Lura walked up to the fire carrying a young pig. She dropped her burden and with an almost human sigh plumped down beside the kill to watch Arskane butcher it skillfully.
Fors ate roasted pork and began to wonder if his lot was as hopeless as he had thought it to be. The Beast Things were dead. He might lie up until his full strength returned and then make a second visit to the city. Or if he did not dally there would still be time to reach the Eyrie and lead an expedition before winter closed in. He licked rich grease from his fingers and planned. Arskane sang the tune of mournful notes Fors had heard him hum at the fishing lake. Lura purred and washed her paws. It was all very peaceful.
“There faces us now,” Arskane said suddenly, “the problem of clothes for you—”
“It faces me,” Fors corrected him sleepily. “Unfortunately my wardrobe was left to amaze the lizards. And, strangely enough, I do not find in me any desire to reclaim it from them—”
Arskane tightened the knots on the ball and cord weapon. “There you may be wrong, my friend. A visit to the lizard valley—keeping to a safe distance, of course-might serve us very well.”
Fors sat up. “How?”
“Five of the Beast Things died there. But how many followed us into the Blow-Up land?”
Fors tried to remember the size of the party he had spied upon. How large had it been? He could not truthfully say now, but he did have a disconcerting suspicion that there had been more than five in it. If that were so— why were they lingering here so close to the edge of the Blow-Up? His feet were good enough to enable him to put some miles between himself and the desolate waste which now lay only a half mile beyond them.
“Do you think that the lizards may have added to their bag?”
Arskane shrugged. “Now that they have been warned, perhaps they have. But we need the spoil they took. Your bow is gone, but those arrowheads would be useful—”