“But not with us,” Alias said.
If you don’t tell him, Dragonbait signed, he won’t know. And we need her.
“No, we don’t,” Alias growled. “You promised Akabar you’d look after her. Suppose she gets hurt chasing after us in the wild. Have you considered that?”
Zhara isn’t helpless, Dragonbait signed.
Alias sighed. “If you say so,” she said, resigned. She turned back to her horse and remounted.
Just then Breck came back down along the trail, looking for them. “What’s keeping you?” he demanded. “I’ve found the place where the beast crossed over.”
“I had to pick a pebble out of my horse’s shoe,” Alias lied.
“Is the horse all right?” the ranger asked.
Alias nodded. “Let’s go,” she said, anxious that Breck should not spot the light in the ravine.
Breck turned his mount around. Suddenly he pulled the horse still. “What was that?” he asked.
“What was what?” Alias asked.
“Over there,” Breck said, pointing. “A bright light, like a fireball.” To Alias’s relief, his point indicated, not the ravine where Zhara’s light shone, but a spot on the southwest horizon.
Alias scanned the sky for several moments. “I don’t see anything,” she said.
“Wait awhile,” Breck replied.
Alias fidgeted nervously. If they waited too long, Zhara would make her way across the ravine and stumble on them. Then there would really be an explosion from Breck. “Maybe it was just a shooting star,” Alias suggested, “or the campfire of some other adventurer.”
Breck shook his head. He sat patiently, watching the dark horizon for another three minutes. Alias signaled hastily to Dragonbait to keep an eye on the rear, then turned back to the ranger.
“There!” Breck said, pointing once again to the same spot.
“It looks like a fire,” Alias said, surprised. “A big one.”
“It’s Grypht,” Breck announced.
“How do you know?” Alias asked disbelievingly.
“It’s him. I feel it. We’ll follow that light.”
“But the trail leads north. The light’s in the opposite direction,” Alias objected.
“Grypht has laid a false trail. If I’m wrong, we can come back to it later, but I know I’m not wrong.”
As they spoke, a second burst of light lit the horizon just near the flames in the distance.
“Another fireball,” Breck said.
Alias nodded. That’s what it looked like to her, too. “You must have sharp eyes to have seen that first fireball,” she said. “Or Tymora’s luck.”
Breck grinned, flattered. “Both,” he replied. “Let’s go,” he said, turning his horse to the southwest and nudging it into a trot.
Alias turned her mount and followed. Dragonbait took a moment to drape a strip of blue cloth over a bush before loping after them.
They spotted no more fireballs bursting in the sky, and the bright fire died down, but there was a residual glow on the horizon that served them as a beacon. They had traveled about four miles when they began to smell the smoke created by the fire. They slowed the horses to a walk. Small brush fires cut across their path. If not for the rain that had fallen in the area during the day, they wouldn’t have been able to proceed farther. As it was, there were swollen streams and plenty of sodden foliage to keep the fire from spreading out of control. After crossing a particularly wide stream, Breck stopped his horse and dismounted.
“We’ll leave the horses here. They’ll be safe by the water,” the ranger said, unbridling his mount. He clipped a lead rope onto its halter and tied the rope to a low tree branch. The horse immediately began grazing on the grass growing beneath it.
Alias slid down from her saddle and stretched her legs while Dragonbait took charge of her horse.
Breck nocked an arrow into his bow and began moving cautiously toward the fire.
Alias pulled the bow she’d gotten from Mourngrym from her saddlebag. Dragonbait looked at her in alarm.
“Relax,” she whispered. “I’m not going to shoot your friend. I just want to be prepared for whatever else is out there. If that’s him hurling fireballs, there’s got to be something else out there he’s throwing them at.”
The three adventurers picked their way through the charred undergrowth until they reached a circle of oak saplings, as close to one another as pickets in a fence. They circled round until they came upon a few saplings that had been broken and flattened to the ground. The ranger leaped into the clearing within the ring. By the light from the smoldering fires and the rising moon, Alias could just make out the silhouettes of three much larger trees lying on the ground.
Breck bent over one of the trees and stroked its charred bark. The swordswoman could have sworn she heard him sob.
“What is it?” Alias asked, stepping up behind the ranger.
“Treants,” Breck said, choking back a second sob. “They’ve been murdered—just like Kyre.”
Alias bit her lip. She turned back to see if Dragonbait had anything to say about the fallen treelike creatures. The saurial paladin stood beside the ring of saplings and hissed. Alias smelled the violet scent the lizard used to warn of danger.
“What is it?” Breck asked, turning around to see what upset Alias’s companion.
“Dragonbait senses evil,” the swordswoman explained.
“Evil was here, all right,” Breck said angrily. “It was Grypht. Look there.” The ranger pointed to a set of large prints in the mud beside one of the fallen treants. “And there—those must be your friend Akabar’s prints,” he added, indicating with a nod of his head a set of smaller prints unmistakably made by rope sandals.
Alias felt something brush against her leg. She gave a startled cry and tried to leap aside, but something had hold of her leg, and she fell heavily to the ground. Something curled, serpent-like, about her thigh and up around her waist. Alias’s eyes widened at the sight of the vinelike tendrils wrapping around her. She screamed and struggled to reach the dagger in her boot.
Dragonbait dashed up to one of the treants and hacked through the creature’s branchlike arm with his brightly flaming sword.
The tendrils about the swordswoman’s body went limp.
Breck dashed up to the saurial paladin, screaming, “What are you doing?”
Dragonbait stepped back and held his flaming sword out to keep Breck from approaching any closer.
“He saved my life,” Alias said, wriggling out of the tendrils.
“He’s desecrating a dead body,” the ranger growled.
Dragonbait signed to Alias.
“Breck,” Alias said softly, “I think you’d better take a closer look at these treants. Don’t they look peculiar to you?”
“They look dead,” Breck answered angrily.
“They look sick,” Alias corrected. “They didn’t even burn well. They only scorched—like rotted wood.”
“They were wet, like the rest of the brush around here,” Breck replied stubbornly.
“Look at them!” the swordswoman demanded, grabbing the ranger’s shoulders and forcing him to face the treant Dragonbait had just encountered. “They’re diseased … rotted completely through. Look inside of it,” Alias said, pointing at the treant’s severed arm. “Have you ever seen a treant with vines growing inside of it like that?”
With the tip of ah arrow, Breck poked gingerly at the branch. The vines within looked like maggots infesting a corpse. The ranger turned away from the sight, horror in his eyes.
“Well?” Alias said. “What do you think it is?”
“I … don’t know,” the ranger said slowly. “I’ve … I’ve never seen anything like it before. Have you?”
“Yes,” the swordswoman answered. “They remind me of the tendrils the undead god Moander used to control people, but the first time I saw them, the tendrils were all attached to him.”