“There’re no tracks that way,” Edward said. It looked like he was going to play the part of second guesser.
“Look under my horse’s hooves. Do you see any tracks? If the goblins have a sorcerer, which it’s clear they do, then hiding their path is simple. I’m tracking the remnants of the sorcerer’s casting and it goes straight ahead.”
“The forest is too thick for horses.” Jen swung down off her mount. “We’ll leave them and continue on foot.”
Damien dismounted and reabsorbed the construct. While the others hobbled their horses Damien concentrated on the trail. The sorcerer must have surrounded the goblins with a shield that brushed the branches aside and let them snap back into place without breaking. That was tricky work, making a path through the thick evergreens and breaking no branches. The enemy sorcerer had skill, no doubt.
When they’d finished tending the horses Jen said, “Lead on.”
Damien expanded his shield so it was outside his clothes and started forward. The prickly spruce limbs made no more impression on his shield than Dirk’s punch. The little group tromped through the forest until well past noon, following the twisting trail of dark energy.
“Look here.” Talon bent down to examine the ground. “Tracks.”
Sure enough, as though out of nowhere, the tracks of a group of goblins appeared in the soft dirt of the forest floor. “They must have figured they were far enough away that we wouldn’t stumble over their trail.” Jen patted Talon’s shoulder.
Talon assumed the lead, his eyes focused on the now-obvious trail. Damien made no complaint about the warlord taking over the tracking duties. He focused on the dark energy, making sure it continued to follow the tracks and they didn’t veer off on another false path.
They continued on for another hour, the residual energy getting thicker with each step deeper into the forest. Around them the scrubby evergreens had given way to towering, mature pines. If they got the goblins cleaned out, some loggers would drool over the tall, straight trees.
“Damien.” Jen walked by herself a little ways from the rest of her squad.
He went over to join her. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to thank you. We’d have never found their trail this deep into the forest.”
Damien grinned. “No problem. This is the sort of thing we’re trained for. Maybe you can write me a little recommendation for whichever sorcerer I end up serving with.”
“Of course, I—”
He held up a hand to stop her. Up ahead a pillar of dark energy rose out of the forest. No goblin sorcerer put out that much energy. Whatever they were approaching it was powerful, and evil. “We’re getting close, sis. Whatever’s out there, it isn’t just goblins.”
“What do you see?”
Damien described it to her. “We need to be real careful.”
She nodded. “Talon! Don’t get too far ahead. Weapons out and eyes focused. Alec, you’re on rear guard. Damien, stay with me in the center.”
The squad drew their weapons, formed up, and made their cautious way onward. The closer they got the thicker the miasma appeared.
Damien’s stomach clenched. He’d never seen anything so wrong. Around them the trees reflected the corruption; bark peeled and drooped from drying trunks, the limbs twisted like arthritic hands. The grass and shrubs had withered and curled up. He tapped a dry bush with his toe and it disintegrated.
They climbed up a little rise and stopped. Ahead of them, in a clearing, sat a jumbled up pile of trees, branches, and mud. Easily forty yards in diameter and twenty feet tall, the goblin lair resembled a giant beaver lodge. Like a lodge, the inside would be hollow with chambers and passages. A large opening about eight feet in diameter faced them and to Damien’s enhanced sight it looked like a chimney belching corruption.
“Let’s go get ’em.” Talon started down the far side of the bank.
“Wait.” All Damien’s senses screamed that danger waited in the lair. “At least let me scout it so we have some idea what we’re walking into.”
Edward looked at him, a dubious frown twisting his lips. “You think you can sneak in there?”
“Not me.” Damien held out his hand and a golden wasp appeared above it. He concentrated and the color shifted so it looked like a black wasp. “A scout bug. They’ll never notice it and we can see what’s in there.”
“Good idea.” Jen motioned them back down the bank. “Send it in.”
“It’s nothing but a bunch of stinking goblins. Just because they set up in this nasty stretch of woods doesn’t mean anything. We go in and carve them up, like we were trained.” Talon stood a little below the top of the bank, his swords clenched in his fists.
He looked tempted to ignore Jen. Heaven help him if he did.
Jen glared at him. “Get down here and keep quiet. They’ve got at least one sorcerer and who knows what else. A little scouting seems like just the thing to me. It’s not like the ugly monsters are going anywhere. Go on, Damien.”
He nodded and conjured a flat rectangle of soul force and connected it to the wasp with a hair-thick strand of energy. An image of the surrounding forest appeared on the viewer. Satisfied with the connection, Damien made the thread invisible and sent the wasp toward the mouth of the lair. The image shifted as the wasp flew, showing whatever the little construct looked at.
Jen stood beside him and studied the image. “That’s amazing. I didn’t know sorcerers could do something like this.”
“It’s a handy trick.”
The wasp entered and the image went dark. Damien frowned and adjusted the wasp’s eyes through the link, making them bigger and reflective to increase the light they collected. The image brightened.
The inside of the mound looked just like you’d expect a hollowed-out pile of wood to look like. Branches jutted into the tunnel and a rough, worn path led deeper into the lair. Damien had expected the tunnel to narrow soon after the entrance. Given the goblins’ small stature a narrow tunnel would
