Neri scaled the wall of black mannarim as quietly as he could. The upper portion of the Titan’s Arm was not as smooth as the lower and offered moderate hand and foot holds. A net of black rope was strung across the lower half, but where he was on the crest of the wave, he had only his feet and strong fingers. When at last the humans had all passed onto the safety of the Trembling Path, he slid back down and caught the net, then climbed it to the ground.

“There’s easier vantage points,” said a quiet voice from somewhere in the rocks. He peered closely at a pile of tall boulders. In the shadows behind he could almost make out the outline of an arm. Dathynen laughed and stepped into view.

“Who said climbing rocks is difficult?” Neri replied.

She grinned and tried to hold his gaze. As always he returned the smile, then quickly looked away. “Did you find the Janissaries?” he asked.

“Two of them. They claim they’re alone but I know they’re lying. They always travel in threes.”

One of Dathenyn’s scouts emerged from a shadowy nook among the boulders and stepped just passed Neri, looked north and to the west, then back at her. She relaxed her eyes slightly and lowered her head. The other elf whispered softly and the rest of her squad appeared. Neri reached for his horn at his belt and blew into it. The horns of the Owl Guard made no audible sound, but shook the air against the rocks and trees. If need be a dwarf could blow such a horn directly at the ground, sending its silent alarm through dirt and rock into cave and tunnel. His men slid down from the Arm, sprung out of holes, and dropped from high clefts in Obrus’ monolithic roots. The two squadrons then marched westward through the thickening fog.

They marched in near silence for several hours, with only Neri and Dathenyn occasionally conversing. They found the two Janissaries in the eaves of the Coldwood. Neri recognised the face of the older human. Like all men from Janissi, he was copper skinned and quite large, standing six and a half feet tall and built like an aurochs. His face was clean shaven and his long black hair was tied in an archer’s knot behind his head. He wore a long coat of patinated steel scales, a thick brown cloak and mudstained boots. The younger man was taller but thinner, similarly garbed, and had a long black beard tied into a knot at the end. Both men wore mannarim bastard swords on their belts.

“Vallus Marinus,” the older man said in a husky voice.

“Argus Angelus,” said the younger.

To save time, Neri introduced only himself. Vallus then lead the way deeper through the trees. The morning had worn on and a curtain of golden light was starting to chase the fog away. The sweet smell of pine sap hung heavy in the damp air, and birdsong mingled with the squelching of boots treading through muddy soil. Unlike most dwarves, Neri enjoyed being topside. He revelled in lengthy excursions under both sun and moon, never fearing the open sky and its unfathomable heights.

Their trek lead them to a hillock covered in ivy and willow trees. A narrow hole opened into a grotto that a tributary of the river Sholai spilled into. Inside the cave, five humans, notably smaller than the Janissaries, stood guard over a living gnoll bound about the ankles and wrists in hemp cord and chains.

“She calls herself Den Mother,” said one of the humans. They were from Corn Hill, a free city ruled by a ring of merchants just outside High Alden’s borders. Neri dealt with the Cornerian militia on occasion. They were furtive and easily frightened, but could fight well enough when cornered. He had no doubt it was the Janissaries who captured Den Mother, though. She was easily six feet tall, with long limbs corded with muscle. Her spotted fur was matted in places with dried blood, and bits of flesh had dried onto her curved claws. She snapped and growled as Neri stepped in front of her.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

“No!” she snarled and bristled, her saliva spraying onto Neri and sticking to his beard.

“No name?” He wiped the spit from his beard on his vambrace. “Just Den Mother?”

“Den Mother not name! It thing. Only devarf and ulf have name. Hooman have name. Gnoll too stoopeed for name. Hyyyack!” She strained against her bonds and lurched forward. Her jaws almost closed around Neri’s nose, but he grabbed her throat in his hand and thrust her back. She hit the ground with a thud, then rolled onto her belly and hissed.

Neri drew his messer sword from its scabbard and held it at his side. “I can free you, or I can kill you. But before I do either, I will have your name.”

“You not need name. You need run. All you run. You free me, I run. Hide. Dig. Climb. No good. Just run. Run and never stop.”

Neri crouched and leaned close. He sensed fear from the Den Mother, but not fear of him and his Owls, or the big Janissaries from the Araad, or even the quiet elves. “What are you running from? Why are you here? Why did your people leave Noth?”

Her voice whined and squeaked mournfully as she spoke. “Noth prison. Noth dunjyun. Here home. We here because here home. We leave Noth because Fog. But you have Fog here now. I run now, and you run too, because santur!”

“You’re making no sense, Den Mother. Why would you run from fog and centaurs? Are not centaurs your pets?”

She whined and weezed, her mouth foamed and she made a sound that almost sounded like a sob. “Fog keells, Fog take you away, fog poisons the brain. Santur does worse. Eet not pat, eet weapon. Erk keell santur masters, erk chase santur and feed it with their bones. Santur break free, santur stay free. Santur put everyone in mouth and you wish you naaavur born. Please, let me run. You stay here and die if you like, but please let me run. Gnoll good at run. I no hurt, just run. Run ‘till old and die.”

Her fight had left her. Instead of snarling and spitting, she lay on her side and hugged her knees, whining and sobbing pitifully.

“Please tell me your name, and I’ll try to convince my friends to let you go.”

“Gnoll too stoopeed for name.”

“Please." Overcome by pity, Neri reached out and stroked her fur behind her wolfish ears. Her eyes opened and she looked at him. Her long muzzle quivered and she licked at a deep cut in her upper lip. The sound she then made sounded more growl than speech, but Neri tried to say it back to her.

“Nishta?”

The Den Mother buried her snout in the wet dirt and sniffed. “Okay. Nishta. It’s how you say. Gnoll have name from devarf. I was Nishta before I died. You run, okay? You run, kind devarf. Let gnoll’s paaat eat ulf and hooman and Nishta.”

They left the grotto and Nishta to speak privately. “We’ve seen this before,” Vallus said. “When a centaur breaks loose the gnoll pack goes into a panic. They weep and beg for release. It’s the only time they speak while being held captive.”

“There’s something in their blood,” said Dathenyn. “Centaurs are never content to pass them once, but they do it over and over again, and gnolls are generally tough enough not to die at first. It usually takes several passes through the centaur’s bowels before they expire. The centaurs must be untameable once they’ve tasted freedom. Such willfulness is common among predatory animals.”

“They’re not animals,” said Argus, “they’re abominations. Like as not they’re punishing the gnolls for having dared to try and tame them.”

“It’s a wonder they do,” said Yolgrim, one of Neri's Owls.

“I say it’s bold,” said Dathenyn, “and wise. They’re trapped in the fog lands with centaurs, tomb hounds and Alon knows what else. They may as well tame some of the creatures, rather than be hunted by them all.”

“We need to know how many of them they brought,” said Vallus, “and how many still live.”

"The poor wretch is done in by terror," Neri said. "Interrogating her would just cause her needless pain. Unless we agree to free her… ”

“... After telling us what we need to know.” Dathenyn finished his sentence.

Neri nodded, and they returned to the grotto. Nishta was laying in a shallow pool near the far wall of the cave. A cave-in on the side of the hill let in part of the stream and a few rays of sun. The Den Mother was on her side, her eyes were closed and her lungs rose and fell with deep, heaving breaths. Neri crouched near her and patted her shoulder. She growled and her fur bristled. “Nishta,” he said, “we’ll let you go. We'll let you run.”

Her growling lowered and she rolled onto her belly and crept back into a squat, ready to leap. The Cornerians pointed spears and readied bows.

“We’ll let you run, Nishta. We just want to know how many centaurs you brought. How many escaped into the forest when the orcs attacked you?”

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She growled louder, dug her claws into the dirt and leapt. Her bonds tripped her and she landed in a crumpled heap. Neri sat down close and gripped the scruff of her neck. She struggled, but he kept his grip firm and she eventually calmed. “How many centaurs?”

Her growl turned into a whine and she clawed marks into the ground. Neri counted the marks and his shoulders sank.

“Nine?” Dathenyn’s narrow green eyes opened wide in the dark.

Neri drew a short, single edged knife from his belt and cut Nishta’s hempen bonds. Argus handed him a key and he unlocked her chains. She leapt back against the wall, looked frantically about the grotto, then dove out through the cave-in.

Neri looked to the men from Corn Hill. “You’d best go warn your people.” They hurried out of the grotto and fled.

“We can spread out,” said Vallus, “search in a radius, each unit an arm of the spiral.”

“No one can be alone,” said Dathenyn, “and there’s only two of you.”

“I can send four of my men with you,” said Neri.

Vallus nodded curtly, and outside the grotto the three groups divided. The elves moved in the trees, scouting above and below as they quietly leaped from branch to branch. Neri instructed his Owls to each attach lines of hemp to three arrows and ready their springsteel shortbows, then they set off on the hunt.

The Coldwood was quiet save for the wind. Now and then it would whisper warnings through the leaves, or send an army of stones clattering down the slopes of a rocky outcropping. While the centaurs left no footprints, signs of their passing were clear enough. There were snapped branches where they climbed through the trees, and their saliva stuck to trunks and rocks and draped over low hanging boughs, hardened into a sickly green parody of amber. Sometimes there would be creatures trapped partially within it; a bird caught by the wing against a branch, a rabbit with its hind feet glued to a rock. Once they found the remains of a treelion encased in a chrysalis of the foul substance. The big cat’s pulped corpse was suspended over a small clearing by nine thick strands connected to the surrounding pines. Neri looked up as he passed under the grim totem and shuddered.

“Looks like a star,” said Horath, one of the older Owls.

“An evil star,” said Neri.

“Nay,” Horath replied, “one needs a soul to be evil. These monsters are nought but overgrown worms, and a worm harbors no evil towards the soil that passes through its body.”

Living things are their soil. Neri’s blood turned cold at the thought. He sensed a slight movement on the ground to his right. He paused and looked to see a fox huddled inside the husk of a rotted tree. The beast was shivering and blind with fear.

At length they found one of the centaurs. It was in a clearing near a murky stream with a large river snake in its maw. The horse part of its body was covered in kinked and ratty fur, and its four stumpy legs were gnarled and had a strange shape to them, as if they had too many joints. Neri could see why they left no footprints, as its feet ended in uneven clusters of finger like toes that lifted clumps of dirt whenever they rose. Its arms were long and thin, and jutted unevenly out of the creature’s hairless pink torso from bony shoulders covered with veiny skin. The globular mass that comprised its head looked unfinished, having neither eyes nor ears. The mighty serpent in its mouth whipped its tail madly as the centaur sucked it further into its throat. There was a crunch, and the python went limp as it passed through the centaur's body. The snake emerged through the centaur’s bung encased in a film of mucus and dropped in a limp pile. The centaur then reared on its hindlegs and moaned. Its mouth was opened as wide as the top of a barrel, its spine-like teeth wriggling within rows of knuckled gums. Neri caught sight of two pale lights flickering inside the mouth and restrained a gasp. Titans be cursed, he thought, its eyes are inside its mouth! What are these things?

He hooted softly and readied his spear for a charge. Seven arrows pierced the creature, and seven lines of hemp were staked firmly into the ground. The centaur swatted at the lines with his long fingered hands. One of its scythe-like claws slashed clean through a line of hemp. A storm of arrows came down from above. The centaur screeched and bucked with its thick, gnarled hind legs.

Neri braced himself for the charge, then stormed forward with all his strength. The centaur saw him and turned its head at the last moment. His spear plunged deep into the side of its neck and out the other end. The centaur let out a keening wail and gripped Neri’s spear, drew it slowly from its neck and swung it wildly.

Neri managed to dodge a flurry of swings, but was eventually struck in the head and tripped backward over a tree root. The centaur flung his spear aside and clutched his feet with its ten inch fingers. The curved blade of an elven glaive came from the sky and stabbed the beast between its shoulders. It quivered and lurched back, then regained its footing and lifted Neri into the air by his feet. Dathenyn dropped silently from the trees onto the ground, then darted passed the monster’s mouth and climbed up to its back. Gripping her glaive with both hands, she worked it deeper into the beast’s back, twisting the blade as she pushed. The centaur tossed Neri away and he landed in the mashed coils of the river snake.

He rolled backwards and came up on his feet. Dathenyn was pressed to stay on the centaur’s back as it leaped and bucked. Thrice it almost had her in its deformed hands, but she managed to duck and back away. Neri called for another volley, and seven more arrows were fired into the monster. The dwarves shot low, and had run close. Their arrows landed clear of Dathenyn and burrowed deep into the centaur’s flank. Still it reared, bucked and clawed at the elf warrior. She finally jumped back and rolled away. The centaur then trotted around the wood, pulling up the staked hemp ropes and groping at Neri and his soldiers with its elongated hands. Neri drew his bow, Dathenyn drew hers, and both squads unleashed a tempest of arrows into the monster. It wailed and screamed and pus oozed out of its wounds.

Neri’s spear and Dathenyn’s glaive were out of reach, and the dwarves had fired all their hemplines into the beast. It clawed furiously at the ropes and screeched. Neri shuddered every time he saw the eyes blinking inside its gaping mouth. Once he heard a shout and saw one of his men go down and get lifted into the air. As it held the soldier over its opened mouth, the knuckled gums slid forward past its lips and a barbed tongue wrapped around the Owl Guard’s neck. He quickly drew his messer sword and cut the tongue in half. When the centaur flailed about in pain, the soldier broke free of its grasp and retrieved his bow from the ground, nocked an arrow and fired into the abomination’s fleshy throat.

The battle wore on, with no one able to land the killing blow. The elves moved unseen in the trees, shooting arrow after arrow into oozing hide. When Neri was at last able to get his hands on his spear, he thrust it into the monster’s haunch and drove it downward. The centaur turned and howled mournfully. What was left of its tongue flicked at Neri. Siandus landed an arrow into the maimed appendage, pinning it to the beast’s cheek. Neri heaved and pulled his spear back out and readied for another thrust when the Janissaries rushed into the clearing and swung their mannarim swords. White and gold fire seemed to leap from the blades as they flew upward toward the centaur. When they hit they cut clean. Argus sliced one leg off at the hock and Vallus took off half of the creature’s malformed face. Neri drove his spear through its neck, Dathenyn retrieved her glaive stabbed it into its flank, and the Janissaries continued their assault. After a few moments the centaur was no more than a pile of putrid chum.

Neri helped as his men hurriedly fling all the chopped bits of the beast into a mound while Vallus struck two pieces of flint over it. His stomach roiled at the site of the chunks of flesh melding back together. Vallus ignited his blaze in time, and the centaur burned and melted to ash. The reek from the flames was noxious enough to cause one of the Owl Guard to retch. Neri would have liked to empty his stomach as well, but he had to think.

“We’re short on arrows,” said one of his men.

“Those worked well,” said Dathenyn, looking at the Janissaries’s swords.

“They were well made and well swung,” Neri said. “Gifts from my King as a token of respect to their Queen. Thrush, where are you?”

A young Owl Guard stepped forward and saluted.

“Run as quick as you can to the Sholai Stockade. Bring back thirty men with spears and full quivers. Travel supplies as well; rations, water, hemp line and flint.”

Thrush saluted again and rushed off through the woods.

Argus had taken a map of the region from his pack and rolled it out on the ground. Dathenyn signaled with a look into the trees for one of her men to return to Moonveil for reinforcements, then crouched to look at the map. Neri only scarcely noticed the lean figures standing quietly by the tree next to Vallus. They came out one by one, each a different shade of green. They wore leather dusters over indigo gambesons and black breeches. Their boots were cuffed and each had boiled leather vambraces. One of them was obscenely large, almost the size of a stout human. He carried a two handed hammer and wore a ram skull helm.

The first goblin he saw stepped forward. His head was shaved and he carried a two handed bearded axe over his shoulder. The Janissaries looked about them cautiously. They likely wanted to brandish their swords, but there were far more goblins than humans, elves or dwarves.

The bald goblin flourished elaborately in all directions, then planted the haft of his axe onto the ground and leaned forward on its head with both his arms crossed. Neri took note of the many rows of jewelry in his ears. He was almost as clinked as Grandell. His face and body wore the signs of battle as well. He had a scarred and clouded eye, noose burns around his throat, and a recent wound in his torso. His voice rasped smoothly when he spoke.

“Dusty stars with lightning scars,” he said, “you’ve found and killed the third of nine. I’ll belly up to the sun for a plod in the sod with the likes of ye. Ah, Wolfshadow, ye know me plain. But who could know me true?”

“Driggz,” she said contemptuously, “I saw you hang.”

“Oh yes, but you didn’t stay for my artful escapism. Your papa should have tied the noose himself. Loose ends are his especiality.”

Dathenyn sneered and turned her back.

The goblin casually swayed in circles on his axe. “What ye say, lads and lasses? The Grim Whimsey’s taken this job for free. Gratis Mopatis. Shall we resource our pools and put these spawns o’ th’ pit down with the mother’s flame? It’s to be a wait for a date ‘till your reinforcements be gettin’ here. Let’s make a game of it and see if we can chop 'n mop these horse-worms before backup arrives!”

Neri counted forty goblins. From how deftly they had hidden he guessed there were likely more. If there were truly six more centaurs roaming about, it would take nothing less than a unified effort of a well armed and supplied force to quickly locate and destroy the creatures.

“Do you know Grandell?” Neri asked the bald goblin.

“The Ixix? Hoi hoi hoi hoi hoi! Little Nines is me bestest mate. I try and keep him far from me, because yes, I know that murderous little worm. He’s sittin’ this one out. Found a murkier stink hole for him to ferret through. You know who else I know? Your Horned Black Prince! Aye, the five-minutes-first son of Halfi is me mate as well. So are we sending the horse-men through the hidden door together or not?”

Neri looked at Vallus and Dathenyn. Dathenyn showed irritation on her face, but it was clear she saw no other choice.

“The monsters must die,” said Vallus.

Neri looked back at the goblin and nodded. “Lead the way.”