Alusair caught herself yawning again. She slapped her own thigh with the flat of her sword to rouse herself. Gods damn these persistent orcs. The Steel Princess threw back her head and drew in a deep breath. She was too tired to do this properly, she was-suddenly very awake, with her skin crawling. She could feel the creeping, all over her, that meant her hair was rising. Something was wrong here, very wrong… but, by all the gods, what?

The trail went around the man-high, rotten stump of a long dead duskwood. She hefted her sword. From where she stood, as far as the eye could see, the trees ahead-an entire stand of them, dozens and dozens-were waiting. Silent, and yet not silent, there was a menacing, watchful heaviness hanging in the air.

Alusair peered grimly up into still branches and past mighty trunks, seeking a living, lurking foe but seeing nothing. The trees stood thick enough that there could well be a beast larger than a man-or even a score of such-ahead, where she could not see. The Steel Princess cast a quick glance behind her, listening intently for sounds of orcs scrabbling up the trail, but heard nothing. Her pursuers had never bothered to strive for stealth in their gloating eagerness.

After a moment, she shrugged and strode forward, sword tip tracing a ready circle at her feet, half-expecting a root to leap up and try to ensnare her. There was something unhealthy about the trees.

Alusair stopped again and studied the nearest one, almost fancying that it had moved slightly, but no. Her weary eyes were playing tricks on her.

It was a duskwood, and an old one. Some long ago lightning had left it misshapen, as gray and as gnarled as the convulsed gauntlet of a buried giant, its bark scaled where there should be no scales. No, not scales… runes.

The bark was engraved with a spiral of sinuous, somehow menacing glyphs. The runes seemed new, powerful, and-not good.