"Water—" My companion made purposefully for the stream, sliding down the bank to wade out into its slow current.
Of course, the old, old truth—evil of many kinds dared not cross clean running water. I scrambled swiftly after him, felt my boots fill as wavelets set up by my strides lapped in over the tops of that footgear. I held my divided skirt as high as I could, but the hem became sodden quickly. While I discovered the uncertain footing of loose stones slowed me whereas Tsali skittered easily ahead.
My questing sense picked up an emanation as foul to my mind as corruption would be to my nostrils. Yet I had not enough yet to name our pursuers. Now I resolutely did not try to touch again—lest that reveal us in our flight.
The bed of the river was wide but, as we went, the stream grew narrower, a curling ribbon of water as its center, stretches of gravel edging it. Which hinted that there were periodic floods to leave the drift along the way, higher water unknown at this season. Also, it was shallow here and quite clear. I could see the flight of fish and armored things which crawled across the bottom we disturbed by our coming. One thing troubled me greatly—
Tsali had turned his back upon those heights which might or might not wall the Valley. And now I made a decision, reaching out to meet his mind.
"Tsali, warrior of warriors, I have taken a fate upon me which is not your burden. You can return—"
I got no farther. He looked back over his narrow scaled shoulder to hiss at me. And I felt the anger boiling in his mind.
"We go together, Witch girl. Should one of the Brother-Kin of Reto, whose wisdom held even the Great Snake for the space of two heart beats so that it could be truly slain, turn his back on an ancient enemy and say, 'This is no task of mine'?"
"Your pardon, warrior." I could make no other answer. "But there is this—I have accepted the weight of something I do not understand, which may even play me false at the moment we must face our enemies. I would draw no others into what may be a net of ill fate."
"What creature can claim free choice when the Great Ones stir again? Our legends speak little of your Ninutra—whether he was for the Dark or the Light. But I think he was one of those who turned his back upon both and went to a place which he alone mastered. And—"
What he might have added I shall never know but I heard again the squawking cries and saw that over us winged once more those same birds of gray and flame. They whirled and dipped, screeching. And in those moments I began to believe that they were now allied with the evil which trailed behind, scouts sent to make sure we had no chance of escape.
I tried to shut my ears to their clamor, yet they held my attention so well I stumbled on a slime-coated stone and went to my knees, the water shockingly cold as high as my waist. Tsali stood still, as intent upon those winged pests as I had been. Now I saw him rub a clawed finger along the base of his head comb.
He had the attitude of one who listened intently, as if their incessant squawking made excellent sense. I could understand nothing of it; even though in the past I had always before been able to establish contact with any living thing. For, when I cautiously sought mind touch, there was nothing, not even that residue of instinctive cunning which I had worked upon with the spiders in Laidan's sorcery room.
There were—just blanks! I could not even sense a mind barrier at work. And the very fact that these birds were so protected made me uneasy.
Their flying darts came closer; I ducked my head when one screaming bird seemed about to attack my face, my eyes. And I raised my hands over my face in protection.
"Our guides—" Tsali appeared unmoved as they flew so closely about his head that it would seem their wings would brush his crest or his face.
"Guides to where?" I challenged, cowering a little once more as one aimed straight for me.
"Who knows?" The Lizard man shrugged his narrow shoulders. "But if we follow, they will cease this calling, which must ring well down stream by now."
It was a choice between two evils, I knew. No one had ever said that those of the Dark had no cunning. The racket of the birds must indeed alert anyone within perhaps more distance than I wanted to believe.
Tsali already waded toward the righthand bank. Now the birds circled once above his head, flitting on to pay full attention to me. More slowly, because of my waterlogged skirts, I followed him. Then, when my feet were on the bank, their screaming stopped as if cut off. Instead the birds, though they still dipped and fluttered around, mainly before us, were silent.
We were away from the area of the ruins where I had felt stifled and so ill at ease. Before us sloped a meadow. Though the tall grass was dull and near dry, yet here and there a late lingering flower made a scarlet or rust-yellow patch. However, aside from the birds of Ninutra, the field was empty; an emptiness which spread out before us until there stood afar an edging of woodland.
Across that lengthy field we went. Of course in so doing, we left such a trail behind us as the Dark Ones could sniff out with little trouble. But the grayness of the day now lifted a little. I held up my soaked skirt, sitting down once to draw off and empty my boots, which were beginning to show hard usage.
That way through the open was farther than it first looked; rather as if the distant line of trees, through some power, stealthily retreated at each step we advanced. The birds of Ninutra remained silent, but they wheeled and dipped, their movements certainly following a pattern, urging us forward toward the distant wood.
It was very quiet. And then, so faint it was hardly more than a vibration on the air, I heard a howling. That I knew from my days in the Valley for the call of a Gray One—those creatures of the Dark which are neither man nor wolf, but a blasphemous uniting of both. The sound came from downriver, giving me at last a clue to the nature of the enemy.
I had no long knife in my belt, no sword or dart gun. And Tsali's scabbards for knife and sword hung empty, for his captors had despoiled him when they had taken him. I heard him hiss and lift his hands, extend his claws to the greatest extent.
We pushed forward with the best speed we could muster. The Dark Ones who caught any of us in the open had a potent charm against which no magics known could operate. They need only ring us thrice and we would be helpless to escape, fit meat to be pulled down at their desire. If we could reach those ever-beckoning trees, then such ringing would be far harder to accomplish.
It was here that the birds deserted us. Beating well up into the air, they formed a vee of flight and sped straight on toward the wood. Perhaps whatever strange task had been set them was completed.
My dragging skirt tripped me twice, though I held it as high as I could in my hands. Nor did I waste time looking back. For the hunting howl broke again and manifestly nearer. Tsali, unencumbered by clothing, could have flashed away and been out of sight long before I gained the shelter of those trees. But he did not. Instead he stooped swiftly twice, each time arising with a stone caught fast in his claws. No true defense, for all his courage, against what followed us.
I labored on. Hardly was I aware I had reached the trees, so hard set I was, my breath came in great tearing gasps, until I struck one shoulder against a trunk with bruising force. Then I caught at that bark-clad pillar, holding on with a despairing grip lest I fall and be unable to win once more to my feet.
Tsali's hand caught one of mine; he pried to loosen my convulsive hold.
"On!"
He was right, but I was not sure that I was able. There came a third howl from behind, this full-voiced and close, feeding my panic enough to make me let go, stagger ahead with Tsali tugging at me.
I brushed painfully against other trees; my clothing caught on low-growing thorns, tore when I jerked loose from their grasp. On and yet on. Here was only a small gray glimmer of light. These trees, I began to realize, had not lost their leaves—or rather needles, for the refuse under my slipping and sliding feet was composed of brownish needles near as long as my forearm. There was very little undergrowth—even of the thorns—once we had broken through the outer barrier of the wood.