Nissa cringed at the loudness of his voice, and the thought of what could have heard it in the hills.
Ghet, Sorin said when Anowon came limping over to them. We are about to depart. Do whatever disgusting thing that you will.
Nissa looked from one to the other of them. Anowon turned and walked away. The little man had extended a long hose from the back of his wagon and affixed it to the tank. The other end he was about to stick into the globule of water.
Nobody will miss one water scout, Sorin said.
Wait, Nissa said. She took a step toward the wagon.
Anowon walked up behind the small human, and in one fluid motion he swept down, sweeping his hood back. But Nissa was ready. She lunged and jabbed quickly with her staff. The end of the staff caught Anowon in the middle of the chest and knocked him off balance, and he stumbled backward and onto one knee. When she charged, the vampire seized a handful of sand and hurled it in her eyes. Nissa stopped dead in her tracks and swung her staff where she thought Anowon was, but she swung through empty air.
A moment later Nissa heard a snap followed by a rhythmic slurping. She sat down hard and moistened a corner of her jerkin with saliva from her mouth, what little there was. As she cleaned the sand and dust from her eyes, Nissa had to listen to the cracking of the water scout s ribs as, presumably, Anowon squeezed the body to drain it fully of blood.
When her eyes were clear enough to see, she glared at Anowon. The vampire was standing above her smiling contentedly. The body of the water scout was off to the side. Two razor-thin lines ran vertically along each of the big veins in his neck. Nissa understood immediately why Anowon kept long fingernails.
Next time it will not go so easily for you, Anowon said.
Nissa looked out at the flatness they had just crossed and swallowed hard. She was not sure what angered her more that Anowon had killed the scout that had saved their lives, or that Anowon had out maneauvered her.
Why not the witch vessel. Why not her? she asked, pointing at Smara.
The kor woman repulses me, he replied.
When she turned, Sorin was looking down at her with no recognizable expression on his long face. Nissa went over to where the goblin was sitting in the shade of the wagon trying to act as though it had not seen Anowon kill the water scout.
We should go, Nissa said.
The goblin nodded and rose, then helped Smara to her feet.
We ll take the wagon, Nissa said.
And they did. The terrain became more and more rugged as they traveled. Surprisingly there was a trail of sorts that led upward, and the dulam beasts pulled the water tank easily. They had not bothered to fill the tanks from the floating water, but even without filling they could hear that the tank was perhaps a quarter full.
By daybreak of the following day they passed the first plant Nissa had seen in weeks: a foul-smelling shrub that began to dot the draws between the foothills. The path turned to the east, and the shoulders of the mountains became noticeably steeper for the next two days.
The strange signs of the skeletal feet that Nissa had seen criss-crossed the trail, but never quite followed it. Whatever the creatures were, they seemed to move as a pack of maybe twenty and seemed to always be barefoot. Others traveled with them. But the beings that traveled with them wore boots and had tracks of average length, depth, and stride. Nissa suspected that whatever was making the tracks was probably aware of their presence, and was in all likelihood shadowing them. Who could know for what reason?
Anowon noted the signs with a grunt. When he did not think we was being watched, Anowon scanned the hilltops around. Once she found him taking big gulps of air and deep breaths through his nose, hoping to get a scent from the surrounding air. Whatever he detected in the air made him edgy and even worse tempered than before.
At one point the vampire stopped suddenly and closed his eyes for some moments. The rest of the group also halted. After a short time Anowon opened his eyes and kept walking as though he had not stopped.
Ghet, Sorin said, after Anowon had stopped twice.
What foolery are you engaged in?
But Anowon said nothing. That night he insisted on taking first watch, and he pushed Nissa away when she tried to relieve him later. In the middle of the night they were woken to the sound of a bellowing echo in the mountains and hills. It continued for some time then stopped abruptly.
The next day was no better. They walked higher, and the hills became taller and taller until the mountains seemed to loom no more than a day s travel away. Anowon became more agitated as the trail became steeper. At one point he stopped the party.
We cannot go that way, he said, nodding to a rather level way that turned sharply behind a swelled outcropping.
Why not, Ghet? Sorin said.
Nissa looked at the turn he was talking about. He s right, she said. It s the perfect place for an ambush.
We must leave the wagon here and travel rougher, Anowon said. If we can.
Are you going to tell us what you know? Nissa said.
No, Anowon said.
Why? Nissa asked.
Because I might be wrong, the vampire replied.
Vampires are wily trackers, Sorin said.
Nissa could not be sure if he was saying that Anowon was a good tracker, or that they were being tracked well by other vampires. She turned to check Sorin s expression, but it did not reveal his true meaning. The possibility that vampires were tracking them made her skin tingle with fear and excitement. Vampires were one of the two creatures she actually enjoyed killing.
Are we being tracked by vampires, or is Anowon a good tracker? Nissa said.
Yes, Sorin said. We will see just how good a tracker our pale friend is.
Nissa shook her head. A straight answer would be nice just once. Just once.
The group left the wagon and started on foot. They moved slowly over the boulders, staying away from possible ambush sites. They avoided blind angles, swinging wide around corners so as not to be surprised. Before they left the tank they drank as much water as they could, wishing very much that they had not thrown away their skins on the flat plain.
But by dusk they were thirsty. They had just moved up a steep alluvial fan of loose rock, a hard scramble but one with no blind spots, no possibility of ambush, when Anowon stopped suddenly.
There is something ahead, he hissed.
Where? Nissa said.
There, Sorin said, without pointing. At the base of that rock formation that looks like a cascade of blood.
Nissa saw where he meant. In front of an undulated red stone formation was what looked like a statue of a very tall, stout human with no face. What struck Nissa was the fact that the statue was not constructed of red stone It was light brown, almost a mud color.
It is a statue, Nissa said.
It moved, Anowon said.
Nissa looked back at the strange statue. It did have a face of sorts: its nose was a hole, as were its eyes and mouth. She noticed that rock cairns were piled up on either side of it. She watched the statue for long enough that her knees started to sting as she squatted in the loose rock. She was just about to stand when the statue moved.
I saw it too, Sorin said.
The goblin was standing very still with one of its large ears cocked up and a worried expression on its face.
Nissa took a long, slow look around. The Teeth of Akoum were different from any other mountains she had ever seen. The steep sides of the high foothills were strangely bare and featured steep faces of rounded, almost bubble-shaped rock. There was no soil to speak of, only rock crushed to various degrees. Natural rock bridges formed by the wind joined canyon walls. Fingers of rock jutted high in the air, topped sometimes with boulders that floated and bobbed above their tips.
Clear crystals shot through everything, making walking difficult in the daytime, where rays of heat were concentrated through the crystals and had to be avoided if one wanted to keep from being badly singed.