The girl nodded, already again pushing on. Sander could see that what she called a path must once have been a road. Perhaps not as wide a one as they had followed earlier, but still having remains of paving. Those tumbled blocks back in the clearing—now that he thought about them he believed that they were too regular in outline to be a natural outcrop. Perhaps they had also been set in place by man for some reason.
To his relief Sander now saw that the forest growth was getting thinner. And he caught a murmur that he fiercely hoped was the sound of distant surf. Let them get out into the open on the beach and they would be safe enough—there could be no overhead attack launched there.
They quickened pace. Now the smith felt strong enough to catch up his pack and sling it back across his shoulders as they thudded along. There were blocks of stone poking through the lighter brush. More buildings once? He did not know or care—to get into the open was the important thing.
The growth of trees became much lighter. Bushes, tall grass, and heaped stones formed barriers around and over which they had to make their way. The fishers flowed along easily while the humans had a more difficult time of it.
Open sun again—but now well down the sky. And the sea! Sander stood on the top of one block he had had to climb, making sure of that. And running along the sand, which spurted out from under his pads as he came, was Rhin! The koyot startled the shore birds, which arose with shrill cries; then his yelp sounded loud and clear.
They pushed through a stand of stubborn briars, and sand crunched under their boots. The fresh air of the beach blew away the last vile memory of the haunted woods. Rhin reached them, nosing at Sander delightedly, then growling a little, as he must have scented either the forest savages or their nets. His ears pricked toward woods as he growled again more deeply.
“Not now!” Sander told him joyfully. “We’re free!”
They had no wish to linger too close to that dark stand. Instead, they turned north again, this time keeping to the beach where one could see for miles anyone or anything that might come.
“Who—or what—were they?” Sander asked that night when they made camp among the dunes, with a cheerful fire of driftwood cooking the crabs Rhin had pawed from sand holes. “Have you seen or heard of them before?”
“The tree men?” Fanyi was repacking her bag, having searched carefully through it as if she feared that some of its contents had suffered from rough handling. “I do not know. I think they must be new-come here, for my people have gone nutting in that wood each autumn and never before have we found such. You ask ‘what’—do you then believe that they are not in truth men?”
“I do not know. To me, they seemed closer to animals, lesser than Rhin or your furred ones. And why did they serve a giant?”
“There were many strange changes in both man and animal during the Dark Time. My father,” her hand cupped the pendant again, “he had knowledge of such changes. He told my mother some animals now moved toward the estate of men. Perhaps it is also true then that some men were dropping backward into animals. These forest people are less even than the Sea Sharks—though perhaps they are fully akin in spirit.” That fierce light was again in her eyes when she spoke of the enemy who had wiped out Padford. “I think that we were intended as offering to placate their female.”
Sander did not shiver, but he would have liked to. What might have happened had not the fishers come to their rescue? He did not care to dwell upon that. He noticed that this night neither Kai, Kayi, nor Rhin roamed away from the fire, but were settling down close to its light. Perhaps, they, too, were affected by the strangeness of this region, sensing a menace that lay just below the surface.
He suggested that they watch in turn, being sure to keep the fire lit, and Fanyi agreed at once. But she pressured him into taking the first rest, pointing out that his heavy pack had been such a hazard to him in the shrinking net that he had suffered more than she. And, although he would have liked to argue the question, her good sense made his pride seem childish.
When she aroused him, the night had closed in. Rhin lay with his head pillowed on his forepaws, his eyes yellow slits of awareness as Sander went to feed the fire. The fishers were curled into two furry balls, and Fanyi settled herself in a sandy hollow by them.
Above, the stars were very bright and clear, and the ceaseless wash of the waves lulling. Sander got to his feet, motioning Rhin to lie still when the koyot at once raised his head. He walked a little down the beach, gathering more driftwood, feeling too restless to remain still. As he started back, he faced toward that black shadow marking the edge of the woods. Had the forest men come slinking after them? Would those leave the trees to hunt down the slayers of their—what had she been: a chief, mother of the tribe, even a supernatural figure with supposed powers of a Shaman? They would never know. Only that she had had no common heritage with either Fanyi or him, that she had been farther removed from their blood-kin than even the furred ones.
This might be a world of many surprises. It would be best that from now on their party should move with great care, accepting nothing as harmless until it was proven so.
He tramped back to the fire and fed in some wood. Rhin’s eyes closed when he saw Sander settle down. Fanyi lay, breathing evenly. In sleep her face looked very young, untried. But she was not. He owed his life to her or at least to her furred ones. Somehow that idea was one he did not altogether like. He had blundered around like an untried boy on his first herd ride. There was little for him to be proud of in this day’s work.
Frowning, he pulled his tool bag to him, drawing forth the tools, examining them one by one. The two hammers he had found in Padford—those ought to be fitted with proper handles. But there was nothing here except driftwood, and the strength of that he did not trust. When he had time, he would search out some proper wood and see them shafted again. He thought they would have excellent balance, once they were ready for use.
Now he wondered about the man who had used them. What manner of smith had served Padford? He would like to ask Fanyi. But he thought it better not to call to her mind any thought of her people and their doom.
That made him think in turn of what she sought—some weapon out of the Before Time, one potent enough to wipe out those raiders from the south. Did such exist still? He doubted it. But that Fanyi did have knowledge of some hidden place, that he did not doubt.
Metal—
He thought of copper and gold and silver and iron—those he knew, could fashion to obey his will. But the others—the strange alloys that no man now held the secret of—if he could master those also! His hand curled about the broken handle of the large hammer he had found, and a kind of restless eagerness filled him so that he longed to get up at his very moment and run—run to find the secrets Fanyi promised existed somewhere.
He must discipline his too vivid imagination. Fanyi’s idea of what she sought was very vague. He must not count on good fortune until he met it face-to-face. Slowly Sander repacked the tools and knotted their bag. It was good fortune enough this night that they were still alive.
5
For two days they plodded among the dunes. Save for the birds, shellfish and crabs they foraged for, this land might have been bare of any life. Far to the west showed the dark line of the forest. Between them and it was a waste in which little grew but tough grass in scattered clumps and some brush twisted by the salt winds into strange shapes.
On the third morning they reached an even stranger desert land. The sea, too, now curled away to the east, so what they faced was a slope leading downward into territory that had once been covered by ocean but was now dry land. Here rocks had necklaces of long-dead shellfish, while brittle carcasses of other sea life lay half-buried around outcrops of wave-worn stone.
Sander wanted to alter their path westward—hoping to skirt this desert. But Fanyi hesitated, her eyes again on her pendant, in which she seemed to trust so deeply.