Though the coming daylight was murky, it still let them see in normal light again.

“What was that all about?” Sienna groused, as they quickly gathered up.

“I have no idea,” Lucas answered.

“Caitlyn, go into those woods and see how many were in there,” Fawnlum said.  “Sienna, go with her.  Then catch up.  We’ll go back the way we came and turn east.”

As the two young women slipped into the shadows, Fawnlum led the others to the north at a run.

They rejoined her by early evening.

“The ones that watched us had over a dozen in their number,” Caitlyn said.  “When we went deeper in, we found scores of tracks.”

“Many scores,” Sienna grimly added.  “The numbers we’ve seen so far are nothing.”

“Only,” Caitlyn said, “they travel in packs like orcs; and each pack stays in a single little area.”

“Like staying inside their own territory,” Fawnlum said with a nod.  “You two sleep.  Lucas, take the first watch.”

After two days traveling east, she turned south again, deeper into the woods.

Caitlyn scouted further ahead, and returned to Fawnlum with an account of tracks and trails worn into the ground from all the tri-cleorps’ activity.

“Do the more numerous tracks come to this spot?”

She shook her head.

Fawnlum rubbed one finger against her chin.  “Then let’s see if they come this far.  Get some more wood for the fire.”

Fawnlum took comfort in the bigger, burning campfire, aware of more tri-cleorps watching from the trees.  She fought the temptation to kick out the flames, noticing how they did not approach.  But again, they did not go north of the camp, either.

Morning saw a very agitated Sienna.  “I thought you said these things were hostile!” she griped at Lucas.

“They are!  I don’t know what they’re about!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fawnlum said.  “We’re going back north.”

“Why?” Sienna asked, with genuine surprise.  “If we go in there,” she said, pointing to the south, “they’ll surely come to us.”

“The ones to the north are already brave enough to come at us.”  She nodded toward the trees.  “Before I face those others, I want to know why they’re hanging back.”

They arrived at the Gonall stream in less than three hours.

“Anyone else having trouble sleeping?” Lucas asked, as they turned east.

“It’s the dark magic,” Caitlyn said.  “I can feel it in the Spirits’ call.  It’s poisonous to them as it is to the plants.”

“It feels like it’s poisonous to me,” he replied, a bit cautiously.

“That’s why it’s good to have a bigger fire,” Halrick answered him.  “The more it keeps the darkness away, the more it keeps the witchcraft away.”

“I do believe you’re right,” Lucas mumbled.

“What else do the Spirits tell you about it?” Fawnlum asked Caitlyn.

“Just pain that torments my mind.”

Fawnlum studied her scout for a brief moment.  “Caitlyn, I’m about to give you an unusual order, and don’t think ill of me for it.

“Don’t commune with the Spirits in this forest.”

Caitlyn’s morose eyes popped out with near shock.

“Don’t let their pain distract you.”

Caitlyn stood a little straighter, with her shoulders back.  She defiantly answered, “Saima, how can we ignore – ?”

“They need a warrior, not a shoulder to cry on.”

Caitlyn relaxed a little, reluctantly.

And with that, they silently pressed on.

That night, they saw a battle.  Their more obvious snares had been bypassed, but the more carefully disguised ones were triggered, and the Coastals jumped up amid the racket.  Their sabers flashed in the firelight, as they claimed another tri-cleorps pack.

Fawnlum scouted as soon as the last body fell, and with her headband followed a set of tracks and trail of blood, telling of another individual who had run away.

At the base of a shroom, she found a dead tri-cleorps.  As she was removing the ear, however, she saw the wound had been made not by a Coastal saber.  She turned away from the temptation to be curious over why they would kill their own.  She simply let the corpse rest, and walked back to camp.

Sienna called as she returned, “Stay, or go on?”

“Go on, of course.”

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

A day later, they came to the bodies of the more aggressive tri-cleorps that had attacked them the night they had met up with the dwarves.  They had been picked at by the scavengers and predators, leaving a smelly, rancid sight.

“Wait a minute!” Lucas called.  “Look at this!”  With that, he pulled a crude necklace off one of the bodies.

It was a skull of a tiny sharp-toothed animal, in a mold of amber.

“So?” Fawnlum asked.

“This is a badge the tribes use to identify themselves.  It’s different than the ones on that first bunch of bodies.  This means there are two tribes occupying this same forest.”

“So?” Sienna asked, echoing Fawnlum’s puzzlement.

“The tribes never share a territory.  Different tribes hate each other as much as they hate us.”

“Well, maybe their ‘wizard master’ is making them work together,” Sienna answered.

“Yes, like we talked about with Melbourne,” Halrick said.

“Even if that’s right, it would have to be more than a great wizard to make them forget their rivalries.”