Because he had no other choice, Sander loosed the whistle the koyot would answer if within voice range. But, though he listened, there was no yelp, no matter how distant. Only one thing remained, lying on the pine needles—the knot of iron he had made for the koyot. Caught in it was a tuft of yellowish fur, as if Rhin, in some agony like to his own, had pawed it free.
Had Rhin run before the hounds of the Traders? One hound the koyot could have met fang to fang. However, if those of the village had loosed their pack in full, it could well be that the koyot had fled before a collection of enemies he dare not face by himself.
If so, why had Sander not been captured by the Traders? His hiding place under the pine was certainly not so secure a one as to be overlooked by any of their hounds.
Had Rhin gone on a hunt of his own? Perhaps, but deep inside, Sander doubted that. The smith drew up his hood once more and lashed it tight. He had his dart thrower, his belt long-knife—and little else save the clothes he wore, which by now, his nose told him, should be discarded for fresher ones. His gear, tools, food—all else had vanished with the koyot.
Sander had no intention of returning to the Trader village. He might lack the koyot’s nose for a guide, but he had a strong feeling that westward lay the answer. Also such a trail carried him away from that haunted land where both the amphibians—he warily glanced at the river, striving to sight any suspicious disturbance of the water—and the White Ones could lay ambush.
Sander drank deep, striving so to somewhat satisfy the hunger he felt by filling his empty stomach with water, then climbed the low bank. There was no sign of any trail, so he strove to keep the river in sight in order to make sure he was not wandering heedlessly. Now and again he gave his summoning whistle, hoping against hope that the koyot would either return or answer.
As the sun grew warmer, Sander unlaced his hood. Being a plainsborn man, he did not like this wooded country, thinly set though these trees were. He remembered, with shame for his own heedlessness, how back by Padford he had thought that the forest could provide shelter. Now he knew what the tree-shadowed land really held.
So he strode along, thrower in hand, dart set in the groove ready for firing, his hearing strained to catch the least sound. A light wind shifted leaves from the trees, and once or twice Sander caught the call of a bird. But he might have been the only man crossing a deserted country—until he sighted a streak of mud where a clump of sod had been pushed aside.
There, in the clay, was half of a handprint—a small one. Once his eyes were so alerted, he discovered other indications that here Fanyi must have emerged from the water, slipped on the clay, and thrown out a hand to support herself. That she had made no attempt to hide such traces argued to Sander that for some reason the girl had not feared any pursuit this far from the village. Or else she was now in such a hurry that haste meant more than concealment.
Realizing that she could not be too far ahead, he searched for other signs of her passing and found a few—a broken branch tip, a twisted stem, a smear of leaves scuffed up from last year’s carpet. The trail angled away from the verge of the stream, heading more to the south where trees grew thicker on upward-sloping ground.
Sander passed through young woods onto the surface of an ancient road. There was no trace here of the wreckage that stretched behind. Perhaps in this small pocket of the earth there had been less havoc wrought during the Dark Time. The road, to be sure, had breaks in its surface and was drifted over by soil in which grass and weeds, now fall-dried, rooted. But it was an easy path. In that soil Sander read not only of the passing of Fanyi and her fishers, but imposed over those in two places was an unmistakable paw print which could only belong to Rhin! That the koyot had deserted him to follow the others shook Sander.
He knew that Fanyi exerted a greater measure of control over the fishers, or perhaps one might say she was able to communicate more fully with them, than he did with Rhin. But he would never have believed that the Shaman could have such influence with the koyot as to deliberately draw the animal away from Sander himself. Unless, he corrected himself, she saw in this action one way of defeating pursuit.
To discover that Rhin must have been tolled away only made stronger his own determination to hunt Fanyi down. He plodded ahead, not with speed, but grimly, not now to be turned from the way.
Those he followed had kept to the old road, going openly, as far as he could judge from their tracks, as if they had no reason to expect pursuit. The road began to climb more steeply on a grade that nearly equaled the stark heights behind.
Sander was hungry, but that no longer mattered. Though once, when he came across a place where nuts were being gathered avidly by bustling squirrels, he picked enough of the tough-shelled harvest to nearly fill his hood. He paused to crack a few nuts and munched as he went. Although they tasted good, they were hardly as satisfying as the stew he had eaten in Kaboss’s house, a meal that seemed now like some long-past dream.
Reaching the crest of the slope, the smith could look ahead down a long descent. A light haze hung in the air, yet he did not sniff smoke, only saw that tendrils were clouding the distance. However, there was no mistaking what did lie directly ahead and to which the old road ran. Here once more were ruins, yet these had not been reduced to mere mounds of rubble lacking any sign that said they had once housed men. Nor were these battered fragments flattened by a storm like the ones he had viewed yesterday. No, there was enough form left here and there to reveal distinct structures. It seemed to Sander that, even as he studied the ruins, an odd haze began to descend upon them, ever thickening to hide more and more of the structures.
That this must be the place Fanyi had sought, of that he was convinced. He lengthened his stride, trotted down the broken road with a desire to reach the ruins as soon as possible. His aching legs, his empty middle, as well as the westward-reaching sun told him that the day was fast waning.
As soon as he approached the ruins closely, he could see that the road was choked in places by barriers of fallen stone, and no attempt had been made to clear them. In fact, he spotted several large chunks of metal undisturbed, and wonder grew in him. This certainly was within easy range of the Trader village. Why had they not come mining here?
The very fact that such treasure lay in the open roused his caution. Sander hesitated, searching the ground for tracks of those he had followed. When he saw nothing, he retraced his own steps until the claw marks of one of the fishers—Kai’s by the size of it—drew him to the right. There a second road opened, narrower than the other, which turned north sharply, heading away from the main mass of the ruins.
Trees and bushes narrowed in, reducing the surface to perhaps a quarter of its original expanse, so the way was hardly wider than a foot path. But pressed into the leaf mold and soil there were tracks, clear and deep, openly left to be traced. Fanyi, the fishers, and Rhin. Sander could not tell whether the koyot had already joined the girl or was still simply following her.
The roadway curved twice, then ended in an expanse of pavement that reminded Sander of that on which the Trader house had been built back in the lost island city. There were three buildings, or the remains of them, bounding three sides of the square, the road having led into the fourth. Their windows watched him with hollow eyes that opened on emptiness.
Sander took one step out onto that surface and swayed, falling forward to his knees. The pain in his head, shooting inward from the iron band, was so excruciating that he could feel nothing but its agony, he could not think at all. Instinct alone made him throw himself backward. Then he lay gasping from the shock of the pain, though it was now gone as suddenly as it had struck.