The gnolls did as they were told.
"Well enough?" Dreeve asked Cale.
Cale turned his back on the gnoll guide without answering.
After Dreeve walked away, Riven chuckled.
"That's quite a bark, Cale," the assassin said, "but the time's coming with that one when you're going to have to bite."
Turning to look at Dreeve, and seeing the pent-up anger in the bunched muscles of the gnoll's back, Cale knew that Riven spoke the truth.
"Those two trackers aren't the mage," Riven said.
"Agreed," Cale said. "Vraggen's already at the Moonmere."
"The half-drow?" Jak asked.
"Perhaps," Cale said. "But at this point it doesn't matter."
He looked at the stars glowing in the moonless sky. He thought of taking the sphere from his pack and comparing it to the sky but decided against it. The sphere had become irrelevant. They knew where they were going and they knew when they had to be there.
"We need to get moving," Cale said. "We're almost out of time."
Gez smelled horseflesh in the wind—faint, but it was there. He knew the two human riders were less than quarter hour's run upwind and closing. Surprisingly, night hadn't stopped them from tracking the pack. Gez figured them both to be very skilled.
But, he reminded himself, they were but two, and mere humans at that.
He and Nurm had backtracked from the rest of the pack a little less than an hour before, if Gez was any judge of the stars' movements. Dreeve and the rest of the pack already would have reached the Gulthmere.
Thinking of Dreeve and the pack reminded Gez of the humans, and his lips peeled back in a silent snarl. The bald headed human mongrel had embarrassed Gez before his packmates. Gez would have to fight hard to maintain his status as Dreeve's second. Gez had no doubt that Dreeve had sent him on a cur's errand to make that very point. Likely, he would have to kill and eat the heart of one of his packmates just to reestablish his place.
For the tenth time, he wished Dreeve had killed the three humans back in the camp and taken their gold. Gez would have feasted on their flesh and lived high on their coin. The thought of what might have been brought a grin to his face. He licked his lips, imagining the taste of human flesh—
—and stopped.
Was that Nurm's scent in the wind? Yes, but...
What was that pup doing?
The two had split up a quarter hour before. Gez, too angry at his fallen fortunes to listen any longer to Nurm's incessant chatter, had sent the younger gnoll ahead to find an appropriate location from which to ambush the humans. Nurm should have been over ten spearcasts away, not nearby. Gez resolved then and there to vent his anger on the impudent pup.
He stood up to his full height and scanned the plains for Nurm. Even in the darkness he could see clearly as far out as a spearcast.
He saw nothing. Only the wind over the thigh-high grass. He let out a signal bark, a sharp, quick yip.
Nothing.
Only then did it hit him. The night was still—too still—as though a predator was nearby and on the hunt. Even the insects had fallen silent.
Gez's hackles rose and he uttered a growl so low that only another gnoll would hear it. He unslung his axe, dropped into a crouch, and put his nose in the breeze.
No predator, but Nurm smelled close, not far to Gez's left.
Gez crept forward, clutching his axe and prowling through the tall grass. His instincts told him that something big lurked nearby, something deadly. He moved as quietly as he could and kept his senses attuned to his surroundings.
He smelled it before he saw it—the sharp, coppery tang of blood, intermixed with Nurm's ordinary scent. Voicing a low snarl, he loped forward.
He found Nurm's body lying in an area of flattened, blood soaked grass. Gez kneeled and examined the corpse. Nurm's entire head had been bitten off. It was nowhere to be seen. Nurm's unslung axe lay on his shoulder. He hadn't even had time to get his weapon drawn.
Gez rose into a crouch, keeping his head below the grass line, and sniffed the wind. Nothing but the far off smell of the humans and the horses. Still, the plains were too quiet. Something was near.
Moving quickly, Gez removed Nurm's belt purse, took his quiver of arrows, and wolfed down as much of his trail tack as he could. The pack didn't waste resources. Often, they ate their own fallen, but Gez didn't have time for that.
A rustling sounded in the grass near Nurm's corpse.
Gez uttered a surprised snarl and lunged forward, axe held high.
A field lizard darted out of the grass. About the size of a cat, the brown-spotted reptiles were common in those plains. Carrion eaters. It must have smelled Nurm's blood too and come to feed.
Gez let out a relieved series of yips. He toed Nurm's corpse toward the lizard.
"Feed well, little frie—"
A low croak sounded from behind him. His hackles rose instantly; his heart threatened to burst. He whirled around with his axe at the ready.
Terror froze him.
A horrible, bipedal, toadlike creature stood behind him, taller and broader than even Dreeve. A strange tingling flashed through Gez's brain, as though the creature was looking into his mind, knowing what he knew. He caught only a flash of warty green skin, claws, and merciless eyes before it pounced on him and knocked him to the ground near Nurm's corpse. Gez's breath blew from his lungs. His ribs snapped under the impact. He mouthed a silent scream of pain and fear.
Crouched atop his chest, the thing croaked something in a foul, alien tongue that Gez could not understand. It opened its mouth impossibly wide. A mouthful of shark teeth surrounded the black hole of its gullet. Gez wanted to scream, wanted to whimper, but with no air he could make no sound. Pain blurred his vision.
That horrible mouth descended for his head, engulfing it entirely. Teeth tore into the skin of his neck and snapped closed on his spine. Gez felt a flash of excruciating agony before his world ended in darkness.
Elura cracked the gnoll's skull between her back teeth, took the creature's head out of her mouth, and split the skull the rest of the way open with her claws. When the brain lay exposed in her hands, she slavered it up with her long tongue. She found them a creamy delight, especially when lightly spiced with the tart tang of fear. Since she and her broodmates' arrival, she had come to enjoy the brains of lesser sentient creatures.
After licking the skull case clean, she methodically removed the gnoll's weapons and earrings. She studied what remained of the gnoll's body. Satisfied that she had a reasonably close mental image of the creature, she invoked the magical ability of her kind to change shape. With a wet, squishing sound, her natural body metamorphosed into a smaller, thinner form—that of the gnoll. She put the gnoll's earring through her new ears, slung its axe over her shoulder, and smiled in satisfaction.
With Vraggen's "approval," Azriim had instructed she and Dolgan to remain behind and watch for Cale. Dolgan had remained in Starmantle. Elura had patrolled the approaches to the Gulthmere. Nothing was to interfere with Vraggen's opening of the Fane.
Elura smiled darkly when she thought of Vraggen. The arrogant shadow adept had no idea of how he had been used. When she imagined how his expression would appear when he learned of she and her broodmates' true purpose—of the Sojourner's true purpose—she could barely control her laughter.
But first matters firstly, she reminded herself.
Late the previous night, Dolgan had telepathically informed her of the gnoll pack. She had been surprised and distantly delighted to learn that Cale, Riven, and the halfling were among them. The humans' resourcefulness intrigued her, though it would not avail them. The threatened torture of Serrin had been a masterstroke. Most humans balked at such methods, but not those three. For an instant, she regretted that she would not once share Cale's bed before killing him. She always gave her human lovers a unique experience before showing them her true form and murdering them. She would have enjoyed providing such an experience to Cale. She also would have enjoyed hearing his screams as she flayed him alive.