"What in blazes was that?" Dru asked while they were all getting used to quiet again.

"Demon," said Sheemzher, predictably.

"Not a chance," Dru replied, stomping out last flaming bits of the beast and kicking them off the ledge. "Ansoain had a thing about demons and she made sure we knew what she knew. Demons smell, but they don't smell like that. We all know what that smelled like ... I never knew it could move."

Rozt'a spun on her heels awkwardly. She wouldn't sheathe her sword until she'd cleaned it, and she wouldn't clean it on her breeches the way she often did. "The pig wallows at home didn't smell that bad—but they came close. I know you can raise the dead, Dru, but can you raise manure?"

"You're talking to the wrong magician," he replied with a laugh. "I have trouble raising myself each morning." He handed her a scrap of cloth. Magicians carried bits of everything with them. "But I recall Ansoain rattling on about a cave and catacomb dweller that collected dung and fed off it. She never said what it looked like. I imagined a rat of some sort and never thought about the smell. Who knows, maybe we just killed an otyugh. Can't figure, though, what a critter like that would be doing out in the open."

"War," Sheemzher said. "Dark war. Beast-Lord war ... war under Dekanter."

"Under Dekanter," Rozt'a muttered, adding a few choice oaths. "Right. Look at what the rain's done to these mountains—there must be caves everywhere." She finally sheathed her sword and turned to Tiep. "No offense, but you reek of that thing. Strip out of those clothes, wash yourself off, and stay downwind until you do!"

Tiep pulled off his shirt but left his breeches alone. He started for the heap they'd made of their gear. Sheemzher, spear in hand, side-stepped to block his path. Tiep decided he could bear the smell a bit longer and was glad he'd stayed when Druhallen started thinking aloud.

"Not caves. Not just caves, anyway. The Mines of Dekanter. Dwarves built 'em, the Netheril mages expanded them, and sure as water flows downhill, there's drow living in them now. Ever see the drow, Sheemzher?"

The goblin lowered his spear when Dru looked their way. Tiep could have made his escape, but he lingered.

Sheemzher shook his head. "Demons. All demons. Sheemzher not know demons. People not go under Dekanter. People fight demons; fear demons."

"No demons, Sheemzher. We've got dragons overhead and the gods know what under our feet, but no demons." Dru walked toward them. "Let me get back to the camp. Maybe I can still catch the tide with my spells."

Tiep realized they didn't know he and Sheemzher had been outside the camp when the otiyo—or whatever Dru had called it—crawled out of the bog. There hadn't been time for Sheemzher to make accusations ... yet. Tiep gave the goblin a nasty look, but it was hard to intimidate someone, even a dog-faced goblin, when he had a spear and you stank like an open sewer in summer.

Rozt'a tossed Dru's rag into the bog. "You can't be sure, Dru. Remember what Amarandaris said about problems he couldn't fix or control in Dekanter. Demons would be a damn good reason to move the trail."

"He'd have told me if it was demons. Anything to get my sympathy."

Dru stepped aside to let Rozt'a go ahead of him. The goblin followed Rozt'a. That left Tiep alone with his foster father.

"Thanks. Thanks for saving my life. I was a goner."

"Thank Sheemzher. I woke up when I heard you screaming, but Rozt'a and I, we'd have wasted precious time looking for you, if he hadn't been right there pointing the way with his spear. What were you doing out here?"

Sheemzher had gone ahead, but he hadn't gone far. He could probably hear everything Dru had said. The beggar understood their language better than he spoke it.

"Noises," Sheemzher answered before Tiep could think of something appropriate and innocent. "Smell. Terrible smell. Wake Sheemzher—people noses keen, very keen." He tapped the side of his. "Bad eyes; good noses. Sheemzher tell this one—look together, yes? Sheemzher think horses; find demon."

Tiep and the goblin looked knives at each other. Thank all the gods, Dru was looking the other way when he said:

"Yeah, well—it worked out all right, but it could've gone the other way. Horses aren't worth dying for. That's why we line 'em up away from where we sleep. You remember that— both of you. That spear's a good weapon, but it's thrust only, and you, Tiep, you used up a lifetime's worth of luck tonight."

Tiep didn't need anyone to telling him about luck. Rozt'a was waiting with the medicine chest. She put another dose of second-skin on Tiep's ankle—after he'd stripped, sluiced, and dressed in clothes that didn't stink. She'd patched up the goblin, too, never guessing that Sheemzher hadn't taken his damage from the beast.

Debts were mounting. There'd have to be a reckoning soon.

8

4 Eleint, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)

The Greypeak Mountains

Druhallen felt human when he woke up, a sure sign that his companions had let him oversleep. The sky had brightened before he'd abandoned his attempts to re-memorize the spells he'd expended in the dung-beast battle. He had expected to be exhausted as well as empty-headed all this day. One out of two was better than nothing, but he'd rather have had the spells than the sleep. The way things had been going here in the Greypeaks, he felt certain he'd wish he had a full complement of fire in mind before midnight rolled around again.

His body was rested, but Dru's bones ached from sleeping on the stone ledge. Two blankets beneath him wasn't enough any more. He needed a layer of loose dirt, sand, or moss and preferred a horsehair mattress; he was getting old. The thought of settling down in one place had become thinkable for Druhallen. He had enough on account with the Scornubel goldsmiths that he'd never have to return to Sunderath. He could buy himself a small shop in a well-run town and live out his days selling spells to merchants and lovers.

It would be a predictable life. After the last few days, Druhallen had an new appreciation for predictable. Dull and boring wouldn't be bad, either. Maybe he'd marry, have children of his own. The world was ripe with men who hadn't thought about families until they'd plucked a gray hair or two from their beards.

More than gold, Druhallen had the spells to make his daydreams come true. Ansoain's library, carefully preserved and protected back in Scornubel, contained true copies of Luvander's Prime Enchantments and Illusions of the Heart. He'd studied both volumes and there weren't more than three spells between them that he couldn't cast comfortably. Most of them were well within Galimer's range, especially if they weren't fielding surprises.

They'd joked about it—two wizards in their dotage casting spells on candles and wine cups. That had been before Rozt'a, when neither of them knew the meaning of tired or aching.

Or love.

Or fidelity.

Rozt'a had her back to Dru's blankets. She was talking to Tiep who was looking at his feet instead of her face. The youth was probably in a mood, but Druhallen wouldn't have wanted to be looking into Rozt'a's eyes just then. He'd face ten dung beasts with no fire at all before he'd tell her that he'd caught himself thinking about settling down, marriage, and children.

He wouldn't let himself think about such notions again, at least not until they'd gotten back to Weathercote and pried Galimer from Lady Mantis.

Dru grabbed his blankets with one hand and headed for the horse line, a path which, not coincidentally, took him close to Tiep and Rozt'a. They spotted him and fell silent.