“You’re sure?” Craning his bent neck, Speros tried to peer past the hulking forms. There was nothing but tunnels and more tunnels, a maze of tunnels, each one narrowing like a funnel into the darkness beneath the mountains.

“Sure enough.” Krolgun shrugged. “Can’t smell prey, and the tunnels are too small to go farther.” He chuckled low in his throat. “Maybe it was you we caught a whiff of.”

“What is that smell?” Speros sniffed the air, trying to identify the underlying odor. It reminded him of his boyhood, long ago; before he had ever filched a coin or borrowed an untended horse, before his father had disavowed his name. A heady odor, like ripe, sun-warm strawberries in the fields of Haimhault.

Krolgun gave another shrug. “Sheep?”

“No, not sheep.” Speros frowned, then shook himself. The torches were guttering for lack of air and his thoughts were doing the same. “Never mind. Let’s get out of here before we suffocate, lads. We’ll double back, retrace our steps. Maybe it was a trick.”

If it was a trick, it was well-played. The Fjel searched every turn and blind alley and found nothing. Speros made his way back through the smoke-wreathed air to where Ghost stood awaiting him with unnatural patience, baring her teeth at his return. He took care to avoid them as he mounted. There was no room to turn her and he had to back her down the tunnel, watching uneasily as the dark maze before him receded.

Surely, no living thing could survive in such a place.

The remainder of their search was uneventful. They traveled at a more moderate pace until they reached the massive rock-pile that blocked the Vesdarlig Passage. The Gulnagel glanced at one another and shrugged.

Speros sighed. “Back toward Darkhaven, lads. Slow and careful, eyes and ears! Aye, and noses, too.”

There was nothing to be found. Hours later they emerged to murky daylight in the Vale of Gorgantum. Speros relayed orders regarding doubled patrolling of the tunnels, then rode toward the fortress to stable Ghost before reporting to General Tanaros. Despite the futility of his mission, open air and Ghost’s smooth, gliding pace cheered him. He wished the news were better, but perhaps it had been a fool’s errand after all, chasing after something a raven had not quite seen. A plaited rope? It may have been, or it may have been the wind in the tall grass. Like as not, it had been. At least he could set the General’s mind at ease. Soon, battle would be upon them and there would be no more need for mucking about after bits and pieces of Haomane’s cursed Prophecy.

Riding toward Darkhaven, Speros of Haimhault smiled and dismissed from his memory the scent of strawberries ripening on the sun-warmed earth.

“GO!” THULU HISSED BETWEEN HIS teeth. “Go, lad, go!”