Free Quag Keep by Andre Norton Page B

the pack ponies. They had thought it better not to fill them in Greyhawk. Such action would have informed any watcher that they headed into the plains. They depended upon the fact that Keoland did have three tributaries of size feeding the main stream, which finally angled north to become a mighty river.
    As they went now Milo kept an eye on the line of distortion. When it at last winked out he felt far more naked and uneasy than he had in the streets of Greyhawk itself.
    Ingrge reined in.
    â€œThere is water, not too far ahead. They can smell it even as I—” He indicated the horses and ponies that were pushing forward eagerly. “But water in such a barren land is a lodestone for all life. Advance slowly while I scout ahead.”
    There was some difficulty in restraining the animals. However, they slowed as best they could as Ingrge loosed his own mount in a gallop.
    The elf knew very well what he was about. He found them shelter snug against detection. Visual detection, that was, for one could never be sure if someone of the Power were screening or casting about to pick up intimations of life. It was beyond the skill of all save a near adept to hide from such discovery.
    Rocks by the river had been something of an understatement. Here the stream, shrunken in this season before the coming of the late fall rains, had its bed some distance below the surface of the plain. There was a lot of tough brush and small trees to mark its length, and, at the point where Ingrge had ledthem, something else. Water running, wild, in some previous season, had bitten out a large section of the bank below a projection of rock, forming a cave, open-ended to be sure, but piling up brush would suffice to mask that.
    In such a place they might dare a fire. The thought of that normal and satisfying heat and light somehow was soothing to the uneasiness Milo was sure they all shared, though they had not discussed it. They watered the animals, after stripping them of their saddles and packs, and put them on picket ropes, to graze the scanty grass along the shrunken lip of the stream.
    Milo, Naile, Yevele, and Wymarc used their swords to chop brush, bringing the larger pieces to form a wall against the night, shorter lengths to provide them with some bedding, though the soil and sand beneath that overhang were not too unyielding.
    Deav Dyne busied himself with arranging the armloads they dragged in, while Ingrge had prowled off on foot, heading along the water, both his nose and his eyes alert. He had found them this temporary camp, but his instincts to prepare against surprise must be satisfied.
    Gulth squatted in the water, prying up small stones, his talons stabbing downward now and then to transfer a wriggling catch to his mouth. Milo, watching, schooled himself against revulsion. If the lizardman could so feed himself, it would mean that there would be lesser inroads on the provisions later. But he wanted no closer glimpse of what the other was catching.
    They did have their fire, a small one, fed by dried drift, near smokeless. Though the lizardman appeared to have little liking for it, (or perhaps for closer company with these of human and elfin kind) the rest sat in a half-circle near it.
    They would have a night guard, but as yet it was only twilightand they need not set up such a patrol. Milo stretched out his hands to the flames. It was not that he was really chilled in body—it was the strangeness of this all that gnawed upon him now. Though Milo Jagon had camped in a like manner many times before, the vestiges of that other memory returned to haunt him.
    â€œSwordsman!”
    He was startled out of his thoughts by the urgency of that voice—so much so his hand went to his sword hilt as he quickly glanced up, expecting to see some enemy that had crept past the elf by some trick.
    Only it was not Ingrge who had spoken. Rather Deav Dyne leaned forward, his attention centered on Milo’s