and biscuit. When he offered it to Gorm, however, the bear refused it and said he had been feeding on ripe blueberries all day. He showed Hiero where they grew nearby, and he was able to limp over and gather several handfuls for dessert. He refilled his big saddle canteen and the small emergency one strapped to his belt, and then, as the last of the light faded, took a quick bath in the brook, being careful to keep his wounded leg out of the water. Dried off and dressed again, he said his evening orisons and lay down again. There seemed nothing abroad in the night that could harm them, and the sounds of the forest were all normal. The death cry of a rabbit sounded in a nearby thicket, and the hum of many mosquitoes made Hiero unpack and draw a fine-meshed net over his upper body. Once that was done, exhaustion took over and he was asleep in a second.
The next day dawned hazy. The sun was behind wreaths of fog and low-lying cumulus clouds, and there was no wind. The air seemed damp and oppressive to Hiero, but only the normal result of a falling barometer, not from any other cause.
Once saddled, Klootz pranced a little, as if tired of simply standing around feeding himself. The man and the bear had decided to leave the stream. Their new route lay more to the south, and after another brief meal, they were off, alert but confident. Hiero’s leg was now only a dull ache, and the rest had helped his tough frame almost as much as the medicinal salve of the Abbey doctors.
For five days they traveled uneventfully through the great pines and spruces of the Taig, always going south. They kept a strict watch, stayed under the trees, and used mind speech seldom, but detected nothing of any menace or importance. Game was plentiful, and Hiero was able to stalk and kill with his spear a giant grouse, as big as a child, while the foolish bird scratched away in the pine needles. He built a small fire and quickly smoked a lot of the breast, thus obtaining nearly twenty pounds of meat, which would feed both himself and Gorm for a good while.
On the sixth day, the priest estimated they had made perhaps eighty or so miles, and he began to feel a little easier. Whatever malignancy the Unclean tried to send after them now, if any, was going to have a fairly rough time in tracking them down, he thought. He had not yet learned the power and determination of his enemies, nor had he guessed at the fury over his deed in slaying one so high in their dark councils.
