The Bonehunters

Page 257

Boatfinder joined her and Karsa on the rise. A small keening sound rose from him.
Karsa took the lead down the trail. After a moment, Samar Dev followed.
'Stay back from the camp,' Karsa told her. 'I must read the tracks.'
She watched him move from one motionless form to the next, his eyes scanning the scuffed ground, the places where humus had been kicked aside. He went to the hearth and ran his fingers through the ash and coals, down to the stained earth beneath. Somewhere on the lake beyond, a loon called, its cry mournful and haunting. The light had grown steely, the sun now behind the forest line to the west. On the rise above the trail, Boatfinder's keening rose in pitch.
'Tell him to be quiet,' Karsa said in a growl.
'I don't think I can do that,' she replied. 'Leave him his grief.'
'His grief will soon be ours.'
'You fear this unseen enemy, Karsa Orlong?'
He straightened from where he had been examining the holed canoes. 'A four-legged beast has passed through here recently – a large one. It collected one of the corpses… but I do not think it has gone far.'
'Then it has already heard us,' Samar Dev said. 'What is it, a bear?'
Boatfinder had said that black bears used the same trails as the Anibar, and he'd pointed out their scat on the path. He had explained that they were not dangerous, normally. Still, wild creatures were ever unpredictable, and if one had come upon these bodies it might well now view the kill-site as its own.
'A bear? Perhaps, Samar Dev. Such as the kind from my homeland, a dweller in caves, and on its hind legs half again as tall as a Teblor.
But this one is yet different, for the pads of its paws are sheathed in scales.'
'Scales?'
'And I judge it would weigh more than four adult warriors of the Teblor.' He eyed her. 'A formidable creature.'
'Boatfinder has said nothing of such beasts in this forest.'
'Not the only intruder,' the Toblakai said. 'These Anibar were murdered with spears and curved blades. They were then stripped of all ornaments, weapons and tools. There was a child among them but it was dragged away. The killers came from the lake, in wooden-keeled longboats. At least ten adults, two of them wearing boots of some sort, although the heel pattern is unfamiliar. The others wore moccasins made of sewn strips, each one overlapping on one side.'
'Overlapping? Ridged – that would improve purchase, I think.'
'Samar Dev, I know who these intruders are.'
'Old friends of yours?'
'We did not speak of friendship at the time. Call down Boatfinder, I have questions for him-'
The sentence was unfinished. Samar Dev looked over to find Karsa standing stock-still, his gaze on the trees beyond the three canoes.
She turned and saw a massive hulking shape pushing its forefront clear of bending saplings. An enormous, scaled head lifted from steep shoulders, eyes fixing on the Toblakai.
Who raised his stone sword in a two-handed grip, then surged forward.
The giant beast's roar ended in a high-pitched squeal, as it bolted – backward, into the thicket. Sudden crashing, heavy thumpsKarsa plunged into the stand, pursuing.
Samar Dev found that she was holding her dagger in her right hand, knuckles white.
The crashing sounds grew more distant, as did the frantic squeals of the scaled bear.
She turned at scrabbling from the slope and watched Boatfinder come down to huddle at her side. His lips were moving in silent prayers, eyes on the broken hole in the stand of trees.
Samar sheathed her dagger and crossed her arms. 'What is it with him and monsters?' she demanded.
Boatfinder sat down in the damp mulch, began rocking back and forth.
****
Samar Dev was just completing her second burial when Karsa Orlong returned. He walked up to the hearth she had lit earlier and beside which Boatfinder sat hunched over and swathed in furs, voicing a low moaning sound of intractable sorrow. The Toblakai set his sword down.
'Did you kill it?' she asked. 'Did you cut its paws off, skin it alive, add its ears to your belt and crush its chest in with your embrace?'
'Escaped,' he said in a grunt.
'Probably halfway to Ehrlitan by now.'
'No, it is hungry. It will return, but not before we have moved on.'
He gestured to the remaining bodies. 'There is no point – it will dig them up.'
'Hungry, you said.'
'Starving. It is not from this world. And this land here, it offers little – the beast would do better on the plains to the south.'