Krysty joined Ryan. “Gloria scouting the land?”
He nodded. “If this is a valley, then we need to know what the hell the incline’s like. If it isn’t, then what does it end in?”
“Trouble,” the Titian-haired woman answered quietly.
Ryan turned to her. The strands of long, flaming hair that usually hung loosely over her shoulders were coiled in tight to her neck.
“What is it?” he asked softly, not wanting to alert any of the Gate to Krysty’s doomie sensibility until he himself knew what she was thinking.
“Not sure,” she replied in an equally cautious tone. “It can’t be too near, as the Gate scouts haven’t reported anything, but since we started to go downhill and the landscape started to change, I’ve had this growing knowledge that we’re headed into trouble. I just wish it wasn’t so vague.”
“Better vague than nothing,” came a voice from just above them. Both Ryan and Krysty looked up to see Gloria hanging from a tree limb, having moved across the trees with the stealth of a tree monkey.
The woman flipped off the branch, landing effortlessly on her thonged feet.
“I couldn’t see much from up there,” she continued, “but one thing is for sure—there’s enough hiding places. I couldn’t even spot my own outriders. Which is okay, ’cause they’d be in deep shit if I could! But there could be anything in there, and there are a couple of spots where we’d be very vulnerable.”
“Like?” Ryan queried.
“My guess is that we’re in an area that was sacred in some way, and hidden from the view of the world. There are some areas where camouflage was used, and the years have worn it away. Mebbe ten miles from here there’s a settlement of some kind. No fires or signs of life I could see, but at this distance it’s too soon to say.” She shrugged. “But before we get that far, there’s a plain in the middle of this that stretches for about a mile. Why the hell it should be there, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Mebbe that’s what’s worrying me,” Krysty said. “It could be something residual that’s giving me this, rather than any real danger.”
Gloria shook her head. “Never ignore a doomie, honey. What I mean is that the plain looks like it was man-made in some way. This is a decline into a lower ground level, not a valley, and with this around—” she gestured to the woodlands around them “—then there’s no reason in nature why that plain should suddenly be there. It’s kinda weird, and that worries me.”
“How far to the plain?” Ryan asked.
“About half a mile,” Gloria answered.
The one-eyed warrior nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. They had to advance, and if there was a settlement ahead that was deserted, then it could prove instructive. But to get there…
“Triple red, without a doubt,” he said. “Reckon we should call in the outriders, as well. If they haven’t seen anything out there, then mebbe whatever’s waiting—if it is—is too smart to be caught out that way. Besides which, this is their territory.”
“Agreed. I’ll call them back and we proceed with extreme caution. The unknown is a worse enemy than anything you see,” the Gate queen murmured before turning and letting out an earsplitting screech that was a signal to her outriders.
J.B., Jak, Dean, Mildred and Doc moved through the stilled procession of the Gate until they were level with Krysty, Ryan and Gloria. While the tribe was content to wait for their queen to inform them of what was happening, the companions were more anxious to know. Krysty and Gloria filled them in on what had been discovered and discussed.
“I wonder,” Doc mused, almost to himself. “Could it really be so, after all?”
“Could what be so?” Mildred prompted.
Doc looked at her as though she had completely missed the plot, even though it was a story that had been running only in his own head for some time now. “My dear Dr. Wyeth,” he said in amazement, “why, surely it’s obvious.”
Mildred raised an eyebrow. “Not to me, you crazy old coot. So come down off that cloud and fill me in. Pretend I’m stupid, okay?”