Healer of Sakkara

Chapter 18 - Barrowlings

Breakfast was a subdued affair, as everyone awoke and learned of the night's unpleasant visitors. While they ate a quick meal of dry bread with the last of the apples and cheese, Sevhalim told them of the precautions they must take.

"We will carry torches," he said. "Two at all times. I want to be out of these pines by tomorrow, but we must sleep beneath their shade once more, at least. We'll have two fires, and sleep between them, with a guard watching over each. In the meantime, we've a hard day ahead of us. The terrain becomes steep and rough from here on. I want all supplies fairly distributed—no one carries more than their fair share, no one carries less—and we'll go at the fastest pace we can all manage. No one falls behind, no one gets ahead."

"The barrowlings are weak on their own," Rea explained. "They either attack as a swarm, or they pick targets off one by one."

"Exactly," Sev agreed. "No one is to stray beyond sight of the others, even for the sake of privacy," he added, glancing at Rea and Triss. "We stay together at all times."

Triss rolled her eyes. "I've been the only woman on a long march before. I can deal with it."

After breakfast, they packed up and set out. Iksthanis bearing one torch and Sev another. Behn had sacrificed his travel cloak for the cause, and strips of fabric dipped in a bit of cooking oil and wrapped about the ends of sturdy branches made torches that burned well and long. If one went out, they relit it from the other, and paused now and then to replace the fabric.

Sev had not lied about the terrain, however, and soon keeping the torches lit proved the easy part. They slipped and slid down the sides of steep gullies, then scrambled and scraped their way up the opposite sides. In places, the trees grew close together, and their dead lower branches made a brittle barricade through which they were forced to break a path. Sooner or later, everyone took a twig to the eye and had at least a dozen pokes and scratches.

And now and then, at the edge of their range of vision, they caught glimpses of pale shapes that slipped through the gloom.

"They are following us," Iskthanis said, peering towards the top of the gully they had just descended.

"How many?" Triss asked.

"Difficult to say," said Rea as she helped Behn up the steep wall of the gully's other side. "At least three, but that's merely the most we've glimpsed at once. There may be more."

Around midday, they rested beside a creek at the bottom of another small ravine. The weak stream cut a steep channel through black earth and gray stone, and Zenír did not have to warn them not to drink from it.

Triss and Rea had devised a system whereby a modicum of privacy might be had, when needed without having to go beyond the range of sight. One held up a blanket as a screen, while the other crouched behind it, and a third person acted as guard and lookout, back turned to both.

Galen and Behn copied this idea after the small midday meal, taking turns holding the screen while Triss stood guard. Finding a soft patch of earth, Galen scraped away the top layers to form a small latrine, then let out a yelp of horror and fell back from the spot.

In an instant, Sev was at his side, sword half drawn, and Galen realized there was little point to the screen, after all; the other man hadn't let him out of his sight.

"What is it?" he asked.

Galen pointed and Sev leaned in to look, then drew back quickly. At the bottom of the shallow hole, where Galen had scooped the loose dark earth aside, lay the head of a dead deer. Its milky, sunken eye, speckled with dirt, gazed up at them, unseeing.

"What in hell?" Behn breathed, peering over Galen's shoulder as the others gathered round as well. "The hell did you eat, Gale?"

"Shut up, Behn," he muttered.