“I do, my lord,” Keera replied, somewhat unnerved at the mention of the very spot where the foragers had left behind the arrogant but deadly Outrager, Welferek. “We had an — encounter near there, at the beginning of this business.”
Heldo-Bah and Veloc exchanged looks, Heldo-Bah’s merry but Veloc’s somewhat sheepish.
Caliphestros stared hard at the tracker. “And I am certain that your brother will join me, Keera, in urging, even insisting, that you join me there — you are the only parent your children possess, now, and they need you far more than does Yantek Ashkatar.”
Keera looked quickly to her brother, who only nodded sternly. “He is right, Keera,” Veloc said. “And, if it offers you any consolation, I anticipate being ordered to join the two of you, that I may be able to prepare records for a saga recounting the tale of this battle.”
“So I go alone to draw Tall blood?” Heldo-Bah said, at once proud and a little uneasy about losing his comrades. “Well — I cannot argue your reasoning, Lord of Science, and still less can I condemn yours, Keera. And, as it will no doubt infuriate that little vixen, our Priestess, I suppose I must accept even yours, Veloc. Finally, the truth is, this will be hard and bloody work, best undertaken by those who truly relish the opportunity …”
As if to confirm Heldo-Bah’s statement, a sudden, single sounding of the Bane Voice of the Moon was heard, telling all who had been laboring on the mountain ridge or anywhere else outside Okot that the time had come to gather for battle. The blast was short, for the enemy was near and growing nearer.
A certain light entered Caliphestros’s eyes, once more, and he urged Stasi to climb to the top of their temporary cave, which offered a fine view, not only of far-off Broken mountain and the city atop it, but of the Cat’s Paw in the middling distance, and Lord Baster-kin’s Plain just beyond that waterway. The three foragers scrambled to follow, fighting both the steep, slippery slope of the cave’s rock and the mounting wind, which was creating the haunting notion that there was a mareh behind every tree, inside every cave, and ready to strike from behind every rock.
So much the stranger was it, then, that when the foragers at last joined Caliphestros and Stasi, they found the old man with a look of terrible joy upon his face, and the panther snarling with enthusiasm to descend from the mountain they were perched upon, and make for the enemy that was approaching and, even more importantly, for those ever-burning lights beyond the walls of the city in the far distance.
“They are actually doing it,” Caliphestros called to the foragers when they reached him. “See there!” He pointed to the long line of torches as, in the manner of a stream of liquid, the soldiers left the safety of the Plain and began a careful crossing of the Moonlit river’s last remaining bridge. “The fools enter the Wood without pause! Baster-kin will risk the lives of what looks to be a full khotor of his own Guard in order to eclipse the power and prestige of Sentek Arnem’s Talons, and the regular army as whole — he would secure the land and riches of the Wood for the merchants and the royal faction alone! Never has he been so foolish.”
And with that, the party began a run, first to Okot, so that Keera might briefly take leave of her children, and then to the rocks that overlooked the southern side of the Fallen Bridge (and, in the middling distance to the southeast, the Ayerzess-werten). Their dash took a number of hours, although far less, as always, than it would have taken any ordinary forest travelers at night. The length of time might have been still less, had they not paused for an unforeseen interruption; an interruption that would not so much solve the enigma of Caliphestros, to Keera, as leave old questions answered, and new ones posed …
3:{vi:}
Somewhere on the trail between Okot and their destination, the foragers,
Caliphestros, and Stasi stumble upon a remarkable sight …
It was, of course, the white panther who sensed the presence first, although it was not long before Keera did so, as well. When the grade of the swiftly moving group’s path began to slowly flatten, indicating that the valley of the Cat’s Paw was growing closer, Stasi stopped, so suddenly as to almost hurl her rider onto the ground before her. To Caliphestros’s repeated inquiries concerning the cause of her refusal to move forward, the panther only put her nose high in the air, searching the wind that continued to blow from the west; and, once she had determined the definite direction from which the scent she detected came, she continued forward, although not along the same direct course toward the riverbed that she had previously been following. Caliphestros turned to the tracker, who continued to run beside them.
“Keera!” he called. “Stasi will not respond to my direction — this has never happened before, without her first leaving me behind! Have you sensed anything that would make her behave so?”
A strange expression entered Keera’s features, Caliphestros noted, one to match Stasi’s behavior. “I fear I have only too good an idea of what she is about, my lord,” the tracker replied, tilting her ear rather than her nose into the same breeze that seemed to have agitated Stasi so, as she continued to match the panther’s pace. “I can just hear a male brown bear making the sounds and performing the dance of mating†—yet the female scent that provokes him is strange: artificial, or, rather, carefully collected and placed, and confined to far too small an area. Along with which, the scent is accompanied by that of—”
Caliphestros had begun to nod his head, his expression darkening. “Of a human female,” he finished for the reluctant Keera. The anticipation that the old man had felt at watching a khotor of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard receive the punishment it so richly deserved seemed to suddenly disappear. “And, I will wager, a human female you have detected before …”
Keera glanced at the old man, as concerned by his expression as by the strange mix of emotions in his voice. “Aye, lord. Just so. The Wife of Kafra — on the strange occasion of which we have told you. Save that it was a panther’s scent with which hers was mingled that night, rather than a bear’s.”
Caliphestros nodded his head. “Well, then …”
“My lord, we should avoid this, if we can,” Keera warned. “Battles between brown bears and panthers can do grievous harm to both combatants.”
“Fear not, on that account, Keera,” Caliphestros replied. “It is not the bear that draws Stasi on.”
“What is happening, you two?” Heldo-Bah said loudly, from behind. “We have strayed from the most direct path to the rocks you spoke of, Lord Caliphestros — and you know as much, Keera.”
Before further discussion could be pursued, Keera indicated silence to her fellow foragers; and it was not very much longer before the party had reached the edge of a small clearing, where the tracker indicated to her brother and Heldo-Bah that they should take their customary positions of observation in the branches of several high trees. When Veloc questioned with his eyes why they were not being joined by the white panther and her agèd rider, Keera simply held up a hand, indicating patience—
And very soon, that patience on the foragers’ part was rewarded: seemingly unaware, now, of the behavior of their three traveling companions, the old man and the panther stepped onto the edge of the clearing, in the middle of which the foragers could now see a familiar yet dreaded human woman moving in a strange, seductive manner, urging on a large male brown bear, who would ordinarily have attacked her long ago: