"I fear so," said Grunt.

"Perhaps we should ride well ahead of the coffle," I said.

"I think that is probably true," said Grunt.

16 The Kur; I Meet Waniyanpi; I Hear of the Lady Mira

"It occurred here," said Grunt, "obviously."

We looked down from the rise, onto the valley below.

"I had thought it would be worse," I said. I remembered the grisly aftermath ofthe attack on the Hobarts' men.

Below us there lay little more, seemingly, than overturned and scattered wagons,some burned. Harness was cut. The carcass of a draft tharlarion, here and there,loomed in the grass. Most of the animals, however, had apparently been cut freeand driven away.

"It could be worse than you think," said Grunt. "Much death might lie about inthe grass."

"Perhaps," I said.

Yet there seem few scavengers," he said.

I looked behind us. The red-haired girl, first in the coffle, stood near us. Theother girls, then, and the Hobarts, in their place, came up with her.

We had forgotten them, in coming over the rise, in seeing the wagons. Now thereseemed little purpose in warning them back. Too, it did not seem as sickening aswe had feared, what lay before us.

"The attack presumably did not take place at dawn," said Grunt, "and,presumably, it would not have occurred late in the day."

"Your surmise is based on the scattering of the wagons," I said, "that they arenot defensively circled, but are aligned, as for the march."

"Yes," said Grunt.

"And the attack would not take place late in the day," I said, "because of thepossibility of survivors escaping under the cover of darkness."

"That is it," said Grunt. "It is my speculation that the wagons were beingopened and aligned for the march."

"If that is true," I said, "we should find the remains of evening fires, largecooking fires, with circled stones, near the wagons, not the absence of fires,nor the smaller remains of midday fires."

"Yes," said Grunt.

We then began to move our kaiila down the rise, toward the wagons. There wereseveral of them. Some were turned awry; some were overturned, and some stoodmute and stark in their tracks, unattended, as though waiting to be utilized,the grass about their axles, the heavy beams of their tongues sloping to theearth. Most of the wagons were charred to one extent or another. In none was thecanvas covering intact. It had either been torn away or burned. The curvedsupports for the canvas, which were metal, in most cases remained. Against thesky they had a macabre, skeletal appearance, not unlike exposed ribs. Theirregular line of the wagons extended for something like a pasang. As we camecloser we could see, here and there, and sometimes within the wagons, discardedand shattered objects. Chests had been overturned and broken open. I saw a dollin the grass and a man's boot. Flour from rent sacks had been scattered on thegrass.

"There are the remains here of evening fires," I said, moving the kaiila pastsome circles of stones.

"Yes," said Grunt. These fires presumably would have been within the wagoncircle. The attack, then, it seemed clear, would have occurred in the morning,probably during, or shortly after, the hitching up of the draft tharlarion. Thenumber of cut harnesses suggested the second alternative. Here and there I sawan arrow in the grass. The comparative fixity of these objects, almost upright,leaning, slim and firm, contrasted with the movement of the grass which, in thewind, bent and rustled about them.

The kaiila suddenly, with a snort, shifted to the right. I kept the saddle. Irestrained the beast, forcibly. I jerked the reins to the left and kicked back,into the silken flanks of the animal.

"What is it?" asked Grunt.

I was looking down, into the grass.

"What is it that you see in the grass?" asked Grunt.

"Death," I said. "But no common death."

I threw the reins to Grunt, and dismounted. "Stay back," I warned the girls.

I examined what was left of the body.

"No Fleer or Yellow Knife did that," said Grunt.

"No," I said.

The head was lacerated, but the wounds were superficial. The throat, however,had been bitten through. The left leg was gone.

"It must have been a survivor," said Grunt "The body is clothed. He must havebeen returning to the wagons, perhaps to search for food."

"I think so," I said.

"Then a wild sleen must have caught him," said Grunt.

"The sleen is primarily nocturnal," I said. I had seen such things before. I didnot think the body bore the marks of a sleen.

"So?" said Grunt.

"Look," I said. Between my thumb and forefinger there was a dark, viscous stain.

I wiped my fingers on the grass.

"I see," said Grunt. "Too," said he, "note the torn earth. It is still black.

Grass uprooted near the body, there, has not dried yet. It is still green."

"Put a quarrel in your guide," I advised him. It seemed reasonably clear thisattack had occurred within the Ahn.

Grunt looped the reins of my kaiila over the pommel of his saddle.

I stood up, and looked about me.

I heard Grunt arm his bow, drawing back the stout cable, his foot in the bowstirrup, then slotting the quarrel into the guide.

I shuddered, and quickly mounted the kaiila, taking back the reins from Grunt. Iwas pleased to be again in the saddle. Mobility is important in the Barrens.

Too, the height considerably increases one's scanning range.

"It is still here, somewhere," I said. I glanced to Grunt's bow. He would have,presumably, but one shot with it.

"What is it?" asked Grunt. "A beast, one of the sort which you seek?"

"I think so," I said. "Too, I think that it, like the other fellow, is asurvivor. That it has lingered in the vicinity of the wagons suggests to me thatit, too, was wounded."

"It will be, then, extremely dangerous," said Grunt.

"Yes," I said. Certainly pain, hunger and desperation would not render any suchbeast the less dangerous.

A few feet to the left of the kaiila there was a keg of sugar, which had beensplit open. A trail of sugar, some four inches wide, some three or four yardslong, drained through the split lid, had been run out behind it. It had probablybeen carried under someone's arm. This trove was the object of the patientindustry of ants, thousands of them, from perhaps a hundred hills about. Itwould be the prize, doubtless, in small and unrecorded wars.

Grunt and I moved our kaiila forward. Behind us I heard the red-haired girlvomit in the grass. She had passed too closely to the body.

"Look!" cried Grunt. "There, ahead!"

"I see it," I cried.

"Do they not care to defend themselves?" he inquired.

"Hurry." I said, urging the kaiila forward.

We raced ahead. We were some half pasang beyond the line of strewn, charredwagons behind us. We now approached other wagons, but scattered about. Thesewere the wagons for which I had earlier sought in vain, the smaller, squarishwagons, which bad been with the mercenary column. They, too, seemed broken. Twowere overturned. Some had been burned to the wagon bed, others missed a roof ora roof and wall. To none of them were harnessed tharlarion. Given their distancefrom the other wagons and their distribution in the grass I took it that theyhad broken their column and sped away, as best they might They had not had thetime, or the presence of mind, perhaps, to form a defensive barrier.

Near some three of these wagons there was a small group of figures, perhaps somefifteen or twenty men. One stood out a bit from the others. It was he who wasmost obviously threatened by the brown, looming shape, which had apparentlyemerged from the grass near them. I did not know if they bad disturbed thebeast, or if it lad been moving towards them, until then, at its choice, unseen.