He stepped to the end of the log road and held his arm out. Finding that there was now enough light to cast a shadow, he swung his arm around until the dark line pointed at Bodvar. Though a good twenty paces remained between them, the fog was so thin now that Melegaunt could see that with sapphire-blue eyes and hair as red as bloodstone, Bodvar was both handsome and fair-haired by Vaasan standards.

"You caused this clearing, Traveler?" Bodvar asked.

Melegaunt nodded then lied, "I like to see what I'm fighting." Actually, he was more comfortable fighting in darkness than light, but if he could keep the Vaasans from pondering the nature of his magic, there was a good chance they would be unfamiliar enough with outsider spells to think he was using normal magic. "The battle goes faster."

"Indeed," Bodvar answered. "Let us hope not too fast. There is a reason the Mountainshadow Bog is crossed only in thick fog."

Melegaunt frowned. "That would be?"

"On its way."

Bodvar raised his hand-the one that was not trapped in the bog-and pointed west. The nearby peaks had grown distinct enough that they resembled a line of snow-capped fangs, and curving down from their summits, Melegaunt saw several lines of pale specks.

"Griffins?" he asked. "Or wyverns?"

"You will wish."

"Well, as long as they're not dragons," Melegaunt said. "Anything else, I can handle." "You have a high opinion of yourself, Traveler." "As shall you," Melegaunt replied. With that, he spoke a few words of magic, and the shadow he had lain across the bog expanded to the width of a comfortable walking trail. Melegaunt stepped off the logs, and continuing to hold his arm out, followed the shadow forward. To prevent the path from vanishing as he moved forward, he had to utter a spell of permanency-and that was when the sodden peat let out an explosive glub beside him.

Melegaunt turned to see a pair webbed hands clutching the edge of his shadow-walk, and between them was a slimy reptilian head shooting up to attack. The face itself was rather broad and froglike, save that its dead black eyes were fixed on Melegaunt's leg and its lips were drawn back to reveal a mouthful of needle-sharp fangs. He lowered a hand and spoke a magic power word, unleashing a cold black bolt that drilled a fist-sized hole through the thing's head. The hands opened, and its lifeless body slipped back into the sodden peat.

"What magic is that?" Bodvar gasped, watching from a few steps ahead.

"Southern magic," Melegaunt lied. He stopped at the Vaasan's side and stooped down, offering his hand. "You wouldn't know it."

Bodvar was not quick to reach for the shadow wizard's swarthy arm. "Who would?" he demanded. "We are not so backward here in Vaasa as you may think. We know about the dark magic of Thay."

Melegaunt had to laugh. "You have no idea." He uttered a quick spell, and tentacles of darkness shot from his fingertips to entwine the Vaasan's wrist. "Now come out of there. You made a bargain."

Melegaunt stood and drew the tentacles back into his fingers, pulling Bodvar's arm along. A muffled pop sounded from somewhere below the peat, and the Vaasan screamed. Though Melegaunt was fairly certain he had just separated the chieftain's shoulder, he continued to pull-pulled harder, in fact. As loud as Bodvar had screamed, the bog people would be after him like a school of snagglesnouts after a waterstrider.

The Vaasan did not budge, and though Melegaunt had the strength to pull the arm off, that would not free Bodvar of the sodden peat's cold clutch. He stopped pulling. Bodvar continued to groan-though less loudly than he had screamed before-and a long ridge of upwelling peat began to snake its way toward the chieftain.

Melegaunt pointed a finger at the head of the ridge and uttered a magic syllable, and a ray of black shadow shot down through the peat. The creature was too deep to see whether the attack hit home, but the ridge stopped advancing in Bodvar's direction.

"Be quiet," Melegaunt urged. "See if you can slip free of your boots and trousers."

Bodvar stopped groaning long enough to cast a sidelong glance at Melegaunt. "My trousers? My dragon-scale trousers?"

"You must break the suction," Melegaunt explained. "It is your trousers or your life."

Bodvar sighed but struggled to move his free hand under the peat.

"Can you reach them?" Melegaunt asked.

"No, I can't-" Bodvar's eyes suddenly went wide, then he began to yell, "Pull! Pull!"

Melegaunt felt the Vaasan being dragged downward and began to haul in the opposite direction. Bodvar howled in pain and rage, his body squirming and thrashing as he struggled to free himself. There was a muffled crunch that sounded something like a breaking bone, then Bodvar finally came free, rising out of the bog with no boots or pants, but a dagger in hand and his sword belt looped over his elbow.

Melegaunt glimpsed a slimy figure slipping down the hole with the Vaasan's trousers trailing from one corner of its smiling mouth, then the bog closed in and concealed it from view. Melegaunt cast a shadow bolt after it, but it was impossible to say whether the spell bit its target or vanished into the bottomless depths without striking anything.

"Hell-cursed mudbreather!" Bodvar swore. "Look what it did to my sword!"

Melegaunt lowered the Vaasan to the shadow-walk, then looked over to find the man naked from the waist down and one arm sagging askew from the shoulder socket, holding the flopping scabbard of a badly shattered sword in his good hand.

"How am I to fight with this?"

"Fight? In your condition?"

Melegaunt glanced toward the mountains and saw that the distant specks had now become V-shaped lines, all angling toward the bog where the largest part of the Moor Eagle clan was still trapped. He opened his cloak and pulled his own sword, a slender blade of what looked like black glass, from its scabbard.

"Use this," Melegaunt said, "but with a light hand. It will cut much better than that iron bar you're accustomed to."

Bodvar barely glanced at the weapon. "I'll use my dagger. That thing’ll break the first time-"

"Not likely." Melegaunt brought his sword down across Bodvar's dagger and sliced through the blade as though it were made of soft wood instead of cold-forged iron, then flicked the stump out of the grasp of the astonished Vaasan and replaced it with the hilt of his own weapon. "Be careful not to take off your foot."

Bodvar closed his sagging jaw, and one arm still hanging limply at his side, stepped past Melegaunt and lopped the heads off two bog people emerging from the peat behind him.

"It'll do," he said. Despite the obvious pain from his separated shoulder, the Vaasan did not even clench his teeth as he spoke. "My thanks for the loan."

"Consider it a gift," Melegaunt replied, turning back to the rest of the clan. "I use it so seldom."

To his dismay, the bog people had been far from idle while he was rescuing Bodvar. Half the warriors who had been mired when he arrived had already vanished beneath the surface, while the women and old men were struggling to keep dozens of bog people from clambering onto the cargo wagons with the clan's sobbing children. Melegaunt pulled a handful of shadowsilk from his cloak and flung it in the direction of the wagons, then spread his fingers and waggled them in a raining motion. A dark pall fell over the six closest wagons, and everyone it touched-Vaasans and bog people alike-fell instantly asleep.

"How did you do that?" Bodvar demanded. "Sleep magic doesn't work against the bog people!"

"Clearly, you have been misinformed." Melegaunt held his arm out toward the nearest wagon, extending the shadow-walk to within three paces of the driver's bench. "Do you think…"

Bodvar was already sprinting down the shadow-walk, borrowed sword in hand. When he reached the end, he launched himself into a wild leap over the horns of a mired ox, bounding off its half-submerged shoulders, and came down on the seat between the slumbering driver and the old man slumped beside her. Despite Melegaunt's warning to handle the weapon lightly, he set to work on the sleeping bog people with an ardor that left little doubt about the primitive state of Vaasan weaponsmithing.