Or someone.
They were still looking for him. He'd already known that they would. It was what made his plan risky. If he had too many fights with them, he'd be leaving bodies and obvious signs of his passage, and that was something that he was certain would doom him to be meeting Jesmind face to face in the immediate future. He had to get to Suld without getting into a single fight, if he could help it. And with the number of Goblinoids that were infesting this stretch of forest, that would not be easy. But, to his advantage, they would slow Jesmind down as well, if she did manage to follow him.
He kept moving after the sun went down, moving in the pounding rain. The darkness was much more his ally than the Goblinoids, for his sensitive eyes gathered in the murky light and allowed him to see, while they resorted to torches, ruddy beacons that told him exactly where they were. He moved on through the night, after the rain tapered off, stopping in utter silence as a sooty torch came in his direction, then moving on after it had gone by.
He moved on after daybreak, and throughout the entire day, glad of a warm, windy day with heavy overcast that would keep his shadow off the ground, while the sound of the wind through the trees would cover any sound he may accidentally make. The concentration of Goblinoids was going down, as they concentrated their search in other areas, for he only saw five bands of them as he meandered on a generally southern course.
By the end of the day, his head felt as if it were stuffed with sand, and he found his mind drifting at the most inconvenient times. He'd already been awake somewhere around two days, and he'd all but exhausted his reserves. The rain that had begun to fall was about the only thing keeping him awake, as it pattered on his head and body and dropped into his ears, which was uncomfortable. He knew that he had to stop, danger or no danger. He decided to stay in the safety of the trees, though, and he searched around for a suitable sleeping place. It took him about half an hour to find one, just as the sun was setting in the west, an old hollowed out squirrel's nest that had yet to gain a new tenant. It was just large enough for him to squeeze in through the opening, and inside it was certainly warm and dry. Tarrin removed his clothes and pushed them into the opening, then changed form and wriggled in through the entrance. The inside was indeed dry, and warm. The past tenant had littered the floor of the hollow with pine needles and shredded leaves, creating a very soft bed on which to sleep.
He laid down on the soft mat of needles and leaves, considering things in that drowsy half-conscious frame of mind before sleep. He'd yet to feel real fear at what he was doing…and he hadn't had a single dream since meeting Jesmind. In the short time that they had been together, the feisty Were-cat female had changed Tarrin, changed him very much. Because of her, he could strike out on his own, surrounded by enemies, with very little fear, and a great deal of confidence. He would have been lost out here alone, if it hadn't been for Jesmind.
He closed his eyes and slept, dropping off literally between one thought and the next.
It took him nearly fifteen days to reach the High Road. He'd spent almost all that time moving through the trees, not leaving the Goblinoid patrols even a footprint to follow, coming down only to forage for food and to drink water, and to cross a couple of streams and small rivers. His ribs were starting to stick out some, but he'd gotten used to the constant hunger that came with meals that couldn't fill his belly.
The time out in the forest, in a way, had been good for him. His body was as tough as an old gnarled root now, already strong muscles hardened visibly by some serious physical activity. The pads on his hand-paws and feet had had been worn down, then grew back several times, until the pads that were now on his feet were about as tough as old leather. He thought he'd had endurance before, but now he could move all day and half the night at a constant speed that would have put a Goblinioid on the ground panting and heaving. It had also brought his two elemental sides into a closer symbiotic harmony, as both the human and the Cat cooperated to get him to safety. The human guiding his path and allowing him to execute his plans, the Cat by keeping him safe and telling him what moves were wise and what moves were stupid. He drew heavily on the instinctive knowledge of his animal half in those fifteen days, and that along with the woodlore instruction he'd received from his father had been what had fed him over the course of time. He noticed a change in his basic attitudes as well, for the time in the forest had all but converted him into a creature of the forest.
But now a sign of the human world stood on the ground underneath the tree in which he was perched. His tail snaked back and forth reflexively as he stared at it, the single goal that had driven him for half a month, watching a trade caravan wend its way to the west. He needed information, and here was the perfect opportunity to get it. It was a large caravan, with some ten or fifteen wagons and nearly forty men on horseback, wearing armor and carrying assorted weaponry, guarding the goods which were stowed on the large wooden conveyances.
Tarrin dropped down to a lower branch, waiting to see if he could get one man somewhat by himself. He didn't want to hurt the man, just talk to him, but he didn't want to attract the attention of the entire caravan. He got his chance, as one of the caravan's rear guard stopped not too far from him and dismounted, then hurried off into the bushes to relieve himself. The others didn't wait for him. Tarrin moved into a position relatively close to the horse, approaching it with the horse's scent full in his face so that the horse wouldn't smell him. The man came out of the bushes and climbed back up onto his horse quickly.
"Excuse me," Tarrin called from the concealment of the lower branches.
The man gave a startled oath and drew his sword.
"Oh, please," Tarrin called. "Put that away. I just need to ask you a couple of questions."
"Who are you?" he called. "Where are you?"
"Don't worry about it," he said. "Where are we? I'm a bit lost."
"This is the High Road," he said, a bit confused.
"I know that," Tarrin retorted. "Where on the High Road? Near what city?"
"How can you not know that?"
"Are you going to answer me or not?"
"I may not," he said.
"Human, if I was a bandit, I would have attacked you when you went into the bushes," Tarrin said in disgust. "I just want to know where I am so I can get to where I'm going."
The fact that Tarrin called him "human" was not lost on the man. "Are you a Faerie?" he asked curiously. "Is that why I can't see you?"
"Don't worry about what I am, just answer the question," Tarrin grated.
"This place is about a day's ride to the west of Ultern," he answered. "Jerinhold is about a day's ride east of here."
Tarrin considered that. "I came too far east," he growled aloud. "Thank you, human. That helps me a great deal."
In an intentional rustle of leaves, Tarrin left the man standing there.
Tarrin was quickly faced with another problem, one he hadn't considered. The forest came right down to the road in that stretch that he'd found, but that was not normal. Farmlands cut into the forest on both sides of the road not even a quarter of a mile from where he'd encountered the guard, and they stretched out too far for him to keep the road in sight and still stay in the woods. Tarrin couldn't follow the road quickly if he had to detour every quarter of a mile to go around a farm, and time was a definite factor. It left him with a hard decision to make, but in the end, it wasn't much of a decision.
Tarrin holed up in a tree top for the rest of the day. When sunset drained all the light from the sky, leaving only the faint, multihued light of the Skybands as illumination, Tarrin dropped down from the trees and stepped out onto the road. There was no helping it, but at least on the road he could travel with great speed. Tarrin set out in that ground-eating lope, and spent the night travelling down the road. He passed the caravan he'd encountered that day around midnight, and left them far behind.