Even the normally clear river, where the line of glum-faced soldiers turned off the main trail and headed upstream, had been reduced to a rush and gurgle of irritating drabness. No lights flashed from the small cataracts in its midst. Even the cheerful frogs had been mortified into silence by the persisting dearth of color.
In the absence of trail, Slale relied on the instructions he had received at Malostranka from the dejected minor wizard who had been one of those who had spirited the deceased Evyndd’s body out of Kyll-Bar-Bennid ahead of the triumphant Horde. If these were correct, they should be very close now to their intended destination. Not that it mattered to him if they missed their goal. Nothing mattered anymore except killing as many of the enemy as possible. While serving in the defense of Kyll-Bar-Bennid, his own homeland had been overrun by the outriders of the Horde, the fine home that had been in his family for centuries had been burned to the ground, and his family, his wife and two sons …
He concentrated on finding a path through the trees. They grew close together here, so near the nourishing river. Moss hung from branches and sprouted like gray fur from the trunks of seasoned boles. Invigorated by the absence of normal light, monstrous mushrooms and toadstools and liverworts clambered wildly over fallen logs and old stumps. Except for the unquenchable rumble of the river, the forest was unnaturally silent, as if its inhabitants had been massively overdosed with some powerful tranquilizing agent. Slale wished for some such medicine himself. It might help him not to think so much. Thinking was dangerous, as it led inexorably to remembrance.