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or
an escort of some kind."
"Yes, lucky." Hal subjected his surroundings in all directions to one of his
routine scans. "I also find it a little puzzling."
Another light dusting of early snow allowed another period of easy tracking,
and
when that snow melted in bright sun, additional help was provided by patches
of
mud and dust occurring at intervals along the sparsely traveled road. Traffic
of
any kind seemed so rare that Hal did not worry about footprints being
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obliterated by the tracks of other travelers.
Once more the two men continued walking until the sun had fallen behind the
western mountains, without seeing the least sign of their quarry. While
traversing a long stretch where there were no footprints to follow, Hal had
to
admit it was entirely possible that he and Baldur had accidentally passed the
gnomes, if Andvari and his companion had gone off the trail to rest or for
any
other reason. There were many stretches of the road devoid of any clear
footprints, where something of the kind could easily have happened. It was
equally possible that the journeying Earthdwellers were making such good time
that their pursuers could not have overtaken them if they tried.
Moving uphill again, on the fourth morning, Hal was practically certain that
their whole scheme had misfired, and he would have to start again from
scratch,
or abandon all hope of being able to pick up scraps of divine gold.
Then suddenly Baldur was pointing at the ground. "Look! Look, Hal, I think
these
must be the tracks we want!"
Every now and then those promising tracks appeared again, a few clear prints
of
small, booted feet, plain enough to tell their story to anyone with eyes. The
pattern of bootmarks was consistently that of two people walking side by
side,
in the short strides natural to short legs.
As far as Hal could tell, the Earthdwelling farriers continued to move only
during the long moonlit nights. Hal and Baldur did almost all their traveling
during the short winter days, pushing steadily to keep up, while always
keeping
a sharp lookout on the trail ahead, to avoid overtaking their quarry.
Four days passed on the road, then five. The way the two Earthdwellers were
following had gradually lost its wagon-track duality, diminished through
frequent branchings until it was only a trail. And then steadily the trail
grew
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thinner, and less deeply worn into the ground, as if few people indeed had
ever
dared to follow it this far. Hal would have had no means of knowing whether
he
and Baldur were still on the right path, indeed it would have been hard to be
sure that they were on any path at all, had they not now reached an altitude
where early winter had already moved in, and snow consistently covered most
of
the ground. Here the four small booted feet of the two gnomes had left plain
record of their passage.
Late in the fifth day, the pursuers had stopped to refill their water bottles
at
a place where a frosty trickle of a stream, still unfrozen, crossed the
pathway
under a rude log bridge. Hal's curiosity was alive and well, as usual.
"I still keep wondering why the farrier and his comrade did not choose to
ride.
Anyone who deals in golden horseshoes ought to be able to afford a couple of
cameloids."
"How should I know?" Baldur, now that his great adventure was actually under
way, was growing nervous and irritable, which Hal thought was a bad sign.
"Maybe
the dirt-eaters don't like to get as far above the ground as a cameloid's
back
would lift them. But their being afoot will make it much easier for us to
follow."
Hal grunted something. Following the trail was certainly easy enough. Now and
then the trackers even caught a glimpse of the distant pair whose footprints
led
them on. Only occasionally, at dusk or dawn, could the two slight,
dark-hooded
figures be seen against the snow. Once Hal spotted them no more than about
two
hundred yards ahead, and the trackers waited for long minutes before
cautiously
advancing farther. On and up they went, following a slight trail back and
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forth,
working their way higher and higher into what, after the first few hours of
real
climbing, seemed an uninhabited and practically uninhabitable wilderness of
rock.
The deeper Hal and Baldur were led into the foothills by the twisting path,
the
more difficult the going became. Hills melded together and became the flank
of
an undoubted mountain. All river valleys were well below them now, and they
were
no longer walking so much as climbing, hands as well as feet being necessary
to
get over some of the steep rock ledges.
"Well," the puffing northman told his colleague, "if those two damned moles
can
climb it, so can we."
"I only wish they would go faster," Baldur murmured back.
Ever deeper they went into the mountains, and ever higher. Steadily receding
into the wintry distance was Loki's ring of magic fire, which still sprouted
untiringly from the top of its rocky hill. Several times Hal caught a glimpse
of
the tall flames, hanging on the rim of the sky, like a signal of warning to
the
world. Now, at a range that must have been more than twenty miles, the god's
handiwork seemed no more than a distant candle.
Once Baldur stood looking back at the fire, murmuring Brunhild's name.
At the end of one of their nightly rest stops, while they were waiting for
the
sky to lighten enough to let them begin a seventh day of tracking, Baldur
suddenly asked: "Hal, I keep wondering about Wodan."
"What about him?"
"He is not merciful, that cannot be part of his nature so if he releases
Brunhild, it will be because he is honorable, and generous to his chosen
warriors."
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Days ago Hal had given up trying to understand Baldur's theology. "If you say
so."
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