"If it's really some sort of hunting hound," Holly said, "it knows better. It's job is to harry us until its master gets here."
"But the riders had to detour to cross the river," Joel remembered. "So it's deliberately hanging back."
Time to go on the offensive," Jas declared.
"I think so," Holly agreed.
Jas did a quick air foray to locate the beast. She returned in a very short while.
"It's rolling in the grass about a mile back, as if it were trying to rub something off," the winged woman reported. "I think your little black and white friend got it but good."
"But not enough to put it off our scent," Holly noted. "How interesting."
Quickly they planned their attack. Jas flew off with Holly, and Joel hurried back down the trail at a loping gait toward the beast. When he'd reached the hedgerow bordering the field where Jas had said he'd find the beast, he stopped and ducked down.
Taking a deep breath, he began to sing Cassana's lament from the opera Wizards in Love. He sang the sorceress's part in falsetto, then shifted to the tenor range to sing the part of the whiny lich Zrie Prakis. As the bard went into the song's finale, he knew the beast had taken the bait. He could smell the creature's approach. Jas had guessed correctly. The skunk had gotten him.
The smell made breathing difficult, but Joel kept singing, as if he were oblivious to the beast creeping up on him. The bard fervently hoped Jas's timing would not be off.
Something on the other side of the hedgerow growled.
Joel sprang to his feet and spun around with his sword raised.
A great black beast sprang over the hedgerow, lunging for the bard's throat. In that moment, Jas, still holding Holly, dropped on the creature, delivering it a resounding kick in the head with plenty of weight behind it. The beast shook its head as if stunned, but it didn't fall. The winged woman and the paladin separated the moment they came to the ground. Holly rolled to her feet in an instant and launched a crossbow bolt into the beast's chest.
The creature turned to face the paladin. Holly gasped. Jas slashed at the beast's arm and managed to draw blood. Joel finished intoning his spell song and pointed at the creature. The hedgerow behind the beast grew and began to snake outward. In five heartbeats, it had entangled the beast's feet, legs, waist, and finally its hairy chest and arms. It was an exceptionally thick hedgerow, and the beast's furious struggles were in vain.
"Bear?" Holly whispered.
"No, it's not a bear," Jas said. "It looks almost human, except for that snout… a really hairy human. It's got fingers but no tail. Maybe it's some sort of half-ogre."
Joel drew closer, despite the stench of skunk that covered the creature. "Bear!" the bard gasped, just barely able to recognize the huge man's features, despite the distortion of his face into a wolflike snout.
"Why is it wearing a steel eye patch?" Jas asked.
"Because it was once a man with one eye," Holly said. "It is you, isn't it, Bear?" the paladin asked.
The creature snarled at the paladin. Then, in a gravelly voice, it's mouth twisting horribly, it replied, "You will… die, paladin. This is all your… f-fault, bitch." The words came out slowly and not very clearly, as if Bear was having trouble pronouncing them.
"What?" Holly asked, confused by the accusation. "How did you get this way, Bear?"
"I offered you and the… priest of Finder… to Iyachtu Xvim. If you are not both sacri-f-f-sacrificed with the new moon, my life is… forfeit," the beast-man said. "The priest I serve gave me the power to track you down so that I might live."
"Can they change you back?" Holly asked.
"Who cares?" Jas asked. "Just slay him and let's get going."
"The spell that transformed me took away the light of my humanity… f-forever," Bear growled. "I am all darkness now. Pure. F-F-Favored of Iyachtu Xvim."
"You see now why I avoid gods," Jas muttered to Joel.
Bear's one good eye gleamed with madness. "You will all… die in pain and humiliation. I can taste your souls and… feel your power wherever your f-feet have touched the earth," the enchanted man boasted. "I might have lost your trail when you flew across the river… but for the power of the fourth one. I can sense the fourth one… from miles away."
"The fourth one?" Jas asked. "Who's he talking about?"
Holly's eyes scanned the meadow carefully.
"Do you mean Walinda of Bane?" Joel asked, wondering if the priestess were following them to exact some sort of revenge.
Bear gave a braying laugh. "No. The fourth one who travels beside you… is more powerful than any godless priestess. The fourth one's power… is far greater even than our high priest, the Ruinlord. When I bring the fourth one to sacrifice… my god will elevate me above even the Ruinlord."
Jas shifted nervously. "He's crazy. There is no fourth one," she declared. "Is there?"
Bear writhed in the enchanted hedgerow, struggling to free himself. When he found he could not, he gave an ear-piercing howl.
"Stop that!" Jas ordered, leveling the point of her sword at Bear's throat.
From far off came the sound of a hunting horn.
Bear howled again, louder and longer.
"Shut up!" Jas shouted.
Bear's howls became frantic.
Jas shoved her sword into the beast-man's neck and sliced his windpipe. The howling stopped. Bear's shoulders slumped forward. Only the hedgerow held him up.
Joel looked at Jas, horrified at how quickly she had taken the beast-man's life.
"You didn't have to do that!" Holly objected, whirling angrily on the winged woman.
"Don't be a fool," Jas snapped. "His only reason for being was to bring us to our death. Now we can all sleep at night."
The hunting horn sounded again.
"Come on, Holly," Joel said softly, laying his hand on the paladin's back. "We have to get going."
"Damned right," Jas said. She strode off back down the path they'd come.
Joel and Holly followed behind her.
"Joel, suppose Bear wasn't crazy? Suppose there is a fourth one? Who could it be?" the girl asked.
"Holly, I haven't a clue," the bard admitted. "Let's keep moving."
By nightfall, they'd reached the foothills of the Desertsmouth Mountains. They were considering where they should make camp for the night when they spotted something glowing softly somewhere to the south. The light was an unnatural violet color.
"It's Giant's Craw," Holly said excitedly.
"Is that good or bad?" Jas asked.
"It's a rock," the paladin explained, "with faerie fire cast on it. It marks the entrance to a valley. Giants used to live there, waylaying caravans, until Lord Randal drove them out. It's supposed to be a lovely valley, teeming with game."
"Sounds like a good place to find breakfast," Joel said.
They made their way deeper into the foothills until they'd reached the magical stone. It was a great hexagonal pillar of ebony basalt, as tall as a giant, polished to a smooth finish.
Holly put her back against the west side of the rock and slid down to the ground with a blissful smile. "This is where I'm sleeping," she said.
Jas eyed the stone warily. She settled down a few yards away.
Joel took first watch. He sat with his back against the east side of the stone and watched the waning moon rise in the east. It was like a dying ember, and Selune's Tears, the tiny lights that trailed after it, were like sparks. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next night, would mark the new moon, when the Xvimists would have sacrificed Holly, Jas, and him. He wondered if Bear's death would be enough to placate the bloodthirsty god of the priest of Xvim and his Zhent followers, and if they would abandon the hunt now. Joel doubted it, but with their hound dead, the Xvimists and Zhents could be outwitted. At least Joel hoped so.
The bard's thoughts returned uneasily to Bear's claim that he sensed a fourth person traveling with them. Joel puzzled over who it could be. Someone with power. Absolutely no one came to mind. Joel shook his head. Perhaps Jas was right. Bear had been maddened by his transformation and sensed someone who wasn't there.