The other carving was as clean and fresh as if the carver had set down his hammer and chisel only a few hours ago.

The impression of something brand-new was so overpowering that Blade found himself examining the ground around the rock for footprints. The people whose sign was the poppy flower were not dead and gone. Some of them had passed this way, probably within months, certainly within years, leaving their sign for all to see. Was it a warning to their enemies, a welcome to their friends, a prayer to whatever gods they worshipped, or something else entirely different and quite incomprehensible?

Blade wasted no time guessing. Nor did he change his plans. If the poppy people still existed, the mountains were as good a place as any to start looking for them. He had reason to assume they were formidable warriors, but no reason to assume he was in any danger from them-yet. He knelt by the stream, drank as much as he could, then rose and moved on.

Now his eye searched the landscape a little more carefully, and his right hand was never far from the hilt of his knife. Otherwise, no one watching Blade could have told that he was now fully alert, ready to turn from explorer into deadly fighting machine between one breath and the next.

The breeze blowing from the mountains began to carry a damp coolness. Blade turned south, to skirt the flank of the nearest peak in search of an easier path into the mountains. He was an expert climber, who'd made most of the important climbs in the Alps and Rockies. Dressed and equipped as he was, though, it made more sense to go around rather than over the looming peaks.

Another hour, and a narrow, rugged pass opened before him, snaking off into the shadows among the peaks. It finally seemed to vanish close to the foot of the twenty-thousand-foot giant with its trailing plume of snow. Blade doubted he could find a better route into the mountains, and climbed straight toward the mouth of the pass.