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“Where is he?” questioned Daemona. “It sounded like he was down here.”
“Keep your blades ready. Something is fishy,” growled Harlin. He drew his sword.
They continued questing across the great patch with still no sign of Ghul Lykos.
“Over here!” came Ghul Lykos’s voice once again, but this time from behind them.
They looked to each other and turned back to go the other way.
“Stay close. We can’t get separated,” said Harlin.
Green creeper vines coiled about Daemona’s foot and spun over her leg faster than a serpent’s strike. Before she could even cry out, wide, foul leaves smashed into her mouth. Harlin spun about, swinging his sword at the creepers, keeping himself free.
Daemona ported away, and the vines relaxed and moved toward her new position. She was ready for them and cut furiously at the attacking growth.
“I think we know what happened to Ghul Lykos,” muttered Harlin as he sliced vines. He stomped a pumpkin and the vines fled away, unable to come back.
“It looks as if we destroy the fruit, the vines retreat,” Daemona said. She stopped cutting and ported on top of every pumpkin she could see, smashing them to pieces. In a few moments, no more vines were coming at them, at least within their own circle of the patch.
“But where is Ghul Lykos?”
“He must be nearby. Maybe those things can mimic his voice?” suggested Harlin.
“I hear something,” said Daemona as she peered into the shifting murk.
Far into the mist, they heard a growl that burst into a roar. Something unseen was tearing through the patch and heading toward them. They looked to each other with their blades ready.
“That sounded like a wolf,” said Harlin. “A big one.”
They watched anxiously, but just before the thing reached them, the sound of footsteps softened, and Ghul Lykos came trotting toward them out of the drifting fog.
“Where were you? I was hoping we lost you,” Daemona said with a chuckle.
“I missed you too,” he answered with a toothy grin.
Harlin took Ghul Lykos’s shoulder, asking, “Did you see a wolf?”
“Vines grabbed me. I got out. I didn’t see a wolf,” he said. “I hardly stepped beyond your line of sight when the vines got me. Some eldritch force animating them was able to mimic my voice. I tried calling out to warn you, but I couldn’t until I cut myself free.”
Harlin gave him a slightly skeptical look but said, “Next time stay closer. We can’t afford to get split up again out here.”
“I know,” Ghul Lykos said. “I think we can cross this way.”
He led them over an exposed patch of the Swamp and Daemona noticed huge wolf prints in the soft earth. Daemona pointed at them and Harlin nodded as they followed Ghul Lykos.
They came to a reed-covered edge and Ghul Lykos stepped into the water. It reached his waist.
“This is the best place to cross?” asked Daemona dubiously, looking up and down the Swamp.
“It might not be the shallowest, but it’s the shortest, we’ll reach the other bank in time, and we shouldn’t have to cross water again for the rest of the day. I think,” said Ghul Lykos.
“You think?”
“I’m familiar with this area, but the Swamp changes sometimes. It has its own way.”
Daemona looked at the brackish green water. She couldn’t see into it any better than she could see through the ground.
“Let’s go,” said Harlin as he too jumped into the water.
