He stopped when there were six inches of needles over him. He relaxed, and after that sleep came with surprising speed and ease.

Blade was struggling up from a dream that seemed to be nothing but golden warmth. He shivered as the dream gave way to the cold and darkness around him. Then he opened his eyes, shook his head, and was instantly awake and alert, listening to the sounds of the forest.

They were all there, the same sounds he'd been hearing when he dozed off. But there were new sounds as well. As they registered on Blade's awakened hearing, he sat up, plunged his hand under the pine needles, and drew the knife.

Far away, he heard the clang and thud of cymbals and drums, the occasional faint, thin wailing of a flute, and even more rarely the brassy voice of a trumpet.

The darkness was as solid and the wind as loud as before. Even Blade's trained ears found it hard at first to judge the direction of the music. Gradually he got the impression that it was coming from somewhere off to his left.

Blade's eyes searched the darkness. Was this lonely black forest beginning to make his imagination work too hard? Or did he really see a reddish glow flickering there off to the left, far away through the trees? After a moment, he was sure the glow was real.

It was hard to tell how far this forest stretched or how far beyond it lay the nearest human settlement. It certainly seemed endless and utterly lonely, no place for any sensible people to be lighting fires and playing music in the middle of the night.

So what was he seeing? Once more Blade could not forget that this forest was much too appropriate a setting for black masses, witches' sabbaths, and other strange ceremonies. And people involved in that sort of affair were apt to resent intruders and deal with them drastically.