what seemed to be a chant. Now and then, one of them lifted a hand momentarily to touch fingertips to his forehead or lips.
«They are speaking to the valley,' Tagwen said, pulling absently at his beard. «They are asking that it protect them against the dark spirits that live within it. It is an old custom among the Trolls, to seek the protection of the land they pass through and might have to fight upon.»
Then, one by one, starting with Kermadec, the Trolls rose and walked around the circle, touching each Troll atop his head before returning to his place and kneeling to be touched in turn.
«Now they are pledging their lives in support of each other, promising that they will stand together as brothers should the spirits bless them with their protection and guidance.» He cleared his throat. «I don't believe in this nonsense myself, but it seems to make them feel better.»
The ritual continued for several minutes more. Then the Trolls rose and moved off, the sentries to their posts, the rest to their beds. Only Kermadec and Atalan remained where they were, talking quietly.
«Guess they've made their peace.» Tagwen stretched and yawned. «I'm going to bed. Good night to all of you.»
He moved off, and seconds later Khyber went, too. Pen sat alone with Cinnaminson in the darkness, their shoulders touching as they listened to the forest sounds.
«This valley is filled with spirits,' the Rover girl said to him suddenly. Her fingers reached up to brush the air. «I can sense them all around, watching.» She paused. «I think they might have been waiting for us. I don't know why they would do that, but they are very purposeful in their movements, very deliberate.»
«Maybe they are here because they were called just now by the Trolls.» Pen glanced at her. «Maybe they have come in response.»
The girl nodded. «They might be here to offer protection. I don't sense hostility.» She touched his hand. «I have an idea, Pen. Use your magic to ask them. You can communicate with living things of all sorts. Spirits are alive. See if they will speak to you.»
He looked off into the velvet darkness, into the massed trees toward the black wall of the Inkrim, and wondered how to go about it. It began, in most cases, with whoever or whatever he was trying to communicate with making a sound or movement that he could interpret. A hawk might reveal its hunger or its desire for a mate through its cries. A rabbit might convey its fear by the way it looked at him. The way a small bird flew could reveal its urgency to reach its young. The brush of tree limbs or tall grasses against his face could tell him if they were in need of water. The movement of the wind told him of storms. He had once been warned of a wolf when a tiny ground squirrel darted through dried leaves.
But there was nothing to hear or see in this situation. Spirits did not always have a voice. They did not always take form. He would have to try something else.
He leaned forward and placed his hands against the earth, trying to read something from the feel of the ground. But after several minutes of patient concentration, there was still no response.
«No, Pen,' Cinnaminson whispered suddenly, taking his hands and lifting them away. «These are spirits of the air. Reach up to them.»
He did as she bid, holding up his hands with his fingers spread, as if to catch the feel of the wind. He held them steady, then moved them slowly about, groping for contact.
A moment later, he had it. Something brushed against his fingers ever so softly, just for a moment before it was gone. Then something else grazed his arm. He read purpose in those touchings, — he found life. They were as gossamer as spider webbing and as ephemeral as birdsong, but they were old and therefore strong, too. They had lived a long time and seen a great deal. He could tell all that from a single touching, and it shocked him.
But they were gone as quickly as they had come, and they didn't return. After he told Cinnaminson what he had felt, he tried to reach for them several times more and could not find them.
«They are not ready for us to know them,' the Rover girl said. «We must be patient. They will reveal themselves when they are ready.»
Later, wrapped in his blanket, Pen thought for a long time before he drifted off to sleep about what form that revelation might take.
They set out at daybreak, moving into the heavy woods while the shadows still layered the earth in dark patches and the sunlight was a dim glow east through the canopy of the trees. The air was chilly and smelled of earth grown rich and fecund over time. The night sounds were gone, replaced by morning birdsong and the soft rustle of the wind through the leaves. The woods remained dark and deep, as impenetrable to sight as a midnight pond, looking exactly the same in all directions, the trees and grasses a wall against the outside world.
They traveled in single file, Kermadec leading, Atalan acting as rear guard, and Pen and his companions placed squarely in the center of the line. The boy walked with Cinnaminson, his eyes sweeping the forest, his senses alert. He searched the shadows and treetops for life, and more often than not, he found it. The Inkrim hummed with activity, its life–forms a surprise at every turn. The birds were often strange, colored and plumed in unfamiliar ways. There were small ground animals that reminded him of squirrels and chipmunks, but were something else. This valley and the creatures that lived within it were old, Kermadec had said, and that suggested that their origins could be found in the world that had existed before the Great Wars. Certainly nothing of the world Pen knew seemed to have a place here.
The day wore on and the sun lifted into the mountain sky, but little of its light penetrated to the forest floor. The night shadows remained thick and unbroken, and the air stayed cool and crisp. There was a twilight feel to the valley, a peculiar absence of real daylight and summer warmth. The woods produced their own climate, peculiarly suitable to this valley.
Now and then they would cross a trail. Narrow and poorly defined, the tracks meandered and ended abruptly, and there was little about them to suggest that they might lead to anything. Kermadec followed them when it was convenient to do so, but more often than not kept to the off–trail breaks in the trees that offered easiest passage and clearest vision of their surroundings. He did not seem particularly concerned about what might be hiding from them and spent no noticeable time searching the deep shadows. Perhaps his training and experience reassured him that he would sense any danger lying in wait. Perhaps it was his acceptance of the fact that in a place like this, ancient and secretive, there was only so much you could do to protect yourself.
Though he searched carefully at every turn, Pen did not see anything that day that seemed threatening. While at times the forest appeared dark and menacing, nothing dangerous ever materialized.
On the second day things changed.
They had enjoyed a fire and hot food the night before, the first of both in a week. They had drunk strong– flavored ale from skins the Trolls carried and slept undisturbed through the night. Rested and refreshed, they had set out again at dawn. This day looked very much like the first, — the skies were more cloudy and the light paler, but the forests of the Inkrim seemed unchanged. Nevertheless, Pen felt a difference in things almost at once, a subtle distinction that at first lacked a source. It was only after he had been walking a while that he realized that the forest sounds were quieter, the wind softer, and the air warmer. Even these didn't seem to him to be the source of the problem, and he was plagued by a nagging certainty that he was missing something.
«Does everything seem all right to you?» he asked Cinnaminson finally.
«You sense them, too, don't you?» she replied at once. She was walking next to him, keeping close.
He stared at her, then glanced around quickly, scanning the forest shadows, the deep mottled black and green of the trunks and grasses, of the limbs and leaves. «Is someone there?»
«In the trees. Hiding. Watching. More than one.»
He exhaled slowly. «I sensed them, but I didn't know what they were. How long have they been there?»
«Since we started out. They must have found us during the night.» She brushed back loose strands of her honey–colored hair. «I thought they were the spirits of the air at first, the ones from last night. But these are creatures of flesh and blood.» She paused. «They track us.»
Pen took her hand and squeezed it. His eyes swept the trees. «Wait here. I'll tell Kermadec.»
But Kermadec already knew. «Urdas,' he advised, bending close to Pen to whisper the word. «Not many of them, but enough to keep us in sight without showing themselves. They're working in relays, small groups of them, each leapfrogging ahead of the others in turn to pick us up as we come past, bracketing us so that we don't get away.»
Pen felt his heart quicken. «What do they want?»
