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"We should go," Jaheira said. "There'll be more."
"The map shows our next step, I think," Xan said.
"The map?" Abdel asked.
"While you were reading that book," Jaheira said, "Xan was showing me the map he found ... the parchment?"
Abdel nodded.
"It shows the location of a mining camp," Xan told him, "an Iron Throne mining camp deep in the Cloak Wood."
"So they're mining their own iron," Abdel said, "to sell at a higher price when the Nashkel mines go bust. Sounds like
the Zhentarim to me."
 "They're hoarding iron in the camp here," Xan said, "I saw cart after cart of ore there."
"All this," Jaheira said, "for gold."
"Men have done worse," Xan said, "for less."
Abdel, knowing he was right, nodded.
"I'm not looking forward to going into the Cloak Wood," Jaheira said, "I've heard stories .. ."
"Me too," Abdel said, "but if we had a guide . .."
"A guide?" Xan asked, confused.
"Help me lift this body," Abdel said. "It's coming with us."
Chapter Fifteen
"There are so many things that are wrong with this," Jaheira said, "I have no idea how to begin to "
She stopped when Abdel put a finger to his lips and tipped his head to one side. She knew they should be
quiet they were trying to hide after all. It had been two days since they'd left the hills and the bandit camp behind,
and she'd had no luck trying to talk Abdel out of this insane plan. Xan had been more vocal about his distaste for the
enterprise. He complained and refused to pull the makeshift travois they'd used to carry the dead bandit to this little
off-shoot of the deeper Cloak Wood forest.
The dead bandit hung, stinking, from a tree where Abdel had left him, and he, Jaheira, and Xan waited behind the
also rotting hulk of a fallen tree.
"Abdel," she tried again, whispering this time. "Let's just bury "
She stopped when Abdel whipped his head to one side, eyes wide and searching in the gloomy forest light. She
heard the footfalls as well, whoever it was wasn't trying to be quiet. Xan bit his lip, and when he made eye contact with
Jaheira he shook his head slowly. She closed her eyes and sighed, hoping the elf would realize that he'd just have to
understand.
"Oh, my, yes," Korak said, emerging from the underbrush and considering the dead bandit hungrily. "Yes, this will
do fine."
Jaheira could see Abdel let out a silent breath. She tried not to breathe through her nose. The ghoul was downwind,
but she could still detect traces of his moldering flesh stink. She put a hand over her mouth to calm the gag reflex.
"How did you get yourself up there?" the ghoul asked the silent body.
"I helped him," Abdel said. Korak yelped, leaped backward awkwardly, and fell into a prickly bush. "Come on out,
Korak, I've changed my mind."
"That you?" the ghoul asked, only the top of his gray, dead head showing from behind the bush.
"Come on out," Abdel said, standing, sword in hand, behind the fallen tree. Xan breathed some Elvish curse but
otherwise stayed out of it. Jaheira had no interest in standing, either, still afraid of the full force of the ghoul's reek and
not too fond of its appearance at that.
"You won't kill me?" the ghoul asked hopefully. "I come with you?"
"We need a guide," Abdel said. "We need a guide in the Cloak Wood."
"I knew it," Korak answered. "Follow me."
* * * * *
The spider was brown with irregular blotches of black and white spattered across its spherical body and eight
armored legs. It was about as big around as Jaheira's thumb not the biggest spider in Faerun, but it felt like it to
Jaheira. She let out an embarrassingly impish yelp as the thing dropped on her shoulder. She jumped, and that served
only to startle the spider, which proceeded toward the closest dark shelter it could find Jaheira's modest but
well-rounded cleavage.
She patted at her hardened leather bustier and said, "Oh for Mielikki's sake," in a shrill, scared voice. "Damn it ...
damn it."
Abdel turned around and flinched away from a slender branch that almost caught him in the eye. The brush and trees [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]