It had been carved to lean forward, gazing down at its own feet or else the foot of the pillar. There rankly tall dark green grass grew, such as that which formed the rings of shelter.
Kosgro halted. With one hand he pointed to the grass.
“A guide, if it will work for us.”
“A guide-but how-?” I did not finish, for he was continuing.
“Get a clump of that, Kilda, a fair-sized one.”
Though I could not see the purpose, I went to the foot of the column, gathered a bunch of the grass in my hand, and pulled as hard as I could to free it from the soil. But it did not give way. Instead, the resisting blades cut my flesh, making me let go and cry out in surprise.
“Not that way I” Oomark came running. “You do not take – you ask. And if there is a will in our favor, it will come.”
He shouldered me to one side and looked up into the featureless ball of a head.
“Give me your hand.” He did not wait for me to raise it – he grabbed it. And before I could protest, he smeared the open palm, where blood had gathered in those cuts, across the stone breast of the carving.
“Paid in blood!” he cried. “Paid in blood! Now pay in kind, by old bargains – let this be so as we ask it!”
So did he influence me, I half expected that ball of a head to show us an open mouth, speak, either agreeing or denying. But there was no such happening. And Oomark, having loosened his hold on my wrist, allowed my hand to slip away from the rock, leaving dark smears behind.
“Now pull,” he told me.
I was nursing my wounds. “I have open cuts – you do it.”
“I can’t. You paid the price, not I. If the bargain is made, it is with you alone.”
He did not explain, only stepped away, leaving the action to me. Once more I started to grasp the grass, this time with the other hand.
“No!” Again Oomark halted me. “With your right hand, or else it is no true bargain.”
I winced as I bent my cut fingers around the grass. I did not jerk at it now as I had before, but tried a slower pull. After a long moment of effort, it yielded. The roots were not fine and threadlike, but rather the whole bunch I had plucked grew from a single gnarled and thick length, which came forth from the ground with a shrill squeak of protest. I sat back on my heels waiting for Kosgro to tell me what he wanted done with this treasure.
“That has power of a sort. If any notus grows near here, it will point the way. Hold it loosely, keeping just enough control so it will not slip from your grasp. As we go, it will tell us the way.”
Since this was all of a piece with the other alien matters of this world, I made no protest. I got to my feet, and as we went on, I held that bunch of grass with its stiff, much curved root a little away from my body.
“Indraw comes soon.” Oomark walked between us, as if he had good reason to want protection. He was right. We were fast entering into one of those periods when our way would be too hidden to follow.
But at that same moment the tuft of grass and root in my hand turned to the right. And though I strove against it, it stubbornly resisted and continued to point so. I called their attention to it and heard a sigh of relief from Kosgroo.
“The indraw – ” Oomark reached up to catch at one of those rags of uniform that still clung to Kosgro’s body. “We cannot keep on.”
“We have no choice, I think,” the other answered.
I saw that now he hunched even more under Bartare’s weight, and he pressed one hand to the bandage lapping his chest, as if his wound troubled him.
“The notus may be far off – ” Oomark protested.
“Stand where you are,” Kosgro told me. He then put out his hand to the root, testing its rigidity, jerking his fingers away quickly and rubbing them up and down his thigh.
“I don’t think so. In any event, we shall have to risk it. There is no possible shelter here.”
We had come to a place of many rocks, which I did not like the look of in the least. Here ambush would be easy, and my imagination stationed some enemy behind each we passed. Oomark might want to hide here, but to me it did not offer safe cover.
The grass root shook and altered direction in my hand as I made detours around these boulders. It was necessary to go slowly as the footing was bad, consisting of small rolling stones and places where one could trip.
During our travels those bandages I had set around my feet were wearing through fast, and I knew that unless I was able to renew them soon, I would be left barefoot – a condition I dreaded, so that I pushed forward at times with reckless speed until some muttered warning from Kosgro slowed me.
The indrawing of the mist was almost complete and so slowed even more our going. We did not hear any warning horn this time. The presence of a lurking menace came to us first by a breath of air carrying a sour stench, strong enough to make me gag.
Yet Kosgro drew in a deep, testing noseful of the effluvium. He had paused, even as I, and now used both hands to adjust the lie of his living burden. I saw Bartare’s face, her closed eyes, her slow, even breathing.
Unfortunately, the root pointed us directly to the source of that foul odor. I clung to a rock support and glanced at Kosgro. Did he know what lay ahead? Was it something we dared face?
He might be measuring odds. Twice he sniffed deeply. Oomark crouched between us, once more seeking the protection we could afford his small person.
At last Kosgro shrugged. “We have no choice. Sooner or later it will detect us, even as we do it. Then we have no chance to escape.”
“What is it?”
“One of the fell-worms, I think. But that does not greatly matter – all of the Dark Ones stink in some manner. That is one of the safeguards the Folk have, since ofttimes they do not seem to know that they so betray themselves to those they would hunt. On it is – ”
I wanted to refuse, to stay where I was, for the stone under my hand seemed now an anchor to safety. But as always, I must depend upon his superior knowledge.
With the root pointing, I squeezed between rocks and went on. The loathsome smell grew stronger. But though I listened with all my might, I could hear nothing moving. My other hand went to the weighted stone bag I carried still, slung at my belt. Could I use that if I were suddenly confronted by some monster? I freed it, ready to swing.
The reek of vile corruption tortured my nose. I wanted to cough, but I dared not. Oomark had both hands pressed to his nose and was breathing through his mouth.
There was a swirl in the mist. It was plain that something now moved there. Fingers caught at my shoulder. I was slammed painfully against another of the tall rocks. Then Bartare was shoved into my arms, and Kosgro twisted the weighted bag from my hold. He moved out before us, Swinging it as if to test the weight and balance of that poor weapon. Oomark crept up beside me.
The movement in the mist had a dark core. But so thick was the indraw that if we waited to see what crept there, it might be far too close. I did not need any warning from the others to freeze into immobility, wishing I could deaden the beating of my heart, the sound of my breathing. It seemed to me both of those were alerts to pull the thing down upon us.
The darker spot in the fog grew more defined. It neared the edge of the curtain. Then there broke through a narrow black wedge, aimed at Kosgro like the spearpoint of a weapon. For a second or two I thought it just that.
Then it was too close to mistake. The thing was ringed, and between those ridges of gristle it contracted and expanded. This was no weapon, but part of a living thing, though I could not detect eyes, mouth, nose – saw nothing but the black flesh.
It hovered so for an instant or two, and then it darted at Kosgro. He swung the bag against the side of that cone-shaped head with such force that it bore the cone before it against a rock to our left, smashing it between the stones in the bag and the unyielding surface of a boulder.