Up ahead, as Halt moved forward past him, Will glanced quickly back at his best friend, bringing up the rear. It was just an extra precaution, making sure that nobody was stalking Horace. The man in the centre of the line, whether it was Halt or Will, had the responsibility for checking front, back and sides as they progressed. He was impressed by Horace's calmness, by the way he seemed to take this situation in his stride. The young warrior hadn't been trained for this sort of shadowy, nerve-stretching manoeuvring. Yet he seemed to be cool and unflustered. Will, on the other hand, was surprised that neither of his friends could hear his heart hammering inside his rib cage. The tension beneath the trees was almost palpable. The expectation that a crossbow bolt could come ripping out of the shadowy forest, the concern that any slight inattention on his part could cost the lives of his friends, was close to unbearable. He shook his head angrily. That sort of thinking would lead to exactly the inattention he was worried about.
Clear your head. Clear your mind of all distractions, Halt had told him hundreds of times during the years they had trained together. Become part of the situation. Don't think. Feel and sense what is around you.
He took a deep breath and settled himself, emptying his mind of doubts and worries, focusing his attention and subconscious on the forest around him. After a few seconds, he began to hear the small sounds of the forest more clearly. A bird flashing from one tree to another. A squirrel chattering. A branch falling. Tug and Abelard stepped quietly beside him, their ears twitching as they listened for potential danger. Ahead of him, he could hear Halt's soft footfalls as he slipped forward. Behind, the louder sounds made by Horace and Kicker, no matter how much the tall youth tried to move quietly.
This was the state of attention he needed. He had to hear the total spectrum of sound in the forest so that anything abnormal, any irregularity, would register immediately. If a bird took flight, for example, and didn't land in another tree within a few seconds, it would indicate that something had startled it. It was escaping or fleeing, not simply moving to a more promising feeding place. If there was a shrill warning note in the squirrel's chattering call, it would indicate the presence of something, or someone, unwelcome in its territory.
Most other small animals would respond to that sort of territorial declaration by moving back, he knew. A predator mightn't. A human predator definitely wouldn't.
Halt had stopped, stepping into the cover of an ancient, lichen-covered elm. Will surveyed the ground before him, picking his path so that he wouldn't move in a straight, predictable line, then slid out from behind the tree that sheltered him and ghosted forward yet again.
Tug and Abelard paced soft-footed behind him.
Eventually, the dim light began to grow brighter and the trees became more widely spaced. With each forward rush, Will and Halt could cover more territory until they had almost reached the edge of the forest. Will began to move forward, towards the open, grass-covered heath, but Halt held up a hand and stopped him.
'Look first,' he said softly. 'This could be just the place where they'd lie in wait, knowing we'd relax once we're out of the forest.'
Will's mouth went dry as he realised that Halt was right. The sense of relief that he'd felt, the sudden lessening of tension, had almost led him into what could have been a fatal mistake. He crouched beside Halt and together they studied the terrain ahead of them. Horace waited patiently, a few metres behind them, with the horses.
'See anything?' Halt asked quietly.
Will shook his head, his eyes still moving.
'Neither do I,' Halt agreed. 'But that doesn't mean they're not there.' He glanced up at the tree they sheltered behind. It was one of the taller trees, longer established than its neighbours.
'Slip up the tree and take a look,' he said, then added, 'Stay on this side of the trunk while you do it.'
Will grinned at him. 'I wasn't born yesterday.'
Halt raised an eyebrow. 'Maybe not. But you could have died today if I'd let you go blundering out into the open a few minutes ago.'
There was no answer to that. Will looked up into the tree, selected the handholds and footholds he would use, and swarmed up into the branches. He'd always been an excellent climber and it only took a few seconds for him to be ten metres above the forest floor. From this vantage point, he had a clear view of the land that lay before them.
'No sign,' he called softly.
Halt grunted. 'Can you find a good shooting position up there?'
Will glanced around. A few metres above him there was a wide branch that would give him a good position, with a clear view of the land ahead. He saw the sense of Halt's question. From an elevated position, he would see any ambusher's movement before they were in a position to shoot.
'Give me a moment.' He went higher up the tree. Halt watched him, smiling at the ease with which he could climb. It's because he's not nervous, he realised. He feels at home up there and he's not afraid of falling.
'Ready,' Will called. He had an arrow ready on the string and his eyes scanned from side to side.
Halt rose from his kneeling position beside the tree and moved out into the open ground before them. He could make out the tracks of the Outsiders once more – a heel print here, a patch of broken, flattened grass stems there – so faint that only an experienced tracker would see them.
He moved out ten metres. Then twenty. Then fifty. Unconsciously, he had moved in a crouch, his every muscle ready to dive into cover or loose a return shot at a moment's notice. Gradually, as he moved further he realised that the danger was past. He stood more erect, then, stopping, he signalled for Will and Horace to join him.
The grass here was only knee high. It provided nothing like the cover the shoulder-high gorse had. Anybody waiting in ambush here would be in more danger than their intended victims, Halt thought. They'd have to lie face down to conceal themselves, so that they'd waste precious seconds rising to see their quarry and get ready for a shot. The Genovesans were too skilled to put themselves at such a disadvantage.
They mounted and rode on, more relaxed now but still scanning the ground carefully and still turning from time to time to check their rear. The grassland continued for several kilometres. Then they reached a ridge and looked down into a wide valley below them.
'Now that's where we're going to have to be careful,' Halt said. Nineteen The flat plain ahead of them stretched for kilometres. In the distance, they could see the steely glint of a river as it twisted its way through the countryside, always searching for the lowest lying point.
Immediately before them, at the base of the ridge upon which they found themselves, the grass sloped gradually down. Then the land changed dramatically.
Gaunt, bare tree trunks rose from the flat ground, massed together in irregular ranks. Their bare limbs reached to the sky, jagged and uneven, devoid of any covering of leaves, twisted into weird shapes, as if in agony and supplication. There were thousands of them. Possibly tens of thousands, in close-packed ranks. And all of them dead, grey and bare.
To Will's eye, used to the soft green tones in the forests around Castle Redmont and Seacliff, the sight was unutterably sad and desolate. The wind sighed through the dead branches and trunks, whispering a forlorn sound that was only just audible. Without a cloak of leaves, and with their inner layers long devoid of sap, the branches didn't sway gracefully. They remained stark and stiff, their sharp, ugly lines unwavering as they resisted the gentle force of the breeze.
Will guessed that in a strong wind the dead limbs would crack and split by the dozen, falling to the ground below like so many warped, grey spears.