Boatfinder joined her and Karsa on the rise. A small keening sound rose from him.
Karsa took the lead down the trail. After a moment, Samar Dev followed.
'Stay back from the camp,' Karsa told her. 'I must read the tracks.'
She watched him move from one motionless form to the next, his eyes scanning the scuffed ground, the places where humus had been kicked aside. He went to the hearth and ran his fingers through the ash and coals, down to the stained earth beneath. Somewhere on the lake beyond, a loon called, its cry mournful and haunting. The light had grown steely, the sun now behind the forest line to the west. On the rise above the trail, Boatfinder's keening rose in pitch.
'Tell him to be quiet,' Karsa said in a growl.
'I don't think I can do that,' she replied. 'Leave him his grief.'
'His grief will soon be ours.'
'You fear this unseen enemy, Karsa Orlong?'
He straightened from where he had been examining the holed canoes. 'A four-legged beast has passed through here recently – a large one. It collected one of the corpses… but I do not think it has gone far.'
'Then it has already heard us,' Samar Dev said. 'What is it, a bear?'
Boatfinder had said that black bears used the same trails as the Anibar, and he'd pointed out their scat on the path. He had explained that they were not dangerous, normally. Still, wild creatures were ever unpredictable, and if one had come upon these bodies it might well now view the kill-site as its own.
'A bear? Perhaps, Samar Dev. Such as the kind from my homeland, a dweller in caves, and on its hind legs half again as tall as a Teblor.
But this one is yet different, for the pads of its paws are sheathed in scales.'
'Scales?'
'And I judge it would weigh more than four adult warriors of the Teblor.' He eyed her. 'A formidable creature.'
'Boatfinder has said nothing of such beasts in this forest.'
'Not the only intruder,' the Toblakai said. 'These Anibar were murdered with spears and curved blades. They were then stripped of all ornaments, weapons and tools. There was a child among them but it was dragged away. The killers came from the lake, in wooden-keeled longboats. At least ten adults, two of them wearing boots of some sort, although the heel pattern is unfamiliar. The others wore moccasins made of sewn strips, each one overlapping on one side.'
'Overlapping? Ridged – that would improve purchase, I think.'