“We’re supposed to bring them back to the monastery,” I said. “Which I guess means we’re headed toward the Lost Shrine to find them.”
“I’ll show you the way,” Tolin said. “You youngsters are likely to get waylaid through the woods if you’re not careful. And, since you’ve so generously come here to bother an old man’s rest, I may as well reward you for your efforts.”
Faryn bowed. “It’s always a pleasure to work with you, Tolin.”
“I sincerely doubt that.” He cackled. “But these old limbs need stretching. Finish your tea and meet me outside. I have a voracious emperor of felines to feed and provisions to pack.”
Chapter Fifteen
Tolin joined us on the front steps of the Unwashed Temple.
“Guard the temple,” he said to Master Softpaw as he scratched the cat beneath the chin. He turned to look at Faryn, Kumi, and I. “Shall we set off?”
We left the temple behind and took a path through the rice fields that snaked downhill. We hit the treeline just as the sun scattered the last of its rays through the sky. The valley’s forest was a thick swathe of tall trees, shrubbery, and leaf litter, but the locals had carved hunting trails through it.
Tolin took the lead at a shambling pace and muttered to himself as I drew level with him. The hum of insects filled the trees as night set in around us.
“...ascetics and their thrice-damned airs,” Tolin said to himself.
“Why does the Unwashed Temple look so much like the monastery?” I asked without preamble. “For a guy who claims to hate monks, you’ve got a lot of things in common with them. And what did you mean about heresy earlier? Are you actually a heretic?”
“I’m a lot of things, Swordslinger. And there’s plenty going on in the shadows around your Path that you don’t yet know about.”
“Then tell me. Forewarned is fore-armed.”
“It isn’t my place,” Tolin said evasively. “You’ll find it when it’s time for you to find it. I’ve never told you everything, lad, and I’m not about to start now. What in all that is holy is that?”
He pointed to a nearby tree. An idol had been carved into it recently, and a shiver ran down my spine as I neared it. A twisted monster with spiky fur, gaping fangs, and slitted eyes glared out at us from the tree.
I took a deep breath. “It’s a demon. Or a statue of one, at least.”
“Here? In Danibo Forest?” Faryn asked. “Surely not.”
I stepped aside and waved her closer. “Take a look for yourself.”
Faryn’s face sank as she inspected the recently carved idol within the tree. “I’ve never seen anything like this in Flametongue Valley. Have you, Tolin?”
“No. Something’s awry.” He shook his head.
“We’ve seen things like it before,” Kumi said. “Back in Hyng’ohr.”
She didn’t need to explicitly state that the idol looked a lot like the demons we’d fought there.
Branches shuffled behind Faryn, and I pushed past her. The Sundered Heart rang as I pulled it free from my hip, and the blade hissed as I ignited it. A long, lean figure with bark-like skin appeared out of the brushes.
An emerald wisp.
Its spidery fingers snapped at my face, but I ducked and took off its hands with a downward slash of my flaming sword before killing it with a thrust to the chest. Nydarth hummed in pleasure as I kicked the corpse off the end of my blade. The flames around my weapon went green as it drank the sprite’s blood from the steel.
“What was that?” Kumi drew her butterfly daggers from the small of her back and glanced around.
“Emerald wisp,” I answered. “It’s outside of the Vigorous Zone.”
“Its presence here must have something to do with this idol,” Faryn said.
“Or the shrine,” I said with a grimace.
“We should get there,” Tolin cut in. “And quickly.”
Our party continued forward, and it wasn’t long before we were joined by sporadic rustles through the surrounding brush. A pack of emerald wisps leaped from the undergrowth in a rough pincer formation. I channeled Vigor through the Sundered Heart, lit up the path with orange light, and cut down the first of the sprites as it charged toward Kumi.
I blinded a sprite with an Acid Cloud, and it squealed as the substance poured into its lungs. Before it could recover, I snapped its leg with a stomp and carved it in half with a two-handed slice. A gurgled squeak sounded from behind me, and I whirled around. Kumi wrenched her knives out of a sprite’s throat, flicked its blood into another’s eyes, and stabbed it in the torso.
Faryn summoned a cloud of razor-sharp leaves and smothered a pair of sprites. The monsters screamed as the foliage sliced them to pieces.
“Where’s Tolin?” I asked. The old man had disappeared during the fighting.
“Up here,” he said, and I looked up to see him sitting on a tree branch. He dropped to the forest floor and grinned.
I shook my head at him. “Let’s continue.”
After a few more minutes, Tolin pointed out another twisted statue of a demon, and before long, they started appearing everywhere. Every second tree bore a leering face of a demonic creature.
The last of the light faded out of the sky, and even the moonlight couldn’t penetrate the thick canopy. I poured a little Vigor into my sword, and the blade ignited, providing more than enough light to illuminate our path. The monsters would see us, along with whatever else was out here, but without my sword’s light, we were completely blind.
The sound of insects faded, and I spotted a glow in the distance.
“We’re getting close to the shrine,” Tolin said as he led us off the path and through the thick undergrowth. He pushed aside a thick set of branches, ducked under it, and beckoned us forward with a wave of his hand. I followed him under the tree and into a wide clearing.
A cluster
