Brother Aldo knew his man. “Why, Captain, can’t your hardy men stand a little discomfort? Surely those who’ve ridden out gales and fought cannibal slavers and angry sea beasts aren’t afraid of a few days’ walk in the woods?”
Luchare and Hiero grinned at each other in silent companionship. “Few days’ walk in the woods” indeed! But it was the right note to strike with the squat little seaman.
“I’ve got the toughest crew afloat,” he boasted. “Why, Roke’s men would all have run when that big beast come rampaging through here. No, those men’11 follow me through hot pitch. But what about our pay? And where are we going now?” His voice was eager on the last question.
“Well,” Aldo said, “I have no real right to promise anything like this, but if, mind you, if our Ruling Council agrees with me, all your damages will be paid, including the loss of your ship. After all, you are on Eleventh Commandment business, are you not?”
“Your word’s good with me, Brother,” Gimp said. “You can’t say fairer than that. But what now?”
“I can supply some answers there, Gimp,” the Metz interjected. “We’re going southeast, the Brother and I, and I guess you and the crew had better come too.” He waved his hand around at the monster tree trunks and the shadows at their feet. “I don’t imagine your men are going to want to strike off alone, are they? Three are gone already. I’ve probed the night with my mind and so has Aldo, and we detect nothing. I fear they indeed have provided someone a quick dinner. Can you make this danger plain to those who remain? We must stay together.”
“Yes,” Aldo added, “and tell them Hiero will command the whole expedition from now on. This trip is land work, and we need land discipline and experience. I will assist him, of course, and you’ll remain in direct command of your own people.”
“Suits me,” the sailor said. “There won’t be no problem about that. I’ve got thirty men, no, twenty-seven; forgot those scourings that run off. Plus me and Blutho. We have food for two weeks, but only seven big water skins. How’s this place for water?”
“I’ll find you water and game too,” Aldo answered. “We’ll leave at dawn. The trail is less than a mile from here, overgrown but still a. good road. The beasts use it and so can we, but humans don’t seem to have been over it for a long time, at least as well as I can tell in the dark.”
As the moon gleamed through the far-off branches and the fires died down to orange coals, they talked on, planning as well as possible the next day’s march. At intervals, Hiero probed the night for enemy mind sweeps, but encountered nothing suspicious. The high forest teemed with life, but it was natural to it, predators and prey, fur, scale, and feather.
Eventually they slept, though with watches set and regular changes of guard.
The next morning Klootz, to his annoyance, was loaded with supplies. Behave yourself, Hiero told him. I’ll get to ride you soon enough. The morse bull was, in fact, trained to carry burdens on occasion, so that his irritation was a matter of pride. He had carried urgently needed supplies to more than one isolated Kandan village in the past. Now he shook his great, black antlers and brayed until Luchare’s ears rang. The forest answered with a chorus of screams and yells, and the day’s march began.
First went Hiero and the bear, scouting the path. Next came the mate and his picked crew of axe and cutlass men, ready to cut through any bad obstructions. The main body of seamen under Gimp came next, all armed with swords and pikes. A small group of picked bowmen followed, and last of all, the morse, Luchare, and the old Elevener. While he disliked being separated from them, Hiero himself had chosen this march order as being the most sensible. It gave them a telepath at each end of the column, and danger was more likely to come from in front than the rear.
As Brother Aldo had promised, they soon struck the old trail. Hiero’s instinct told him that it ran almost due southeast; and although small bushes broke its surface here and there, it was still easy marching. The sailors cheered up and began to sing, songs which Luchare appeared determined to ignore while carefully memorizing some of the worst to try later on her lover. Part of the cheer, Hiero learned when they stopped for a noon meal, was due to a crafty rumor of Gimp’s that they were in search of a great buried treasure. This artless tale has seldom failed to arouse sailors of any time or nation, nor did it now.
Hiero could not help wishing as he strode along, alert for any movement, that he and Luchare were alone to explore the wonderful green world all about them. The heat had now come to seem normal and, in the shadows of the great trees, not even very oppressive. Stinging insects were surprisingly few, perhaps because bird life was so abundant and varied.
Monkeys, large and small, chattered overhead, and other small beasts, of unknown types to the Metz, scuttled up and down the looping vines and tendriled growths which shrouded the monster trees. Occasional huge footprints in the earth, none very new, renewed the knowledge that not ail the life of the forest was small. And once, the bear shied suddenly from what appeared to be a smooth, shallow ditch across the trail itself. Hiero raised a hand to halt the column and summoned Brother Aldo. The great, rounded fold in the leaf mold of the road was stunning in its implied message, but the old man confirmed it.
“Yes, my dear boy, a serpent. Let us hope we do not meet it. They are very hard to control mentally and almost invulnerable to any weapon. I should judge this one to be eighty feet.” He said no more and walked away. Hiero led off again, considerably shaken and now even more alert.
Occasionally, due perhaps to outcroppings of poorer soil or perhaps of hidden rock, the forest opened, and grassy glades filled with flowers formed sunlit breaks in the green gloom. It was in one of these that a new menace revealed itself.
The priest and his attendant, the bear, were halfway across the glade, which was no more than a hundred yards in extent, when something long and lean, or rather two somethings, erupted from the edge of the wood to their left and raced for the column at a speed so incredible that Hiero never could decide on it afterward. At first heading for him, the two creatures swerved and plucked the two leading axemen behind Hiero instead, sweeping them, off their feet without even breaking stride or hesitating. Before anyone could even raise a weapon, they were gone! A vague visual impression was left on Hiero’s forebrain of animals rather like giant, distorted foxes on legs like stilts, mottled dark brown on a fawn background, each one with a crewman gripped in great, grinning jaws. There had not been time even for the men to scream. Belatedly, he realized, he had used his mind to deflect the attackers from himself, used it subconsciously, as a man half-asleep raises an arm to defend himself from a blow. He explained this to Aldo when they all halted and also tried to excuse his conduct. But it was Luchare who snapped him out of it.
“Don’t be so stupid! I’m sorry those men were killed, too, but you didn’t kill them! And how many of us are alive because you have the abilities and courage to use them when you do! Now say a prayer for those two poor souls and go back to being our leader!” She turned on her heel and stamped off to the rear of the line again, Klootz following obediently in her wake.