Tonnar sneered. "You're just afraid to take chances."
"Yep," Kestus agreed. "So's Julius. Which is why we're all in one piece." So far.
The loudmouth shook his head and turned to glare at Ivarus. "You touch me again and I'm going to gut you like a fish."
"Good," Ivarus said. "Once we hide the body, Kestus and I can switch out our mounts with yours and pick up the pace." The hooded man glanced up at Kestus. "How much longer until we get back to camp?"
"Couple of hours," Kestus replied laconically. He gave Tonnar a very direct glance. "Give or take."
Tonnar muttered something under his breath, and subsided. The rest of the trip passed in blessed, professional silence.
Kestus liked the new man.
They rode into the glade that Julius had chosen as their camp as twilight settled over the land. It was a good site. A steep hillside had provided them a place to earthcraft something that almost resembled shelter from the weather. A small stream trickled nearby, and the horses whickered, their steps quickening as they recognized the place where they would receive some grain and rest.
But just before he rode out of the shelter of the belt of heavy evergreens that surrounded the glade, Kestus stopped his horse.
Something was wrong.
His heartbeat sped up a little, as a tension with no obvious explanation seized him. He remained still for a moment, trying to trace the source of his unease.
"Bloody crows," sighed Tonnar. "What is it now-"
"Quiet," Ivarus whispered, his voice tense.
Kestus glanced back at the wiry little man. Ivarus was on edge as well.
The camp was completely silent and still.
The company of rangers that was supposed to patrol this area of what had once been the lands of the High Lord Kalarus Brencis numbered a dozen strong, but three and four-man patrols moved in and out of the camp on a regular basis. It was not inconceivable that all but a pair of the rangers were out on their rounds. It was not unthinkable that whoever was minding the camp might have gone on a quick local sweep, hoping to turn up some game.
But it didn't seem very likely.
Ivarus brought his horse up beside Kestus' and murmured, "The fire's out."
And that pinpointed it. In an active camp, a fire was kept alight almost as a matter of course. It was too much of a headache to let it go out and continually rebuild it. Even if the fire had burned down to hot coals and ashes, there was still the scent of wood smoke. But Kestus couldn't smell the camp's fire.
The wind shifted slightly, and Kestus' horse tensed and quivered with sudden apprehension, its wide nostrils flaring. Something moved, perhaps thirty yards away. Kestus remained still, fully aware that any motion would draw attention toward him. Footsteps sounded, crunching on fallen autumn leaves.
Julius appeared. The grizzled ranger wore his usual forest leathers, all deep browns, grays, and greens. He stopped at the fire pit, staring down at it, and otherwise not moving. His mouth hung slightly open. He looked pale and weary, and his eyes were dull and flat.
He just stood there.
Julius never did that. There was always work to be done, and he detested wasted time. If nothing else, the man would spend any idle time he had fletching more arrows for the company.
Kestus traded a glance with Ivarus. Though the younger man did not know Julius the way Kestus did, Ivarus' expression said that he had reached the same conclusion as Kestus had as to the proper course of action-a cautious, silent withdrawal.
"Well there's old Julius," Tonnar growled. "Happy now?" Tonnar growled, kicking his heels into his horse's flanks and nudging the beast into motion. "Can't believe he let the fire die. Now we'll have to rebuild it before we can eat."
"No, fool!" hissed Kestus.
Tonnar looked back over his shoulder at them with an exasperated expression. "I'm hungry," he said plaintively. "Come on."
The thing that ripped its way from the earth beneath the feet of Tonnar's mount was like nothing Kestus had ever seen.
It was huge, the size of a wagon, and covered in a gleaming, slick-looking green-black shell or armor of some kind. It had legs, a lot of them, almost like a crab's, and great, grasping pincers like the claws of a lobster, and glittering eyes recessed into deep divots in that strange shell.
And it was strong.
It ripped a leg from Tonnar's horse before Kestus could so much as cry out a warning.
The animal went down, screaming, blood flowing everywhere. Kestus heard Tonnar's bones breaking as the horse landed on him. Tonnar began to scream in agony-and kept screaming as, with the other claw, the monster, whatever it was, ripped his belly open, right through his mail, and spilled his entrails into the cool air.
A half-hysterical thought flashed through Kestus' stunned mind: the man couldn't even die quietly.
The creature began to methodically rip the horse apart, its motions as swift and sure as a butcher hard at work.
Kestus felt his eyes drawn to Julius. His commander turned his head slowly to face them, and opened his mouth in a slow, wide gape.
Julius screamed. But the deafening sound that came out was nothing even remotely human. There was something metallic to it, something dissonant, an odd, warbling tone that set Kestus' teeth on edge and set the horses to dancing and tossing their heads, their eyes rolling whitely in sudden fear.
The sound died away
And an instant later, the forest came alive with rustling.
Ivarus lifted his hands and drew back his hood, the better to hear the sound. It came from all around them, cracklings of crushed fallen leaves, rasping of pine needles against something brushing through them, snapping of twigs, pinecones, fallen branches. No one sound was more than a bare murmur. But there were thousands of them.
The forest sounded as if it had become one enormous bonfire.
"Oh, great furies," breathed Ivarus. "Oh bloody crows." He shot a wide-eyed glance at Kestus as he whirled his horse, his face pale with terror. "No questions!" he snarled. "Just run! Run!"
Ivarus suited action to his words, kicking his mount into a run.
Kestus tore his eyes away from the empty-eyed thing that had been his commander, and sent his horse leaping after Ivarus'.
As he did, he became aware of . . .
Things.
Things, in the forest. Things moving, keeping pace with them, shadows that remained only half-seen in the deepening darkness. None of them looked human. None of them looked like anything Kestus had ever seen. His heart pounded with raw, instinctive terror, and he called to his mount, demanding more speed.
It was madness to ride like this-through the forest, in the deepening dark. A tree trunk, a low branch, a protruding root, or any of a thousand other common things could kill a man or his horse if they collided with them in the night.
But the things were drawing closer, behind and on either side of them, and Kestus realized what it meant: they were being hunted, like fleeing deer, with the pack in full pursuit, working together to bring down the game. Terror of those hunters overrode his judgment. He only wished his horse could run faster.