They made camp in a shallow depression between hills, sheltered from the wind by a stand of ironbark trees.
Durn built the fire. Radomir talked.
It was not aimless talk. The elf had a way of circling around a subject, approaching it from angles, testing Durn's reactions before committing to a direction. He spoke of Feralas. Of its ruins. Of the ancient things buried beneath its roots.
Then he told Durn about the Shen'dralar.
Durn listened without interrupting. He had heard of Dire Maul, every druid in the Cenarion Circle knew of the place, though few had ventured inside. But the Shen'dralar were new to him. High elves who had locked themselves away for ten thousand years, hoarding knowledge the world had forgotten.
"They took my diamond," Radomir said. "A pristine black diamond. One of the finest I've ever found. They took it and told me to bring two more if I wanted answers."
He said it without bitterness. More like a puzzle he was still working through.
"Answers to what?" Durn asked.
Radomir shrugged. "That's the question, isn't it? I don't know yet. But I felt something in that chamber. Something old. And it knew things — things that are written down nowhere else."
Durn said nothing. He reached into his pack and pulled out the leather-wrapped bundle. He unfolded it on the ground between them.
The firelight caught the fragments. Black, jagged, glistening.
Radomir stopped talking.
He leaned forward, his earlier ease replaced by a sharp, focused attention. He did not reach for the fragments, he simply looked at them, turning his head slightly as if studying a familiar shape from an unfamiliar angle.
"Where did you find these?"
"A panther. Three days north of here. Something killed it and left these behind."
Radomir's hand hovered over the largest fragment. "May I?"
Durn nodded.
Radomir picked it up. Turned it over. Held it close to the firelight, then farther away. He ran his thumb along the ridged edge and frowned.
"I've seen something like this before."
Durn waited.
"Not in person. In a book. An old text — one of the few that survived the Second War in someone's private collection. There was a passage about creatures in the deep south. In a desert. It described their shells as 'black as pitch and sharp as shattered glass.'"
He set the fragment down carefully.
"I thought it was myth. Exaggeration. Travelers' tales."
"And now?" Durn asked.
Radomir looked at him across the fire. For the first time since they had met, he seemed uncertain.
"Now I think I need to find that book."
They sat in silence for a while. The fire crackled. The wind moved through the ironbark trees.
"There is a place," Durn said slowly, "where the Cenarion Circle gathers. A sanctuary. Moonglade."
"Druids," Radomir said. Not a question.
"If these fragments came from something in the south, the Circle may know of it. Or they may have records I have not seen."
Radomir considered this. "And if they don't know?"
"Then I will at least have brought them something new."
Radomir nodded slowly. "I have knowledge of old things. You have the feel of the land."
Durn met his eyes across the fire.
"Together," Radomir said, "we may find answers faster than either of us alone."
Durn considered this. The elf had his own path, his own questions. But those questions pointed south, the same direction as Durn's fragments. And Radomir had seen these traces before, in a book, in a chamber beneath Dire Maul. He was the closest thing to an answer Durn had found.
"Might not be a bad idea."
They arranged watches in silence. Durn took the first. As Radomir settled against a tree and closed his eyes, Durn found himself reaching for the fragments again.
Turning them over.
Wondering what kind of creature left pieces of itself behind like a signature.
Wondering what else was waiting in the south.