Thus, his options exhausted, Walker took a gulp of trapped air and began wriggling, then digging upward, hoping against hope he would arrive in time.

Finally, his reaching fingers struck air and he hauled himself out of the hole in the ground.

The scene that greeted him was one of fury and devastation. Mist mingled with smoke in the glade, blurring his vision. The grasses and trees were singed as by an inferno, and the few standing guards were limping and pulling at icy shards embedded in their flesh. Several of the men were struggling against the limbs of trees, which had reached out to ensnare them. Ghosts of the dead and groans of the dying surrounded him.

Walker counted six living guardsmen, and the captain. Unddreth swiped his hammer at a pack of ghostly wolves that had encircled him, their eyes gleaming with malevolence. The rest of the men had been reduced to cinders or frozen into blackened statues. All killed… destroyed by nature's wrath.

As Walker watched, a bolt of lightning streaked out of the clouds and struck Unddreth directly, throwing him down. The genasi, dazed, struggled to beat off the wolves as they swarmed him. Even as he punched one aside, another wolf leaped atop him and grabbed his arm in its jaws.

Walker leaped to his defense, his sword slashing back and forth, cutting through ghost wolf after ghost wolf. Because of its enchantments, Walker's shatterspike existed in both the Material and Ethereal worlds, so its ghostly touch slew the shadowy creatures as though they were flesh. The wolves fell back, snarling. Shimmering shatterspike in hand, Walker stood over the fallen captain and threatened any wolf that came too close.

Gylther'yel appeared out of the mist, her gray robe making her golden skin appear luminous in the half-light. "This is foolish, Walker," she said with a mirthless smile. "Step aside and let my children do their work."

"Impossible," the ghostwalker said. Just then, the remaining soldiers stopped moaning, as though the pain of their wounds had vanished under the icy press of his will.

"Do not presume to test your powers on me," Gylther'yel warned. Her voice was soft but there was righteous fury in her eyes.

If Walker's resolute aura made him intimidating, Gylther'yel's presence could have slain ordinary men with its terror and majesty. Even Walker felt weak, but relief and encouragement flooded through him, assuring him that his was the right course. Not even pondering the source of such feelings, he stood firm against the ghost druid, his teacher.

"This is what I must do," Walker said. He slid his sword back into its scabbard. "These men have done nothing against you, or against your woods."

"They are humans. That is enough," Gylther'yel said. Her words were calm and her face was composed, but her eyes were seething. "They come into the forest that I love, they murder the animals that are my brothers and they rape the trees that are my sisters. They bring axes. They bring lances. They bring fire." The bright flame burning in her palm diminished, as though she had just realized she'd held it. Gylther'yel turned back to Walker. "They carry death with them, child. Never will I accept them. They are a disease, a blight, a hungry flame."

"Not all-" Walker started.

"All!" Gylther'yel hissed, and her soft voice held the fury of thunder. "I am pleased when you kill them, for you purify them. Death is the only purity they can hope for, the only purity any of them can know-it is far more than they deserve."

Walker was about to protest, but then a soldier rose up behind the druid, sword raised high as he advanced on the petite elf. Walker held up his hands to ward off the man, hoping the gesture came off as peaceful to Gylther'yel.

The sun elf held up a delicate hand of her own, as though in reply, and Walker felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sure enough, vines snaked out of the ground and wrapped themselves around the soldier's legs and body. The man gawked as the vines completely entangled him and twisted the sword out of his hand. The small sun elf turned toward him with a smile on her face.

"An example," she said. Then, addressing the soldier directly, "Take freedom in death."

"Gylther'yel, no!" Walker rasped. He stepped forward, but the wolves nipped at him.

The druid spoke words of power and pointed one finger at the guardsman. The shadowy radiance surrounding her hand shot toward the man with an unholy scream, one that might have been nature herself. The man's eyes glazed over and he did just as she had commanded. The vines held up the corpse in a mocking parody of an erect stance.

The sun elf turned back toward Walker, but now there was the business end of a long sword in her face. Holding the hilt, a pace distant, was the ghostwalker himself.

"Let them go," he commanded. "Do not argue."

Gylther'yel looked up the blade at Walker's face as though the weapon were not there.

"You care for these defilers?" she asked. "Have I not taught you better than this, these fifteen years?"

"I learn slowly, perhaps," replied Walker. He did not lower the shatterspike. "Let these men go free, or I shall leave instead."

Gylther'yel had no reply, except to widen her eyes, just for an instant.

Silence reigned as the two, mentor and student, standing apart, engaged in a contest of wills. The ghostwalker, with his determination and resolve, faced down his teacher, who had taught him everything he knew. The silent battle raged for some time. The only sound was the dazed captain's panting.

Then the sun elf closed her eyes and looked away, down ever so slightly. Walker nodded and lowered the sword.

"Go," Walker said to Unddreth and the remaining guards. "And never return."

They all looked at one another. Though neither the elf nor the ghostwalker had made anything more than the slightest of movements, all present in the grove knew they had witnessed a tremendous struggle, surpassing even the devastating druidic magic that had been arrayed against them. The soldiers stood, gathered up their arms and equipment, and moved to the bodies of their companions. They hesitated when Gylther'yel cast them a baleful look.

"Tell them to leave the dead for the earth," Gylther'yel ordered Walker.

The ghostwalker's cloak swirled in the wind, but Walker made no other move. The sun elf's lip twitched but she said no more.

They waited as the soldiers gathered their dead and wounded, slinging the former over their shoulders and helping the latter stagger back to Quaervarr. Unddreth gave Walker a deep, measuring gaze as the Quaervarr soldiers left the clearing-a gaze filled with respect-but the ghostwalker's eyes were fixed on the petite yet imposing sun elf before him. They waited until the soldiers were far away.

Gylther'yel assumed her ghostly wildshape once more, this time taking the shape of a nimble, golden doe. Then she stared at the ghostwalker levelly with a gaze that told Walker, in no uncertain terms, that he would regret his decision.

Soon he was left alone with his thoughts, his doubts, and the spirits. Ghosts flitted about, most of them of creatures long passed and a few the mournful souls of the soldiers who had died that day. Walker could not see them-he had not tapped into his ghostsight, wanting to do this battle as a mortal man-but he could feel them. They begged for his reassurance, his guidance. It was something he could never give.

As always, the sadness came to him, intensified now that it seemed he had rejected the one being, his teacher, who could understand his power and his curse. This was the first time he had threatened Gylther'yel and it was the first time he had opposed her wishes directly.

He knew things could never be the same with her again.

Pulling his cloak tightly around himself, Walker began the long trek back to Gylther'yel's grove and imagined the reception he would find there.