Page 109 of Swordheart
“A gnole really doesn’t like these Hills.”
“A human isn’t too thrilled with them, either,” Halla assured him.
“Humans can’t smell, but a fish-lady isn’t completely hopeless.” Halla decided that was a compliment, probably.
Brindle tapped the ox’s flank with the goad and clucked his tongue. The ox ambled forward, while three sets of eyes stayed fixed on the sky-swimmer.
It did not move, except to sway slightly in the wind. None of them made the mistake of thinking it was dead.
“Maybe they’re only really active at night,” murmured Zale. “Like bats.”
“Perhaps it fed all it could on the deer and it’s digesting,” said Halla.
Zale and Sarkis stared at her. Halla said, “What? Haven’t you ever watched a snake eat something? They lay around afterward and don’t do anything.” And when they continued to stare at her: “Look, we had a big black rat snake on the farm and one time she got into the henhouse and ate six eggs and I had to pick her up and move her because she was just going to sleep it off in the henhouse otherwise. She had six big lumps in her from the eggs.”
“Farms are far more alarming places than I realized,” said Zale.
“You should see when it’s time to slaughter the chickens.”
“I pray you, do not tell me about the running around with the head cut off. I am aware that they do that, and I would like to not think about it ever again.”
“See, I just kill humans,” said Sarkis. “And once I kill them, they don’t run around or anything.That’scivilized.”
“A gnole hates to interrupt a human’svery importantconversation, but there are more things,” said Brindle acidly. “In the trees.”
All three humans fell silent.
The trees were indeed full of… things.
They hung from branches like glass banners, strangely innocuous. The breeze moved the leaves and the sky-swimmers, with the same mindless motion. They looked so much like glass that Halla expected them to make a chiming noise in the wind, but they did not.
There were dozens, possibly even hundreds. They lined theroad for forty yards ahead. The roadway was still sunken here, like the hollow way, though only about a foot high on either side of the roadbed.
That foot might as well have been a thousand miles high. They could not turn around without abandoning the wagon.
“What do we do?” whispered Halla.
Zale shook their head. “I don’t know.”
“Forward,” said Sarkis finally. “They aren’t moving. If they start to move, get in the wagon and… ah…” He looked at the ox. “Brindle…”
“A gnole isn’t stupid, sword-man. A gnole will make sure an ox doesn’t end up like a deer. That’s all.”
“Do you think the wagon will keep them out?”
“I don’t know.”
They inched forward down the roadway. Halla had long since stopped noticing the sound of the wagon wheels, but now they seemed incredibly loud, every rattle like a boulder falling down a hillside.
“Cousin didn’t warn a gnole aboutthis,” muttered Brindle.
“The Hills are very large. There are probably things in it that no human or gnole has ever seen.”
“Or lived to tell about,” said Sarkis.
“You are a constant ray of sunshine.”
Sarkis grunted.
