With one hand, the half-elf pulled Caven back. "You see blood, Wode?" he asked quietly.

The boy's voice was shrill. Hands trembling, knife shaking, he pulled himself up on his nag, nearly cutting the reins in the process. "Are you all blind? Don't you see it?" Wode cried. "Blood, half-scabbed over, oozing down the bark in great gouts." He yanked at his horse's reins, but by then Kitiara had reached the youth's side, pulled the knife from his hand, and held the horse steady.

Tanis took one more look at the tree in question, which appeared unmarked to him except for a smear of what looked like sap-pinkish, it was true, but definitely sap, not blood. He used the same tone he adopted with a jittery horse. "On that tree only, Wode? Or more than one?"

The cords stood out in Caven's neck. "You believe the cowardly-?"

"He sees something," Tanis interrupted. "It may be that we can't count on our senses. Darken Wood may appear different to different eyes."

"Darken Wood," Caven repeated. His temper evaporated as quickly as it had flamed. He worried his lower lip with his teeth. "Perhaps we should wait until morning to enter," he suggested. "It's only a few more hours until nightfall. I don't care if they're offering ten times fifteen steel for that ettin back in Haven, it's not worth traipsing through Darken Wood at night. We should be sensible and wait for morning."

Tanis said nothing. Indeed, he'd been about to suggest a similar tactic. But Kitiara snorted. She'd been shifting from foot to foot as the two men examined the ettin prints and marked the monster's progression into the woods. "You three can hide out and waste three-quarters of a day, but I, for one, am not afraid of the unknown!" she cried. "Besides, the spoor is fresh. The beast can't be that far ahead. We can capture it and be on our way back to Haven by nightfall."

She released Wode's horse, leaped onto Obsidian, and turned the mare's head toward the woods, not heeding whether anyone followed. Wode began backing his mount away from the forest perimeter.

The other two men remained where they were. "We can't let her go in there alone, half-elf," Caven said almost plaintively.

"I never intended to," Tanis said shortly, and he stepped toward the gelding. "You are free to go back, of course."

Caven reddened. Then he shouted for Wode to get moving-in the proper direction-mounted Maleficent, and pushed the stallion past Dauntless. Scrambling not to be left behind so close to the fearsome place, Wode followed as they entered Darken Wood.

The tracking continued to be easy-ridiculously so, the half-elf thought. Either the creature was remarkably stupid to leave such obvious signs or it had great faith in its ability to defeat all comers. Tanis didn't even have to dismount to see the five-toed prints, each as long as his hand and forearm.

Broken branches, as well as pine needles scuffed by heavy feet, marked the way. Although the path wended among the bent-trunked pines, the way was occasionally rocky. Pines crowded around them, the trunks just far enough apart at times to admit the horses. It was almost, Tanis thought, as though the trees were reaching for whatever brushed against them. He dispelled the thought with an oath and looked around him warily. Far above their heads, the evergreens expanded into a thick canopy. A haze seemed to hang over the woods-at least to the half-elf's eyes. The late afternoon air hung yellow-gray and humid, and Tanis found that he could not see more than several yards ahead.

They rode in silence for a while, with Tanis in the lead, followed by a thoughtful Caven, an elaborately nonchalant Kitiara, and, close upon Obsidian's hooves, the reluctant Wode. Every so often, the squire would glance at a tree trunk with revulsion and guide his horse in a wide circle around it. Caven looked jumpier by the moment. So far, the half-elf had spied nothing stranger than the clinging haze. Nonetheless, he felt as though every living thing about him-and he tried not to think about the rumors of dead ones-were glaring at the spot where his pulse throbbed in his throat. He tried unsuccessfully to pierce the haze with his nightvision. "Does night fall earlier in Darken Wood?" he whispered to himself.

Tanis heard an exclamation as Caven pulled Maleficent to a walk and Obsidian practically collided with the feisty stallion. Maleficent struck out at Kitiara and her horse. Staying solidly in the saddle as Obsidian leaped aside, Kitiara drew up her whip and lashed Caven's stallion across the flank. With a snort, Maleficent sidestepped away, halting as Caven sawed at the reins. Wode, long tormented by the Mithas stallion, giggled nervously. Blood welled from a jagged cut in the stallion's glossy hide, and Caven opened his mouth to remonstrate with Kitiara.

The swordswoman hissed at him, cutting off his protest. "If you travel with me, Mackid, you will keep that horse in line, or I will kill it-with my bare hands, if necessary. Understand, soldier?"

Mackid shut his mouth, nodding dumbly. Kitiara took a deep breath, no doubt preparing to go on berating the man, but the half-elf interrupted.

"Until now I thought you were impervious to fear, Kit," Tanis said. "I can see now that you merely hide it better than the rest of us."

"I-" she began, glaring daggers.

"Temper, temper," the half-elf muttered. Then, as Kitiara sat astride Obsidian, almost speechless with rage, Tanis turned to Wode. "Are the trees still bleeding, Wode?" The squire bit his lip, looked sidelong at a nearby maple sapling, and nodded. The half-elf persisted, turning to Caven. "And what do you see, Mackid?" When the Kernish mercenary only shook his head, Tanis said, "I'll tell you what I see. I see a haze, like dusk in the tropics, closing around us."

"Like a shroud," Wode added, the words seeming to jerk from him unwillingly.

"So Wode sees it. Do either of you?"

Kitiara snapped something about "traveling with a bunch of superstitious weaklings." Caven raised an eyebrow at her, then addressed Tanis in a low voice. "I see men lined up at the very farthest distance I can see in these damned woods."

"Men?" Tanis looked where Caven indicated, but the half-elf saw nothing but haze.

"I know these men." Tanis waited patiently until Caven took a deep breath. "They are men I've killed in battle. They are all there, each one represented over and over. Their wounds still bleed. They carry severed limbs, hold their entrails to keep them from spilling out. Their eyes-" he stumbled over the words-"their eyes are scarlet, and they've been here waiting for me ever since we ventured into this unholy woods."

A groan and a crash sent them all jumping. It was Wode, sprawled in a faint next to his bug-eyed horse.

Kitiara ribbed Wode ceaselessly once they revived him. Even Tanis began to look annoyed at the swords-woman, and Caven finally assigned Kitiara a new position as rear guard. "The easier to ignore your complaints," he commented when she protested. Kitiara would have snapped back, but another wave of dizziness and nausea passed over her just then, angering her as much as it sickened her, and she let the others pass ahead without a word.

Certainly, she thought when the other three were ahead of her, she wasn't still hung over from last night's binge. She'd been fighting exhaustion all day, and once she had even found herself sliding from her horse when she fell asleep in the saddle. She'd caught herself with a jerk and shaken back her curls to mask the near fall. But this new wave of queasiness, this sudden vertigo, was harder to hide. That was all she needed now, to mimic Wode's swoon after all the guff she'd given him.

She pulled up her mount and let the other three move farther ahead. They were utterly silent, with none of the jovial horseplay that Kitiara remembered from other forays with comrades. There was only the sound of the horses' hooves, the squeak of Tanis's saddle when he leaned over to catch sight of the ettin's prints, and her own forced breathing. When they were far enough away, Kitiara leaned carefully away from the saddle and vomited into a bush at the side of the path. Then, blinking rapidly to clear her vision, she spurred Obsidian into a trot.