Alexey Pehov - Chasers of the Wind

After several days of such training, Ga-Nor found that he didn’t have to keep an eye on his companion as much as before. The distance they traveled in a day’s march increased exponentially.

After their encounter with the Burnt Soul, no one else pursued the humans. It seemed that their enemies had finally lost track of the fugitives. But Ga-Nor played it safe and pushed them onward as if the entire Sextet (one of the titles given to the Damned) were at their heels.

At first they made their way through the forested foothills, which quickly gave way to rolling hills. After three days, they entered a wooded plain with many lakes, rivers, and streams in its low places. Impassible, thorny underbrush and thick fir copses blocked their path through the dark ravines and gloomy sycamore groves.

The companions moved westward rapidly. They avoided roads. In the beginning, when the terrain was rough, they traveled parallel to the road, but when they began moving away from it, Luk lost all sense of where they were and how far they had gone. He had no idea how the northerner determined their route. He tried to orient himself with the help of the sun, but that didn’t work. The soldier didn’t believe that the detours and spirals they wound through the forest every day would bring them to Dog Green. Once Luk dared to voice his concerns about the validity of their route, but all he got for his pains was a meaningful snort. Ga-Nor wasn’t going to explain anything to him.

The guardsman heaved a sigh. The endless, exhausting daily marches had him losing faith that they would get to where they needed to be. A village is not a city. The chance that they would pass right by it, not noticing it amongst all the beech, spruce, and oak groves, was great. And if they got lost, they could wander through the forest until the end of their lives. Or maybe stumble into Sandon (the vast forested territories to the east of the Empire. The Kingdom of the Highborn). And of course the Highborn would be beyond thrilled to greet the intruders. But then again, the tracker seemed to be heading in the wrong direction.

Stupidly, Luk decided to ask Ga-Nor which direction they were traveling.

“East.”

“What do you mean east? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he replied serenely.

“But we need to go west, screw a toad!”

“But right now we’re going east,” said the northerner absentmindedly.

He stopped and crouched down, gingerly probing the ground with his fingers.

“What do you mean we’re going east? Why east?”

“Don’t panic! We’re going the right way. We just needed to make a detour. There was a really bad spot. We had to retrace our steps. Go more to the east.”

“Retrace our steps…” whined Luk petulantly. “And what about that route displeased you? It was just fine.”

“I told you, it was a really bad spot. A gove’s lair. Didn’t you smell it?”

“Well… yes. I smelled something strange. I thought it was some kind of herb blooming.”

“An herb… I have no idea what you would do without me. An herb! That’s what a forest demon smells like during its molt. So I decided not to meddle with it. It isn’t worth the trouble to get mixed up in that. Far better to lose a day of traveling.”

“Well, if there was a gove, then it’s understandable,” said Luk, forgetting his outrage. “But will you tell me when we’re going to get there? All we do is walk. I’m sick of all these trees. I want to get to the city. Have some shaf. If we keep going like this, I’m going to die.”

“Shaf!” scoffed the woodsman. “Right now, brother, the Nabatorians are gulping down your shaf.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t dream of it.”

“Drink some water from a stream and shut your trap.” Ga-Nor stopped feeling the ground and stood up.

“That’s all you know, isn’t it? ‘Shut your trap,’ ‘quiet,’ ‘don’t shout.’”

“Don’t shout.”

“Who’s going to hear us out here?”

“You clod, how many times do I have to repeat myself?” whispered the Son of the Snow Leopard. “The forest adores silence. Your shrieks can be heard for leagues. Speak in a whisper; I’m not deaf.”

Luk sniffed aggrievedly, but he lowered his voice. “You still haven’t told me when we’re going to get to that damned village.”

“Soon. We’re basically already there.”

“There’s no habitation anywhere near here.”

“Look under your feet. Do you see the tracks?”

“No.”

“The marks are old. They’ve already faded, and the earth doesn’t stick to my fingers. They’re twelve to fifteen days old.”

Ga-Nor passed his hand over a part of the footpath. To Luk’s eyes the spot looked no different than any other.

“Tracks still don’t mean anything.”

“Of course they mean something. And here, they mean a peasant’s bast shoes. Someone from the village was hunting. I’d advise against walking over there. There’s a trap.”

“Where?” The soldier stopped dead in his tracks.

“About five paces away from you. Straight on.”

“What do you mean? There’s nothing there, screw a toad!”

The ground looked like any other ground. If there really was a trap there, it was perfectly camouflaged.

“You never really see anything,” said the Son of the Snow Leopard irately. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Walk behind me. Follow in my footsteps.”

He stepped off the footpath and walked around the dangerous spot.

“Why did they put it there?”

“How should I know? Maybe for the gove. Maybe for animals. Anyhow, we have no more than four hours to go.”

“And then we’ll get to relax!” This was the only thing Luk now dreamed of.

“If all is well. But no, we have to go farther. To Al’sgara. West of here is not like the north. We won’t encounter any civilization along the road. It’s just forest and the Blazgian swamps. And we’ll have to slog through them for another two weeks, if not more.”

The soldier groaned loudly, hoping the sound would express the full extent of his despair and frustration.

When it was past midday, and the shadows made by the trees were starting to lengthen, the travelers emerged onto the shore of a river.

Ga-Nor sat down on the ground and untied his bootlaces. Luk took off his shoes entirely. He walked over to the sun-warmed rocks and, blinking contentedly like a cat that had drunk its fill of cream, he lowered his feet into the cold water.

“You’ll get a chill,” the Son of the Snow Leopard warned him.

“I’m seasoned,” objected the soldier, and then he sneezed loudly.

Gnawing on a blade of grass, Ga-Nor chuckled knowingly.

“It’s not much farther. We’ll walk with the current. There, beyond that bend, that’s where the open forest begins. If we get through that, we’ll wind up in the village.”

“What do you mean? Have you been here?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

The tracker shrugged.

“Fine. I’ll take your word for it. You don’t argue with northerners when it comes to instinct. Whew! I was starting to think we’d never get there. I’ve just realized how much I hate the forest.” He got up out of the water and began fumbling with his foot bindings. “Happiness is close at hand.”

“You’re rejoicing too early. We still don’t know what’s going on there.”

“What do the Nabatorians want with this backwater? Okni and Gash-Shaku, that’s where they’ll attack. If they go creeping into Al’sgara, they’ll be leaving the Steps of the Hangman open and they’ll get hit from behind. No. They will take the south first, besiege the pass, shut off all the retreats to the north, and only then will they turn around and take the Green City. That’s what I would do. I’d block the Steps first, and then have my fun.”