The troopers were settling down, taking snacks from their packs. Slvasta didn’t permit his squads to use mod-dwarfs, not after he’d witnessed Quanda’s absolute control over mods, so everything they needed during an active sweep had to be carried in their backpacks. The bulk of their field camp equipment was carried on four mod-horses and two new proper terrestrial horses he’d acquired; he was in the process of changing the remaining mod-horses for more terrestrial horses. In the meantime, he didn’t allow the mod-horses on any forward deployment during a sweep where they might encounter a Faller. Mod-birds were the only exception he’d grant, and he was still trying to figure out how to replace them. Most native birds were too small and skitty, nothing like as docile as a mod. Some people, mainly in Cham’s pubs, claimed mantahawks could be trained; rich estate lords in Rackwesh Province used them for hunting boar and razorback, allegedly. Quite how you’d catch one, even a fledgling, was something which eluded Slvasta, though.

Trooper Tovakar, who was still on punishment duty after his screw-up unloading equipment from the train, tethered the goat he’d been assigned to bring. His notoriously short temper made him an ideal handler for the grumpy animal that was snorting and tugging at its leash, cross about being forced up the hill. Slvasta grinned to himself at that. Nobody in his squads complained about bringing the tough animals along any more, and the five new recruits would understand why soon enough.

Slvasta called an end to the rest, and his NCOs came over. The group used telescopes to study the area they’d been assigned to sweep. Slvasta had requested this area, which the colonel had been quick enough to grant. No one else ever volunteered to sweep the difficult wild territories.

They divided it up into sections. Slvasta and Yannrith designated individual squads. Sweep patterns were discussed. Expected progress was matched against the actual state of the land, as opposed to a section of map. Overnight camp locations were agreed.

The squads set off back down the hill, gradually moving apart as they neared the bottom, and struck out for their individual sweeps.

Slvasta accompanied Yannrith’s squad. The area they’d chosen to sweep was reasonably flat, but covered in a native bamboo reed with a tough stem that produced a wide floppy magenta umbrella frond a couple of metres above his head. Sunlight ploughed through the downy mess, to be stained violet in the air underneath where the squad walked.

They spread out in a long line, spacing themselves three hundred metres apart, enough so their ’path voice could reach between them. Some troopers hacked at the stems with machetes. Slvasta used his teekay to snap them away. The hollow stems were a lot thinner than tree trunks, but the sheer mass of them reduced his visibility considerably. The mild claustrophobia didn’t bother him. He concentrated on his ex-sight, pulling in his mod-bird’s eyesight as it flew above the rippling ocean of purple fluff. His ’path directed it along a grid pattern, parallel to everyone else’s. Between them, the squad were sweeping an area over two kilometres wide.

‘Sir!’ Trooper Andricea called excitedly. ‘Is this one?’ Her ’path sight was showing a gifted view from her mod-bird, where a clump of the bamboo canes had fallen together.

‘Wait,’ Yannrith told her. Several mod-birds closed on the break in the swaying purple cover. Slvasta thought it was too small for an egg impact, but circled his mod-bird carefully before letting it flutter down onto the broken stems. There was no egg, and the wispy undergrowth had already recovered. His guess was some kind of fight between ventaus bulls; the thuggish bear-like creatures enjoyed the shade, and normally kept to themselves. But it had been the mating season a month ago.

‘Clear,’ Yannrith’s ’path-voice told the squad. ‘Good call, though, Andricea,’ he added.

Her mind sent out a burst of satisfaction before she tightened her shell. It was her first sweep, and she was determined to get things right. Slvasta had been worried that her height (lanky limbs put her a few centimetres taller than him) and youth (she was barely twenty) would prove a distraction to the men under his command. But Andricea had proved she could keep a level head in most situations, inside and out of the barracks.

The squad resumed its steady tramp forwards.

The ventaus bulls had clearly had a busy time of it. It wasn’t just Yannrith’s squad that kept checking out the smashed-up bamboo stems; the calls were constant. Then late that afternoon, Tovakar hailed everyone. ‘This is strange. I’ve found a trail, but I don’t know what made it. There are hoof marks and everything.’

Slvasta sent his mod-bird over to check. Tovakar could be a hothead, but out here in the field he was reliable enough. Sure enough, the trail was unusual – a long scar through the bamboo, three or four metres wide. The mod-bird didn’t give him the clarity he wanted, so Slvasta told the squad to take a break, and he shoved his way through the stalks to Tovakar. It took a good twenty minutes to cover the distance, during which he sent his mod-bird scouting on down the trail, which seemed to cut right through the bamboo and out into the scrubland beyond.

When he caught up with Tovakar, it was as if someone had cut a road through the bamboo. The trail was straight, with the bamboo snapped off just a few centimetres above the ground. Undergrowth trampled down in an interestingly uniform fashion. There were also several small continuous ruts. No wheel had made them, and just for a moment his imagination flashed up the crazy vision of a miniature plough being tugged along.

‘Something heavy has been pulled along here,’ Slvasta said. He examined the hoof prints in the damp soil; some were terrestrial horses, while the others were mod feet. When he ran his hand over the crushed blades of grass and shoots of whakwerry reeds, his skin was covered in sap. ‘Not long ago, two or three hours at most.’ He stood up and looked along the trail. Everything had been bent or snapped in one direction, south-west. ‘Sergeant?’ he ’path-spoke. ‘I want every squad to converge on me. We’re following this track.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Yannrith replied.

The aether was abruptly full of ’path shouts.

‘Come on,’ Slvasta said to Tovakar. The pair of them set off down the track.

‘What do you think it is, sir?’ the trooper asked, tugging on the goat’s leash.

‘I’ll tell you what I do know,’ Slvasta said. ‘Nests of established Fallers gather new-Fallen eggs and take them clear of the Fall zone where we’re sweeping. That way the eggs are safe and eggsumption isn’t left to chance.’

Tovakar looked down at the crushed vegetation he was walking on. ‘This was made by someone dragging an egg along?’

Slvasta shrugged. He sent his mod-bird spiralling high, trying to see what the track could possibly lead to. The land ahead stretched out like a mirage across his eyevision. Now, if he projected a straight line from the edge of the bamboo . . . A broad river cut across the scrubland maybe five or six kilometres ahead, meandering away in big ox-bow curves and odd bends round irregular hillocks. Stretches of rainforest began to build up the further west it went.

That’s got to be a tributary to the Colbal, he decided. The biggest river on the whole Lamarn continent, stretching from the Guelp mountain range north-east of Prerov, all the way west to the capital, Varlan, and beyond to empty into the Gulf of Meor, over three thousand kilometres away. Its complex tributary network snaked back through a good portion of the central lands. Hundreds of towns were sited on the banks. Even with the advent of the railway over the last fifteen hundred years, river traffic still carried the bulk of Lamarn’s cargo and people.

A boat could travel just about anywhere, a great deal more easily than any cart, and without any of the attention. It was perfect for a nest.