"T-traveler, you would do well to s-stop there," the Vaasan said, the frigid bog mud causing him to stutter and slur his words. "The 1-logs here are rotted through."

"My thanks for the warning." Still fifteen paces from the end of the road, Melegaunt stopped and held up the small coil of line he had pulled from his rucksack. "My rope won't reach so far. I fear you have spoiled your own rescue."

The Vaasan tipped his head a little to the side. "I think our chances b-better with you out there, instead of in here with us."

"Perhaps so," Melegaunt allowed.

He peered into the fog beyond the Vaasan's tribe, trying in vain to see where the road started again. As annoying as it was in the first place not to know where he was going, the possibility of being forced to turn back before he found out absolutely vexed him.

"Where does this road lead? To Delhalls or Moorstown?"

"Where d-does the road lead?" the Vaasan stammered, his voice sharp with disbelief and anger. "What about my people? After I saved you, y-you are not going to help us?" "Of course I'm going to help you. I'll do everything I can," Melegaunt said. Somewhere deeper in the fog, another Vaasan screamed and sank beneath the bog with a cold slurp. "You might, uh, disappear before I pull you free. If that happens, I'd still like to know where this road leads."

"If that happens, the knowledge w-will do you no good," the Vaasan growled. "Your only hope of reaching your d-destination is to rescue my clan, so that we can guide you wherever you are going."

"Something is dragging your tribe under one-by-one and you are trifling over details?" Melegaunt demanded. He pulled his black dagger, then dropped to his hands and knees and began to probe the logs ahead for rot. "This is no time to negotiate. I won't abandon you."

Then your patience will be rewarded," the Vaasan said firmly.

Melegaunt looked up, his brow furrowed into a deliberate scowl. "Am I to understand you don't trust me?" "I trust you to try harder if you have n-need of us." "An answer as slippery as the bog in which you are mired," Melegaunt snapped. "If I am successful, you will have no need of me. How can I trust you to guide me then?"

"You have the word of Bodvar, leader of the Moor Eagle Clan," the Vaasan said. "That is all the trust you need."

"Trust has different meaning for outsiders than for Vaasans, I see," Melegaunt grumbled, "but I warn you, if you go back on your promise…"

"You have nothing to fear on that account," Bodvar said. "You have but to keep yours, and I will keep mine."

"I have heard that before," Melegaunt muttered, "far too many times."

Despite his complaint, Melegaunt continued to advance up the road, probing ahead for rotten logs. By all accounts, the Vaasans had been a harsh but honest people until the fabled bloodstone mines of Delhalls and Talagbar were rediscovered and the outside world intruded to teach them the value of duplicity and fraud. Now, save for a few villages like Moortown where a man's word was rumored to be more precious than his life, they were said to be as corrupt and sly as everyone else in this world of liars and cheats.

Melegaunt was beginning to doubt Bodvar's story about the rot when his dagger finally found soft wood. He pressed harder, and the entire log disintegrated, crumbling into red dust before his eyes. Then the one beneath his hands grew spongy, prompting him to push back onto his haunches. The log beneath his knees began to soften as well, and a muddy dome of peat welled up not three feet in front of him, a long line of dorsal barbs breaking the surface as the spine of some huge, eel-shaped creature rolled past.

Melegaunt dropped onto his seat and pushed away, scrambling backward as fast as he could crawl. By the time the wood ceased growing soft, he was five paces farther from Bodvar, distant enough that he could no longer make out even the shape of the Vaasans' heads.

Another clansman screamed, then slipped beneath the bog with a muffled slurp.

"Traveler, are you still there?" Bodvar called.

"For now," Melegaunt replied. He stood and backed away another couple of paces. "Something came after me."

"One of the bog people," Bodvar said. "They are attracted by vibration." "Vibration?" Melegaunt echoed. "Like talking?"

"Like talking," Bodvar confirmed. "But do not worry about me. My armor muffles the sound-it is made of dragon scales."

"All the same, rest quiet for a while." Melegaunt's opinion of the Vaasan was rising-and more because of the risk he was taking for his tribe than because he wore dragon-scale armor. "I'll get you out. I promise."

"A man should not promise what he cannot be certain of delivering, Traveler," Bodvar said, "but I do trust you to do your utmost."

Melegaunt assured the Vaasan he would, then retreated a few more paces up the road and held his hand out over the road edge. There was not even a hint of shadow. Melegaunt's magic would be at its weakest, and he had already seen enough of his foe's power to know it would be folly to duel him at less than full strength-even in this world of decay and rebirth, wood simply did not rot as fast as had those logs.

Doing his best to ignore the occasional screams that rolled out of the fog, Melegaunt removed a handful of strands of shadowsilk from his cloak pocket and twisted them into a tightly-wound skein. In a century-and-a-half of reconnoitering Toril, he had yet to risk revealing himself by using such powerful shadow magic where others might see-but never before had he been given reason to think his long quest might be nearing its culmination. This Bodvar was a brave one, and that was the first quality. He was also wary, neither giving oaths nor taking them lightly, and that was the second. Whether he was also the third remained to be seen-and it soon would, if matters went as expected.

Once Melegaunt had twisted the shadowsilk into a tightly wound skein, he uttered a few words in ancient Netherese and felt a surge of cold energy rising through his feet into his body. Unlike most wizards in Faerun who extracted their magic from the goddess Mystra's all-encompassing Weave, Melegaunt drew his magic from the enigmatic Shadow Weave. As universal as the Weave itself, the Shadow Weave was less known and far more powerful, if only because the cloaked goddess-she who must never be named-kept it uncompromisingly secret and maddened anyone who revealed its existence.

When he was sufficiently imbued with the Shadow Weave's cold magic, Melegaunt tossed the skein of shadowsilk out over the bog and made a twirling motion with his fingers. The cord began to unwind but sank into the peat before it finished and continued to spin, drawing long tendrils of fog after it.

An oxen bellowed in alarm, then there was a huge glugging sound followed by the crackle of splintering wood and the shrieks of terrified women and children.

“T-t-traveler?" called Bodvar, sounding weaker and colder than before. "H-have you left us?"

"Stay quiet, Vaasan, or there will be no reason for me to stay," Melegaunt shouted back. "I am working as fast as I can."

Judging by the restless voices that followed, the clan of the Moor Eagle took little comfort from this assurance. Melegaunt urged them again to be patient. While he waited for his first spell to do its work, he prepared himself for battle, girding himself with magic armor and shields of spell-turning, readying power word attacks and casting enchantments that would allow him to walk on mud or swim through it with equal ease. By the time he finished, his spell had thinned the fog enough that he could see a long line of mired Vaasan men and overloaded wagons curving away toward the jagged gray wall of a distant mountain range. The end of the column was perhaps two hundred paces distant, and fifty paces beyond that, he could see the brownish ribbon of logs where the road resumed again. Instead of looking impressed or grateful, Bodvar and his equally bearded warriors were all searching the blue sky with expressions of alarmed expectation. Those with free sword arms were holding their weapons ready, while on the wagons, women and old men were stringing longbows and raising spears. Melegaunt glanced around the heavens and found nothing except snow clouds-then heard two loud slurping sounds as another pair of warriors were drawn down into the muck.