as possible, which suited the knight well.

A shout of alarm whipped his head around. He heard multiple screams of terror and saw a full score of his men leap to their feet and flee in panic, leaving their weapons on the ground. They were the men who had sat beside the pile of dried sticks.

But now that brush moved! Gwyeth gaped in shock as he saw a stick bend down with liquid suppleness and crawl onto the ground where the men had been sitting. Other sticks, too, slithered across the ground in a distinctive motion.

One man, who had lain flat on the ground with the chance to rest, now screamed and stumbled backward, a whiplike form lashing at his throat. He pulled it free and cast the hissing thing aside, then pitched forward onto the ground, gasping and gagging.

"Adders!" cried one of the men, stumbling as he fled and madly crawling away from the venomous serpents.

"Snakes-from sticks!" shrieked another.

"Cowards! Don't flee them! Fight!" cried Gwyeth, drawing his own sword and stepping to the nearest snake. The viper whipped itself into a menacing coil, hissing, its forked tongue flickering toward the knight, but the great broadsword chopped downward across the center of the coil, instantly slicing the snake into several pieces. The segments twitched and flailed for a moment, then grew still.

"They die if you strike them! Kill them, you curs!" he shouted, attacking and decapitating another of the serpents. A few of his men seized their own weapons, and in moments the snakes, which had numbered no more than a dozen or so, lay in many bleeding pieces on the ground.

Pryat Wentfeld rose from the still form of the man who had been bitten in the throat. "I can do nothing for him," the priest said grimly. "He is already dead."

"All gods curse this unnatural place!" growled Gwyeth as his men cast fearful glances among themselves. The armored warrior felt heat surge into his head as he struggled with the frustration of not knowing who attacked them and being unable to strike back.

Blood flushed Gwyeth's face as he looked at the rest of his shamefaced troops. His eyes bulged, and the force of his rage strangled his throat so that he couldn't shout, or else he would undoubtedly have invented new volumes of curses as his legacy to the tongue of the Ffolk.

"A druid seeks to stop us!" hissed one of his men, hiding behind a cluster of his fellows.

"Aye," grunted a seasoned veteran who had been a young man in the days when druids still had power in the land. He ignored Gwyeth's look of fury and continued courageously. "A forest that doesn't exist. . sticks that become snakes. These are the powers of a druid, my lord."

"He speaks the truth," said the cleric, placing a hand upon Gwyeth's shoulder. With the touch, the knight felt the fury drain from his body. Again he had control of his mouth and his tongue. Though he remained angry, rage no longer held him in full control.

"This is part of the charlatanry!" Gwyeth said firmly. "Whatever power has created the illusory restoration of the well now seeks to make us believe that a druid has returned to menace us!"

"It's also true," said the priest, addressing the men in support of their captain, "that other clerics may gain powers similar to these in many respects. This is no proof that a druid has returned!"

The cleric lowered his voice, however, when he concluded to Gwyeth. "Still, this is evidence that we face someone of more than ordinary ability."

Gwyeth cast a scornful look over the sullen faces of his men. Many, he saw, gazed mournfully down the valley, and he knew that they regretted their presence here and longed to return home. One lost to a broken leg, and now a man killed by an Abyss-cursed viper! And not a blow struck in their own defense!

"The first man who deserts me will suffer the sting of the lash!" he blustered. "And the next one will be hanged for cowardice! Now form a column, you craven dogs. We'll march up to that stinking pond and see this curse removed!"

Gwyeth mounted quickly, but even propelled by the kicks and curses of the veterans, his men-at-arms were slow to take their formation on the trail. Gwyeth tried to ignore the dark looks of anger and fear that he saw on their faces. He didn't care how they felt about this mission, only that they remained with him until its conclusion.

Finally the men were ready. The cleric rode behind the knight, since the trail was too narrow for more than one horse, and Gwyeth drew his sword as a precaution. Then, peering suspiciously into the heights around them and up as much of the length of the trail before them as he could see, he urged his charger forward and led his men along the next stretch of the march to the Moonwell.

The light of dawn barely penetrated the rainy shore of Salmon Bay. The city of Gnarhelm bustled, however, with lanterns and torches sputtering in the dampness. Crates and barrels, plus a cluster of humanity, occupied the dock and the longship moored beside it.

Brandon directed his crew with precision, and the loading of provisions into the Gullwing was quickly completed. The prince had selected some sixty warriors for the voyage, with Knaff the Elder to man the helm. The firbolgs Yak, Loinwrap, and Beaknod willingly joined the crew. Alicia, Tavish, and Keane would also accompany them. Brandon had found it necessary to roughly overrule some superstitious grumbling from men who feared the presence of the women would bring bad luck.

"Well, I'm ready for a little salt air," announced Tavish, winking at Alicia. The bard busily tuned her harp while the pair boarded the vessel and stood near the stern.

The princess frowned, irritated. "Still, they let the firbolgs sail without complaint! I'm annoyed that it took an order to get them to accept you and me!"

"We're here, anyway-and who knows, maybe they would have done us a favor by leaving us behind," replied the bard in that confounded good humor. "Perhaps there's something else that's bothering you."

The princess sighed, casting a look at the commanding figure of the Prince of Gnarhelm. "Aye, Auntie, indeed there is. He probably assumes I agree with his 'proposal' because I haven't said anything. Proposal? It sounded like he was talking about a diplomatic treaty!"

"Relax, child," Tavish noted, her eyes glimmering with amusement. "It probably hasn't occurred to him yet that you have anything to say about the matter."

"He'll find out otherwise when this is all over," the princess noted grimly.

Keane, his expression glum, climbed over the gunwale and took a seat beside the mast. Quickly the crew scrambled aboard. Alicia avoided Brandon by going to sit beside the mage as the young prince ordered his men to oars and rigging. She knew, however, that sooner or later she and Brandon would be forced into proximity. She found that her anger over his arrogant proposal had soothed somewhat, but she didn't want to risk conversation on the topic until their mission was concluded.

The ebbing tide carried them silently away from the dock, where the king and many other bearded captains and warriors watched solemnly. The oars dipped in smooth cadence, propelling the sleek vessel through the choppy waters of the bay.

After a time, Tavish strummed a tentative chord on her harp, and then another. In a few minutes, her fingers began to bounce about the strings, and powerful music filled the air. Yet, the princess knew, it was more than music flowing from the unadorned instrument. Indeed, a feeling of celebration and joy surrounded the ship.

The bard herself looked surprised as the sounds of power rang through the Gullwing.

"The harp from Cymrych Hugh," murmured Keane.

"An artifact of magic," Alicia agreed.

"In the hands of one who can work its sorcery very well."

The crewmen, hearts swelled by the song, strained at their oars. The longship raced across the bay, easily breasting the high waves that indicated the nearness of the open sea.

As soon as the Gullwing passed beyond the sheltered waters of Salmon Bay, the relentless and powerful Sea of Moonshae began its assault. The storm winds of Talos heaved against the surf, and rain swept from the skies, backed by the force of a developing gale.

"Can you make headway in this weather?" Alicia asked of Brandon, who had come to stand beside her at the mast. Above them, the sail remained furled, while the oarsmen strained at their benches. In the stern, Tavish still played, and the music gave the men strength.

"It's no worse than any summer storm," he reassured her, but she detected something in the narrow set of his eyes.

"But it's not just any storm, is it?"

The prince met her eyes shrewdly. "You sense it, too, then?" he asked.

"There's a power behind it that seeks to thwart us-that much I can feel. But what power? And can we prevail?"

Brandon nodded his head slowly. "The Gullwing is the finest ship in Gnarhelm, and I've picked the most able crew. If the force of the gale doesn't increase, I'm confident."

"And if it does?"

"We'll make our prayers to Valkur the Mighty and sail all the harder!" he exclaimed. Alicia sensed little bravado but much determination in the northman's words.

Alicia looked at the expanse of surging sea and wished for a moment that she had faith enough in some deity to allow her to pray. Though she remembered the sudden vitality of the Moonwell, that transformation seemed remote and irrelevant now. It hadn't changed her life; she had seen no further evidence that the goddess was a real presence in the world. She shivered and looked at the twin silver bracers spiraling about her forearms. The metal chilled her skin uncomfortably.

Keane joined her, catching himself on the mast to keep his balance in the pitching, rolling hull. The mage came from the gunwale, where he had just deposited the remnants of their previous evening's dinner over the side. His thin face was cast in a sickly shade of green, but Keane had impressed Alicia by his lack of complaint thus far into the voyage.

"I've always enjoyed a pleasant cruise on a sheltered sea," he informed them, trying unsuccessfully to conceal his chagrin.

"Splendid sailing weather!" boomed Brandon, clapping the slim Ffolkman on the back, a gesture which almost sent Keane lurching back to the rail.

Despite the northman's heartiness, which seemed somewhat forced to the princess, even Alicia's unpracticed eye could see that the swells grew higher and higher as they pressed toward the south. Gray mountains of water loomed over the bow, seemingly ready to swamp the craft, yet somehow the sleek figurehead rose into each precipitous crest and carried the ship smoothly to the top.

There the Gullwing teetered on the breaking summit, white water foaming all around them, and then she tipped forward to careen with dizzying velocity into the trough between the heaving swells. Though the vessel stretched nearly a hundred feet in length, the waves rose or lowered her as if she were a mere cork bobbing in the brine.

"Stroke, you fainthearted wretches!" called Knaff from his position at the stern. The oarsmen redoubled their efforts, and Alicia saw the old warrior turn and bark something to Tavish, who sat beside him. His words were inaudible over the pounding of the sea, but the princess heard the music of the bard's harp, louder than ever, fill the ship with renewed strength and determination.

A gray wall of water rose suddenly, and tons of the icy sea poured over the bow, soaking Alicia and the others as it thundered the length of the hull. The ship wallowed and slowed, growing sluggish, as yet another, higher, wave loomed before the sea gull figurehead.

All the northmen not straining at the oars seized buckets and frantically started bailing the water over the side. Alicia joined them, while Keane clung to the mast, his teeth clenched, his greenish cheeks taut with determination.

The mage fumbled in his pouch as the wave began to break, reaching with greedy fingers of foam to embrace the craft as the vessel nearly foundered. Keane finally removed that which he sought-two tiny squares of crystal. He raised them, pinched between his fingers, as the water crashed downward toward the open hull of the Gullwing.

"Dividius! Arcani-tuloth!" He cried the enchantment as the crew bailed and Brandon looked fiercely upward at the angry spume that threatened to doom his ship.

Keane shattered the two crystals with a snap of his fingers, and abruptly, magically, the frothing barrier parted before the Gullwing's prow. A trough appeared, slicing as if a knife divided the great wave, and the longship slipped through while the swell collapsed into a maelstrom on either side.

Brandon turned to regard the passenger, his face a mask of shock, but Keane took no notice. Instead he stared forward, where gray swells-all of them capped with angry caps of foam-stretched to the far horizon.

And as the mage concentrated, the waves before them parted, and though heaving swells still tossed and smashed on each side of them, a narrow, straight gap had been carved in the sea.

Along this sleek highway, the Gullwing sprang forward as if the ship herself felt the exhilaration of the wizard's triumph.

"Lady Deirdre! Earl Blackstone! What is the trouble? Are you hurt?" The demanding questions were accompanied by persistent pounding on the doors of the Great Hall. The princess recognized the voice as belonging to young Arlen, the castle's burly sergeant-at-arms.

Deirdre blinked, looking quickly from Malawar to Blackstone. The latter still gaped at the place where the intruder's body had disappeared. The former looked mildly at the confused, hesitating princess, and finally he spoke.

"You must send him away, my dear, but reassuringly."

She nodded dumbly, but then her mind began to work.

"All is well, Sergeant," she called, pleased that her voice sounded level and calm. "It was a mild commotion, but the matter is concluded." She crossed to the doors and lowered her voice. "And please, Arlen, I would desire that you keep this matter in your confidence. No harm has been done."

"As you wish, my lady." The sergeant's voice quite clearly indicated that the resolution was not as he wished. Nevertheless, she heard him order several other men-at-arms away. She pictured the strapping warrior taking the position as door guard himself, and she knew that she could trust him not to intrude.

"He-he was dead! It's the same man… but I saw him die! I killed him!" Blackstone recovered his voice, but the brawny earl's tone quavered as his words groped for some kind of understanding. He pointed at the spot where the man had vanished, and they all saw that no spot-no mark of any kind-indicated the place.

"He seemed to be quite alive," said Malawar dryly. "Perhaps you are confused as to his identity."

"But … he sounded the same, said the same sort of things!" Blackstone shook his head, then looked up. "Of course, though. . you must be right. He was dead. . "

The earl turned to look at Deirdre, his eyes wide. "How, lady, did you slay him? What power do you have?"

For the first time, the princess recalled the explosion of might with which she had taken a life. The memory frightened her, yet the sense of triumph gave her a strange thrill as well.

"It-it comes from within me," she stammered.

"You have summoned the Bolt of Talos, an enchantment controlled by the will of a very potent sorceress," Malawar explained. The priest turned to Deirdre and placed his hands upon her shoulders. "Now, my dear," he declared, "you must tend to your country."

"Raise an army?" she asked reluctantly.

"Any further delay could be disastrous," he observed. "You know that the northmen are on the march!"

"I'll notify the lord generals," she said. "They'll have all the cantrevs mustered. It'll take a few days."

"The captains will do quite well," the priest noted. "You can be certain that the war will begin with a vigorous attack."

"I'm concerned about my cantrev," Blackstone announced. "I have to be there in case that column comes over the mountain."

"Yes," agreed Malawar. "You should go."

"Can you stay here for a time?" Deirdre asked Malawar. "As a guest of the castle? I have chambers that are ready even as we speak. You'd be very comfortable."

"I don't doubt that in the least, my lady. But, alas, comfort is not a luxury I can currently afford. No, I have to leave you. There are other matters to which I must attend. I will return to you before the moment of decision."

"As you will," Deirdre concluded unhappily. Before she had completed the last word, her mysterious companion had faded to nothing before her eyes.

"I hate it when he does that!" growled Blackstone, gesturing at the place where Malawar had disappeared. "It gives me the shivers, thinking he might be anywhere, whenever he wants to be there!"

Deirdre paid little attention. Instead, she stared at the place where Malawar had been and thought about the eternal hours that must pass before she would see him again.

Darkness of his second night in the highlands found Hanrald seeking shelter in a low vale protected from wind and rain only by the craggy tors on all sides. During his wanderings since the death of his horse and the fight with the trolls, the knight had realized that he was totally lost.

A small, dark pond indicated the possibility of fish. Hanrald, who had grown up in country well-laced with trout streams, was able to tickle a fat rainbow from the water by lying very still above an overhanging bank and holding his hand in the water. When one of the trout unknowingly swam across his fingers, he flipped it out of the water and quickly bashed its head on a rock.

No trees grew in his rocky vale, but he found enough dried brush to build a small fire. He decided that if his fish could not be called cooked, neither was it entirely raw-and never had he enjoyed a meal so much.

Leaning back against the rock that he would use as his pillow, the knight placed his drawn sword across his lap, where he could raise it with an instant's notice. He stared at the fading embers of his fire, and his mind turned-as it did so often-to the Princess Alicia.

Where was she? During his days of wandering, Hanrald had become convinced that she would no longer be found in the highlands. Nevertheless, he had no regrets about making his impetuous search, for during this time, he had clarified much in his own mind. Solitude, he decided, did that for a man. It allowed his mind to look at things with a clarity that was often denied by the bustle of society.

Foremost among his realizations had been a full understanding of his own loyalty. He was devoted to his king, and if this meant a betrayal of his own family, then so be it. Such a betrayal could only come about because of treachery on his father's part, and Hanrald felt fairly certain that such treachery figured prominently in the earl's plans.

The knight's thoughts turned to his father, the Earl of Fairheight. Since Hanrald's first awareness, he remembered striving to please the man, but always he fell short of Blackstone's harsh goals. The older Currag and Gwyeth, dark and brooding like the earl, had been his father's favorites in everything.

Gradually, however, the young knight had realized that the differences between them ran much deeper. Of course he had heard the rumors spread by the servants and old guardsmen, the claims that the earl's wife had been unfaithful and Hanrald was not his true son after all. But he had always dismissed that speculation as mere gossip, else he couldn't imagine why Blackstone would have raised him in the manor. His wife, after all, had died in the act of bearing Hanrald.

Now he wondered if the tale might not have some credence after all. The differences between himself and his brother and father seemed so profound that perhaps they required an explanation such as this. Not in a physical sense, of course-Hanrald had inherited his fairness and blue eyes from his mother but morally. How could they be men of the same stock?

His musings were interrupted as he caught sight of a sudden brightness in the night, a gleaming spot of light that appeared and then as quickly vanished. Hanrald's hands clenched around the hilt of his massive sword, and he slowly rose to his feet. He could see nothing through the darkness, and even his fire was now a mere bowl of cherry-red embers.

But he felt something out there, and a shiver passed along his spine. There! He saw it again, this time a pair of spots, yellowish green and glowing dimly in the faint, reflected light of his pathetic fire. The glowing points were close together, unmistakably the eyes of a large animal.

Hanrald bent his knees, holding the sword before him in a fighting crouch, expecting momentarily that some horror would come lunging from the darkness to tear at his throat. He intended that the beast would meet its death on his blade before its slavering jaws ever got close to his neck.

He heard a movement behind him and looked around, but all was darkness. Nevertheless, his senses began to confirm that he faced more than one of these creatures. Indeed, by listening and remaining perfectly still, he slowly discerned the truth.

He was surrounded.

Dark shapes moved on all sides of him, more than he could count. He heard heavy breathing, sensed stealthy footpads approaching. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his sword.

If he had come here only to die, so be it. None would say that he had not fallen like a man and knight, with his sword in his hand and the bodies of his enemies scattered around him.

Beneath a heavy cloak of dark cloud, soaked by chill, persistent rain, Danrak plodded the last few steps back to the Moonwell. Finally the milky glow of the enchanted pool rose in the night before him, and he collapsed on the rocky ground, exhausted. Several children-pilgrims, like their parents and the hundred others who now rested here-approached and offered the druid a hatful of ripe berries, which he ate with relish.

Gwyeth and the column from Blackstone wouldn't reach the well tonight, he knew. The young lord had called a halt to the march after darkness completely masked the trail. Nevertheless, they were only a few miles away, and it wouldn't be long after daylight before they reached the Moonwell.

The druid had to admit that he was at a loss as to how he could further delay them. The spells he had cast today had each come from his talismans, and he knew they had been effective in delaying the men. But how could he expect to do more?

The hallucinatory forest and the sticks-to-snakes castings had demoralized the force early in its march. Then he had used a heat metal spell, which had caused the knight and his leading warriors to cast down their weapons and tear off their gauntlets before their skin burned. Finally he had employed a raise water enchantment, which had caused the stream to flood the men's camp just after they built their supper fires, while their long-awaited dinners cooked. He knew that it was a very wet, cold, and disgusted group of men that now bedded down in the mud.

But still he didn't see how he could stop them in the morning. His remaining talismans gave him abilities that could frighten or injure some of them, and he might even slay one or two, but with a hundred men-at-arms marching this way, he may as well have faced an unstoppable tide.

"Here, my son. Have some broth."

The voice was faint, but he looked up to see the stooped figure of the crone he had helped earlier. His troubles felt less burdensome as she sat beside him and handed him a chipped cup containing a hearty soup of vegetables and fish.

"Thank you, Grandmother," he said, and she beamed at the term of affection and respect.

"You will stop them," she said softly. Again he saw those toothless gums as her face split into a wide grin, "I know you will, even if you do not believe it yourself!"

He laughed and allowed the warmth of the soup to flow through his body and revitalize his muscles. As he leaned back to sleep, he found himself hoping that the old woman was right.

Hanrald stayed awake through the long, dark night, sensing the presence of the creatures lurking just beyond his vision. His hands grew cramped around the hilt of his sword, but he dared not release the weapon for fear he wouldn't have time to snatch it up again in the event of an attack.

Above the clouds, the moon glowed full, though no trace of its light seeped through to the ground. The creatures surrounding the knight sensed it, however, and as the bright orb reached its zenith, they greeted its ascendance with their song.

As the howling of the hounds rose around him, some of the man's tension eased. He knew the sound, and now he knew the nature of his nocturnal visitors.

And no longer did he fear them.

King Sythissal crawled reluctantly onto the shore. He ignored the wind-lashed rain that spattered against him, for his displeasure had nothing to do with physical discomfort. Indeed, to one used to the depths of the sea, the climate here was uncomfortable more for its dryness than anything else.

Rather, the sahuagin king bemoaned the fact that he must present himself to Gotha and report an initial failure. Even as he reached the mouth of the great cave, the huge shape of the dracolich loomed before him.

"O most iniquitous master!" cried the king, prostrating his scaled body on the rocks of the cavern mouth.

"Speak, fish!" commanded the serpent.

"Our task on Grayrock was incomplete," reported Sythissal. "The day following our attack, a boat set sail from the island."

"Your warriors intercepted it, I presume," replied the dracolich softly.

"We discovered the craft when it reached the line of my scouts."

"And it was attacked there?" inquired the monstrous undead figure.

"Alas, execrable one!" wailed Sythissal. "They sailed with great speed, as if some sorcery propelled them! My scouts could not match their pace, and so the ship passed our first line of defense!"

"They could not reach the hull?" wondered Gotha, his voice calm but his tone skeptical.

"Through the Deepsong, they sent word that the ship passed by before they could even draw close. I hastened here with all speed to let your mightiness know of this news!"

"What course do they sail?" inquired the dragon, puffing a blast of flame over the sahuagin's head that singed uncomfortably close to the spines bristling along the piscine monarch's back.

"They mark for Alaron," explained the cringing creature of the deep.

"Then I shall go to Alaron and kill them. Return to your brine, fish, and gather your warriors! We attack with all haste! Further failure will not be tolerated!"

"But of course, loathsome lizard!" The sahuagin wasted no time in scuttling down from the rocky hill and diving into the sheltering sea.

In the meantime, the great dragon body emerged from its lair, and the decayed wings stretched wide. With a powerful spring, the creature hurled himself into the air, ignoring the rain that lashed at him and the wind that would have driven a lesser creature back to earth.

With sweeping strokes, Gotha gained altitude until the gray mist surrounded him. He flew through a blinding fog, but the evil of Talos guided him. For hours, he soared to the southeast, breasting the storm clouds and ignoring the frequent squalls of rain that doused him. Finally his instincts told him to descend.

As the great serpent emerged beneath the clouds, dusk had begun to darken the already storm-shrouded ocean. But the creature saw a foaming wake before him, and at its head, propelled by driving oars, a sleek longship pressed through the sea along a straight, unnatural trough in the water.

But not for long, the dracolich reflected, with an evil chuckle. Tucking his wings, Gotha nosed forward into a killing dive.

From the Log of Sinioth:

No! The truth comes to me now, in the depths of my meditation: It is the Moonwell! There is where the threat to Talos lies, festering subtly while my master sends his agents hastening to their tasks!

I see it: The gold-bedazzled cleric of Helm knows the truth when I, the eyes of Talos himself, am blind! Real power grows there, and it looms as a threat to all our plans, for if the Ffolk know of the rebirth of their goddess, all our efforts will fail. My crop of chaos needs a spiritually weakened, angrily divided people as its sowing ground.

Kaffa serves me well, bringing his longship up the western coast of Alaron. He nears Olafstaad, and he may serve as my sentinel there, proof against the intrusion of the northmen. I am pleased at my own foresight. The tri-bolt charm protecting his ship will render him invulnerable to attacks of magic.

I need to summon Larth and his riders and the great dracolich. They must make for the Moonwell with all haste. Finally there is the young princess of Callidyrr. She is power, waiting to erupt.

And it is time for me to light the fuse.