Traffic on the road was sparse in the early evening. Most were smart enough not to cross the desolate Siremirian foothills after dark. Keeping to the wooded edge, the barghest barely slowed when forced off the rutted dirt track into the trees beyond to avoid the scrutiny of oncoming stragglers pressing for Chagrothlond before nightfall. What he didn’t detect was any hint of their now familiar stench. Something had changed.

  Since beginning his pursuit, the olfactory trail shone like an unwavering nasal beacon, but now—nothing. Had that sniveling stable hand managed to mislead him? Unlikely. The man was pissing himself in fear and would have sold out his own mother to save his life. Had they been tipped off to his presence and started taking magical precautions? Most probably. His lips stretched into a canine grin as he ran, tongue lolling free in the evening air. The hunt just got more interesting.

  For more than thirty minutes, he followed the road west until a faint tingle in his nostrils brought him to a skidding halt. He almost missed it. Nose buried in the dirt, the barghest scoured the rutted surface before homing in on an isolated stink puddle. There it was. Only two of them, and their horses. Whatever occurred had been quickly corrected, but they had made a mistake. Despite no hint of an ongoing trail, he was now certain they had come this way and eagerly pressed on.

  Unbothered by the falling darkness, he stopped again, minutes later. Another puddle, larger this time, unmistakable. The entire group, and all their horses, stood just off the road. Like the last clue, however, this one also vanished without any indication of departure. He had to give them some credit. Under different circumstances, a less skilled or intelligent pursuer may have been fooled by the tactics, left to fumble around in search of a scent to follow, but not him. The road offered all the direction he needed. Capable of travelling without rest and through darkness, the advantage was his. Sooner or later, they had to stop, and he would have them. The barghest took off again, at top speed now, his snout greedily drinking in deep breaths in search of the next puddle.

  The druid’s voice wavered with a nervous edge. “Do you think this is gonna work?”

  She and Tsuta were seated just outside the tiny hut Whydah had conjured next to the rock face at the back of a wooded canyon.

  The bald monk, perched cross-legged with his staff flat across his lap, shrugged idly. “It has to. We can’t keep going like this. I’d much rather meet this thing on our terms and deal with it before we get to Irdri.”

  Segwyn stepped from the Tiny Hut, tightening the strap on his quiver. “We should get going. If it picked up our trail outside of Chagrothlond, it’ll likely arrive in the next couple hours.”

  The others began to pile out behind him, all except Whydah. Iskvold, the last to leave, turned to the halfling, hugging her knees next to the campfire. “I hate leaving you behind. This feels like a ride-or-die kinda moment.”

  Whydah shot her a knowing smile, brushing off the objection with a wave of her hand. “We’ve been over this. I’m at a huge disadvantage in the dark, and we need the hut for bait, which means I have to stay inside.”

  The drow smiled back. “I know, I’m just saying, for the record, I don’t like it!” She pointed a finger at her seated friend. “And before you start crowing that we’re even, this doesn’t count as your turn to be the Roper. It’s not quite the same when you’ve got the protection of the hut.”

  “Noted,” Whydah called after her as the drow stepped across the hut’s magical perimeter, losing all perception of the interior.

  The ranger took in the surrounding faces. “Everyone knows the plan, right? And you’ve all walked around this end of the canyon?”

  He received a few nods before Bird chirped, “Yes, Dad. It’s not that complicated.”

  The ranger looked slightly hurt. “Just because it isn’t as complicated as our last grift, doesn’t mean it isn’t always best to check. We only get one shot at this,” he said dismissively before turning to the druid. “Ready, Lunish?”

  Sprig of spruce in hand, she recited a brief incantation before tapping her fingers together. The familiar green energy of the Pass Without Trace spell sparkled in the evening darkness, drifting slowly to the ground around the group.

  Rock face at their back, everyone trudged across the widening floor of the V-shaped cut, cleaved from the hillside rising at their backs. They paused as one when they reached the road. The canyon’s mouth betrayed none of its secrets; steep walls sloped down to an almost level position with the ground at the roadside. Dipping his fingers into Lunish’s pouch of ash, the ranger repeated her spell using his own spruce twig, and he and Glynfir broke off to the left, hiking up the canyon’s steep side wall, back toward the hut and the high ground. After watching them go, the two monks, Bird and Lunish, crossed the road in search of a place to settle, hide, and wait.

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  Almost tasting his freedom from the Red Queen’s bond of servitude, the barghest moved quickly west. Only a fool wouldn’t question the sincerity of her promise to return him home to Gehenna should he successfully recover her property from these so-called pinchfisted dabblers, but what choice did he have? The bond magically stifled his own ability to return home, even if he managed to consume enough local souls to power it. His coming-of-age journey to the prime material plane, originally intended to last a few months, had stretched into more than twenty excruciating years thanks to her cruelty. One thing was certain: if he somehow did manage to find his way home, there would be no future interplanar adventures.

  With the moon at its zenith and traffic on the road virtually non-existent, his travel was easy. Despite sensing no trace for almost two hours, his confidence remained high. Spells don’t last forever. Every stop to recast their cloaking magic gave him all he needed, at least until he got close.

  They were resting somehow. If he could somehow run them down when they felt safe, off the road, and away from the prying eyes of passersby, that would be ideal. He could isolate and pick them off one by one, under the cover of darkness. Facing the entire group was a recipe for disaster, but one at a time…he liked his chances. Plus, there was always the possibility that he recovered the Mistress’s stone before having to kill all seven. They made a mistake before; they would make another.

  Within fifteen minutes, his nose tingled from another large puddle off the side of the road. Slowing to investigate, he picked up all seven riders and their horses, just like before. Similarly, there was no indication of subsequent passage, but this puddle was less than eight hours old. Spittle flew from his jowls as he broke into a run, almost able to taste the salty-sweet tang of their mortal souls.

  An hour later, he skidded to a halt again, nasally stunned. There was no mistaking it. The trail materialized from nowhere, shimmering from the earth’s surface, once again an olfactory beacon, barely five hours old. Any attempt at concealment had been entirely abandoned. Maybe they mistakenly believed they had gone far enough to throw him off, or they ran out of magic. He didn’t care either way and quickened his pace. At this rate, he would catch them in camp tonight, if he could find it.

  Three hours further west, as suddenly as it had appeared, the trail vanished again. The barghest stopped, his red eyes flaring with intensity as he surveyed his surroundings. There was no sign of any fire or roadside camp nearby. Brush and foliage flanked the trail on either side before giving way to gently whispering fields of golden wheat. Why travel openly for several hours, only to use magic again to hide their scent? He was so close. The charcoal canine circled in vain, his nose to the ground, desperate for any clue, and then it hit him. They were cloaking their trail to hide where they left the road to make camp. His head snapped up, scrutinizing the area with a new perspective.

  They were too smart to set up in the middle of a wheat field. It was difficult to defend, and their fire would be visible for miles. Darkness limited the range of even his enhanced vision, so he carried on, at a slower pace now, scanning both sides of the road for any appealing terrain.

  After barely travelling a mile, his nose surprised him again. Could it be they were getting sloppy? It wasn’t all of them, but the same two riders and horses he smelled outside Chagrothlond, somehow separated from the magic, only for a moment in the middle of the road, before disappearing again. Half a mile later, the same mistake, but this time they hugged the trail’s southern edge.

  When a third isolated stink puddle surfaced two hundred yards further west, still tight to the road’s south side, accompanied by the outline of a wooded hillock emerging from the midnight darkness, his lips stretched around a mouthful of teeth, half-snarl, half-grin. They were searching for a campsite, and the wooded island provided an attractive target. He slowed his approach, eyes darting in all directions. On his left, a thirty-foot gap in the rising rocky slopes framed the entrance to a small canyon. Cut from the hillside, it ran back beyond the limits of his vision, but the fresh odor was unmistakable. They were in there.

  Glynfir’s mind pinged when the barghest inspected the final isolated scent puddle, triggering his alarm spell. All credit to Whydah, it had been a stroke of genius to suggest presenting aromatic breadcrumbs to their pursuer, modeled on her earlier accidental fall. She argued that it provided the opportunity to convert a mistake into an advantage.

  The hope was that by deliberately repeating the breadcrumb multiple times throughout their journey, whatever was tracking them would believe it held the upper hand upon discovering a campsite they otherwise appeared to be working very hard to conceal. If that hubris translated into reduced caution as it moved in for the kill, they would have it at their mercy and be done with this nuisance. The wizard fired off a series of messaging cantrips, letting everyone know their predator turned prey had arrived.

  He could barely make out Segwyn’s form across the canyon, crouched similarly behind cover on the rocky outcropping. A glance to his right confirmed all was well at the hut, nestled against the back wall. To his left, he was too far to see Bird and the others, not that he expected to be able to make them out even if they were closer. No doubt, the cat would have everyone so well hidden as to be invisible in the darkness of the roadside underbrush.

  What was unmistakable, however, were the two glowing red embers attached to a large, shadowy form, slinking its way into the canyon, heading for the Hut.

  The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum?

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