To that question we had no answer. But it left us with little peace of mind. The stream tinkled and burbled through the dark, and we could hear the sound of the hobbled Torgians at graze. And we set up watches turn and turn about.
The morning came and this one was clear and bright for Kemoc and me—though Kaththea admitted that the fog was heavy for her, and that she had a disturbing disorientation when we began our ride into the foothills. At last she begged us to tie her to her saddle and lead her mount as the overwhelming desire to turn back was growing so strong she feared she could not control it.
We, too, had a measure of unease. There was a distortion of sight at times which was like that we had experienced looking down into the valley of the Place. And the sensation of moving into some dark and unpleasant surprise was haunting, but not to the point that it had any effect upon our determination.
But we did as Kaththea asked and at intervals she struggled against the ties we put on her, once crying out that directly before us was sudden death in the form of a deep chasm—though that was not true. Finally she shut her eyes and had us lay a bandage over them, saying that once shut into her own mind in that fashion, she was better able to combat the waves of panic.
The faint trace of road had long since vanished. We went by the easiest riding we could pick through true wilderness. I had lived much among mountains, but the weirdly broken ways we now followed were strange to nature, and I thought I knew the reason. Just as the mountains of the south had been toppled and turned, so, too, had these heights.
It was evening of the second day since we had left the streamside when we reached the end of open ways. Before us now lay heights a determined man might climb on foot, but not on horseback. We faced that fact bleakly.
“Why do you stop?” Kaththea wanted to know.
“The way runs out; there is only climbing ahead.”
“Wait!” She leaned down from her saddle. “Loose my hands!”
There was such urgency in that that Kemoc hastened to obey. As if she could see in spite of the blindfold, her fingers moved surely out, touched his brows, slid down to the eyes he blinked shut. For a long moment she held them so before she spoke:
“Turn, face where we must go.”
With her touch still on his closed eyes, my brother moved his head slowly to the left, facing the cliff face.
“Yes, oh, yes! Thus I can see it!” There was excitement and relief in Kaththea’s voice. “This is the way we must go, then?”
But how could we? Kemoc and I could have done it, though I wondered about his maimed hand. But to take Kaththea bound and blindfolded—that was impossible.
“I do not think you need to take me so,” she answered my silent doubts. “Leave me thus for tonight, let me gather all my powers, and then, with the dawn—let us try. There will be an end to the block, of that I am sure.”
But her certainty was not mine. Perhaps with the dawn, instead of climbing, we would have to backtrack, to seek out another way up through the tortured debris of this ancient battlefield.
* * *
* * *
VI
I COULD NOT sleep, though there was need for it in my body—to which my mind would not yield. Finally I slipped from my blanket and went to where Kemoc sat sentry.
“Nothing,” he answered my question before it was voiced. “Perhaps we are so far into the debatable land we need not fear pursuit.”
“I wish I knew at whose boundary we are,” I said. And my eyes were for the heights that we must dare tomorrow.
“Friend or enemy?” In the moonlight his hand moved so there was a glint of light from the grip of the dart gun lying unholstered on his knee.
“And that—” I gestured to the weapon. “We have but two extra belts of darts. Steel may have to serve us in the end.”
Kemoc flexed his hand and those stiff fingers did not curl with their fellows. “If you are thinking of this, brother, do not underrate me. I have learned other things besides the lore of Lormt. If a man determines enough he can change one hand for the other. Tomorrow I will belt on a blade for the left hand.”
“I have the feeling that what we win beyond will be sword-taken.”
“In that you may be very right. But better land sword-taken than what lies behind us now.”
I gazed about. The moon was bright, so bright it seemed uncannily so. We were in a valley between two ridges. And Kemoc had his post on a ledge a little more than a man’s height above the valley floor. Yet here our sight was restricted as to what lay above us, or farther down the cut of our back trail. And this blindness worried me.
“I want to see from up there,” I told him.
In the brightness of the moon I did not fear trouble, the slope being rough enough to afford good hand and toe holds. Once on the crest I looked to the west. We had been climbing all day as we worked our way through the foothills. The tree growth was sparse now and I had a clear sight. With the long seeing lenses from my service belt I searched our back trail.
They were distant, those pricks of light in the night. No effort had been taken to conceal them; rather they had been lit to let us know we were awaited. I counted some twenty fires and smiled wryly. So much did those who sent those waiting sentries respect the three of us. Judging by Borderer practices there must be well over a hundred men so encamped, waiting. How many of them were those with whom Kemoc and I had ridden?
Were any drawn from my own small command? Freed from the necessity of southward patrols they could be used thus.
But we were not yet in a trap. I pivoted to study the cliff wall which now fronted us. As far as the glass advanced my own sight north and south there appeared no easier way up. And would those others, back there, remain at the line they had drawn, or come after us?
I dropped to Kemoc’s perch.
“So they are there. . . .”
Mind contact passed news swiftly.
“I make it at least a full field company, if we go by fire count. Maybe more.”
“It would seem there is a vow we shall be taken. But I doubt if they will sniff this far in after us.”
“I could sight no better climbing place.”
There was no need to put the rest of my worry into words: he shared it fully already. But now he gave me a short reply.
“Do not believe that she will not climb, Kyllan.”
“But if she does so blind?”
“Two of us, the saddle ropes, and mind contact which will give her sight? We may be slow, but we shall go. And you shall fuzz the back trail, Kyllan, even as it has just crossed your mind to do.”
I laughed. “Why do we bother with speech? You know my thoughts as I think them—”
He interrupted, his words sober: “Do I? Do you know mine?”
I considered. He was right, at least as far as I was concerned. I had contact, could communicate with him and with Kaththea, but it was a come and go matter and, as I knew, mostly when we were intent upon a mutual problem. Unless he willed it, Kemoc’s personal thoughts were not mine.
“Nor yours mine,” he replied promptly. “We may be one in will when necessary, but still we are three individuals with separate thoughts, separate needs, and perhaps separate fates also.”
“That is good!” I said without thinking.
“It could not be otherwise, or we would be as the non-men the Kolder used to do their labor and their fighting—those bodies who obeyed, though mind and spirit were dead. It is enough to open one surface of our thoughts to one another when we must, but for the test—it is our own.”
“Tomorrow, if I blaze our trail up there and keep my mind open, can Kaththea see thus, even if she goes blinded?”
“So is my hope. But this is also the truth, brother, that such an open mind must be held so by will, and this will add to the strain of the climb. I do not think you can do this for long; we shall have to divide it between us. And”—again he flexed his scarred hand in the moonlight—”do not believe that in this either shall I be found wanting. Crooked and stiff as these fingers are, yet my bone and flesh have learned to obey me!”