After long minutes, Gaborn decided that there were some things one should not ask a wizard. What price had Binnesman paid to give life to the wylde? Gaborn wondered.

Now the Earth Warden turned from the road and picked his way among twisted paths here under the shadowed trees. No other scout could have made his way in such maddening darkness. Gaborn left the wizard to his work in silence, in the starlight, for an hour, until they came upon an old road. From there, Binnesman raced the horses north, until suddenly the road dropped down to a ridge overlooking the broad fields outside the village of Trott, twelve miles west of Castle Sylvarresta.

On the plain below lay hundreds of multicolored pavilions from the hordes of Southern traders who had journeyed north for Hostenfest but who had been forced to vacate the fields near Castle Sylvarresta when Raj Ahten’s troops laid siege.

Binnesman called the horses to stop, gazed down over the dark fields. The grass had been burned white by the late-summer sun, so that even by starlight reflecting off the grass one could see.

“Look!” Iome whispered. Gaborn followed her pointing finger, saw something dark creeping across the fields, toward the pavilions with their horses and mules for the caravans.

Nomen were down there, eighty or a hundred, creeping toward the tents on their bellies to hunt for food. To the east, along the ridge, he saw several large boulders move, realized that a trio of frowth giants were also prowling the edge of the forest.

Hungry. They merely hungered for meat. Raj Ahten had marched the giants and the nomen all this way, and they’d survived the battle at dawn, but now they would be hungry.

“We’ll have to take care,” Gaborn said. “These horses need to graze and to rest. But until it’s safe, maybe we should ride in the open fields, where we can’t be surprised.” Gaborn turned his mount east, to head back toward Castle Sylvarresta. From there he could take the Durkin Hills Road south.

“No, we should go west from here,” Iome said.

“West?” Gaborn asked.

“The bridge at Hayworth is out. We can’t run the horses through the forest, so we can’t go near Boar’s Ford. Besides, we don’t want to run into Raj Ahten’s army in the dark.”

“She’s right,” Binnesman said. “Let Iome lead you.” His voice sounded tired. Gaborn wondered how much his spell-casting had drained him.

“West is the only way—over the Trummock Hills Road,” Iome said. “It’s safe. The forest does not encroach on the road. My father’s men cut it back.”

Binnesman let the horses rest a few moments. As one, the group dismounted, stretched their legs, adjusted the girths on their mounts.