He must be concerned that the poison from the blowgun wasn’t doing what was needed and that Sider Ament might still be alive.
He remembered suddenly how disturbed Arik Siq had been when he first saw the Gray Man all those weeks ago, coming out of the camp with Pan on the pretext of being his friend. He had thought the bearers of the black staff were all dead; he had looked decidedly uncomfortable to find out otherwise. Apparently he knew something of the old Knights of the Word, and he was frightened by that knowledge. It made Pan wonder how much of what the Troll had told him about Hawk and the Ghosts was the truth.
How much of that whole story was real, and how had he known it in the first place?
He skirted the bodies of the dead, the Trolls and the men from Glensk Wood, as he wound his way ahead through the defile’s twists and turns. The rock walls loomed high to either side, all but shutting out the sky, and as the sun worked its way west, the shadows continued to deepen. He would get clear of the pass before nightfall, but tracking anyone after that might prove impossible. If the moon clouded over, he might have to wait until morning to resume his hunt.
When he reached the barricade the men from Glensk Wood had constructed to defend the pass, he found the few bodies of the Trolls killed coming over the wall lying undisturbed. Climbing to the other side, he took a moment to study the killing field below, but nothing seemed changed there, either. He descended a second ladder and picked his way through the dead. No one had come up from the village yet. They would all be thinking that the pass was defended and they were safe from a surprise attack, lulled into a false sense of security.
Until he told them otherwise, of course—something he would have to do sooner rather than later.
He considered rethinking his priorities and going to Glensk Wood first, if only to alert everyone in the valley about the danger they were in. He did not want to abandon tracking Arik Siq, but if he couldn’t pick up the trail outside the pass, wouldn’t it make sense to go on to Glensk Wood, to travel through the night and reach the village by dawn? He could always resume tracking the Drouj afterward, couldn’t he?
But he hated the idea. He needed to respond directly to Sider’s death, and the only way he could do so was by catching up to Arik Siq. Letting him slip away now, no matter the reason, felt like a betrayal. He didn’t think he could live with himself if he let the Drouj get away, possibly for good.
At the far end of the approach to the pass, still walking among the dead, he felt a sudden surge of warmth from the black staff. It caught him by surprise, and he drew up quickly, stopping where he was. He stood looking at the staff in surprise, noticing that the runes were beginning to glow softly, to pulsate.
What was happening?
It took him a moment to decide. The staff was warning him. It was responding to something that he had not detected; it was telling him that something was wrong.
He looked around, taking in his surroundings, peering off into the shadow-laced trees and the wide rocky stretches of the hillside that led up to the pass. He studied everything carefully, searching for anything that seemed to be out of place. But everything looked as it should. Out of habit, he dropped into a crouch, making himself a smaller target, no longer silhouetted against the fading light.
He looked at the staff. It continued to pulse.
Then he saw it. Not three yards away, all but invisible in the darkness, a trip cord stretched across the trail leading downhill. He followed its length both ways until the ends disappeared into the gloom. Dropping flat against the ground, he crawled forward just far enough that he could reach the cord with the end of the staff, and he gave it a sharp poke.
Instantly a handful of black objects flew through the darkness right in front of him, their passage so swift he only caught a glimpse of movement. He heard the missiles ping as they bounced off rocks some distance away, steel striking against stone. Then everything was quiet again.
He poked the trip cord once more, just to be sure, but nothing happened. He stood, walked up to the wire, and followed it in the direction the black objects had gone. He found several some distance away, lying on the ground. Darts, the tips laced with poison, their butts notched to fit a bowstring. He walked the other way and found the bow, cleverly wedged in the rocks so that it would not shift, its bowstring hanging limp from guy wires where the trip cord had released it.