If I had been able to spend more time as Rawley’s apprentice and we were back around Gabbler Shore, or even Grislander’s Maw, I think I would have done admirably tracking Ulo and Nii. My mentor would never have lost the trail, no matter the landscape, and dragged them back in an hour or two. As it was I had a set of basic guidelines to follow, some experience from training exercises, a woodland I didn’t know, and a pair that apparently didn’t want to be found.
There was a lot of guesswork and assumptions made as I led the group further under the trees that no one else got to hear. It would have been a lot easier if the pair had continued their obvious trail from the campsite, but being difficult seemed to be Ulo’s strong suit. After they got a good distance away from where we had camped their footprints, and other signs of their passing, lessened. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were trying to carefully avoid the scrubby brush, and step on sturdy roots and hard ground where they could. Not that they could avoid everything, but the focus definitely switched from speed to stealth.
If I kept us moving quickly on the right trail we could catch up sooner than later. That was the good news. The bad news was that it sometimes took me a good five or ten minutes to decide if a scuff mark I found was made by them before estimating what direction they went so that I could find the next clue. Sometimes I simply picked the direction we thought the Rookery was in and decided that was good enough.
We had to backtrack a couple of times when I guessed wrong and didn’t find any more signs of their passing for awhile. Wren helped keep track of our positioning in the forest with her navigation skills, so that we could find our way back if needed. My shoulders tightened a little further when that happened. She got to show off every time I failed.
Still, I found evidence of a campsite late in the morning on the second day. The remains of tiny fire hidden behind the trunk of a tree, so that we would be less likely to spot it. They must have stolen an ember from the campfire and were keeping it alight. Scuff marks, flattened grass, and a footprint or two from setting up their tent and moving around.
We were probably five or six hours behind, which was better than when we started.
By the time I found the campsite I had gained a new appreciation for Rawley’s skill at tracking as well as her patience. I was already planning out a myriad of petty revenge to get the pair back for the trouble and stress they were putting me through. A large part of me was tempted to pretend I was still following their trail when I was really leaving them to fend for themselves in favor of finding the Rookery more quickly.
In the end, I kept up the struggle to follow their trail because I was sure Breck would be able to tell if we kept going through areas with no signs of the pair’s passing. And because between Rawley’s teaching and my own upbringing I couldn’t quit halfway through. Not when I could picture her hidden disappointment for abandoning a hunt. Not when there was a chance they could die on my account.
I might not be able to use my healing skills, but I could do this. However painfully slow and irritating it was.
By that evening, my eyes hurt, my back hurt, and I had convinced myself that the goddess wouldn’t mind if I slipped just a little bit of feverluck and spiritflower into Ulo and Nii’s next meal. It was only a slight poisoning after all, not healing, and She hadn’t struck me down after I used the mixture to get revenge on Fellen last year. I even had the three leaves of poison now to mark that I had permission to use the craft.
I sat, leaning back against a tree, eyes closed, while Juniper worked through the merits of setting up camp for the night or pushing on. If we pushed on we might be able to catch up to them while the pair rested, but I was also much more likely to lose what trail we had in the dark.
Wren was talking to the birds. More than once they had been able to confirm that other humans had passed through the area when I was about to lose the trail. The little birds might not be the best at telling us about the Rookery, but they were observant enough to notice when something unexpected passed through their territory. Some were better at remembering if the passage was around first light, high light, and last light while others could point us in the direction the pair went.
It made me want to hand over the scouting duties to her, since she could get the same information for less work, but the birds weren’t always paying attention and sometimes they remembered wrong. They could also take a bit to gather and work through their initial excitement about talking to a human.
Besides, letting her pick up the slack felt like giving up and that wasn’t acceptable. I might not have everyone else’s supernatural abilities, but I refused to feel useless. I had gotten us this far; I could get us caught up to the idiots.
A pair of little talons landed on my knee as a couple of wing beats brushed the slightest breeze over my face. I cracked open one eye to find Chirp perched proudly in front of my face. As soon he noticed that I was looking at him the little glutton cracked his beak wide open and begged.
I might have bribed him once earlier in the day to point me in the right direction by talking to the other birds before anyone else knew I was having trouble. He got two worms I unearthed under a log when I asked for his help and two worms after he pointed me in the right direction.
I should have remembered not to make myself a target for the little beast’s hunger. Unless he had a grudge, once Chirp knew he could get food out of you he kept coming back for more. Even if he had already been paid for his services.
I shut my open eye and deliberately ignored him. After several long heartbeats of sweet silence he began to twitter in an angry rant. I let him go for it until I heard Wren stumble in what she was saying to the other birds. I didn’t know if he had called me something exceptionally bad or if he had revealed our earlier deal, but either one couldn’t be allowed to stand.
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I glared at the puffball. He had started to beg again as soon as I opened my eyes. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t trap you in my cloak again.”
If anything his chest puffed out further as he hopped a little to look at Wren before looking back at me. He let out a couple of authoritative chirps and opened his beak again, ready to receive his offerings.
“I’m not giving you anything.”
He kept begging.
“Go away.”
His beak opened a little wider.
I carefully picked him up and set him as far away from me as I could reach without getting up. Then I sat back and closed my eyes again.
A moment later a slight weight with pointed little feet settled back on my knee. He twittered a bit again when I continued to ignore him. A minute or two passed and then he chirped again, more resolute. I still didn’t look at him.
Chirp’s weight shifted, just a little, and then I felt something warm and wet plop down on my knee and run down my pants. My eyes popped open and I lunged for him as Chirp flew away.
“You storming little—” I let my knee drag across the ground for a moment to wipe away the fresh shit as I chased after him.
He twittered something that sounded haughty and zipped ahead. I ignored my low chances of catching him and raced past where Breck was leaning against her own tree in hot pursuit. The healer gaped at me while the fire starter chuckled and Fern looked unimpressed.
“Chirp, come here.” Wren’s voice cut into the air. He paused and I almost caught him. When Chirp didn’t come right away she added, “Now.”
He went and I stayed back. The little puffball might deserve payback for what he did, but I didn’t want to draw Wren’s ire by drawing attention to the fact that I had been trying to capture her friend again after I promised not to.
Chirp landed on her hand and she bopped him on the head. “You know you’re not supposed to do that. Gimley didn’t do anything to you.”
I stared, a little bewildered, as Chirp twittered sadly.
Wren stayed stern. “I know you like treats, but you don’t get them just because you ask for them.”
He twittered again, feathers much less puffed than before.
“I know, but that’s the way it is. If you got treats every time you wanted them you’d be too chubby to fly and how would you impress the other birds then?”
As they continued to converse, I started to turn away to return to my spot. Wren’s voice caught me before I made it more than a few steps. “Gimley? Chirp has something he’d like to say to you.”
Chirp hopped so that he was turned to face me on Wren’s finger before he let out the quietest series of chirps.
“Chirp,” Wren warned.
The same series of chirps, but louder. Then he fluttered down to the ground, picked up a bunch of pine needles that had fallen, and half-heartedly wiped at his mess on my knee. It didn’t look like he had done much of anything before he dropped the needles, chirped once, and sped off.
Wren gave me an apologetic look before saying, “He just needs a bit to cool off.”
Not sure what else to do, I nodded at her and finished making my way back to my spot. I didn’t bother trying to further clean my pants. Either we would be camping for the night and I could wash them then with some of Juniper’s water, or we would continue on and they would likely get more dirty before we were done.
A handful of minutes later my rest was interrupted again as Juniper came to a decision. “We’ll push on until true dark and then leave again at first light. At our current pace, if we don’t spend longer traveling then them we’ll take too long to catch up.”
I hid a wince at the public censure. It wasn’t my fault that we didn’t have anyone with more woodland experience to track them.
Wren gestured up to the birds clustered on a branch over her head. “They think they saw a pair of humans head southeast sometime after noon.” She smiled in that lazy, nonchalant way of hers. “If we push and stay on track, we can probably catch them tomorrow morning.”
She made it sound so easy. Of course, she wasn’t the one who had to peer at every little leaf and patch of dirt just in case a mark had been left. No matter how well we might see in the dark, finding markings was going to be infinitely harder in the half light as the sun set and rose behind the horizon.
Breck pushed off of her tree and stretched. “I saw a part of footprint in that direction.”
I glared at her. I hadn’t found anymore trail marks yet.
It just went to show that even if I had more nominal experience with tracking in a forest, I didn’t actually need to be grubbing around in the dirt.
Still, none of them needed to know that. My other skills were banned or unlikely to be useful in the current situation, so I might as well do what I could to help. Better that than be looked down on as a useless burden.
I went over to where Breck had indicated she found the partial print and used it as a starting point to find the next sign that would keep us on the pair’s trail. She stayed closer this time. Instead of roaming around to scout the surrounding area or hunt, Breck also helped with the tracking.
Wisely, no one mentioned that our progress was a lot quicker through the forest as Breck made short work of picking out which signs belonged to our quarry and sweeping the area to find the next clue. No one but the bumbling fool of a healer, but Fern shut him up with an impatient look.
I think Breck was helped by the fact that she also knew what areas she would try to use or avoid if she was trying to avoid being found. I followed the same logic, but my conclusions had more theory behind them than experience. From what Breck mentioned of Haggler’s Cliffs she had been the prey as often as the hunter, even if it was difficult to imagine the confident girl on the run from anything.
Once I found a scuffed root before Breck did and she gave me a nod of recognition. I’d never tell her, but that nod might have kept me from adding everyone in our party to my secret revenge plan I already had for Ulo and Nii. My patience was wearing real thin at that point.
Half an hour later, Wren’s annoyed exclamation stopped our forward progress. She had her arms crossed as she frowned at the pair of birds chattering at her from a nearby shrub.
“What is it?” Juniper asked.
Chirp had returned as we traveled and he settled down on Wren’s shoulder as she answered, “They don’t want us to keep going forward. There’s something dangerous ahead.”
Immediately, we were all on guard. Juniper eyed the little birds. “Can they describe it?”
Wren’s frown deepened. “Long limbs and stealthy. I guess whatever it is comes from the branches and snaps up the birds as they fly by.”
My attention snapped up to the branches above me but I didn’t spot anything unusual. I strained my other senses as well, but only the same sounds and smells I sensed all day filled the air. Small animals, rustling needles and grass, clean air. Nothing that pointed to an ambush.
Wren added, a bit reluctant, “The others wouldn’t have been warned.”
Juniper glanced back to Fern before her expression grew more determined. “We continue on then. Let’s keep close and our eyes open.”
We clustered closer to her, the three tagalongs included, though Fern didn’t give away if the news of danger was expected or not. They might always test seedlings with an ambush in this piece of the woods or it could be something that popped up between the Beastwatchers’ sweeps.
I silently hoped it was the former instead of the latter.