The tracks led northeast through the heavy, sodden forest. Kevlin extinguished the lantern and they moved warily. After leaving the highway, the enemy would probably camp and post sentries.

The enemy did not stop.

The sun finally appeared by mid-morning. They paused at the top of a low hill only sparsely covered with trees. To the east, a high bluff reared up a thousand feet or more above the forest in a sheer cliff. The escarpment, perhaps twenty miles east, ran north as far as they could see, its shadow stretched long across the forest, as if trying to block the coming of the sun.

“I don’t know where they’re going, but they can’t get past that,” Kevlin said.

Half an hour later, the tracks emptied onto a game trail that ran straight east toward the bluff.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Ceren said. “They need to make a run for the border. Why waste time in the forest?”

Kevlin shrugged and kept walking. They followed the trail all morning, and he grew jumpier with every mile. The stress of watching for an ambush wore on him, magnified by lack of sleep and the constant burning of his injuries.

The day again turned overcast and grim, accompanied by a constant chill wind. The forest grew thicker on both sides of the trail, and raindrops regularly splashed down onto them from the overhanging leaves.

At least wet leaves were quiet, and pretty soft. Still, his feet began to ache. He’d have blisters soon.

Just what I need, one more problem.

They paused around noon near a bubbling stream and ate some of their meager provisions. As Kevlin rummaged through his small, tear-shaped burglar pack, he discovered Bajaran’s silver dagger. He had forgotten about it, and studied it while they ate. Ceren didn’t seem to notice the weapon, but sat staring up into the cloudy sky.

The blade looked silver. When he tested the edge on a piece of wood as thick around as his wrist, it sliced clean through in one stroke. Definitely infested with magic, but of a kind he could appreciate. The eye-twisting silver runes on the scabbard gave him a headache. Since he hadn’t retrieved the dagger that usually hung at the base of his neck, he secured the new one in its place.

The forest to the east grew thick over the trail. The path was tight, and rarely could they see more than a dozen yards ahead. Fear of an ambush kept Kevlin on edge.

The bluff loomed ahead, and he reckoned they’d reach the foot of it by nightfall if the trail didn’t change direction. It started to rain again at dusk, and within half an hour it poured down. With great difficulty, Kevlin lit the lantern and opened the shutter just wide enough to show the way.

“Do you think we should stop?” Ceren asked as darkness became complete, the first words she’d spoken in hours. Her voice sounded thin and tired.

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“Not yet.” Kevlin yearned for sleep, but he didn’t want to risk losing the trail. The rain would wash away even the makrasha's heavy tracks. “I doubt they can see any better in this mess than we can, so I want to find where they camp tonight.”

“What if they don’t stop?”

“I don’t know.” He hoped they would. He was exhausted and already felt at least one blister on each foot. Neither he nor Ceren were going to make it much farther, but they couldn’t stop yet.

“Where are they going?” Ceren asked.

“I have no idea.”

This appeared to be an untracked piece of wilderness, but the trail still ran east, straight for the towering bluff. The enemy should be running for the sea. With the degree of sophisticated planning they’d demonstrated, it would have been a simple matter to have a ship standing ready to pick them up in a quiet cove. They could then set sail for the western shores closest to Grakonia.

Kevlin and Ceren trudged on, fighting to stay alert and stave off their growing exhaustion. Two hours later, Kevlin was on the verge of calling a halt when the trail suddenly widened.

Ceren stepped up beside him and they stared vainly into the darkness. They crept forward and, within a hundred yards, the trail widened further to become a narrow road.

“Wherever they’re going, I think we’re nearly there,” Ceren murmured.

Kevlin nodded and shuttered the lantern to allow only a single, tiny beam of light to fall at their feet. They pushed on silently over the muddy road, with rain cascading down around them.

A quarter of a mile farther, the road turned left, and after fifty paces they felt rather than saw the trees falling away to either side. They seemed to have reached a clearing, although its size remained a mystery. Kevlin reckoned it must lie very close to the base of the cliff. He blew out the lantern and they crouched together, striving to hear anything over the constant drumming of the rain.

Nothing.

They ate a little food and waited.

Still nothing.

“Come on,” Kevlin said, pulling Ceren to her feet. “Let’s go a little farther.”

“Should we light the lantern to see the tracks?”

“No.”

“We could lose them, or the rain could wash them away.”

“I know, but I have a feeling they’re close.”

“How do you know?”

“Just a feeling.”

He didn’t mention that it was a feeling of growing dread, of certainty that they were approaching deadly evil.

“If I’m wrong, we’ll return here and use the lantern,” he added.

They walked out into the clearing, trying their best to hold a straight line in the darkness. The open space was level but dotted with tree stumps, and it was huge. After walking at least a quarter mile, they heard a low boom.

Ceren held to his arm and they stopped to listen. Leaning close, Ceren whispered, “That sounded like a gate closing.”

“Let’s keep going, but be careful.” He led the way forward, cautiously feeling each step, and arranged his slicker to better reach his sword.

The rain slackened as they crossed another hundred yards or so, then both stopped together. The flickering light of a torch had appeared high above the ground, perhaps two hundred yards ahead. It moved slowly left to right for about fifty feet before disappearing.

“They’re up on a wall,” Ceren said. “Carrying a torch along the top of a wall.”

He had been hoping for some good news for a change. With all the bad spins of the Wheel they’d had in the past day, they were due for a change of luck.

They really should turn and run, but instead he said, “We need to get closer.”

With hands outstretched, they crept forward in the darkness, feeling their way one step at a time. After half an hour, Kevlin touched wood. It felt like the trunk of a tree lying horizontal. Beside him, Ceren inhaled sharply.

The wall.

They had blindly walked right up to a wall of rough-hewn logs rearing higher than he could reach.

They had found the enemy.

Kevlin did not feel like celebrating.