by Andre Norton
Nosh and Hanka for the time being must serve as his eyes and ears. The younger girl brought Nosh back to that tree from which she had sighted the death of PanHigh. A prolonged inspection of that distant blot on the landscape assured them that there had been no return of anyone—raider or possible refugee.
Impatience ate at Kryn. It was his old fault and he knew and recognized it for what it was. He would accomplish nothing if he pried them out of this shelter and went unto the unknown when he could not do a full day’s trailing without ending in shaking weakness.
On the fifth morning after he had awakened here Hanka did not have the Ushurs out with the coming of light, though the animals were stirring in their section of the building and their ear-shattering cries grew ever stronger. The herd girl crouched beside Nosh and spoke into the older girl’s ear. Nosh appeared to be considering some point and then she nodded.
Now she came to Kryn. “The pasturage is used up; the Ushurs must be taken elsewhere to graze. Hanka will lead them—I have told her eastward—though that is strange country for them and her. We must follow with the gear, for it may be that they will seek so far they cannot return by nightfall.”
Kryn met that news with a grimace. This was like jumping from a height with one’s eyes tightly closed and, only too likely, rocks waiting below. Yet he had known that it would come sooner or later. At least he could keep his feet now and most of their supplies had been so depleted that he would be able to shoulder a pack. Though he noted that when Nosh (after the animals and Hanka had left) sorted their own belongings into two piles, hers was the larger.
At his instant protest she shook her head.
“You bear Bringhope, and do not try to tell me that this is not a major weight, for I bore it myself to this place. In the Ryft I learned early the bearing of burdens—and—you must be free for defending us if there is need. Since we have no archers…” She showed him a piece of skin, slipped a stone into the wider center portion of it, and gave it a testing twirl. “In the Ryft I used such many times over, it is a skill which returns upon practice. You cannot deny its effectiveness…”
His hand went to the still painful bruise on his face. “That I cannot.”
They had eaten well that morning in preparation for the setting forth and Nosh had provided Hanka with a portion to carry with her. Now she gave a last look about this place. Bare and abandoned as it had been, it had given them refuge, and she sighed a little at leaving.
They came out on the old quarry road, able here in the width of the trace to walk side by side. The ruts were crumbled and overtraveled by the Ushur and certainly the trail left by Hanka and her herd was an easy one to follow. By mid morning they had caught up to the herd itself. The hoofprints they had followed turned out of the quarry road just as the sun appeared well up in the sky, pointing through a break in the brush wall.
A short time after they had made that turn they came again into an opening which was knee-high in autumn-dried grass and there the Ushur were grazing avidly while a dark blot perched half up the slope unwound thin arms to beckon them on.
“They slow us too much.” Kryn stared resentfully at the beasts tearing the dried grass from its roots with rasping tongues. “We cannot limit our pace to theirs and hope to reach Dast before the real cold strikes. If they must graze their way…”
“They must,” Nosh returned. “If you are so pushed to reach Dast—strike for it by yourself in the morning, armsman.” She was tired, not so much from the tramping she had done this day but with the battle within her. What Kryn stated was the truth—the beasts were a drag upon them, perhaps a near-impossible one. But—there was Hanka. And when she looked at the small girl she saw always beside her that other child wayfarer who had been taken out of the road of death by the Grace of Lyr. No, she could not leave Hanka and she knew that the herd child would not be separated from her beasts.
Kryn got up and walked a little away. Every line of his lean body was a warning of his own frustration. Perhaps what she had suggested in her weariness would be the best answer after all. Let him go on to Dast—he could always there raise his companions and backtrail to find Hanka and her—once he got there.
She was about to enlarge upon that suggestion when he returned. His battered face was grim. “Lady,”—his voice had taken on the formal note of the high blood kin—“I am sworn to Lord Jarth. So far I have failed him. But also he was in some way bound to your Priestess Dreen. He would well have furthered any work she asked of him. Therefore—in this matter I am answered. We stay together and hope that the north winds will hold off yet a while.” He said no more but turned a little aside and sat staring out over the small valley. However, Nosh was sure that he saw neither the beasts nor that field, but that, for this moment, his gaze was truly turned inward.
She made a business of picking over some of a fall of gravel, searching out stones which would fit in her sling. To think of what might lie before them—weighing this disaster against that—would win them nothing. They must face each moment as it came.
They spent the night at the edge of the pasture. There was no chance of building a fire. But Nosh drew Hanka under the edge of her own cloak and between their two bodies and Kryn she put out again the bag of crystals, which were once more aglow. She knew that he intended to go on sentry even though Hanka had assured them both that the Ushur would give instant warning of any intruder.
The Ushur must have awakened before dawn as, when Kryn opened his eyes (he had lapsed into slumber at last, and found himself, as he jerked awake, to have his outflung hand nearly touching the crystal bag) he could hear the tearing of grass.
Hanka rolled away from Nosh and sat up in the limited grey light. She cocked her head a little to one side as if the crackling of that chewing had a meaning for her. Then she looked to Kryn.
“Bashar knows. They will trail today, armsman. The Ushur are not, as other beasts, unknowing.”
By the time they themselves had eaten sparingly of what they had left the sunrise painted the sky ahead and then Hanka gave that shrill cry. The tallest of the grazing beasts raised its head, grunted and began to move, its fellows somewhat reluctantly following.
Near sunset they had covered a goodly distance for any so hampered, Kryn believed. The Ushurs had taken to grabbing mouthfuls of any grass they passed, chewing as they plodded on. Hanka kept her place beside the leader of the herd, her small arm stretched up to loop across the creature’s shoulder.
They did not find another meadow that night but they were on the edge of open land again and here the Ushur fed with a wariness unusual to Kryn’s knowledge, for they did not push out into the open as would varges or mounts, rather slipped along the edge of cover, feeding in hurried mouthfuls. It was almost, he thought, as if Hanka had in some measure managed to communicate to her charges the need for constant movement and wariness.
When they established their own halting place the Ushur came drifting back, kneeling, blowing, chewing their cuds, closing in like a wall of dirty and twig-entangled fleece about the travelers.
Kryn could not play sentry for the night—not and travel again tomorrow. He had lagged this afternoon. So he must accept Hanka’s reassurance about the herd— that they would stand watch.
For three days they worked their way along, heading northeast, reluctant to venture into the open. For their good fortune the weather continued to hold. The lead Ushur found a spring at which not only the herd but they drank and were able to fill their water bottles again. Hanka brought down three grass hens with her sling skill and Nosh matched her by securing a small lorshog they had routed out of a clay wallow beyond the spring. It was lean and spare compared to the domesticated sort but it made excellent eating.
Twice Nosh noted herbs which she uprooted, making them chew the tart leaves. Their hunger was never truly satisfied but they had enough to keep going. At each halt Nosh loosed the zark, which had its own hunting plans and brought back grubs it had dug out of the loose soil of the open—perhaps it
more than the other of its traveling companions went well fed.
At last Kryn decided they could no longer drift north. They must find the caravan road. That they might also find trouble along it could not be denied. But once with that for a guide they could be sure of coming to Dast.
So they struck out across the open. At least the land was not entirely flat, but, like that around PanHigh, it lay in long low rolls and they kept from ridgetops as much as they could.
From time to time Kryn scouted ahead—his impatience could not always be controlled—but when at last he came through a low gap and saw before him the unmistakable scarring of the land which was the road he sought, he felt a fraction of his self-assumed burden lift.
Now they were able to keep to a better pace. Even the Ushur seemed imbued with the idea that they must keep going and returned to their habit of feeding as they moved. How far they still might be from Dast, Kryn had no way of judging, but he constantly watched ahead for the rise of those buildings he had helped to repair at a time which now seemed long past.
At least, from this section of the road, he could see those dark humps against the sky which marked the Heights—the beginning of the border of his own homeland.
Somehow it was more and more difficult to remember the keep of Qunion. His boyhood there was a long-ago thing which had little connection with the here and now. When he tried to picture faces around the feast board in the great hall they had a tendency to waver and fade. He was the only free man of the kin left. And he was part sworn to a would-be priestess, a waif child, and a herd of Ushur. For the first time in days he smiled at the thought. At least smiling no longer triggered pain from the bruise and he could see as well out of one eye as the other.
Yes, there was something about the sight of the Heights which seemed to bring strength. Surely they could not be far…. And at that moment his gaze fell from the promise of the distant rises to something else— Dast! Surely that was Dast! In spite of the herd, in spite of everything, there was Dast!
On impulse he threw back his head and sounded the flute-bird call which was used by the scouts in open country. If he knew Jarth, there were those out to sweep goodly distances beyond Dast. It might be very good sense to let any such know that their own strange company were friends.
There was no answer; no one arose out of hiding to wave them on, and Kryn felt, first disappointment, and then the rise of fear. He would never forget PanHigh and what he had looked upon there. Had Dast, too, been overwhelmed by some such band of madmen?
His hand went up in a signal for a halt as he found himself sniffing the air for those throat-tightening stenches which the wind had carried from the village. No… no scent. How long would it take that to die away?
Then he was aware of a tug at his belt, demanding attention. He looked down into Hanka’s sun-browned face.
“Bashar does not scent. There is no one ahead.”
He blinked, hardly understanding. When he did his fear was bitter in his mouth. Dast—fallen…
“They are dead….” he said more to himself than to Hanka or to Nosh who had moved up on his other side.
“No dead.” Hanka’s voice somehow pierced that cloud of fear-born rage which now walled him in. “No one.”
How could the beast know? That was stupid—to listen to such a fancy from a child. There was only one way of learning—he must go on. But alone—Nosh—the child—if Dast had been served like the village, he did not want them to see.
“Stay!” He barked that as such an imperative order that even the lead Ushur seemed to understand, for it turned its head in his direction, watching him with its large brown eyes.
Kryn shook off his pack and cloak. If there were any lurking there to finish off travelers, he must have already been sighted. So—he drew Bringhope. The sun of late afternoon caught the grey length of the blade, seemed almost to awaken sparks from the metal. And, sword ready, Kryn strode forward at a swift pace to make sure of the death of Dast.
The comrades would have made their last stand within those walls, which had only been partly started when he had left and now were more than shoulder-high, connecting the six huts one to another. There had even been a gate mounted since he left, and that swung open. He came up to it as if he walked through a nightmare—where were the bodies?
He was now within that gate, staring from one to another of the huts. Doors were closed but not burned away. There were no horrors to be faced.
“Tuver?” He raised that shout. “Hasper!” The names seemed to echo back to him. Somehow he got to the nearest hut, pushed at the door. It swung open under his hand. In the dim light he could see the bunks they had constructed. However, all were bare—no blankets, no dressed hide coverings.
He raced now across the small open space about the well, heading toward the hut where he had last spoken with Jarth. Again emptiness, stripped. They were gone… but somehow, he was sure, by their own will and in order. There had been no fighting here.
Completely bemused by the mystery Kryn went back to the gate and out so he knew he could be seen by those who were only an irregular blot down the length of the road. They were certainly closer than he had left them, but that did not matter now. As if Bringhope was a battle signal flag Kryn raised it over his head and waved them on.
He did not wait to see them enter, he was too driven by his need to know what happened here. Jarth—certainly he should begin with that one of the houses which had served as their headquarters. Again he crossed the well surround to enter. There was a table, rudely assembled from the wreckage of one of Danus’s wagons. And on it…
Kryn, for the first time in his life, dropped his sword to the ground and forgot that he had held it as he pushed up to the table and stared down at a square of hide folded several times over and pinned to the wood underneath by a weapon he knew—had last seen in Jarth’s own belt—a weapon perhaps meant to identify him who had left it here past all question. Kryn pulled out the dagger and flipped open the skin, dust sifting from it.
CHAPTER 30
The Ushur were milling about in the open about the well and some were hanging their heads over the edge of the well curb crying out their demands. Nosh dropped the packs she had brought along by a wall far away from the tramping animals.
“Lady—they be thirsty!” Hanka bore down upon her.
The well windlass was indeed a stiff one to be turned, even when one was strong. And where was Kryn? He had disappeared from sight before they entered the sagging gate. However, Hanka’s importunities were not to be denied. The older girl went to the worn handles and began to turn, her efforts raising a greater clamor from the animals.
A brimming bucket reached the brim of the well and Hanka darted in, to turn its contents into the dusty trough made to water caravan beasts. It took three buckets to satisfy the small herder and her charges and by that time, Kryn did appear from the building which had been Lord Jarth’s, in his hand a roll of writing skin.
“Where are they?” Nosh asked. The desertion of what had seemed an excellent winter post was a mystery to her. There certainly had not been any attack here—there were no signs of such. Yet all those she had known for weeks of over mountain travel and in the refuge before that were gone as if they had never been.
“Lord Jarth…” Kryn held the roll up at its opened length and she could see it was printed with symbols but those she could sight the best were strange to her, not the formal old writing of the books Dreen had so treasured.
“Lord Jarth has used trail code,” Kryn began again. “This is the message he left:
“The Dark threatens us in new ways. There have been five rathhawks brought down and all wore amulets which we destroyed. A band of Kolossians from the high north hills say that raiders have wiped out two of their villages in sudden attacks, their coming somehow hidden by a power even the Kolossians could not sense until too late.
“Our supplies are limited. Of those bought in Kasgar only two of the carrier beasts reached us. Hansel was
wounded by an arrow out of the night. Also there are dreams—and those have so assaulted even such unbelievers as Tuver as to make them fear sleep and deny themselves rest.
“We have no true Dreamer but each man who dreams flees some great Dark in his sleep. This may be a device to twist us out of Dast as one twists a pond limpet from its shell. But then again—it may be a warning.
“Here we have few mounts and those the worser beasts Danus offered us. We cannot try to reach Kasgar now. But for seasons the Heights have sheltered us and to those we would return. The dangers there we understand; what strange things may come upon us here we cannot guess.
“We leave scout trail markings. If you live to reach here, Hold Heir Kryn, follow us—for it is my true belief that this is the best choice we can make.”
“Dreams and rathhawks.” Nosh shivered. “They were Dark beset here. And they are men better used to the highlands. Perhaps the Dark omens misfired— warning instead to save or they might have been swept away by such as took PanHigh, were the raiders’ band large enough.”
Kryn refolded the message and pushed it under his belt.
“Lord Jarth is not one to be frightened by shadows.” He stated that defiantly, as if in answer to some argument he would not admit. “Surely this was strong dreaming…. But,”—hands on hips he now looked about him—“those houses I have looked into are swept bare. They took with them all supplies. And their arms….” He bit his lip and turned his head a little from her.
Nosh answered him swiftly. “What could you, a lone stranger, have done to secure him those in Kasgar where the guild lords seemed enmeshed in some intrigue? Were we not caught in the fringes of such ourselves and through no mistakes of our own? Lord Jarth must have learned from the men who returned that there was this difficulty.”
Kryn was staring now at the ground, stirring the dust of the square with the much-worn toe of his trail boot. She could guess something of his feeling of failure. But now he must be pushed on into action which would keep him from dwelling on that—she was sure Jarth had not counted failure on his part at all.