or several days the little band marched through the scrubby hillsides of Kryta, rising early and marching until the warmth and humidity proved too taxing. Mog napped in the sultry heat until late afternoon. Nudged awake by Laela, he lumbered groggily in their midst for another two hours until they pitched a simple camp at twilight.

Maddeningly, they avoided roads or anything Mog might have used to find his way back to civilization. His mind wandered to thoughts of the various things missed, chief among them being beer and clean clothes. It was humbling to realize how low his expectations had fallen. They were moving southwest. That morning they traversed an immense fetid swamp full of biting insects and leeches. The bloodsuckers unanimously voted Mog the tastiest. His ungainly jig as he slapped and swore to escape from the pests drew snorts and cackles of amusement from his escort. Fortunately the party arrived in the breezy hills as night fell. They took shelter in a fern-choked gully and Joshaat determined it was well concealed enough to allow for a cook fire.

With a belly comfortably full of warm barley stew, he had no difficulty curling up on the hard ground alone inside the tent. By retiring early, he avoided the awkward silences and stares. After the bathing incident, Maziba used every opportunity to remind Mog that he was their prisoner and he could go nowhere now without at least one other person following him closely. For this one precious hour he could enjoy solitude and meditate. He lay atop his blankets with his hands folded behind his head, grateful to be off of his feet. His eyelids grew heavy and he finished undressing and curled on his side under the thinnest blanket. Someone entered, but he was well on his way to sleep and paid them no mind.

His eyes snapped open when a hand brushed his back and caressed his nape. It was an oddly soothing and alluring sensation. The light touch turned into a gentle backrub.

“Laela?” he croaked as she squeezed his shoulders. It had been so long since anyone had touched him like that and he struggled against conflicting feelings of violation and desire.

“Hold me,” she said huskily, “Will you do that?”

“I… ughn,” he coughed, his tongue having turned to lead. All he could think of was Maeve gazing upon him through the mists and seeing him for the faithless and unworthy fool that he was. How easy it would be to just give in and lose himself in mindless pleasure, “No. Please, just leave me be.”

“Just until the others come to bed, then I won’t ask again.”

His mind was flooded with her eagerness and hunger. She thought that his kind were wanton and that he would not refuse her. As he rose to withdraw, his eyes could not help but linger upon the voluptuous curve of breast and thigh.

“No,” he said, perhaps as much for himself as for her. His body longed for release. He was trembling and no doubt she could see the effects of her advances as he furled the thin blanket around himself.

“I see it was a mistake to stand up for you,” she whispered, angered and humiliated. It was yet another reminder that he was not an equal and Mog realized, to his disappointment, that Laela had just as much disdain for him as the others. She went to her own bedroll and lay on her side, her back turned to him, “Go to bed.”

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, trying to salvage the situation. He felt queasy for Laela was the only one who treated him with anything approaching kindness. He went awkwardly to his patch of ground and lay down.

“Am I ugly or something?” she demanded.

“No, not at all.”

“You prefer men?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because it feels wrong.”

“Jerk!” she snapped.

It was a relief when the others entered the tent and went to their beds. He lay still, pretending to be asleep as the lantern was extinguished and the shelter was filled with inky darkness. Soon he heard the familiar rhythmic snores of Maziba and the rustling of blankets quieted as one by one the others drifted off.

In the morning, Laela avoided him and he was left to fend for himself. What he was given was offered grudgingly and his every action met with hard looks. His sensitive mind recoiled from their disdain and malice. Now he fervently wished for his little cottage in the north. At least while he was shoveling yak dung he was still among friends.

The tropical scrubland gave way to red sandstone arroyos and mesas clothed in sagebrush and stunted trees. He could see little adobe villages hugging the cliffs but his escort did not go near them. Mog wondered if there were an outpost nearby that had portal access. He scanned the rugged landscape surreptitiously, worried that one of them might realize he was plotting his escape.

The sun beat down on them mercilessly as noon approached. There was no significant shade as they wound up over the steep hillside following a narrow track. Maziba pushed them on at a wearying pace and all of them seemed anxious being out in the open. Mog grew too tired to do anything more than put one foot in front of the other. A shout of alarm made him lift his face to blink the sweat from his eyes.

Something had erupted in a cloud of dust several paces ahead where Joshaat was scouting ahead of them. The tow-headed ranger danced lightly aside, cursing as stingers and claws reached for him. Mog recognized the devourers; they were common pests in his homeland and had been one of the few creatures to thrive after the Searing. These were immense, fully twice the size of a man and covered in a putrid exoskeleton of thorny chitin. Instinctively he uttered a hex to trip one of them as it lunged after the ranger with its sharp claws. Maziba uttered a musical prayer, his scythe held high for a moment before he charged into combat much changed.

Mog could only stare at the dervish in astonishment. Maziba was no longer human for his flesh had transformed into something golden and unearthly. His raiment was spun from chaos and starlight. Expressionless masks concealed the unknowable, the visage of Lyssa. Her multitude of eyes burned magenta and Mog no longer saw Maziba, but the goddess to whom he had surrendered his life in service -- the goddess to whom he had been a faithless coward. He struggled with the desire to hurl himself to the ground in supplication or run in terror. He chose the latter.

His long legs seemed to have a mind of their own as he rushed blindly down the hillside back the way they had come. Over his gasping breath, he hardly heard their shouts as he rounded the flank of the hill down the first of many switchbacks, his feet wheeling over the hardpan in a panicked flurry. He hardly cared where he was going, as long as it was away. The thought of those hard magenta eyes boring into his psyche drove him as nothing else could.

At some point exhaustion overwhelmed his terror and he came to a gasping halt in a shady gully. Rotting logs and lianas formed a dappled canopy overhead and the ground was soft with ferns and moss. He could hear the soft tinkling of water and he staggered toward it, falling to his knees at the edge of a crystalline pool to drink like an animal. His ears rang with the steady buzz of cicadas and the mysterious calls of unknown creatures. Mog did not recognize this place.

Now that the panic had faded, he realized he was lost. As the thundering of his heart calmed and he caught his breath, he rose to his wobbly feet and gazed up the mossy track. Since his journey had been all downhill, he had made quite a bit of progress, he just wished he had watched where he was going. He vaguely recalled gazing down on the lush canyons and wishing they could travel in the shade but Joshaat had avoided all opportunity to go there. Now Mog realized why as he saw the immense spider webs strung between the trees and bamboo canes.

“You idiot!” he snarled at himself.

He might have been content to just wait there, knowing the others would come looking for him. However, a loud thrashing in the heavy brush drew his eye to the opposite end of the shallow pool. An immense figure lumbered into view. Its flared nostrils snuffled wetly, drawing Mog’s eye to the immense line of its toothy jaws. Its warty green hide blended perfectly with the deep green shadows but its clumsy knuckle-dragging destroyed its natural camouflage. The troll had scented Mog.

“Pick a direction and run, Laddo,” he murmured to himself, glancing anxiously at his suddenly diminishing options. The way behind him seemed just as tangled and treacherous as the way forward. Still, he had encountered nothing on his way there, so with any luck he could find his way back to the party. Slowly he edged away from the pool, warily watching the troll.

Its roar sent shivers down his spine as its ungainly form trundled hungrily toward him. Claws the size of dinner plates rose up to strike Mog down and it was all he could do to remain focused. In the breathless seconds before it closed on him, Mog uttered one hex to prey upon its feeble mind and another to make it stagger and flail angrily while he turned and ran.

He careered through the dense tangle of foliage, leaping fallen logs and splashing through murky water. Mog choked on gnats as he hurtled down a fern-filled gully. All the while the gurgling rage of the troll continued behind him. He ducked into an even narrower channel, hoping the troll would be too big to follow and was answered by the diminishing sounds of thrashing behind him and frustrated howls.

Mog slowed in the deep gloom, realizing to his chagrin that he was even more lost than before.

“Still alive, though,” he gasped wearily, “just got to stay that way.”

He listened to the distant calls of the troll, sensing its primal hunger and determination. It was using its long claws to tear forward. Mog took in the small bowl-shaped chamber and realized he was trapped. The troll must have known somehow, perhaps having cornered prey here before. Mog swore and spat.

“You’re laughing at me,” he snapped at Lyssa, imagining her watching him, “I can’t very well do your work if I’m dead.”

Sunlight shafted wanly on the trunk of a great tree growing against the side of the cliff, drawing Mog’s eye to it. It lay at such an angle that he might be able to clamber upward and Mog immediately scrambled onto its damp mossy flank. Abundant foot and handholds soon had him free of the trap and resting on solid ground. He did not linger there, however, knowing the troll could use the same means to pursue him once it arrived.

The dense jungle rose around him on all sides, cloaking the towering walls of red limestone that formed the canyon. Mog moved cautiously up a low escarpment of stone and fallen timber, determined to find a way out of the murky depths. Gradually he climbed, surrounded on all sides by dense stands of bamboo and ancient trees. The sounds of the enraged troll faded and he grew calm. Out of breath and exhausted, he sat down on a boulder to catch his breath and get his bearings.

Nothing around him looked familiar. All was a mazy green tangle with no clear means of escape. He drew the back of his sleeve across his face to wipe the sweat from his eyes and considered his options. He could try retracing his steps and hope he could find the path back up the hillside to the last known location of his party. He could hide where he was and hope Maziba found him before something else did. Or, he could continue upward and hope the climb took him back out into the open.

Ideally, with a ranger in the party, he should probably stay put, but the jungle was alive with menacing sounds and vivid imprints of hunger that were all too obvious to Mog’s sensitive mind. He studied his current surroundings and determined there were no suitable places to hide his rather large and ungainly frame. He gazed up at the sky through the dense canopy and decided he had a few hours of daylight remaining see where his current path was taking him. As a concession to Joshaat, he spent a few moments gathering rocks and creating an arrow pointing to his direction of travel before pushing onward.

He was glad he did when he crested the path and glanced back. His mind shuddered with an alien presence as three strange figures drifted silently into view. Their bulbous fleshy heads sported a multitude of gleaming insectoid eyes as they floated there, tentacles hungrily stroking the place he had been sitting only a few minutes before. They read his pattern in the ethers, even now using their mental powers to seek for him. His heart lodged in his throat as he scurried down the other side of the escarpment in an attempt to put as much distance as possible between himself and the wind riders.

Unfortunately the narrow path began a steep descent, taking him inexorably to the wide bowl of the canyon floor. Now the shrill of cicadas was dulled by the roar of falling water. The air grew heavy with dampness. Aware that he was being followed, he pushed onward, eager to stay out of the wind riders’ range. It sickened him to realize they might have been sentient enough to read his intentions in his hastily constructed arrow. He wondered what they had gleaned of him from the ethers.

When he emerged into the open, he paused instinctively at the forested edge of the immense valley. There was a shallow lake shimmering softly at the base the roaring falls. The mighty waters were white and pure as they cascaded over the red rock of the cliff. All along the shore there were thick stands of bamboo and wild fig twined around the trunks of immense trees. Sunlight poured through the center of the vast bowl and painted the rippling water a tranquil shade of turquoise. It would have been an idyllic scene were it not for the hordes of spiders that crept along its banks.

There were more wind riders drifting slowly over the open water and he could sense the ones behind him closing in. The foliage was a death trap; there were webs strung from every available trunk and branch. He swore again, forced by need to push into the open and move as quickly and quietly as he could around the hordes of spiders while avoiding their snares. He did not stop swearing until he reached the foot of a narrow trail at the base of a cliff.

It was so alluring, promising him that yes this time he really would break free into open daylight and safety. He glanced back the way he had come and saw the trio of hungry wind riders pause at the edge of the lake and cast their myriad of eyes upon the open landscape. He pressed against a fern-clad wall of stone, silently praying they would give up and was gratified when they slowly drifted back the way they had come.

He heaved a sigh of relief before pressing onward. Now he felt bad about leaving that mark on the ground. What if Joshaat led the others into this death trap? He had to get out of this maze and find them. He had to get out of the canyon and into the open where he could be easily seen from afar.

The trail had been carved by flooding rather than the passing of sentient creatures. He struggled up first one leg of the path only to scramble on his hands and knees up a rough wall of mounded rocks and bounders. He was trembling with weariness by the time he reached the lip of the canyon and lay in the open. The sun was at a low angle and a hot breeze was gliding over the red worn rocks. For a while he could only lay there panting. Then slowly he sat up and took in his surroundings.

There was the faint thread of smoke off to the west and there was a cart track carved in the eroded sandstone as it curled along the edge of the cliff. He scanned the open landscape for signs of Maziba’s band but it was devoid of anything but low brush and scurrying lizards. His best bet now was to find safety in numbers. A cart track meant there must be a settlement of some kind nearby. It was that or wait around for something to eat him.

Lurching to his feet, he trod slowly along the track toward the campfire. The sweet meaty odor of roasting pork mingled with the resinous scent of burning sagebrush. His stomach rumbled for he had been running for hours now and his last meal was at dawn. He wondered vaguely what had become of the others. Why had Lyssa chosen that moment to manifest and frighten him? It all seemed so odd now.

“You there, state your business?” said a harsh voice. Mog drew to a wobbling halt as two pale figures emerged from the brush with crossbows leveled on him.

“I am but a lost traveler,” he croaked quickly, “I come seeking shelter.”

Mog gazed tiredly upon them, aware that he must look like a beggar in his torn and soiled clothes with his unshaven face and unruly mop of ginger hair. The two men glanced at each other and one nodded. He was too weak to resist when one of them seized his arm and twisted it harshly behind his back. His outrage gave him just enough focus to snarl a hex, but when he drew breath to try it again, the second man struck his jaw so hard his world went dark.