usual. Still, the young priest put no ominous connotations on that, simply figured that the man must be feeling extremely pious this day - or perhaps Chaunticleer wasn't really singing and Cadderly was just hearing the reverberations of that perfect offering.
"Are ye thinking of setting another camp?" the increasingly surly, yellow-bearded Ivan asked some time later, drawing Cadderly from the music and its unfathomable implications.
Cadderly looked at the rocky trail ahead and tried to remember exactly where he was.
"Five miles left to walk, at least," he replied, "through difficult terrain."
Ivan snorted. The Snowflakes, by his estimation, were not so difficult, not even with winter still holding fast with its last fingers. Ivan was from a place far to the north, wild Vaasa and the rugged Galena Mountains, where goblinoids were thicker than pebbles and the winter wind off the Great Glacier could freeze a man solid in minutes.
The dwarf took one last disgusted glance at Pikel, who chuckled in response, then stomped past Cadderly and took up the lead. "Tonight," Ivan explained. "We'll be walking through the front doors before the stars come clear!"
Cadderly sighed and watched Ivan take a fast-paced lead. Pikel was still chuckling when he came hopping past
"Give me that," Cadderly snapped, seeing the source of Ivan's ire. He plucked the hat from Pikel's head, brushed it off, and tapped it atop his own crown. Then he pulled from his pack the cooking pot, the impromptu helmet the green-bearded dwarf had fashioned for himself, and plopped it over Pikel's head.
Pikel's chuckle turned into a sorrowful "Oooo."
Some miles from the three, to the west and north, a scrambling noise in the boughs above brought Shay-leigh from her reverie. Angled in the hollow of a thick branch near the trunk of a wide elm, the elf, to an unknowing observer, would have appeared in an awkward and dangerous predicament. But a slight twist brought agile Shayleigh completely about, her back flat on the branch and her longbow somehow clear of the tangle, out and ready above her.
The elf's violet eyes narrowed as she considered the busy canopy, searching for the source of the noise. She wasn't too worried - the sun was still high above the western horizon - but she knew the sounds of the natural movements of all the area's animals, and recognized that whatever had come so noisily into the boughs of this tree had done so in wild flight.
A leaf danced suddenly, not so far above her. Back bent her bow.
Then the foliage parted, and Shayleigh eased the string back to rest, and smiled to see a familiar white squirrel staring down at her.
Percival came down in a frenzied rush, and Shay-leigh's smile faded into an expression of confusion. Why would Percival, whom she'd met long ago, be so far from the library? she wondered. And what had so obviously upset the creature?
Unlike Cadderly and the dwarves, Shayleigh had seen the pillar of smoke, and, at that time, had thought to turn back and investigate. She figured it was only a ceremonial fire, though, perhaps a communal burial cairn for those priests who had died over the winter months and were now being put to their rest So she had determined that it was not her business, that her business was, after all, to return to Shilmista with full speed, where King Elbereth, no doubt, greatly anticipated her information.
She had taken her reverie early, with the sun still high, thinking to travel through the night.
Now, seeing Percival here, hopping about and chattering frantically, Shayleigh regretted that choice to continue. She should have gone straight to the library, straight to Danica, her friend, who might have needed her help... and still might.
Shayleigh swung under the branch, her feet torching lightly on the next lowest. She bent her legs and fell backward, hooking the branch with her knees, and swung down so that she caught the lowest branch in one hand. She kept with the flow of her momentum to spin lightly down to the ground. Percival, following, was hard-pressed to keep up.
Shayleigh held her arm out and made a ticking noise, and Percival leaped from the lowest branch to her, accepting the ride as the elf maiden ran full speed back to the east, back to her friend.
Twilight
I feared I had killed you." It was Rufo's voice, from far away, but rushing closer. Danica opened her eyes. She was on the bed, in the same room as before, but her wrists and ankles now were securely