Gordon R. Dickson by The Chantry Guild

Author:The Chantry Guild [Guild, The Chantry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-20T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

22

“I can’t begin to give you even guesses by way of answers,” said Hal, “until I get some information. How many soldiers are there in the garrison? Have you any idea how many of those would be free enough from other duties to make up a search party large enough to comb the district out here? Do they have a tracker among them?”

“Tracker?” Amid frowned.

“Someone who can tell whether people have been moving through wild country like that below us by reading sign—recognizing part of a footprint, or what a broken branch means, and so forth.”

“Ah! I see,” said Amid. “I don’t know if they have or not.”

“There must have been other searches, in this district and others. Did they ever use anyone like that to try to locate the people they were hunting?”

“Not to my knowledge,” said Amid. “No, I’m sure they didn’t. In fact I doubt they’ve got someone like that. It would be common knowledge if they did.”

“If it isn’t, it only means they’ve got no one outstanding in that sort of ability,” said Hal. “It doesn’t necessarily rule out the fact that some of them may be a little more knowledgeable about the woods and quicker to notice a footprint or other sign, that’s open and obvious. For example, there’ll be no hiding the fact that Onete’s been sitting in that little clearing for some weeks now, and meeting Cee there.”

“No. I’ve been worrying about that; but I don’t know anything that could be done to erase the marks of their being there. Do you?”

“I haven’t been able to think of anything so far,” said Hal.

“I’m particularly concerned—not merely for Cee, but for the Guild as a whole,” said Amid. “We’ve been safe until now up here; but there’s no getting around the fact that if they find the entrance under the boulder and follow it up, they’d have us all in a trap.”

“No weapons up here, I suppose?” Hal asked.

“Here?” Amid looked at him sternly. “Certainly not. We’re Exotics! I suppose you could count Old Man’s sword as a weapon, if he’d let someone else use it that way. He won’t hurt anything or anyone, himself.”

“Too bad,” said Hal. “The soldiers would be very vulnerable, climbing up here after they got past the boulder. For all practical purposes they’d have to come single file. With even a few weapons, you might be able to ambush the whole party on the way up and take them prisoner. Of course you’d have the problem of what to do with them, once you’d captured them. I take it for granted you wouldn’t be able to bring yourselves to murder them in cold blood, even if some of them have done just that, effectively, to people like that insane man down the road.”

“No, we wouldn’t hurt them, of course,” said Amid. “And as I say, we’ve no weapons, anyway. Is there any way we could take them prisoner, if we had to, without weapons?”

“I’d strongly advise against trying it,” said Hal.

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