“What the dark night’s got them going like that?” Ryan said, as he and Krysty emerged once more onto the trampled track, watching the last of the buffalo vanishing toward the west.
OVER THE NEXT HOUR OR SO, it seemed to Ryan that he and Krysty were like salmon, swimming desperately against torrential rapids, battling over slick rocks to try to reach the spawning grounds higher up the river.
Every living thing was moving west, in the opposite direction to them.
Birds flew noisily above them, and snakes slithered quickly through the sun-browned grasses.
And there was still neither sight nor sound of the enemy that had produced this terrifying flight.
“Has to be a fire,” Ryan insisted. “Or some hunters with a long line of beaters driving every creature ahead of them.”
“Be the biggest hunt I ever saw, lover.” She stopped again, using her sleeve to wipe sweat off her forehead. “I can’t believe it.”
“And if it was a fire” He sniffed. “What wind there is in this hothouse is blowing in our direction, from the east. Can’t catch a hint of any smoke at all.” He looked at Krysty. “Can you feel anything more? We must’ve walked about eight or ten miles from the village by now.”
She shook her head, running fingers through the fiery, sentient hair, which was coiled tightly around her nape. An hour or so earlier and it had been tumbling free across her shoulders.
“Nothing more. And the way my hair feels make it seem like there’s some bad trouble somewhere along the line. Could be within the next mile or so.”
“But we’ve heard nothing. What kind of disaster can cause panic at every level, and not be heard or smelled or seen? Fireblast! It beats me.”
“Seems like most everything that’s running’s already gone past us,” Krysty said.
“Yeah. Except for him.” He pointed up to a long-toed sloth that was still making its leisurely way from branch to branch, about forty feet above them, its hooded, milky eyes watching them disdainfully.
There was also an occasional rustling noise from deep among the undergrowth, showing that some of the smaller forest denizens were scuttling for safety. But they were becoming fewer and farther between.
They passed a deep natural basin in the red stone, bare of vegetation, looking as if it had once been part of a river course but had been bypassed and left high and dry. It was about two hundred feet across and thirty feet deep. The trail wound straight for it and crossed it, between higher walls of the same rippled rocks.
Ryan sat on its edge, flipping stones into the bowl while he sipped from the canteen. Krysty passed the time by climbing one of the cliffs, scrambling her way to the very top and shading her eyes eastward, standing like a hewn statue for several seconds.
“Anything?” he called.
“No,” she replied, sounding rather doubtful. “The trees grow thinner and it turns into more like meadowland. But there’s a sort of heat haze shimmering over it and I can’t make out too much.” She laughed as she started to descend again. “Looks like the whole earth’s moving.”
THEY WERE WELL PAST the middle of the day.
Now the jungle was weakening its hold, as Krysty had seen from the top of the sandstone ridge. The hardwood giants grew smaller and more scattered, with patches of green land showing between them, and they passed by several areas of swamp.
“Quiet here,” Ryan said, unconsciously dropping his own voice against the stillness.
“Seems like everything’s gone now.”
Ryan stopped, shaking his head. “Look, lover. This is becoming triple stupe. There’s something out there that can clear a whole bastard jungle of all its life.”
“Think we should back off, as well?”
“Mebbe we should.”
“We’ve got blasters.”
Ryan smiled grimly. “Depends on what we’re up against. I can think of times that a blaster was about as much use as pissing into the wind.”
“True.” She shuddered suddenly.
“What?”
“Felt like someone was walking over my grave. Real cold chill sort of feeling.”
Ryan rubbed the side of his nose, considering their options. “Go back and bring J.B. and the others? Posse of the warriors, as well?”