“At least now we know why he was hiding in the middle of nowhere with a crossbow and a lookout and all that,” Denna said. “A minor mystery solved.”

I started to fasten up my travelsack then, as an afterthought, packed the crossbow bolts as well.

“What are those for?” she asked.

“They’re worth something,” I said. “I’m in debt to a dangerous person. I could use every penny ...” I trailed off, my mind working.

Denna looked at me, and I could see her mind jumping to the same conclusion. “Do you know how much that much resin would be worth?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said thinking about the thirty pans, each with a wafer of black, sticky resin congealed in the bottom, big as a dinner plate. “I’m guessing a lot. An awful lot.”

Denna shifted back and forth on her feet. “Kvothe, I don’t know how I feel about this. I’ve seen girls get hooked on this stuff. I need money” She gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t even have a second set of clothes right now.” She looked worried. “But I don’t know if I need it this badly.”

“I’m thinking of apothecaries,” I said quickly. “They’d refine it into medicine. It’s a powerful painkiller. The price won’t be nearly as good as if we went to the other sort of people, but still, half a loaf....”

Denna smiled broadly. “I’d love half a loaf. Especially since my cryptic prick of a patron seems to have disappeared.”

We headed back down into the canyon. This time as I emerged from the narrow passageway, I saw the evaporating pans in a different light. Now each of them was the equivalent of a heavy coin in my pocket. Next term’s tuition, new clothes, freedom from my debt with Devi....

I saw Denna looking at the trays with the same fascination, though hers was somewhat more glassy-eyed than mine. “I could live comfortably for a year off this,” she said. “And not be beholden to anyone.”

I went to the tool shed and grabbed a scraper for each of us. At the end of a few minutes work we had combined all of the black, sticky pieces into a single wad the size of a sweetmelon.

She shivered a bit, then looked at me, smiling. Her cheeks were flushed. “I suddenly feel really good.” She crossed her arms across her chest, rubbing her hands up and down. “Really, really good. I don’t think it’s just the thought of all that money.”

“It’s the resin,” I said. “It’s a good sign that it’s taken this long to hit you. I’d have been worried if it had happened sooner.” I gave her a serious look. “Now listen. You need to let me know if you feel any heaviness in your chest, or have any trouble breathing. So long as neither of those things happens, you should be fine.”

Denna nodded, then drew a deep breath and let it out again. “Sweet angel Ordal above, I feel great.” She gave me an anxious expression, but the wide grin kept spilling out. “Am I going to get addicted from this?”

I shook my head and she sighed with relief. “You know the damnedest thing? I’m scared about getting addicted, but I don’t care that I’m scared. I’ve never felt like this before. No wonder our big scaly friend keeps coming back for more....”

“Merciful Tehlu,” I said. “I didn’t even think of that. That’s why it was trying to claw its way in here. It can smell the resin. It’s been eating the trees for two span, three or four a day.”

“The biggest sweet-eater of them all, coming back to get his fix.” Denna laughed, then her expression went horrified. “How many trees were left?”

“Two or three,” I said, thinking of the rows of empty holes and broken stumps. “But it may have eaten another since we’ve been back here.”

“Have you ever seen a sweet-eater when they’ve got the hunger on them?” Denna said, her face stricken. “They go crazy.”

“I know,” I said, thinking of the girl I’d seen in Tarbean dancing naked in the snow.

“What do you think it’s going to do when the trees run out?”

I thought for a long moment. “It’s going to go looking for more. And it’s going to be desperate. And it knows the last place where it found the trees had a little house that smelled like people... We’re going to have to kill it.”

“Kill it?” She laughed, then pressed her hands against her mouth again. “With nothing but my good singing voice and your manly bravado?” She started to giggle uncontrollably, despite the fact that she was holding both her hands in front of her mouth. “God, I’m sorry Kvothe. How long am I going to be like this?”

“I don’t know. The effects of ophalum are euphoria ...”

“Check.” She winked at me, grinning.

“Followed by mania, some delirium if your dose was high enough, then exhaustion.”

“Maybe I’ll sleep through the night for once,” she said. “You can’t seriously expect to kill this thing. What are you going to use? A pointy stick?”

“I can’t just let it run wild. Trebon’s only about five miles from here. And there’s smaller farms closer than that. Think of the damage it would do.”

“But how?” she repeated. “How do you kill a thing like that?”

I turned to the tiny shed. “If we’re lucky this fellow had the good sense to buy a spare crossbow....” I began to dig around, throwing stuff out the door. Stirring paddles, buckets, scrapers, spade, more buckets, a barrel....

The barrel was about the size of a small keg of ale. I carried it outside the shed and pried off the lid. In the bottom was an oilcloth sack containing a large gummy mass of black denner resin, at least four times as much as Denna and I had already scraped together.

I pulled out the sack and rested it on the ground, holding it open for Denna to look. She peered in, gasped, then jumped up and down a little bit. “Now I can buy a pony!” she said, laughing.

“I don’t know about a pony,” I said, doing some calculations in my head. “But I think before we split up the money, we should buy you a good half-harp out of this,” I said. “Not some sad lyre.”

“Yes!” Denna said, then she threw her arms around me in a wild, delighted hug. “And we’ll get you ...” She looked at me curiously, her sooty face inches away from my own. “What do you want?”

Before I could say anything, do anything, the draccus roared.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

Poison

The roar of the draccus was like a trumpet, if you can imagine a trumpet big as a house, and made of stone, and thunder, and molten lead. I didn’t feel it in my chest. I felt it in my feet as the earth shook with it.

The roar made us jump nearly out of our skins. The top of Denna’s head banged into my nose, and I staggered, blinded with pain. Denna didn’t notice, as she was busy tripping and falling over into a loose, laughing tangle of arms and legs.

As I helped Denna to her feet I heard a distant crashing, and we made our way carefully back up to the lookout.

The draccus was ... cavorting, bounding around like a drunken dog, knocking over trees like a boy would topple cornstalks in a field.

I watched breathlessly as it came to an ancient oak tree, a hundred years old and massive as a greystone. The draccus reared up and brought its front legs down on one of the lower branches, as if it wanted to climb. The branch, big as a tree itself, practically exploded.

The draccus reared again, coming down hard on the tree. I watched, certain that it was about to impale itself on the broken limb, but the jagged spear of hard wood barely dimpled its chest before splintering. The draccus crashed into the trunk, and though it didn’t snap, it fractured with a sound like a crack of lightning.

The draccus threw itself around, hopped and fell, rolling over jagged spurs of rock. It belched a huge gout of flame and charged the fractured oak tree again, striking with its great blunt wedge of a head. This time, it knocked the tree over, causing an explosion of earth and rock as the tree’s roots tore out of the ground.