“What are those?”
“Whenever I found water I set up camp. Then I made half-circles to the west and explored, always careful to never move so far I couldn’t return to the water before I ran out. The next day I went in a larger arc and did that again until I found more water. When I did, I returned to my last camp and gathered my things and moved west, always west.”
“For two years?”
“Well, some places had only a seep of water, and I moved on quickly, but others had a pond or small lake, and even a few small streams. At some places, I stayed until the local game became scarce, more than two months at one pond.”
Shell nodded as he allowed his imagination to fill in blanks, but again he’d already learned from Quester. Never travel beyond the ability to return to your source of water. If you must return, you can always search for water in another direction. For Shell, who had traveled away from home only one time, and then on a well-known road, the information both cheered and depressed him. Yes, he had learned something new, a simple survival skill. But what else had he not learned?
That was the depressing part. Shell needed to impress upon himself how much he didn’t know. It amounted to the justification of why he agreed to travel with someone not of the Dragon Clan, but still, such a small item as the lack of knowledge of locating water indicated the vast amount he needed to learn if he was to survive.
Quester had again taken the lead. The mountains to the west that had seemed so close two days ago were no closer in appearance, other than that the peaks were more slightly more defined. Their progress was a fast walk across rolling hills covered in dry brown grass with few obstacles. Remembering Quester’s warning, Shell watched behind constantly, and as he turned once, he saw a where the grass waved in the breeze to the south, all but in one small place.
“Quester, I something’s sneaking up behind us and to our left. I don’t think it’s the highwaymen I fought with, but I can’t be sure.”
“Okay, don’t stop walking or let him know you spotted him. Look out of the corner of your eye, so you don’t give yourself away that you’re looking for him. Now that we know we’re followed let’s wait and see what we have back there. Good eye.”
“You already knew he was back there, didn’t you?”
“For a while,” Quester said.
“Maybe we can lay a trap?” Shell asked.
“More likely get ready to run.”
“That’s your plan? Running away like a coward?”
“Running, like a live coward. Fighting is always my last option,” Quester said. “I’ll set a trap when I can, but I never fight unless I know I’ll win.”
“A warrior fights for what he believes in,” Shell said, puffing out his chest and growing angry at Quester’s self-centered attitude.
Quester continued walking, never once turning his head to look behind. He said, “I have no family, home, or belief to fight for. I fight for myself. If I fight against one enemy fairly, I suppose I’ll win half the time and die the other half. If I run away, I don’t die half the time. I like that option.”
“Those words sound like the words of a coward.”
The other snorted and turned to look over his shoulder, as if looking at Shell, but his eyes were focused in the distance. Squatting for a rest, Quester said, “It’s nothing different than you did with those idiot highwaymen. When they first attacked, you didn’t fight until you managed to get your staff in hand, right? Your staff and your skill gave you the advantage to fight and win, so you did.”
“Advantage, yes, but I didn’t run away.”
Quester shrugged and said, “What if those two highwaymen had prevented you from getting to your staff. Would you have attacked them with your bare hands?”
“That’s silly.”
“Of course it is. You would have run away. Just like me. I could go on and ask why you didn’t attack when there were five of them, or why you waited until they were asleep to light fire to their huts, or why you laid in a hollow half a day watching your back trail.”
“It seems different somehow,” Shell answered slowly, choosing his words carefully. It seemed that Quester managed to turn and twist them—or perhaps just offered realities Shell had never considered.
“If they had followed you to that hollow, would you have stood and fought all five as a true warrior? Or run?” Quester stood and began walking again.
Shell knew he’d have run in a similar situation. He had chosen the hollow partly because it left a way to escape unseen, a back door. But he didn’t like Quester saying as much. His eyes shifted to the grass a few hundred steps behind and saw a smooth ripple like a wave on a lake moved, but across the land. In one place, the size of a man didn’t ripple. It was not that he saw someone out there, it was that if a man was there, that’s the way the grass would react. He’d watched the wind in the grasslands his whole life and protected his flock by spotting similar dangers.
“Still watching us,” he said.
Quester said, “I know. Keeping pace with us, but I don’t think it’s a man.”
“Why not?”
“The grass out there is too short to hide him unless he’s on his knees.”
That observation meant a creature stalked them, and Shell couldn’t get the idea out of his mind. He’d never been stalked. Now and then he caught a glimpse of movement or a subtle shift color, but more often he only saw the grass move where there should be no movement or the other way around. The color of the creature blended in with the browns of the parched grasslands so well that it couldn’t be seen at a distance.
When they paused for a break, nothing in the grass moved, and as soon as they continued, the movement resumed. Shell muttered, “Stalking, or following us for sure.”
“There’s a difference?” Quester asked.
After a few more steps Shell said, “Yes. Following us might be innocent or curious.”
Quester barked a sour laugh. “Animals are not guilty or innocent. They can be interested in us, smell out food, or think we’re food. But following can become stalking, right?”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Shell had said, trying to end the conversation. Whatever was following them might be a danger, but he thought he might know the creature. Much shorter than a man, moving through the grass with flashes of brown described the dog that used to herd his sheep and goats until it became too old and slow, the old dog he’d petted as he left home. It would be just like Max to follow Shell.
Late in the day, the grass gave way to shrubs and taller plants. At a wide stream, Quester said, “Why don’t we make our camp here tonight?”
“Fine. I have a confession of sorts. I caught a few glimpses of that animal following us, and I think it might be an old dog that used to watch my flock.”
“Oh, that would be much better than what I had in mind. How sure are you?”
Shell shrugged. “I’m not at all sure. I’ve been thinking about it, and I convinced myself it was him, but now that you ask, Max is old and probably couldn’t keep up with walking all day.”
The bow slipped off Quester’s neck as if by itself, and he slid his backpack off his shoulders and let it fall to the ground. Stringing the bow, he said, “I’ll go back and see what it is. Do you mind making a fire for us?”
“Not if you don’t shoot my dog with an arrow,” Shell muttered, more to himself than to his new friend. He placed his staff within easy reach and put his bow and quiver beside it. If it was Max back there, he didn’t know what would be the right thing to do. Leaving Max in the wilderness ensured his death, but he couldn’t go all the way back and return him to his family. It was too far. Then he changed his mind. If needed, he would do it. Taking a slow old dog along with him across the mountains didn’t make sense.