Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Silence had fallen upon the circle about the fire. Kethan broke that.

“Lady,” he addressed Elysha, “you have told us that those of Garth Howell have already ridden this way. Are you sure of their path?”

She was inelegantly licking crumbs from her fingers as her great violet eyes turned in his direction.

“I can lead you where they seemed to be heading when they passed my own hold. Do you try your other senses on the trail, then, wereling?”

“Pards do have senses beyond those of men,” he answered evenly. “I can at least try. And this much is true: We can usually find water in lands men would consider bone-dry.”

Ibycus appeared to have thrown off his sulky frustration and rage, for he nodded. “A good thought. One to be tried.”

They rode in their usual pattern when they left in the morning. Elysha had been provided with one of the spare Kioga mounts and took the lead, Ibycus not pushing forward to accompany her. But Kethan urged his shadow-marked mount even with the woman after they passed the valley ahead.

They had carefully filled every water bag or container. Now as they rode, the Kioga brought down with their stone-weighted sling cords two brace of grass hens. But even this much hospitality of the countryside was lost as they approached the end of the valley to face some low mounds which seemed far too regularly set to be of nature’s keeping. Seeing some weathered rocks protruding here and there, Kethan guessed that this might have once been a keep, or even a village. But it had now long returned to the grip of the earth.

Elysha reined in when they won to the other side of this jumble out of the past, and pointed ahead. “In that direction.”

It was more west than south, but she seemed very sure. Now Aylinn brought her mount forward as her foster brother left his saddle. He doffed his mail and his helm, unhooked his sword from the skin belt. Swiftly he bundled these in the cloak which had been rolled behind his saddle. Then, light-footed, he ran out onto the mounded land.

He was gone for only a few moments and then Firdun drew a deep breath as a light tawny-furred body slipped over the last of the rises, keeping well away from the horses, which were already registering uneasiness, heading in the direction which Elysha had indicated. That form was large for a pard, but certainly there was nothing else to suggest that it was other than the animal it looked to be.

Kethan drew in the multitude of scents which his human nose never seemed able to separate, one from the other. The ground cover here was closer to a brownish fringe and it held a dry, dusty smell. He caught a trace of a hen’s passing and crossed a fresh leaper trail which his present body urged him to follow. But the man was in charge of the beast and he went on.

Crossing another low rise, he looked out over a flat land which was floored with baked yellow clay, riddled with cracks. There were stubs of rocks here and there to break the vast monotony of that emptiness. But it seemed to reach on and on toward the horizon. Under the sun the yellow of the earth gave back a haze which narrowed Kethan’s eyes to slits.

He did not emerge directly into that emptiness but rather cast along the foot of the last ridge. While a feline hunts by sight and not in most cases by scent, it seemed to him that in this desolation he could pick up the traces of the other party, even if they were a couple of days in advance.

Yet as the heat waves from the land before him beat down, he could find no trace of any promising lead. He had neared the end of the mound when he picked up a rush of foul odor, intermingled with several other scents, all highly irritating to both his nose and the spirit which inhabitated his now-furred body.

The trail certainly led out into the Waste and he began to believe, after he had followed it for a number of paces, that he had indeed found what his party sought. Turning back, he leaped to the top of that mound.

Not too far away the others waited. He did not want to send their mounts into a frenzy with a full-throated roar, but he pitched a snarl as loudly as it could and caught the wave of Aylinn’s arm in return.

For the time being there was no reason to resume human shape. His pard senses should be far more practical. Aylinn was turning in his direction, leading Trussant. If necessary the stallion would carry him even in this present guise as it was bred and trained to do, but he would keep to the trail on foot as long as necessary.

He could guess that the Kioga and their animals would find this new country pure desolation, and he could only hope that his pard talent could lead them to better.

They rode on under the bake of the sun. The hooves of the horses stirred up miniature dust devils of yellow haze. Kethan still caught that faint foul stench of the parry he followed and they were striking in a straight line as if they knew exactly where they were going.

He avoided a rack of fragile bones, the mark of some traveler here who had not been fortunate. Twice he saw rock serpents, but the vibration of the approaching hooves sent them weaving away. Of any other life which might shelter here there was no sign at all. Even the sky overhead was bare of any sweep of bird wing.

Ibycus called a halt at noon, where they sheltered in the only possible alleviation from the sun, a rocky spire. Aylinn came to Kethan who was carefully keeping his distance, to bring him a portion of rations and some sips of water.

“The trail holds?”

So far , he told her by mind-send. Though I cannot truly be sure we travel behind those we would watch .

They had only gone a short distance forward, that spire of rock which had sheltered them still tall in view, when Ibycus’s command rang in Kethan’s mind.

To the east—with care .

Obediently the pard swung away from the way he had been following. As he did so he saw that the mage had held up his hand and that the ring there flamed.

Now it was that tool of Power which led them. And to something they did not expect, for it could not be seen from the level of the endless plain.

Though there were many cracks in the clay, this was no crack but a deep cut in the ground. Kethan stopped, his ears flattened against his skull, and he snarled as he half crouched, moving forward only a fraction at a time.

The walls of the cut were ragged, still of the yellow clay, as if that form of earth extended far beneath the surface here. Yet this was not a place unknown—though it might lie now in total desolation.

Kethan had seen some of the artifacts brought back by traders—those taking wild chances at collecting things when sometimes a single touch meant death. Here were likenesses to one Gillan kept in Reeth, a strange fashioning of a series of four small pyramids, pressing together, seemingly of metal in which were embedded colors as brilliant as gems.

But these showing in the cut were larger than that curiosity at Reeth. Some were more than the size of his furred skull, and the colors played back and forth among them as if they exchanged rainbows in some strange game of their own.

Though pockets of these studded the walls, those were nothing compared to what floored the crack itself. Here were masses of the same kinds of blocks with triangular caps far larger, forming so rugged a surface as to suggest that no one could find footing there.

Completely bemused by their find, they lined up along the edge of that great cut, staring down. Ibycus’s hand had dropped from its level point as if it had been pulled and that ringed finger pointed straight down into the mass of broken bits of brilliant color.

Now by closer examination they could see that the floor of the crack, beneath its burden of weird fragments, arose in the middle, sloping off at each end.