Each time he would jerk himself back up to a sitting position and stare wildly about before settling back down to watch the door of the inn.
Finally, about mid-morning, the man in brown, the dragon-hunter, emerged. He was wearing his brown leather outfit again, not the more ordinary clothes he had had on when he had left the Inn at the Bridge and boarded theSunlit Meadows.
He stepped out, turned to his right, and marched across the verandah to the steps at the north end. He trotted down the steps without any hesitation, turned again, and strode off to the east, down the main road of the tiny riverside village, away from the inn and toward the mountains.
Dumery scrambled from concealment and followed.
He had had enough of secrecy. He had every intention of running right up to this Kensher person and announcing himself, and then demanding an apprenticeship. After all, Dumery had followed the man all the way from safe, familiar Ethshar out into the wilds of Sardiron-didn’t that prove his resolution? Didn’t that show how determined he was? Wouldn’t that be enough to impressanyone?
Dumery tripped over a branch and fell sprawling. He picked himself up quickly and looked ahead.
Kensher was already well down the road, almost out the far end of the village-if the tiny collection of buildings qualified as a village; being a city boy, Dumery was not sure just how small a village could get and still deserve the name.
The dragon-hunter was walking along quickly, in the brisk, determined stride of a man who knows exactly where he’s going and who wants to get there. Dumery broke into a run.
Tired as he was, he couldn’t sustain it, and after a hundred feet, when he was scarcely past the inn’s stables, he slowed to a stumbling trot. Halfway through the village, as he passed through the rush of warm air from the smithy, that became a walk.
Well, Dumery told himself, he’d catch up eventually. The man would have to stop and rest sometime.
Stopping to rest sounded like an absolutely wonderful idea, but he knew he didn’t dare do that.
But maybe just aminute wouldn’t hurt.
But he didn’t dare lose sight of Kensher!
He trudged on, and on, out of the village, out of sight of the village, past the farms that lined the river, up into the hills and forests where the road narrowed to a trail, and when at last, despite the best his tired legs could do, hedid lose sight of Kensher, he collapsed in a heap by the side of the road. Promising himself he would only rest for a moment, the better to run on and catch up to the dragon-hunter, he immediately fell asleep.
When he awoke, he sat up and looked around, puzzled.
Wherewas he, anyway?
He was sitting in a pile of dead leaves in the midst of a forest, beside a trail that seemed to wander aimlessly through the trees. The ground was uneven; it sloped in various directions. The air seemed unseasonably cool. The sun was sending slanting light down through the leaves, leaves that spattered the ground with shadow, and Dumery, upon consideration, decided that the sun must be in the west.
That gave him a sense of direction. The road ran east and west; to the east it sloped up and over the crest of a hill, while to the west it sloped gently downward and, by the look of it, into a valley.
Dumery’s mind gradually cleared, and he remembered the little village by the river, the desperate chase after Kensher Kinner’s son, through the village and into the forest and all along that valley and on up here, to where the road had wound up and over the hill and out of sight and he, Dumery, had finally collapsed.
There was no sign of Kensher, of course.
Frustration and lingering fatigue caught up with him, and Dumery burst out crying.
When that was over, he stood up, brushed himself off as best he could, and thought about what he should do.
Back down the valley lay the village and the river, and somewhere downstream-a hundred leagues? More?-lay Azrad’s Bridge, and the road back to Ethshar and home.
Up the slope lay-what?
Kensher’s home camp might be just across the hill; why not? After all, this was a Sardironese forest; wouldn’t there be dragons around?
That was a disturbing thought, and Dumery immediately reconsidered.
No, there wouldn’t be. He was still too close to the river, the village, and civilization in general.
All the same, he owed it to himself to go on. Surely, it couldn’t be much farther! And to come all this way and then give up-that would be ridiculous.
His brothers would never let him live it down.
At the very least he should take a look over the summit, he told himself.
He wiped his eyes, looked around, and, seeing nothing dangerous, he marched on, up the hill.
At the crest he stopped and looked. There was the road, winding down the other slope-to a fork. Dumery stared at it in dismay.
Which way had Kensher gone? Which fork had he taken? Was there any way to tell?
These questions got Dumery thinking, and he realized that he didn’t know whether Kensher was still on the road at all. The man was a dragon-hunter, and therefore he was surely an expert woodsman and dweller in wilderness. He wouldn’t need roads. He might have gone off the road anywhere.
Dumery would probablynever find him, then.
But if one dragon-hunter worked in this area, maybe others did, as well. At the next village he came to he could ask, or if he found no villages, then a house or even a camp-somebodylived out here, or there wouldn’t be a road, let alone a fork. The locals would know about dragon-hunters in the area.
He didn’t need to apprentice himself specifically to Kensher;any dragon-hunter would do, really.
And he might yet catch up to Kensher. If hehad stayed on the road, maybe there would be some way to tell which fork he had taken. The ground around the fork in the road looked soft; there might be footprints, and Dumery hadn’t seen any sign of anyone else on the trail.
He made his way down to the fork, where the earth was, to Dumery’s delight, damp. Then he knelt down and studied the ground.
The left fork, which led eastward, showed fresh footprints in the soft, moist earth; the right fork, which veered off to the south, did not.
Dumery took the left fork and marched on, over the next hill.
And the next hill.
And the next.
And there, at last, he came across a house.
It was a rather peculiar house, by Dumery’s standards, being built entirely of heavy, tarred timbers, with no plaster, no stonework, no fancywork of any kind. The hinges on doors and shutters were simple iron straps. It was set back from the road, among the trees; behind it Dumery could see a few small outbuildings built of grey, weathered planks, and a gigantic woodpile. There were no signs of life.
Still, it was a house, and Dumery was delighted to see it. He quickened his pace-not to a run, he couldn’t manage that, but to a brisk walk-and hurried up to the door.
He knocked, and waited.
No one answered, and he knocked again.
“Setsh tukul?” a voice called from inside-a woman’s voice.
“Hello!” Dumery called. “Is anyone home?”
The door opened, and a woman looked out-not an old woman, by any means, but one past the full flower of her youth. Her hair was light brown, with no trace of gray, and her skin was still smooth, but there were lines at the corners of her eyes and a certain hardness to her face. She wore a plain brown skirt and a tan tunic, and held a heavy iron fireplace poker.
“Kha bakul t’dnai shin?” the woman demanded.
“Do you speak Ethsharitic?” Dumery asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “Ethsharit?” she said. “Ie den norakh Ethsharit. Ha d’noresh Sardironis?”