Joel finished his song. The skunk looked up at him expectantly. Joel began another song. Then he addressed the skunk in its own animal tongue.
When Jedidiah had taught the bard to charm and speak to animals, they had practiced on a cat. "You should charm the animal first before speaking with it," Jedidiah had explained, "because charming it gets the animal's attention. Especially cats. They're notoriously bad listeners." With a skunk, Joel figured, charm was essential, since it kept the animal calm. The conversation with the skunk was similar to the one Joel had with the cat. Simple. Very simple.
"This is my food," the skunk said.
"It's your food," Joel agreed.
"Do you want some?" the skunk asked. It was, after all, enchanted by the bard.
"No thank you," Joel replied. "I'm just passing through."
"Too bad. There's plenty of food here."
"Unless some bad creature comes and takes it away," Joel agreed.
"What bad creature?" the skunk asked. "Some big, hairy howling thing following me and my mates," Joel explained. "Maybe after we pass, you should spray our trail. That will keep him away. Then he won't steal your food."
"Good idea," the skunk said.
"I'm leaving now, with my mates. There is no need to be alarmed when we pass," Joel said.
'"Bye," the skunk said, and returned to chewing on the deer carcass.
Joel motioned for Jas and Holly to keep behind him as he passed the skunk. Both women crept past, holding their breath, keeping Joel between them and the skunk.
"Don't forget to spray our trail," Joel called.
"I won't," the skunk answered.
When they'd put several hundred yards between them and the skunk, Jas burst out, "What were you doing?"
"You spoke with it, didn't you?" Holly guessed. Joel nodded. "You can never have too many friends in low places," he replied with a grin.
"Why did you speak to it?" Jas demanded. "It's a skunk, for gods' sake."
"I had to warn it about the big, hairy howling thing," Joel explained. "It's going to spray the trail behind us."
Holly laughed aloud. Even Jas grinned.
The creature howled again, and their smiles faded. The adventurers continued on. They turned and twisted down several different animal paths and trudged along some streambeds, yet the howling didn't seem to fade in the distance. After another hour of hiking with tired feet and the sound of the beast behind them, their nerves were beginning to fray.
"Shut up already," Jas growled back down the trail, as if the beast might hear her.
"I wonder why it hasn't caught up with us yet," Joel muttered.
"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.