The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [5]
Red juice like gore stained their hands and faces by the time they forced themselves to stop. Neb was considering finding a stream to wash in when the yellow gnome appeared again. It grabbed his shirt with one little hand and with the other pointed to the far side of the clearing. When Neb took a few steps that way, he realized that he could hear running water.
“There’s a stream or suchlike over yonder,” Neb said to Clae. “We’ll go that way.”
The gnome smiled and nodded its head. Other Wildfolk appeared and surrounded them as they crossed the clearing. They worked their way through forest cover for about a hundred yards before they found the stream, and just beyond that, a marvel: a dirt road, curving through the trees. When Neb sighted along it, it seemed to run roughly east.
“I never knew this road was here,” Clae said.
“No more did I,” Neb said.
“I wonder where it goes to? There’s naught out to the west of here.”
“Doesn’t matter. We can walk faster now, and a road means people must have made it.”
“But what about the raiders?” Clae looked nervously around him. “They’ll follow the road and get us.”
“They won’t,” Neb said firmly. “They’ve got those huge horses, so they can’t ride through the wild woods. They’ll never get as far as this road.”
Neb insisted they wash their hands before they scooped up drinking water in them. When they finished, he pulled up a handful of grass, soaked it, and cleaned the snot and berry juice off Clae’s face.
All that day they tried to ignore their hunger and make speed, but now and again the road dipped into shallow ravines or swung wide around a mound or spur of naked rock—no easy traveling. As far as Neb could tell, however, it continued to run east toward safety. Around noon, the forest thinned out along a stream, where they found a few more berries and a patch of wood sorrel they could graze like deer. Then it was back on the road to stumble along, exhausted. Neb began to lose hope, but the sprites fluttered ahead of them, and the yellow gnome kept beckoning them onward.
Toward sunset, Neb saw thin tendrils of pale blue smoke drifting far ahead. He froze and grabbed Clae’s arm.
“Back into the trees,” he whispered.
Clae took a deep breath and fought back tears. “Do we have to go back to the forest? I’m all scratched up from the thistles and suchlike.”
The yellow gnome hopped up and down, shaking its head.
“We can’t stay on the road,” Neb said.
“Oh, please?”
The gnome nodded a violent yes.
“Very well.” Neb gave in to both of them. “We’ll stick to the road for a bit.”
“My thanks,” Clae said. “I’m so tired.”
The gnome smiled, then turned and danced along the road, leading the way. In about a quarter of a mile, off to the left of the road, the forest gave way to another clearing. In the tall grass two horses grazed at tether, a slender gray like a lady’s palfrey and a stocky dun packhorse. Beyond them the plume of smoke rose up. Neb hesitated, trying to decide whether to run or go forward. The wind shifted, bringing with it the smell of soda bread, baking on a griddle. Clae whimpered.
“All right, we’ll go on,” Neb said. “But carefully now. If I tell you to run, you head for the forest.”
A few yards more brought them close enough to hear a man singing, a pleasant tenor voice that picked up snatches of songs, then idly dropped them again.
“No Horsekin would sing like that,” Neb said.
The yellow gnome grinned and nodded his agreement.
Another turn of the road brought them to a camp and its owner. He was hunkering down beside the fire and baking bread on an iron griddle. On the tall side, but slender as a lad, he had hair so pale that it looked like moonlight and a face so handsome that it was almost girlish. He wore a shirt that once had been splendid, but now the bands of red and purple embroidery were worn and threadbare, and the yellow stain of old linen spread across the shoulders and back. His trousers, blue brigga cut from once-fine wool, were faded, stained, and patched here and there—a rough-looking fellow, but the gnomes rushed into his camp without