Dagii nodded and said, “I think you’re right. Well done.”
Ekhaas flicked her ears casually in response, but Geth could see the expression of self-satisfaction she tried to hide.
His prediction that they wouldn’t see the end of the road seemed accurate, though. When they started on the road again, he checked their direction. Wrath didn’t point anywhere near Giim Astraa, but rather along the road and directly to the massive bulk of a much closer mountain. The road curved wide around the mountain’s flank. He grimaced. “It was nice while it lasted.”
“Follow the road around,” Ashi suggested. “It might curve back again.”
It didn’t. As they came around the mountain, a stray sunbeam, the last light of the day, fell on the road ahead. The way was remarkably clear, the road a pale ribbon-one that snaked off in the direction of Giim Astraa and away from where they needed to go. There was no chance it would curve back.
“Rat,” cursed Geth.
“We’ll make camp here for the night,” said Dagii. “We can carry on in the morning.”
“Aye,” Geth said. Out of habit, he drew Wrath and held it out to get a new sense of their bearings.
His gut twisted. The sword no longer pointed south-southwest, but northeast toward the mountain they had just come around. “Look,” he said, then louder, “Look!”
Everyone turned to him and froze. Ekhaas’s ears rose sharply. “It’s here. Guulen is on this mountain.”
Excitement ran high in the camp that night. They ate a dinner of sour sausages and starchy dumplings in silence, each of them wrapped up in his or her thoughts. Ekhaas stared into the fire. Midian dug out his little silk- bound book and seemed to read it, though Geth noticed he was very slow in turning the pages. Dagii set himself to inspecting his armor. Chetiin examined the edge of his curved dagger, honing it with a worn sharpening stone: Geth realized for the first time that, though the goblin wore a pair of daggers sheathed to his forearms, he only drew and used the one on his left arm. He would have asked Chetiin about it, but it seemed somehow wrong to break the silence of the camp.
When his time came to sit watch, he stood and stared up at the mountain overhead. In his hand, Wrath throbbed as if in anticipation. Geth’s heart beat in the same time and he wondered if this was how the heroes of the name of Kuun had felt as they drew close to the ends of their adventures. “Grandmother Wolf,” he murmured, squeezing Wrath’s hilt, “the duur’kala are going to need to come up with some new stories for us!”
They were all up with the sun and ready to attack the mountain. It was still a daunting chunk of landscape to search. Broadleaf trees hugged the lower slopes, giving way to the thick dark green of pines and firs higher up. The peak, shining in the morning sun, was a cap of bare rock dotted with thin patches of grass like hair on the head of a bald man. Dagii rode a little farther along the old road to get a different view and came galloping back to them. “There’s a saddle just around the mountain and about halfway to the peak,” he said. “We should be able to reach it. Using Aram there should eliminate the need to search at least half the mountain.”
It was frustrating to leave the road again and re-enter the green world of the forest. The trees seemed particularly thick on the mountain. Within paces of leaving the road, they had lost site of it. It took a long while before the ground started rising, and they had to stop and wait at least twice while Chetiin climbed a tree to check their position. The second time he came down, he said, “I see the saddle,” and led them off at an angle to the way they’d been heading.
The ground began a sharp ascent shortly afterward. By mid-morning it was too steep to ride the horses, and they had to dismount. Even Chetiin got off Marrow and let the worg pad about on her own. The speed of Tariic’s magebred horses had ceased to be a benefit days before. Geth was glad that they had also been bred for endurance.
“Should we leave them behind?” he asked Dagii after a particularly difficult stretch that left them all sweating. “We could go faster on our own without them.”
“I’d rather haul them up the slope than risk something happening to them. We’ll still need to get out of the mountains and back to Rhukaan Draal.” The warrior was covered with dirt and leaf mould from slipping face first to the ground during the climb, but he still managed to keep his stiff manner. Maybe he was even more stiff, as if trying to hold onto his dignity. Geth felt the distinctly unheroic urge to push him down again, just to see if he could get him to laugh.
He didn’t have a chance to act on the urge. Marrow, who had been wandering ahead, came loping back. Her black fur stood on end, adding bulk to her neck and shoulders, and she was growling. She trotted to Chetiin and said something in the snarling language of worgs. Chetiin stiffened, and his ears flicked.
“What is it?” Dagii asked, and suddenly his stiffness didn’t seem so out of place.
“Bugbears. Marrow caught their scent. They’re not close, but we’re in their territory.”
“That’s not good, I guess,” said Ashi.
Dagii shook his head. “The Marguul tribes of the mountains have resisted swearing allegiance to Haruuc,” he said. “A few Marguul tribes are loyal, but others only acknowledge their oaths when it’s convenient to them. Tribes in the high mountains often don’t even bother to pretend.”
“And these are the high mountains.”
“Oh, yes.”
Chetiin listened to a few more yips and growls from Marrow. “There’s a hunters’ trail a short way ahead.”
“We need scouts,” Dagii said. “Chetiin, Geth, Ashi-follow Marrow and see what we’re dealing with. We’ll wait here.”
“Mazo,” said Chetiin. Geth shrugged out of his pack, Ashi did the same, and the three of them slid into the forest after Marrow.
The trail was only about thirty paces away. If they’d kept going, they would have blundered right into it. The four of them crouched in the brush a short way off the trail and watched for a short while. When there was no movement, they crept closer. Geth gestured, and Ashi stepped out into the open while Geth and Chetiin remained behind, hands on weapons. Ashi walked a few paces up and down the trail, then rejoined them.
“I don’t know what bugbear footprints look like, but a lot of big creatures on two feet use this trail frequently,” she said, and pointed first south, then north. “They walk that way with light loads and return heavily laden. There’s drops of old blood. Most likely hunters returning to a camp or a village with prey.”
“Camp or village?” asked Chetiin.
“Given how often the trail is used, I’d say smaller than a village, but more permanent than a camp.”
Geth cursed and drew Wrath. The blade pointed across the trail but at an angle that followed it up the mountain. “It doesn’t look like they’re in our way.”
“There’s no telling where this trail ends,” said Chetiin. His big eyes narrowed. “Bugbears are more nocturnal than other goblin races. We should take advantage of that to have a look around.”
Geth cursed again. He kept Wrath out as they made their way cautiously up the trail with Marrow shadowing them from the cover of the trees. The trail followed a relatively gentle slope up the mountainside. If nothing else, it was easier than walking with the horses. When the slope became even more gentle and the trees began to thin out, Geth guessed that they had almost reached the top of the saddle. A little farther on and Marrow whined gently in warning. “She smells the camp,” said Chetiin.
“I smell the camp,” Geth whispered as a gentle breeze from above brought a stink of rotten meat and dung.
A ridge rose from the woods on the left side of the track. Geth nudged Chetiin and pointed to it. The goblin nodded. A short time later, the two of them and Ashi were stretched out on top of the ridge in the afternoon sun and looking down on the bugbear camp.
Ashi was right. It was more permanent than what Geth would normally call a “camp” but it was also so disgustingly dirty he couldn’t call it anything else. Half a dozen large huts dotted the camp, as well as a longhouse that had been built against the steep fir-covered slope leading to the mountain’s peak. Geth suspected that the longhouse concealed the entrance to a cave in the mountainside. The whole camp was surrounded by what could loosely be called a yard of patchy grass and worn soil. Animal carcasses-deer, boar, mountain lions, wolves-hung from rough frames between the huts, and a big firepit lay at their center. Pots of something dark and steaming were dug into the ashes at the edge of the pit. Pine pitch to be used as a weapon, Geth guessed. Nasty stuff that would stick as it burned. Thick stakes sharpened, smeared with more pitch, and set into the ground at an angle made a crude barrier around the camp. Three bugbears dressed in rags of leather lounged sleepily near the opening in the
