That night the soldiers camped ten miles beyond the village and five miles from the nearest forest. From behind a low rise in the ground, Blade watched them closely. They built no fires, and only a handful of men came out on sentry duty. The wagons formed a ragged circle more than a hundred yards across, wide open to someone who could move in quickly and silently.

Far off to the southwest, the hills seemed to rise higher than usual. Blade studied them in the dying glow of the sunset and noticed a peculiar regularity in their crests. It looked almost as if someone had built a wall along the crest of the whole range. The «wall» seemed to stretch for at least twenty miles before vanishing in the distance. Blade's curiosity was aroused. He found himself hoping that the next day's march would lead him off toward the hills.

Just before dawn Blade woke to hear something scampering past him. He watched several gopher-like creatures pop out of holes in the ground while he quietly picked up his staff in one hand and a loose stone in the other.

Crack, whack, bang. Blade killed three of the creatures before they could get back into their holes, two with the staff and one with a thrown stone. Then he skinned them with the sickle blade and ate them raw. The flesh was gamy, but it was food, and food meant the energy he would badly need.

He saved the skins, which might be useful to protect Twana's feet.

By the time Blade finished his bloody breakfast, the soldiers were moving out again. He was happy to see them swinging off toward the southwest and moved out on their trail the moment it was safe.

By noon Blade could see that the hills ahead rose more than a thousand feet from the plain, their bare flanks always sloping at a forty to sixty-degree angle.