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Ardeth put her hand on Gan's side. "Gan," she asked. "Can you continue?"

The hobgoblin snorted and bent over to pick up the axe. He raised it high and bolted down the mountainside in the direction of the Sanctuary, so fast that the others could barely keep up.

* * * * *

Like an arrow from on high, an image struck Vell's brain and split it open. Amid the peacefully swaying trees, the Star Mounts closer than ever, Vell dropped to his knees and let out an agonized scream.

The others rushed to him, but they could do nothing to console him.

"What are you feeling?" asked Kellin, kneeling before him.

"There are so many of us," he said, staring right through her face as if she weren't there. "So many in one place, and so close. We are afraid. They are coming close. We will try to trample them when they arrive. The Shepherds have willed it."

"What do you see, Vell?" asked Thluna.

"A marsh. Trees. And a red light." He spoke quickly, fervently. "So many perspectives at once. Too many!" he cried, clasping his temples. He blinked the vision away, and his eyes locked with Kellin's. "Make it go away," he whispered. "Help me."

"He must be seeing through the eyes of the behemoths," Thanar said. "He said 'we'-he thinks he's one of them."

"We should be moving," said Thluna. "If it's so close he can feel them, it can't be far. We need to get there ahead of this threat."

"Vell," said Kellin. "What else can you tell us? Where is it?"

Vell pointed in the distance, directly at one of the Star Mounts. "There. On the other side of that mountain."

"It will take us days to reach it," said Rask.

"Vell," said Thluna. "Can you go back into the vision? Can you tell us more about it?"

Vell shook his head furiously. "Too many minds," he said. "Lanaal spoke of this-how she can sense the feelings and thoughts of birds."

"Can you focus on one of them?" asked Kellin, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Maybe you're having trouble because you're taking in all of their thoughts at once."

Vell's face was a mask of fear, but Kellin's touch helped steady him.

"Let me try," he said, and he went back inside his mind. He found himself wading through the marsh amid the massive behemoths, perhaps two dozen in all, grazing from the trees-all except three tall phandar trees that they never touched. They knew never to go beyond the phandars. It was not safe there. They had no reason to go there, anyway.

Vell's fear left him, and he pressed on with a sense of wonder and curiosity, pushing more and more of his human mind aside. He bathed in the sensations of the behemoths instead-the taste of the leaves they plucked from the treetops, the warmth of the water around their legs. What trees-like none he had ever seen, thin and tall, swaying in the breeze.

But he also felt a different kind of fear-fear of an approaching enemy.

He loved the behemoths. They were his kind. Part of him was amazed to see these animals that he had never laid eyes on before. But part of him saw them every moment of every day.

In the center of the hidden Sanctuary stood a small menhir marked with ancient runes, rising from the marsh water. Atop it, a bright light gleamed, dabbing the whole Sanctuary in streaks of red. The runes, too, glowed faintly. The behemoths ignored it, but Vell could not.

Magic. The magic that sustained this place.

They mean to steal it.

That's the reason for all of this.

But the Shepherds? Where were they? How would they protect their flock?

Figures were coming down from the mountain. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. He'd seen them before, some of them, in the pool.

They carried the axe. The axe would bring it all down. It would expose them and make them vulnerable. It would tear down the magic on the menhir-the magic that concealed them.

He knew it because the Shepherds knew it..

"Who are the Shepherds?" Vell said aloud. His companions in the High Forest heard it and had no answer. He was not asking them, but his true fellows in the hidden marsh of the Sanctuary.