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everywhere. In cities, large and small. In villages, but not all.
    He slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes. He smiled.
    “No one can evade Barnabus.”
    Nath Dragon and his party had been caught leaving Quintuklen. It was the last place he’d been seen since they trapped him at the temple. That’s where the Drultures came in. Flying notes back and forth faster than eagles. They tracked his every move southeast, towards Narnum.
    Kryzak’s guess at Nath Dragon’s destination was the Elven city of Elome, judging by the direction of his travel and the company he kept. An Elven Wizard. A Roving Ranger. Why there he didn’t know, so he kept his distance. He had to work fast though. Find any help he could get.
    That’s how he’d found the Ettin Cove. The Giant brutes had taken some convincing, but in the end, they had agreed. Kryzak had his ways. Now, the Ettins laid into one small village after the other. There was no way Nath Dragon and his party would miss them. No way the cries and despair of the voices wouldn’t lure him.
    Especially when Kryzak had spies within the ranks of the Legionnaires.
    “I wish I could see it.” He mumbled some words , and smoke billowed from his mouth and nose, filling the tent in thick layer of gloom. “But we’ll see how it goes.”

 
    CHAPTER 10
     
     
    On horseback, Shum and Bayzog made their way from the village. Shum the Roving Ranger was leading the way, following the trail of the Ettins, when he pulled his horse to a stop. The big-boned Elf slid off his horse, stepped into one of the Giant foot impressions in the tall grass, and kneeled.
    Bayzog, a bit weary, prepared a spell on his lips. He didn’t feel comfortable. He wasn’t ready. Over the decades he’d spent most of his time indoors. Studying. Crafting. And it had been a decade since he last ventured into the wilderness. He was a little unsettled. He sneezed.
    Shum looked up at him with a funny look on his face.
    “What?” Bayzog said, “Nothing to worry about. Probably from the excitement.”
    Shum shook his head and sniffed the air. The smoke in the distance was dying down.
    “I could smell them before,” Shum said, pushing his long hair from his face, “but the wind has changed. The tracks however, hmmm, well, they come from separate directions.”
    Bayzog coughed a little. Tapped his chest with his fist. He’d been uncomfortable since they left. Not so much about the woodland, but about heading back home. To Elome. He was an outsider. Part Elf. Part human. His human side didn’t fight off the elements like the Elven blood did. It bothered him. It always had. Shum was different too, but a pure Elf. One born in the harsh outdoors, living among the beasts and the monsters. A part of nature itself.  The big Elf stood in the footprint as tall as him, staring over the horizon. Bayzog wondered if Shum felt the same.
    “I say we follow the bigger one. Away from the smoke.” Shum swung himself into his saddle. “Th eir lair can’t be too far.” Shum looked at him. Waiting.
    “After you,” Bayzog said.
    They rode until the hills became steep and the terrain rugged. Moss over rock-covered ground. This was the part Bayzog didn’t like. The sudden changes. The air. The wind. The setting sun. No roof over his head. He wasn’t sure if it was the Man or the Elf that preferred the indoors over the out. Elves, by nature, liked open spaces. The comfort of greenery, blended with stone and tree trunks.
    Shum slowed. Hoove s splashed over a creek bed into a denser patch of woods. He looked over his shoulder at Bayzog with narrow eyes.
    Bayzog felt it too. A shift. A darkness. The fine hairs on his arms tingled. That was the Elf in him. He was certain. He still had the instincts, just a little dormant. He thought of Sasha. He hated not having her by his side. She gave him comfort. Security.  She understood his nervousness and the edginess he fought so hard to hide.  He made a sound in Elven. A hoot of