Malthooz took the symbol back from the wizard and dropped it down the front of his tunic.
"Say what you will, Krusk. I don't expect you to understand."
11
Lidda appeared in the dense trees ahead. She was moving in a crouch, a finger over her mouth, signaling the others to keep quiet. Her cloak blended perfectly with the tree trunks as she moved silently toward them. Malthooz reached for his club to steady his shaking hand. He watched the others react to the rogue's return, tightening their own grips on the weapons they held ready. Krusk drummed his fingers in sequence along the handle of his axe. The sound only added to Malthooz's anxiousness.
Sleep had been difficult for the half-orc the previous night as the companions camped on the open plain. He spent most of it tossing and turning as nightmares of the troll chasing him ran endlessly through his head. Every sound that echoed from the nearby forest startled him wide awake. When he wasn't peering anxiously into the darkness, he was shivering under his coarse, wool blanket.
The light of day found him still weary and sore. No one wanted to light a fire for fear of attracting unwanted attention, though the damp, frigid air left Malthooz wishing for one.
They followed the footprints deeper into the forest for most of the morning. By noon there was still no sign of their quarry beyond the tracks they left behind. Tall pines and firs, standing over the group like sentinels, blocked most of the light of midday and brought a dismal feeling over the journey. At least the cover kept them out of the icy wind, though Malthooz would have welcomed its sound over the eerie silence that hung over the place.
"Gnolls ahead. A pair of them," Lidda said in an urgent whisper, holding up two fingers to emphasize the point. "About a quarter mile. They look half drunk."
Krusk's tapping stopped suddenly.
"Dog faces," he said with a sneer, "should be easy."
He started moving.
"I'm not so sure," Vadania said, grabbing his arm. "We don't know how many there are, or how organized they are."
"She's right," Mialee said. "What about the big footprints? Let's not get carried away until we know what we're up against."
"I'd guess that the rest of the group is somewhere ahead," Lidda said. "They must have a camp. I don't think they'd post guards if they were going anywhere."
"That's a fair guess, but I don't want to stake my life on it," Vadania said. "I'd be much more comfortable if we did more snooping. I shouldn't have too much trouble getting by them."
They all turned as Krusk buried the head of his axe in a tree trunk.
"Make your plans," he growled, "but be quick with it."
Vadania scowled at the barbarian. "There's precious little living in these parts as it is," she said.
Malthooz missed Vadania's transformation the previous day and he watched with fascination as her body changed. He tried to keep his eyes on the woman as it happened, but the process was difficult to track. The details were easy enough, the fur emerging from her skin and her fingernails becoming claws. It was the gross metamorphosis of form that made the half-orc queasy. He was not sure that he could describe what he was seeing. Vadania's body collapsed on itself as her muscles shrank and contracted. Her skin folded over and condensed. Fur sprouted from the tips and insides of her pointed ears.
Within moments, the elf woman Malthooz knew was nowhere to be seen. A squirrel twittered on the ground where she had been. The animal leaped onto a nearby tree trunk, making a quick circuit. She appeared on a branch high above, chirping and chattering at her companions on the ground. With a swish of her bushy tail, the druid jumped to another branch and darted into the woods.
The half-orc was thankful for the delay that the druid's scouting mission brought, even though he realized it was only temporary. A fight seemed inevitable at this point, and Malthooz was not overly eager to see it happen. He suspected that Krusk felt differently, guessing from the way he paced around, muttering curses into the air. It had always been that way with Krusk for as long as Malthooz knew him. Krusk had never been one for subtlety. He was the one who rushed headlong into whatever lay ahead, whether he knew what it was or not. Most often he didn't. Malthooz was glad for the presence of the druid and the other women. He'd hesitate to say that they made Krusk into a more sensible or gentle creature, but they did have a certain balancing affect on his reckless urges.
Something about Krusk's attitude was strangely infectious, though. Malthooz had never developed much physical prowess, but Krusk was different. Ever since he'd arrived at the village of outcasts, seeking a safe place to lay low, he'd been the best at anything involving strength, and Malthooz admired the attention it brought him.
Maybe he'd spent too much time with the barbarian, Malthooz thought, watching as a combined glare from Lidda and Mialee made Krusk set his axe down and take a seat. Malthooz could not deny that he felt a small but growing part of himself that hoped for a fight. He would have thought that the encounter with the troll would have been sufficient to frighten him off. The nightmares were certainly terrifying enough. Strangely, it was having the opposite effect, and he wasn't sure why. As scared as he was, he felt like he had to face the fear head on. The only way he was going to do that was through battle.
Malthooz shook his head. Did he have any idea what he was saying to himself? He looked up and saw the druid approaching. He reached for the disk under his shirt to calm his fear and get a grip on his fluctuating emotions.
Vadania came striding through the trees, already reverted into her elf form. The druid's every movement echoed the gentle sway of the wind through the pines. Her natural adornments, the beads and shells in her hair and on her clothing, only added to Malthooz's sense that the woman was of the forest. She looked at home.
"The group is not far from here," Vadania reported, her voice low and her tone grim. "There's a clearing about a mile ahead. It contains many tents and a crude wooden building. Might be an abandoned bandit camp. Gnolls were crawling all over the place. I saw at least a dozen, and that's not including the guards Lidda saw. There's probably more in the woods." She dropped her eyes. "I don't think a frontal assault is the best choice."
Krusk was on his feet again. He grabbed his axe from a knot of roots and slammed it into the loop on his belt.
"Figures," he growled.
Lidda gave the barbarian a sympathetic look and said, "Sorry, Krusk."
Malthooz didn't know how much more idleness Krusk could take.
Lidda turned to the wizard and asked, "Mialee, can you work something on the guards?"
The wizard nodded and replied, "Why, do you have a plan?"
Malthooz saw Lidda's grin and knew that the rogue had something in mind. She gave the half-orc a wink.
"We should move back until after nightfall," she said. "My plan requires the right conditions."
Malthooz followed Krusk as the company retreated.
They moved out as darkness settled. Lidda and Mialee would make a move on the guards combining the wizard's magic with the halfling's skill, then all of them would head toward the camp. The rogue would infiltrate the place, locate the staff, and remove it from under the gnolls' noses.
Lidda had to rely on Mialee's sight until she was close enough to the gnolls to act on her own. The wizard was not slowed by the darkness so much as the halfling. Her eyes were able to see much farther than Lidda's under the indistinct light of the moon and stars. It was a gift of her elf blood and a trait that she and Vadania shared.