"Friend," The Masked warned him, "Hurlandrun is west from here. Is it not?"
Farstrel stopped, turned, and looked at them both. "You can trust me," he replied gently. "The question is, can I trust you?"
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and went on. The Masked looked at Tantaerra, then west, then back at her.
She shrugged, then started after the Nirmathi. The Masked followed suit.
Soon they saw scattered bones. Human bones. Then a sprawled body that was more or less intact, if they overlooked the gaping ribcage where prowling beasts had gnawed.
Beyond, the trees were fewer, and they could see what looked like the remnants of a trail. It was only when they spotted a leaning stone wall that they realized they were walking into an overgrown, long-abandoned Nirmathi village.
"That body was recent," The Masked commented, "where this is not."
"The wounded and dying seek home, even if home is no more," the guide replied bleakly. "Beasts dine on what they find, wherever they find it."
"Do wolves and worse lair in the Shattered Tomb?" Tantaerra asked him. "And prowl out from it?"
Farstrel looked at her. "The Tomb is one of too many haunted places in our land that sane Nirmathi shun. Many dweomercats prowl there-and something worse."
"What's a dweomercat?" The Masked asked.
"And what's worse?" Tantaerra added.
"Dweomercats-most dweomercats-are small. Forgive me, lady, but …as you are small. And blue. But fast and sleek. Betimes their pelts glow. Yellow eyes, big fangs, and they swarm. Magic draws them, so they stray not far from the Tomb. They are many."
Farstrel shrugged. "As for what's worse, I know not truth, just wild tales. Many Nirmathi and Molthuni bands have tried to plunder the tomb-it's said to hold mighty battle magic-but all failed. And died. Now, folk foolish enough to try it are few indeed."
He smiled, and looked from one of them to the other. "These last three seasons, just you-and you."
Farstrel had stopped on a mound that had once been a home. Now he held up a spread and open hand, bidding them stop and stay where they were.
And drew his sword and dagger.
Tantaerra tensed, and knew The Masked was doing just what she was. Reaching for daggers to throw.
Then their Nirmathi guide tossed his weapons to the dirt at their feet.
He drew a second, hidden dagger from somewhere down his back, and dropped it to join them.
"The truth, now," he said quietly, eyeing them both as he spread empty hands. "You're after the magics in the Tomb. Are you from Molthune?"
Silence fell.
Tantaerra and The Masked both looked at the man. She tried to show nothing at all on her face. Her partner's mask gave him an advantage in that regard.
Her partner. Well, that's what he was, wasn't it?
"Word came of three sent out from Braganza, who should be helped to reach the Tomb," Farstrel told them carefully. "Telcanor word."
The Masked and Tantaerra looked at each other, then back at the guide-and nodded.
Farstrel relaxed visibly. "This one who tried to slay us, was he the third?"
"He was," The Masked confirmed.
"So now you know. What will you do about that?" Tantaerra asked the guide pointedly. She had quietly gotten out her smallest knife and was holding it ready to throw.
The guide only smiled and began retrieving and sheathing his weapons. "Nothing. I work for the Telcanors. Raldon was a bright, perceptive Nirmathi who was all too suspicious of me. and stuck to me like my own shadow. Now that he's dead, I can go back to trying to carry out my work, here in what was Molthune and will be again."
Abruptly he darted away from them, behind what was left of a wall. From the far side of it, he told them, "Go straight on, the way you're facing now. What's left of Hurlandrun is right over the next hill. May you taste success. My guiding is done, and I must be elsewhere."
A brief scrabbling followed, then the sounds of dislodged stones clacking and rolling …and then silence.
When they went up to peer around the ruined wall, there was no sign of Farstrel.
∗ ∗ ∗
Hurlandrun was right where their vanished guide had promised it would be.
Or at least its ruins were, stretching across the land below them. Fallen roofs, overgrown streets, and tall trees thrusting up through heaved and buckled stones here, there, and everywhere.
A domed building at the heart of it all caught the eye. It was far larger than anything else-almost certainly either a temple, or the Shattered Tomb. Perhaps it had been built as a temple, and later made over into the tomb of Mahalagris.
Its thick dome was cracked right across, with a huge gap between the two halves where they'd sagged apart over the years. It looked as if the walls that held up one half had started to lean, and so torn the dome asunder.
"Behold the Shattered Tomb," the halfling murmured. "Or shattered something, at least."
"Some proud herald you'd make," Tarram told her with a smile, and glanced up at the sun. It was late afternoon, and they had only the small, battered belt-lantern they'd taken from Nesker-a glorified oil lamp with a windshield cage, brim-full. "So, do we go down?"
Tantaerra nodded. "I suspect you've as little taste as I have for camping and awaiting morning. Given whatever beasts may prowl hereabouts-and Voyvik, who's certainly lurking near."
"Probably watching us right now," he agreed.
They headed cautiously down into the ruins, and soon saw bones. Lots of bones, gnawed and strewn widely. Cracked open and yellow-brown with age…and including more human skulls than either of them cared to count.
Then they saw the wolves.
A score or more, streaming down tumbled stones to lope quickly and fearlessly in their direction.
"Oh, dung," the halfling spat. "Too far to run."
"The wall," Tarram replied, scooping her up one-handed with more haste than regard for her dignity. "Perhaps …just perhaps …"
He ran, whooping for breath, the wolves bounding to meet them with jaws swinging wide and eyes gleaming with eager hunger …
Then something huge, green-scaled, and winged surged up from between two roofless houses, for all the world like a shark leaping from the waves of the Inner Sea, and pounced, skidding across the ground in a cloud of churned-up dust, great fanged jaws agape. Startled and yipping wolves tumbled into that dark maw and were torn apart.
The immense beast ripped through the yelping, scattering pack, biting and gulping. Then batlike wings beat once, the forest drake's long serpentine body and tail undulated, and it plunged down a hole behind a tumbled building, into unseen depths below.
Tarram looked at Tantaerra, still cradled in his arms, and said a word much harsher and nastier than "dung."
Then his running feet tripped and stumbled, and he fought wildly for balance as human skulls rolled and crunched underfoot.
The wall he'd been running so desperately for loomed up, ahead, and they could see a trio of human skeletons rising from behind it like warriors staging an ambush, reaching out with rusted blades-
Tarram ran right through one of them, not slowing. Bones clattered and cartwheeled in the air.
He drew what had been Nesker's sword and hacked. Tantaerra, still under his other arm, hammered with her dagger-pommel at reaching, raking skeletal fingers-and then they were past the skeletons, with new skulls rolling on the ground in their wake.
They turned a corner, beyond the wall, to step at last into the streets of abandoned Hurlandrun.
Streets that suddenly filled with a new and larger pack, streaming toward them. Not wolves this time, but tiny blue tigers or panthers, each about a foot long, plus another foot of tail. Scores of gleaming golden eyes, with grinning fangs beneath, and long, swept-back ears. In the distance, prowling unhurriedly to join their smaller brethren, strode a few larger ones. And a handful of much larger ones.