Tristan nodded.  "I'll be right back," he told her, "Just call if you spot anything."<br/><br/>Then he headed towards the front of the boat, where Garreth had departed a while ago with his pipe.  Thankfully, he found the dwarf curled up against the railing snoring.  It took little to wake the dwarf, and as Tristan pointed to show him how far behind they were falling, he saw that they could not see the other ships at all now.  A heavy fog was rolling over the river, swirling about the ship and turning the steamy swamp night chill and damp.<br/><br/>Both man and dwarf hurried to check on the boat's crew, and stopped at the sight that greeted them.  Several husks of men lay on the deck, skin tight and shrunken and gray.  Kneeling over one was a female, long raven-black hair spilling down as she leaned over her victim.  She was on her hands and knees, pale flesh covered in a mesh of leather straps that left more of her exposed than covered.  She lifted her head from the crotch of the dry husk that had been the ship's captain and licked her lips with a tongue that snaked out of her mouth like some sort of obscene creature all it's own.  "Fresh Meat..." she hissed as she gazed hungrily at them.<br/><br/>"Shadowspawn," Tristan whispered, shocked as much be the sudden wave of power he felt as the sight of her victims.  It was as if a curtain had been thrown back to let the evil wash over him.<br/><br/>"Get to Lauralana," Garreth shouted as he stepped forward and lifted his axe.<br/><br/>The fiend laughed and rolled backwards, her movement both languid and fluid as she rose to her feet.<br/><br/>Across the boat, the fog swirled about Ana and her mistress.  The magic that had shielded the female shadowspawn from the elf's senses was lifted, but there was another presence that washed over Lauralana as well.  Like no spawn she had ever encountered, it was pure, undiluted shadow.  And so powerful that it's presence was actually painful.  The essence of the Shadow itself rolled over the two women as something began to coalesce from the fog.