Kerrick found his legs trembling as he put one foot carefully in front of the other on the hard-packed sand. As they came close to the deer Nenne seized him by the arm, stopping him.

“The vine with thorns that has the deer by the leg, see how it arises from the sand. Just where the deer is standing, near the grass it was eating. Why did the deer not see it and avoid it?”

“I think I know.” Kerrick bent and dug a half-buried clamshell from the sand, then threw it carefully underhand so that it dropped beside the corpse.

Sand flew aside as a green, thorn-tipped length lashed out of the sand and struck the shell.

“Lying just under the surface,” Kerrick said. “They are released when there is pressure above.”

“They could be growing anywhere here,” Nenne said, stepping carefully backward, walking in the tracks they had just made. “This is a place of death where nothing can live.”

“Not quite, look there, right at the base of the wall.”

They stood, unmoving and scarcely breathing as the leaves rustled and parted. A mottled, orange and purple head appeared, bright eyes looked about, withdrew. It was back a moment later, further out this time, a lizard of some kind. With quick movements it darted across the sand—then stopped, frozen. Only its eyes moved as it looked about. An ugly creature with a flat, thick tail, with swollen bulges on its back, shining in the sun as though it were wet. Then it moved on again leaving a trail of slime in its path, stopping at a clump of grass. It began to chew this with sideways motions of its jaw. Kerrick reached slowly into his quiver when it looked away, nocked an arrow, drew it back.

Released it.

“Good,” Nenne said, nodding approval as he looked at the impaled creature that kicked out sporadically then lay still. They retreated in a long circle and approached it from the ocean side, walking in the edge of the surf, bent over and looked at it.

“Ugly,” Nenne said. “See it drips with slime like a slug.”

“Perhaps that is protection from the poisons in the wall, probably the thorns as well. This creature was grown to live where everything else dies. There has to be a reason for that; the Yilanè who grow things do everything with a reason.”

“It is sick though—those boils on its back, one is opened.”

“Those aren’t boils or sores; see how regularly spaced they are.” With the tip of his bow Kerrick reached down and prodded the open bulge, disturbing it so that brown particles fell free. Nenne bent close over and looked at them.

“They are dry, I do not understand. They look like seeds.”