The Forerunner Factor by Andre Norton

up which they had found their way. Instead, he had slipped from one of the loops upon his belt a set of distance glasses which had been folded into themselves, opened them and tinkered with their setting. Now, by their aid, he surveyed the country beyond where heat haze shimmered. Here and there in the middle distance, a spume of sand arose, as if by the bidding of an unseen enemy, to whirl and dance. By squinting between the fingers with which she had quickly shaded her eyes, Simsa could just make out a vague line across the far horizon. The Hard Hills perhaps. Not that she cared.
    She turned her back determinedly upon the whole threat of the land and had begun to edge toward the descent from that lookout, when an exclamation from her companion stopped her. When she glanced up, she saw that he now pointed those distance glasses not toward the distant goal but rather downward toward the desert land itself.
    “That is the way—”
    “What way?” Even two words seemed to crack her lips.
    “Our road!” He folded the glasses back, was fitting them into their loop. Simsa was too worn to argue with a madman. If he thought he had found some road, let him take it and be gone. She had been caught too long in the trap of his plans and must free herself before she lost what energy she had left.
    Now she asked no questions, merely swung over and began the crawl down the cliff side to the bay where their boat, bearing the signs of its rough passage, rocked in what small waves found their way past the reefs to this pocket which was nearly as narrow and hidden as the one that Lustita had chosen for the outset of this miserable voyage.
    As the girl neared the narrow strip of hard pebbles (there was no sand on this side of the cliff), which lined the shore, she averted her eyes from what had greeted her when she made the first awkward leap from boat to shingle. There lay evidence of what this dread coast could do. Still, the off-worlder had not shown the slightest dismay when he had viewed it.
    Two withered, shrunken bodies, or the remains of such, had been somehow wedged between the rocks. Or had they crawled there during their last spurt of life energy to find their own tombs? A few faded, colorless rags still clung to the blackened, shrunken flesh. Simsa was glad that the heads had fallen forward so that she need not look upon what long-ago death had made of their faces; there were no birds here, no crabs or other sea spawned vermin, to clean their bones. Rather they had simply blackened under that sun to fearsome representations of what seemed to be more demons than once-living men.
    Now Thorn again passed them without a glance, striding along the sliding pebbles which were quick to shift under his boots so that he balanced as he went, heading farther north. When he scrambled over the rocks guarding the other end of this small bay, she pulled herself to her feet to follow. Somehow, she could not remain where she was—along with those blackened things which she was ever aware were at her back, whether she looked in their direction or not.
    Her feet slipped and slid so in the sandals that she had made patches of covering for both sandal and skin from parts of a rent sail she had found stored on the boat, twisting the thick stuff and knotting it as tightly as she could. Also, she picked her way with care, having no desire to fall. She was a fool—it would be better to crawl back under the closed part of the ship where the zorsals whimpered now and then. Though she had emptied a hamper and made them a kind of nest away from the sun, she could do nothing more to spare them the heat.
    This scramble over the rocks brought her a fall which scraped a good strip of skin from the side of one hand. She could no longer suppress her misery as she had sworn to do. Forcing herself to the edge of the water to dip her hand in the harsh smart of the sea, she whimpered like the zorsals, allowing herself that small outlet for her emotions. The