Tree of Knowledge

After finishing his two hour shift and leaving Rifkin to continue the night watch without him, Fortu sheds his heavy armour and snuggles down under his thick blanket. In the moments before sleep fully takes him, Fortu wonders about the mysterious Dryad pool and what secrets it really holds? 

In their eagerness to get away from the twisted carnivorous tree, they'd completely neglected to squeeze it for information. It had implied that it 'knew things' but aside from it telling them that the pool held more than one secret, they hadn't actually asked it anything.  

Not about the guardians and defences of the pool or how far away it was? Not about any nearby wildlife dangers. Not even about the three-scratch-mark symbol deeply carved into it's stone-like bark and other, seemingly random, trees for miles around!

Fortu's last thought, as his mind fades into darkness, is whether it'd be worth heading back but then he remembers the wolfpack closing the gap between them...