It had gotten hillier. They’d been crossing a narrow valley, riding through grass higher than the saddle. Baver almost didn’t see it, might not have if Nils’s hadn’t turned to watch. The pinnace was passing to the south, not too far off, visible just above a hill crest. At once Baver stood in his stirrups, waving and shouting.
The pinnace passed out of sight. Quickly, desperately he dug his radio out of his saddlebag and spoke into it. Shouted. And got no answer. It was then he noticed that the radio’s power-on light wasn’t lit. Had it been before when he’d tried to use it? He wasn’t sure, hadn’t noticed.
His face burned. How could he fail to notice something so basic?
Nils turned his horse and led them up the nearest slope into shorter grass, then on to the crest, where they sat awhile and waited. They’d be much easier to see there.
But the pinnace didn’t return. Somehow Baver knew it wouldn’t, not even if they waited there till nightfall. He also knew now that his radio was inoperable, and he had neither the tools nor the knowledge to fix it.
He knew little about technical matters. It was the sort of thing he’d relied on Matthew for; Matthew knew equipment.
After a while, Nils nudged his horse with callused heels and started northeastward again. Baver rode up beside him. If he’s actually telepathic, Baver thought, as people claim, and as he seems to be, he must know what I’m thinking. But the big Northman barely glanced at him till he spoke.
“Nils, I want you to take me back.”
“That would take six days or more. Then six to get here again.”
“I—can make it worth your while.” Even as he said it, Baver knew he couldn’t. He had nothing the Northman wanted. Nils could have gone with the ship to New Home; Ram had even urged him to. Ilse, his wife had gone, the strange rawboned German woman who’d so impressed everyone. But Nils had refused.
“You can easily go back by yourself,” Nils said. “You can follow our trail.”
Baver shook his head. “I’d get lost. I don’t know how to tell our trail from cattle trails.”
The Northman raised a long muscular arm and pointed to the Carpathian Mountains lying dark with forest to the north. “Then ride with the mountains off your right shoulder. After a few days they will curve, and you must too, keeping them off your right shoulder. In time you will come to the Danube near where we crossed it. From there you’ll have no trouble finding a village of the People. Someone will take you to the Salmon Clan.”
Not the Salmon Clan, Baver thought. No. Once he got back, he’d insist on staying with Matt and Nikko, going with them when they traveled. He shook his head. “I’d get lost,” he insisted. “I need you to take me.”
The weird eyes rested calmly on him, their unconvincing blue glass without pupils or irises. “I will not take you,” Nils said reasonably. “You can find your own way; there’s no reason to get lost.”
No reason to get lost! Baver turned to Mager Hans. “Hans, you take me. I can make it worth your while.”
The boy shook his head. “I have come to be with the Yngling and continue the saga of his life. It is my duty. You’re a man. A man can easily make his way back from here alone.”
Baver hadn’t actually considered it before. Now he did, but only for a moment. He could get lost; he was sure it was possible. Even probable. His horse could throw him, or a wild bull could gore him. Or worse—
He turned to Nils. “Orcs could get me,” he said.
“It’s not likely. They’re afraid now. Their hope lies in going unnoticed. And after what happened—since their defeat at the river, and the fall of the tower—they’re afraid of the star folk. Besides, you have your gun.”
Baver stared at Nils, then at the gangling boy poet. These people didn’t care about danger. They didn’t understand, and he was sure he couldn’t make them understand.
Nils Järnhann looked away, to the northeast, and thumped his horse’s flanks with his heels. It started, moving briskly, Hans following. After a moment, Baver followed too.