CHAPTER 16
THE GULTHMERE
In the darkness, the towering cedars, pines, and elms at the edge of the Gulthmere looked as impenetrable to Cale as a siege wall. It looked … foreboding. Cale spared a glance skyward-the last time he would be able to see the stars after entering the tangle of the Gulthmere, he supposed. He wondered whether they would arrive at the Fane in time to stop Vraggen.
'We're in time,' Jak said softly, as though reading his mind.
Cale nodded. He knew it wasn't yet midnight. Mask allowed him to know intuitively when that hour arrived. But he didn't think they had much more than a couple of hours.
Dreeve had recalled the perimeter scouts but Gez and Nurm had not yet returned. The remaining gnolls arranged themselves into two skirmish lines. With Cale, Jak, and Riven sandwiched between the lines, they entered the Gulthmere.
The fragrance of the pines hung thick in the air. Needles and deadwood crunched underfoot. The forest felt old.
Each step in created more and more tension in the gnoll pack. Cale could sense it, could see it in their furtive gazes, quickened respiration, and slightly raised hackles. They feared the Gulthmere. Or the Fane.
Their pace slowed markedly as the terrain forced them to pick their way through the undergrowth. Cale quickly lost his sense of direction, though he did feel the ground descending and growing softer as they progressed. He could see only two or three paces before him.
'Jak,' Cale said. 'Your wand. We need light.'
Dreeve whirled on him and hissed, 'No light, human! You will draw attention to us.'
The rest of the pack softly growled alarmed agreement.
'We need to be able to see,' Cale said. 'This light is not visible from far off.' He looked to Jak. 'Little man.'
Jak pulled out his bluelight wand and uttered, 'Inil,' the word in the halfling tongue for 'light'. The wand's tip emitted a soft, blue glow. Shadows danced at the edges of the wand's illumination.
'You see?' Cale said to Dreeve.
The gnoll captain grunted something in his own tongue that Cale felt certain was an expletive, then he turned on his heel and started off. They followed.
After a short time, the ground leveled off and the air began to feel strange: thick with moisture and something else, something oily.
'You feel that?' Jak asked Cale quietly.
Cale replied, 'We're getting close.'
Riven only grunted.
Cale called up to Dreeve, 'How much farther?'
The gloom seemed to dull his voice. The shadows swallowed sound.
Dreeve said over his shoulder in a low hiss, obviously perturbed by Cale's loud call, 'Another hour-'
Abruptly, the gnoll captain dropped into a crouch. His hackles rose. His lips peeled back from his fangs. Growls sounded from the rest of the pack.
'What is it?' Cale asked in alarm, scanning the forest around them.
Beside him, Riven and Jak drew their weapons and went back to back. Jak covered his bluelight wand with his cloak.
'Something comes,' Dreeve said.
The gnoll captain hurriedly whispered orders to his pack. Several circled out wide and took cover behind the boles of trees. Others knocked arrows, took a knee, and drew. Cale followed their aim with his eyes.
Nothing but the forest and darkness.
Then he heard it: something moving through the woods, cracking twigs, crushing leaves.
The gnolls tensed. Bowstrings creaked in the darkness. Cale sank into the gloom, withdrew his holy symbol, pulled his blade, and took a step nearer Riven and Jak.
The sounds drew closer … closer. Something big.
Near Cale, Dreeve audibly sniffed at the air. After only a moment, he rose from his crouch and barked something to his pack. The rest of the gnolls immediately stood down.
'Gez,' the gnoll captain explained to Cale.
'Light, Jak,' Cale said, and the halfling unshielded his bluelight.
Gez sprinted into the clearing and stopped cold upon seeing his comrades. His tongue lolled from the side of his mouth and blood covered his cloak. The rest of the pack barked a greeting. Gez returned the greeting absently while he stalked up to Dreeve. The two held an intense conversation. The rest of the pack listened intently. Cale couldn't read their expressions and wished again that he could understand the gnoll tongue.
When they finished, Dreeve nodded and thumped Gez on the shoulder. Gez shot Cale a hateful glance, turned, and called for a waterskin. One among the pack provided him with water while the rest swarmed around him and peppered him with questions. Dreeve approached Cale, Riven, and Jak.
'Gez and Nurm encountered your trackers and killed them both,' the gnoll said. 'Gez was wounded, Nurm was killed.'
Cale was doubtful but kept it from his face. He had seen firsthand the ability of Vraggen's agents to live through and quickly heal wounds that should have killed them. Gez might genuinely think that he and Nurm had killed the 'human' trackers, but Cale thought not.
'How did they kill them?' he asked, looking past Dreeve to Gez. 'What did they do with the bodies?'
Dreeve's eyes narrowed with suspicion. His ears went flat against his head.
'They left their corpses in the grass,' Dreeve said. 'Why does it matter, human? Who were these trackers?'
Cale had no intention of telling Dreeve anything. If the gnoll understood the danger, Cale knew he and his pack would abandon them.
'Who they were doesn't matter,' Cale said. 'They're dead. Now, get us to the Moonmere. Quickly. After that, you'll have your payment and we'll part our ways.'
The gnoll captain sniffed the air as though he smelled the lies in the air.
'We're not far,' Dreeve said, then he turned and returned to his pack.
Slightly more than an hour later, the drumming began. From somewhere up ahead, a deep, rhythmic beat carried through the torpid air and shook the leaves from the cedars. The gnolls whimpered amongst themselves nervously, whining and sniffing at the air.
'They're summoning the Fane,' Jak whispered to Cale.
'Or acknowledging its arrival,' Cale said.
Eerily, the drums reminded him of a heartbeat, as though the heart of something old, huge, and dark had awakened. The air itself seemed to be vibrating. Jak's bluelight cast more shadows than it should.
Cale called up to the gnoll, 'Dreeve, we need to move more quickly.'
The rest of the gnolls cringed at the loudness of his voice. Except Gez. Gez stared at Cale with something akin to hunger in his dark eyes. Cale remembered Dreeve's words regarding Gez-He has tasted of man-flesh. Cale stared the gnoll down. Gez licked his lips, winked, and looked away.
Dreeve stalked back to Cale, obviously agitated.
'Do not raise your voice, fool human.' He looked from side to side and added, 'The lake's demons are about.'
'Then we're near?'
Dreeve nodded and said, 'Come.'
Cale, Riven, and Jak followed. The rest of the pack trailed them at several paces, ears flat and hackles
