Free Zandru's Forge by Marion Zimmer Bradley Page A

lost sheep or riding the borders. The hills were riddled with caves, wonderful places to seek blessed coolness during the few hot days of summer.
    “This is the place?” one of the men behind Varzil asked.
    The shepherd mumbled something. His chervine tossed its antlers to the jangling of bells.
    “Go home,” Varzil told him. “You have done a great service this night.”
    With another muttered comment and a tug at his forelock, the man wheeled his mount and disappeared.
    Varzil nudged his horse forward, letting the animal pick its way through the jumbled rocks. Eiric rode a pace behind with the torch held overhead. Its light flickered over muted grasses. The clotted shadows below resolved into shapes, the bodies of two men, one fallen across the other. Nearby, sprawled three or four dead catmen.
    Varzil swung down from his horse and approached the two fallen men. Kneeling beside them, he shivered in the sensation of emptiness, the utter absence of life spark. It was not the mo tionlessness of their limbs or the silence of their heartbeats that touched him. All around, he felt energy—the slow patient grass, the bright motes of insects, the twitter of rabbit-horns in their burrows, the far-off glide of an owl. He had seen death before, in both beasts and men. He had been present when his grandfather took his final shuddering breath. The awe and terror of that mysterious moment still haunted his dreams.
    But this, this was something different. He sensed an imcom pleteness, like a still-bleeding wound. There was none of the peace of his grandfather’s passing. As he reached out with his newly-enhanced laran, he could almost taste the final moments of these men’s lives. Something of them still lingered, the door between life and death held ajar by the shock of their parting.
    Yes, now that he focused on it, he saw that emptiness was an unhealed rift. Gray lapped his vision. With an effort, he turned from the seductive urge to follow where these men had gone.
    He spotted no weapons, neither the men’s straight swords nor the curved blades of their feline attackers. Metal was too precious to be casually abandoned. He only hoped that he would not find one of his father’s own swords turned against him.
    Eiric dismounted and traced a widening circle, scanning the ground. “Ah, it’s all either too hardscrabble for aught to show or else amuck with tracks every which way. Catmen don’t leave much trace with those soft paws. It would take Aldones’ own miracle to find a chance sign of their passing.”
    “Or Zandru’s accursed luck,” one of the other men muttered.
    “Aye, that,” Eiric nodded. He pointed north, where the hillside met another in a narrow defile. “It’s my guess the catmen are laired up yonder. There are caves all through here.”
    Stumbling over stones and fallen furred bodies, racing downhill, stopping to slash and parry. The image of thin lips drawn over fangs, a hissing cry of pain. Running, more running. The caves our only hope ...
    Varzil gestured to the north. “Harald is there.”
    Eiric nodded. The movement threw spectral shadows across his cragged features. “Aye, if he had the chance to get to safety, that’s where he’d go. He’d come up here of a Midsummer. Once young master Ann‘dra followed them, d’you remember?”
    Varzil remembered hearing the story told, though at the time he was too young to join the escapades of his older brothers. He stood still and tried to focus his thoughts. If he could somehow let Harald know he was here and help was on the way...
    Moments passed, but there was no response, not even another fleeting contact. Eiric spoke to him again, breaking his reverie, and they headed downslope. From time to time, Varzil halted to search with his mind. No impressions came to him. Having once touched his brother’s mind, he felt sure he would know if Harald were no longer living. There could be other explanations for the absence of contact. Perhaps Harald was