“Oh yes, the officers knew of your nightly visits to the cargo. It is a small ship, sir, and the officers’ bunks were just above. We heard you every night torturing them, and I fear a good deal more than that. I am no great fan of elves, but by Maribor, there are limits to the abuses conscience permits! No, sir, I do not think I will be turning Seaman Melborn over to your authority anytime soon. Even should I trust you to treat him honorably, I need all the hands I can get, and as we both know, you are not an honorable man.”

“It’s a pity to see such a young, promising lad throw his life away,” Thranic fumed. “I’ll see that you are executed for this.”

“To do so, we must return to Avryn. Let us hope we both live to see that day.”

At dawn the crew of the Emerald Storm left the village and once more plunged into the jungle, traveling northeast of the Oudorro Valley by a narrow, barely visible path. The rain had left the ground swamped, but it had stopped at last. On the third day, cliffs and chasms barred their path. They followed ridgelines where a stumble could send a man falling hundreds of feet, walked perilous rope bridges that spanned raging rivers, and followed rocky clefts down into dark valleys. In the lower ravines it was dark, even at midday. Trees created phantom images. Rocks looked like crouching animals, and stunted, gnarled bushes appeared like monsters in the mist.

Royce’s health steadily improved, though his disposition remained unchanged. He was able to walk on his own most of the day, and thanks to Fan Irlanu’s balm, his wounds no longer required a bandage.

They found the bodies on the fourth day out of Oudorro. Corpses, dressed in clothes similar to those of Dilladrum and the Vintu, lay on the path. Flies hovered, and the stench of decay lingered in the air. They had been dead for some time, and many were missing limbs or showed evidence of bites.

“Animals?” Wesley asked.

“Maybe.” Dilladrum looked off toward the east. “But perhaps the Panther is not able to contain his beasts, just as Burandu told us.”

“You’re saying the Ghazel did this?”

Dilladrum paused to study the jungle around them. “Impossible to say, yet these bodies are weeks old and it’s not like the jungle to let them rot. Animals don’t like Ghazel and will avoid an area with their smell, even if it means passing up a free meal.