From the tight grasp of briers Arskane detached a strip of cloth dyed a dull orange. He pulled it slowly through his fingers.
“This is of my tribal making,” he said. “They were berrying here when—”
Fors felt the point of the spear he trailed. It was not much of a weapon. He longed fiercely for his bow-or even to hold the sword the Plainsmen had taken from him. There were sword tricks which could serve a man well at the right occasion.
With a scrap of cotton caught between his teeth Arskane crawled on, giving no heed to the thorns which ripped his arms and shoulders. Fors was conscious now of a thin wailing sound, which did not rise or fall but kept querulously to one ear-torturing note. It seemed to come with the smoke which the wind bore to them.
The berry field ended in a stand of trees and through these they looked out upon a lost battlefield. Small, two-wheeled carts had been pulled up in a circle, or into a segment of a circle, for there was a large gap in it now. And on these carts perched death birds, too stuffed to do more than hold on to the wood and stare down at a feast still spread to entice them. A mound of gray-white bodies lay at one side, the thick wool on them clotted and stiffened with blood.
Arskane got to his feet-where the birds roosted unafraid the enemy was long gone. That monotonous crying still filled the ears and Fors began to search for the source. Arskane stooped suddenly and struck with a stone grabbed from the ground. The cry was stilled and Fors saw his companion straighten up from the still quivering body of a lamb.
There was another quest before them, a more ghastly one. They began it with tight mouths and sick eyes-dreading to find what must lie among the burning wagons and the mounds of dead animals. But it was Fors who found there the first trace of the enemy.
He half stumbled over a broken wagon wheel and beneath it was a lean body which lay with arms outstretched and sightless eyes staring up. From the hairless chest protruded the butt of an arrow which had gone true to its mark. And that arrow-I Fors touched the delicately set feathers at the end of the shaft. He knew the workmanship-he himself set feathers in much the same fashion. Though here was no personal mark of ownership-nothing but the tiny silver star set so deeply into that shaft that it could never be effaced.
“Beast Thing!” Arskane exclaimed at the sight of the corpse.
But Fors pointed to the arrow. “That came from the quiver of a Star Man.”