70
“What on earth is going on?” thundered Jarand. “Where’s my blasted wizard when I need him?”
He was sitting at a table within his mobile camp, attempting to eat his lunch, twenty miles from the forests’ edge. At least forty tents had collapsed as plants grew inexorably up from beneath them. Several horses had pulled free from their tethers as they had backed away in alarm from bushes that had appeared in front or beside them.
Journeyman presented himself before the irate prince and bowed.
“Get up and explain this nonsense.” Even as the prince spoke, a small vine wound its way up the table leg and around Jarand’s fork.
The wizard was trembling. “Sire, I beg your pardon, but I do not know. I can only report that the phenomenon is widespread, although I do not yet know its extent.”
“W
