To punctuate the orc's declaration, the sounds of a skirmish erupted behind them. Every head snapped around toward the sound, and a half-dozen Boki warriors raced to the southern lip of the bowl to take up defensive positions.

Ki'Rig Agar gestured at the cadre of warriors with him. "We stan' hee-uhh. Die foh yew. Go. We figh' again one day. Do not fay-uhh, Willcobb."

Do not fail indeed. He got the distinct impression that failure would mean death for them all.

Cicero led the way briskly toward the randomly strewn boulders littering the hillside on the other side of the bowl-shaped vale. Or maybe not so random. As they drew practically within touching distance of the stones, Will spotted a narrow vertical opening behind an overlapping formation of boulders. It was tall enough to admit him, but barely wide enough to squeeze through.

Sha'Li moved aggressively toward the opening. "Finish this thing now, shall we? Yes?"

Will grabbed her to hold her back. If she went, Rosana would expect to go, and there was no way he was letting her die tonight. "No. Not you, Sha'Li. I would not risk all of our lives."

The lizardman girl hissed and yanked her arm free with shocking ease. He was so weakened he could barely stand. How on Urth did he expect to face whatever threats awaited them within that dark opening?

"Keep all treasure for yourself, you would?" Sha'Li demanded. "I think not."

He huffed. "The only treasure we seek this night is the Sleeping King. No matter what we find inside, he must be our only goal."

The lizardman girl replied grudgingly, "Fine. No looting. Go now, we shall. Yes? Before comes Anton."

"Don't talk to me about hurrying. You're not dying of slow poisoning," Will grumbled back.

Sha'Li's simmering anger evaporated into a toothy grin. Why she found that funny he could not fathom. Cold humor to match her cold skin, he supposed.

They paused at the bottom of the slope and Cicero asked the orcs in general, "Does the passage stay this narrow all the way to its final destination?"

Ki'Rig Agar shrugged and looked around at the other warriors, who also shrugged. Thar'Ok was brought forward to help.

Will was first to speak. "Do you know how the king is protected?"

Thar'Ok spoke carefully, enunciating each syllable clearly. "Yonder is the Bloodthorn tree of Gir'Ok. Our greatest warriors are interred beneath such trees so their blood may nourish and strengthen the Bloodthorn. We give trees power. They give us powerful weapons." He pointed at a reddish wooden club being wielded by one of the biggest warriors close by.

Will hissed at that and eyed the mighty Bloodthorn tree towering overhead. "Is this his tree?"

The Boki laughed at that. Balthazar was the one to answer, "This is a tiny sapling in comparison to Bloodroot's tree, apparently. No, this is Gir'Ok's tree. He is the greatest Boki thorn of them all, a contemporary of ancient kings, and many of his descendants are interred here with him."

"Ancient kings?" Raina piped up. "The ancient king we seek?"

The thanes around them hesitated, and then nodded their heads reluctantly in the affirmative.

Thar'Ok was speaking slowly again. "... end of this passage is the burial chamber of great thanes and thorns of the Boki."

Will blurted, "Surely it is not that simple. We merely go into this burial chamber and find the king?"

Balthazar asked the question and the Boki broke out in rumbles of orc laughter. Will would take that as a no, it was not that simple. He demanded, "What else can they tell us of what we will face?"

"Nothing," Balthazar answered soberly. "The whole point of the thing is for you to prove yourselves worthy. If you fail, you were not meant to wake the king."

Will was certain he knew the answer, but he asked Balthazar anyway, "And what happens to us if we fail?"

"You die."

As I thought. "I go in alone," Will announced.

His companions actually laughed at him.

"I am serious."

"So are we!" Rosana snapped.

Cicero commented, "We have come this far together. I say we finish this thing together."

A chorus of agreements greeted that statement.

Eben spoke soberly as Will fumed. "Sir Leland spoke to every soothsayer he could find in the past few months. They all spoke similar prophecies. A person with no name, with no home, would do something important. Something to do with an ancient king." He looked around the party significantly, then continued, "Who here, for one reason or another, has no name and no home?"

"Me," Raina replied promptly.

"Me," Rosana added.

"Me," Sha'Li answered a little reluctantly.

"Me," Cicero added quietly.

Eben turned to stare at Will. "And me. We all meet the requirements of the soothsayers. I say we go in together."

Cicero murmured, "At least one of us must live to reach the king. Are we agreed that no matter who it is, we will not give up until one of us finds him?"

Will gulped. Cicero was suggesting that they each be willing to die. He said low, "If anyone needs to resurrect, go to Rosana or Balthazar. The Heartstones in Tallyn are probably being watched."

The others nodded grimly as the kindari set out a quick marching order. "Me first. Eben next. Then Will, Raina, Rosana, and Sha'Li." Cicero looked around at all of them. "Ready?"

Will nodded along with the others.

"Let's go, then."

The dark maw of the Boki tomb loomed ahead, swallowing Will's companions one by one. He caught the admiring, even wistful, gaze of Ki'Rig Agar upon him. This was madness. Pure madness. They were all going to die. The certainty was bitter in his mouth.

None of the hearth tales he'd heard ever spoke of the story's hero thinking his adventures were suicidal folly and that his companions had lost their minds to continue on with him. Had his father ever felt like this? Or had he been so lost in the imagined glory of finding the king and freeing the colonies that he'd never seen the grim reality of failing and dying? Maybe at the end ... with his wife about to die and his son fleeing for his life ... no, probably not even then, knowing Ty.

And so it was, with the taste of death on his tongue and a curse in his heart for his father, that Will entered the narrow tunnel.

He heard the others shuffling ahead of him, feeling their way in the dark. He reached out to touch the wall of the cave, a distance of only a few inches, and recoiled at the cold, seeping slime thick upon the wall. Stars, how he hated being underground like this, half-smothered by the weight of Urth pressing down upon him.

His gut clenched in a sharp cramp. Whether it was the life-draining effect of Bloodroot within him or merely fearful anticipation of what lay ahead he could not tell.

"It glows ahead and appears to widen somewhat," Cicero whispered.

Will relayed the information to the others behind him. The passageway did indeed widen enough to accommodate the width of his shoulders, and he was relieved to turn and walk normally instead of shuffling along sideways. But roots still hung in his face, caressing him uncomfortably as he passed. He used his staff to push them aside. He thought he saw a tree root shift, serpent-like overhead, but he was forced to look away by the clods of dirt that rained down on him of a sudden.

Dregs. It was as if the hill itself were alive and attempting to repel them from its depths. Cicero cursed ahead of him and Sha'Li echoed the sentiment from behind. They sounded as jumpy as he. If only the Boki had told them more of what would face them in here.

He noticed the faintest glow at the edges of his vision. He squinted in the inky dark. It seemed as if the glow came from ahead of him, somewhere down the tunnel. Eben stopped in front of him abruptly and Will nearly plowed into the jann, so focused was he on the glow.

Eben half-turned and whispered in Will's ear, "Cicero says there's a wide spot. We're to follow him close and pass through fast."

Will dutifully passed the message along to those behind him. When they'd clustered up tight, all hanging onto one another's tabards, Cicero rushed forward, charging the wide spot in the tunnel. Will burst out into the larger space, his sword in his right hand.

Nothing moved immediately, but he did notice that the walls seemed to be covered in some sort of bumpy, faintly glowing substance. The light it gave off was dim, but adequate to see by as his eyes adjusted to it. Mushrooms. Growing so thickly that the stone walls of the tunnel completely disappeared beneath the glowing fungus. They encroached upon the margins of the floor where dampness seeped off the wall, standing thigh high.

Perhaps they could pick one and use it as a makeshift torch. Will reached for the nearest small one, about knee high.

From behind him Sha'Li hissed a warning sound and said, "Touch not the fungus."

Too late. He'd grasped the stem and given it a good tug. The mushroom came loose easily in his hands, but as he lifted it a poof of foul-smelling dust puffed out of it and into his face. A green light flickered briefly across his skin, repelling the dust and then blinking out of existence as he dropped the mushroom and staggered back.

"What was that?"

Cicero, whom he'd brushed past to pick the mushroom and who was standing directly behind him whipped out his sword. "Get back!" the kindari cried out. "That dryad means to kill us!"

Will frowned. What the- Other mushrooms commenced coughing out dirty gray powder into the air. He ducked and passed beyond the directed sprays as shouts erupted behind him. He turned around brandishing his staff to face chaos. The entire party was shouting about various monsters ... Raina was hollering about spider monkeys attacking her; Rosana was in a panic of some sort of magical hound attacking her. But all he saw were mushrooms, and they weren't attacking anyone.

Frowning, he stepped toward his companions with the intent to suggest that they had lost their minds. But something heavy banged into his back and he whirled, startled. A hanging root as thick as his arm had struck him solidly. Something whipped around his waist and he snatched at it. Another root, snaking around him and squeezing ... hard. Something grabbed his ankle.

"The roots are attacking!" he yelled as he hacked himself free with his dagger.

But his companions were busy swinging wildly at thin air and seemed oblivious to the threat. He charged back toward the group, slicing at the attacking roots as he went. His own companions were perhaps the biggest threat as they yelled and ducked and swung their various weapons wildly.

Cicero, cursing up a storm about green women, was shooting arrows at mushrooms as fast as he could draw and loose them. Each mushroom he hit collapsed in on itself with a loud, drawn-out screech of escaping air.

A root wrapped around Rosana, pinning her arms to her sides, and Will commenced sawing at it above her head. His dagger finally sliced through the root, and the end of it fell away from Rosana to the floor, where it writhed like a dying snake. Will recoiled from its thrashing length, yanking Rosana back from it as well.

She stared at him, unseeing, and took a swipe at him with her dagger. He leaped back, narrowly avoiding being gutted.

"It's me. Will!" he cried out.

Her eyes did not indicate the slightest recognition of him as she ranted about not letting the magical hounds catch her. She was too far lost in her hallucination to know him. The next time she swung at him, he grabbed her wrist and gave it a hard enough twist to force her to drop her dagger. He scooped up the weapon and tucked it in his belt as he bodily dragged her to the end of the passage.

"Stay here," he ordered. "The hounds will not find you if you hide here and are absolutely still. Do you understand?"

She nodded and crouched down in a feral pose.

Will dived back into the chaos. Timing his attack carefully, he leaped close behind Cicero and snatched the elf's quiver from his back. Cicero turned and took a vicious swing at him with his bow. It connected hard across Will's back and nearly knocked him off his feet. But thankfully, his metal-ringed jerkin prevented the blow from doing any real harm. It stung like a stripe of fire, though.

"This way, Cicero," Will urged. "We can form a defensive line over there by Rosana and kill the dryads together."

Cicero nodded and darted to Rosana's side. "Give me my arrows back."

Huh. Not a chance. He dived back into the fray and grabbed for Raina next. She was perhaps the most dangerous of them all, for she was completely unskilled with a sword and swung the one she was clumsily wielding in both hands completely unpredictably. She was ranting something now about mages in blue cloaks not getting her.

The roots had noticed her and several small ones had wrapped around her left ankle and were twining into her hair. He waited until she'd about knocked herself off her feet with a huge roundhouse sword swing, and then jumped forward to pluck the weapon from her hands. He had to hack her free from the roots while she struggled, but he managed not to cut her to ribbons.

"Come quick," he ordered. "The mages will not find you over here."

He did not know how long his thin logic would hold up against the bizarre visions gripping his companions, but he desperately hoped it would be long enough to get them out of here and away from any new puffs of hallucinogenic dust from the mushrooms.

He eyed Eben and Sha'Li doubtfully. Eben was every bit as skilled a fighter as he, and Sha'Li was not only strong and good with blades, but had that whole poison spit thing going. How was he to disarm either one of them? As he watched, though, Eben backed into a hanging thicket of roots that reacted sharply, whipping around his limbs, immobilizing his arms, and all but pulling his feet out from under him. The jann screamed and thrashed, but the harder he fought, the tighter the roots squeezed.

"Stop fighting!" Will shouted.

Right. The jann completely ignored him. The roots tightened so hard, though, that by the time Will reached him Eben was completely immobilized and gasping horribly for each breath. Using his dagger, Will slipped the narrow blade between Eben's shirt and the biggest root constricting the jann's chest. Will had to saw at it, but the razor-sharp blade eventually bit through the fibrous root and it fell away from the jann.

It took a few minutes, but by using the sword he'd liberated from Raina he cut the jann free. In the meantime, Will had to duck behind Eben twice to avoid attacks from Sha'Li. Her claws actually raked aside several of the roots holding Eben, although Will highly doubted that was her intent.

Eventually, Eben staggered clear of the mass of writhing root parts. He was starting to frown in confusion and stared around the dim passage as if he had no idea where he was. Grimly, Will turned his attention to the raging lizardman girl. One thing was for certain. He would never wish to face Sha'Li in combat. She was lightning fast and graceful as a deer as she fought her invisible demons, her claws flicking in and out among the roots so fast he could barely keep his gaze upon them.

The roots thrashing around her were not able to gain any purchase on her because of those claws. What she saw in her mind Will did not know. But it clearly terrified Sha'Li, and she just as clearly believed herself to be fighting for her life. There was no way he was going to be able to subdue her.

But thankfully, as he watched, her claws began to move less desperately, and she frowned around her.

"Where went the-" She broke off, confused.

"Hallucinations," Will replied shortly.

Sha'Li muttered something under her breath in hissing syllables that sounded suspiciously like curses. He turned to check on the others, and they were all looking around in confusion and embarrassment.

"Well, that was fun," Cicero remarked sarcastically. "My arrows?"

"Are you yourself?" Will asked cautiously.

The kindari merely pulled a disgusted face and stuck out his hand. Yup, Cicero was back to being his usual uncommunicative self.

"Are we all well?" Will asked.

Rosana looked like breathing was painful, and Raina was holding her left foot so the toe just touched the ground. Eben looked a little worse for wear, but all in all, they were all alive and ambulatory. It could have been worse. He held Rosana's dagger out to her and she took it wordlessly.

"Shall we continue?" he murmured.

With deep breaths all around and some resettling of armor and weapons, the group nodded. It went without saying that they would not touch any more of the glowing mushrooms, which continued to grow thickly upon the walls. As for the hanging roots, they avoided touching the things as much as possible. When it was absolutely necessary, Will gently draped roots back and away from their path with the tip of his staff, moving slowly and as nonthreateningly as possible in the process. Only one root attacked him, and it was his fault. He'd gotten careless and flipped the small root aside too fast. It whipped back and struck him across the face, leaving a thin, bloody line across his right cheek.

All the roots nearby stirred, as if interested in the smell of blood. But Rosana wiped off his cheek quickly and, pulling a little tin from her pouch, smeared a salve on it to stop the bleeding. The rustling roots subsided.

They eased forward cautiously for what seemed like an hour but was probably no more than a few minutes, this time with Will in the lead. He stopped and reported over his shoulder, "There's a chamber ahead. Big. Lots of roots. I can't see all the way across it. More mushrooms on the walls, so there's light to see by."

Very carefully, he stepped out into the space. It felt enormous after the tight confines of the tunnel. His companions joined him, staring as one into the massive cave, its ceiling lost in the darkness overhead.

Although the space was clearly large, it was choked with roots hanging down, some as thick as pillars and appearing to support the rough roof of the chamber like great, wooden columns. Other roots were smaller, mayhap the diameter of his arm. They dangled snake-like, writhing very faintly, hanging thickly enough that he could not see more than thirty or forty feet ahead.

He took several cautious steps forward. And that was when he saw the bodies tucked in among the roots. Dozens of them in various stages of decay. Orcs. Warriors in full battle dress and shamans decked out with bones and claws and teeth in their dead, dry hair and around their skeletal necks. The corpses seemed oddly deformed, even for orcs.