Aster felt his lip quiver as the sensation to curl into a ball warped the strength in his arms. "Please, where is the light?" He hated the smallness in his voice, but it was all he could manage. 

"Aw, he is afraid," the soft voice murmured. 

Whether it was the same voice as he had heard a moment before he could not be sure. The tone sounded like wind passing through leaves, fluttering and changing with the forest around it. 

"Why is the Watchman afraid?" 

"I - I can't see." Soft dirt and roots answered his fingers' touch as he groped for roots that would bring him to the top of the hill. "Who's there?" 

"What is always in the dark." 

Aster clung to his handholds and hung his head. The image of the Watchman climbing the hill before disappearing behind the elm seared into his eyes. It was the only image he could find the black. 

"What's that? Please, I can't see. I can't..." 

"Loneliness. Emptiness." 

He shivered against a gentle breeze. Eyes clenched, he realized that the voice could no longer be distinguished from the wind or his own mind. There was no mouth to see the voice come from, no eyes to see the meaning burst from. Each word may have come from his own mind as likely as the soft tones of an unseen figure. 

"But it doesn't end like this. There's more..." It felt strange to say so. Why he said it he could not know. Being robbed of his eyes had felt like any hope was robbed from him. His ax, lost from his frantic hands, was no use when the foe was his own fear. It was not right. It was not fair. 

"Why not?" The air seemed to answer. 

"No one dies to..." He gulped at the empty night. "No one does to nothing." 

"But we are not nothing," the dark answered. "We are everything. Every fear hides in our cloaks. Or does it? You will never know." 

His voice cracked as he searched for words. His hand rustled against a branch of a nearby tree. By the wind's hand or another's the leaves gave way to a gentle ray of moonlight that cascaded through the foliage. Its white light traced the rotting leaves of the forest floor like a searching torchlight before it alighted on an ashen face. 

Any relief from seeing the beam died with the white of the corpse that stared back with glass eyes from the ground. Three long gashes, black with since-dried blood carved grooves across the man's countenance, twisting his lips and cheek until they were petrified in what looked like a hideous sneer. Wild eyes frozen in the hand of death still glared upward as the moon blinked across their now-empty depths. 

Aster shook, stumbling back at the sight. His foot caught and his hands thrashed in search of a grip. Pain lanced through his arms as his elbows connected with ground. Cold flesh touched his head, stopping it from hitting the ground. 

Rolling over, dizzy with horror, he made out another face in the rolling moonlight. It too was cold with death, though familiar. 

The scouting party, he retched. Throat tightening, he reeled from the ground. No matter where he walked or touched he could feel the cold of dead flesh and stiffness of motionless bodies. White hands seemed to grab his feet as he tried to run away. Heads tripped him, arms propped by rocks and roots on which they had fallen seemed to reach up to stop him. 

At last he stumbled and fell again. Roots and rocks struck his falling body as he tumbled down the hill. A shriek escaped his lips as cold fingers grazed the bare skin of his falling legs. 

"They died," the voice continued. "Why not you?" 

"I don't..." He cowered. Just end it, his mind screamed. No more suspense, no more, no more. Legs curled under him, arms wrapped over his whimpering face, he shook his head. Every nerve in his body quivered in expectation of an invisible blow to sheer him like the bodies of Endel's scouts. 

How long he waited he could not say. Perhaps an hour or a day. Sometime he thought he had slept and at others he just let fear's cold hands wash his heart in horrified consciousness. 

No sounds. No smells. No touch. 

Every sense was gone but suspense. Something was out there. Something that could take him. 

His first thought was wolves. He could envision them, circling, stalking as they paced around him. When the wind blew just right it felt like the drift from an unseen monster's darting charge. His mind saw their glimmering yellow eyes, black lips curled away from jagged teeth that dripped with frothy saliva. 

Time transformed the wolves into ghosts. Ethereal beasts that hung like fine silk a hands-breathe away from his skin, simply waiting for him to move before wringing the life from him. 

Eventually the ghosts were replaced by... nothing. It was as if the very landscape had forsaken him. There were no trees. There was no ground. There was no breeze. There was no life. 

There was only darkness. 

When he heard footsteps he decided it had at last come. The end would be there. Let the Hunter make it swift, his fragile mind prayed. 

Then light came into view. It was hazy, wavering in a sea of foggy vision. Blinding now and dull later. He squinted at it and then turned away, covering his face. A voice said something. From far away he felt a hand shake him. There were more hands now, lifting him onto a sleigh of some kind. He tried to pull his cloak tighter around him but his hands ignored him. 

Scraping and scratching of the sleigh moving over the ground trickled through his ears. 

He blinked. 

Another sound filled the air. 

Water. 

The river. 

It was the last thought he remembered. 

When he woke up his body felt stiff. Clenching and opening his hands, he felt the slowness of their response. Legs fell from a table-like object to the ground several inches below gracelessly. He blinked. 

There is light. He blinked again, enjoying the ability to bring sight in and out. 

"You're awake," a soft voice murmured. 

Mentally he recoiled. Stiff muscles kept his body from even trembling. He felt his mind nearly collapse in fear of where the noise came from. 

"It's alright," it soothed. A face leaned down to look at him. 

Long auburn hair fell from a fair face under eyes narrowed with concern. 

"Sarah," he fumbled through slow lips. 

"Wolf-warrior. We were beginning to wonder if you would wake." 

Blinking again, he tried to rise. Pounding hit his head, sending back to the ground. 

"Careful. Take it slow." 

"Where am I?" 

Light filled the small area, though dark was not far outside the space where he lay. It seemed a tent of sorts - a large canopy propped by a spear in each corner and a taller lance at its center. Two torches flickered beneath it. 

"Festfir Narenhior's encampment. You've been here for three days." 

"Three... days. How long was I -" 

"A week near as we can tell. We had to dig you from foliage that had collected. It was a miracle, truly, that we found you." She shook her head. "A wolf attacked the camp. We put an arrow in it but it got away and we chased it through the wood. It must have stopped to feed because -" She stopped. 

"It's alright, I saw." 

"I'm sorry. You're captain was furious when we delivered him the dead. I am not sure that he is convinced we weren't the attackers. Nevertheless, here we are." 

"So the Watchmen still ride with you?" 

She swallowed, looking away. "In a manner." 

Pushing himself up, he fought off dizziness. The muscles in his legs quivered, but welcomed the chance to stretch. 

"What do you mean, 'in a manner?'" 

As he asked, he heard something. Dampness filled the air coupled with the tossing of water not far away. 

"And why are we still near the river?" 

"You see..." the elf looked away, searched for words. "We are still camped near each other, yes. But we have ridden nowhere." She looked up, eyes watering near tears. "We're lost."