Chapter 9

The sun had set and then risen five more times when they finally reached the clearing where the night attack had taken place. There was no longer much to mark the spot to the casual eye. The ashes of a few fires, some trampled grass, and a broken spear shaft halfhidden in the grass were hardly noticeable.

"They're sure to have left something here for us. They knew we would come this way, following their path," Jewel told them. "Look around and for any signs telling us where it is."

They carefully searched the clearing, but it was Lyssa whose sharp eyes caught sight of the marker.

"There's something," she called. "Up in that tree."

Her 'something' turned out to be a square of smooth birch bark pinned to a high branch by a dagger.

"That's my knife!" Mak grinned happily. He quickly scrambled up the tree to retrieve Lyssa's find. "What do these markings on the bark mean?"

He handed it to Jewel, who studied the narrow lines that had been burned into the smooth underside of the bark with the point of a hot dagger, turning it different ways as she puzzled out its meaning. "It looks like a flame with a line under it, and then a square. No, a box. My guess is that they buried a box of supplies, then built a fire over it to hide the traces."

"This wasn't one of the regular fires," Lyssa pointed to a heap of ashes. "It's right where Nurm's tent was."

They dug beneath the ashes, quickly reaching loosened dirt, and uncovered a chest wrapped in uncured deer hides. What was inside was more valuable to them than any gold or fine gems could ever be. In the chest they found ample stores of dried food, fresh clothing and other equipment, spear points, and bows and arrows. Mak in particular was overjoyed. One short bow, much heavier than any of those the Tall Ones could pull, was just right for him. With his own dagger fastened to his belt and a stout spear in his hand, he once again felt equal to any emergency that the forest could send their way.

The women hastened to the nearby stream to clean off some of the day's grime, and to try on their new clothes. Lenna gladly discarded her tattered dress for one of the brown traders' tunics. Jewel and Lyssa, whose tunics were showing more skin than cloth, were soon warmly clothed once more. Mak kept his leather kilt as being more comfortable over his hairy skin, but Lev also accepted a tunic and tightfitting trousers of soft leather.

Jewel stood facing up the trail, muttering darkly to herself, then turned and smiled at her companions. "If I've kept track of the days correctly, they have about a fourteen day lead on us. Without pack animals to slow us down, and not having to stop to hunt for most of our food, we can make more than twice the speed they do. If we push on as fast as we can, it should only take us ten or twelve days to catch up with the caravan. It's still only a little after noon, so if we start right now we should be able to reach their first camp site before dark."

With this goal before them, they started briskly up the gently sloping trail. The next few days passed without incident. There was little need to hunt for food with the provisions that had been left for them, but to make those supplies last they nibbled berries stripped from bushes along the trail. For fresh meat, they had an occasional rabbit or other small animal knocked over by hurled stones or brought in by Kim during the night.

The fourth night, they found another cache of food left for them. There were also some very welcome blankets. The nights were quickly growing colder this far up the mountain as summer waned into fall.

On the sixth morning, they awoke to find everything white with frost. Mak began to wish that his hair was a little thicker, but brisk walking soon warmed them. By now he had an excellent grasp of the traders' language, and they spent much of the time on the trail trying to teach it to Lev and Lenna.

"You have learned this language very quickly," Jewel complimented him one evening as they sat by the fire before rolling up in their blankets.

"A good hunter must be able to see and hear everything around him, and remember what he has sensed," he answered. "Imitating the calls of wild creatures to lure them to you is harder than imitating the sounds of new words."

"Would you two like to learn the language of my country?" Jewel asked. "You or Lyssa could find it useful after this trip, if you decide to go with us instead of staying here to live in a village or trading town."

"That sounds like a great idea!" Lyssa's smile echoed Mak's agreement. He had been worrying about the problem of what would happen to them when the journey was over. Neither he nor Lyssa would be happy cooped up in a town or village, but with trade falling off each year there seemed little hope of finding other caravans to work for. No hope of finding one where he and Lyssa could travel together, even if she would be willing to join lives with him. He'd been on the verge of asking her several times in the last few days, but every time he'd tried to she'd managed to change the subject. "Does Lyssa know any of your language yet?"

"No, you will both be learning it at the same time."

The next few days as they climbed higher toward the pass were each divided into two parts. In the morning they would teach Lev and Lenna the speech of the traders, which was closely allied to their own. The afternoons were spent learning another, more difficult language.

Mak learned this second new way of speaking almost as quickly as he had the first one. Lyssa was only a little slower, but Lev and Lenna never did learn more than a few words of it. Part of the problem was that the new language not only held and shaped ideas not found in their own tongue, but also made use of sounds that their ears were not used to hearing.

One day as they were struggling with Lyssa's pronunciation of a difficult phrase, Mak realized that they were walking down hill, rather than up the long slope that they'd been following for so long. His whoop of glee brought the others' heads up. The rest of them laughed as they realized that their absorption in their lessons had made them ignore the crossing of the first summit of the pass. Kim came running back from where he was scouting out their path, wagging his tail and barking as he joined in the excitement. They tried to pick out landmarks in the country spread out before them, but the faint beginnings of an autumn haze foiled their efforts.

Now the pace grew swifter, as the downhill slope and anticipation sped them on their way. At evening of the next day, Mak's sharp eyes spied the faint glimmer of a campfire on a ridge far ahead, and Jewel's impatience almost burst its bonds.

The next morning she could hardly wait to eat, and when they started out she set a pace that the others were hard put to match. Mak at last called out to her where she strode down the path.

"Hold up, Jewel! We're getting spread out too far for safety."

She turned, seeing the others lagging behind. Leaning against the bole of a tree, waiting for them to catch up, she impatiently poked at the tree trunk with the point of her dagger.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was getting so far ahead. I'll try to do better at staying with the group."