Arskane did not display much interest-there were his own discoveries.
“This is the encampment of a family clan only. Four wagons are burning, at least five escaped. They could not run with the sheep-so they killed the flock. I have found the bodies of four more of these vermin—” He touched the Beast Thing with the toe of his moccasin.
Fors stepped across the hind legs of a dead pony which still lay with the harness of a cart on it. A Beast Thing dart stood out between its ribs. From the presence of the Beast Thing corpses, Fors was inclined to believe that the attack had been beaten off and the besieged had been successful in the break for freedom.
A second search of the litter equipped them with darts, and Fors snapped off the shaft of the arrow which bore the star marking. Some wanderer from the Eyrie had made common cause with the southerners in this attack. Did that mean that he could expect to meet a friend-or an enemy-when he joined Arskane’s people?
The wheels of the escaping carts had cut deep ruts in the soft turf and there were footprints clear to read beside them. The death birds settled back to the feast as the two moved on. Arskane was breathing hard and the grimness which had cut his mouth into a cruel line over the grave of Noraton was back.
“Four of the Beast Things,” puzzled Fors, lengthening his stride to a lope to keep up. “And the Lizard folk killed five. How many are out roving-There has never been such an onslaught of the things before. Why—?”
“I found a burned-out torch in the paw of one of them back there. Maybe the fire of the Plains camp came from their setting. Just as they tried here to fire die carts and drive out the clan to slaughter.”
“But never before have they come out of the ruins. Why now?”
Arskane’s lips moved as if he would spit. “Perhaps they too seek land—or war—or merely the death of all those not of their breed. How can we look into the minds of such? Ha!”
The cart track they followed joined another-a deeper, wider track, such a road as must have been beaten down by the feet and wheels of a nation on the march. The tribe was ahead now.