After a confused interval, he found himself part of a group of horsemen, Valdir in the lead, Kennard at his side, half a dozen strange Darkovans surrounding him, riding toward the low-lying haze. As they rode, the smell of smoke grew stronger, the air heavy and thick with curious smells; flecks of dust hung in the air, while bits of black soot fell on their faces and stung their eyes. His horse grew restive, backing and whinnying, as the smoke thickened. Finally they had to dismount and lead their horses forward.
As yet, the fire had been only a smolder of smoke lying against the sky, an acrid and stinging stench; but as they came between the two hills that cut off their view of the forested slopes, Larry could see a crimson glow and hear a strange dull sound in the distance. A small rabbitlike beast suddenly scudded past, almost under their horses’ hooves blindly fleeing.
Valdir pointed. He made a sharp turn past a high hedge, and came out into a broad meadow whose grayish high grass was trampled and beaten down. A large number of men and boys were milling around at the center; there was a tent pitched at the edge, and after a moment of confusion Larry realized that the random groupings were orderly and businesslike. An elderly man, stooping and hobbling, came to lead their horses away; Larry gave up his reins and hurried after Kennard to the center of the field.
A boy about his own age, in a coarse sacking shirt and leather breeches, motioned to them. He nodded to Kennard in recognition, looked at Larry with a frown and asked, “Can you use an axe?”
“I’m afraid not,” Larry said.
The Darkovan boy listened briefly to his accent, but shrugged it aside. “Take this, then,” he said, and from a pile of tools handed Larry a thing like a long-toothed, sharp rake. He waved him on. Raising his eyes to the far end of the meadow, Larry could see the edge of the forest. It looked green and peaceful, but over the tops of the trees, far away, he saw the red glare of flame.
Kennard touched his arm lightly. “Come on,” he said, and gave Larry a brief wry grin. “No doubt about which way we’re going, that’s for sure.”
Larry put the rake over his shoulder and joined the group of men and boys moving toward the distant glow.
Once or twice during that long, confused afternoon, he found himself wondering, remotely, why he had gotten himself into this, but the thought was brief. He was just one of a long line of men and boys spread out, with rakes and hoes and other tools, to cut a fire-line between the distant burning fire and the, village. Crude and simple as it was it was the oldest known technique for dealing with forest-fires—create a wide space where there was nothing for it to burn. With rakes, hoes, spades and shovels, they cleared away the dry brush and pine-needles, scraped the earth bare, chopped up the dry grass and made a wide swath of open ground where nothing could burn. Men with axes felled the trees in the chosen space; smaller boys dragged the dead trees and brush away, while behind them came the crew that scraped and shoveled the ground clear. Larry quickly had an ache in his muscles and his palms stung and smarted from the handle of the rake, but he worked on, one anonymous unit in the dozens of men that kept swarming in. When one spot was cleared they were moved on to another. Younger boys brought buckets of water around; Larry drank in his turn, dropping the rake and lowering his lips to the bucket’s edge. When it was too dark to see, he and Kennard were called out of the line, their places taken by a fresh crew working by torchlight, and they stumbled wearily down the slope to the camp, lined up for bowls of stew ladled out by the old men keeping the camp, and, wrapping themselves in blankets, threw themselves down to sleep on the grass, surrounded by young men and old.