'Very well,' he said. 'But we go slowly, and with
our weapons in our hands. I'll take no chances in this wretched
place.'
His mood had changed abruptly. He too felt the specter of the waiting
unknown, though his hopes and fears were nearly opposite; and he became
once more the untrusting hill-man. He lifted his spear, jaw set against
the dark uncertainty that awaited them.
Sylviana strode ahead anxiously. Together they cleared the sand, and
climbed the first slanting rise. It dipped, and another rose before
them, frail earth punctured by an agony of stone and steel. They
advanced.
Chapter 38
Inland the earth grew somewhat less troubled. The undulating cross of
ridges became smoother and more widely spaced, with patchwork valleys
sinking in their midst. The scarred remains of buildings were also less
frequent, though here and there an inexplicable mound of slag, half
overgrown like an ancient, impoverished barrow, rose to recall the
unsleeping dead that still walked there.
Sylviana was soon pale and exhausted, and Kalus could no longer indulge
her almost distracted urge to keep moving. Almost angry, he made her
sit down in the grim shade of a leering monolith. For the day had grown
hot and humid, with hardly a breeze to calm the reeling senses, or break
the spell of sunny, smiling death that seemed to hang in the air around
them like a witch's curse.
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