“Dangerous? Why?”
“It’s too near the edge of the forests,” Kennard said, “and during the last few seasons, trailmen have spread down into these forests. Usually they stay in the hills. They’re not really dangerous, but they don’t like humans, and we stay out of their way, as a rule. Then, too, this is on the border of mountain country, and men from the Cahuengas—”
He broke off, stiffening in his saddle, looking intently across the valley.
“What is it, Kennard?” Larry asked.
The Darkovan boy pointed. Larry could see nothing, but Kennard called to his father, a shrill insistent shout, and Valdir turned his horse and came cantering back.
“What’s wrong, Ken?”
“Smoke. The mist lifted just for a minute, over there—” Kennard pointed, “and I saw it. Right at the edge of the Ranger station.”
Valdir frowned, narrowing his eyes, shading them with his thin brown hand. “How sure are you? It’s a good hour’s ride out of our way—damn this mist, I can’t see anything.” He flung back his head like a deer sniffing the wind, peering into the distance, and finally nodded.
“A trace of smoke. We’ll ride and check.” He glanced at Larry. “I hope you don’t mind the extra riding.”
“Not at all, but I hope nothing’s wrong, Lord Alton.”
“So do I,” Valdir said, his brows drawn down with worry, and touched his horse’s flank with a light heel. They were off down the trail, the sound of hoofs making a dull clamor on the leaves underfoot. As they neared the bottom of the valley, the mist lifted slightly and the men pointed and shouted. Larry’s nostrils twitched at a faint, acrid whiff of strange smoke. The sun had swung southward, and they were turning their horses up a widened trail that led to the top of a little hill, when Valdir Alton let out a great curse, rising in his stirrups and pointing; then he clapped his heels to his horse’s side and vanished over the top of the rise. Kennard spurred after him, and Larry, urging his horse forward, felt a surge of excitement and fear as he followed. He came over the rise in the road and heard Kennard cry out in consternation; he pulled up his horse and looked down, in dismay, at a grove of trees from which black smoke was coiling upward.
Kennard slid from his horse and began to run. The man in the Guardsman’s uniform called to him and drew his crossbow up to rest, and Larry realized, with a shiver, that they were all looking warily at the surrounding trees. What might lie behind them?
Valdir leaped from his saddle; the other men followed suit, and Larry slid down with the rest. The deathly silence seemed more ominous because it was cut through with the soft chirping of birds from a distance, twittering in the grove.
Then Kennard called he was kneeling in the road beside what Larry thought to be a gray boulder, but he put out his hand to turn it and Larry, his stomach cramping in horror, saw that it was the hunched body of a man in a gray cloak.
Valdir bent over the man; straightened. Larry stood frozen looking down at death. He had never seen a dead body before, let alone the body of a man dead by violence. The dead man was young, little more than a boy, a shadow of thin beard on his face. A great wound in his chest gaped black and bloody. He had been dead some time.
Kennard was looking pale. Larry turned away, feeling faint and sick, and struggling not to show it, as Valdir turned away from the dead man.
“Cahuenga—his cloak is Cahuenga from the far hills,” he said, “but boots and belt are from Hyalis. A raider—but no beacon flared when this station was attacked.” He stepped warily around the corpse. The Guardsman shouted, “Don’t go up there alone, Lord Alton!” and, sliding from his saddle, crossbow lowered, ran to follow him. Kennard followed, and Larry, as if compelled, ran after them.
A blackened ruin, still smoking, showed the vague outline of a building. On a little stretch of green at one side lay the crumpled body of a man. When Kennard and Larry reached Valdir’s side, Valdir was already kneeling beside the body. After one glance, Larry turned away from the glazed, pain-ridden eyes; the man was bleeding from a great gash across his side, and from his lips a little dark-flecked foam stirred with his rasping breath.