Neither the terrain nor their captive became any friendlier, but any dragons in the wood kept to themselves. On the following day a mist rolled northward around hills and through trees, clouding fern and stream. Before the sun reached its zenith they could barely see beyond the next hill, and by mid-afternoon the next tree. They grabbed blankets from the back of their horse and wrapped them around their shoulders and backs. They moved as ghosts within a grey light.
Their goblin captive continued into the mist only at the urging of Will’s sword.*
A raven flew out of the haze and lit on Gralen’s right shoulder.
“You’ve got a new friend,” said Sam.
“An old friend. She’s afraid of this mist.”
“It’s time we stopped to eat,” said Charlotte. “Let’s climb to higher ground when we get a chance, and see how far the mist extends.”
At the crest of the next hill they saw tall oaks rising out of a cloudy sea, and here and there other hills jutted above the fog as well. A pale sun turned the rolling fog silver, and to the east, at the ridge of the High Divide, two rounded, white-tipped peaks rose above the mountains.
“Isaiah’s Breasts,” said Gralen.
“That puts us ahead of schedule,” said Will.
“We move faster than an army.”
“We’d move faster without a prisoner,” said Sam.†
The mist rose over the hill as they ate, as they discussed their journey and what treasures they might find in the abandoned castle, and soon the mountains and Isaiah’s Breasts were veiled in a gauze of ephemeral grey.
“This may be a blessing in disguise,” said Charlotte. “No goblins or other creatures will see us in this murk.”
Down the hill again, walking onward, the crackling of dead leaves beneath their feet was muffled by the heavy air. Their own feet sounded as if they were far away. Yet they also heard the chirping and screeching of unseen birds and insects, and the cracking and falling of branches at some remote distance.
They walked in silence. There was the perverse* odor of a swamp, of stagnant water and green decay.
Charlotte stopped, and turned her head to the south.
“Did you hear that?”†
“No.”
“What?”
They heard another crack, this one followed by a swish, or a scrape, as if whatever had fallen were dragged away.
“Christ,” said Sam. “What the hell is that?”
“That’s something alive. And it’s been getting closer.”‡
“Ever notice,” said Gralen, “how all legends like ours start with farmers heading into the wilderness?”
“We’re none of us farmers,” said Will.
“Right. A farmer would know what that was.”
There was a loud crack that couldn’t have been more than forty paces away if they’d been anywhere but this sound-deadening mist. Then dragging. And again, a dead and claustrophobic silence.
Then the same noise from the west. A whip-like snap. Will screamed.
A long snake had wrapped itself around him, pinning his arms and pulling him away, or trying to.§ The tail of the snake disappeared into the mist, but it was twenty feet if it was an inch. Gralen stood dumbfounded; Charlotte’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened; she spoke no words.*
Will scrambled frantically to anchor his feet in the earth as the thing dragged him south.† Sam unsheathed her sword and hacked at the thing where it extended away from Will into the mist. It rippled along its grey and pulsing length. It unraveled from Will—and lashed at Sam.‡
“What is that?” asked Will.
“Don’t talk. Kill it!”§
Another long snake lashed out. Sam ducked under it, and it scraped across her as it whipped past, grey, rubbery, and cold.**
“My god, they’re disgusting.”
“Something big is out there!” said Gralen. “This is just its arm, or a… ”
“…a tentacle,” said Charlotte. “Like a land octopus?”*†
Will’s blade dug deep into the nearest flailing tentacle, or whatever it was, nearly severing it. A green ichor spurted out.* Gralen flung one of his tiny arrows at the other tentacle, and a ray of vermilion light burst against it.† Both tentacles slithered, whipping, back into the forest and the mist.
“Crap!” said Sam. “Holy crap!”
“Worse than holy crap,” said Will. “Where’s the goblin?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. Run!”‡
The mist swirled behind them as they fled. Will ran last, as he coaxed their horse to run without panicking.§ The forest behind them exploded in the snapping of whipping tentacles, and again the crack of breaking branches.
They ran faster. They ran until Charlotte couldn’t run anymore**, and then they rested, far away and out of breath, sweating in the cold, with the mist still enveloping them and shadowy trees all around.
“Now we know what everyone was afraid of,” said Sam.
