The troop from Estcarp pushed the pace but they had still a day’s journey before them when they rode out of the last of the frontier posts and headed along the curve of the seaport highway. They had changed mounts regularly at the series of Guard installations and spent the night at the last fort, keeping to a steady trot that ate up the miles.

Although the Sulcarmen did not ride with the same ease as the Guard, they clung grimly to saddles which seemed too small for their bulk — Magnis Osberic not being unique in his stature — and kept up, riding with the fixed purpose of men to whom time itself was a threatening enemy.

But the morning was bright, and patches of purple flowering bush caught radiance from the sun. The air carried the promise of salt waves ahead and Simon knew a lift of heart which he had thought lost long ago. He did not realize that he was humming until a familiar husky voice cut from his left.

“Birds sing before the hawk strikes.”

He met that mockery good-naturedly. “I refuse to listen to the croaking of ill — it is too fine a day.”

She plucked at the mail scarf wreathing her shoulders and throat, as if its supple folds were a kind of imprisonment. “The sea — it is in the wind here—” Her gaze roamed ahead where the road rippled to the horizon. “We have a portion of the sea in our veins, we of Estcarp. That is why Sulcar blood can mingle with ours, as it has oftimes. Someday I would take to the sea as a venture. There is a pull in the very surge of the waves as they retreat from the shore.”

Her words were a singing murmur, but Simon was suddenly alert, the tune he had hummed dried in his throat. He might not have the gifts of the Estcarp witches, but deep within him something crawled, stirred into life, and before he reasoned it through, his hand flashed up in a signal from his own past as he reined in his horse.

“Yes!” Her hand was flung to echo his and the men behind them halted. Koris’ head whipped about: he made his own signal and the whole company came to a stop.

The Captain passed the lead momentarily toTunston and rode back. They had their flankers out; nothing could be charged to lack of vigilance.

“What is it?” Koris demanded.

“We are running into something.” Simon surveyed the terrain ahead, laying innocently open under the sun. Nothing moved except a bird spiralling high. The wind had died so that even its puffs did not disturb the patches of brush. Yet he would stake all his experience and judgment upon the fact that before them a trap was waiting to snap jaws.