* * * * *
They slowed down looking at him with queer, blank eyes. Ciaran blew up,
because he had to relax somehow.
"It's all over now. What are you scared of? It's gone." He cursed them,
with more feeling than fairness. "What about the Kalds? What happened
back there?"
The hunter wiped a huge hand across his red-bearded face. "Everybody
went crazy," he said thickly. "Some got killed or hurt. Some got away,
like us. The rest were caught again." He jerked his head back. "They're
coming this way. They're hunting us. They hunt by scent, the grey
beasts do."
"Then we've got to get going." Ciaran turned around. "Mouse. You,
Mousie! Snap out of it, honey. It's all right now."
She shivered and choked over her breath, and the hermit fixed them both
with pale, mad eyes.
"It was a warning," he said. "A portent of judgment, when only the pure
shall be saved." He pointed a bony finger at Ciaran. "I told you that
evil could not prevail against devils!"
That got through to Mouse. Sense came back into her black eyes. She
took a step toward the hermit and let go.
"Don't you call him evil--or me either! We've never hurt anybody yet,
beyond lifting a little food or a trinket. And besides, who the hell
are you to talk! Anybody as handy with a picklock as you are has had
plenty of practice...."
Mouse paused for breath, and Ciaran got a look at the hermit's face.
His stomach quivered. He tried to shut Mouse up, but she was feeling
better and beginning to enjoy herself. She plunged into a detailed
analysis of the hermit's physique and heredity. She had a vivid and
inventive mind.
Ciaran finally got his hand over her mouth, taking care not to get
bitten. "Nice going," he said, "but we've got to get out of here. You
can finish later."
She started to heel his shins, and then quite suddenly she stopped and
stiffened up under his hands. She was looking at the hermit. Ciaran
looked, too. His insides knotted, froze, and began to do tricks.
The hermit said quietly, "You are finished now." His pale eyes held
them, and there was nothing human about his gaze, or the cold calm of
his voice.
"You are evil. You are thieves--and I know, for I was a thief myself.
You have the filth of the world on you, and no wish to clean it off."
He moved toward them. It was hardly a step, hardly more than an
inclination of the body, but Ciaran gave back before it.
"I killed a man. I took a life in sin and anger, and now I have made
my peace. You have not. You will not. And if need comes, I can kill
again--without remorse."
He could, too. There was nothing ludicrous about him now. He was
stating simple fact, and the dignity of him was awesome. Ciaran scowled
down at the dust.
"Hell," he said, "we're sorry, Father. Mouse has a quick tongue, and
we've both had a bad scare. She didn't mean it. We respect any man's
conscience."
There was a cold, hard silence, and then the third man cried out with a
sort of subdued fury:
"Let's go! Do you want to get caught again?"
He was a gnarled, knotty, powerful little man, beginning to grizzle but
not to slow down. He wore a kilt of skins. His hide was dark and tough
as leather, his hazel eyes set in nests of wrinkles.
The hunter, who had been hearing nothing but noises going back and
forth over his head, turned and led off down the gully. The others
followed, still not speaking.
Ciaran was thinking, He's crazy. He's clear off his head--and of all
the things we didn't need, a crazy hermit heads the list!
There was a cold spot between his shoulders that wouldn't go away even
when he started sweating with exertion.
* * * * *
The gully was evidently a main trail to Somewhere. There were many
signs of recent passage by a lot of people, including an occasional
body kicked off to the side and left to dry.
The little knotty man, who was a trapper named Ram, examined the bodies
with a terrible stony look in his eyes.
"My wife and my first son," he said briefly. "The grey beasts took them
while I was gone."
He turned grimly away.
Ciaran was glad when the bodies proved to be the wrong ones.
Ram and the big red hunter took turns scaling the cleft walls for a
look. Mouse said something about taking to the face of the Plain where
they wouldn't be hemmed in. They looked at her grimly.
"The grey beasts are up there," they said. "Flanking us. If we go up,
they'll only take us and chain us again."
Ciaran's heart took a big, staggering jump. "In other words, they're
herding us. We're going the way they want us to, so they don't bother
to round us up."