Up on the mountain, there was a rumbling roar and a scream as a vanquisher learned just how treacherous the trail was. Gallen stepped into a clearing where a tree had fallen. Everynne followed and looked up the mountain. Two humanoid infantrymen were helping a tracker to his feet.
“Veriasse,” Gallen asked, “may I try your weapon?”
Veriasse handed Gallen the incendiary rifle. Gallen raised it. The barrel bounced a bit until he held his breath, relaxed his muscles, pulled the trigger. He frowned a second, obviously having expected the gun to discharge, then raised the gun a second time. Everynne could not see the red dot from the laser scope, but up on the hill, the ogres must have seen it. They suddenly released the tracker and leapt aside. Gallen pulled the trigger. A plume of white-hot chemical fire soared through the air, splashed over the tracker. The creature screamed briefly and burst into flame, then dropped in a pile of melting bones.
Gallen handed the rifle back to Veriasse. “That might keep them off our trail for a bit.”
Gallen raced northwest. He led them on a clear path through deep woods, yet Everynne knew that the vanquishers would be able to run here just as easily. With their long legs, they would run even faster.
At last he reached a grove of pine-houses. Centuries before, perhaps, a town had nestled in this river valley, but it had been abandoned. Seeds from pine-houses had dropped to the ground, and a veritable city of hollow trees grew so close to one another that their trunks had fused.
No one could hope to walk through this section of wood. It was virtually impenetrable.
“We’ll go through here,” Gallen said.
“We’ll never make it through that mess,” Veriasse objected.
“I used to play here when I was a child,” Gallen answered. “There are paths through the trees, if you’re willing to climb a bit. This grove is eight miles long and two or three miles wide in most places, but up here a ways, it’s only a quarter of a mile across. We’ll go through there.”
Like all homes grown from pine-house seeds, the houses naturally formed holes for doors. Always the seeds grew at least one door at the front of the house, and one at the back. In addition, at odd spots on each side, various openings grew for windows.
Everynne knew that the vanquishers would not be able to follow. Gallen skirted the trees till he reached a steep canyon, then walked to that impenetrable wall and entered a door hole.
They moved through the grove of pine-houses with great effort, grunting and struggling from window to window, often climbing up and down.
Perhaps as a child, Gallen had played here as a game, but windows he had squeezed through as a boy were now too narrow to permit an adult, much less a bear like Orick with his winter fat. Everynne was perspiring heavily. When they were halfway through the grove, Gallen suddenly halted, looking at a narrow window. Obviously, they could not squeeze through it, and Gallen furrowed his brow, deep in thought.
“What’s wrong?” Veriasse asked.
“We’re stuck here,” Gallen said. “I used to fit through that hole nicely, and there is a narrow path ahead that we could follow, but we can’t make it through here. There’s no way to go forward.”
“What will we do?” Maggie asked.
“I’ll have to go out and scout another way.”
“Do you need help?” Veriasse asked, yet obviously the older man was worn through.
“I’ll find a way,” Gallen said, and he went out the door. Everynne could hear him scrabbling around outside, climbing up a branch. The pine-house was dusty, full of needles and cones, the leavings of squirrels. A soft afternoon breeze blew through the little valley, stirring the treetops, even though down here on the ground it felt hot, sultry.
For the first few minutes, Everynne was glad of the chance to rest. Veriasse reached into his pack, pulled out a small flask and gave it to her to drink. She was terribly hungry-had gone all day without food-but they had nothing left to eat in the packs.
When Gallen had been gone for nearly an hour, Maggie said, “I think I’d better go look for Gallen. Maybe he’s lost us.”
She headed outside through a window and scuffled about in the tree, climbing limbs. The sunlight filtering through the open doorway had grown dimmer. Night was coming on, and Everynne could hear pigeons cooing from their roosts. It was very quiet, and Everynne began to feel nervous. They had been sitting for a long time, and the vanquishers could not be far behind. She began to wonder if one of the vanquishers might have already killed the young man, but dared not say it. The bear snuffled, looked out a window.
“Do you think Gallen could be lost?” Everynne asked Veriasse.
Veriasse shook his head. “No. As he’s said, he played here as a child. I suspect he knows exactly where we are. I’ve been impressed by his competence. For a Backward, he seems to have grasped our predicament well, and he’s led the vanquishers on a marvelous chase. He’ll come back soon.”
Veriasse said it with such certainty, that Everynne suddenly felt more at ease. Yet the older man also seemed to need to fill up the silence. “As a warrior, I find him … intriguing.”
“In what way?” Everynne asked.
Veriasse smiled, contemplating. “He carries himself with a deadly grace. If I had seen him on any planet, I would have known he was a killer. He moves with caution, a type of confident wariness that one learns to spot quickly. Yet he is different from warriors on most worlds. Our ancestors relied heavily upon armor until the incendiary guns made it useless. Now, we rely upon our guns and upon tactics downloaded from personal intelligences. We fight battles at long distances and seldom look into the faces of our victims. Even more seldom do we purposely expose ourselves to risk. We have, in effect, become chess masters who’ve memorized too many classic moves. But this young man relies on quick wits for his survival, and his weapon of choice is the knife. It seems an odd choice.”
In the corner of the room, the bear stirred in the shadows under the window. “Oh, Gallen would love a sword,” the bear said, “but they’re so expensive. You have to pay taxes on the damned things every time you travel through a new county.”
Veriasse smiled at the bear, his eyes glittering. “So, even on your backward world,” he said, “you practice arms control?”
The bear shrugged.
Veriasse sighed. “I feel fortunate. I have not met a man like him in many thousands of years.” He stared at Everynne as if to say, “We need him. You could make him follow you.” And a chill went through her. She remembered how Gallen had quivered when he touched her hand in the cave, the way he laughed off his fear of the wights. She, too, found herself intrigued.
“He is taking an awfully long time …” Everynne said.
The bear was watching them intently, and he cleared his throat. “Is there anything you can do to help us find our way out of this wood? Do you know some magic?”
Everynne laughed. “We aren’t magic, Orick, any more than you are magic.”
“Oh,” the bear said, disappointed.
A vanquisher bellowed in frustration. It sounded quite close. The creature had made it partway through the woods. Veriasse stood up, fingering his incendiary rifle, listening.
Ten seconds later, there was a swishing sound as someone leapt down through some upper branches of the tree.
Gallen’s shadow darkened the doorway. “Come on. I found a new trail.”
“What about Maggie?” Everynne asked.
“She’s up ahead, waiting for us.”
Gallen climbed up the tree, leading them through limbs with the grace of a marten. Yet the trail was very difficult.
Soon, Veriasse called for a halt and stood in the shadows under a limb. The sun was setting. He rubbed the backs of his hands against his shirt. “Stop a moment, stop,” he said. He raised his hands. “I smell fire. The vanquishers have set these woods aflame. How much farther?”