Chasers of the Wind

7

Ga-Nor was a decent teacher. Over the past few days, Luk had learned more about the forest than he had in his entire life. Whenever a chance presented itself, the northerner trained his companion in the principles of tracking. Luk gained the skills slowly, but his progress was clear. At least the soldier had stopped trampling through dry bushes and leaving tracks in wet soil. He tried to walk on the edge of the trail so that he wouldn’t shred the cobwebs strung over it, and he walked in the Son of the Snow Leopard’s footsteps. He breathed far more quietly, spoke in a low tone, listened to the forest, and kept his eyes open. But the most important thing he learned was not to get in Ga-Nor’s way.

After several days of such training, Ga-Nor found that he didn’t have to keep an eye on his companion as much as before. The distance they traveled in a day’s march increased exponentially.

After their encounter with the Burnt Soul, no one else pursued the humans. It seemed that their enemies had finally lost track of the fugitives. But Ga-Nor played it safe and pushed them onward as if the entire Sextet (one of the titles given to the Damned) were at their heels.

At first they made their way through the forested foothills, which quickly gave way to rolling hills. After three days, they entered a wooded plain with many lakes, rivers, and streams in its low places. Impassible, thorny underbrush and thick fir copses blocked their path through the dark ravines and gloomy sycamore groves.

The companions moved westward rapidly. They avoided roads. In the beginning, when the terrain was rough, they traveled parallel to the road, but when they began moving away from it, Luk lost all sense of where they were and how far they had gone. He had no idea how the northerner determined their route. He tried to orient himself with the help of the sun, but that didn’t work. The soldier didn’t believe that the detours and spirals they wound through the forest every day would bring them to Dog Green. Once Luk dared to voice his concerns about the validity of their route, but all he got for his pains was a meaningful snort. Ga-Nor wasn’t going to explain anything to him.

The guardsman heaved a sigh. The endless, exhausting daily marches had him losing faith that they would get to where they needed to be. A village is not a city. The chance that they would pass right by it, not noticing it amongst all the beech, spruce, and oak groves, was great. And if they got lost, they could wander through the forest until the end of their lives. Or maybe stumble into Sandon (the vast forested territories to the east of the Empire. The Kingdom of the Highborn). And of course the Highborn would be beyond thrilled to greet the intruders. But then again, the tracker seemed to be heading in the wrong direction.

Stupidly, Luk decided to ask Ga-Nor which direction they were traveling.

“East.”

“What do you mean east? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he replied serenely.

“But we need to go west, screw a toad!”

“But right now we’re going east,” said the northerner absentmindedly.

He stopped and crouched down, gingerly probing the ground with his fingers.

“What do you mean we’re going east? Why east?”

“Don’t panic! We’re going the right way. We just needed to make a detour. There was a really bad spot. We had to retrace our steps. Go more to the east.”

“Retrace our steps…” whined Luk petulantly. “And what about that route displeased you? It was just fine.”

“I told you, it was a really bad spot. A gove’s lair. Didn’t you smell it?”

“Well… yes. I smelled something strange. I thought it was some kind of herb blooming.”

“An herb… I have no idea what you would do without me. An herb! That’s what a forest demon smells like during its molt. So I decided not to meddle with it. It isn’t worth the trouble to get mixed up in that. Far better to lose a day of traveling.”

“Well, if there was a gove, then it’s understandable,” said Luk, forgetting his outrage. “But will you tell me when we’re going to get there? All we do is walk. I’m sick of all these trees. I want to get to the city. Have some shaf. If we keep going like this, I’m going to die.”

“Shaf!” scoffed the woodsman. “Right now, brother, the Nabatorians are gulping down your shaf.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t dream of it.”

“Drink some water from a stream and shut your trap.” Ga-Nor stopped feeling the ground and stood up.

“That’s all you know, isn’t it? ‘Shut your trap,’ ‘quiet,’ ‘don’t shout.’”

“Don’t shout.”

“Who’s going to hear us out here?”

“You clod, how many times do I have to repeat myself?” whispered the Son of the Snow Leopard. “The forest adores silence. Your shrieks can be heard for leagues. Speak in a whisper; I’m not deaf.”

Luk sniffed aggrievedly, but he lowered his voice. “You still haven’t told me when we’re going to get to that damned village.”

“Soon. We’re basically already there.”

“There’s no habitation anywhere near here.”

“Look under your feet. Do you see the tracks?”

“No.”

“The marks are old. They’ve already faded, and the earth doesn’t stick to my fingers. They’re twelve to fifteen days old.”

Ga-Nor passed his hand over a part of the footpath. To Luk’s eyes the spot looked no different than any other.

“Tracks still don’t mean anything.”

“Of course they mean something. And here, they mean a peasant’s bast shoes. Someone from the village was hunting. I’d advise against walking over there. There’s a trap.”

“Where?” The soldier stopped dead in his tracks.

“About five paces away from you. Straight on.”

“What do you mean? There’s nothing there, screw a toad!”

The ground looked like any other ground. If there really was a trap there, it was perfectly camouflaged.

“You never really see anything,” said the Son of the Snow Leopard irately. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Walk behind me. Follow in my footsteps.”

He stepped off the footpath and walked around the dangerous spot.

“Why did they put it there?”

“How should I know? Maybe for the gove. Maybe for animals. Anyhow, we have no more than four hours to go.”

“And then we’ll get to relax!” This was the only thing Luk now dreamed of.

“If all is well. But no, we have to go farther. To Al’sgara. West of here is not like the north. We won’t encounter any civilization along the road. It’s just forest and the Blazgian swamps. And we’ll have to slog through them for another two weeks, if not more.”

The soldier groaned loudly, hoping the sound would express the full extent of his despair and frustration.

When it was past midday, and the shadows made by the trees were starting to lengthen, the travelers emerged onto the shore of a river.

Ga-Nor sat down on the ground and untied his bootlaces. Luk took off his shoes entirely. He walked over to the sun-warmed rocks and, blinking contentedly like a cat that had drunk its fill of cream, he lowered his feet into the cold water.

“You’ll get a chill,” the Son of the Snow Leopard warned him.

“I’m seasoned,” objected the soldier, and then he sneezed loudly.

Gnawing on a blade of grass, Ga-Nor chuckled knowingly.

“It’s not much farther. We’ll walk with the current. There, beyond that bend, that’s where the open forest begins. If we get through that, we’ll wind up in the village.”

“What do you mean? Have you been here?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

The tracker shrugged.

“Fine. I’ll take your word for it. You don’t argue with northerners when it comes to instinct. Whew! I was starting to think we’d never get there. I’ve just realized how much I hate the forest.” He got up out of the water and began fumbling with his foot bindings. “Happiness is close at hand.”

“You’re rejoicing too early. We still don’t know what’s going on there.”

“What do the Nabatorians want with this backwater? Okni and Gash-Shaku, that’s where they’ll attack. If they go creeping into Al’sgara, they’ll be leaving the Steps of the Hangman open and they’ll get hit from behind. No. They will take the south first, besiege the pass, shut off all the retreats to the north, and only then will they turn around and take the Green City. That’s what I would do. I’d block the Steps first, and then have my fun.”

“You’re such a strategist…. The Nabatorians want everything. It’s possible that they passed by the village; it’s true that it isn’t really of strategic interest to them. But it’s also possible they didn’t. I don’t want to argue. We’ll see in an hour.”

“Well I’m quite willing to argue,” said Luk, narrowing his eyes craftily. “I bet a soren against what I owe you that we won’t see any Nabatorians.”

“You’re hoping to win back your debt?” The Son of the Snow Leopard chuckled and twirled his mustache.

“You got it.”

“It’s a deal. If everything is as you say, I will gladly forget about what you owe me.”

The soldier chuckled contentedly, thinking that victory was already in his pocket.

As Luk walked along the woodland trail, he wondered if there would be an inn in such a backwater. He seemed to recall that the lads from the third squadron had stopped by at an inn in Dog Green when they had to accompany the commander to Al’sgara one time. So he could expect shaf, edible roast meat, hot water for a bath, and a nice long rest on a decent bed. The two of them even had a whole soren, which had been sewn into the guard’s boot. He’d been saving it for a rainy day. It was a good thing he hadn’t had time to lose it at dice. Very soon this coin would give him and Ga-Nor the chance to feel like normal people once more. He wondered if the tracker had any money.

This question hadn’t bothered Luk before. There’d been no point. He glanced quickly at the northerner walking in front of him.

It was unlikely he had anything at all. The scouts didn’t carry money when they went on their forays through the Borderlands. Who would they trade with there? The highlanders? So if the redhead had any savings, they had been left behind at the fortress and had probably migrated to some Nabatorian’s pocket by now. May they all rot.

“Luk, keep up,” commanded Ga-Nor without turning around.

“I’m practically running already, screw a toad,” said the former guard indignantly. “And I have to drag my axe along, too.”

The tracker didn’t reply. Squatting down on his haunches, he began studying the ground. Luk, already long accustomed to his unhurried ways, waited patiently.

The thought crossed the soldier’s mind that the citizens of the Empire were unjust to the northerners. Especially the citizens of the central and southern provinces. They considered the Children of the Snow Leopard barbarians. Savages. Stupid, temperamental, crude people.

Dressed in wool and leather, parading about in kilts, constantly rattling their sabers—most people thought they were only fit to die for the glory of the Empire. Terrible lone wolves who gorged themselves on raw meat. Red-haired berserkers who painted their faces red and inked dreadful tattoos on their backs. And what’s more, they idolized the strange and incomprehensible war god Ug. It had yet to be determined if he was an enemy of the all-merciful Melot.

The most foolish rumors about them abounded: that they devoured the flesh of sickly infants born into their clans; that they took their own granddaughters to wife; that they bathed in melted snow, liberally seasoned with the hot blood of their enemies—these were just a few of the things said about the Children of the Snow Leopard when they were out of earshot.

Before, Luk had considered many of these rumors to be the truth. Of course, he didn’t believe in such nonsense as blood baths. But at the same time he was in agreement that all northerners were rude, unpolished, and impenetrably stupid. The guard didn’t even change his mind after he came to serve at the Gates of Six Towers and saw the Children of the Snow Leopard for the first time. The brief interactions he had with them only served to drive home the truthfulness of most of the rumors. They’d growled at him a couple of times, and almost struck him in the face. Luk didn’t try to chat with the barbarians all that much after that, and truthfully, it wasn’t that hard to avoid them. The garrison guards spent all their time circling the walls and gatehouse, or puffing their way through drills under the supervision of the sergeants, while the northerners went off on reconnaissance. They ran around the Borderlands, retraced their steps, rested, ate their fill, and again left for the mountains.

Traveling with Ga-Nor forced him to reassess his opinion of the northerners. The soldier could not call his companion a savage. It was possible that he would seem like one to the majority of the inhabitants of the enlightened Empire, but not to Luk. The tracker was not stupid, rude, or quick-tempered. Just the opposite. Experienced, intelligent, prudent, and dispassionate, he was able to size up any situation and he never made hurried decisions.

“There’s quite a few tracks. Even hoof prints. They come here often,” noted the Son of the Snow Leopard, narrowing his eyes.

Suddenly stepping away from the path, he sniffed the air.

“You smell that?”

A gove? A Burnt Soul? The walking dead? The thoughts flew by in a vortex in Luk’s head. After the events at the Gates of Six Towers he expected anything at all.

“No. What’s there?”

“Get your axe ready. Cover my back. Follow me, but keep looking around. If you see something, tell me, but don’t shout it out loud.”

The path fell behind them. The companions walked through the dense underbrush, holding the river to their left the entire time. It was hidden from their eyes by dense thickets, but Luk could hear it murmuring over the sandbar. They came out into a forest clearing where the grass was up to their waists. Ga-Nor again began to scent the air and listen intently.

“What?” asked the guard, trying not to breathe too loudly. Right now the northerner was his sole support and hope. “What kind of crap is it this time, screw a toad?”

“We’ll see soon. Stop leering at me, I’m not a whore! Didn’t I tell you to keep looking around? We’re in no less danger in high grass than we are among the trees. An entire army could hide here.”

Luk gulped fearfully and squeezed the shaft of his axe with damp palms. The clearing suddenly seemed dangerous to him.

Contrary to the guard’s expectations, no one rushed to jump out of the grassy overgrowth. They passed through the clearing without any misadventures. They entered an oak grove. And it was only then that Luk smelled what Ga-Nor’s sensitive nostrils had picked up a long time ago—the scent of rotting corpses.

The corpses smelled awful. Even if Pork decided not to bathe for an entire year (which, of course, his father would never allow him to do), he would not reek so badly. The village idiot, who had returned to the glade for the third time, wasn’t feeling very well. His head was spinning and his belly was churning from the smell. He’d already been sick twice, the last time right on his shirt.

This was bad, so very, very bad. Now he had to wash it, or there was no way he could go home. He’d have his backside tanned so hard that he wouldn’t be able to sit for a month. His father wouldn’t see that he was friends with the kind, glorious Nabatorians and that man who turned out to be a real magician. After Pork asked, he even gave him these dead bodies. And now they were his. He could do whatever he wanted with them. Ha!

And everything that belonged to these dead men was also now his. None of the Nabatorians could take it away from him. And if they did, Pork would go to his friend the magician, tell on them, and he’d turn the pissants into something moldy. He’d let them all know that Pork had been wronged! What friends he had, oh my!

Thousands of flies were circling over the rotting bodies and buzzing obnoxiously. They kept trying to fly into his mouth. The idiot spat and swatted at them, but this helped little. The heat was making him sweat, and the sweat, as well as his soiled shirt, only served to attract the vile insects. But Pork kept doing what he’d come here to do.

He was already the proud owner of two pairs of boots that stank pretty strongly of carrion (one pair fit perfectly and instantly found itself a more worthy master); one gold chain; three purses with a bit of small change; a knife with a pretty handle made of stag horn; a sharp, very sharp sword; and all sorts of other things. In the course of a single hour, Pork had become a truly wealthy man.

His dream had almost come true—he’d buy all sorts of things and then he’d be taken into the knighthood. Just try and let them stop him! And if they didn’t take him, he’d go into magic. And then what? He’d wear a curved sword and carry a staff, too. Why not? It turns out people are far more frightened of necromancers than knights. You see, all the villagers only spoke about Pork’s best friend in whispers, and only during the daylight hours. Chickenshits! Even Captain Nai, the bravest Nabatorian in the village, spoke very respectfully to the magician and didn’t argue with him.

Except, Pork was a bit jealous of Pars the carpenter. What if he was a closer friend to the necromancer than himself? Just look, the magician went to his house, stayed there for a while, and then left behind five Morts. They were bone-dry, like little skeletons, and they had skeem-swords. And their faces were noseless, and their eyes were yellow, so very yellow, like the eyes of old Roza’s cat. Last month, Pork had decided to check if the tub of lard knew how to swim, and he captured the cat, but he couldn’t get it to the river. The old woman’s house pet fought for dear life and scratched his arms up. He had to drop it. Right into a puddle.

But those Morts were beyond hideous, really! When Pork saw them he nearly died of fright. They were standing without moving a muscle. They just swiveled their eyes all around and didn’t let anyone near Pars’s house. True, no one really went there. People were afraid to walk along that street…. How contrary this corpse is! He doesn’t want to give up his boots, not no how.

Pork kicked the body out of spite, causing hundreds of flies to shoot up into the air.

The nasty boot didn’t want to slide off the foot of the nasty dead man.

He tried and tried. He puffed, pulled, yanked—it wasn’t happening. But the boots were really nice. Leather, embroidered with gold thread near the eyelets. If you wore such boots, all the virgins would be yours. You wouldn’t even have to persuade them. You’d just have to get there in the nick of time and climb off your horse. So what if they smell—that’s nothing. That’s not at all terrible, you know. The pigsty reeks, too. He washes that every week. He could wash the boots too. And clean them. And then go charm the virgins.

He dawdled there for a long time. He had a whole heap of goods. He needed to go back to the herd before Choir ran off. But he couldn’t leave boots like these. Someone would definitely come by and snatch them up. And a good thing if it was only them. There was more wealth than the heavens here. They’d filch it before he had time to blink. He couldn’t take it with him. How could he drag all this away? In what? And he couldn’t lift it all, either. It was too heavy. He needed to hide it. Maybe in the trunk of the cleft tree; perhaps the fools wouldn’t look there. Or in the bushes. He just had to get these damned boots off.

Pork turned around so his back was to the dead man, grabbed the boot again, and pulled. The bushes on the edge of the glade suddenly rustled and two men appeared in front of the frightened cowherd. The first was tall, redheaded, and old. With a sword and a funny skirt. The second was chubby with a face overgrown with bristles. He had an axe.

“A logger,” muttered Pork.

He also realized that the strangers had come at a really bad time. Just when all his riches were heaped in a single pile. Of course, they had to come for them now.

“Mine!” screeched the cowherd as he vacillated between the pile of stuff and the boots that were still attached to the corpse.

Then, realizing that there was no way he could deal with the men, he ran away from both them and his pile, shrieking with resentment and fear.

“Who was that, screw a toad?” asked Luk through the arm of his shirt, which was pressed up against his nose and mouth.

The carrion stank so badly that he was afraid he would pass out.

“It’s obviously not a living corpse. Usually they run toward you, not away,” Ga-Nor replied sarcastically.

“Melot only knows. He looked like a—”

“A looter. It’s a pity he ran away.”

“Why?”

“Because we could have asked him some questions. And also because he might get it into his head to lead someone here. We’re leaving. Move!”

Luk raised no objection. He regarded it as the greatest fortune that he was allowed to quit the putrid glade where the dead (definitely dead, thank Melot!) bodies were lying.

Ga-Nor set off at a run. The guard was panting but he did not lag behind. They kept up that tempo for about ten minutes. Finally, the northerner stopped, hopped into the underbrush, and disappeared. Luk nervously stayed where he was.

“Am I going to have to wait long for you?” The disgruntled face of the tracker appeared from out of the thicket.

“How was I supposed to know that I should go in there too?” the soldier said as he crawled under cover.

“Look.”

“Where?”

The Son of the Snow Leopard shifted a branch.

“There.”

Beyond the edge of the thicket stretched a small field, and beyond he could clearly see the village laid out along the shores of the river. Luk was so overjoyed at this sight that he didn’t immediately notice the search tower where the figure of an archer, just barely visible from such a distance, stood, nor did he notice the patrol of three soldiers walking through the houses.

“Now you owe me two sorens.”

Luk mentioned his toad in a dispirited way. The money was a trifle. To the Abyss with it! The Nabatorians were far worse than losing a bet. Were they really fated to make their way through the forests and swamps all the way to Al’sgara?

“I’d rather die here,” he groaned.

“Hold off on dying. Wait.”

“We can’t think of something just sitting here.”

“I’m not asking you to think. I’m asking you to wait. We need to stay for a while and watch. It’s too early to leave. We’ll wait until nightfall, and then we’ll see.”

“There’s no way we can slip through the village unnoticed.”

“Nonsense!” spat Ga-Nor. “Just look at them. What are they guarding, and what do they have to fear? Especially from this direction. If it wanted to, a Snow Troll could slip into that village, to say nothing of a man. Look now! They seem to have caught wind of us.”

Luk watched as ten riders galloped across the field from the village. One of the horses had two riders. The first was a Nabatorian soldier, but the second, judging by his bright shirt, was the very same lad they had frightened away from the glade. At the edge of the forest the soldiers drew in their reins, jumped down from the horses, left one of their own behind to watch over them, and disappeared into the trees.

“Won’t they find us?” Luk shifted in the grass and, just in case, hugged his axe even closer.

“Don’t worry. Those dolts couldn’t find a mammoth locked in a cage in broad daylight. Besides, we’re not at all where we should be, according to them. They’ll search a bit then settle down. They won’t go far into the forest.”

“Perhaps they’re persistent.”

“Did you see their gait? Cavalry. What do they know about the forest? They’ll just leap about and bellow at the top of their lungs. They’d get lost in their grandmother’s vegetable patch. Are you looking for a fight?”

“I’ve had enough fights today. I’ll be happy just so long as they don’t find us. But what if they know how to read tracks?”

Ga-Nor’s face twisted up contemptuously, clearly indicating that he hadn’t expected such an unpardonably stupid idea from Luk.

“One of them might keep at it like a stubborn fool. We’re just lying here. We can’t see what they’re doing. What if someone suddenly comes up from behind?” asked Luk.

The northerner gave this conjecture the thought it deserved and then sighed deeply.

“All right. For the sake of your nerves I’ll go and check. You have an unsettling habit of making people doubt their own strengths.”

“I’ve been cautious since childhood,” Luk justified himself.

“Rest here. And, for the love of Ug, keep your head down until I return.”

He disappeared into the tall grass. Luk waited for him, sweating from nervousness. The northerner returned after about twenty minutes, just not from the direction the guard expected.

“Well, what of it?”

“I told you—they’re only good for braiding their horses’ tails, not for roaming about forests. They poked around and didn’t find anyone. Then they gave that lad a few good smacks about the head for dragging them there for nothing.”

In point of fact, the men returned from the forest just then. They greeted their horses, mounted them, and turned back the way they had come at a much slower pace.

“Thank Ug it was boneheaded cavalrymen that came searching for us, and not a scouting party. They would have examined every blade of grass before they left. But those guys—idiots!”

All was quiet and peaceful in the village. The cavalry had disappeared behind the houses, the archer was slowly roasting in his tower, and the patrols were sauntering along the outskirts of the village. Ga-Nor left and returned three more times.

“So, are we setting out when it’s dark?”

“I’m setting out. You are going to wait here for me.”

He was right. On a nighttime excursion Luk would be more hindrance than help. So the guard didn’t even think to object. It was hard enough to keep up with the northerner. And it was beyond his skill to do it quietly, leaving as little trace as possible.

“Bring me something to eat, will you? My belly’s full of spiderwebs.”

“You ate this morning.”

“So in your opinion, a crust of bread and a bit of cheese rind is food? I can suffer through the night, but I’ll drop dead of hunger without some scraps by morning.”

“And where am I going to get it for you? Should I stroll into the inn and buy some? Or waltz over to the Nabatorians and beg some off of them?”

“I’m just saying that if the possibility should arise to… um… borrow something edible, I would be really happy. I would pray for the health and life of your family until the end of time.”

“I don’t have a family.”

“Oh.” Luk, realizing he’d made an awkward blunder, frowned but then suddenly hit upon the answer. “Well, then I’ll just pray for you, and also I’ll—”

“Be quiet, you windbag,” the Son of the Snow Leopard cut him off genially. “You’re messing up my count.”

“What are you counting?” The soldier tore himself away from his contemplation of the pastoral landscape of the village and its surroundings and finally turned toward the northerner.

“The Nabatorians. I need to know how many patrols are here.”

“There are three men on the tower. One is always on the lookout, while two others, I think, sit on the floor. Probably playing dice. It’s a smart arrangement. If someone attacks, they’ll think the archer is alone up until the last moment. You can’t see them. They change shift every two hours. There are four patrols. Three men in each. The time between the first and the second, and the third and the fourth, is about ten minutes. It’s almost twenty between the second and the third. They rarely look around. The third patrol once paused for a half an hour. The darkness knows what they were doing. Just hung around not moving. It’s always the same men. The sentries walk around the borders of Dog Green. It’s the usual arrangement for an occupied village. I can’t say anything about the actual number of Nabatorians. We’re at the farthest end of the village. Judging by the houses and all those fields, not too many people live here. I might be able to get a better idea from a different vantage point.”

While Luk was talking, Ga-Nor was looking at him in shock, his eyes narrowed. The northerner hadn’t expected such attention to detail from his companion.

“What are you looking at?” asked the soldier gruffly. “I haven’t grown horns yet.”

“How did you notice of all of that?”

“What do you think I am? A complete idiot? Unable to do anything besides play dice? I spent many years serving in the garrison of the Towers. You never trained with the men posted on the Wings. We drilled constantly. We had to be familiar with the faces of everyone in the area. Who drives what. Who visits whom. How to sniff out contraband. You scouts think we’re all just trash, but we—”

“You left the Gates open,” the tracker finished mercilessly.

Luk wanted to say something nasty in return, but at the last moment he just waved his hand at his companion, turned his back to him, and did not speak to him until evening.

Night fell warm and clear. The moon had not yet appeared, but due to the thousands of stars strewn across the sky, there was enough light. Luk was lying in a secluded forest hideout, and the bushes industriously hid him from outside eyes.

Ga-Nor had left more than an hour ago, and the soldier was getting nervous. The shirt on his back was soaked with sweat. Plus, his stomach was aching from anxiety. In his solitude, he’d managed to think through all the alternatives that would account for the tracker’s extended absence ten times. The worst of them was that the Son of the Snow Leopard had been killed. That would mean that staying in his hideout was dangerous. If the Nabatorians began searching in earnest, they’d let out the dogs. Or someone worse. Then it wouldn’t matter if he hid or not—they’d find him all the same.

Dread seized his throat, squeezing it so that it became hard to breathe. Luk almost made a break for it, but he willed himself to stay put, closed his eyes, and began slowly counting to ten.

Don’t even think of fleeing. He couldn’t allow himself that kind of cowardice. Abandoning the northerner would be low. He’d done too much for him.

He looked at the sleeping village once again. Not a soul. No movement. No light shining from the houses. Here, just as in any other village, they were early to bed, early to rise. Summer was the time for work. They had no love for idlers. Luk recalled a saying of his grandfather, “If you sleep in during the summer, you’ll go hungry in the winter.”

The loud shriek of a nocturnal bird made him flinch, and all extraneous thoughts flew out of his head. Luk hated the forest with all his heart. He didn’t understand it, and he was afraid of it. The constant rustling in the crowns of the trees. The odd screeching, so reminiscent of the wailing of a child. Every now and then, the trees took on the forms of dreadful monsters. Burning eyes looked out at him from the roots of an oak tree. There were ominous shadows everywhere. The soldier didn’t know where he would rather spend the night if fate gave him a choice—in the forest or in a graveyard. After a moment’s consideration, Luk chose the graveyard. At least there he knew what it was he had to fear.

The guard made out the figure of a man only when it was less than five yards away. He grabbed his axe and jumped into a fighting pose, intending to sell his life dearly.

“Calm down.”

“Screw a toad! You’re alive!”

“Follow me. But be quiet,” whispered the northerner. A bag was hanging over his shoulder. “I found a safe place.”

It took quite a long time to get to this “safe place.” When Ga-Nor led Luk out of the forest the village houses were within easy reach.

Luk glanced at his companion in bewilderment.

“You mean to tell me that it’s less dangerous here than in the woods?”

“Not here. At the mill.”

“It doesn’t look abandoned,” said the soldier skeptically, studying the building next to the river.

“I didn’t say that.”

Luk wanted to object that it was idiotic to hang about where the locals might see them, but the Son of the Snow Leopard was already standing by the waterwheel.

“What, they don’t lock the doors?”

“Who’s going to steal? Everyone knows everyone else. And the Nabatorians wouldn’t steal from themselves. They need bread, too. Get in.”

The northerner shut the door firmly behind them. He struck a fire and lit the wick of a lantern standing on the floor. Then he closed the metal shutter so that the night watch wouldn’t accidentally see the light.

“You already took a look around?” It hadn’t escaped Luk’s notice that the tracker was already well acquainted with the layout of the building.

“Yes. See that staircase? Go up.”

The staircase wound its way past enormous gears and millstones. The second floor was full of machinery. It smelled appealingly of grain and flour.

The Son of the Snow Leopard picked up a ladder that was resting on the floor, leaned it against the wall, and checked it for stability.

“Go on.”

There was a wooden trapdoor in the ceiling that led to the attic.

“They’ll find us here,” the guard predicted gloomily.

“They won’t. I checked. It’s been two months since anyone’s poked their head in here. It’s far safer here than in the forest. As safe as Ug’s bosom. And besides, most of the village is laid out before our eyes from this spot. Climb.”

Luk still had his doubts, but all the same he climbed up the rungs and pushed at the heavy hatch. He crawled through and took his axe from the northerner.

The attic smelled of dust and discarded objects, and slightly of bird dung.

“Tell me, won’t the miller miss his lantern in the morning?”

“It’s not the miller’s. Some farmer might be missing it though,” said the tracker, chuckling into his red mustache.

He took the ladder away and put it back in its place. Then he jumped up smoothly, grabbed the edge of the hatch, and pulled himself up into the attic.

Ga-Nor lowered the trapdoor in place. It slammed shut, raising a cloud of dust into the air.

“We should put something on top of it. So that no one can climb up. Come on, help me.”

In one of the corners there was a pile of broken, rusted hoes, pitchforks, scythes, and other scraps of iron. The kinds of things you would find in an attic. Even a small, cracked millstone was lying there. It had to weigh at least three hundred pounds. The damned miller couldn’t bear to throw his trash away, and so with the usual peasant frugality, he’d stored it. Perhaps it would come in handy someday.

The two of them dragged the millstone over and put it on top of the hatch.

“There. Now we can sleep soundly. Take a load off,” said the northerner as he spread out his hands.

Only now did Luk take a proper look around. The planks on the floor and on the slanted walls were rough. Unsanded. You could get a splinter from them easy as pie. Fly-speckled cobwebs had accumulated in the corners of the attic. Opposite him, against the background of the already brightening sky, gleamed the large rectangle of a window. It didn’t have a frame, or even any glass. It was simply a hole cut in the wall. In winter this place was sure to be full of snow.

Luk approached the window and sat on his haunches. Below him was the river, and in front, the village. Just as good as an observation tower. The view wasn’t any worse.

“Come morning only a blind man wouldn’t notice us.”

“Well, you could bare your ass for them. Then they’d be able to see you a league away. Get away from the window, you ninny.”

“What do you want to see from here?”

“Anything I can. Here. Take this.”

Ga-Nor tossed the bag to his friend. It held a smoked mutton leg, the heel of an onion with five green offshoots, just as many apples, a small pot of honey, and a turnip.

“Oh!” the guard cried in delight, and his belly rumbled in welcome. “And who was nice enough to share with you?”

“A barn and the nearby vegetable patches. I couldn’t get any bread.”

“You mean you pinched it.” Luk grunted approvingly, cutting into the meat with his knife. “That’s as it should be. Asking or buying would be dangerous. What if the locals reported it to the soldiers? Best to keep on the way we’ve been going. Very sneaky. Take what they put down and carry it off.”

“Very sneaky,” grumbled the Son of the Snow Leopard. “I almost gave my soul back to Ug. Besides the patrols, there was an ambush I didn’t notice. Very well hidden. I stumbled right into them. They were just as astonished as I was.”

“Did you get them all?”

“I did. But I was sweating as I dragged the bodies to the river and erased my tracks. They’ll be missed come morning. They’ll start combing the surrounding forest. It’s getting serious now.”

“They could also search the village.”

“Unlikely. The Nabatorians are thick on the ground here. While I was running around the gardens and fields, I tried to count them. They’re in nearly every house. On the eastern side, by the road, there’s a barracks. And a bit farther on something like a fort or a stronghold. They’re even working on it at night. They’re entrenching themselves. Our foolish troops are sitting around catching flies, and they’re going to be swimming in blood soon.”

As Luk listened to the tale of his companion’s adventures, he didn’t neglect to eat. He became warm and comfortable from the food. He began nodding off.

The soldier had just about succumbed to sleep when a terrified dog howled in the village. A second one joined in. Then a third. Then more and more.

Luk sprung to his feet. Creeping horrors ran up his spine. For some reason the howling seemed sinister.

“What are they howling for?”

“I don’t know. Sleep,” said the tracker without opening his eyes.

“They’re not doing it just for the fun of it. Listen to them!”

The bleak howls of the pack of dogs ascended to the heavens, echoed off the clouds and swept through the river valley, disrupting the predawn quiet. It seemed like the earth itself was groaning and trembling from the sound. The guard wanted to cover his ears with his hands. Just so he didn’t have to hear that.

“Our elders say that when a single dog howls, it’s sick. But when they all do disaster awaits,” said Ga-Nor after a brief pause.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Just what I said.” The Son of the Snow Leopard rolled over onto his other side. “Sleep. It’ll be morning soon.”

Then, as if by an invisible command, the howling ceased.

The tracker had been snoring for a long time, but there was no way Luk could sleep. The howls of the dogs were still ringing in his ears.