Smiling at him although there was no humor in it she replied, “Better not, you know it’s a sore subject to me.” Taking a deep breath before continuing, “Okay, let’s see … it would have to be easily recognizable, but at the same time defendable.”
“Not only that, but there would have to be something close by that would place them higher, so that they could observe, in the distance, to prevent another tribe or scouting party to stay hidden and far enough away preventing someone approaching the trail to see them, but close enough to so they could mark the location.”
She just shook her head as she thought about it, “Yes, all of the above. The problem is this, there’s probably hundreds if not thousands of such places that all of this would fit when approaching the foothills from the grasslands.”
The two herd beasts, unconcerned with what their masters were discussing, grazed contentedly; they knew that once this respite was over that they would be required to move again. “Okay,” Kal said, “what if we work the edge of the foothills stopping periodically, climbing one of the hills and align the landmarks with the map. We should be able to make it line up and maybe the combination of that would lead us to it.”
Shaking her head she said, “Yes, that might just work, although I wonder if there’s something on this map that might give us a hint. After all the map wasn’t made for those who lived at the clan home, it had been put together for the ones in the growing alliance. So there should be something there on the map, a meeting place that would have been in the grasslands. Something close, but not so close, as to give its location away. I’d suspect that they would have blindfolded the ones that they would bring into the clan home at least part of the way so that it wouldn’t be revealed. Although from the description it would have been a difficult place to attack.”
“That’s probably true of leaders who were not members of that alliance. From what I remember reading, runners approached all the time, so its location had to be known. Still the less that knew meant less chance of attack.”
By midmorning they had set up their next campsite and then, more by luck than design, they thought that there was a good chance they had found what they were looking for. It was an ancient trail, more sensed than seen, and it led in direction that would provide defenders the ability to aggressively attack an approaching hostile clan or tribe thinning their numbers as they approached. “If this is the right place,” Kal stated, “then maybe we should have brought the supplies with us. I’ve the feeling that we’re going to need to break camp once again.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but what if we hadn’t found this trail, then what? I don’t like trying to set up a camp at the end of a day. What’s this?” She asked. It appeared that at this point the trail split going in opposite directions and not a hint as to where either direction would lead them. Before them was a cliff rising above them, again giving defenders a point to attack enemies. As they stood there looking in both directions undecided Jura talking as she thought about what was before them said more to herself than to him. “Hmmm, I wonder …”
With a questioning look Kal asked, “Wonder? Wonder what?”
Pointing in both directions of the trail where it had split she said. “Look, this is only a guess, but I suspect that both trails will meet and become one again on top. I know it’s hard to tell right now because both sides run along the base of this cliff and then turn away from us and we cannot see where they go after that. Look I’ll take the left branch and you take the right. We’ll follow the splits as they go for a little while, and if either side seems to lead away, then we can backtrack to here and choose one that seems more promising. How does that sound to you?”
“Jura, you’ve had way more experience than I have on this, and really what do we have to lose other than time? And if I am honest here we’ve lost a lot of that with our fruitless searching, so what’s a little more? Okay so how long?”
“Oh I don’t know, we need to give it long enough that we can be sure what’s happening. Okay let’s use our shadows. When they have doubled in length from what they are now and we haven’t met then we’ll come back and meet here and discuss what we’ve discovered.”
“Okay, works for me.” He bowed and swept his arms out and asked, “Shall we?”
She laughed and curtsied and responded, “Why thank you sir!” Then on a more serious note said, “Okay if we don’t meet higher up see you back here soon.” She headed off on the left branch and he stood for a brief period of time until she turned the corner and was out of sight. He then turned and headed down the right branch and once he made the turn, in his case to the left, the trail immediately began to climb. It was a steep climb and it had a couple of switch-backs, followed by heading away from the area where they had split winding among large boulders, again a great place for defense, before turning around as he approached the top of the rise and headed back in the original direction.
* * *
“Hey, look they’ve split. It would be easy just to kill them now and then we could get out here and just blame it on some predator that is out here. I’m tired of all of this and I long for a village and some wine and a little female companionship.”
The other, the one who had unofficially taken charge looked hard at his partner, “What are you suggesting? We weren’t sent here to kill these two, but to find out what they were looking for. So get any of those thoughts out of your mind. Who knows, maybe they’ll return to this spot, and anyway, we can’t take a chance of being seen, so we’re going to wait right here.” Both of them settled into as comfortable position as they could and still watch the trail, or trails since it appeared to have split. They would be paid for this work, and it was easy, so why sweat it?
* * *
Jura after making the right turn found that the trail continued up a canyon for a short distance and then started climbing out. Here the rise was gentle and the trail straight. The trail was sort of heading in the original direction that they had been going when they had reached that split, but as she neared the top coming out of the canyon it turned back towards the top of the cliff where the trail had split at the base. It dove back down into a large ravine again giving any defenders the upper hand in a fight. It remained this way for a distance and because of the depth of the ravine there were more shadow than sunlight, hiding any and all landmarks. Eventually it climbed out where there were a huge amount of boulders. She stopped and caught her breath. She was literally at the point on that cliff that they had looked up at. The view from here was overpowering in its beauty. And while hiking the ravine there was little air movement, once out the cool breeze chilled her as it dried her damp sweat soaked clothes. As she looked out over the trail that they had hiked earlier that day she heard a noise off to her left and turned to see Kal approaching with a smile on his face. He said, “Guess you were quite right. Although with you here ahead of me I’d guess your way is shorter.” He paused and looked in the direction that she had saying, “Wow, what a view.” He was about to turn and face her when a movement caught his eye. At that moment she had been looking at him so had not seen it, still he asked. “Did you see that?”
She turned in the direction that he had been looking puzzled by his question. “No, see what?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I tried to locate it, whatever it was quit moving.” He studied the back trail as she joined him and from her silent question he pointed where he thought he had caught that flash of movement. Shaking his head he commented, “I don’t know but I’d have sworn that I saw a person on that trail, or at least that’s what my mind is telling me. But I don’t see anything at all now, so maybe it was my imagination.”
Quietly as she studied the area from their high point she shook her head. “No, I suspect that what your mind told you is accurate. You’ve got to remember that we are wired to catch movement. As my parents told me time and time again, it is a survival thing. And it would have held true for pr
otection against those wild predators and when we became tribes and clans and were warring with each other it would have become even more critical.” She paused thinking, and more to herself than him, said, “I wonder why there’d be someone on a trail that is no longer traveled unless we are the reason. Yes, that’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Listening to her conversation with herself he realized that what she said had to be correct. They were being followed, and it was only because of this accidental high point that that allowed them to look back over the trail they had just hiked. He suspected that his ancestors had used this point for just this purpose. “Okay, that makes sense, so now what? And why would anybody be interested in following us? I mean we have no treasure, our camp gear is anything but new, and pack beasts are cheap and available to the poorest of our villages. So that only leaves us, and it makes me wonder if we’ve been watched all the time we’ve been out here.”
“A possibility,” Jura said, “but we have no proof, and really at this moment we can’t be sure that’s what you saw, still I suspect it was, so like you, what can we do about it? We can’t even know how many may be out there or what their agenda is.” Both were leaning on their staffs, which meant that if it came down to close combat both were armed, trained and ready. “I think we better get back from being so exposed. If they wanted to attack us from a distance we have left ourselves pretty visible here.” Both of them, at this point, looked at each other and carefully backed away from the cliff edge to the boulders that would provide protection yet allow them to monitor the trail.
“I wonder how long we’ve been watched?” Kal looked down at the bare ground and back to the trail, took a deep breath, “I bet that this could be from Sabohl, after all, it’s the only thing that makes sense. We really, as I said, have nothing of value to attract thieves and such, and we aren’t searching for some hidden treasure, and for most, what we are looking for isn’t even worth their time to read it in a local paper. And we’ve surmised that he was behind that break-in a few cycles of the seasons ago. So it would only make sense that he hasn’t given up. And what have we just done? We’ve led him right to what we think is the clan home. I know we haven’t found it yet, but both of us are almost positive that we aren’t very far away from it now.”
“If what you’re saying is right, then this is very frustrating. We’re doing all the hard work and he has his cronies following to make it easy for him, and we’ve kind of just gave it to him. Like you, I thought that he had given up, but if what you saw, again, is accurate the obvious answer is, no he hasn’t.”
Sitting there and staring out at nothing Kal continued to be silent. How could they lose whoever was following them? And it was very important to locate the clan home since all the other locations that he wanted to find and rediscover would be based from there. “Of course I might not have seen anything and it was just my imagination, but I know I did, so wishing it away isn’t going to change anything. So what do you want to do? The obvious problem is that we are on the trail and I suspect we will be close to the clan site soon. And whether we delay or not will change nothing.”
Shrugging she said, “I guess we just go on. As you so aptly pointed out everything that we are trying to locate is based on this location.” Both of them got up from where they had been sitting and with a sense of foreboding continued up the ancient untraveled trail and away from the cliff top.
* * *
“I thought we had waited long enough before starting to follow them again. Then as we moved they showed up on top of the cliff and looked right at us.”
“Yeah, and both of us froze in position. I have to admit I was beginning to cramp from being in such an awkward position, and then they stayed there for a very long time talking about something before disappearing out of our sight.”
The one who had taken the leadership role cursed, and kicked a loose rock that lay in the trail. “All we can hope is that they didn’t see us. I guess let that be a lesson to both of us. We kind of got impatient there and almost blew the whole thing and gave ourselves away – although I have no way of knowing whether they saw us or not. Let’s get off the trail and wait for a while longer. It’s obvious to me they are going to stay on whatever this is. Let’s go find some shade; it’s hot out under the suns.” Both of them left the trail and found a straggly tree that at least got them out of the direct suns’ heat. “We’ll give it a little longer and then we’ll head up the trail and try and see ahead. But that’s the problem. It seems that this faint trail is climbing so they will stay above us.”
* * *
“Let’s stop here.” Kal had a thought cross his mind, “We need to look at that map again. From what we’ve found so far this trail has a number of overlooks and places where they could safely attack an enemy.”
“True, so what’s your point? Oh … hmmm, I don’t know if these places would be marked on this crude map because had this had fallen into a rival’s hands then they would know where to look or how to work around the ambush points. Also from looking at the position of the suns and our location I think that we’ll be having a dry camp tonight. If everything pans out as it appears at this moment we can move our camp to the abandoned site on the morrow.”
“I didn’t think about that, but you’re right. I suspect if we headed back now we would make our camp by nightfall. So what do you want to do, continue or return? It doesn’t matter now since we’ve located the trail. One day or another isn’t going to change anything. I know that if we dry camp it all of our gear in our regular camp will be okay. It’s well hidden, at least I think so. And we’ve had to do this a couple of times.” Kal stood up and paced for a moment as he continued to think this through.
“Going back isn’t a bad idea, but if we are being followed then we probably would run into whoever it is, and we don’t even know how many of them there are. And who knows, maybe it’s just a coincidence and it was someone hiking through the area. Although, the chances of that happening, considering how remote an area this is, and with no isolated farms and such out here, I’d guess it’s near impossible.” Jura stood up also and walked back down the trail. Although from this point she couldn’t see their back trail at all. “Hard decision, hard decision that’s for sure. So what do you want to do?”
He laughed and said, “I asked you first. I must admit after all the failures we’ve had I kind of want to see what’s at the end of this trail, but also know that if we are being watched that we’re not going to be the only ones who know this. So if we go back to the camp and return tomorrow, will whoever is following us continue on and then claim they discovered this, and we have no right to be there? Or are they just some hired thugs who were sent to watch us and then report back to whoever it was that sent them here? Without more information I just don’t know. Maybe we should go ahead a little further and see if we can find one of those ambush points and wait. Then if a small group shows up we can confront them and see if we can find out.”
“Are you sure that you want to do that? If there are a lot of them we won’t be able to defend ourselves at all and will be at their mercy. And if they are riffraff, I, as a female, do not want to be in their control. Since we are quite isolated, who’s to say what happened to us if we never return.”
Looking down at the ground with his hands behind his back as he thought about it, “I have to admit I didn’t consider that. And you are quite right. We are by ourselves and it would be easy for us to disappear, victims of the outback, the wilderness. And as vast an area as we’ve come to know it, it would be easy to hide our bodies and we would never be found, leaving only the mystery of what happened. So now we’ve gone full circle here once again, I guess we better just continue on with the knowledge that someone is behind us and watch for them.”
“Yeah, I think that’s probably best.” She came back from where she had been studying the trail behind them and asked, “Shall we?” They both had taken off their travel packs and now picked them up and put them on and heade
d back up the unknown trail with the knowledge that they were being followed, leaving them with an unknown future as well.
The trail wound and twisted through the foothills giving the defenders many opportunities to harass an attacking enemy. In fact they could see a number of places where there had been work performed to strengthen defenses along the way. There were a couple of areas where the trail wound through narrow canyons giving the high ground to the defenders. From the direction they had come there had been no way to climb to these defense points. It was only after leaving these narrow confines that the way to the top presented itself. Even here access wasn’t easy. As the suns were beginning to set they turned the corner around a huge rock wall and before them was a plateau that sloped uphill gently. Ahead of them was a large grove of trees that blocked their view of anything beyond. Stopping and taking in the beauty and catching their breath, since the last portion of the trail had been a steep uphill climb, they studied the area.
Pointing Jura said, “Look, doesn’t that look like stumps of some of the trees?”
“Yeah, it really does, but now the question is, is it because they simply fell and this is what’s left, or is it because they were cut down.”
She smiled and said, “We’re not going to know just standing here so let’s go look.” They headed over to the stumps and inspected them, looking closely at the remains.
“I’d guess that either one of those small beasts that uses its teeth to cut down trees that they then use to dam streams, or crude axes. It doesn’t look like the winds were responsible – besides there’s not trunk on the ground.” Looking around carefully Kal couldn’t even see any branches that may have been part of the tree. “No, I’d guess that this was done by a person, you agree?”
“Yup. Let’s head on in and see what’s beyond these trees, shall we?”
A Taste of History Past Page 12