Scouts had brought word the very day the boys had left John’s homestead, that the Lann vanguard was emerging from the woods near by and gathering itself in the fields. The war-word had gone on hurried feet from house to lonely house, but it had taken more than a day to assemble the men, and they met the enemy weary from a night’s hard traveling.
“They scattered us,” said John somberly. “Their horsemen outflanked our pikemen and struck us from the side and behind. We fought long and hard. Many died in their tracks, but the others broke us up into little knots of men and finally we ran. The Lann hunted us down. They hunted us like dogs harrying a rabbit. Only nightfall saved us, and we streamed home knowing we were beaten. The Lann ranged about, plundering wherever they came, but that may have been a good thing. It held them up long enough for us to flee.”
If the northern farmers had gone to Dalestown in the first place, joined themselves to a large army under a leader who knew something of warcraft… Carl clamped his mouth shut on the words that he knew were too late.
“There are many families retreating like us through the woods,” said the young man, Torol. “It’s slow going, but I don’t think the Lann will bother chasing us. They’ve richer booty at hand—our homes.” He spat. His wife started to cry, softly and hopelessly, and he put an arm about her shoulder and murmured what empty comfort he could.
Carl reflected that the business of sacking the northern marches would keep the invaders occupied for a while. Then they would also have to assemble their entire army—a part of which had fought here. And, while they seemed to have a cavalry such as none of the southern tribes had ever dreamed of, the bulk of their host must be footmen just as it was in the Dales.
So all in all, he thought Ralph would have a few days’ grace yet before the hammer blow fell.
Nevertheless, he wanted to get home and join his father as soon as possible. He groaned at the thought of creaking through brush and hills with these overloaded oxcarts, and thought for a moment of leaving the group and pushing on alone. But no—his eyes went to the tired, dusty faces of Tom and Owl—those two had followed him, stood by him like true comrades in the face of the unknown powers of the City. Now they were with their folk, and the little caravan would need every hunter it could get to keep itself fed on the way. “The Chief,” Ralph had said, “is the first servant of the tribe.”
Carl shook his head, sighing, and spread a blanket roll for sleep. He would let John’s sons tell about the expedition to the witch-folk. Just now, he wanted only to rest.
The following day grew into a slow nightmare of travel. For all the straining and grunting of oxen, and even the horses hitched on in especially difficult places, the wagons made no speed. They were snared in brush and saplings, stuck in the muddy banks of streams, dangerously tipped in the wild swoop of hillsides and gullies. Men had to push from behind, chop a path in front, guide the stubborn beasts along rugged slopes, cursing and sweating and always listening for the war whoop of the Lann. Near evening, Carl shuddered with relief when John asked him to go hunting.
The boy took bow and arrows, a light spear, and a rawhide lariat, and slipped quietly into the tangled woods. His aching shoulders straightened as he moved away from the creaking wagons, and he sniffed the rich green life about him with a new delight. Summer, leaves rustling and breaking the light into golden flecks, a glimpse of blue sky amid cool shadows, a king snake sunning itself on a moss-grown log, a pheasant rising on alarmed wings before he could shoot, like a rainbowed lightning flash—oh, it was good to be alive, alive and free in the young summer! Carl whistled to himself until he was out of earshot of the caravan, then he grew still and his flitting brown form mingled with the shade. He had some work to do.
It didn’t take long to spot a woodchuck’s burrow—but was the animal at home? Carl fitted an arrow to his bowstring and lay down to wait. The sun crept westward, his nose itched, flies buzzed maddeningly around his sweat-streaked face, but he crouched like a cat until patience was rewarded. The woodchuck crept from its hole, Carl’s bow twanged, and he slung his prey at his belt. Nice fat one. But it would take more than that to feed ten people. Carl went on his way.
He shot at a squirrel and missed, not feeling too sorry about it, for he liked the impudent red dwarfs. Scrambling along a slope, he met a porcupine and added it to his bag. The bill went down to a thin, trickling brook which he followed, picking up a small turtle on the way. Mixed food tonight. But not very much yet, even if Tom and Owl were ranging elsewhere…. Hold—what was that, up ahead?
Carl splashed along the brook until it ran off a stony bluff into a broad, quiet pool under the mournful guarding of a willow thicket. The ground about the water hole was muddy with trampling. This was where some worth-while game drank! Carl didn’t care to wait alone for it after dark. He knew the large difference between courage and foolishness. Next evening he and someone else could return. The caravan wouldn’t be many miles away then, he thought impatiently. No—wait! Something else-Carl chuckled to himself as he saw the broad, hard-packed trail running from the pool. A cowpath, but it was the rangy, dangerous herds of woods-running wild cattle which had beaten that road through the forest. He knew that such trails often ran nearly straight for a score of miles. If this one did, the wagons could follow it, the trek home would become easy and swift, and . . .
Skirting the pool, he ran down the trail at a long lope to check. What if he didn’t bring back any more game? This news was worth a hungry night. He’d follow the path a mile or two to make sure. The trees flowed past, and evening quiet dropped over the land, muffling all but the calling of birds and the soft thud of his own moccasined feet, running and running.
When he stopped, wiping the sweat from his face and laughing aloud in glee—yes, the trail could easily be used—he grew aware that the shadows were very long. In his excitement he’d gone farther than was wise and now he couldn’t make it back before nightfall.
“Stupid,” he muttered. But there had, after all, not been much choice, and in any case he had little to fear. He started back, walking this time. The sunset air was cool on his face and under his wet shirt. He shivered and hastened his steps.
Night deepened as the sun went under the hills. Shadows ebbed and flowed around him, creeping from the brake, flooding softly between the trees. A single pure star blinked forth, white in the dusk-blue sky over the trail. An owl hooted and a wildcat squalled answer, far off in the woods. Somewhere a deer ran off in terror. It could be near or far, the leaves played strange tricks with sound, and now the very light was becoming as queer and magical. Carl thought of the godling spirits which were said to haunt the lonely glens. A thin white streamer of mist curled before him, and in spite of his City-strengthened doubts, he muttered a guardian charm.
Willows hung dark against a glooming heaven, the pool was up ahead and fog was smoking out of it to blur the last remnants of sight. Carl picked a slow way through the weeping branches, skirting the white, mysterious glimmer of mist and water.
Something moved in the twilight. Carl stiffened and an icy flash stabbed along his spine. The thing ahead was a deeper blot of darkness, rippling and flowing as if it were a mist-wraith too, but it was big, it was huge, and the last wan light threw back a cold green look of eyes.
Carl backed up, hefting his spear, until he stood in the cow trail again. The beast edged out of the thicket and crouched. Its tail lashed and a growl rumbled in its throat.
A tiger!
There were not many of the huge striped cats this far north, but they were cursed and dreaded as killers of sheep and cattle and sometimes men. To the tribes, there had always been tigers—they had no way of knowing that these were the descendants of animals escaped from zoos in the Doom. This one must have been lying in wait for the herds to come to drink, and was angered by Carl’s disturbance, angry enough, perhaps, to look on him as a meal.