"It's not elves," Magiere said as she returned. "Not that I can guess. Look at this."

She pulled the small arrow out, and Leesil's brow wrinkled.

"I found it on our blankets when I awoke," she added, "along with the berries near my head. Chap found more of those over there by another open-ing.

Leesil took the shaft, turning it in his hand. "Too thin for a crossbow… too short for any bow I know of, and it looks newly fletched. That other opening must be how… whoever got in here.Maybe another passage out to the mountainside."

Chap thumped Leesil's leg with his head, then stepped out a ways to the cave and looked upward. Magiere picked up the crystal, rubbed it harshly, and held up its brightening light.

Above them in the ragged slanting walls were other openings scattered about. Their irregular positions, sizes, and shapes suggested they were natural and hadn't been dug. Leesil headed for the far wall, eyes raised to one larger opening.

Chap rushed into his way with a snarl of warning.

"You found the arrow," Magiere said. "It came from up there? Did you see it hit?"

Chap huffed once for "yes."

"Wynn, dig out the talking hide," she called.

"She can't," Leesil said.

Wynn was already pawing one-handed through the pile of saddlebags, packs, and bundles that Leesil had scavenged. Her frown deepened.

"Where is my pack?"

Magiere knew the answer. She'd been the one to pack the horses the previous morning.

"It must've been on Port," Leesil answered. "Everything I could find… this is all we have left."

The little sage's eyes widenedfurther, then narrowed at Leesil. "What? All my journals were in that pack, my quills and parchments… Chap's talking hide!"

Leesil turned away and wouldn't look at her.

"You sent most of your journals to Domin Tilswith," Magiere said, anxious to calm Wynn."Before we left Soladran. You can rewrite anything of importance, and there's been nothing worth noting since we left the Warlands. The elvenTerritories are still ahead, and that's what you've been waiting for most. We'll find parchment or paper-and I've seen you make ink."

"Of course," Leesil put in. "Soon as we're through these mountains… and a feather to cut a new-"

"If we get through! "Wynn shouted at him, and her words echoed about the high cavern."If Chap finds a way.If we do not starve. If we do not die of exposure or walk blindly over a cliff into a chasm… because you could not wait for winter to pass!"

Any defense Magiere might have offered for Leesil was smothered in her own rising guilt.

They all knew from the beginning that if Leesil's mother still lived, she was imprisoned by her people. The elves wouldn't kill her, it seemed, so she would still be there no matter how long it took to find her. But from the moment Leesil discovered the skulls of his father and grandmother, he'd stopped listening to reason.

Magiere had argued with him, time and again, over waiting out winter. In the end, she always relented, and he pushed them onward. Now here they were without horses or adequate food, and beaten down with fatigue and injury. Wynn's words were aimed at Leesil, but they struck Magiere into silence.

"What about Chap's talking hide?" Wynn continued. "How is he to talk efficiently with me, now that it is gone?"

The talking hide was a large square of tanned leather upon which Wynn had inked rows ofElvish symbols, words, and phrases. Both she and Chap could read it, and Chap pawed out responses beyond his one, two, or three barks.

Chap shook himself and barked once for "yes," then poked his nose into Wynn's shoulder.

"He can still talk with us a bit," Magiere offered.

Wynn didn't answer. She took another berry, fumbling to peel its skin with her thumbnail.

Magiere was about to stop her, for Leesil's suspicion was half-right. They had no idea where this gift of food had come from or why. She glanced at Chap, ready to ask if the berries smelled safe. He huffed a "yes" before she spoke and headed off across the cavern floor.

With a sigh, Magiere set the crystal aside and took up a bisselberry of her own, pulling back the fruit's skin.

Leesil wandered off to the cave's far side and crouched to gaze blankly down into the hole Chap had found. He was so driven to keep moving, to reach the elvenTerritories and find his mother. But Magiere knew they'd be lucky to even find their way back out of the range. She looked toward the hole he inspected and saw a flash of silver fur.

"Leesil, where is Chap?"

Magiere snatched up the crystal and her falchion as the tip of Chap's tail disappeared down the hole.

"Get back here, you misguided mutt!"

Chap crawled over thehole's lip and hopped down into a sloped tunnel, heading deeper inside the mountain. In the darkness he barely made out the passage, but scent guided him more than sight. He smelled something familiar. As much as that made his instincts cry a warning, he had to be certain of what he suspected.

The passage was rough and its ceiling so low that his ears scraped if he raised them. A few sliding pacesdownward, it dropped again a short way to the floor of a wider tunnel. The scent was strong, and Chap jumped down. His nose bumped a pile of plump fruits that tumbled apart, rolling off their platter of fresh leaves.

Bisselberries, Wynn had called them. What the elves of this continent calledreicheach sghiahean — bitter shields-for their edible skin was as unpleasant as the inside was sweet.

He pushed on down the tunnel, and when it seemed he had gone too far without encountering another pile, he paused and sniffed the air. It took a moment to separate the scent behind him from anything ahead, but they were there, somewhere down in the dark.

More bisselberries.

Someone… something… had laid a trail for them into the belly of the mountain. This was too mundane to be the working of his kin. He could not determine the direction in which the passage ran-forward or back or even to the side through the so-calledBroken Range. Where would they end up, even if the trail led out of the mountain at all?

Entombed in stone, a manifestation of the element of Earth, Chap called out through his Spirit one last time.

In this dark place, the silence of his kin made him sag. He stiffened and rumbled with outrage.

They would not come to him, and the survival of his companions-his charges-now depended on skulkers who would not revealthemselves. Behind the scent of fresh fruit and their green leaves, behind grime and dust kicked up by his own paws, was the other scent he had smelled upon first entering this place.

Like a bird and yet not. Faint but everywhere in the dark beneath the mountain.

Chap turned back, stopping long enough to pick up several bisselberries in his mouth to show the others. Hopefully it would not take long to make them understand. There was only one path to take, if they were to avoid starving or succumbing to winter.

Someone was trying to lead them through the inside of this mountain. Someone had called them in from the storm to find shelter.

Chap headed back toward his companions. He had to convince them to follow him into this passage… to trust his judgment once more.