'Yes, of course. Well – tell them to make haste,' said Kelderek, and at once set off into the plain. Already, he thought, he had delayed too long and might not easily recover sight of Shardik. Yet, thinking unconsciously in terms of the forest where he had learned his craft, he had forgotten that this was different country. Almost immediately he caught sight of the bear, a good half-mile to the north-east, moving as steadily as a traveller on a road. Except for the huts of a distant village, away to the right, the plain stretched empty as far as the eye could see.
Kelderek was in no doubt that he must continue to follow. In Shardik lay the whole power of Ortelga. If he were left to wander alone and unattended, it would be plain to the eyes of peasants -many no doubt still secretly hostile to their Ortelgan rulers – that something was wrong. News of his whereabouts might be falsified or concealed. Someone might wound him again or even, perhaps, succeed in killing him as he slept. It had been hard enough to trace him five years before, after the fall of Bekla and the retreat of Santil-ke-Erketlis. Despite his own pain and fatigue and the danger involved, it would in the long run be easier not to lose track of him now. Besides, Kavass was reliable and the searchers could hardly fail to find them both before nightfall. Weak though he was, he should be equal to that much.
33 The Village
All that day, while the sun moved round the sky at his back, Kelderek followed as Shardik plodded on. The bear's pace varied little. Sometimes he broke into a kind of heavy trot, but after a short distance would falter, throwing up his head repeatedly, as though trying to rid himself of irritant pain. Although the wound between his shoulders was no longer bleeding, it was clear, from his uneasy, stumbling gait and his whole air of discomfort, that it gave him no peace. Often he would rise on his hind legs and gaze about him over the plain; and Kelderek, afraid in that open place without cover, would either stand still or drop quickly to his knees and crouch down. But at least it was easy to keep him in sight from a distance; and for many hours, remaining a long bow-shot or more away, Kelderek moved quietly on over the grass and scrub, holding himself ready to run if the bear should turn and make towards him. Shardik, however, seemed unaware of being followed. Once, coming to a pool, he stopped to drink and to roll in the water; and once he lay for a while in a grove of myrtle bushes, planted for a landmark round one of the lonely wells used, time out of mind, by the wandering herdsmen. But both these halts ended when he started suddenly up, as though impatient of further delay, and set off once more across the plain.
Two or three times they came within sight of cattle grazing. Far off though they were, Kelderek could make out how the beasts turned and raised their heads all together, uneasy and suspicious of whatever unknown creature it might be that was coming. He hoped for the chance to call to one of the herd-boys and send him with a message, but always Shardik passed very wide of the herds and Kelderek, considering whether to leave him, would decide to await a better opportunity.
Late in the afternoon he saw by the sun that Shardik was no longer moving north-east but north. They had wandered deep into the plain – how far he could not tell – perhaps ten miles cast of the road that ran from Bekla to the Gelt foodiills. The bear showed no sign of stopping or turning back. Kelderek, who had expected that he would wander until he found food and then sleep, had not foreseen this steady journeying, without pause cither to eat or rest, by a creature recently wounded and confined for so long. He now realized that Shardik must be impelled by an overwhelming determination to escape from Bekla – to stop for nothing until he had left it far behind, and to avoid on his way all haunts of man. Instinct had turned him towards the mountains and these, if it were his intention to do so, he might well reach in two to three days. Once in that terrain he would be hard to recapture – last time it had cost lives and the burning of a tract of partly-inhabited country. Yet if enough men could only be mustered in time he might be turned and then, dangerous though it would be, perhaps driven, with noise and torches, into a stockade or some other secure place. It would indeed be a desperate business but whatever the outcome, the first need was to check him in his course. A message must be sent and helpers must come.
As the sun began to sink, the greens and browns of the long, gentle slopes changed first to lavender and then to mauve and grey. A cool, damp smell came from the grass and scrub. The lizards disappeared and small, furry animals – coneys, mice and some kind of long-tailed, leaping rat – began to come from their holes. The hard shadows softened and a thin, light dusk rose, as though out of the ground, in the lower parts of the shallow combes. Kelderek was now very tired and nagged by pain from the stab wound in his hip. Concentrating on remaining alert to Shardik, he became aware only gradually, like a man awakening, of distant human voices and the lowing of cattle. Looking about him, he saw in a hollow, a long way to his left, a village – huts, trees and the grey-shining dot of a pond. He could easily have overlooked it altogether, for the low, inconspicuous dwellings, irregular in outline and haphazard as trees or rocks, seemed, with their mixture of dun, grey and earth-brown colours, almost a natural part of the landscape. All that obtruded upon his weary sight and hearing were a little smoke, the movement of cattle and the far-off cries of the children who were driving them home.
At this moment Shardik, a quarter of a mile ahead, stopped and lay down in his tracks, as though too tired to go further. Kelderek waited, watching the faint shadow of a blade of grass beside a pebble. The shadow reached and crossed the pebble, but still Shardik did not get up. At length Kelderek set off for the village, looking behind him continually to be sure of the way back.
Before long he came to a track, and this led him to the cattle-pens on the village outskirts. Here all was in turmoil, the herd-boys chattering excitedly, rebuking one another, raising sudden cries, whacking, poking and running here and there as though cattle had never before been driven into a stockade since the world began. The thin beasts rolled their eyes white, slavered, lowed, josded and thrust their heads over each other's backs as they crowded into the pens. There was a flopping and smell of fresh dung and a haze of dust floated glittering in the light of the sunset. No one noticed Kelderek, who stood still to watch for a few moments and to take comfort and encouragement from the age-old, homely scene.
Suddenly one of the boys, catching sight of him, screamed aloud, pointed, burst into tears and began jabbering in a voice distraught with fear. The others, following his gaze, stared wide-eyed, two or three backing away, knuckles pressed to open mouths. The cattle, left to themselves, continued to enter the pens of their own accord. Kelderek smiled and walked forward, holding out both hands.
'Don't be afraid,' he said to the nearest child, 'I'm a traveller, and -'
The boy turned and ran from him; and thereupon the whole little crowd took to their heels, dashing away among the sheds until not one was to be seen. Kelderek, bewildered, walked on until he found himself fairly among the dusty houses. There was still nobody to be seen. He stopped and called out, 'I'm a traveller from Bekla. I need to see the elder. Where is his house?' No one answered and, walking to the nearest door, he beat on the timbers with the flat of his hand. It was opened by a scowling man carrying a heavy club.
'I am an Ortelgan and a captain of Bekla,' said Kelderek quickly. 'Hurt me and this village shall burn to the ground.'