him in the fens!”
“Well, as you said, there’s no way to tell from here. But we should go check it out.”
“Something tells me we should get to town as quickly as we can,” Shara said. She looked up at the sky, measuring the position of the sun. “And before dark, if we can.”
She waded into the water and bent over Quarhaun, feeling his forehead. “The fever has broken,” she said. “It appears the water spirits heard my plea.”
Quarhaun opened his eyes and said something that sounded long and florid, probably Elven.
“Go back to sleep,” Shara told him. “You’re still incoherent.”
“I said, how could the water spirits not heed your words, when they come from such lovely lips?”
Blushing, Shara turned to Uldane, who raised his eyebrow knowingly. She rolled her eyes at him and turned back to the drow.
“So you’re feeling better?” she asked
“I’m cold and wet,” Quarhaun said. “My mouth tastes like a fungus slug died in it, and I think my shoulder might be on fire. But better, yes. Am I …” He lifted his head, trying to look around. “On a raft?”
“Yes. We built it to carry you to town.”
“How industrious. And it explains the cold and wet.”
“Well, the last time I checked you were burning with fever, so cool is an improvement. Can you walk?”
“Help me out of this thing and we’ll find out. Where are we?”
“The outskirts of Fallcrest,” Shara said as she took his hand and helped him sit up. The raft bobbed dangerously low in the water as he shifted, and Quarhaun scowled.
“Now some parts of me are wetter than others,” he said.
Shara got him standing in the shallow water at the river’s edge, then draped one of his arms around her shoulder to help him walk to shore. He slipped once, throwing his other arm around her and clutching her in a way that was rather more familiar than it needed to be. She shot him her best withering glare and he withdrew his hand, making excuses.
“That’s better,” Quarhaun said once his feet were on dry land again. “How far is it to Fallcrest?”
“Two, maybe three hours at a normal pace. It probably would have taken us five or six if we had to keep pulling you along the river, and I guess I would’ve been carrying you to the Nentir Inn. So even if you can’t sustain a normal pace, we ought to make it before nightfall.”
“Do you think an inn is wise?”
“Uldane and I were just discussing that,” Shara said, nodding. “Our first choice is to sleep in Moorin’s tower-well, it’s Albanon’s tower now. But if he and Kri haven’t returned, I think we’ll be all right at the Nentir Inn. It might present some troubles, but they know me there, and they’ll accept you if I vouch for you. And you really need bed rest, and maybe the attention of a healer. Do you think you can make it?”
“I’m not dead. I’ll make it.”
“You very nearly were dead. Remember that before you try anything stupid.”
Quarhaun nodded seriously to her, but shot Uldane an obvious wink. “I’ll try,” he said.
Uldane helped Shara out of the rope harness, untied the rope, and let the little raft drift back down the river. Shara watched with amusement as Uldane performed what seemed like a familiar rite, a prolonged farewell to a craft that had served its purpose well. He watched it drift downstream until Quarhaun cleared his throat impatiently, and even as they walked Uldane kept looking back until he couldn’t see it any more.
As they continued, Shara and Uldane explained to Quarhaun what they’d seen of the Wintermoot farm and the Dembran estate, sharing their concerns that Fallcrest itself might be under attack.
“I once returned from a hunting expedition and found the cavern where my city had been completely caved in,” the drow said. “It took us three weeks to find where the survivors had established a new city.”
“What happened to the city?”
“The matron mothers of the ruling house had angered Lolth, and she punished them with the cave-in.”
“How did anyone survive?”
“Lolth warned the priests of the other houses. They had to figure out a way to evacuate as many people as possible-key people, anyway-without letting the ruling house know what was happening.” He shook his head. “I have no head for politics.”
“If that’s what you call politics, I’m not surprised,” Shara said.
Soon the road left the riverbank and ran through a little wood that divided the Dembran fields from the more tightly packed farms that lay across the river from Fallcrest’s Lowtown. Shara started to ask Quarhaun more about his home city, but Uldane interrupted her.
“Listen,” the halfling said, coming to a stop on the side of the road.
Shara and Quarhaun stopped as well. Shara slid her sword from its sheath as she looked around for any sign of danger.
“No,” Uldane said. “Listen.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. Where are the birds? Where are the squirrels fleeing through the branches at all the noise we’re making? It’s too quiet.”
“Maybe we’re not hearing them because we’ve already scared them away.”
Uldane looked dissatisfied with that answer, but evidently couldn’t refute it. He scowled as he looked around at the trees, ears alert for any sound.
Quarhaun shifted uncomfortably a few times before breaking the silence. “It’s quiet, certainly. And that’s unusual?”
“Of course,” Uldane said. “There should at least be birds singing down by the river.”
“I see. In the Underdark, silence is normal. If you hear something moving, it’s probably coming to kill you.”
“Good grief,” Shara said. “What a terrible place!”
“On the other hand,” Quarhaun added, a thoughtful look on his face, “if you don’t hear something moving, there’s probably still something coming to kill you.”
“That might be what we’re looking at here,” Shara said. “Weapons out, eyes and ears open. Aerin’s Crossing is just a little farther. Maybe we’ll get a better idea what’s going on.”
Aerin’s Crossing was the beginning of the town of Fallcrest, more or less. If nothing else, it was distinguished from the more southerly farms by the fact that it usually appeared on maps of the town. A half dozen smaller farms clustered around the crossing where River Road met the Old Ford Road, which ran through all of Lowtown on the other side of the river, then wound up the bluffs, passed the stables in Hightown, and left the Wizard’s Gate to the east.
If Aerin’s Crossing lies in ruins, Shara thought, then we know there’s trouble.
They walked through the woods with as much caution as if they’d been exploring a monster-filled dungeon. Shara kept listening for any sound of the normal animal life of the forest, but the silence held, broken only by their own footsteps and Quarhaun’s ragged breathing.
She smelled the smoke just a few paces before the forest fell away and gave her a clear view of the ravaged farms around Aerin’s Crossing. Scattered fires still smoked on the fields nearby and the orchards on the north side of the crossroad. The houses were marked by plumes of black smoke rising to darken the sky, while no wall of the structures remained intact.
“Oh, no,” she breathed.
“I can’t believe it,” Uldane said. “What could have done this?”
“What else? Vestapalk and the demons.”
“I don’t know,” Quarhaun said. “We haven’t seen the demons burning things before. It’s easy to blame catastrophe on the evil you know. But the longer you keep yourself in that delusion, the longer the unknown evil has to plot against you.”
“What is that, a drow proverb?” Shara asked.
Quarhaun shrugged. “Loosely translated.”
“Well, there are plenty of evils we know of. But it’s a fair point-there might be a new player on the scene, a red dragon or a fire giant.”
“Or a marauding army of orcs or gnolls,” Uldane added.
