Though it was the barest ripple of resistance and awareness, the voices climbed an octave in alarm; increased the rhythm of their song; and pursued the sentience.

Panicked, the sentience surged through moss and scattered leaves. It flushed fowl from undergrowth and rushed through a hollow log shredding spider webs. It sent wavelets across a sludgy, slow moving stream and followed it to the sea.

The sea, it found, lapped a rocky shore. The sentience slid along the stems of rockweed, tasting brine and swaying with the undulation of the waves, but it could not travel beyond the shore, for a great submerged barrier sang it back.

It traveled inland, and was absorbed by tree roots and sucked upward through the very fibers of the tree’s blackened heart. When it emerged as a droplet of dew at the tip of a pine needle, it found only heavy clouds of vapor.

The sentience raced northward, but found again a barrier, a massive wall of stone and magic. Here the songs intensified; interwoven songs of resistance, barriers, and containment.

The sentience backed off.

It was hemmed in, surrounded on all sides, trapped. The voices lulled and cajoled, and as drowsiness bore down on the sentience, it perceived just the tiniest hint of weakness in the song, a fragility that was an off-key note that emanated from the wall.

Rebellion had bled most of the strength from the sentience. Unable to resist further, it began the inevitable slide into sleep.

But even as it was overcome, a name from ages long past came to the sentience, and childlike in its desperation, it called out for an old protector: Varadgrim!

This the voices could not repress, and even after the sentience drifted into heavy slumber, its cry penetrated a weak section of the barrier wall, and flowed into the land of Sacoridia, taking on a life of its own.

NIGHT INTRUSIONS

Perhaps it was Bard’s song that caused Karigan to toss and turn in her blankets, its eerie images and heady rhythm coursing relentlessly through her mind, or maybe it was the ill feeling of the clearing all too nearby. Whatever it was, when exhaustion finally did claim her, she fell into a heavy slumber only to be plagued by troubling dreams.

She dreamed that the surrounding forest decayed and darkened. Seedlings sprouted and grew above her, unfurling branches that blotted out the moon and stars, and twined together in a net that trapped her.

Beneath her, tree roots roiled to life. They churned and snaked through the ground, breaking loose and showering her with soil. Karigan wanted desperately to arise and run, but she was held a captive of her own sleep, her body like stone.

The roots lashed around her limbs and coiled about her neck. The ground began to give way beneath her, the roots pulling her down.

No! she wanted to cry, but her nose and mouth became clogged with earth.

A root slithered along her side and plunged into her shoulder. It tunneled within muscle and sinew and wrapped about bones. Shoots spread throughout her body seeking to take it over; to take her over.

Karigan wanted to fight, but could not move, nor could she breathe, suffocated as she was by the weight of the earth that buried her. A scream she could not loose threatened to explode in her lungs even as the roots inside her needled ever closer to her heart.

When all seemed lost, when it seemed the forest might claim her wholly, the clarion notes of a horn rang out, shattering the roots that bound her and thrusting her back up for air as one who has been drowning.

Karigan gagged on a sharp inhalation of air. When the fit passed and she realized she could breathe freely, her eyes fluttered open to stars winking between the limbs of tall, spindly spruce and fir. She could almost still hear the fading tones of the horn like an echo of the dream. It stirred some dormant memory, but she couldn’t place it.

The dream left her exhausted as though the struggle had been a physical one. Tears shed in her sleep cooled on her cheeks, and she discovered she had wrangled her bedding into a tangled wad.

A sharp pain stabbed at her left shoulder and she rubbed it. There was an old wound there, a tiny pinprick of a scar where once she had been attacked by tainted wild magic. She hadn’t thought about it in a very long time, and why now it should bother her when it was normally just a small point of numbness, she did not know. Just as quickly as she wondered about it, however, the sensation passed.

She rubbed her eyes and then rose on her elbow, now fully awake. The fire was but glowing embers. Ty and Ereal slept nearby, but Bard’s bedroll was empty and Karigan recalled he had been assigned to second watch.

It’ll be my turn soon enough.

She decided to stay up rather than attempt sleep again and risk more bad dreams. She shivered at the cool night against her clammy skin and drew on her shortcoat and boots. She stepped carefully by Ty.

“Everything all right?” The scratchy voice belonged to Ereal and she popped open a bleary eye to watch Karigan.

“Yes,” Karigan said.

“Are you sure? I thought I heard someone cry out.”

“I’m fine, it’s nothing—just a dream,” Karigan said. “I go on duty soon.”

Ereal murmured something and rolled over. Karigan stepped quietly away, rather embarrassed she had awakened her superior officer because of a dream, as though she were nothing more than a child experiencing night terrors. She sensed Ereal had been keeping an eye on her ever since their departure from Sacor City. It brought Karigan mixed feelings of gladness that people cared about what happened to her, and resentment that they might think her incapable of taking care of herself or doing her job.

Now that sounded childish, she thought, yawning deeply. It was only natural for Ereal to watch out for those under her command, especially the most junior of the lot. Karigan shook her head thinking that a cup of tea and a hot steaming bath would do much to dispel her cranky mood.