“Good idea,” Bruni said, as Tildey nodded too. “We’ll come with you.”
Moreen’s eyes rose from the campsite, her gaze sweeping past the strip of beach onto the gray water of the gulf. Many days it rained now, and just yesterday an icy wind off the gulf had turned the rain into stinging sleet, forcing the Arktos into an early camp. To take advantage of the halt, they had erected racks, and continued the process of curing whale meat above slow-burning fires.
“Is it just the thanoi that worries you?” Bruni asked, her round face frowning thoughtfully.
“No. In truth, I’d feel better if the Highlanders didn’t know how to find us by looking for our smoke.” Unconsciously she glanced over her shoulder, across the landscape of rolling, hilly tundra. There was no sign of any of Strongwind Whalebone’s men, but the chiefwoman had no doubt that some remained in the vicinity, keeping track of the slow-moving and poorly armed band.
“The cedars might give us some cover,” Bruni agreed cheerfully. “Not to mention we’d be able to build some nice fires.”
As if in response to her assertion, the wind picked up a notch, chilling Moreen’s face, tugging at the strands of hair that broke free from her braids. “Let’s go, then,” she said.
Dinekki, who was overseeing the drying racks, smacked her toothless gums in appreciation of Moreen’s plan. “Good. Watch out for tuskers,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on things around here.”
“Thank you, Grandmother. We’ll be back in two or three days.”
“I’m coming with you!” Little Mouse, who had been squatting near a drying fire a dozen paces away, jumped up and ran towards them.
“The ears on that boy,” Bruni said with a laugh. “He could hear a flower bud, I swear he could.”
“Not that there’ll be much of that in the next half year,” Dinekki clucked. “You, Mouse-you’re needed to stick close around here. Every camp of the Arktos needs a scout, and with these three off sightseeing who else do you think I’m going to count on?”
“But-!” The youth’s objection died in his throat. “A scout? You mean, to kind of look around the area, keep an eye out for trouble and the like?”
“As I said, if not you, who?” the shaman demanded. “Would you send a little toddler out to do some scouting? How about your mother? Or maybe you think old Dinekki has nothing better to do than march up and down these hills on her old bones?”
“No, I’ll do it!” Mouse declared. He raced to the tribe’s small cache of weapons and picked up the spear he had claimed after the battle with the tuskers. “Nothing’s going to sneak up on the tribe while I’m the scout!” he declared proudly.
“I’m glad we can count on you,” Moreen said, feeling emotion tighten her throat. He looked so sincere, so brave, so young. The chiefwoman, Bruni, and Tildey had been all through the area in the past day, and she felt reasonably confident there was no threat in the immediate vicinity.
“All right-stay alert, and come and tell Dinekki if you see anything unusual.”
“I will!” he promised. He slung the spear over his shoulder and started up a hill, as the trio of women armed themselves and took a few provisions and a waterskin from the tribe’s supplies. The last thing the chiefwoman saw, before they started up the beach, was the black-haired youth bracing himself against the wind, long spear in his hands, earnestly peering out over the land.
“I admit I wasn’t sure where we were, or that there was any hospitable land around here,” Kerrick said as he and Coraltop gazed across placid water at an enclosed valley, dark green with a dense grove of evergreens. Two ridges faced by steep, rocky precipices extended inland. It seemed that trees-the first such timber they had seen on this rugged coast-thrived between the elevations.
“Oh, I knew we would find some place to land sooner or later,” the kender said breezily. “It was just a matter of staying patient. As for me, I’m always patient. As my grandmother used to say, ‘Coraltop, you are the very soul of patience.’ ”
Kerrick was standing at the front of the cabin and looking down into the empty fish locker. “Well,” the elf said, “we timed it right anyway. We’ve run out of food.”
For five days after spotting the mountainous horizon rising to the south they had steered along a rocky coast of exceptionally barren and apparently uninhabited terrain. The rugged skyline rose steeply only a few miles inland from the shore, and the edge of the land was in most places a high cliff of jagged, weatherworn stone. Kerrick had taken Cutter into a few narrow inlets, but even there the shore had been rocky and treacherous. Since the regular rainstorms had resulted in the water barrel remaining comfortably full, the elf had elected to keep sailing while searching for a more promising landfall.
At last they had come upon a strait of deep water extending between two rugged shores less than ten miles apart. Here they had veered south, hoping to find anchorage.
Now their search was rewarded, in the discovery of this bay on the eastern shore just inside the bottleneck. Kerrick studied the forest, confident they would find game-deer, pheasant, or rabbit-somewhere in the woods. His belly rumbled, and his mouth watered at the remembered taste of grilled meat. He checked his bowstring and arrows. Unwilling to leave the powerful talisman behind, the elf tucked his magical ring into a small pouch inside of his belt. Ready at last, he stood in the stern and looked for the most promising spot to begin the hunt.
The trees were barely half as tall as the pines that grew so commonly in Silvanesti, but their color was lush, and the ground showed mossy meadow and fern-bedded dale. A stone’s throw away was a stretch of sand beach, backed by trees that looked especially inviting.
“How are you getting to shore?” Caroltop asked, frowning.
“ ‘We’re going to swim,” Kerrick replied.
“Good idea,” the kender replied cheerfully. “Except, who will watch the boat?”
“Don’t you know how to swim?”
“What kind of question is that? Netfisher practically means ‘swimming,’ in kenderspeak! But I think I could do some pretty good fishing right here, just in case your luck as a hunter is the same as your luck as a sailor.”
Kerrick opened his mouth to reply when he realized that he wouldn’t mind spending a few hours by himself. The kender, surprisingly enough, had proved a companionable shipmate, and of course, he had saved the elf’s life. However, Coraltop talked a lot, even when he didn’t seem to have anything noteworthy to say.
“All right. Why don’t you drop a line in the water, and I’ll have a hunt in the woods. Tomorrow we’ll put both together and have a feast.”
The elf tied his weapons and clothes into a nearly watertight bundle inside his oilskin, and slipped over the gunwale and into the chilly, slightly choppy water. He felt the cold instantly, but it was an invigorating sensation, and his spirits lifted as he tugged his floating garments along behind him and stroked toward shore.
A minute later he emerged onto the smooth, grainy sand, shivering in the breeze. The morning sun was up, but it was barely a blur low on the horizon. It seemed to offer little heat, so rapidly the elf donned his moccasins, woolen shirt, and leggings. He left his leather cloak behind a tree at the edge of the narrow beach strand, and quickly strung his bow.
Ready, he turned to wave goodbye at the kender, but Coraltop wasn’t anywhere in sight. Kerrick sighed.
“You’d better catch a few fish if you want any dinner,” he muttered irritatedly, suppressing his urge to shout only because he didn’t want to startle any nearby game. He readied an arrow against his bowstring, relished a deep breath of cool pine-scented air, and stepped into the woods.
“That cloud across the gulf-do you notice how it’s lingered there all day?” Moreen asked worriedly, as she and her two companions made their way along a ridge that ran parallel to the shore, perhaps a half mile inland.