"I would rather you perish far from here." said Malequs. "There are many shadowlands in these hills. They are holy places....but if outsiders leave their bodies near there, we are the ones who will suffer for it. And claim what you like about what you have endured, but it has clearly taken a toll on you already. Will it follow you to our home too?"<br/><br/>"Father, let them prove themselves!" said the younger man, urgency in his voice. He glanced over to Mouse, and she could see a desperate hope in his gaze. Unlike his more fatalistic-seeming father, her arrival had given him hope. "I will show them the route that the slavers took, we may yet catch them!"