What followed was unpleasant but necessary. First Hiero cut off the blood-soaked stocking and the equally caked bandage he had applied the previous morning. Then, bracing himself by various forms of nerve-block training and a small further Lucinoge dose, he sutured the edges of the long, gaping slash with medical gut. Fourteen stitches later, it was done, again disinfected and re-bandaged. He hauled on his right boot and put a clean stocking and a moccasin, taken from the saddlebags, on the left foot. Then he directed the bear to take the bloody rags and bury them somewhere deep.
Doing this, he suddenly thought of something else and looked about. There were dark spots here and there on the grass, but the bodies of their assailants were gone.
From the shadows, Gorm sent an answer. The big (horned/stick head) and I buried them. Their bodies (would have) drawn other things to (the) hunt. But only small things have come (easy to) frighten away. His mind sent a picture of jackals, bush cats, foxes, and other little scavenging creatures.
So the bear and the morse could work together, even when he himself was out of the picture! This was also fascinating, Hiero reflected. It meant, it had to mean, that the bear was the one giving orders, for Klootz, smart as he was, could barely think ahead to the consequences of any given action. More food for thought and future exploration, the man reflected.
Have you (felt) nothing else hunting/danger to us? he asked Gorm.
In the distance/far? (dimension problem) came the answer. The bear was not being clear, and he seemed to understand this and tried again. Long way, far off (in) many directions. But only once (strong) and that came from above/the sky? (impression of something both nasty and winged).
The man probed but could get little more, beyond a vague and distant sight of something with wings but not a bird apparently, glimpsed (or sensed) far off in the sky earlier in the day, and from which had emanated a powerful feeling of evil.
Filing this as one more piece of information to be mulled over later and also making a mental note to avoid going out into open areas as much as possible, Hiero repacked his possessions. Hobbling to the stream, he cleaned the blood off his weapons and sharpened both spear and knife. When he came back, he also reloaded the thrower, which had been replaced in its saddle holster.
Sitting down again, he ate some more pemeekan and biscuit. When he offered it to Gorm, however, the bear refused it and said he had been feeding on ripe blueberries all day. He showed Hiero where they grew nearby, and he was able to limp over and gather several handfuls for dessert. He refilled his big saddle canteen and the small emergency one strapped to his belt, and then, as the last of the light faded, took a quick bath in the brook, being careful to keep his wounded leg out of the water. Dried off and dressed again, he said his evening orisons and lay down again. There seemed nothing abroad in the night that could harm them, and the sounds of the forest were all normal. The death cry of a rabbit sounded in a nearby thicket, and the hum of many mosquitoes made Hiero unpack and draw a fine-meshed net over his upper body. Once that was done, exhaustion took over and he was asleep in a second.
The next day dawned hazy. The sun was behind wreaths of fog and low-lying cumulus clouds, and there was no wind. The air seemed damp and oppressive to Hiero, but only the normal result of a falling barometer, not from any other cause.
Once saddled, Klootz pranced a little, as if tired of simply standing around feeding himself. The man and the bear had decided to leave the stream. Their new route lay more to the south, and after another brief meal, they were off, alert but confident. Hiero’s leg was now only a dull ache, and the rest had helped his tough frame almost as much as the medicinal salve of the Abbey doctors.
For five days they traveled uneventfully through the great pines and spruces of the Taig, always going south. They kept a strict watch, stayed under the trees, and used mind speech seldom, but detected nothing of any menace or importance. Game was plentiful, and Hiero was able to stalk and kill with his spear a giant grouse, as big as a child, while the foolish bird scratched away in the pine needles. He built a small fire and quickly smoked a lot of the breast, thus obtaining nearly twenty pounds of meat, which would feed both himself and Gorm for a good while.
On the sixth day, the priest estimated they had made perhaps eighty or so miles, and he began to feel a little easier. Whatever malignancy the Unclean tried to send after them now, if any, was going to have a fairly rough time in tracking them down, he thought. He had not yet learned the power and determination of his enemies, nor had he guessed at the fury over his deed in slaying one so high in their dark councils.
Toward noon, the ground became boggy and moist. It was obvious that they were heading into either a swamp or the margin of some body of water. Hiero called a halt, stopped on a patch of dry ground, and got out his maps, bringing the bear over to consult with him while Klootz was turned loose to browse.
Ahead of them lay an enormous area, roughly given on one of the Abbey maps as a vast marsh, called by some the Palood, and both trackless and unknown. The bear’s knowledge also stopped here, although he agreed with the map in that he felt the Inland Sea or a great water of some kind lay to the south, beyond a wide expanse of fen. But he had never in his life, not a long one in Hiero’s opinion, traveled so far down into the unknown. Most of his information seemed to be secondhand, as indeed was the man’s.
Reflecting, the priest decided to try a scan with the crystal and also to cast the symbols. He got them out, said his prayers, put on his vestments, and instructed the two animals not to disturb him.
Fixing his mind on the route ahead and staring into the crystal, he sent his thoughts out in search of a pair of eyes.
His first vision was disappointing. He found himself looking at a desolate stretch of water from very low down, apparently almost in the water itself. Nor could he see very well, since the frog, turtle, or whatever, whose eyes he had borrowed, was lurking behind a clump of tall reeds and, in addition, possessed short-range vision. Shutting his own eyes, Hiero willed a vision change, this time emphasizing height, distance, and clarity of sight. Surely, he felt, there must be a hawk or some other bird of prey quartering back and forth over the open water and marshes ahead of them.
Once again the crystal cleared, and this time the mental emphasis on height had paid off, but not at all in the way Hiero had planned!
He was indeed very high up, perhaps a mile or more, and he had an instant to note the land spread out below, the pines of the Taig fading into the great swamp, and, far off, the gleam of what could only be the Inland Sea. And his vision was now superb, much too superb! The highly intelligent mind whose eyes he had inadvertently borrowed was in turn aware of him instantly, and as it became aware, tired at once to find out who, what, and where he was. He was somehow linked to a furious brain which, cold and repellent though it was, was nonetheless almost identical to his own, seeking with every ounce of its being to locate his present position.
Just as Hiero broke the connection with a wrench which hurt his head, a last, close-up look through the enemy eyes showed the rounded nose of a strange craft, a thing like a huge bullet, and at the edges of his vision the beginnings of great wings, made of something like painted wood.