She, Faro, and Ware traded glances as the party got back into their accustomed marching order. Ware shrugged, and Faro shook his head. It seemed fairly obvious that neither of them knew what to make of this place. Well, neither did she.
She looked back at the smooth sand where the bridge had been. There was no going back, that was for certain. Not that she had ever expected that choice.
With a resigned sigh, she gave the order to move forward.
The sun continued to shine down upon them, but now the mist that rose ahead of them seemed to be hazing the sun over as well. It was not quite so hot, and the light had a kind of shifting quality, as if there were ghostly shadows passing overhead constantly. That made Xylina uneasy, but when nothing came of these odd shades, she ignored them. The going was a lot harder than it looked; the wagons were not built for this kind of uneven ground, and there were places beneath the sand where wagon-wheels lodged without warning. Often, they had to stop and lift a wheel over a particular obstacle. She tried to gauge their progress, and finally guessed that by the time they reached the place where the mist began and the terrain changed again, it would be near nightfall.
So far, only the land itself seemed to be fighting them, she thought, wondering if this was luring her into a feeling of relative safety that was in no way justified. Still, this was enough. They couldn't go more than three lengths without getting stuck.
But her suspicion proved to be correct. It was at one of these halts, as the men struggled to pry one of the wagon-wheels from between two rocks where it had gotten stuck, that the seemingly harmless landscape revealed another of its perils.
This was the first time they had come so near one of the purple stick-trees, for Xylina had simply not cared for the look of them. Once again, the men heaved at the wagon to get it out of a crevice between two boulders, and as the wheel finally broke free, one of the men scrambled back to within a few paces of the thing.
Xylina did not even see a movement; one moment the man was laughing and joking with his fellows, and the next, he was screaming in agony. A long purple tentacle coming from the top of the "tree" tried to drag him into the grasp of several more emerging from the ends of the branches.
The man who had been caught was clearly in terrible pain, and not just screaming from fear. The other slaves were equally divided between running to his rescue and backing away. The tentacle was wrapped several times around the man's waist and arm, trapping his sword against his body. The men going to his rescue eyed the other tentacles, eagerly waving, as if the tree was hoping they would come within reach. One dashed forward to slash at the tentacle dragging the captive in, but his sword simply bounced off, leaving the tentacle unharmed.
Xylina did not even stop to think-she simply acted.
Before the man had been dragged more than a cubit, she conjured a huge slab of stone right beside the "tree"-a slab she had created purposely off-balance. The moment she released her magic, it toppled over onto the "tree," crushing it.
The tentacle released the slave instantly, dropping off of him like so much limp, wet rope-but he collapsed where he was, moaning in pain, unable to move. The rest of the men now gathered around him, until Faro called them to alert, with sharp orders.
"Let the mistress tend to him!" he snapped. "Hellfire! This would be a perfect time to pick us all off! Get your rears back to duty!"
As Xylina jumped from her mule and went to see to the hapless victim, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he passed out. As she knelt beside him, she saw that where the tentacle had been there were red marks, where the skin was blistered and peeling back, as if he had been burned by a length of wire rope heated red-hot and wrapped around him.
Ware was there beside her as she examined the slave.
His pupils were contracted to pinpoints, and he showed no sign of consciousness; his breathing was irregular, and so was his heartbeat. The demon took the man's arm in his hands and examined it minutely, then pointed to a series of regular red dots in the center of the "burned" stripes.
"Puncture-marks," Ware said succinctly. "He has been injected with some kind of poison."
Xylina looked at him for further advice, but he could only shake his head. Clearly, he knew nothing more than that. There was no way of knowing what, if anything, might be the antidote.
"Put him on the wagon," Xylina ordered the three wagon-drivers, wishing there was something else she could do. But without knowing the poison or its effects, there really was nothing else. He would either live or die as the poison and his own strength dictated. She recognized him as Kyle, one of the discarded husbands, and sighed. This seemed a sad end for one who had once been some woman's pampered favorite. "Make him as comfortable as you can; wash his wounds with clear water, and bandage him with soft cloths and the burn-salve."
The drivers hastened to do her bidding, and poor Kyle was soon cushioned among the bags of grain and the men's personal belongings, moaning occasionally in pain as the lurching of the wagon jostled him. Pattée appeared, tending to him, and that seemed to help.
The rest of the men gave the purple trees a wide berth thereafter.
Despite their best efforts, Kyle died before they could reach the next territory. That left her with a problem. Xylina was not certain what to do about the body. Custom dictated that a mere slave need only be left for scavengers, but somehow she felt that was hardly right. The men watched her closely, as if waiting for her to make some kind of error-and she sensed that the "error" would be in dumping Kyle and his belongings on the ground for beasts and birds to quarrel over. Finally she told the men who were about to remove the body to wrap it in some hastily-conjured material and move it from the property-wagon to the weapons-wagon.
"We will give him proper-ah-treatment when we halt," she said, at their inquiring looks. The looks of question turned, she thought, to looks of approval before the slaves turned to their sad task. She conjured enough material to shroud him in a cocoon that made him look less like a body and more like a parcel. That quelled some of her own unease. She had not known much about Kyle, and yet she was indirectly the cause of his death-and that made her feel rather guilty, although she did not know why.
They halted at the very edge of the "rock-garden," in a relatively smooth place, completely free of the purple trees. The mist had retreated at this point, and it was possible to see the landscape beyond, the new territory they would face in the morning. This was a kind of forest, but a forest of huge leaves, as if kale or spinach had decided to grow as tall as an oak. Nothing more could be seen but the plants, and that itself was hardly comforting. Anything could be hiding in there-and probably was.
Xylina created the kind of rock-slab enclosure she had used in Sylva to protect their privacy, but this time she took care to make it proof against as many things as she could imagine. With luck, this would be enough for the night. She left one slab out, so that the others could bring the body of Kyle outside the stockade. She did not look at the grass-forest; there was no point in courting trouble before it came calling.