Murtagh

But what bothered him most was the implication that there were many such places throughout Alagaësia: places where the ground was burnt and the air smelled of brimstone.

Why aren’t they more widely known? he asked Thorn. Even if they’re in remote, isolated locations, surely the Riders or others would have noticed any place that smelled like this. It would be difficult to hide, especially from the air.

A weirding veil, perhaps? A spell that hides the obvious from sight?

Wards ought to block that sort of thing.

It depends on the spell. You know that. It could be an enchantment of a sort none now are familiar with. Or something akin to the Banishing of the Names.

Murtagh glanced up at Thorn. Dragon magic?…Do you feel something of that here?

I do not know what I feel, only that the land seems alive, despite the charring.

The world narrowed around them as the hunting party entered the side valley and the mountains pinched close, until the foothills were only a few hundred feet apart and dense ranks of trees blocked their sight. It was good, Murtagh thought, that Thorn was in the air and not there in such tight quarters.

Bachel led the way along a well-trodden path that wound between the tall pines.

Past the gap, the valley widened again, and Murtagh beheld what elsewhere in the Spine would have been a long alpine field where deer and bears and other wildlife would gather. Not here. Here the earth was still scorched and blackened, and the trees were dead and skeletal—bare of all but a few clumps of brittle needles. None of which made as strong an impression on Murtagh as the enormous numbers of mushrooms growing from the ground.

They came in all kinds. Brown-capped, white-capped, round as puffballs, tiered like the temple in Nal Gorgoth, broad as shields or as tall and narrow as a spear; the profusion of forms was overwhelming. There were gilled mushrooms, and mushrooms as red as ladybugs, and huge woody funguses that rose higher than a horse-mounted man. A rich, savory smell scented the area—like a cut of well-cooked beef—and thin veils of brown spores drifted upward along currents of rising air, mixing with the wisps of vapor from the ground.

Amid the field and forest of mushrooms, Murtagh spotted dark shapes moving through the shadows: monstrous wild boars, ridge-backed and covered in coarse black bristles.

“They eat the mushrooms and grow to exceptional size because of it,” Bachel explained, bringing her horse alongside his. “It gives their meat a taste unlike any other.”

Murtagh shook his head, still taking in the sight. “I’ve never seen or heard of mushrooms like these.”

“The ground here suits them as much as it is hostile to green growing plants.”

From above, it looks as if the ground is covered with melted fat, said Thorn, circling over the far end of the narrow crevice splitting the Spine, some miles away.

Delightful, Murtagh replied.

Bachel continued: “As you can see, we need no drivers. We are our own drivers. We will push toward the head of the valley, and the boars will gather before us. If your dragon—”

“He is only mine as much as I am his.”

Her eyelids drooped with what seemed like amusement. “Of course, Kingkiller. If Thorn wishes to hunt there at the other end, he might help us and so trap the boars between our spears and his teeth and claws.”

It is a good plan, said Thorn, and Murtagh could almost hear him snap his jaws shut with finality. I will do so. The dragon folded his crimson wings and dove toward the far end of the valley, a burning meteor blazing.

The ranks of mushrooms hid Thorn as he descended.

Then Bachel lifted her spear. “Dismount!” The hunting party obeyed, as did Murtagh, grateful to be rid of the liver chestnut mare for the time being.

Some seconds later, a muted thud rolled down the valley: the sound of Thorn’s impact belatedly arriving.

There were, Murtagh saw, numerous game trails wending through the expanse of overgrown mushrooms—pathways pounded flat by the passage of countless sharp hooves.

Along with the cultists, Murtagh staked and hobbled his horse and then set out on foot along the near trail. The ground, though blackened, was softer than by Nal Gorgoth, as if the entire subsurface were riddled with fungus.