Wind cool and damp tore at the griffon rider’s face. Reins wrapped tightly around her left fist, Kerianseray bowed low over the neck of her steed, urging him onto greater effort. The will-o’-the-wisps were closing in, and their number had increased. She counted at least a dozen now. And Eagle Eye’s sides heaved with exertion as the lights darted and wove, spiraled up and corkscrewed down, all the while gaining on her. She hoped the others in her patrol were safe.

Safe. The notion was ironic. How safe could any of them be so long as they remained in this blighted valley?

Inath-Wakenti, the ancient elf chronicles called it, the Vale of Silence, and silent it surely was. It lay on the northern edge of the Khurish desert, and not so much as a fly or flea called it home. Kerian had led the first reconnaissance party inside. They discovered the valley contained many secrets and nearly as many curses. Its plant life comprised mainly stunted pines and inedible scrub. Huge standing stones littered the valley floor, rising up white and bare of decoration from the oddly tinted blue-green soil. The elves suspected the stones were the ruins of some long-forgotten city but could discern no logic to their arrangement, so the stones’ true purpose remained a mystery. Stranger still, Inath-Wakenti was utterly devoid of animal life large or small, and by night it was infested with floating balls of light, will-o’-the-wisps, whose touch caused elves to vanish without a trace.

Eagle Eye veered upward suddenly, and Kerian leaned forward, gripping his sides more tightly with her knees. She made no other move, nor any sound. There was no need. Eagle Eye was a Royal griffon and more intelligent than many a two-legged creature Kerian had known. He seemed to understand the danger posed by the balls of light and knew they were in a race for their lives. Flying flat out wasn’t working; the will-o’-the-wisps continued to close. So Eagle Eye strained every sinew in a steep climb. The ground fell away with stomach-churning suddenness, and Kerian, attuned to the griffon’s every shift of weight and tensing of muscle, suddenly realized what he intended. She gave the leather belt around her waist a quick jerk to tighten it, and the horizon inverted.