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and Hinto. If they want to stay the night, we shall. If not, we’ll start back for Perhata. Agreed?”
    “Agreed.” Ghaji’s smile fell away then. “At the risk of straining our friendship even further, I think you should consider having a talk with Hinto. If he continues to accompany us on our ‘hunts,’ he’s going to get hurt, perhaps even killed.” The half-orc paused before adding, “Or worse.”
    Diran didn’t have to ask his friend what he meant by
or worse
. He meant something like what had happened to Makala. Diran remembered the last time he’d seen her face—skin pale, canine teeth elongated, eyes blazing with hunger …
    He’d already failed one of his companions. He wasn’t going to fail another.
    “I’ll talk to him the next chance I get,” Diran said.
    Ghaji nodded and the two companions started back toward the campfire, walking together, but each alone with his own thoughts.

    Hinto and Tresslar opted to remain camped for the night and get an early start come dawn. They spread out their bedrolls around the fire and decided in what order they’d stand watch. As a priest, Diran could erect certain wards about their camp—some mystical, some physical—but these would only fend offundead or infernal creatures. More mundane threats would have to be detected by eyes and ears and met with cold steel. Diran selected the first watch, Ghaji the second, Tresslar the third, and Hinto the last. As the others settled into their bedrolls and drifted off to sleep, Diran sat cross-legged on the ground and concentrated on entering a meditative trance that would allow him to remain in a state of semi-wakefulness, senses alert, mind vigilant, for the entire night. Letting his friends have their sleep might not make up for the way he’d been driving them the last few months, but it would be a start. On the morrow, Ghaji would likely accuse Diran of taking the entire night’s watch as a way to punish himself, and the half-orc would be right, but then, Diran thought with a smile, a little self-flagellation was good for the soul. He closed his eyes halfway, slowed his breathing, and settled in to keep watch over his friends.
    And so the night passed.

    The four companions reached the outskirts of Perhata by noon. Their journey back had been uneventful, and if it hadn’t been for the cold winds blowing down from the north, it might have been almost pleasant.
    Though the citizens of Perhata referred to their home as a “city,” in truth it was more like a ramshackle village. The docks were old and badly in need of repair or complete replacement. The outer buildings were unpainted shacks, their wood worn and weathered, the structures so rickety they looked as if a strong rainfall might batter them to the ground. The buildings in the center of Perhata were somewhat sturdier, though hardly more attractive: square gray-stone buildings of one or two stories. Even the baron’s “palace” was of similarly plain construction, though it stood three stories high and was surrounded by astone wall topped with rusty iron spikes to discourage unwanted visitors. The streets of central Perhata were paved, though their brick surface was often cracked and warped. The streets in the rest of the city were nothing but dirt and mud—given the city’s proximity to the sea, more of the latter than the former. A cold breeze wafted in off the Lhazaar, filling the air with the salty tang of seawater. From any point in the city one could hear the cries of gulls, the shouts of sailors, and the lap of waves breaking against the pier.
    The companions had a pair of rooms at a dockside inn called the King Prawn. The establishment’s grandiose name belied the rather modest accommodations it offered, but it was the best they could afford, which meant they probably wouldn’t contract a fatal disease by staying there. As they walked down the street toward the inn, they passed men and women of various races—humans, half-elves, and gnomes