Murtagh joins Bachel’s proposed boar hunt without enthusiasm, reflecting that his wards remove the usual danger and turn hunting into something close to butchery. Thorn lands and agrees to come, partly because Thorn mistrusts leaving Murtagh alone with Bachel and partly because Thorn is hungry.

Bachel imposes one condition: no magic may be used to kill the boars, which she calls sacred beasts of Nal Gorgoth. Murtagh accepts, seeing the rule as a real challenge. Bachel arms herself as well and reveals that elven blood runs in her veins, then changes into hunting gear while servants prepare horses and supplies.

As the party departs, Murtagh notices that Nal Gorgoth has no dogs. Bachel says dogs are blasphemous because they reject the place’s dream-given insight, while crows understand it. The party rides toward a southern side valley, and Thorn scouts ahead from the air. Along the way, Bachel mentions other brimstone-scarred places, including Anghelm, the burial place of Kulkarvek the Terrible, which unsettles Murtagh because Umaroth warned him and Thorn to avoid such locations.

The hunters enter a scorched valley filled with enormous, varied mushrooms and monstrous black boars that feed on them. Bachel explains that the mushrooms make the boars huge and flavorful. Thorn agrees to hunt from the far end, trapping the animals between himself and the humans, while Murtagh moves away from Bachel’s warriors to hunt alone and avoid the danger of strangers’ weapons.

The first rush of boars strikes Bachel’s line. Bachel kills a boar with astonishing strength, lifting and slamming it down on her spear, while one of her warriors is badly trampled. Soon a much larger wave of panicked boars surges through the valley, driven by Thorn’s approach.

Murtagh faces a charging boar alone and plants his spear, but the poor iron blade snaps on the animal’s rib. The boar crashes into him, and then many more boars trample over him. Although his wards keep the worst injuries from killing him, they drain his strength; Murtagh nearly uses magic but refuses to break his word. Trapped in slime and unable to draw Zar’roc, Murtagh is battered, injured, and left with his senses fading into darkness.