We won't leave tracks here but it'll be tricky to move quietly through this.
'Watch out for snakes.' Kheda moved cautiously onwards, stabbing at the leaf litter with his hacking blade.
'What was that?' Naldeth halted, mouth open, as he stared at one of the tall trees.
'It looked like a matia,' Velindre mused. 'It was brown and furry with a long nose and a twitching tail,' she amplified for Risala's benefit.
'Whatever it was, it was running away.' Risala dismissed the unseen creature. 'That's all we need to know.'
Kheda turned to silence them all with a sweep of his hand. 'Voices carry further than we can see. Only speak if you must.'
To his relief, the forest grew no thicker. He skirted the patches of denser growth, at the same time using them as cover until he was certain the trees ahead sheltered no unwelcome surprises. Risala followed close behind, constantly scanning the underbrush, with Velindre coming after her, equally vigilant. Naldeth lagged behind, stumbling whenever his lifeless metal foot sank into unexpected softness in the dark leaf mould.
Kheda saw brightness ahead where the tall trees stopped. He pushed carefully through the thorny tangle of scrub on the shady margin of the woodland, grateful for his long sleeves and trousers. The slope they had been carefully descending fell abruptly away and the dry expanse of a desiccated stream bed opened out before them, the crumbling edge treacherous.
He took a moment to orient himself. This watercourse ran away to the south, to join the flow of the wide river they had sailed up earlier and swell it with whatever rain fell on the higher land to the north. It was plainly a seasonal tributary; at present it was a barren stretch of pale sand dotted with tufts of the razor-bladed grass and uneven slews of tumbled rocks and dead and broken tree limbs. On the far side, the next low hill rose up to be claimed by the forest once again.
And those caves and the wild men who fought those vile birds are somewhere beyond that.
'Someone's been digging.' Risala sank down behind the concealing leaves of a sapling and pointed to a dark hole excavated in the pale sandy stream bed. 'Or something. I suppose it could have been some animal.'
'Someone, I'd say.' Velindre narrowed her eyes as she looked at the diggings. 'For water.'
'Using pointed sticks and pieces of gourd.' Naldeth pointed to the detritus scattered around the hole.
'Which they dropped as they ran.' Kheda looked at the darker earth cast aside around the hole. 'And they're not long gone, or that would have dried out.'
Risala looked at him. 'Could they have heard us coming?'
'I think we would have seen or heard them running, don't you?' Kheda looked up and down the dried-up stream. There was no sign of any living creature in the silent and empty valley.
'So what do we do now?' Naldeth asked expectantly.
Kheda stared across the dry valley. There was no obvious trail cutting through the trees on the far side of the stream bed. 'We have to get across this open ground as quickly as we can.'
'Do you want me to wrap a little concealment around us?' Velindre offered.
Kheda hesitated. 'Can you be certain no wild mage will sense it?'
'Not unless he's actively looking for us and scrying this valley in particular,' she assured him.
'Very well, then.' Kheda nodded reluctantly, taking one last look to be certain there was no one in sight.
The air shivered with the disquieting shimmer of magic as he strode into the open. Apprehension prickled down his spine along with a trickle of sweat, though at least there was a breath of cool breeze once they emerged from beneath the trees.
As they reached the patch of dug-up ground, Kheda scanned the soft stream bed for any sign to show which way the unknown savages had fled. All he could see were animal tracks: splayed footprints with the telltale depressions made by taloned toes and the dragging line left by a tail cutting between them.
Is that what they were running from? What was it? A lizard? Where did the lizard go?
'Do we see if we can find whoever was digging or carry on to those caves you were talking about?' Naldeth was struggling to get a purchase on the loose sandy earth with his false foot.
Risala walked a few paces away in the direction of the unseen grasslands, scanning the ground. 'They didn't go this way.'
'They went north.' Velindre looked up the dry stream.
'Away from that wild mage with the skull mask.' Risala
turned her attention towards the black and brown trees clustered thickly on the opposite bank. 'I'm not anxious to go into that forest, Kheda, not if those birds are there.'
'Then we'll go and see if we can find the people who went upstream from here.' Kheda grinned as both wizards' faces betrayed their surprise at this change of plan. 'A wise leader always listens to those following him.' He pointed to the far bank. 'But we'll use those trees for cover. We're not going to walk up the middle of this watercourse.'
Risala looked at him with a smile in her eyes. 'As you command, my lord.'
They moved on and Kheda tried to curb his exasperation with Naldeth's halting progress. Once they were safely within the trees on the far side of the stream bed, he allowed a halt.
The young wizard evidently read something in Kheda's expression. 'If you want me moving any faster, I'll need to use more magic,' he said tightly.
'I'll try to find a path that won't be too taxing.' Kheda tried not to sound curt.
That proved easier said than done and it was an awkward task keeping close enough to the edge of the trees to see the dry stream clearly without drawing too near to the fractured lip of the bank. High above, unseen birds bickered. Now and again one squawked a peremptory warning and Kheda froze. When the idle chatter in the treetops resumed, he moved on, each time with his heart beating a little faster. The dry valley curved around a shallow bend and as soon as he got a good view of what lay beyond, Kheda stopped.
'Not all these savages live in caves.'
Back on the western bank that they had just left behind them, below another of the irregular outcrops where the rocks of this harsh land broke through the meagre soil, the
thickly buttressed trees had been claimed by the wild men. Underbrush and lesser saplings had been cleared and platforms built around the sturdiest trunks, supported by branches forced into compliance with thick plaited ropes. Crude sheaves of dry leaves showed up brown among the green, tied to cast shade, while hanging hides foiled draughts, though the dwellings could hardly be called huts. Wild men and women were moving peaceably around the wide bases of the trees with no thought that they might be observed.
'Do you suppose these people have a wizard to call on?' Risala studied them.
'We'll have to wait and see,' said Velindre, her eyes keen.
Are these allies of those cave-dwellers to the east of here? Or does this dry valley mark some boundary? Whose territory are we in? Does it make any difference?
Kheda looked up and down the bank of the stream where they stood, searching for a safe place to hide and keep watch on those new wild men without risk of being seen. A wide-boled tree whose drooping branches were thick with coppery leaves caught his eye. Cautiously, he pushed aside the dangling foliage to find a bare circle of richly scented earth within the curtain of branches. There were no snakes immediately apparent or burrows where some venomous creature might be lurking.