Left for Anyone Who Comes After

Hendrick is gone. He put a piece of that black root-growth in his chest pocket, and by evening it had eaten through the cloth and embedded itself in his skin.

We tried to cut it out. He stopped us and said he liked it like that.

After that he started acting strange, listening to things nobody else could hear. Sometime before dawn he disappeared.

There are fifty of us leaving. A few others are still unaccounted for, but nobody wants to stay here long enough to find out where they went.

We're splitting into two groups. One will make for the Cedar Court and the other for the Court of Endless Revelry.

Nobody wants to use the North Road. We've heard the blight is worse at the crossroads near the Pulgari Estate, and we're not waiting around to learn whether the rumors are true.