About halfway to the Great River they saw their first signs of the Gudki. They practically stumbled over the long-haired, broad-framed corpse sprawled beside the path. It was already swollen and dark with decay, and large chunks of flesh had been slashed or torn out.
«They eat their own dead when they can find no other meat,» said one of the Hunters.
The party moved on, with eyes searching even more carefully a forest that seemed even less friendly than before. When they camped that night Blade doubled the sentries, and they built screens of logs around their campfires to shield them from watching eyes.
After two more days it was clear that the Gudki were roaming the jungles in greater strength than ever before. They found more corpses-the victims of wild animals, snakes, or fallen trees. They found the ashes of campfires, and once they saw one glowing far off in the twilight. They found bloodstained hide garments, tufts of long gray hair, and half-eaten carcasses with stone spearpoints broken off in their death-wounds. The faces of the Ganthi grew strained and drawn. They had had much experience fighting the Gudki, but this was something new, something unknown. They were not yet ready to confess to being afraid, but they talked more freely to Blade.
«Only a few times have the Gudki come this far north of the Great River,» the Hunters said. «Even when they did, they came only in twos and threes. They did not hunt, they did not build fires, they slipped through the forest unseen, like snakes. Now they must be coming here by the dozen. Many hundreds of them must be north of the river. The gods have chosen to play yet another trick on the Ganthi.»
Blade shook his head. «It is not a new trick, but part of the same trick that makes the mountains burn. The mountains burn, and the animals run to the south. More animals means more meat for the Gudki than ever before. So to hunt this meat more of them come north of the river than ever before. That is all there is to it.»
Blade knew he was right, but after a while he wasn't sure he'd been right to say it. More often than before, he caught the Hunters and warriors looking strangely at him. He and Katerina started taking turns watching and sleeping at night. Early one morning, a spear thudded into a tree near where Blade lay asleep, missing Katerina by inches. It was a Gudki spear, yet there had been no signs of the Gudki all the day before and there were none the day after. Blade kept his mouth shut and his eyes even more wide open than before.
For two more days they marched through jungle that grew thinner by the hour, and at last they came out on the north bank of the Great River. It deserved the name. It stretched a mile from bank to bank, a mile of murky green water that swirled past as a frightening speed.
There were only two ways the Ganthi would get across it. Blade saw that at once. They could cross on rafts, which would take weeks. Or they could find a place where the river was shallow, and ford it. Even that would take time and much care, and they would certainly lose both people and animals. But it would take days rather than weeks.
Fords existed on the river-or so the stories said. Nobody seemed to know where any of them were, however. Blade decided to divide the scouting party in half, sending one group up the river and the other down it. Katerina wondered if it was wise to divide the scouts this way, with the Hairy People roaming the woods in such great numbers.
«Normally I'd agree with you,» said Blade. «But we don't have much time.» He pointed at the sky. Even this far south, the northern horizon was dark with the clouds from the volcanoes. «The ashes may already be falling on Thessu.»
The scouting party camped that night on the north bank of the Great River, sentries out and alert. Three times they saw the faint flickering orange glows of Gudki campfires, far away in the darkness on the south bank. But the jungle around them was quiet.
The next morning the scouts split, and Blade and Katerina led their group down the river. They kept as close as they could to the bank all that day and the next, never losing sight of the water. Every few hundred yards they stopped and tested the depth of the water with poles. They found only one place where it was at all shallow enough, and there the bottom dropped off steeply a few hundred yards out.
They found signs of the Gudki in many places. Blade took care to make camp in places well clear of the trees, and he ordered that a third of the men should always be awake with spears in hand. They obeyed him without complaining. They might think him an offense against the gods, but no one wanted to end up as a meal for the Hairy People by defying him.
All of the third day they marched along a stretch of rapids where the river boiled whitely over great slabs of rock. It was dropping down through a range of heavily wooded hills, and Blade began to wonder if there was any possible crossing place for many days' march ahead. He didn't like the idea. Even if there was a ford far ahead, fifty thousand people could never march far into these hills to reach it.
Luck was with him, though. At about noon on the next day they reached a spot where the river broke its fall in a broad level stretch. The river ran fast there, so fast that the water was white with foam. But it also ran shallow, and the shallows seemed to extend clear across to the opposite bank. Blade waded out several hundred yards without finding water more than waist-deep.
The strong current would be a problem, of course. Just below the shallows an ugly stretch of rapids began. It would mean certain death for anyone swept off his feet and carried away downstream. Children, the old and sick, and the animals would have to be passed across almost from hand to hand. That would not be hard, though, since the bottom was firm.
Unless the party going upriver found something better, this was the ford. This was where the Ganthi would cross the Great River to their new homeland. That night Blade and Katerina slept soundly for the first time in several days.
The next morning Blade and Katerina led the scouts down to the bank and into the water. They had to make absolutely sure that the shallow water and the firm bottom extended clear across to the other bank. They were all going, since Blade didn't want to divide the party again.
One by one the warriors and Hunters followed Blade and Katerina into the water. The shorter men staggered as the rushing water rose toward their chests. Their comrades grabbed their hands, their hair, their spears, anything to keep them from being swept away. Good luck and quick work kept anyone from being knocked down and carried off. Slowly but steadily, one cautious step at a time, they pushed across the foaming river toward the far bank.
Blade held one spear out at arm's length, probing the water ahead of him before taking each step. Behind him Katerina followed in his footsteps, spending most of her time looking back along the file of scouts. She watched to see that they kept up, and she also watched for any sort of trouble-a man swept away, or a spear coming at Blade's back.
Nothing happened. The shadows of the trees on the far bank reached slowly out across the water toward Blade. He scanned those trees carefully, searching for any sign of movement. He saw nothing, and once more the line moved forward.
Now the water bubbled and churned around Blade's knees. Then he was out of the main current, pushing through patches of scum and clots of dead leaves whirling slowly in eddies. He felt the bottom under his feet turn from gravel to mud, and he climbed up onto dry land. Katerina was just behind him. They stood back to back, Blade watching the forest, Katerina watching the river and the men climbing out of it. Two, three, four, five men followed them out onto dry land. Blade and Katerina moved a few yards inland, away from the bank.