The prints in the mud were small and indistinct, for the soft earth had already settled back to erase much of the detail. In any event, Ariakas took less note of the size of the footprints than in the quantity. It was with renewed vigilance that he moved away from the stream, angling up a long, grassy slope toward the narrow notch above.
As he climbed, another thought occurred to him. He had suspected all day that he followed a thief of remark shy;able, but innate, stealth. Judging from the lack of trail sign, the fellow had moved with an almost uncanny abil shy;ity to leave the ground undisturbed. Now, with the knowledge that the scant spoor had been left by two thieves, Ariakas further revised his estimate of his quarry's stealth.
Yet at the same time, the two thieves had trekked through the mud of the streambank and left a plain spoor, when a little bit of wet-walking up the creek would have allowed them to emerge onto a cluster of boulders, leaving no footprints at all! It was clear they didn't care whether they were followed or not.
The latter suspicion heightened the warrior's sense of readiness. Was he walking into an ambush? It seemed like more than a faint possibility.
All these concerns focused in his brain as he approached the narrow gap. A tiny path cut back and forth across the steep slope, and every once in a while he saw the telltale smudges of footprints in the loose dirt.
He lacked the tracking skill to guess how long ago his quarry had passed, so he made the cautious assumption that they were close before him. Perhaps they'd even watched his long traverse up the bare mountainside.
At last the trail veered into the notch. A quick glance at the approach showed Ariakas that cover for himself was nonexistent, while any number of splintered cracks yawned within the pass, offering ample concealment to anyone who awaited him. Drawing his sword, he quickly scrambled up the last twenty feet of the trail and found himself standing between two weather-beaten shoulders of rock.
Every sense tingled alertly. He looked to the right and the left, trying to penetrate the shadows with his eyes. Nothing moved there. No sound disturbed him except for the growing howl of the wind. Indeed, the light breeze had risen into a steady gust as he crested the ridge, and it now blew his long hair back from his face, chilling his clean-shaven cheeks and chin. When he tried to stare into the distance, the biting force of the wind brought tears to his eyes.
Yet he was finally certain that no ambush awaited him within the narrow gap. As he stared into the distance, he tried to shrug off the eerie feeling that no other life existed in these rugged mountains-no life beyond the warm pulse of his own blood, his own rasping breath and growling determination.
He turned his back to the wind, giving respite to his eyes. His back-trail fell away below him. In the distance, between barren humps of low mountains, the gray waters of the Newsea surged relentlessly against the rocky shore. Far to the right, along the mist-screened coast, he saw a low-hanging bank of dark cloud-Sanc shy;tion.
There the volcanic Lords of Doom spumed their smoke and ash into the air. The pall of darkness remained a constant fixture over that racked city, he knew. Though he had never been to Sanction, many of his mercenaries had seen that gods-bereft place, and had described it in excruciating detail. He unconsciously marked distance and direction for his future march. But then he turned back into the wind, back to the trail and the quarry before him. He would not travel to Sanction without the locket, and he would not regain the locket without con shy;fronting the thieves.
Only now did he begin to feel his weariness. The ten shy;sion of the pursuit, the determination of the long climb, had sapped his energy more than he had realized. The trail before him led down an equally steep expanse of grassy shale. Before continuing, he slumped to the ground, placed his back against a flat rock, and tried to catch his breath.
His gaze swept across the vista before him, as his mind carefully appraised each challenge, each difficulty facing him.
First, the geographicaclass="underline" he now faced the most tortu shy;ous terrain he had ever seen. Sheer pinnacles of rock rose upward in a dozen locations, each of them culminating in a soaring peak that had surely never felt the footfall of a landbound creature. Rock-walled gorges plummeted out of sight between these heights, and if any trail scraped along those cliffs, he saw no sign of it from here.
Neither did he see sign of water, though dirty patches of snow clung to several shaded gullies on the southern faces of the peaks. A series of twisting ridges snaked their way around the gorges, skirting the greatest heights, but it seemed that every mile of forward progress would require an equal amount of ascent and descent. By con shy;trast, the steep climb to reach this pass had been an ami shy;able stroll.
Next, the quarry. Where had the two thieves gone? He noticed with growing frustration that the ground below him was rocky and dry. The moisture-laden clouds had expended their rain on the sea side of this soaring ridge, retaining no water for the barren heights before him. Here he would find no tracks in the mud. Too, the slope was primarily bare stone, with very small patches of hardy grass tufting upward here and there. Anyone who traveled with the stealth of those thieves would surely leave no sign of their path.
And finally, he saw nothing that looked like a logical trail. Wherever his quarry had gone, they had followed an improbable and dangerous route-and a dozen such possible paths currently presented themselves.
His fingers clenched into fists as he wrestled with the quandary. Did he dare to make a guess from so many possibilities, each of which offered inherent threats to his life just by making the attempt to follow? Or should he waste precious daylight-his best estimate placed sunset less than two hours away-by searching for signs that might not even exist?
The two courses of action wrestled in his mind as he caught his breath. Within a few minutes he was physi shy;cally ready to move again, but he had not decided how to proceed, and he knew that he had to do something. Ari-akas rose to his feet, hoisted his pack to his back and, knowing that he'd need both hands on the steep moun shy;tainside, slid his sword back into the scabbard. Stepping to the edge of the pass, he began to look for the best way down-but once more he allowed his eyes to drift across the barren, rugged terrain.
He froze, his breath quickening in tension. Something had caught his eye, near the summit of a neighboring ridge. There!
Ariakas couldn't believe his luck. Two figures, tiny in the distance, came into view. Slowly the pair worked across a steep slope, carefully grasping for handholds as they traversed a jagged ledge of rock.
Instinctively he dropped behind the blocking boulders of the pass. He could see the two clearly now, and there was no doubt in his mind that these were the thieves.
They moved with precision and care, but also with sur shy;prising speed. He calculated the course that had taken them from this pass to that ridge, and imagined the dizzying descent, followed by an exhausting climb, which had brought the culprits high onto the next moun shy;tain. Unconsciously Ariakas acknowledged that the thieves were at home in these mountains, and utterly fearless.
He could discern few details about the two figures. They wore earth-colored clothes-it was only their movement that had drawn his attention-and they climbed with careful grace. Within a few minutes they disappeared from his view, but now at least he knew which way to go.