This was my moment of testing. Had I not wrought aright my life might answer for such destruction. In any event it would not be easy.
Nor was it, for as the flames licked and ate at the mat, so did my body writhe and I bit my lips against the screams of agony searing me. Blood trickled down my chin as well as my arm as my teeth met through my own flesh. But I endured without an outcry which might have awoken Bahayi. I endured and watched the mat until it was utterly consumed. Then I crawled to Utta’s chest and brought out a small pot of thick grease which I smeared, with trembling fingers and many catches of breath, at the hurt, up and down my body, which was reddened and sore as if I and not the mat had lain unprotected in the heart of the coals.
So was the spell broken, yet the breaking left me in so sad a state that it would not be that day which was now dawning, nor even the one to follow, which could see me on my way. Also there were other precautions I must take, for any hound in the camp put to my trail could nose out my way and run me down were I to be found missing.
Bahayi roused with the daylight, but she was as one who moved in the afterglow of a dream, going about her duties with her usual competence but taking very little note of me save when it was necessary to bring food. And we were further aided in our solitude by a blizzard which made such a cloud about our ruins that those of each tenthold kept to themselves and there was no coming nor going.
By late afternoon my hurts were healed to the point I could move about, if stiffly and with some pain. And I set about my own preparations for flight. The thought of the cape ruins held steady in my mind. Utta had visited there and had said it was a place of Power, warning off the tribe. But she had not said of evil Power. And if I took refuge in such a place I might escape pursuit.
Were I to vanish there they might well take it to be an act of magic and be too frightened to come seeking me with hound and tracker. I could shelter therein and wait for better weather to start west again.
It seemed to me as I sorted through all of Utta’s belongings, packet by packet, box by box, jar by jar, that all was very much for the best and that I was coming out of this venture very well. While I had certainly not regained all I had lost through my companionship with Dinzil, still I knew enough now not to be a menace to those I loved. And I might return safely to the Valley.
I made up a small pack of healing herbs and those I needed for such spells as I could use for defense during a journey. And, after Bahayi went to sleep again, I put aside a store of food choosing those things which would last longest and give the greatest strength and energy in the least bulk.
If I went openly, with the knowledge of the clan, to visit the ruins, I could have a sled for the first lap of my journey. However, after that it might well be a matter of carrying only what I could pack on my back. All the more reason to be sure I was fully cured of my ill taken in destroying the rune mat.
The storm came from the north and it held steady for two days and the night between. The howl of the wind overhead was sometimes strangely like voices calling aloud and Bahayi and I looked uneasily at each other, drawing closer together before the fire, which I fed with some of the herbs as well as from our fast dwindling pile of wood.
But at dusk on the second day the wind died and soon after there came a scratching at our door flap. Ifeng stamped in at my call, shaking snow from his heavy furs. He had brought with him a pile of driftwood gathered from along the shore and dumped it by our hearth place, together with a silver scaled fish Bahayi welcomed with a grunt of pleasure.
Having so delivered supplies he looked to me. “Seeress,” he began, and then hesitated, as if not knowing quite how to put his request into words. “Seeress, look into the days to come for us. Such storms sometimes drive the raiders to shore—”
So I brought out my board and he squatted on his heels to watch. I questioned him as to the form of ship to be feared and his halting description gave me a mental picture not unlike those of the Sulcar ships of my childhood. I wondered if those other sea rovers were not of the same breed.
Holding that picture in mind I closed my eyes and read with my fingers. Down the red line they slid rapidly, and down the gold. But on the third ominous black column they caught fast, as if the tips were clotted with pitch. I looked—they were fastened so close to the top I cried out in alarm.
“Danger—great danger—and soon!” I gave warning.
He was gone, leaving the door flap open behind him. I threw aside the answer board to follow, to see him in the dusk of early twilight floundering along the drifts between the ruined walls. Now and again he stopped at some downed flap to yell a warning, so he left all stirring behind him.
Too late! He wavered suddenly, as if he had trod on a treacherous bit of icy footing, falling back against a wall. He had drawn his sword but he never had a chance to use it. I saw in the half gloom the hand ax which had struck him between neck and shoulder, biting out his life. A thrown ax—another Sulcar trick.
Before he had more than fallen to the ground there was a flitting of gathering shadows racing between the low crumbling walls; I heard screaming from the other side of the settlement, where the raiders must have already forced their way into some of the shelters.
I turned on Bahayi, catching up the pack I had prepared.
“Come! The raiders—”
But she stood staring at me in her most stupid way, and I had to throw her cloak about her, pull her to the door, push her ahead of me. The sled dogs had been loosed from their common kennel in the center of the settlement and were at grim work, buying time for their masters. I pulled and dragged at Bahayi, trying to urge her along with me northward.
For some moments she came. And then suddenly, with a sharp cry, as if she were awakening from a dream, she struck out at me, freeing herself. Before I could catch her again she was out of reach, on her way back to the very heart of the melee.
I looked back. Had I been such a one as Utta, with natural forces at my command, I might have been able to aid the tribesmen. Now I was the least in any defense they might summon.
So I turned resolutely north, struggling from one patch of cover to the next, leaving the fighting behind me, just as snow began to fall again.
* * *
* * *
VIII
The swirling of the snow not only hid what was happening now in the village, but the rising of a savage wind also drowned out the cries. Within minutes I thought I had chosen the worse of two evils in my flight, for I was completely lost. But I kept blundering on, until I staggered into a half-seen brush from which I recoiled. That told me that I was out of the ruins and into the beginning of the growth which masked my distant goal.
This brush was tall and thick enough to shelter me once I had fought a little way into it, and I half fell through a slit in it, which must mark a trail. The way was so narrow that I deemed it a game path. It ran with so many twists and curves that it certainly did not follow any ancient road, since mankind has a way of imposing his will on nature in the building of roads not yielding to her quirks.
Some of the taller spikes of brush, which were close to the stature of trees, held off the fury of the storm, and I was able to stumble along at a goodly pace. I believed that my sense of direction had not altogether deserted me and I was heading for the mysterious pile of timeworn masonry on the point.