Laughing at other people who have narrowly escaped death is perhaps one of the worst things you can do. Yet there sat Taryn on the edge of the boat, laughing as loud as he pleased after I told him about what had happened thus far. The tale involving the dryads had started in the town of Oakvale, and his serious expression during most of it seemed fine.

When I spoke to him about how I'd kept up with the galloping horses he nodded his head, he found this pretty ordinary instead of as surreal as it should be. Talking about the arrival of Rivers Edge had even made him almost eager to hear me, he was totally riveted on my face while I spoke. At long last I reached the point where I fought against the dryad on the dock, and as soon as I mentioned falling off into the river he broke into laughter.

"It's not funny!" I told him outright, and in truth it wasn't. The dryad had thoroughly scared me and falling into the river had not been part of my plans in the slightest. It was probably luck that I did, as the dryad had given me a feeling that alone I would lose.

Taryn merely shook his head at me, he didn't even bother defending himself and instead kept on chuckling. When the tears had started to appear in his eyes he began to get a grip, his laughing fit having run it's course. With a single wide grin he turned his gaze to me once more before speaking. "So you managed to escape then?"

"Yes," I said even as I nodded my head, before stretching out my arms and legs and laying on the deck of the boat. "We should be arriving at Mastille in a few days. It has stone walls and a small legionnaire detachment, according to Rudicus."

Taryn snorted at the mention of Rudicus, before he looked off into the misty distance. "As soon as Alise heard you were in a fight with dryads she kicked me out of the orphanage and sent me north, to your moms. I should be arriving there sometime soon, I think," Taryn told me, before he shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, so that's why you left like you did...please don't do that again, I had a headache for the rest of the day," I said, before I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. "When you reach my house get ahold of Diana, merely mention my name and that I'm in trouble."

"I thought your mother was Esmeralda?"

"Diana is the head maid, my mother will probably ignore you," I warned him. "Diana can persuade her to actually listen."

"Your family is so weird," Taryn muttered.

"Oh! And you have to promise to not kidnap anyone!" I declared, as I propped up on my elbows. "Everyone in my house is a slave, but if you kidnap any of them my mother will rip your head off."

The mention of slave was enough to send a dark glimmer across Taryn's face, though he turned it even further away from me. "I won't...so that's why you were so confused by my actions in Vicna," he commented. His boots started to thud quietly against the side of the boat, while the legs dangled over the edge.

"Yeah...all the slaves in my home are treated nice, and given wages and allowed to go anywhere they want," I admitted. "The worst I'd seen were some slaves who acted up in public, thieving openly or causing violence. I never even imagined how the rest of the empire was..."

For a few minutes there was only silence while we rested in our respective spots, and then Taryn swung his legs back onto the deck of the ship and stood up. "There's only one thing I can't figure out...you said that Jesson lost his horse and managed to get back to you guys, right?"

A question to which I could only nod, while I began to tilt my head. "That's right. Then we ran south out of the town and headed west to Rivers Edge."

"The dryad followed you to Rivers Edge, and you were attacked almost immediately upon arrival right?" Taryn asked, as he leaned slightly forward. There was a certain intensity in his eyes as he stared directly at me, enough at least to make me want to squirm.

"We had enough time to find a boat, and then it was on us," I responded, while looking back at him with a slight hint of confusion.

"Which means it was fast enough to keep up with the horses, faster than a man running on foot. You even said it was almost as fast as Alise when you tried to fight it," Taryn murmured, before he turned his gaze toward the eastern horizon while the boat wallowed in the river.

What he was starting to hint at, what the entire conversation would inevitably lead toward was a thought I had had a few moments prior to falling asleep. It was a single thought that when uttered aloud would ruin any hope of having a peaceful, pleasant boat ride down the river. Yet instead of stopping him from speaking I merely stared at him, mute while I awaited his words.

"Why did they let Jesson escape?"

♪ ♫ ♬ ♫ ♪

Our arrival outside of Mastille was met with no fanfare, as nobody in the town had anticipated anyone arriving via boat. When the river bent toward the direction of Mastille and we could clearly see the docks, Rudicus directed our ship into an open pier and had Jesson throw down a rope to one of the dockhands.

It took almost no time at all for a litter to be called for, and Braddicus was placed on it while he wheezed and moaned. He had managed to avoid dying on the boat ride but his overall status had not bettered, which made Nala's face darken with every passing second. All of us could only watch him each day while he struggled to recover.

The local garrison were lead by a fellow named Tiltain, a man over average height and overall average capability. He had been placed in charge of Mastille a few years prior and was still somewhat new to living on the fringe of the empire. The arrival of General Rudicus, one of the youngest generals in the history of the Legion, caused Tiltain to become quite unnerved.

Before we even walked anywhere Rudicus began a quick explanation of what had happened to us, why we had been dispatched to the area and the severity of the situation. Tiltain grew paler with every word that he heard, and then finally held up a hand and begged Rudicus to stop. Before Rudicus could probe him for information the garrison leader turned and started to walk toward Mastille, while waving over one shoulder for us to follow.

While we walked into the town, the young Tiltain began the long rundown of the current status in Mastille. The wall was crafted of stone with wooden gates, there were only two gates which were located on the north and south edges of the town. The garrison had a total of ten legionnaires not counting Tiltain himself, while the population were farmers, fishers and hunters. A small family of miners had moved in recently and set up shop, although they hadn't been heard from in the past few days.

"Consider the family dead until they show up," Rudicus bluntly told him, before he waved at me. "This is Liliana Rose, if she tells you to jump then you do so. Consider her my second-in-command while we operate in this town. Prepare for a total shutdown of Mastille."

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"Shutdown! We can't do that!" Tiltain claimed, while he waved his right hand wildly. "If we shut down the town then our food stores will run out after a week! This place was not designed for a siege situation!"

Rudicus paused in his walking, we had entered Mastille and gone perhaps a quarter of the way toward where the garrison was housed. The look he directed toward Tiltain was enough to make even my blood freeze, and then when he spoke the words came out quietly. "Shutdown the town."

Tiltain's response was to salute toward him, before he hurriedly ran away in advance of us. "Idiot," Rudicus muttered, before glancing over in my direction. "Come on, we need to check up on Braddicus."

The garrison was housed in a small, squat building near the center of Mastille. It looked to barely be capable of holding eleven men, and so the presence of six soldiers standing outside while looking in the windows made far too much sense. Rudicus nodded toward them, though he made no move to salute nor talk to them.

When I walked by they barely glanced at me, their eyes were on whatever was happening inside the barracks. The interior of the building was as shabby and poor looking as the exterior, which made me wonder what sort of horrid things these soldiers had done to get deployed out here. The floor was wooden, though some parts had fallen into disrepair and started to even rot.

Rudicus boldly stomped through the door on the right, which lead to the room that the soldiers outside were so keen on looking at. Inside Nala stood over the injured form of Braddicus while she barked out commands to the two men inside. The personality reversal was such that I stood in shock, and then looked to Rudicus for an explanation.

"She never wanted to be a soldier," he murmured to me, before he nodded at Nala in greeting. "Nala, report please."

"Doesn't seem that any of his ribs punctured a lung, but he might have some internal bleeding. Given the primitive conditions of this barrack I'm doubting they have a proper kit for surgery," Nala told him, before she glared angrily at the two soldiers in the room. "Apparently some idiots decided to bet legionnaire equipment during local card games."

Rudicus' face took on a look that made me pity whomever he next ran across, and when he snapped his finger and pointed at a soldier the man jumped immediately to attention. "Where did Tiltain run off to?"

"Sir!" the soldier said as he saluted, though he looked shaky on his feet. The combination of an upset Nala and an enraged General Rudicus seemed to have made quite an impact on his young mind. "Tiltain probably ran to his office, further inside. Given the situation he's probably drinking."

"Nala, keep them from killing Braddicus, Liliana take those oafs outside and go shut down the gates. Try to coordinate with the local hunters, get some men up on the walls with bows and arrows," Rudicus commanded, before turning to the door and walking out. "I need to go talk to someone."

By the time I left the barracks the sound of a shrill sounding Tiltain crying for help could be heard coming from within, it seemed that Rudicus had opted to teach him the hard way how poorly he had handled his duties. Outside of the building I pointed at the soldiers and sent four of them to the south gate to lock it down. The other two I dragged along with me while heading to the north entrance, while asking them for information on the local hunters.

♪ ♫ ♬ ♫ ♪

Later that day I stood on top of the north wall, staring out into the empty plains that stretched out ahead. On the outskirts a forest grew, the same that grew into the great deep woods which surrounded Oakvale. Even from this distance the mere look of a tree caused me to shudder, every time they swayed I thought it was another dryad coming.

An archer by the name of Eran rested in a chair he had dragged up the ladder, as though to prove to the world that no matter where he was he'd always have it. He was considered one of the better hunters in the town and pointed out numerous weakpoints in the walls. The normal townsfolk were pressed into helping to patrol, with a legionnaire in the group of each in case something happened.

"So you think we're in trouble?" Eran asked, as he drank from a flask which contained the hottest, nastiest thing I had ever tasted in my life. The fact that he had multiple flasks all filled with the same thing made me wonder what type of stomach he had.

"Yes, these dryad things are completely different from anything I've had to deal with," I told him honestly. The Shatterblade had been converted into a spear, one which I leaned against while listening to the wind. "I'm not sure how effective your arrows are going to be, they have a pretty hard skin."

"Everything has weak spots on the body, even the snappers," Eran pointed out, while he offered his flask to me for a second time.

My hand came up instantly to ward it off, I had only a drop of it previously and it was more than enough for the rest of my life. "I'd say their weak point is probably going to be the holes in their faces, or maybe the bends of their elbows and knees?"

"Makes senses, makes sense," Eran said as he nodded his head. "Well if you see one point it out and then I'll try to thread a needle with my arrow."

"Just watch for a walking tree," I commented, then pointed with my hand out in the distance at a small tree on the edge of the forest. "Kind of like that, except moving."

Eran had been in the midst of drinking when he paused, and then stood up from his chair. He slid the flask into a loop on his belt, reached down to the quiver of arrows next to his chair and pulled it out. A long, almost exaggerated pull of his bow followed this as he prepared to fire the arrow, then tilted it up high enough that I could only wonder where he was aiming.

The arrow flew through the air in a great arc, it was the furthest I had ever seen an arrow shot and made me wonder how much power his bow held. With a quiet whistle caused by the style of fletching the arrow dropped and then collided against the distant tree I had pointed at, before bouncing off and hitting the ground.

With a shudder the tree started to twist, and then slowly step out into the field. Two empty holes for eyes stared out across the landscape at the city walls, and a third hole that marked the mouth emitted a cry that was more shriek than anything else.

Eran spit in the direction of the dryad, before he grinned and looked at me. "So exactly like that eh?"