He made a fierce gesture. "I knew you would not believe! It was why I dared not tell you! But you at least should know I speak truth!" He pointed to Nelson.
Nelson felt a queer chill. He did have an uncanny conviction that Shan Kar was speaking the truth. But the impossible couldn't be true. A witch-girl and her pets, a crippled eagle, a queer native's fantastic talk-was he for these to throw away his firm footing on the everyday earth?
“L’Lan the golden where the ancient Brotherhood still lives'" whispered Li Kin, quoting. "So that is what it means?"
Nick Sloan snapped the spell. "This is all moonshine, but we can talk it out later! Right now I want to know what the danger is that you claim threatens us! How far are we now from L'Lan?"
Shan Kar pointed at the great wall of mountains that rose on the other side of the deep wooded gorge.
"The valley L'Lan lies on the other side of those mountains. We are that close! But getting into it will be perilous now."
He hurried on. "There is only one pass into the valley. It leads into it near the city Vruun which is the heart of the Brotherhood. Yet we must pass Vruun to reach Anshan, the city in the south which we Humanites hold.
"I hoped to creep through the pass and past Vruun without detection. But if the Brotherhood's scout gets word back of our coming they'll move to block us at the pass. That is why we must hurry!"
Nelson and Sloan and the other three grasped at least the urgency of the situation. They had, all of them, fought too many battles and made too many forced marches not to understand strategy.
Eric Nelson told Sloan, "We'd better move as he says. We can get him to explain his queer statements later."