Bo-Jing was an expert tracker, and the beastmen who had taken Narantsetseg made little effort to conceal their passage. For three days the companions and their warbands followed them northward, until the trail entered a dense, swampy thicket at the northern edge of the Naran horde's domain, where the lands of the recently reunited Bolad and Nergui hordes gave way to wilderness.
It was a place ill suited to an army. Thorny hedges tore at clothing and flesh, the mud stank of decay, and a thick reddish mist hung over the stagnant ground. The allied horsemen could go no farther. Bo-Jing and Tetsukichi therefore left the warbands behind to secure their retreat and entered the thicket with together with the powerful sorcerers Bangqiu, Hyamsam, and Salt and a small company of trusted companions. Salt, the young shaman whose magical powers had already grown considerably, was accompanied by Nekhil, her bodyguard, always ready to stand between the shaman and enemies who came too close. Mustapha, one of Tetsukichi's trusted retainers and a skilled illusionist, also joined the company.
The swampy thicket resisted them at every turn. They fought several small bands of beastmen before finally reaching its fetid heart. There they discovered the purpose for which Narantsetseg had been taken.
More than a hundred beastmen and other corrupted creatures crowded around a clearing. At its center Narantsetseg lay chained upon a black altar. Above her stood the Beast Master, one of the Master's lieutenants who had led the siege against Banua, dressed in black robes and holding a ritual knife above her body. Three witches chanted beside him. Around them the beastmen took up the chant until the entire thicket seemed to pulse with their voices.
Behind the altar stood a grotesque blue-black image of a horned demon, glowing faintly from within. Above it all, thick clouds have been drawn into the rite: clouds twisted into a vast blood-red vortex, while the reddish vapor rose ever thicker from the swamp.
The companions remained concealed at the edge of the clearing and quickly devised a plan. Bangqiu and the others rendered Bo-Jing and Tetsukichi invisible. Mustapha then conjured the appearance of a large attacking force emerging from the opposite side of the thicket.
The deception worked. Scores of beastmen rushed away from the altar to meet enemies who did not exist, while Bo-Jing's retainers sent arrows into their confused ranks. Yet the Beast Master and his witches did not abandon the ceremony. Their chanting continued.
Invisible, Bo-Jing crossed the clearing and struck the Beast Master without warning, wounding him grievously. Tetsukichi appeared beside him and held the three witches at bay while Bo-Jing pressed his attack. Even under the flashing strokes of Bo-Jing's swords, the Beast Master struggled desperately to continue the rite.
He received little aid from his witches. Salt, Bangqiu, and Hyamsam unleashed their magic upon them from the edge of the clearing. When two of the witches fell, Tetsukichi turned from the last of them and joined Bo-Jing against the Beast Master. Caught between two of the finest swordsmen of their generation, the Master's lieutenant finally fell beneath a flurry of blows.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then something happened that none of the companions understood.
A green-golden wind swept suddenly across the thicket. The blood-red clouds tore apart above them. The foul mist vanished. Wherever the wind passed, the beastmen and the other creatures gathered for the sacrifice disappeared in a blinding flash of fire, leaving neither pursuit nor battle behind them.
Bo-Jing remembered little of what followed. When his senses returned, the red sky was gone, the thicket had fallen strangely quiet, and Narantsetseg's chains no longer bound her.
She was alive.
And somehow, he found her safe in his arms.
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