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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7064656" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 12Their second night in the Dry Hills was quiet and unremarkable.  The night passed swiftly for those wrapped in their bedrolls, slowly for those awake on watch.  The encounter with the elves had put them all on edge, and once they had eaten their evening meal they let the fire go out, leaving them to shiver in their blankets before exhaustion finally dragged them under.The sense of gloom lingered over breakfast.  They ate quickly and collected all their gear, cleaning up any sign of their presence as best they could before setting out again.  The morning overcast lingered as the day went on, accompanied by a hard wind that gusted through the gaps between the hills, tugging at their cloaks and rustling the dry brush.The terrain remained just as difficult as it had been the day before, but it was clear that they were making progress.  When in the dells with their thickets of thorny brush and labyrinths of boulders it felt like they were crawling, but occasionally they would reach a crest to get an expansive view of both the ground they’d covered and the route ahead.  For most of the morning the hills ahead had seemed to grow, until they climbed yet another ridge around noon to see a series of tall bluffs ahead of them.“The Godstones,” Glori said.  Kosk consulted the map briefly then led them forward again.As they drew nearer to their destination the landscape changed subtly, the spaces between the hills growing wider.  The Dry Hills remained true to their name, with streams or waterholes rare enough that they filled up all their bottles each time they found a source.  Bredan’s father had taught him a little bit about survival in the wilderness, including how to find water and which plants were safe to eat, but for the most part they had to rely upon the stores they’d brought with them.  The smith realized that his earlier thoughts about hunting to augment their rations had been foolish; the creatures of the Dry Hills clearly knew how to remain hidden.The sun was just starting to peek out from behind the clouds when their path wound down from yet another ridge into a forest.  The trees, mostly oaks and other broadleaf varieties that could tolerate the drought, remained scattered enough that they could always see the sky above.  The ubiquitous scrub brush thinned only slightly, forcing them into frequent detours around particularly dense knots of growth.They were navigating their way around one such cluster when Bredan came to a sudden stop.  Glori, following behind him, immediately reached for her bow.  “What is it?  Orcs?”“There’s something over there,” he said, pointing to a spot in the shade of a pair of interlaced oaks maybe fifty feet away.  Glori came up next to him and followed his outstretched finger with her gaze to what looked like the rotted remains of a third tree that had fallen between them.  The branches of the two trees were woven together like lovers’ fingers, but just enough sunlight made it through their canopy to gleam off of something metallic.“Hey, Quellan, Kosk!” Glori hissed.  The pair had gotten a good distance ahead, with Kosk setting his usual brisk pace, but when the bard plucked a single string on her lyre they heard and came back to rejoin them.  “What is it?” Kosk asked impatiently.“There’s something metal over there, under those trees,” Glori reported.  Bredan had unfastened his sword, but he kept it in its scabbard as he regarded the trees with wary suspicion.“Think there might be someone waiting over there in ambush?” Glori whispered.“No,” Kosk said.  “If there was someone there, they’d have moved when they saw they had been marked.”  But he kept his attention focused on the glimmer they could all now see clearly.“Do you hear something?” Bredan asked.They all listened, but all they heard was the faint rustle of the afternoon breeze.  “What did you hear?” Quellan asked.“Not sure.  Something moving.”“Could have been a small animal taking cover,” Kosk said.  But his wariness hadn’t eased.  “All right, let’s go check it out.  Real slow.”“Oh, sure, now he wants to go slow,” Bredan said under his breath.  But he accompanied the others forward.The four companions spread out as they approached the fallen tree.  There wasn’t much of it left, the trunk and exposed roots riddled with holes wrought by insects and decay.  But as they entered the ring of shade under the two standing oaks they could just make out the outline of something that didn’t quite fit.“Is that… a body?” Glori asked.The others didn’t get a chance to answer, as they all heard the sound that had alerted Bredan earlier: the sudden rush of flapping wings.  They didn’t have to wonder long at the source as half a dozen small flying creatures erupted from under and around the rotten trunk of the fallen tree.  The companions only got a moment to register leathery wings, hooked legs, and long, thin snouts before the things let out a collective shriek and dove at them.“Gah!” Glori shouted as the creatures attacked.</blockquote>

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