name animal hasn't ruined the tracks I saw. I'd be liable to think ill of it if it has, and I know you wouldn't like that.' He walked over to the doe, grunted. 'No, looks like we're all right. Come up a few at a time, all of you, and have a look at what the ground shows.'
Gerin was part of the first small group forward. When he got close to the dead doe, Van pointed to a patch of bare, soft dirt by the animal. The footprints there were like none the Fox had ever seen. At first he thought they might be a man's, then a bear's-they had claw marks in front of the ends of their toes. But they didn't really resemble either. They were-something new.
'So this is the spoor we have to look for, is it?' he said grimly.
'Either that or someone's magicking our eyes,' Van answered. 'And I don't think anybody is.'
The Fox didn't think so, either. He waited till all his men had seen the new footprints, then said, 'They have claws on their hands, too. Now that we know what their tracks look like, let's get moving and see if we can't hunt down a few.'
The warriors were quiet as they trooped back to the campsite. Now they had real evidence that Gerin and Van hadn't made up the tale about the monsters. They'd believed them already, likely enough, in an abstract way, but hearing about something new and terrible wasn't the same as seeing proof it was really there.
A couple of hours after they started tramping west, Gerin detached another band of men from his force to scour the area where they were. The rest slogged on; grumbles about aching feet got louder.
Around noon, Rihwin said, 'Lord Gerin, something which may be of import occurs to me.'
'And what is that?' Gerin asked warily. You never could tell with Rihwin. Some of his notions were brilliant, others crackbrained, and knowing the one bunch from the other wasn't always easy.
Now he said, 'My thought, lord prince, is that these may in sooth be creatures of the night, wherein we heard the two of them giving cry. For does it not stand to reason that, having lived an existence troglodytic lo these many years, perhaps even ages, their eyes, accustomed as they must be to darkness perpetual, will necessarily fail when facing the bright and beaming rays of the sun?'
'Troglo-what?' Van said incredulously, no doubt speaking for a good many of the Fox's warriors.
Gerin was well-read and used to Rihwin's elaborate southern speech patterns, so he at least understood what his fellow Fox was talking about. 'Means 'living in caves,'' he explained for those who hadn't followed. To Rihwin, he said, 'It's a pretty piece of logic; the only flaw is that it's not so. Van and I saw the things fighting the temple guards in broad daylight the morning of the earthquake, and heard one behind us coming out of Ikos later that same day. Their eyes work perfectly well in sunlight.'
'Oh, a pox!' Rihwin cried. 'How dreadful to see such a lovely edifice of thought torn down by hard, brute fact.' He sulked for the next couple of hours.
The Fox detached another team late that afternoon, and camped with his remaining two teams not long afterwards. The night passed quietly, much to his relief. Standing first watch was not so onerous-better that than being torn from sleep by a horrible screech, at any rate.
Early the next morning, he gave Rihwin's team their area to patrol. 'Good hunting,' he said, clapping his ekenamesake on the shoulder.
'I thank you, lord Gerin,' Rihwin answered, and then, 'Do you know, there are times when I wonder how wise I was to cast aside my life of wealth and indolence in the southlands for an adventurous career with you.'
'There are times when I wonder about that, too,' Gerin said. 'A lot of them, as a matter of fact. What you're saying now is that your heart wouldn't break if you didn't happen to run across any monsters?'
'Something like that, yes.'
'I feel the same way, believe me,' Gerin said, 'but if we don't go after them, they'll end up coming after us. I'd sooner make the fight on my terms, and as far from my keep as I can.'
'I understand the logic, I assure you,' Rihwin said. 'The argument takes on a different color, however, when it moves from the realm of ideas to the point of affecting one personally. Logicians who cling to abstract concepts seldom run the risk of being devoured.'
'No matter how much they may deserve it,' Gerin added, which won him a glare. He gave Rihwin another encouraging swat. For all the southerner's talk, Gerin didn't worry about his courage. His common sense was another matter, or would have been if he'd had any to speak of.
The Fox led his own team westward. Alarmed at their advance, a young stag bounded out of a thicket. Van pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked, and let fly, all in close to the same instant. 'That's a hit!' he shouted, and hurried forward to where the stag had been. Sure enough, blood splashed the grass. 'Come on, you lugs,' the outlander said to his companions. 'With a trail like this to follow, a blind man'd be eating venison steaks tonight.'
They ran the deer down about a quarter of an hour later. It lay panting on the ground, too weak to run any further; Van's arrow stood in its side, just back of the heart. It tried to struggle to its feet, but could not. Its large brown eyes stared reproachfully at the warriors. Van stooped beside it. With one swift motion, he jerked up its head and cut its throat.
Together, Van and Gerin tackled the gory job of butchering the stag. 'Next stream we come to, I wash,' Gerin declared.
'You may not need to wait for a stream, Captain,' the outlander answered, pointing west. The weather had been fine, but clouds were beginning to roll in off the distant Orynian Ocean. 'That could be rain.'
'So it could.' The Fox glowered at the clouds, as if he could hold them back by sheer force of will. 'If it starts raining, how are we supposed to track anything? By the gods, how are we even going to keep fires going to help hold the ghosts at arm's length?' His rising bad temper even extended to Van. 'And why couldn't you have killed this deer closer to sunset, so we could use its blood as an offering to the spirits?'
Van stood tall and glared down at him. 'Are you going to complain that the grass is green instead of blue, too, or will you help me get the meat off this beast?' As usual, his comrade's bluntness showed Gerin where he'd stepped over the line from gloomy to carping. He nodded shamefacedly and fell to work.
Raffo said, 'I have a thought, lord Gerin.' He waited for the Fox to grunt before he went on, 'What say we post ourselves in hiding around the offal there and see if it doesn't lure one of the creatures we're seeking? The stink of blood might draw 'em.'
'We're already farther west than any of the other teams,' Gerin said musingly. 'It would mean pushing on a ways further tomorrow, but why not? As you say, the lure is good: might as well be a grub on a fish hook. Aye, we'll try it-but I still want to go and find water.'
'And I,' Van agreed. His arms were bloody to the elbows.
'We'll be back as soon as we may,' Gerin said. 'Set your ambush, but remember to know what you're shooting at before you let fly.'
He and Van found a creek a couple of furlongs west of where the stag had fallen. Just as they came up to the bank, a kingfisher dove into the water, to emerge a moment later with a minnow in its bill. Something else-a frog or a turtle, Gerin didn't notice which-splashed into the creek from a mossy rock and didn't come out again.
The stag's blood had already started to dry; scrubbing it off wasn't easy. 'We need some of the soap they make from fat and ashes south of the High Kirs,' Gerin said, scraping one arm more or less clean with the nails of his other hand. 'Maybe I'll try cooking a batch myself when we get home to Fox Keep.'
'The stuff's too harsh for my liking,' Van answered. 'It takes off the top layer of your hide along with the dirt.' He looked at Gerin. ' You have a splash of blood by your nose, Fox… No, on the other side. There, you got it.'
'Good.' Gerin gave a theatrical shiver. 'That water's cold.' He glanced westward again. The dirty gray clouds were piled higher there. 'And before too long, more than my arms'll get wet. That does look like rain coming. The serfs will be glad of it, but I wish it would have held off till we were under a roof again.'
'Weather won't listen, any more'n a woman will,' Van said. 'Let's head back and see if Raffo's brainstorm came to anything.'
'We'd have heard if it did,' Gerin answered. But he followed Van back toward the rest of their team. They could hold their ambush till it was time to set up camp for the night, he decided. Turning to his friend, he added, 'It occurs to me now-too late, of course-that pile of guts might draw something besides monsters. If a longtooth decides it wants a meal, I hope they have sense enough to let it eat its fill.'
'You're right,' Van said. 'I'm just glad Rihwin's not with us. He' s a fine chap, mind you, but he hasn't the sense you need to cart guts to a bear, so why should a longtooth be any different? If you ask me-'
Gerin didn't have the chance to ask Van anything. A racket broke out ahead, the shouts of men and the
