Why do you call us… now that you have abandoned us in our need to go your own way?

Chap bowed his head as the lizard's tail slipped out of sight behind the trunk.

I stand by her. I stand by my choice. And nothing you hope for has been lost as yet. But the others…

A flurry of skittering filled his ears like tiny claws and paws racing through the forest canopy in agitation.

Chap padded back and form impatiently. And the half-elf? He still serves his purpose, to keep Magiere from the reach of the enemy… and perhaps more.

A telling silence was the only reply, and he pressed further.

Let life bar death in this place. Hold off the restless dead. Hold them for even a short while. Keep the sage and the an-maglahk safe.

Whispers and rustles in the leaves grew louder.

Chap knew his kin hated this forest of death. He rumbled in anger at their indecision.

Without her companions, the dhampir will fall to the enemy. Hold back the spirits of death, or what we seek will certainly be lost.

Whispers faded to silence.

Chap felt a wind, gentle at first but growing in strength, until it whipped at his fur. He heard cries in the dark that mingled with whispers from the trees and the skittering of life among them.

White mist whipped among the branches around the hollow in which Chap stood.

The grizzled soldier and scores of others took half-form in the air as they swirled together above him. More and more of the forest's wandering ghosts were pulled in. The girl with dark curls and torn throat rushed past him, caught in the gale. And all began to blur until they became nothing but translucent glowing streaks.

The whirlwind expanded until its circumference touched the dark branches above. The threads of white mist split and tangled in the forest canopy. Bit by bit, the wind died down to a breeze.

When the rustle of Chap's fur ceased, there was only the dark above him. All trace of the spirits had vanished, trapped by the forest.

Relief filled him. Leesil could find a way to face almost anything else that came, and Wynn might yet survive this night.

Chap waited no longer and bolted through a space in the sentinel trees. He thrashed through tangled branches and curtained moss, until he broke into the open and followed the scent of Magiere.

Leesil was well into the forest when the first ghost assaulted him. He dodged only to be struck in the back by another. Icy pain made him stumble to his knees, and streaks like vapor in a wind exploded from his chest. When he rose, ducking through the trees to escape, he lost track of Wynn. When he circled back, she was nowhere in sight.

Breathing brought pain as he backtracked to find her, but a hideous form flew toward his face.

The man looked as if he'd been stretched until his bones were broken, and his arms and legs hung in the night air, distended from his shoulders and hips. Madness twisted his features as the spirit melted to a white blur and struck Leesil's torso.

The cold was so severe that the breath clogged in Leesil's chest. He tumbled to the wet ground trying to expel the chill from his lungs.

Leesil clawed up the trunk of a tree to his feet.

He had lost control of this journey, and he couldn't fight what his blades couldn't touch. He and Wynn would die here. The ghosts wouldn't stop until the very life was frozen out of them. And what would become of Magiere, left alone in this world?

Leesil drew in a painful breath. A gentle breeze crossed his skin, pulling at the branches and dangling moss around him. He looked for any place he might run, remembering the rush of air in the cavern when Ubad's guardian spirits had attacked them.

The breeze built to a wind… and then a gale that whipped his hair into his eyes as he clutched for a handhold on the base of a low stout branch.

Spirits all around thrashed frantically-but not at him.

The anger in their warped features transformed into fear. The broken man opened his slack jaw in a whispering scream as the wind dragged him away into the forest.

Translucent figures flew past Leesil on the air. Within moments, the forest around him emptied of all but the dark branches and wet foliage and long strands of moss.

The wind dropped with a last gust that pulled at his hair.

Leesil looked about, uncertain what had happened. His first instinct was to call out to Wynn, but he stopped himself. If anything else lurked here, he would give away not only his own position but possibly Wynn's, as well.

He silently cursed himself as a fool.

He never should have agreed to Magiere's reckless gambit. The four of them shouldn't have separated. He tried searching again for Wynn, but he had lost his sense of direction. Every step in these marshy woods looked the same as the last.

A spark of light in the distance caught his attention. It blinked in and out as it moved among the trees.

Leesil's fear melted in relief as he remembered Wynn's cold lamp. Then he spun behind an oak as that same relief vanished. Wynn hadn't been carrying her lamp when they'd fled the cavern. And the light was an orange yellow tint rather than crystal white.

He crouched as the glimmer came around the side of an oak. The figure carrying it took shape in Leesil's night sight.

Grayed and shriveled skin took on a sickly yellow cast in the glow and revealed eyes that bulged in sunken sockets. The topaz amulet Leesil had lost was still clutched in his bony hand.

Vordana held his shoulder where Leesil's blade had sliced through.

Leesil smelled the walking corpse even at a distance and remembered how that cut had broken the sorcerer's focus in the cavern. Vordana had a weakness in his decaying flesh that other undead did not.

Leesil crawled quietly along the ground, keeping his quarry in sight. The topaz glowed in Vordana's presence like a beacon. The sorcerer stopped to look about in puzzlement, and Leesil turned his course to move out ahead. He found duck brush between two trees and crouched there, gripping both blades.

Vordana wandered, turning slightly to his left, and Leesil bit his lip in frustration. Then the sorcerer curved back upon his original path. Waiting in the darkness, Leesil gauged the distance as his target neared.

Ten paces, five, two…

He sprang up and forward, driving his right blade in below Vordana's collarbone.

A soft metallic click came just before the sound of severed bone scraping against steel, but Leesil kept his eyes on his opponent's face. The force took Vordana off balance, and Leesil followed on the momentum.

Vordana's back slammed against a tree as the blade's tip drove deeper. The impact brought a shower of water drops cascading down upon both of diem from the branches above. The dead man's putrid stench thickened from the wound, and light dimmed as the topaz fell from his grasp.

Leesil raised his other blade to hack into Vordana's throat, and the sorcerer's filmy eyes widened. A chant rose behind Leesil's thoughts, filling the back of his mind. He changed the second blade's swing, taking the quicker path into Vordana's stomach. As the blade sank in, the chant swelled to a shriek, then ceased.

Vordana's mouth gaped. Leesil jerked the blade from the dead man's gut to draw back and strike for bis neck. A wave of fatigue struck him, and his blow faltered.

The blade's edge clipped Vordana's wounded shoulder, and the sorcerer flinched. His bony hands grasped Leesil's arms.

Fatigue flooded Leesil's body so quickly that his legs and arms quivered as he fought to stay on his feet. Vordana's voice filled his head.

Your life is my strength, half-breed. What a meal your elvish blood is.

Vordana's words were filled with malicious joy, but there was still fear in his skeletal face. Focus appeared to take great effort on his part, but Leesil felt his life being ripped from him by the walking corpse. He needed to break the undead's concentration, but he felt himself growing weaker.