Shadowdale

'Sune, please…,' Adon said.

The muscles in the healer's face tensed. He suddenly understood. 'We did what we could,' he said somberly.

Midnight put her hand on Adon's shoulder and looked at Cyric and Kelemvor, who were sitting together across the camp.

Adon said nothing. He simply stared at his reflection.

'We are too far from Arabel and the goddess Tymora for healing magic to work,' the cleric continued. 'There were no potions. We had to rely on the salves and natural medications I could create.'

The rim of the thin metal bowl began to curl in Adon's grip.

'What's important is that you're alive, and perhaps one of your own faith will be able to help you where we could not.'

The metal twisted.

'You must let me examine you. You're bleeding again. You've torn the stitches.'

Midnight reached down and took the bowl from Adon's hand. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered.

The healer bent low, toweling away the blood from Adon's face. The damage was not as bad as he had feared, though, as only a few of the stitches had been torn. As the cleric looked at the scar, he wished they'd been in a city when he found the Sunite. At least he could have made a cleaner job of the stitching with the proper tools.

Adon's fingers traced the darkening scar, following it from his left eye, down over his cheekbone, and through the center of his cheek. The ragged cut ended at the base of the cleric's jaw.

Later that morning, as the adventurers broke camp, Cyric got into an argument with Brion, a young thief in Thurbrand's company.

'Of course I understand what you're saying!' Cyric shouted at the albino. 'But how can you deny the evidence of your own senses?'

'I gazed upon the face of the goddess Tymora herself,' Brion said. 'That's all the evidence I need. The gods are now visiting the Realms to spread their sacred word first hand.'

'Aye, pay your money and step right up,' Cyric said. 'Perhaps your goddess will start telling fortunes next.'

'All I'm saying — '

'Dullard! I heard you the first time,' Cyric yelled.

'Contributions are always necessary — '

'A necessary evil, you mean.' Cyric shook his head and looked away from Brion.

'It must be terribly lonely not believing in anything but yourself,' Brion said. 'My belief makes me whole.'

Cyric trembled with rage, then gained control of his emotions. He knew that Brion had not intentionally provoked him, but the dark-haired, lean fighter had been unusually edgy since he woke that morning. Perhaps it was the sadness that hung over the camp because of Adon's wound, but a part of him wanted to charge into the mountains once more and let fate throw any monstrosity it could imagine at him. Even Spiderhaunt Woods felt vaguely tempting, although Cyric knew that the only catharsis he would likely find in that place was death.

There was a sound in the distance, and the earth beneath the adventurers shuddered. Cyric saw huge crystalline shards sliding from the face of the glass ridges that had positioned themselves across the road to Shadowdale.

'Merciful Tymora,' Brion said as the massive glass boulders shattered and sent rainbows across the land as they reflected the sunlight.

Then, without warning, a glossy black spear, the size of a small tree, shot out of the earth next to Cyric. The thief was knocked to the ground, but quickly got up and grabbed his horse. All around the plain, similar jagged ebon spears thrust up through the dirt and towered a dozen feet into the morning sky.

'Time to leave,' Kelemvor said to Thurbrand, and the two men ran for their mounts. 'It looks like we're going through the woods after all.'

Thurbrand surged through his company, rallying his people and hurrying them toward the woods. Before they could get away, though, two of his men were impaled by the spikes, and three horses were gutted. The only remaining members of the company bolted into the darkness of the Spiderhaunt Woods. Spears continued to shatter the plain, and huge avalanches of glass fell from the mountains to the northeast.

As she got close to the woods, Midnight discovered that Adon was missing. As she scanned the plain from the edge of the woods, she saw the cleric's riderless mount racing amidst the spears. Midnight charged toward the renegade animal and caught up with it in the center of the plain.

A figure was moving slowly through the clouds of dirt, approaching the horse.

'Adon, is that you?' Midnight called.

The cleric took his time as he mounted the horse and led it away from the deadly plain at a leisurely pace. He reigned the animal in when it tried to bolt, and if he heard Midnight's words or saw her frantic gestures, he ignored them. But when Adon didn't react, even as a spike shot from the ground a few feet away from him, Midnight moved beside the cleric and slapped the hind quarters of his mount with all her strength. The horse galloped toward the woods and relative safety. Adon didn't cry out or even lurch forward as the horse ran. He merely dug his fingers into the horse's mane, his legs into its flank, and hung on.

Kelemvor waited at the perimeter of the woods. All but a few of Thurbrand's people had vanished within, and the last of the riders joined their allies in the darkened recesses of Spiderhaunt Woods.

There was no movement from the creatures they had spied the previous night. 'Perhaps they sleep by day,' Kelemvor said. The sounds of shattering glass and exploding ground had lessened, though the adventurers could still hear an occasional crash as a huge wall of glass slid off the mountains.

'If the creatures sleep during the day,' Midnight said. 'We'd best be in Shadowdale by night.'

Kelemvor, Cyric, and the Company of Dawn all mumbled in agreement. Adon silently rode off into the woods.

Throughout the day, the adventurers rode through the woods, starting at every sound, their swords always at the ready. Adon rode ahead of Kelemvor and Midnight, and Cyric rode with Brion, who had lost his horse to one of the ebon spears. As they got deeper into the forest, the flora grew thick and unmanageable, and soon Thurbrand signaled for everyone to stop and dismount. The horses would have to be lead.

Adon ignored the signal, and Kelemvor ran to his side. 'Have you lost your sight this lime, Adon?' he said. When the cleric ignored him and continued to force his horse to plow through the undergrowth, the fighter slapped him on the arm to get his attention. Adon looked down at Kelemvor, nodded, and got off his horse.

'There's death in this place,' Adon said, no life in his voice. 'We've walked into a charnel house.'

'It wouldn't be the first time,' Kelemvor said and returned to Midnight.

Farther ahead, Cyric walked with Brion. Although he had been alternately amused and frustrated by the young thief, Cyric sensed an innocence in him that was refreshing. Surely Brion had not been an adventurer very long, although his proficiency with a dagger rivaled Cyric's.

After morningfeast, Brion had challenged Cyric to a test of skill with the dagger, and Cyric nearly lost to the albino. After the challenge was over, Cyric and Brion did a trick using six daggers each, which they first gathered from their friends, then tossed at each other with blinding speed. Each knife Cyric threw was deflected by one of Brion's, then each one Brion threw was deflected in midair by one of Cyric's tosses.

Still, for all his skill with knives, the albino did not reek of blood and madness as so many adventurers did. Even Brion's companions, like the girl who sat with Adon, reveled in the idea of taking a life. Cyric could see it in their eyes.

Cyric could see, too, that the number of times Brion had willingly shed blood could be counted on a single one of his gloved hands, and that the albino had never taken a man's life without regret.

As the adventurers walked along, the woods themselves were misleadingly beautiful, at least at the start. The trees were thick and healthy, covered with rich green leaves. Bright sunlight pierced the openings in the ceiling of the forest, and warm shafts of light fell here and there, occasionally caressing the faces of the heroes who navigated through the thick foliage.

Then, as they moved across a thick bed of gnarly roots, which covered the ground completely in many places,