Hans and Baver had set out riding briskly, for Nils’s tracks had been headed southeastward on the ancient highway, and tracking didn’t seem necessary. It should, they thought, be enough simply to follow the road. They’d hoped to catch sight of him before dark. He had his wound, after all, and he’d started before midnight. Surely he’d had to stop and rest. Probably he’d holed up in his shelter tent when it began to rain, to sleep at least until it quit.
But the days were growing shorter, and dusk arrived before they caught up with him. “Shall we go on?” Baver asked. “He has to be weak after losing blood the way he did.”
Hans had seen more wounds than Baver, and paid closer attention to them. Nils had bled freely enough, but the loss had not been great, especially for someone his size. What troubled Hans most was that Nils had chosen to leave without him. He must have had a reason, but nonetheless—Hans nodded; someone following the road as Nils was would surely not leave it far to camp—not far enough to miss, even in the night. If they stayed with it, making good use of their remounts, they’d catch him before daylight.
They stopped briefly to let their horses graze. For their own supper, they made do with curds and airag, then pushed on. By midnight Baver was having trouble staying awake in the saddle. Hans, on the other hand, wasnt sleepy. He had something to occupy him—watching for sign that Nils might have left the road, farther than he’d expected. When the halfmoon set, about midnight, he thought of camping. Instead he took a chance and pushed on. Twice he stopped at arroyos. One had a tiny creek, and the other might have water a little upstream or down. At each he dismounted and knelt, examining as best he could, with eyes and fingers, the grass and ground alone the old roadbed for sign of someone having left the road. And found none. Nor did the dry arroyo have tracks in the bottom. Hans mounted again and pushed on.
Baver awoke in the saddle from a dream of pursuit. Mounted Orcs had been thundering after them, and he and Hans were riding donkeys that refused to run, insisting instead on trying to lie down. Dawn was lightening the sky, and he had no clear recollection of anything other than dozing, waking, and restless dreams since the moon had set. Vaguely he recalled changing horses a few times.
Hans had stopped, and Baver’s mount had followed suit. “We’ve passed him,” Hans was saying. “There are no fresh tracks here.” He sounded chagrined, angry with himself.
“Maybe we should stop and wait for him,” Baver suggested. “Let him catch us.” He was aware of hunger now. His sleepiness had passed for the moment.
Hans shook his head. “You can wait. I’m going back and find him. He could be hurt. If he left the road, his horse might have stepped in a marmot hole and fallen with him. His belly could have burst open.”
They did stop long enough to hobble the horses and let them graze and rest, while they had something to eat themselves. Then they turned back, riding the way they’d come, both of them watching the roadsides. After a bit the sun rose. Some time afterward they came to Nil’s tracks, or at least tracks they assumed were his, leaving the road. They followed them. There was no creekbed there, no sign of water. The tracks left at right angles to the road, and for awhile their spacing indicated a brisk trot. So Hans said. To Baver, the combined tracks of mount, remount, and pack horse were a confusion. About two kilometers away, or a little more, they turned and roughly paralleled the highway. The trot continued, though it had eased a bit.
Here it had rained little or not at all, and the tracks were mostly scuffs and nicks in the hard ground. The bunch grass was too sparse to show his passage, but there was enough of it to conceal his tracks, except from close up, which slowed their pursuit. The two pressed on, slowed by the need to stay on Nils’s trail.
It seemed to Baver that Nils had done this deliberately, to keep from being caught up with. If he was truly telepathic, and it seemed he must be, then he might even have sensed them coming and left the highway only a little ahead of their passing. But the star man never seriously thought of suggesting they turn back. Hans would never agree anyway. And he wasn’t about to go it alone; his newly-acquired survival know-how felt seriously inadequate in a world of Kalmuls, Kazakhs, and other unpredictables.
About midday they came to the broad trail of sheep being herded crosscountry. Nils’s tracks were lost in the profusion of hoofprints—sheep and the herdsmen’s horses. Hans found no indication of prints crossing the others directly. For several hours Nils had roughly paralleled the highway, deviating only to keep some terrain in between. The herd had been driven diagonally toward it. Nils could have followed it to the road or beyond, or followed it a short way and then continued as before.
Hans had been picking his way along the far edge of the herd trail, watching for sign that Nils had left it. As they approached the road, it seemed to Baver they’d surely find his tracks there again, but they didn’t. So much for intuition, he told himself.
Hans reined up in exasperation, and looked at Baver. “If I follow the herd trail, can you go back and see if he went the other way on it? Look for tracks going the other way than these, then keep to the edge and see if he left it. Surely you can do that!”
Baver felt there was nothing sure about it at all. “Where will we meet?” he asked.
“Here. On the road.”
“The last time you said you’d wait for me, you didn’t.”
“I will this time.”
Baver nodded. “All right,” he said. He untied his remount from Hans’s, leaving the packhorse, and backtracked along the west edge, first at a trot, then at a slow walk. To his great pleasure, he found where he and Hans had hit it; he could find tracks! But after another hour he’d found none he recognized as going counter to the herd, nor any leaving the herd trail. Turning, he trotted his horse back toward the highway.
Crossing a little rise, he could see no sign of Hans waiting there. When he reached it, he dismounted, hobbled both horses, and let them rest and graze. He himself lay down on the lumpy ground with an arm shielding his eyes, and went to sleep at once. It seemed to him that Hans, despite his promise, might have abandoned him, but he wasn’t going to worry about it.
It wasn’t much later that Hans woke him; he hadn’t slept long enough to feel gummy-eyed and confused—maybe twenty minutes.
“Did you find anything?” Hans asked.
Baver got up and shook his head. “Our tracks, that’s all.”
Hans looked grim. “We’ll ride the road then. He followed it far, and when he left it he rode in the same direction. He must be going where the road goes. Maybe he’ll come back to it.”
He didn’t sound optimistic, only determined.
Near sundown they came to a live stream with poplars growing along it. By that time both of them were nearly falling out of the saddle. Hans had killed a marmot. Now he dismounted, Baver following suit. They hobbled their horses, gathered deadwood, built a fire, and skewered the marmot, setting it to roast. Then they pitched the tent, refilled their waterbags, ate the marmot half raw, and crawling into the tent, fell quickly asleep. They wouldn’t wake till dawn.