Grabbing the last of the breakfast sausage, Malcolm adjusted his pack and fell into step beside Izzy. “Nice morning, good food, now to get Sorvush to the outpost, deliver our news, and head on home. I kind of miss boring right now.”

  Valgrin barked a laugh from just ahead, “Tempted to make a joke about you and boring, but I’ll let it slide for today.”

  “So gracious of you,” Malcolm bantered playfully. “You jerk.”

  The others joined in the laughter.

  “Still doesn’t make sense to me,” Skwilly commented. “Laughing at someone being rude to you.”

  “Malcolm meant it to be a joke, not as rude.” Ylnah explained.

  Valgrin raised his voice, “Sorvush! You don’t know the way, you shouldn’t be leading.”

  The creature stopped, turning to the following group, “I’m so excited about being free of that curse and that tree that I just want to go, didn’t think about where.” He waited until the rest caught up and took a spot in the middle of the group.

  “And I know we’ve said it a few times,” Izzy reached over and placed a hand on Sorvush’s shoulder. “But thank you for letting us stay at your tree last night. It was much more relaxing to sleep under than any of us expected.”

  Bobbing his head, Sorvush replied, “Welcome, least I could do for you. The tree has taken real good care of me, as much as I want to be free of it, I know I’ll miss it. Not sure if I’ll come back, but it has entered my mind. It has been my home for about a hundred years.”

  “Really?” Malcolm asked. “I would’ve thought you’d never want to see the place again. That’s not even considering its not in the most friendly or hospitable places.” I know I’d not come back.

  “All true, but it is hard to leave a place after so long there.” Sorvush paused and stared up at the green tinged sky, “Fear, uncertainty are both strong motivators. Once we make the outpost I think I’ll find I like it better away from all of this.” All four of his arms waved at parts of the landscape.

  Ylnah pulled at her hair, “Sorvush, I have a possible delicate question that I’ve wondered about since your curse was lifted.”

  “Ask away, I will do my best to answer anything. I owe all of you at least that much.”

  “Did the curse…um…do something to your brain or speech? You sound much more intelligent now that the curse is lifted.” She asked.

  “Ahh, yes it did. It didn’t make me more stupid, but I couldn’t talk the way I was used to. My guess, because it never was explained to me, was it helped sell me as someone not to take seriously.” Sorvush paused for a beat, “Maybe it was to trap me in my head and make me think about some decisions I made that got me in prison. Not sure that was its intent, but it was what it did.”

  “And that brings up another sensitive question,” Izzy interrupted. “Why were you in prison?”

  Tan shoulders visibly drooped, “Kind of hoped you wouldn’t ask that. I’ll understand if you send me back to the tree after I tell you. I was in the military, not sure exactly which one, there is a lot of foggy memory due to the curse and time. Anyway, at some point, I was trained in stealth and killing one-on-one. That made me someone they sent in to do surprise damage, or take out an enemy. Again not sure who my enemy was. After I got out of the military, I still used my skills, only now I did it for hire…”

  “So you were an assassin?” Malcolm jumped in.

  “Yes, I know I was a very successful one,” Sorvush said quietly. “I can’t recall the exact number but it was closing in on eighty kills, after the military.” He came to a standstill, “Should I go back to the tree now?”

  Malcolm exhaled, can’t believe I’m going to say this, “Nope, nothing’s changed as far as we’re concerned. You mentioned you weren’t a fan of the Bythies, maybe the outpost can put your talents to good use in combating them. I know Bridget said they’ve attacked others in the EverNever before.”

  Sorvush jumped up a couple of times, “Then lets get to the outpost and see if I can help. Them bugs took great delight in adding to my pain when they killed me to get across that bridge.”

  Malcolm's boots crunched as the soft lakeside soil gave way to familiar gravel and stone. He sidestepped a jagged boulder jutting up like a broken tooth, its shadow stretching across their path. Ahead, Valgrin stumbled slightly, catching himself against a rust-colored outcropping that seemed to have erupted from the otherwise flat valley floor. The group weaved between these stone sentinels, their conversation punctuated by the occasional scrape of pack against rock.

  An hour of small talk and silence passed before Valgrin turned back toward Malcolm, as his friend caught up, Valgrin fell into step beside him. “Got something to talk to you about.”

  Izzy held her hand out, pointing to where Valgrin had been walking with Ylnah, “Do you want me to go up there?”

  “Not unless you want to, nothing secret with what I’m sharing.” Valgrin shared as he shook his head. “Just didn’t want to try to hold a conversation where I had to constantly be flipping my head back and forth.”

  “Okay, then shouldn’t we call Ylnah back here then?” Izzy asked.

  “Fair point.” Valgrin cupped his hand to the side of his mouth and called out, “Ylnah and Skwilly, can you two come back and walk with us for a moment. Sorvush, if we have to change direction we’ll let you know. But go ahead and take the lead for a bit, not to far ahead.”

  “Got it,” the creature answered as he bounced ahead, passing Ylnah and Skwilly as they waited for the others to catch up to them.

  “So, what did you want us for,” Skwilly asked, cocking his head.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Nothing overly earth-shattering.” Valgrin stepped behind, then beside Malcolm, putting himself between Izzy and his friend.

  “Valgrin, better tell Skwilly and Ylnah what you mean by earth-shattering, if I’m reading the looks of confusion correctly.” Malcolm pointed as he spoke.

  “That would be appreciated,” Skwilly stood still looking at Valgrin. “I don’t think your wanting to destroy your home, but kind of sounded that way.”

  Valgrin laughed, “Sorry, wasn’t thinking. It’s an expression, a bit hyperbolic, but means an important or huge change. Something good or bad, but either way it’s a big, big change.” Valgrin stretched his arms out at the word big.

  “That makes sense, sort of.” Ylnah commented.

  “Well, we’ve got one or two nights of camping ahead of us, and if we don’t get moving it could move to three nights.” Izzy motioned for them to all start walking.

  Malcolm chuckled as he looked ahead, “And us moving will keep Sorvush from exploding, he’s up there jumping up and down waving for us to keep coming.”

  “Are you sure we can trust him?” Skwilly asked.

  “Sure? Not entirely,” Valgrin pulled at his pack strap as the group started walking. “But he didn’t do anything to hurt us, so why would he start now?”

  Skwiily’s hooves clattered on some stone when he stopped and turned to face Valgrin, “The assassin thing comes to mind as a good reason to start.”

  “Valid point,” Malcolm interrupted. “But I agree with Valgrin, at least now I do, he seems sincere and as trustworthy as someone, or something, can be with less than twenty-four hours of history with us. I don’t plan on letting him take a watch shift on his own.”

  “Hmph, wouldn’t sleep if you did. I’m just wary of him, I guess.” Skwilly turned his snout pointed down the path at the furry creature. “Though watching him bounce and jump does ease my mind for some reason, not a logical one, but some reason.”

  “Okay, back to the original reason y’all came back here. Had a thought this morning, been bouncing it around my head. Still holds some water, so I wanted you guys to either poke holes or agree with me.”

  “I vote we poke holes,” Malcolm, playfully, slapped Valgrin on the back.

  “Figured you would try and I’m actually welcoming it this time. It’s about the Black Dove thing, and here’s the thunk. What if the Black Dove brought us here to resolve the Drathnor issue, but it didn’t work as intended. So, and this is a big leap here, strings got pulled to get us over here to resolve other Structure issues with people. I mean we run into Pelhiglo a second time, then D-one-hundred-ninety-nine, and now Sorvush. Don’t you think it’s highly unlikely to run across that many stranded in the Structure recruitment stuff, without someone pulling some strings?”

  Malcolm scratched at his nose for a moment. “It is a bit strange, but then everything about this place is strange. Still having an issue with the idea that someone could be pulling strings at such a level as to put us in these scenarios. I mean, how’d they get Pelhiglo out here? Is Bridget working with them or did she suffer because they needed to bring us here? I get the sense that this zone is where they send things they’re done with, like the dungeon core and Sorvush. But, when you spell it out as you did, I see where it becomes a possibility and a better one than the ones we’ve been working with.”

  “Very interesting, lets start walking again as we discuss.” Izzy took the lead as the rest of the group joined her.

  Sorvush hooted in glee when they started to move again, scampering back to the group. “Thought you were deciding if you were going to abandon me or not. Glad you didn’t.”

  “No, we were discussing something else, didn’t involve you at all,” Ylnah reassured him.

  “By the way, curiosity question here, what type of creature are you?”

  “Oh…um…” Sorvush stared up at the sky, a faraway look in his eye, “Structure says this form is called a Heksan. I was a Drugearion, that’s the people from my world. We’re human, with scales instead of hair on our head. Though we have light fur on our bodies.”

  “Scales and hair, odd to me, but I only know what I’ve seen.” Ylnah replied, “You’re the first Heksan and first Drugearion I’ve met.”

  “Valgrin,” Skwilly raised his voice, “Given Drathnor’s anger and other issues and if your theory is correct, why would they have you try to resolve it. Someone on top of their game would know that seeing or hearing that you were back would have the opposite effect than what your saying they may want.”

  “Or they could have stopped things by sending you two out to a different location while they worked out what to do with Drathnor, once they saw there was such and issue.” Izzy joined in, her voice went monotone with the next words she spoke. “Unless they knew from the start, they wouldn’t have found out about the issue until after,” she took a deep breath, “my brother was killed.”

  Malcolm put his arm around her shoulder, trying to offer as much comfort as he could. The others stayed quiet, they walked in silence for the next mile.

  Valgrin restarted the conversation, “Yeah, the whole swamp think is the big issue with my theo…no, my hypothesis. Didn’t think about what you brought up Skwilly, it’s a good point.” Valgrin let his hands slap at his thighs, “I spend a lot of time trying to figure this out, trying to figure out how to get home, figure out this place…and I come up with more question than answers, and I’m tired of it.” He kicked at a rock, sending it scattering across the slight path.

  “Changing the subject, on purpose,” Ylnah declared. “It looks like this trail we’ve been following is getting less and less defined. Do we know where this outpost is?”

  “Bridget gave me a direction amulet, it has the outpost and her place locations in it. So, yes as long as one of us has this,” Izzy pulled the amulet out from under her tunic and raised it for everyone to see, “then we can find our way to the outpost. We’ve also got the dungeon cores tags and we could get transported back there in a pinch.”

  “Looks like Sorvush got tired of our pace,” Malcolm pointed to a stone spire a few hundred feet ahead of them. “Seems he’s climbing that rock.”

  “Getting a better view of what’s ahead?” Izzy asked.

  “Be my guess,” Malcolm muttered as he continued to watch.

  They had closed about half the distance when they noticed the Heksan jumping down from the top of the spire and come running toward them, two arms waving in the air wildly, the other four propelling him forward.

  He came to a stop, panting, then bounced a couple of times exclaiming, “Come, come, there’s something you all need to see!” He turned and ran back to the spire, the group jogging behind him.

  They came to a stop just past the spire Sorvush had climbed, the tan furred creature pointed as it bounced up and down. “See, some type of camp!”

  “You have better eyesight than I do, can’t see any type of camp.” Malcolm said as he pulled his glasses out, he smiled as he heard the others doing the same.

  “See it now,” Izzy chimed in before Malcolm, a chorus of agreement echoed her.

  Malcolm whistled, “That some engineering.”

  He, and the others, saw structures nestled against the jagged rock. Strange domes clung to the cliff like clusters of shells. Smooth, polished stone glinted in the afternoon sun, and shallow niches were carved into the rock face itself. Rope bridges stretching between ledges impossibly high. Malcolm squinted as he stared through the lens of his glasses, he made out narrow perches and anchor grooves had been carved into the cliff itself.

  “Is that a Bythie camp,” Valgrin asked, “or something else?”

  Everyone pulled their glasses down and stared at Izzy, “What? I’ve never seen a Bythie camp, but I’d guess it was given the location.”

  “The color of those pillars coming out of the larger domes matches the termite mound things we saw earlier,” added Malcolm. “Seems to confirm, to me, that’s a Bythie camp of some type.”

  Ylnah lifted the glasses back to her face and adjust the focus, “So the question is do we go there or give it a wide berth?”