The Unforsaken Hiero

XI. IN THE TAIG

It was late summer noon again in the north. Clouds of tiny gnats and midges swirled in the shafts of sunlight slanting down through the great trees. Here and there, blankets of leaf shadow fell, where the multitudes of conifers had yielded to some deciduous giant, a mutated maple or poplar, creating an even deeper shade than that cast by the needles of the mighty pines. In favored places, huge thickets sprouted among outcroppings of lichened dolomite or granite; blueberries, myrtles, and countless other plants sprang up to grasp at the sunlight wherever the trees could not find sufficient soil to root.

In the leaf mold under one such shaded place, the camp had been pitched, and an argument was in process. The two Mantans were not there, being out on the perimeters on watch. Hiero was confronting his brother priests, and the four catfolks were off to one side, considering this matter none of their business. They played with their knives and watched the three humans with slitted eyes, content to wait on events.

“Look, Hiero,” Maluin said earnestly, “we’ve seen nothing. Not one sign of anything. Not one trace, not one piece of evidence that there is any movement in these parts. We are well south of any trail used by our people. We apparently are also well to the west of the area where you first encountered the enemy last year. This country is simply empty! There is nothing here. So I’ll ask you again, why are we hanging around? I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to go home. I want to move, go somewhere where we can be useful, do something. You know I will follow anywhere you say. But what is the reason for this dawdling, this staying here in one area, and a damned small area at that? You say this is the proper place, and God knows, I’m not disputing your experience. But could you please give me a reason! Per Sagenay feels the same way. Neither of us is new to the enemy or life up here. Why treat us as if we were new-joined recruits and dumb ones to boot?” He leaned back and lighted his short clay pipe again. He was the only one who smoked; as he held the spark lighter in his huge fist, he looked like the epitome of casual strength, relaxed and yet forceful. He watched Hiero narrowly over the pipe bowl, and Hiero had some trouble in meeting his eyes.

“I gather you feel the same, Per Sagenay?”

“No-oh,” was the answer, given in equable tones. “Yet you have not asked me to try to read the symbols. This is one of my small talents, and while I will, as Per Maluin has been careful to point out, obey any and all instructions that you care to give us, still I am a little puzzled. No forelooking and no sign that some of the greatest foresters of the North can discern. But you feel that we should linger in this precise spot, as if we awaited something. Perhaps if you shared some of your thoughts with us, we might be able to help.” The soft, clear voice fell silent, and, like Malum, Sagenay lounged back on the bank of moss which shrouded the upthrust of rock behind them.

Hiero stood and stretched, then reseated himself. In the silence that followed, he seemed to be listening to the bird song which welled around them, his eyes for the nonce cast down. Finally he spoke.

“I could tell you all sorts of things, bring up the past, mention that I am a sensitive, and still tell you nothing. I’ll be honest and say I simply don’t know anything. We have been on the trail for almost three weeks. Two days ago, I felt—no other word for it-felt that this area we are in was crucial, that we ought to stay here. I can’t tell you why. I don’t know why. There is inimical life here somewhere; I feel it, I sense it, in some way I can’t explain. There is also something else, Something is coming here. The catfolk don’t see it, you two don’t, nor do the Mantans, who excel all of us combined in woodcraft. But I do! We are at some sort of meeting place. I know it. For years, all of this area has been a blank to the Abbeys. We operate west of it and north of it. To the southeast lies the Palood and the Inland Sea. This angle is unknown. You know all that. I tell you, something is building here. I won’t permit your talent, Per Sagenay, for one reason. The enemy has learned what I could do. We don’t know what they can do, what they could have taught themselves in the past year. One of the things about the talent for forelooking that almost got me killed in the past is that it leaves one’s own mind open. I won’t have it! We are on the verge, the border, of some vast movement. Our business here is to probe it, not to let it know of us at all. I have sensed out and over a wide area. This forest about us is a blank indeed. A mental blank! No such thing should occur. Oh, the younger life, the Grokon, the deer, the hares, all are here. But they are muted, quiescent, and in far fewer numbers than they should be. Only the tiny, innocuous creatures—the birds, the mice, the insects—are in norma! numbers.” He leaned back and rested on one elbow. Then he added, “You will, I fear, have to take me on trust. Something is going to happen here, and we must wait for it.”

It was Sagenay who finished the argument. “Per Desteen, you are the leader. All else is unimportant. Those who spread evil are all about us, and you are not only our commander but our chief warning signal. I have no more to say. Your thoughts are the only ones that matter.”

The quiet voice left an empty space behind it. Maluin grunted several times and then waved one finger at Hiero in mock warning. He, too, settled back, and the three lay silent, staring over the ashes of their tiny fire. Yet all were alert, waiting for anything that would disturb the ether, any trace of trouble, any hint that they were not alone in the seemingly innocent depths of the great continent-wide wood.

All of them were travel-stained and travel-worn. They had marched, a very long way north and east of Namcush to reach this unknown land. Not even the Mantans, veterans of a multitude of journeys in the untracked wilds, had ever roamed these parts. Their only guide now was the instinct of their leader.

Hiero had warned his comrades that they must always stay under the cloak of the trees. He remembered well that not too far to the east, he had first glimpsed and then contacted the flying device which lifted an enemy adept far aloft in the heavens. Since his reports, passed through Brother Aldo, had arrived at the central command post of the Abbeys, much thought and research had been devoted to his warning. As a result, he had some tentative information at his disposal. The thing he had seen was deemed to be an unpowered glider, a concept long lost but recorded in the central files. While its maneuverings in the air were nothing unknown in theory, no one had ever thought of a method of getting such a thing launched and up into the higher atmosphere. This was now being eagerly pursued, but as yet only the foe possessed the secret. And only Hiero had ever seen such a machine, which might mean that it was both rare and difficult to handle.

The afternoon waned. The four cat people groomed themselves and rested, and the men engaged in desultory talk. It was perhaps three hours until sundown, and still nothing disturbed the outward peace of the forest.

The interruption was sudden and silent. Reyn Mantan, his gaunt, swarthy face impassive, stood before them, looking as furtive and stealthy as some silent predator of the wood. His words, as always, were blunt and terse.

“I left Geor alone and circled camp in patrol at noon. I went east to have a scout, widen our range a little.” No one commented that this was not exactly what his orders had been. The Mantan brothers took orders as they found them and interpreted them as they chose. They were proven allies, yet not soldiers, and their experience was too great and too valuable for them to be treated as if they needed constant discipline.

Now, brushing a bed of pine needles aside, Reyn crouched and drew a crude map with his dagger point.

“We’re here, see? I went east and a bit north.” He drew a wavy line. “Here is broken rock mixed with swamp. There’s something in that area, hard to get at. Like a bad smell. I seen something like it once over to the coast.” He meant the Beesee area bordering the great western ocean, far away over the mighty mountains, the Shinies.

“It moves around, something does, in there. I can feel it shifting. Maybe more than one thing. But it don’t seem to come this way at all, only north and south, like it moves up and down in a line. Some kind of border, maybe, and some kind of guard. Want to go have a look?”

The others were on their feet now, and the catfolk had drawn closer, attracted by the excitement.

“What was the place on the coast like?” Maluin rapped. “Why do you think this is the same or at least similar?”

“Hard to tell. The place over west was more like a circle, a blotch, but there’s the same feel to it here. Like a stink you can’t smell. Bad feeling. We didn’t go into it then, me and Geor. Only a few Inyan camps in that area, and they didn’t go nowhere near the place. Too scared. If we hadn’t been in a hurry then, we might have tried. Up to you folks what you want done. I only tell what I seen.”

Hiero thought hard. One of the greatest forest rangers of the North had found something inexplicable and was conveying his dislike of it. The man might not be a telepath of any kind, but his countless forays against the Unclean must have honed every sense he possessed to a razor’s edge in the process. Like a stink you can’t smell! What better way of describing some emanation of the enemy? Perhaps even a mental evil which the untutored but alert woodsrunner could only dimly detect. Hiero made up his mind quickly.

“Call your brother in and well march. Make it slow. Reyn, you lead out. No one use the mind touch at all!” He explained in a few thoughts to the Children of the Wind what he wanted, and they moved off in moments. All that had to be done was to don the light packs and adjust weapons more comfortably. This was a group which was never off guard or unready for an instant alert.

For an hour, they drifted like shadows of the wilderness through the forest giants. Reyn, soon joined by his brother Geor, stayed in front, and there were no flankers. The others were in a small, loose clump to the rear. Suddenly their guide checked and held up one arm. At Hiero’s signal, they spread out and lay prone in the nearest cover. He positioned himself behind a huge, rotten tree stump and shut his eyes.

Ever so carefully, his mind began to reach out before them into the region which Reyn Mantan had described and which they could now see with their own eyes.

It was a type of country all of them had crossed before and was not uncommon in the North. Acid soil and low-lying ground surrounded outcrops of rotting stone, the latter often crowned with scrub. Broad patches of oily-looking, dark water glistened here and there in the light of the sun of late afternoon. Trees were few and those often dead and leafless, but many clumps of tall cattails and other reedy grasses obscured the view where the waters lay.

All of them noticed something else. The belt of marsh and scrub was curiously silent. No waterfowl, such as herons, duck, or rail, called from the reeds, and only a slight wind sighed through them. The wind was from, the north and, though gentle, made a faint, hissing rustle as it bent the tall stems. The group had come to a silent land.

Out and out, Hiero reached with his mind, concentrating on holding the most delicate touch possible, so that his mental probe would appear as no more than a feather in the wind—more of a caress than a stroke, more of a stray current of air than anything solid. As he did so, he scanned all the various wavelengths he had memorized in the past, shifting up and down from those of the lowest insects to those possessing the highest of intelligence. Out and out, infinitely slowly, holding the probe to a close range and concentrating only on the immediate area to their front.

Contact! He drew back at once and then carefully advanced again, his thought now targeted on a certain place. The contact moved; as the hunter had reported, that movement was neither toward them nor away, but following some invisible line which lay athwart their own course from east to west. He felt a sense of disgust, almost physical, and knew at once he had found the source of the “stink you can’t smell.”

He was not actually in touch with a mind, but rather with a presence, almost a shifting id, an emotional center of some foul kind. Whatever it was, its rnind was guarded, but the guard was not that of the mechanical shields used by the Unclean upper ranks. This was natural to it and was perhaps a weapon against prey which might be mentally sensitive.

Still, an impression came through—a very ugly one. There was intense rage there, rage at some kind of control which the thing-could not overcome. There was also malice and ferocity combined, cunning and deception, and above all—hunger! The feel of what he had sensed made Hiero wince. Not since his encounter with the vampire fungus he had named the House had he felt such avid desire for prey of some kind. This entity wanted to feed, to rend, to break and shatter, to shred some helpless life from its physical body and then to absorb it, bloodily and obscenely. It made the man think of an intelligent hyena in its self-absorption with death and the consequences of sating itself with the slain. But it was not being allowed to do what it wished, and therein lay the source of its rage. It had to stay within certain boundaries and it could not go where it wanted. Was it a barrier guardian of a strange and awful kind?

Hiero considered; while he did so, he used the lesser bands of small birds and insects to try to learn a little more about the area. The mixture of swamp and scrub-strewn rock and shale seemed to extend a very long way to the north and south. Probably trying to circle and bypass it would prove little and would take a lot of time. He was worried about time. The Republic’s leaders needed hard information, and so far his group had not been able to provide any.

At length his mind was made up, and he signaled the others to withdraw, back the way they had come. After fifteen minutes of marching, he gathered them around hirn in a circle and explained what he had found. He also sketched his plans for dealing with it and gave orders.

The three soldier-priests remained where they were, occasionally speaking in low tones. The catfolk and the two Mantan brothers had vanished in the wood to their rear, and there was nothing to do except watch the light wane in the west and listen with all of their senses.

“It is—or perhaps they are—hungry, ravenous,” Hiero said. “I suspect this is some kind of Unclean boundary that holds them, or it, in place. I think the thing has eaten out the area and is not thinking too clearly, if it has a mind capable of thinking. The two brothers know all the game of the North better than any other living men. They can show B’uorgh and his cats what to drive when they find it. There’s not much in the area, but there must be something: if there is, they’ll get it.”

After what seemed an interminable time, Hiero picked up the mental wave he sought: and breathed a sigh of relief. “Hide yourselves. They’ve got something, and it’s being chased this way. I just hope the trees don’t check the Children too much. They are really plains hunters.”

Concealing themselves, the other two waited tensely. Soon they also could hear the crashing of undergrowth and the beat of hooves in the distance. The frightened herbivore which Hiero had detected was indeed being herded in their direction. The Children of the Wind were not using the Wind of Death, but only their own speed, moving in a line, showing themselves where needed, stopping any gaps when the quarry tried to leave its line and check back. It was now panic-stricken, dreading both the hunters behind and the region it was being forced to enter in front. It did not want to go forward! Following the chase with his mind, Hiero marveled anew at the skill of the cat people as they headed the beast off again and again. Behind them, the two human hunters made the best speed they could, racing to try to keep up and be in. at the climax.

Then the three priests saw it, bolting across a lane of sunlight under a clump of towering pines and into the shadows on the other side. They all knew the animal well—a great, striped buck, not unlike the extinct wapiti, the American elk of the lost ages, but with two-pronged antlers, now only soft stubs. Hiero suppressed his pity for the hapless prey. It was bait, and they rose as one man and followed on its slot, knowing the catfolk would wait for them on the border of the sinister marsh.

Panting, the two Mantans arrived in time to join them as they caught up with their furry allies. All crouched to listen and peer over the bog and brush tangle before them. The big deer had given up, and its tracks were plain in the mud before them where it had charged into the uncanny wilderness, the terror of those behind driving it to risk whatever lay in front.

Hiero listened with his mind. The onslaught of whatever lurked out there suddenly blended in his brain with an audible cry of agony as the killer struck. Now they could all hear the threshing uproar of the death throes; mingled with that was a new sound, a chuckling growl, vast and ominous, through which ran a purring note as well, a menacing evil to human audition. Even the proud felines laid back their ears at that noise.

All had their weapons ready, and the Mantans now had caught their breath. No further signal was needed. As one body, they all ran for the marsh, moving as silently as they could, leaping over patches of mud, avoiding the shallow pools, and utilizing the out-croppings of rock wherever possible. Ahead of them, the struggle had ceased, but the snarling was now replaced by a new sound—the crunch and snap of mighty jaws, clearly audible through the hush of early evening.

The little band was very close. Suddenly the sounds ceased, and they knew they had been detected. They ran for their lives, hoping for a clear space in the mixture of mud, rock, and thicket, careless of what noise they made. As they ran, they spread out automatically. Almost simultaneously, they arrived at their target and abruptly halted at the sight before them.

The marsh opened here and formed a small swale, treeless and covered with some rank, brown grass, rooted in ankle-deep water. In the middle of this watery meadow lay the bloody, dismembered carcass of the stag, and over that reared its killer, glaring at them from mad eyes.

It vaguely resembled a colossal bear in general shape as it stood, swaying on columnar hind legs; but if the bear family had ever played any remote part in its ancestry, the horrid transmutation of the atom had long since changed the pattern out of resemblance. It was almost hairless, the leathery bide a dirty, mottled gray. The huge head was short-muzzled, and the naked ears were minute, lying flat against the skull. Long bunches of wiry bristle sprouted above and on either side of the gaping jaws, which were packed with monstrous, shearing teeth, blood-flecked and dripping. The bulging, reddish eyes glittered with insane fury, but there was also intelligence under the lowering brow. The proof of this lay in the torn-off club of broken wood, a man’s height in length, which the thing gripped in one mighty paw; the forelimbs, though they bore great claws, carried these on crooked hands, five-fingered and with working thumbs!

In the brief second while the monster and the hunters took each another in, Hiero remembered the Abbey lessons of long ago. The notes had been few and those scanty indeed in detail, for those who glimpsed this horror of the Taig seldom lived to tell of it. This was the Were-bear, the grim night gaunt of the dark, known mostly by its ghastly after-trail, the haunter of the shades, the invisible death whom none could overcome. It lived by ambush and stealth; the ruins of some small cabin or the shredded remains of a hunting party, found long after the slaughter, were its usual traces. Fortunately, the deadly things were very rare and thought to be solitary in nature. All this flashed through Hiero’s mind in the mere flicker of an instant as battle was joined.

Three missiles flashed across the air as one. The Mantans fired their blowguns at the same time that Sagenay loosed a slender arrow. The two small darts buried themselves in the bloody snout while the shaft from the longbow sank deep in the belly hide.

The horror screamed, a piercing shriek, high and yet mind-shattering in its sheer volume. Clutching the club and still erect, it shambled toward them, water and mud flying from the strides of the great, flat hind feet as it came. Its speed was deceptively fast. It was aiming straight for Per Edard Maluin, perhaps because he was the largest and at the center of their ragged line.

The Children of the Wind raced for the creature’s flanks, two to a side, the shallow, splashing water hardly slowing their speed at all. Hiero saw M’reen swerve like lightning to avoid the stroke of the tree limb aimed at her. The next instant, all four were slashing at the brute’s haunches with their long knives, drawing blood at every stroke, dipping and darting like hornets, as it checked itself and tried to deal with them.

The Mantans and Sagenay fired again, and once more the arrow sank deep and the darts feathered themselves in the frightful head. Hiero was close now and he hurled his heavy, crossbarred spear into the middle of the muddy, twisting paunch. The hoarse grunting of the Were-bear again rose in an awful coughing scream as the broad spearhead drank deep. He saw a rolling, crimson eye, distended with pain and fury, turn down at him and he ducked, splashing away in the sedge and liquid mud the fury had churned up. Another arrow drove into the center of the wild orb. God, hut Sagenay was a great archer! Would the damned thing never die?

It towered up, dropping the useless club and clutching at its tormented face, to let out one last choking howl. Then it fell forward, splashing them all with a sea of water and filth, mingled with its own gore. It died. There was not even a twitch of rigor, just the vast corpse, prone in a wallow of muck and torn plant stems, while nine panting entities stood, weapons still poised, and looked at one another.

“You are an amazing shot, Per Sagenay,” Hiero said to the younger man. “And you, too, gentlemen,” he added, nodding to the Mantans. “I think that your venom slowed the brute down. It was more confused than I had been led to believe these monsters were supposed to be.”

He sent his own message of praise to the Children of the Wind, using their mental channel, and he could feel the pride in their response.

“I never got close enough,” Maluin grumbled, lowering the billhook.

“It was aimed right at you when my friends halted it, you big oaf,” Hiero said. “Another second and you would have had plenty to do. Now everyone be silent while I use mind search.”

He was none too soon! Almost at once, the expression on his face and the tenseness of his body had all the others alerted, their weapons lifted anew.

A voice he had not heard for many months beat into his brain like a hammer on an anvil. Watch out, Hiero! Another one comes fast from the north! We are following, hut beware… 1

At the same time, the Metz caught the wave of black anger and killing rate which he had noted from the monstrous brute, only half an hour before. Its mate! He spun, cursing the dying light and facing to his left. The rest of his troop whirled also, and thus the second attack did not catch them totally off their guard.

The new menace burst from the screen of brush and charged, fangs agape, down upon them. It ran on its hind legs, and the vast, lumbering strides brought it on at a pace a racing hopper might have envied. Each of the giant arms bore a mighty burden. As the ghoul-thing came, it hurled a great rock from one of them with deadly aim.

Perhaps the onset of age had begun to stiffen B’uorgh’s sinews; perhaps one of his lightning shifts, by plain bad luck, was in the wrong direction. The boulder—for it was nothing less—struck the catman chief with a sickening crunch and hurled him aside like a castoff doll, useless and discarded. M’reen’s high scream of rage and sorrow rose above the triumphant bellow of the enemy.

Once more, one of Sagenay’s bronze-tipped shafts sank home, though this time he struck an arm. The darts of the brothers Mantan hissed again; at this range, they could not miss. But their poison, so lethal to normal life, seemed to work very slowly on this alien flesh. Hiero had wrenched the spear from the corpse of his late foe and now stood erect upon the giant body itself, waiting to meet this fresh attack, trying to free his limbs of weariness in the seconds remaining before it closed. The gray light of dusk made the appearance of the demon hard to discern, and he knew that it was a creature of the shadows, the vague outline not the least of its weapons. Beside him, but lower down and braced for battle, his strong legs slightly bent, Maluin also awaited the onslaught, his fell weapon held two-handedly and cocked over his left shoulder. Then the monster was upon them, and they ceased to think.

The second rock the creature clutched was a long slab of granite; it did not hurl this, but used it like a club, as its mate had wielded the shattered tree limb. Hiero flung his spear but heard it ring on stone, even as the monster struck at him. He tried to duck, holding his shield high, but the grazing touch of the great rock swept him off his feet, left arm numbed to the shoulder, and pitched him down the side of the dead beast and into the marsh below.

Again he heard the bellow of triumph start; but as he tried to stagger erect and free his sword, he heard the awful cry rise to an impossible pitch of pain. On his feet once more, he saw what had happened.

As the second Were-bear stooped to crush Hiero’s life away, Edard Maluin had seen his chance and leaped in. The huge billhook scythed down in a terrible stroke upon the left arm of the monster. The vast, deformed hand, severed at the wrist, flew away into the haze and murk, and a gout of blackish blood spouted and spat red through the evening air.

As the titan turned on Maluin, Hiero struck at its haunch with his heavy short sword, but his aim was off, and it seemed to him the stroke was slow and feeble. He tried to recover, noting almost absently that another of Sagenay’s arrows had driven home in the gray hide. It will kill us all before it dies, a remote part of his mind decided. Half in a dream, he watched as the ghastly head, turned back to him; he saw the yellow fangs, crusted with dried foam, as the monster moved forward and down to crush the pigmy who had defied it.

He was spun aside like a top and hurled yards away on his back, the sword flying out of his grip as he went. Helpless and with his eyes full of muddy liquid, he did not see what the others saw and thus missed the final event.

A great, black beast cut through the sedges with the speed of a pike darting through waterweed. Driven by a bulk not much less than that of the Were-bear and brushing Hiero aside in the process with its shoulder, the new arrival smashed into the enemy with the precision and force of a battering ram. The last, frantic bound carried two great, razor-edged feet smack into the space between the eyes of the northern horror. As they went home, the awful cracking noise cut off the gross snarling of the monster, ending its evil life instantly.

Frantically trying to get up on his feet, brush the mud from his eyes, and rejoin the battle, Hiero became conscious of a vast foreleg on which he seemed to be leaning. As he tried to deal with this most familiar but long-absent concept, an enormous tongue swept over his face and a wave of sweet breath enveloped his head. Then he knew!

“Klootz, you miserable, slab-sided piece of worthless dog meat! What do you mean by frightening me like that?” He pounded softly on the great barrel, his eyes shut to keep the ready tears locked within. How many thousand leagues had the great beast come, to home in on him and find him in the midst of a life-or-death struggle? He blinked at length and saw the long neck turn round and down again; once more the morse’s tongue care-washed his face in a mighty swipe.

He wiped his eyes and managed to stagger away from his friend’s side and stare about hirn, Maluin leaned on his bill a few yards off, covered with mud, but seemingly otherwise undamaged. He winked at Hiero, then began to brush himself and his weapon clean as best he could, whistling softly to himself. The Mantans and Sagenay were plucking their darts and arrows from the hides of the dead terrors, cleansing them in the marsh water and restoring them tidily to their quivers. Then Hiero saw the three young catfolk gathered around something silent in the sedges and he remembered that B’uorgh was dead. He was about to go to them when suddenly a very irritated voice burst into his mind, and he halted in his tracks, so that Klootz, who was following behind, almost ran over him.

Hiero, if all that mess is cleaned up, I would appreciate your telling your friends that I am not a target for all those things they shoot. Then I will be able to come out from behind this rock. As Hiero reeled with the realization of what and whom he was hearing, the mind voice went on, somehow conveying an acid tone. Klootz didn’t do it all, you know!

Breathlessly, Hiero spoke. “All of you, listen. A new friend of ours is here. Don’t shoot, for God’s sake! He helped bring Klootz to us.”

They all turned and looked with keen interest at the burly, rolling shape, coated in dark brown fur, which now emerged from a thicket to the north and ambled down their way. None looked with more interest than Hiero. It had been a long time since they had parted, far away in the South, after the destruction of both the House and the buried city of the ancients.

He saw that Gorrn had changed and he wondered what changes the young bear saw in him. Gorm was perceptibly larger and also leaner, indeed almost drawn-looking. He had nowhere near the bulk he would attain someday—of that the Metz was sure—but he was a powerful animal now and he radiated a surety and inner strength which had not been there before.

The bear reached Hiero’s side and rose on his hind legs until his small eyes were higher than the man’s. His tongue barely touched Hiero’s nose, and then he dropped back to all fours again and woofed gently. A nice sort of thing you go about looking for, I must say, his thought came. Lucky that Klootz scented you somehow and told me. We’ve been trying to cross this area for days now, but we knew there were two of them and we couldn’t risk it. You lost a friend over there, Hiero. Better go see what you can do. They need some comfort. Then we have to get out of here fast.

Marveling at the speed and accuracy of Gorm’s mental images, Hiero walked over to where the silent catfolk stood over the fallen chief. B’uorgh must have been killed instantly, for his whole rib cage was crushed. His fierce visage was unmarred, though, and he seemed to be smiling grimly, as if his death and indeed the whole universe were only one more bitter jest.

Hiero put his arm over M’reen’s drooping shoulders and addressed the three on their own private wavelength.

He was a great warrior. He died as he would have wished, in the fight against our ancient foes, yours and mine. When you return to the Pride—and when I return also—we will sing a song for him that all will learn as cubs and remember as long as the Pride shall live. Now, let us put aside our grief. M’reen, you are the leader now. You will tell us what to do to send him to his rest. But we must hurry. He would not have wished us to delay on his account. The enemy is moving.

They lifted the body between them and bore it to dry land where, with all helping, they excavated a grave under a large stone. M’reen sang a short wailing song alone, and then Per Sagenay asked them if he might speak with his own God on behalf of the fallen warrior. Shyly, after a moment’s talk among themselves, the catfolk agreed that this would be entirely fitting, After all, Ch’uirsh sent to Hiero, we are far from the night winds over the southern plains. Your god up here can help send his spirit back down to our land, where it can finally rest.

Hiero agreed solemnly that this was a perfectly sound piece of reasoning. And, God, he added silently, You could do worse. He fell in Your battle, and I know You’1l help. He said a quiet prayer of his own, and the thing was done.

As they turned away from the lonely grave, Hiero became conscious that Gorm was growing impatient. He knew that the bear was not much of a deist and, indeed, considered all appeals to the Unknown as a waste of time. Agnosticism was not unheard of among humans, but, the man thought, it was a fresh puzzle for the Faith if it occurred among the newer breeds. He chuckled to himself, for he knew that he had a young priest in the group who would have to learn this for himself in a fairly brief time.

In a short while, they were all lounging in a circle around a tiny fire, Hiero had led them back along their previous trail and through the shrouded night for over an hour, until he deemed they were out of immediate danger and could take a rest. Outside the circle, Klootz stood silently, his vast, drooping nose flexing and sniffing, his mule ears twitching as he sought the scents and sounds carried by the wind. Already the buds of his antlers were two feet long. He looked thin, as did the bear, but he was obviously fit for anything, as the recent encounter had abundantly proved.

Gorm lay in the center, obviously enjoying the warmth of the fire, the light flickering on his thick, brown pelt. When he spoke, his speech in the minds of its recipients was so clear that ail—even, to Hiero’s intense surprise, the cat people—could understand him easily. Hiero threw a protective mind shield over the whole group with no trouble, observing with amusement that the stoic and impassive Mantan twins were frankly gaping for the first time in his experience and craning their necks to study first Gorm and then, in complete astonishment, each other. Maluin actually laughed, and a quiet smile stole over the face of Cart Sagenay.

First, I am but the forerunner of my people. The bears are coming, but it takes time. We do not live in tribes or villages, but in families. Thus, the incoming of all able to fight is not quick. The Elders have ordered it, and we are moving. We are not fast marchers and we must come far to the north and then swing south to join the human forces. We have to stay well away from the zones of the Unclean where I first met Hiero, lest we be detected and even stopped.

I was sent on ahead to carry the word to the Abbeys. As I journeyed, I heard a strange sound in the forest. He sent the mental image of a helpless fawn, calling for its mother. It was this great lump of a weed eater, bawling his head off for Hiero. Fortunately, I remembered what he sounded like and was able to contact him. He is not as stupid as he looks and told me much.

Here, Klootz snorted indignantly. Obviously, he too could understand at least some of the bear’s sarcasm. Hiero looked on, his mind more at ease than it had been for a long time. While the bear paused, considering the next thought, a vagrant message entered Hiero’s mind that was not from Gorm at all! Lazy—unknown concept—carried on my back when tired—unknown—fight! Where (/)??? needed by HIM! To his delight, Hiero realized that Klootz understood just what he was hearing and wanted his master to know it. The giant deer knew well what he was worth and was not about to be put down by his nimble-witted cohort.

Gorm continued, the silence broken only by the hiss of the little flames. Behind them, the forest wall reared up, dark and deep, a wall of black shadows. The stars blazed overhead through the gaps in the forest roof, icy-white in the night sky.

Here is what is important. I have learned, through the morse and from messengers from Brother Aldo, what has happened in the South, far away. The news is not good. We can do nothing about it, however. Our task is here. The enemy is on the march. They are moving as we sit here. They follow an arc, as do my folk, the bear people, from east to west and then south. But they move on an inner circle and have less far to go. They are no more than two easy marches behind us right now.

Maluin spoke. “Hiero, I can understand him, but I can’t talk to him. How many are coming? What does he know of their battle order?”

The answer was not encouraging. All! They bring every unit, every creature that can fight! We know many of their hidden forts and their buried places. We think they have left little but shes and young. If they be beaten, we can cleanse the North. If they are beaten! The Man-rats, the monkey-things you call the Hairy Howlers, the Devil-dogs, all will be with them. It is a great host. Can you match it? His silence then hung, pregnant with doubt, in all of their minds.

What of machines? This was Hiero. Have you any news of their powered ships? Any news of the lightning guns? Recall that thing that struck me down on the shore last year. And what of the sky? The flier that we saw long ago. Have any of those been seen and, if so, where and when?

We have watched for all of those, Gorm sent. The ship was seen once, but far to the east and some months back, not recently. We do not know how many they have. We ourselves cannot watch the sea and the islands. The Eleveners are trying, but we have no recent news. The flying thing has never been seen, save by us two on that one occasion. Perhaps they had only one and it was destroyed. The bear’s mental tone grew reflective. The Elders feel that the sky is not to their liking, perhaps, or why do they not do more with it? Why not rear broods of evil fliers of some kind? No, they like night and stealth and burrowing in the dark more than the clear air and sun. They can fight in the blaze of day, but—it is not natural to such things. They are like those two Deaths-in-the-Dark whom you slew back there in the swamp. Ambush and the stroke from behind, the unseen terror of the lightless hours, the cruel and stealthy murder of the helpless, the old and the young—those are their chosen methods!

I hope they cannot all be persuaded to fight like the enemies of God whom we just encountered!’This was the limpid, clear mind of Cart Sagenay. Hiero guessed that it would take little training to make the young priest as good a mental linguist as he was. He saw Gorm look appraisingly at the younger man.

Those, I think, were allies, and unwilling ones at that. I consider that, if we had the time, Hiero, we would find some Unclean devices, like those things they block thoughts with that they wear around their necks. Maybe they buried some such devices to hold those creatures where they had, to stay and keep watch. But we have no time for idle thoughts such as these. The enemy moves, and they are coming, direct and fast, for the main body of your forces. You know where those are. I do not. Too, there may be some good news, though vague and unclear. The Elders and the Eleveners, too, all feel the enemy is moving in haste, not along ordered lines. Something has upset them badly, and the thought is that they are striking out in reaction and not in the carefully planned way they would prefer. This may be encouraging, not so?

Hiero thought of the destruction of Neeyana and the two deadly ships and smiled. Yes, that would have upset the Unclean!

Gorm continued, addressing Hiero directly. I think you and I can guess who leads them. There may be others in the command of their troops, but you and I know who hates and fears you the most, the mind that will never rest while you live…

S’duna! Hiero stared into the orange glow of the dying fire. He could see the pale face and hairless skull of the Master of the Blue Circle, the pupilless eye-pits of evil. There might indeed be others in the high Councils of the enemy—Unclean adepts, mental wizards of dark arts, foes of all that was decent. But he knew Gorm was right. His greatest antagonist was coming with all the enormous power at his command. The Unclean had come out in the open at last, hoping to crush the Metz Republic in one brutal stroke before it could build its young strength. If the bear was right, they just could be making a mistake. Decades of raids, stealthy ambushes, plottings, and assassins in the night might not be the best preparation for open warfare. It was a cheering thought. Still, the other comment was right, too. Time was short.

Put out the fire and let’s go, he sent. We march southeast for the lakes. That’s where we’ll meet them. The Abbeys need to be told.

And may God defend the right, was the thought of Per Sagenay.