The Forest Deep
Part 9
“Uh… This morning. I’d trouble sleeping so I just got up and…” The archer hesitated for a moment and looked downwards for a moment before collecting himself. “Well, I noticed these… wide lines of moss, now that sunlight reaches farther down. I uh, followed one, and the others got closer together. The actually formed a circle around a cave and spread straight out from there. Out where Joren and I fought the beast, they were quite wide apart, at least 15 paces.”
“I see.” Yavan replied pensively. “And… Did you enter the cave?”
“I did. I uh… Noticed a deer before I did and seeing how animals used to avoid the deeper parts of the forest, well… I figure they sense things we can’t. More than just sounds, like. So I reckoned that it was safe.”
Yavan puffed pensively on his pipe. Animals venturing all the way in, hm? He also bore into mind how Menzo had been living here for many years and appeared to be the local forest expert. He disliked the idea of such a recently Companioned man taking risks of his own but then again, this was his home ground. Perhaps this was good; it proved that the man knew how to show incentive. He liked that in a Companion.
“What did you see inside?” the Vigil inquired.
“Well, um… It was strange. Well ordered and tidy. There were wooden racks with what looked like dried meat and boxes with bottles of powders, different ones I think. A bedding area in the back, a lot nicer than I might’ve expected. Some tools too, and what looked to be an oven. And I, uh… I also found bones, lots of sizes of them.”
“And the girl?”