They had gone perhaps three hours from the night’s resting place when they received proof that they were not to journey undisturbed and unsought. The three were fording a shallow brook when Hiero felt the morse stiffen under him and at the same time saw the young bear come erect on the bank just ahead. A second later, his own, less alert senses were assaulted. He had never felt anything quite like it before. It was as if something strange clawed for his mind. A savage, questing force somehow probed at his inner being. He drew on all his own years of training and managed to make no response, keeping the pressure and the call, for there was an element of that too, away, repelling it by not acknowledging it. For what seemed like a long minute and was probably very little time, a mere instant, the searching presence seemed to hover over him in an almost physical way; then it moved on. He knew it had gone on elsewhere, but he was not absolutely sure he had managed to deceive or deflect it. He looked first at Gorm and in turn saw the bear’s weak little eyes fixed on him.
Something bad hunts, came the message. I was (only) a bear. It left me and did not (see) me.
I (think) it missed me, Hiero sent. And Klootz also, for it is not hunting four-footed animals, at least not yet.
There will be other things (like the) evil fur things of yesterday, came the bear’s thought. This forest is full of many creatures who (serve/hunt for) the evil power. Many of them go on four legs and have good noses.
The priest found less and less trouble understanding the bear. The whole exchange, plus a new decision, now to utilize the stream, was over in a split second.
All day long, they followed the brook, for it was little more, down its winding path. As much as possible, they stayed actually in the water, so as to leave as few tracks as possible. The force or entity which had tried to locate them did not reveal itself further. They saw fewer animals, though, and none of the larger ones at all. Once a great, foot-long water beetle sought to bite Gorm with its savage pincers, but he avoided it easily, and Klootz, following close behind, brought a great, flattening hoof squarely down upon its armored back. Very few of the giant insects bred from The Death’s radiation were much of a menace, since they tended to be slow-moving and clumsy.
They made an early camp on an island. The stream which Hiero had not been able to locate on his maps, probably because it was too small, broadened a little, without getting more than two feet deep, and the little, willow-hung islet might have been designed for them.
