Reentering the pass, he walked quickly, but paid close attention to his surroundings. It wouldn’t be out of the question for Arik Siq to wait in ambush or to set traps to snare him. He found the Troll’s tracks quickly enough, deep gouges where the rock gave way to soft earth. The Troll was running, not bothering to mask his passing. It appeared that he was afraid and wanted only to get away. Panterra didn’t think the Troll feared him. He must be concerned that the poison from the blowgun wasn’t doing what was needed and that Sider Ament might still be alive.

He remembered suddenly how disturbed Arik Siq had been when he first saw the Gray Man all those weeks ago, coming out of the camp with Pan on the pretext of being his friend. He had thought the bearers of the black staff were all dead; he had looked decidedly uncomfortable to find out otherwise. Apparently he knew something of the old Knights of the Word, and he was frightened by that knowledge. It made Pan wonder how much of what the Troll had told him about Hawk and the Ghosts was the truth. How much of that whole story was real, and how had he known it in the first place?

He skirted the bodies of the dead, the Trolls and the men from Glensk Wood, as he wound his way ahead through the defile’s twists and turns. The rock walls loomed high to either side, all but shutting out the sky, and as the sun worked its way west, the shadows continued to deepen. He would get clear of the pass before nightfall, but tracking anyone after that might prove impossible. If the moon clouded over, he might have to wait until morning to resume his hunt.

When he reached the barricade the men from Glensk Wood had constructed to defend the pass, he found the few bodies of the Trolls killed coming over the wall lying undisturbed. Climbing to the other side, he took a moment to study the killing field below, but nothing seemed changed there, either. He descended a second ladder and picked his way through the dead. No one had come up from the village yet. They would all be thinking that the pass was defended and they were safe from a surprise attack, lulled into a false sense of security.

Until he told them otherwise, of course—something he would have to do sooner rather than later.