Beyond the archway were three narrow paths, one to the right, one to the left, and one straight ahead. All were lined with the same variety of poisonous hedge. Tarl looked to the hammer, hoping to receive some kind of sign or direction, but none was forthcoming.

"Where are we, anyway?" asked Shal.

Ren pointed to a tall, white turret, some distance ahead, the only thing that could be seen above the vicious shrubbery. "Valjevo Castle," he breathed, his voice hushed. "Probably one of the tallest buildings in the Realms, and according to that party of orcs we ran into on the way to Yarash's, the home of the Lord of the Ruins. This must have been a teleport the vampire used when he needed to see his master."

"It's no coincidence the three of us are here," Tarl pronounced firmly.

"Nope," Ren agreed. "Fate and the gods." He looked to Shal. "If you're ready to meet the bastard who sent Cadorna to kill Ranthor, I'm ready to meet him, too-and to take a chunk out of his hide for murdering Tempest."

"I'm ready," said Shal. "But do we even know what we're looking for or which way to go?" A glance in any direction along the pathways through the tall hedges showed a series of turns. They were obviously inside a topiary maze, and an elaborate one at that.

Tarl spoke confidently. "We'll recognize the evil of the Lord of the Ruins when we find him."

"He's right. I think we should try going straight ahead," Ren said. "I have a hunch that if the vampire visited often enough to have a private passageway here, he probably wasn't forced to go through the whole maze every time he dropped in."

Ren led the way. The path immediately took a jog to the right, then left, where there were two archways leading off from it. They proceeded on straight ahead, then stopped when it came to a T. "Wait," Ren said. He sniffed the air, then very carefully touched one finger to the flat of one of the hedge's thick, serrated leaves. "There've been other humans here-recently. They sliced their way through. These bushes are screaming in agony."

"Bushes screaming?" Shal asked in astonishment.

"There's a pain scent from the fluids lost when any woody plant is cut. This hedge has been hurt bad, and in lots of places." Ren looked for a moment like a shaman searching for an aura, his hands outstretched, his nose uplifted to catch scents.

"This way," he said finally, leading them off to the left. Suddenly he stopped and raised his hand to stop Shal and Tarl. "Blood…" he whispered. "I smell blood."

Moving even more cautiously, they turned the next corner in the maze. The emblem of the Black Watch greeted them from the chest of a man suspended grotesquely in the hedge. His machete was still in his hand, but it hadn't done him any good once he'd come in contact with the bush's thorns. His skin had already taken on an unnatural color from the poison that had worked its way through his system as fast as the blood circulated in his body. His eyes were bulging, but when his mouth began to move, they realized that he was still alive-barely. With incredible difficulty, he gasped, "Cadorna… the bastard… didn't care… how many of us… died…"

Tarl reached out to try to heal the man, but he was too late. The soldier's last breath rattled in his throat, and his body hung limp in the thorny hedge. Beyond him lay a companion, another soldier of the Black Watch, also dead, lying facedown with his hand caught up high behind him in the hedge. Across from the two men, the hedge walls had been chopped wide open, wide enough for three or four men to pass through.

"Do you think he meant that Cadorna brought the Black Watch here?" Shal whispered.

Ren nodded. "I can't think of anybody else paranoid enough to let men die just to get through a hedge. I'm sure he's here somewhere. In fact, we might have a chance to get the Lord of the Ruins and Cadorna, because I don't see any sign that anybody's come back out through these bushes."

There was no question now which route would lead to the heart of the castle grounds. A nearly straight swath had been cut through at least a half dozen walls of shrubbery, and the two soldiers had died cutting through the final one. Ren wondered how many others had died hacking their way through the hedges. From where he stood, he could see a boot protruding near one hedge wall and a hand sticking out near another.

"Follow me," Ren declared. "Keep low and to the center of the path, as far away from the branches as possible."

Once they emerged on the other side of the maze, they found themselves staring up at the central tower. Its lofty walls were of rarest white marble. At another time, Shal thought, the tower must have been beautiful and pristine-looking, a giant monument to all that was good in the land, but now its every feature reflected the same kind of corruption and defilement Shal and the others had been fighting since their first mission for the town council. Runes of the type often used by black mages marred much of the marble surface of the building's exterior. Despite its light color, the tower appeared to be shrouded in shadow.

Part of the tower had tumbled in on itself. A scaffold had been erected halfway up the damaged portion of the tower, and two ogres lay dead beside it. "That's one fight we missed," whispered Tarl. Shal and Ren smiled. They were all feeling excited and obsessed with a growing sense of purpose, but at the same time, all three were as tense as stretched slingshot bands, so the levity, however brief, brought relief.

Tarl pointed to a huge doorway to the left of the scaffolding. Its monstrous wooden door stood wide open.

"I suspect Cadorna and any men he has left went in that way," Ren said. "Let's see if there's another door."

Cadorna was fit to be tied. The kill fee he would have to pay the Black Watch and the mercenaries' guild was astronomical. Five soldiers of the Black Watch had been poisoned by the bushes, and four more had died facing a wizard who kept trying to pass himself off as the Lord of the Ruins. When Cadorna finally came face to face with the dragon, he didn't have enough men left. The six remaining soldiers of the Black Watch had managed to weaken the dragon considerably before getting themselves killed, and Gensor had managed to make a couple of magical attacks, but in the end, Cadorna was forced to flee with Gensor to a nearby room to plan what to do next.

Shal and Tarl followed Ren cautiously as they circled the tower. There was a second door of more conventional size on the building's opposite side. It was an ebony door with an elaborate carving of a dragon on it, but this door was shut. Shal cast a spell to detect magical traps. When a yellow aura glowed along the door's perimeter, Shal summoned Cerulean from the Cloth of Many Pockets. As soon as the great horse touched the door with a hoof, a yellow mist puffed from the dragon's mouth. "No!" Shal bit back a scream as Cerulean bolted backward, snorting loudly. Immediately Shal murmured a cantrip to disperse the poison gas, but the puff of wind did not come soon enough to keep the first of the poison from penetrating the big horse's nostrils and lungs. Shal tried to calm Cerulean, but he was shaking his head furiously and snorting violently in an effort to get the toxic gas from his lungs.

Tarl pulled a pouch from his belt and tossed some dust at Cerulean's nose. Immediately the horse began to sneeze, and he kept it up for several seconds. By the time the sneezing finally slowed, Cerulean's eyes were bleary with water and his nose was running thick and yellow. He snorted once more, but then the fit was over. Shal wiped his nose and eyes with a cloth and patted his neck.

You okay, big fella? she asked silently.