“I did not mean the centaurs,” Karrell told the sergeant, an indignant edge in her voice. “And I am not frightened.” She stood and pointed. “There is something up ahead. A dark line on the ground.”
Dunnald continued to smile indulgently. “That’s nothing to fret about, either,” he told her. “Just the trail left by the centaurs through the snow.”
Karrell sat down again and turned to Arvin. “Do they always travel in such complicated paths?”
Arvin stood and peered ahead. The line in the snow Karrell had spotted ran in a broad arc from left to right, paralleling the curve of the woods at a more or less constant distance from the forest. But instead of following a direct path, the centaurs seemed to have paused at several points along their journey to loop back upon their own trail. “Looks like they doubled back the way they came, crisscrossing their path,” Arvin told Dunnald, who obviously didn’t take anything a woman said seriously. “Several times. What would make them do that?”
Burrian looked to his sergeant for an answer, but Dunnald only shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they were playing follow the leader.”
“Tanglemane?” Arvin asked. “What do you think?”
The centaur shook his head. “It is unusual,” he said in a voice as low as the wagon’s rumble.
As the wagon drew closer to a spot where the hoofprints formed a loop, Arvin’s frown deepened. Now that they were about to cross the trail through the snow, its complicated meanderings reminded him of something.
“Stop the wagon!” he shouted.
Startled, the centaur skidded to a stop, his four legs stiff and ears erect. The wagon jerked to an abrupt halt, jostling its passengers and causing Dunnald to drop his crossbow.
“What are you doing?” Dunnald snapped, picking up the weapon. “Why did you order the beast to halt?”
Arvin glanced over the side. He had called out a moment too late; the wagon was already inside one of the loops that had been stamped into the snow. “Don’t move, Tanglemane,” he instructed, reaching for his pack.
“What is wrong?” Karrell asked.
Burrian scanned the open ground around them, his crossbow at the ready. “Yes, what’s the matter?” he echoed. “I don’t see anything.”
Arvin pulled a sylph-hair rope out of his pack. Soft as braided silk, it shimmered in the moonlight. “I’ll know in a moment.” He tossed the rope into the air, and smiled at the faint intake of breath he heard from Burrian as the rope streaked upward then hung, motionless, as if attached to thin air. He passed the lower end of it to Karrell. “Hold this, will you?”
Karrell took the rope, a curious look in her eye.
Arvin climbed. As he did, the meandering trail through the snow came increasingly into view. From a height, it was possible to see the intricate loops that had been stamped into the snow. The centaurs had not been wandering randomly; there was a design below—one that had been deliberately done. The wagon had halted inside one of its loops.
“The centaurs weren’t playing follow the leader,” he called out to the others. “They were making an arcane symbol in the snow.”
The soldiers, Karrell, and the centaur all stared up at him.
“What kind of symbol?” Dunnald asked.
Arvin, studying the design below, shook his head grimly. “I think it’s a death symbol.”
Dunnald scowled. “You think? You’re not sure?” Beside him, Burrian looked nervous. “So that’s what got our patrols.”
Arvin slid down the rope. “I saw a symbol just like this one, years ago,” he told the others as he recoiled his rope. “It was the central motif on an old, threadbare carpet from Calimshan. The carpet supposedly once had the power to fly; the noble who owned it thought that repairing it might restore its magic. He hired me to do the job. The day after I completed the work, he must have decided to try the carpet out. His servants found him sitting on it later that day, dead. He was slumped at the center of the carpet, without a mark on him. The spot he was sitting on was blank—the symbol I’d restored had vanished.”
Karrell glanced nervously over the side of the wagon. “We are inside the symbol,” she observed.
“Yes,” Arvin answered.
“But not fully inside it?”
“We’re not at the center of it, no,” Arvin began. “But I’m not sure if that—”
Dunnald abruptly stood. “This is getting us nowhere,” he said. “We can’t just sit here all night.” He clambered down from the wagon and walked toward the line in the snow, then squatted down next to it.
“Don’t touch it!” Arvin warned.
Dunnald drew his sword and used it to prod at the symbol. “It’s a trick,” he announced. “A feint, to frighten us away from the woods. I’m touching it, and nothing’s happening.”
“You’re touching it with your sword,” Arvin noted, wondering if the sergeant would be stupid enough to touch a foot to the line.
He wasn’t.
“If it is a magical symbol, it’s not very effective, is it?” Dunnald commented as he straightened up. “It’s narrow enough to step right over.” He gave Burrian a meaningful glance. “If this is what waylaid our two patrols, we need to get a report back to the fort.”
