They all returned at sunset, Kuari last of all, and as they ate fish caught by Wintersky and grilled over the fire, each Hawkbrother related what his bird was telling him.
And in the end, even Kel looked troubled by what they had not seen.
“Wherrre arrre the people?” Kel said finally. “We have flown herrre and therrre - and therrre isss no sssign of people.”
“No sign that anyone has traveled the Pass recently either,” Darian pointed out, frowning. “There were tiny tribes in the other valleys - shouldn’t there be some sign of people here? Could another sickness have come through here and wiped everyone out?”
“If it had - why wouldn’t Snow Fox have brought it with them?” Keisha asked. “They only had Wasting Sickness and a few other things we already knew how to clear up.”
Hywel poked at the fire with a stick. “People do things differently, up here,” he said at last. “It could be that they are off fishing.”
“Fishing?” Wintersky said incredulously. “Fishing? What is that supposed to mean?”
Hywel looked uncomfortable. “I have heard - heard - that on the other side of that mountain there is a great expanse of water so far that you cannot see the other side, and it tastes of salt. This is where the peoples round about here get salt with which to trade. And I have heard that in the spring, there are torrents of fish coming up the streams. People gather at the rivers and catch these fish for as long as they come, and it is said that the fish are so thick in the rivers that one can walk from bank to bank upon their backs and keep dry feet. It is said that they can thus dry and smoke enough of these fish to serve them the rest of the year.”
“That sounds like some sort of fable to me,” Wintersky said skeptically.
Hywel shrugged. “It is only what I have heard. Also, I have tasted of this fish. Traders brought some back with them as provisions. It is good, very rich, and the meat of it is red, not white.”
“Huh.” Wintersky still looked skeptical.
“White Grrryphon liesss bessside sssuch a sssalty waterrr,” Kel observed, tilting his head to the side. “We call it an ‘ocean’ or ‘sssea.’ Could thisss be the sssame sssea?”
“I don’t know why not,” Steelmind replied. “There is no reason why the coastline here could not be much farther to the east than it is where the Haighlei lands lie. It could be a larger lake than we can even imagine. But that doesn’t address the question of where the people are.”
“No, it doesn’t, but we’ve only looked close to the mouth of the Pass,” Darian said. “Now, if I were living up here, and I knew that this place existed and might be used by war parties or even armies, I certainly wouldn’t want to live near it.”
Nods all around the campfire showed that Darian had come up with a reasonable explanation - for now.
But Keisha had the shivery feeling that this was not the real explanation.
After half-a-day’s travel, they had finally come upon signs of people - but the signs weren’t good.
“I don’t like this,” Darian said, staring at the remains of the village. This place had been more like the permanent village that Ghost Cat had built in Valdemar, before it had been deserted.
Deserted? Maybe. Maybe not. However the village had become untenanted, it had been too long ago to tell if the people had left, died, or been taken away. All that was left were the moss-covered remains of the log houses, the carved poles, the other artifacts of life. The roofs had fallen in - but that could have happened in a single season; Darian had seen how the kind of roof the Ghost Cat folks built needed constant attention. As wet as it was here, moss would have started to grow inside immediately. Grass was knee-tall, but there were no possessions, nor the remains of any.
“Hywel?” Darian said, turning to their only expert. Hywel looked just as troubled, and just as puzzled. “I do not know,” he said, looking around at the rumbled houses, the fallen poles. “There are no bodies, and no belongings. Perhaps they - ”
Then he shook his head. “No, I do not think they walked away, and it would be foolish to say so. I do not know what happened here.”
Darian scratched his head. “Do you see any signs of attack?” he asked reluctantly. “What would we be looking for?”
“There would be no signs,” Hywel told him. “If the tribe was under attack, the men would go out to meet the enemy, and the women and children would remain here. And if the men did not come back - ” He paused. “Well, until Blood Bear began taking other tribes’ women, the women and children of the defeated would have been left in peace to rebuild their tribe as best they could.”
“But now - we don’t know.” He considered for a moment. “If they were attacked by Blood Bear, wouldn’t the victors come here and carry everything off? They certainly tried to do that at Errold’s Grove.”
“What if illness killed most of the people here?” Keisha asked. “Would the survivors just pack up and walk away?”
“They might.” Hywel brightened a bit at that. “It is tradition that girls go to other tribes to wed, and warriors take wives from other tribes, so there are alliances created all the time. It could happen that they would pack what they had and go, if there were too few hunters to feed the people, or too few people to make a tribe.”
But this settlement had been huge, larger than the Ghost Cat village was now. Could sickness have wiped out that many people?
The ruins held no answers for them now, it had been too long since - whatever it was - had happened.
“We move on,” he decided. “We’re nearly to Snow Fox territory anyway. We know that they’re all right. Maybe they can tell us what happened here.”
He didn’t have to add that they would have to be wary. They already knew what to do. With Neta taking point, the birds spread out to either side, and Kel watched their backtrail. Hashi ranged out in a fan shape in front, filling in wherever another scout wasn’t. The one advantage they had was the forest itself; it was damp enough that scent lingered, giving Hashi plenty of information. The scant undergrowth and lack of low branches kept a relatively clear line-of-sight for them down on the ground, and a clear flight path for the birds.
But the forest was not continuous; there were huge meadows to cross, with acres and acres of waist-high grasses. They were beautiful, but dangerous; crossing them meant coming out of cover.
They had another one of those meadows ahead of them. This time, though, Darian was fairly certain that they would be safe, for a herd of deer grazed there, and Neta’s probe of their minds showed that they felt perfectly comfortable here, which meant they hadn’t been hunted recently. Darian was tempted to ask Kel to take one down for them, but decided against the idea. It was too early in the day to stop, and they would have to stop in order to take care of that much meat.
So they were the ones who spooked the herd into flight when they came out from under the shadows of the trees.
As the deer disappeared, the party moved warily out into the sunshine. Only now could they see the mountains towering on all sides of them; mountains with snow capping their peaks, rising through the thin clouds. It was Darian’s turn on Weather-Watch, and he sensed that there were storms moving in from the west. There would be rain tonight. Again.