The presence of many small creeks and streams meant they did not have to burden themselves with full bags of water, and the shade their gullies supplied provided a welcome respite at mealtimes and at night. After sundown, tiny covert creatures ringed each campsite with querulous cheeping sounds. Whenever one of the travelers attempted to locate the source of these gentle fanfares, they quickly evaporated into the surrounding grass. Whether animal, insect, or wee folk of the prairie, their true nature remained shrouded in mystery. Whatever they were, Ehomba decided, they were curious but not hostile.
Monstrous bison ranged the grassland, browsers larger than any Simna or Ehomba had ever seen. The travelers gave these hulky dark brown herbivores a wide berth. Ahlitah had to be restrained from testing his skills against such tempting, oversized game.
“There is no need,” Ehomba argued with the big cat as they traipsed along in Hunkapa Aub’s wake. “There is plenty of smaller game. What would be the point of risking your well-being to bring one of the beasts down?”
“To prove that I could do it.” Passionate cat eyes looked up at the herdsman. The litah was panting in the heat of the day, thick black tongue lolling out one side of its mouth. “I know you don’t understand. It’s a predator thing.”
“I understand that if you were to spark a stampede with one of your attacks we could all be killed. There is no shelter around here. I understand that if you go down beneath those great hooves and break a leg or two we would not be able to carry you.”
“Man, you waste almost as much time worrying about things as you do wondering about them.” Idly, Ahlitah slapped a big paw down on a field mouse that was unwisely attempting to cross behind Hunkapa and ahead of them. As it was not even big enough to chew, the cat swallowed the snack whole. “When it comes to matters mystical, I defer to you. When it comes to the business of killing, you should trust in me.”
“Very well then,” Ehomba argued. “Suppose you catch one and bring it down. What if it falls on you? I know how strong you are, but these grazers are huge. A dying one would be difficult to handle.”
The great maned head nodded slowly. “That is a valid point. Even the most skilled hunter can fall victim to an accident.”
“Besides,” the herdsman went on, “what would we do with all that meat?”
“Ordinarily, I would live nearby until it was consumed.” The litah snorted. “But since we are traveling on a human timetable, something that sensible would be out of the question.” He was silent for a while, pacing easily alongside the herdsman. “Perhaps you are right. I’ll find something else to kill.”
“Thank you,” Ehomba told him.
They camped that night in a depression where a small natural dam of rocks and debris had formed a narrow but deep pool. Not only did it provide them with a source of fresh water, but it also offered a chance to bathe and even, to a very limited degree, to swim. In this Ehomba took the lead, demonstrating once again the natural affinity for water that he had demonstrated on more than one occasion. Simna was a fine swimmer, while the black litah contented himself with rolling about in the shallows and following his immersion with a dust wallow. Unable to swim, Hunkapa Aub splashed about near the shore like a happy child.
It was therefore surprising that Ehomba woke not to the smell of damp vegetation or surroundings, but to an odor that was distinctly acrid.
Sitting up and pushing aside his blanket, he tilted his head slightly and sniffed. The sun was just considering the eastern horizon and none of his companions were yet awake. The smell was as familiar as it was distinctive, but from what direction was it coming? Of one thing and one thing only he was certain: Something in their vicinity was ablaze, and it wasn’t the extinguished campfire.
Turning his head slowly to his right as he tried to locate the source of the odor, his gaze fell upon the black litah. As was its manner, it had awakened noiselessly. Now it was sitting back on its hindquarters, nose in the air, inhaling silently.
“You smell it also,” Ehomba murmured.
The big cat nodded once. “Something burning. What I can’t guess yet.”
“Can you tell where? Which direction?” Knowing how much more sensitive the big cat was to odors of every kind, Ehomba ceased his own efforts in favor of the litah’s.
There was a pause, then Ahlitah lifted a forepaw and pointed northward. “That way. And coming closer, fast.”
“Better get everyone up.”
While he roused Simna, the black litah prodded Hunkapa Aub to wakefulness. By the time the swordsman was sufficiently conscious to communicate, the sharp, acrid smell of burning vegetation was thick in Ehomba’s nostrils.
“Etjole?” Raising himself up on his elbows, Simna blinked once, then wrinkled his features. “Somebody making breakfast?”
Satisfied that his friend was awake, the herdsman straightened and gazed soberly to the north. “I think this grassland is on fire.”
It came roaring toward them like a wall, advancing in a solid line from horizon to horizon. Orange flames framed in red fed hungrily on the dry grass. Their superhot crowns licked at the sky, rising fifty feet and more before transmuting themselves into gouts of dense black smoke that obscured the clouds. Fleeing before the blaze was a rampaging menagerie of terrified creatures large and small. Broad-winged raptors and agile dragonets swooped and darted in waves before the flames, feasting on the insects and small game that were being driven from their hiding places by the onrushing conflagration.
Wind drove the fire forward. Where it advanced too rapidly for those in its path to escape, charred corpses littered the smoking, blackened earth in its wake.
“By Gapreth!” Suddenly wide awake, Simna was scrambling to gather up his gear. “The pool! Into the pool!”
“It is not wide enough,” Ehomba countered. “The fire is too big. The flames will consume the grass on both sides and merge above the surface. They will suck the air from above the water, burn the lungs and suffocate anyone who is not fish or frog.” Even as he spoke, the towering flames had advanced another ten feet nearer to the campsite. “Downstream! If we can find a pool too broad for the flames to overreach we will be safe.”
Carrying everything, they fled from the onrushing blaze. Ahlitah flew effortlessly over rocks and gullies that slowed less nimble companions. Burdened by packs, lesser individuals than Ehomba and Simna would have fallen fatally behind. Hunkapa Aub was not graceful, but his expansive stride compensated for his occasional ungainliness.
As they fled, the stream continued to flow strongly alongside them, holding out the promise of a hoped-for refuge somewhere up ahead. When the ground showed signs of sloping slightly upward, Ehomba took heart. The slight alteration in terrain strongly suggested that the water that was now flowing downhill beside them would soon have to come to rest in a large, still body.
It was the tallest of the travelers who sang out moments later. “Hunkapa see water!”
“Another pond?” a gasping Simna inquired. He was panting hard not so much from running as from the rising temperature. In spite of their exertions, the wall of flame was gaining on them, and the fire gave no indication of tiring.
“No pond, Simna.” The shaggy biped stumbled, caught himself, and loped on. “Hunkapa see lake!”
Unless their hirsute companion’s definition of a lake was radically different from their own, Ehomba knew they would soon reach a place of safety. Seemingly intent on proving that good news came in bunches, like grapes, the wind chose that moment to drop to almost nothing. The grass fire continued to burn behind them, but it was no longer racing south at high speed.
“Watch yourselves.” The composed warning came from Ahlitah. “We’re not alone. There are animals up ahead. Big animals.”
“Of course there are,” Simna wheezed. “Probably seeking safety in the lake just like we are.”
“No.” The big cat sounded puzzled. “Actually, they’re coming this way.”
That made no sense, Ehomba reflected as he ran, cover
ing the uneven ground with long, supple strides. His swords bounced against his back. Why would any creature deliberately be heading toward the fire, even if the wind had fallen?
As he topped a slight rise he saw them for himself, an irregular line of golden brown shapes arrayed between the fleeing travelers and the looming silvery sheen of the prairie lake. Its calm, expansive waters beckoned, promising relief from the heat and refuge from the raging blaze.
The beasts initially espied by the black litah boasted dark stripes along their lower flanks and each of their six legs. They had short, nobby tails and oddly flattened skulls like the heads of digging spades. The slightly protuberant eyes that gazed out at the world from the upper corners of the weirdly triangular skulls were covered with transparent membranes that glistened in the sun. Double rows of sharp incisors were visible in the long, flattened jaws. From the summit of the skull projected a single bizarre horn that curved forward and up.
They were built like grazers, Ehomba saw; heavy of body, thick of fur, and short of leg. But their teeth were designed for biting and chewing flesh, not grass or other plant matter. Yet among the dozens of incisors he could see not a single canine tooth or tusk. Such teeth were suitable for biting off and slicing up large chunks of meat, but not for killing. This singular orthodontic arrangement marked them as scavengers. So did their stumpy legs, with which they could never hope to run down even the smallest of healthy herbivores.
As for what they scavenged, that was abundantly clear. At least two of the sturdy, stockily built creatures could be seen chewing on the charred, blackened remains of less fortunate animals that had been mortally injured by the fire. Apparently these extraordinary beasts tracked the advancing flames much as the opportunistic raptors hunted in front of them. Since they plainly could not move very fast and would be unable to outrun any blaze, he decided, they must be exceptionally sensitive to the smallest shifts in the fire’s or wind’s direction.
Moments later, evidence was given to show that he was only partially correct. The bizarre hexapods did indeed feed upon those unfortunate creatures who had been caught and killed by the flames. But the striped carnivores were not scavengers: They were hunters. They did not follow behind the grass inferno or measure its progress from in front.
They caused it.
Even as he and his companions ceased running and slowed to a stop, the true function of the curious “horns” that projected from the center of each of the beasts’ foreheads made itself known. They were not horns at all, but hollow structures formed of hardened keratin. From these organic nozzles the slow-moving carnivores expressed streams of liquid that caused the long, dry grass to ignite on contact. Flames erupted between the fleeing travelers and the lake as the line of beasts began to set fire to everything in their path.
And the wind was rising again.
Enclosed by raging wildfire, the only place in the vicinity that promised any safety was the stream. Barely a few feet wide and not as deep, it offered only temporary shelter at best to Ehomba and Simna. Hunkapa Aub and Ahlitah were far too bulky to be able to conceal themselves beneath the rushing waters.
Had they made an immediate charge, they might have succeeded in bursting through the oncoming flames with only minor burns. Already, that option was denied them. Like the grassland behind, the fresh growth ahead was now fully engulfed.
With the flames advancing and the heat rising from the merely uncomfortable to the unbearable, they clustered together. Trapped within his thick, shaggy coat, Hunkapa Aub was suffering terribly and on the verge of passing out. They had to do something quickly.
Head inclined forward, Ehomba was searching the tops of the grasses intently. An agitated Simna watched him, wondering what he was doing when they should be picking a direction in which to make a run for it.
“Bruther, there’s nothing there but grass!” Above the roar of the approaching flames he gestured sharply to his left. “I say we try back to the west. The stream should delay the fire for a minute or two!” Instead of responding, the herdsman maintained his intent exploration of the wind-whipped yellow-green blades. “Etjole! We’re out of time! What are you looking for?”
His lanky friend replied without looking up from his search. “Tomuwog burrows! They are our only chance.”
“What burrows?” Sweat streaming down his face and neck to stain his shirt, the swordsman blinked as his companion continued what appeared to be an aimless examination of the grass. Why, he wasn’t even directing his attention groundward, where one’s gaze would be expected to be focused if he was hunting for some kind of den.
It made no sense. Never mind that Simna had never heard of a tomuwog and had no idea what such a creature might look like. Even if it dug a burrow large enough for a human to crawl into, anything large enough to accommodate Hunkapa Aub or the black litah would have to be a veritable cave, harder to avoid seeing than not. And they had passed no such opening in the earth in the course of their flight. With the constricting blaze crackling all around, he turned a slow circle. There were a few small holes in the ground, the largest of which would prove a tight squeeze for a corpulent mouse. Anyone trying to burrow away from the flames would need not only a physical refuge, but one large enough to sustain a sizable air pocket.
“Bruther, this is crazy!” Spreading his hands wide, he implored his companion. “We have to make a break for it! Otherwise we’ll…”
Ehomba disappeared. Not instantly, as if he had evaporated in the rising heat or vanished into some sorceral otherwhere, but gradually. It happened right in front of the swordsman’s disbelieving eyes. One moment the tall southerner had been standing before him, scanning the tops of the blowing grass. Then he started to go away. First his long spear, prodding and probing. Then the hand and arm holding it, followed by the rest of him, until all had been erased from view.
Simna was not the only one startled by the herdsman’s unexpected and inexplicable disappearance. Hunkapa Aub walked all around the area where Ehomba had vanished, and Ahlitah paced the spot sniffing like a huge black dog.
The flames were closing in, narrowing the circle of unburned grass and breathable air. Simna started to cough, choking on the ashes from the carbonizing vegetation and the air that had begun to sear his lungs. Surely Ehomba hadn’t abandoned them for some mystical refuge only he could access? The swordsman had to admit that such a development was not beyond the bounds of possibility. How often had Ehomba spoken of the need first and foremost to fulfill his perceived responsibility to the deceased scion of distant Laconda? How many times had he made it clear, to Simna as freely as to total strangers, that the resolution of that journey took precedence over everything else?
A sweating Simna ibn Sind scanned his surroundings. Encircled by leaping flames, with the earth itself seemingly beginning to incinerate around him, he saw nowhere to run, no place to hide. This was not a good place to die, out in open country witnessed only by insects and rodents, his body about to become food for indolent meat-eaters that under normal circumstances he could run circles around. From the time he had been old enough to understand the significance of life and the finality of death he had planned to depart this plane of existence in a blaze of glory that would be immortalized in ballad and song. Now it seemed he was to expire simply in a blaze, as something else’s dinner. Where were the cheers, the shouts to admire him as mind and body shriveled and dissolved? The circumstances were ignominious to a fault.
On the verge of passing out from the encroaching heat, Hunkapa Aub had fallen to his knees. Panting like a runaway bellows, the black litah sat back on his haunches, waiting for the end.
Then a hand appeared out of nowhere, beckoning. It was followed by a familiar face. “Hurry! There is little time.”
“We don’t need you to tell us that, bruther!” Without stopping to realize that Ehomba was beckoning to him from within a circle of nothingness, Simna stumbled toward the gesturing hand.
It grabbed hold of his own and pulled. Almost immediat
ely, the unbearable heat disappeared. The swordsman found himself standing in a corridor of coolness. Mere feet away now, the fire continued to rage. But he could no longer feel it.
Mouth slightly agape in wonder, he extended tentative fingers toward the blaze. They halted inches from the nearest tongue of flame. Pushing experimentally, he found that there was a slight give to the invisible surface that kept him separated from instant incineration, as if he were pressing against transparent rubber. There was no noise. Whatever was protecting him from the flames also shut out all sound from beyond.
Turning, he reached out in the opposite direction. The corridor in which he was standing was no more than six feet wide, in places a little less. As he stared in amazement, the flames seemed to burn right through to continue their march of fiery destruction on the other side. Within the miraculous passageway everything was a calm, cool blue-green: the soaring but silent flames, the scorched earth they left in their wake, the bodies of small animals too slow to flee, even his own clothing and flesh.
Looking back the way he had come, he saw that Ehomba too had acquired a soft tinting of pastel blue-green. So had Hunkapa Aub, who had followed the swordsman to safety. Reflecting his own coloring, Ahlitah was a dark shade of green. Among them all, Simna was the lightest in color.
Walking back toward his friend, he found that he could begin to feel the heat from the fire again. Pivoting, he discovered that as soon as he took a few steps in the opposite direction, the threatening warmth dissipated. Hunkapa Aub joined him to make more room near Ehomba.
“Where are we?” the swordsman heard himself wondering aloud. He did not expect an explanation from the hulking Hunkapa, much less a reasonable one.
A hairy hand reached out to stroke the resilient, transparent wall. “Somewhere else.” It was as sensible an answer as Simna could have hoped to receive.
As soon as the black litah had been brought to safety, Ehomba squeezed past them to take the lead again. Gesturing for them to follow, he led the way through the last of the fire, heading west once again. Behind, the line of pyro predators began to root among the charred rubble for well-done meals.