Crystal Gorge

“I’m sure it would.”

But then Athlan realized that his clever idea might not be quite as clever as he’d thought at first. “It could be a very easy way to hunt deer,” he said a bit ruefully, “but there might just be a bit of a problem there. The poison would kill the deer immediately, but it might just make the deer meat poisonous as well. What do you think, Longbow?”

“I’m not really sure,” Longbow admitted. “Cooking the meat might neutralize the poison, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on ‘might,’ would you?”

“We could always feed some of the meat to a dog, I suppose,” Athlan mused. “If the dog’s still alive the next day, that would mean that the meat’s safe to eat.”

“Does your tribe have many dogs?”

“Lots of them. When we’re snowbound in the dead of winter, the dogs give us something to eat. Dog meat doesn’t taste very good, but it’s better than tree meat.” Then Athlan looked off toward the west where a rosy sunset was lying low over the face of the sea. “I’d say that it’s just about time to set up a camp for the night, and then maybe tomorrow we can go hunting—deer, not the creatures of the Wasteland.” Then he hesitated. “You do have some arrows that haven’t been dipped in poison, don’t you?”

“A few,” Longbow replied.

“Are you sure you can tell the difference between a poisoned arrow and a clean one?”

Longbow nodded. “The clean ones have white feathers. The dirty ones are red.” Then he frowned slightly. “Or is it the other way around?” he added without the slightest hint of a smile.

It was still dark in the forest when Athlan woke up the following morning, roused by the sound of Longbow stirring up the fire. “Isn’t it just a bit early?” he asked.

“Probably not,” Longbow replied quietly. “I’m not at all familiar with the deer up here in the north, but the ones on down the coast feed at night and return to their bedding places at first light. If we happen to be in the right place at the right time, we’ll have fresh meat before the sun rises. Smoke-cured meat is all right, I suppose, but I’m starting to get hungry for real meat.”

“I shall be guided by you in this,” Athlan vowed quite formally.

“I think you might have been spending too much time with the elders of your tribe, Athlan.”

“We’re supposed to honor them, aren’t we? That doesn’t mean that we have to pay any attention to them, of course, but we should respect them.”

“I suppose so. Are all the deer up here of the same kind? We have two fairly different kinds of deer in the western forest. The timid ones aren’t quite as large as the stupid ones, and their antlers are more evenly matched. They also run smoothly. The larger, silly ones bounce when they run.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a silly deer.”

“They always run uphill, and after they’re fifty or so paces above you, they stop and look back to see what you’re doing.”

“That would be sort of silly, I suppose.”

“They also have much bigger ears. In some ways they almost look like a rabbit with horns.”

“We don’t have any deer up here that look like that,” Athlan said. “I’d say that our deer are the timid ones. The reindeer off to the north gather up in very large herds, so if you see one of them, there are probably several hundred in the same region. The meat doesn’t taste as good as the meat of our deer, so I wouldn’t waste any arrows on them.”

“If you’re ready, we might as well go to the hunt.”

“Aren’t you going to eat breakfast first?”

Longbow shook his head. “I always hunt better when I’m just a bit hungry, don’t you?”

“Well—maybe, but I start to get just a bit shaky if I go too long without eating.”

There was a faint band of light along the eastern horizon as the two of them moved quietly out into the forest of enormous trees.

“Maybe we should stop for a while and give our eyes a chance to adjust to the dark before we go much farther,” Longbow suggested in a soft voice. “Fire’s nice, I suppose, but it does peculiar things to a hunter’s eyes, or had you noticed that?”

“Oh, yes,” Athlan agreed. “Any time I walk away from a campfire after dark, I have to hold my hands out in front of me to keep from bumping into trees. Trees absolutely hate it when you bump into them in the dark.”

They moved quietly through the forest as the dim light of dawn gradually increased among the huge trees.

“Not very many bushes,” Longbow observed, looking around.

“The needles from these trees have been piling up for a long time,” Athlan explained. “That pretty much chokes out any late-coming plants. Their seeds won’t sprout if they don’t reach dirt, and I’d say that the layer of needles we’re walking on right now is at least three feet thick. Are there many bushes down in your part of the Land of Dhrall?”

“The brush cover’s fairly dense along the coast,” Longbow replied. He shrugged. “It gives the deer and other animals plenty of food to eat, so I guess it’s all right.”

“The deer around here have to do their grazing in the meadows. There’s a fairly large meadow just on ahead of us. I thought we might want to have a look at that one first. There are several other meadows nearby, but the one just ahead is closer to our camp, so if we take a few deer there, we won’t have to drag them so far. I always do my best to make life easier.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Longbow replied.

They stepped across a narrow brook that wandered through the deep forest, and Athlan saw the edge of the meadow about a hundred paces ahead. “We’re coming up on that meadow I was telling you about,” he whispered.

“I sort of thought we might be,” Longbow replied softly. “I’ve been catching a faint smell of deer for a little while.”

Athlan sniffed at the air. “I think you might be right,” he agreed. “Your nose must be almost as sharp as your eyes, Longbow.”

They crouched down at the edge of the forest and looked out at the meadow.

“It’s still just a little too dark,” Athlan whispered. “I’d say that we’re about a quarter of an hour early.”

“Better early than late,” Longbow replied.