“Carrying too much will just get us noticed.” He continued scanning the flat plain.
“Don’t worry,” Sorgrad smiled. “We’ll be honoured guests before nightfall and fed to suit.”
“What was that?”
’Gren halted and we all stood still.
I heard a faint scrabbling and what could have been a warning voice, muffled and incomprehensible. “Where’s that coming from?” A faint shiver ran down my spine.
Sorgrad dropped to his knees and we all did the same.
“What are you doing?” he said, surprised.
“The same as you,” I told him tartly. “Why?”
He nodded to a hole in the turf. “Whatever’s making your noise is down there.”
“That’d be a tight fit for a hungry rabbit.” Ryshad got up, brushing fine, dusty earth from his breeches. “I don’t think we need worry.” Wary amusement lessened the tension in the air.
“I wonder what it is.”
’Gren knelt, hand reaching for the burrow.
“Something that could bite your fingers off and leave you with festering stumps?” I suggested. “Just leave well alone.”
“There’s someone coming.” Shiv tucked his map in the breast of his hooded jerkin. We saw a solitary figure carefully removing the larger stones that served for a gate in one of the low walls dividing this barren hinterland.
“Move.” Ryshad set a pace just fast enough to suggest purpose but not so hurried to attract attention.
The edge of my hood hid the figure from me, which left my back itching. “What’s he doing?”
“Nothing. Just keep going.” Sorgrad led us towards a low notch in the jagged ridge. ’Gren didn’t bother with the narrow path, heedless boots crushing the few flowers crouching in the coarse grass, bruised herbs momentarily sweetening the gusting breeze.
“Keep a weather eye out for goats,” I warned him. “We could barely move without tripping over the cursed things last time.”
“Let’s see that map, Shiv.” Sorgrad ducked into a sheltered hollow between two tall boulders sticking through the grass like broken teeth.
Ryshad and I each held a corner flat against the lichen-spotted stone.
“We need to go north.” I traced a line on the parchment.
“Giving that village a wide berth.” Ryshad jabbed it with an emphatic finger.
Shiv ran a thumbnail along a faint blue line and a darker brown one. “Once we’re over that river, we follow the road inland.”
Sorgrad looked dubious. “Follow it or shadow it? I don’t fancy being asked to explain myself if we run into someone nosy.”
Ryshad shook his head. “We’d attract more attention off the road than on it.”
“We have to take the road, regardless. It’s mostly sheer rock and screes where it cuts through the high ground.” I held Sorgrad’s gaze until he decided I was telling him the truth, not just siding with Ryshad.
“Let’s get going,” ’Gren complained.
We crested the ridge and headed down the far side. More stone walls scored dry lines across close-cropped grass. Dark splodges of muck were the only sign of goats and I was wondering where they were, when I nearly tripped headlong into a ditch hidden by rushy grasses.
“Watch your step.” Ryshad caught my hand and we stepped carefully over the dark brown water.
“I can smell food.”
’Gren was looking at the distant roofs of the village we were avoiding. Bluish smoke rose from a few stubby chimneys.
“At this distance?” I scoffed. “You’re imagining it.”
“You’ll have walked up a better appetite by the time we get there,” Sorgrad told him sternly.
“What if this man with the brown troopers doesn’t want to help us?” ’Gren enquired thoughtfully. ”Do we kill him as well?”
Sorgrad shrugged. “Depends what he says, I reckon.”
The pair of them moved ahead to scout out our path. Ryshad and Shiv were some little way behind me.
“Just what did Usara reckon to travelling with these two?” I heard Ryshad ask the mage.
“Sorgrad’s the one you have to make listen to reason,” Shiv answered in an undertone. “ ’Gren’s just interested in drinking, eating, fighting and tumbling pretty girls, in whatever combination he’s offered. As long as he thinks he’s in with a chance of one or more, he’ll go along with whatever his brother tells him.”
I smiled to myself and picked up my pace, so I could keep Sorgrad and ’Gren in sight. Comparatively sheltered between the ridge and the high ground, the grass grew thicker, softer underfoot and dotted with bell-shaped blue flowers trembling on fragile stems. Bolder white flowers drifted around clumps of frilled and leathery green leaves topped with red flowers clasping some secret in their petal globes. I wondered again where all the goats had gone to let such prettiness bloom uneaten.
’Gren was soon bored with casting around like a badly trained hound and came to walk beside me. ”This isn’t so bad.”
“You want to try it here in winter,” I told him. We’d only been here at the very start of the season and that had been bad enough.
“Soft lowlander,” he chided. “Me and ’Grad, we’re used to harder living.”
“Hard living and your life and death at the whim of some Ilkehan’s boot heel?” I queried.
’Gren was unconcerned. “We’ll put an end to that.”
I was about to ask him what augury he’d seen when a sharp whistle from Sorgrad prompted Ryshad and Shiv to catch us up. We joined him at the top of a rise, just short of the river. He’d propped his rump on a handy lump of rock, the ever-present breeze ruffling his fine yellow hair, and was rummaging in one pocket.
“Apricot?” Sorgrad held out a little washleather pouch.
I took a sticky lump of dried golden fruit, tucking my other hand through my belt. “What’s to do?”
“Over yonder.” Sorgrad waved casually at the land running down to the river. The flow was narrow enough for crossing stones here, widening out below us into a broad estuary of sandbars and glistening channels. Black and white and pied birds waded and prodded for worms or some such in the shallows, darker shapes wheeling above them in the washed-out blue.
“There.” Ryshad pointed as a wide, triangular net suddenly swept up and around just beyond a shallow knoll crowned with yellow flower spikes.
“What’s he after?” wondered Shiv.
“Those.” I pointed at a squat, short-winged bird all black but for a white belly and a comical tuft of scarlet and yellow feathers behind each eye. “Look, he’s got one.”
The hunter had indeed netted one from a small flock coming in to land. The rest hit the ground with less of a bump than I expected from such clumsy-looking fowl and vanished down burrows. I laughed. “That’s what made those noises.”
’Gren studied the hunter’s lair. ”What are we going to do about him?”
“We cross there and we leave him alone,” said Ryshad firmly, pointing at the stepping-stones.
“Do we?”
’Gren demanded of me and his brother.
“We’ve no need to kill him unless he comes after us,” I told Sorgrad.
He shrugged. “Fair enough.”
That was enough to send ’Gren heading for the stepping-stones. They were slick with slimy green growth and Shiv hurried past me. “Wait a moment, ’Gren.”
The weed began to steam, drying from shining emerald to a muted green that crisped into a dull brown, the unceasing wind carrying the lightest wisps away. Sorgrad watched, intent, while ’Gren looked downstream, still keeping watch on the hunter.
“He’d kill him in a moment, wouldn’t he?” There was concern beneath Ryshad’s distaste. “And never give it a second thought.”
“It gives him an edge over the rest of us.” I shrugged.
“That’s kept him and me alive more than once. Believe me, I’d rather be with him than without him on a trip like this.”
“I know he’s your friend but I wouldn’t have him under my command,” said Ryshad slowly.