He walked along the line of red-faced, angry men, shouting at him to untie them. They were bound with thin tough cord. Not filament. Must be some local fiber. When he reached a face he remembered, he stopped. “What happened?”
The man glared at him, then looked away, shamed to be found so helpless. “Mesuch,” he said after a moment. His voice was hoarse and full of a violence he couldn’t let out any other way. “That thing you call a stunner. They took the cutters.” He wriggled closer to Kurz. “Turn us loose. They said they coming back for us. Turn us loose.”
“Before I do, explain him.” He pointed at a man who lay in a huddle next to some bushes, his face contorted, drying foam on his mouth and chin.
The chorek’s throat twitched. He still wouldn’t look at Kurz. He didn’t say anything until Kurz turned and made as if he were going to walk away. “They wanted to know about you.” The words came out in a hurried mumble. “The woman wanted to know why we were here, where we got the cutters, where you’d got to.”
“I see.”
“Garv din’t tell her nothing. She put some kind of poison in him, but he din’t tell. He’s dead, in’t he.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. And you’re a liar. Babble of some kind, he talked his fool head off before it got him. He unclipped the cutter and sliced through the chorek’s neck. Ignoring their struggles, screams, and pleading, he killed the rest of the bound men, then trudged off for the miniskip. Put any one of these grubs under a verifier and what they’d say would be very bad for Chandava. Which meant he had to follow the flier and do the same with the rest of the choreks the woman stunned. It wasn’t pleasant work, but it had to be done.
His plan for the multiple invasion of the Vale was as dead now as those choreks were going to be. Underneath his calm mask he was angry, he wanted that Harp player dead. He was impatient with the need to finish the choreks, he wanted to start the stalk now, but he didn’t dare. If he failed, Hunnar and Jilet would fall, his family with them. He couldn’t afford anger at Hunnar or any High Jilet, so he channeled it all onto the Harper’s head.
3
“When we found out there were six different bands getting set to raid the Vale, we couldn’t ignore that.” Shadith nodded to Daizil. “Marrin can give you the general locations where we found them. We stunned them, tied them into neat parcels for you and left them to be collected later. You’ll find a few of them rather dead. The babble drug has unfortunate side effects in some Fior.”
She waited until Marrin had left with the Speaker, sighed, and turned to Aslan. “We collected over seventy cutters, Scholar.” She laid three of the weapons on the table. “In case you need them. We have the others locked in a cache in the flikit, didn’t think it was a very good idea to have them floating loose. Too much temptation.”
“I agree. Did you get enough information to go after the spy?”
“Enough to know he’s probably about somewhere. We’ll spiral out looking for whatever we can find.” She wrinkled her nose. “And try not to get shot down. You be careful, Lan. I mean it. You didn’t hear what they told me. I don’t want you thinking you’re safe, just because you’re here surrounded by people.”
Kurz whirled the bolas over his head, the weights at the end whistling loud enough to bring up the heads of the grazers. They were domesticated beasts so they didn’t panic, but they did move away from it, scattering as was their habit, to give a stalking predator a number of targets. He let the bolas go and grunted with satisfaction as it tangled round the legs of a female with a calf. He ran forward a few steps, slipped a second bolas off his arm and brought it up to speed, downing a second beast not far from the first.
He slipped his improvised halter onto the first, drove the tether’s holding peg into the ground with a powerful blow of his fist. As soon as he’d dealt with the second, he cut them free and let them get to their feet. Then he backed off and squatted next to a bush where his silhouette would be camouflaged.
They pulled at the tethers for a moment, blatting their distress, but when nothing more alarming happened, they forgot about the intruder and went back to grazing.
He waited patiently. Grazers were grazers on every world he’d visited, the same narrow acuteness and the same stupidity. When he thought the time was right, he moved slowly, a step at a time, away from the bush. They retreated as far as they could, but he didn’t chase them, just dumped two small heaps of grain on the ground beside the pegs, then went back to his bush.
They nosed at the grain, then began eating it.
He took some more.
They shied a little, but only retreated a few steps.
After about a hour, they were used to him and after a little practice on lead, ambled contentedly along behind him, the calf trotting at its mother’s flank. They were his shield against the devices in the flier, large warm bodies that would camouflage his warmth. It wouldn’t work against a military filter, but a clutch of Scholars wouldn’t have that kind of equipment. For one thing, they wouldn’t need it.
He set up camp near the last of the killing places, climbed a tree and watch the flier hunt. It was in the air on the far side of the Vale, casting about, shifting from side to side to cover the forested area between the floor and the peaks. Looking for him and being very thorough about it. He watched with calm approval, he would have done much the same, sweeping the ground to make sure he missed nothing on that first circle, widening the circle to the far side of the mountains on the second round. It would have caught him on foot or riding. Using the miniskip would be like shouting here I am, come get me.
Another thing he approved of. The flier barely missed the tops of the trees. It was in easy range of his cutter.
He left the tree and took a shovel into the small meadow where his animals grazed. He dug out rectangles of sod and set them aside, then settled to deepening the hole until there was room for him to lie down in it. He trimmed thin branches, used them as supports and replaced the sod so that all but a small opening at the end was covered. The flier was equipped with a stunner, but he knew those clunkers, they were energy gluttons and the Harper wouldn’t use it until she spotted him.
That was what he had to prevent. He needed them close enough to let him disable the lifters.
He dropped the last sod pieces into the hole and went back to his tree to watch the progress of the flier.
5
The telltale bonged softly. Shadith closed her eyes, extended the mind touch.
“You can relax, Shadow. It’s only a couple of grazers.”
She sighed and sat up. “This has been one of life’s more tedious days. Wonder if we’re wasting our time.”
“Fivescore dead choreks say he’s out here somewhere. And there’s been no energy output from the skip.”
She shivered. “If I ever had qualms about going after him…”
“He’s a thorough cattif, give him…”
The flikit screamed as the cutterbeam gouged through the lifters, broke through into the cabin, grazing Shadith’s thigh. The flier turned into a rock and went plunging down, not much forward movement because they were going so slow. Marrin slapped in the lever for the emergency rockets. This triggered the crash belts. They came slapping around both of them, locking them into the seats.
For a moment Shadith thought the rockets weren’t going to blow, then they roared awake, slowed the fall, the flikit trembling and shaking and threatening to veer onto its side and go slicing down again. She clung to the seat with both hands and stared at the trees rushing toward them.
They slammed into a tree top, bounced, hit another, tilted crazily, bounced from tree to tree, metal screeching, the stench of hot sap as the trees started to smokier, the snap, groan, creak of the mangled trunks. The motion stopped.