"I don't know what the hell's following us! —No. We don't slow down. Damn that troll. It'll help you,' Karoly says; 'It'll go with you,' Karoly says ... Til follow you one way or another,' he says. Probably as right about the one as the other."
"There's tracks."
"I'm not blind. —Dammit!" Nikolai was in a great deal of pain, and Zadny crossed his path and bothered Gracja; but Nikolai would not agree to take his turn riding, not even after they stopped for rest and water.
So there was nothing to say—Zadny came back from an inspection of the area and tried to climb into Yuri's lap, whining and clawing at him, wanting to go on, and Yuri wrapped his arms around him to keep him out of mischief while they sat and rested. Nikolai's face was white and he was sweating, but he was clearly not going to listen to advice, or reason. In a moment more Nikolai got up, took Gracja's reins and told him to get on, and they waded the stream, where the horse tracks were clear—two sets of tracks, Nikolai had spared breath to tell him, which confirmed what he thought he saw; and on the other side they found horsehair snagged on thorn-bushes, where horses had climbed the bank.
"One white," Nikolai said, and added, short of breath, "It's the same ones we've been following."
But why was Tamas even going this way, instead of home, Yuri wondered, once they had found Karoly's sister dead?
And what had master Karoly said last night about a piece of mirror and the heart of hell? Everything he had overheard jumbled in his head. He had not understood all of it at the time, and now it slipped away from him in bits and pieces—
But Zadny was smelling something else as they went, shying back with his nose wrinkled and his hackles raised, and Nikolai squatted over the prints a second time. "What is it?" Yuri asked, about to get down to see for himself, but Nikolai shoved Zadny out of his way and got up.
"Someone wearing boots, moving at a fair pace. Someone a little taller than I am."
His heart sank. "That's not Tamas."
"No," Nikolai said, and led Gracja further down the bank, to thoroughly trampled ground. Horses had been back and forth here, had drunk, perhaps, had torn up the earth in deep, water-standing prints.
"That goblin Krukczy smelled?"
"Very probably. It's a narrow foot. And long."
He did not want to think about dial, he did not want to wonder and to worry when he could not help—but there were other prints, and Zadny stayed bristled up and uneasy as they went.
But toward afternoon, and still following those tracks, they came to an old foundation, a well, overgrown with vines. People of some sort had lived near here, unless goblins had, and if Tamas and the witch were going anywhere looking for somewhere, this certainly began to look like more of a somewhere than the forest was. He began to imagine riding just around the bend of me water, finding another ancient tower, and a white and a black-tailed horse waiting safely in the yard.
What are you doing here? Tamas would say, all upset with him; and he would answer shortly that it was a very good thing he was, and they should go back and get Karoly: a witch and Karoly together ought to be able to deal with the goblins and they could all go home.
But he could not help thinking of Tajny Straz, and the skulls and the poles; and about that light and the wind that had broken out around the tower. When he thought about that, the whole forest seemed cold and menacing, and he began to hear every rustling of the leaves.
Something suddenly bubbled in the stream beside them, rose up with a rush of water and scared an oath out of Nikolai. It looked like a mass of water-weed, or a huge mop upside down.
Krukczy.
"Damn you, get up here!" Nikolai said. "What's happened to Karoly? What happened back there?"
Krukczy ducked under again and resurfaced somewhat downstream in a reedy area, just his eyes above water, his snaky tail making nervous ripples along the surface.
"I don't trust that thing," Nikolai muttered. "I don't trust it."
And just beyond where Krukczy was—
"There's two of them," Yuri exclaimed, and pointed, seeing a second lump in the water, another snaky ripple just beyond.
It vanished just as Krukczy did.
"Dammit!" Nikolai cried.
But Krukczy was not running away from them. He came squishing and dripping out on the shore further along beside a ruined wall, and a gateless gate. Before they reached him, Krukczy had shaken himself off and sat down to rest on one of the old stones; and Zadny had raced ahead of them and leapt all over Krukczy, getting wet as Krukczy patted him with huge hairy hands and tacked him into his lap, in curtains of dripping fur.
Then the second troll came out of the stream, shook itself, and came and sat down by the one they had now to guess was Krukczy.
"Well," Nikolai panted, leaning on Gracja's shoulder, next to his leg. "Well, now, we've got two trolls—they've sat down, and I suppose we wait here and hope Karoly makes it. Or we think of something. Or the goblins find us—in which case—" Nikolai caught a breath and looked about them, at their grassy space between the woods, the stream, and the ruined wall. "In which case I want us solid cover and a place to hide the horse. —Is that bow of yours any good, boy?"
"Yes, sir." He took it for leave to slide down, with the bow in hand. "It's Tamas' old one." He did not like this planning for goblins, as if they were a certainty. There was no tower beyond that wall that he could see, no door that they could bar, just the sky and the woods and the old stones around them. And he was tired, and scared, and cold, and there was no sign of Tamas but the tracks and a bit of horsehair on a thornbush.
"Goblin was here," Krukczy said, holding Zadny in his arms. "I can smell him. Smell him lots."
"The same one?" Nikolai asked him.
"Followed them," Krukczy said, and the other troll bobbed its head in agreement.
10
"HSSST!" AZDRA'IK SAID, CATCHING TAMAS' SHOULDER, and hauled him back to cover among the rocks, next to Lwi. There was not a sound but the horse and a bird singing somewhere near, in the late afternoon of this bad dream, on a long and rocky ridge. Then Tamas heard the faint jingle of metal, more and more of it.
"Another patrol." Azdra'ik extended his arm and pointed off along the slope. "I want you to go down and along that hillside, do you see?"
"Me."
"I'll keep the horse here."
"It's my horse. . . ."
"It's a large horse, fool. Go down there now and don't argue. Do you want him seen?"
"You're not going to eat him!"
"I much prefer young fools. —Get down there! Now!"
Tamas made a violent shrug, threw off Azdra'ik's hand and scowled into his face. "What is it you want? —Bait?"
Azdra'ik frowned at him, dreadful sight from his close vantage. "At least you stand a chance that way. —Take that damned thing away from her!"
"The mirror?"
"The mirror. The mirror. Yes, the mirror. Lady Moon, stand in a field and shout, why doesn't she? —Get down there, fool, before the rest of the world hears her business."
"How do you hear—"
Azdra'ik's hard fingers bit into his shoulder. "Because you're with me, because you resound of it, man, like a hammered bell; it bounces off every magic in the world, particularly if she wants to find something. That's why that patrol is hiking about the hills chasing its own tail. And that's why they haven't found her yet. But you're here with me, do you comprehend me yet? No? — Twice a fool. Go!"
He did not grasp Azdra'ik's purposes, but that patrol they had both seen he understood. That something had gone amiss with Ela's plans, he was sure; that Ela was making a magical commotion of some kind, he had Azdra'ik's word for it— and there was no question of her danger if the patrols found her. He scrambled away among the rocks, ignominiously dismissed, vowing he was going to live to rescue Ela, then take Lwi back and avenge himself on Azdra'ik ng'Saeich, sorcery and ail-But if Azdra'ik had told two words of truth, Azdra'ik wanted him for a way to obtain what a goblin dared not touch: he did not in the least believe that Azdra'ik meant to wait up here with his hands folded while he located Ela. It might be that Azdra'ik could not find Ela past the confusion he claimed existed. It might be that Ela's magic overwhelmed some sense goblins possessed and ordinary folk did not, and it might be that all that Azdra'ik could do now was to loose him like a shot in the dark—something about geese in the autumn, silly pigeons to their roost, he thought as he worked his way along the hill, exhausted and at wits' end. He had no more idea than Azdra' ik where he was going, he only hoped if there existed any shred of magic in him he would find Ela before the goblins did.