The jungle closed above our heads and strange noises rose from the depths of the greenery. The brilliant light of the twin suns muted to a long lazy green-gold radiance, and here and there mingled shafts of ruby and jade struck down through interstices in the leafy cover. The trail was hard-packed for the first dwabur. Five miles was a fair distance to travel, and when we came out to a little clearing the slaves were happy to flop down, panting, to rest.
Nath the Guide crossed to a heap of lichened stones and lifted one to the side. I looked over his shoulder.
In the hollow between the stones lay clothing, food — and knives! Also there were clumsy-looking shoes. The halflings pounced on the shoes first. Well, that made sense. I have been accustomed all my life to going barefoot, and I had walked across the Hostile Territories, and the Owlarh Waste without footwear. The journey across the Klackadrin, too, was not without a lively memory or two, and then I had been barefoot.
I said I did not want a pair of shoes.
At this Nath the Guide protested, saying I would slow the others up. They were putting on the clothes, simple gray tunics and floppy hats, and Lilah, too, implored me to don a pair of shoes. In the end I did so, to quiet her noise.
We ate and rested and then set off again.
“When will they catch up with us, Nath?”
“Not until the suns have passed the zenith.” He chuckled. “And if we press on boldly they may never catch up with us at all. There are secret ways.”
He kept us going east. The jungle looked like many another jungle through which I have traveled, with trees and growths familiar to Earth as well as Kregen. Lilah was holding up well. If we could keep going and get well ahead, we might clear right out for good.
Toward early evening we left the edge of the jungle, which had thinned considerably, and came to an immense ravine cut through the earth athwart our path. A light rope bridge hung above the abyss. We crossed, not without a deal of swaying about and a few screams, and after we had reached the other side Naghan from Hamal said: “Let us destroy the bridge.”
That seemed a sensible idea.
“No,” said Nath the Guide. “If the bridge is gone the Jikai will surely know which way we have gone.”
Well, that seemed sensible, too.
In the end, bowing to Nath’s superior knowledge of the problems of the manhunters, we left the bridge intact.
For a space I walked along with Nath, while Lilah walked with Naghan and his girl, Sosie. The guide intrigued me. I questioned him, casually, about his life.
“We are of Faol, too,” he said. “I live in a village on the southern shore, and the young men are dedicated to helping the slaves. The manhunters are very terrible masters.”
I congratulated him, thinking of the dangers he and his comrades faced. “I think,” he said to me, glancing sideways as we walked, “you have been on many great Jikais yourself.”
“Aye,” I said, thinking of the great days when my clansmen had hunted across the Great Plains of Segesthes. “But I have never hunted humans for sport.”
“Humans?” He looked at me oddly. “But only Naghan and Sosie, Lilah, and yourself are humans.”
The Fristle man was at that moment helping the Fristle woman along, putting his furry arm about her waist and half carrying her. I was about to make what I considered a fitting reply when Nath broke away from me, looking up, shouting a warning.
“Vollers! Quick! Into the bushes — and remain still, for the sake of Hito the Hunter!”
From the shelter of the bushes we looked up as a flier passed overhead, traveling slowly due east. Well, that answered one question I had intended to put to Nath — how the manhunters would know in which direction we had gone. He had been right about the bridge.
When the voller had gone we stood up, breathing our relief, and set off again. The country was opening out now. From the edge of the jungle beyond the ravine at our back the sky filled with the quick darting shapes of flying foxes, hereabouts called inklevols, black against the dying suns-glow. Nath the Guide pointed ahead across the open land, dotted here and there with clumps of trees, gently rolling and gradually undulating away to a distant horizon.
“Tomorrow we cross the plain and then-”
“Then we are free!” exclaimed a Brokelsh, rubbing his black bristle body-hair in his excitement. We made our little camp in a hollow, surrounded by trees, in the bend of a small river. Nath showed the usual skills of the hunter in preparing a smokeless fire and of shielding the flame-glare by a palisade of twisted rushes. The knives he had provided were poor things, it was true, but they did enable us to cut wood and leaves and so fabricate a softer bed than the ground. We ate and drank water from the stream, and Nath had been able to provide a little wine for us. Truth to tell, freedom was the wine we all craved.
We sat for a short space, talking, Nath and I. I had said to Naghan earlier: “Sosie and Lilah will sleep side by side, and you and I will sleep outside them.” And he had replied: “It is a good plan.”
Now I said to Nath: “And is manhunting the chief occupation of the high ones of Faol?”
“Yes. It is their ruling passion. Nobles come from all over Havilfar, and the lands beyond, to go on a Faol Jikai.”
He sounded proud of that, which was strange, but he added: “They bring in money, which helps my people, and we arrange for the escape of the slaves.”
“The hunters did not reach us, as you suggested they might.”
“No. Tomorrow will be a day of careful marching.”
I was itching to ask about Lilah who, as a princess, would in the societies I had previously known on Kregen be far more valuable as a subject for ransom than as a subject for a hunt. I put the point to Nath the Guide, who yawned, and said carelessly: “Oh, there are many girls who claim to be princesses and queens, and, mayhap, some of them are. But then — if a customer knew he was hunting a princess, and with all that would follow at the end of the hunt, think how much more the pleasure!”
“I see,” I said.
It did make sense, of a kind that sickened me anew. I rolled over and pushed up against Lilah where she lay asleep, one arm outflung across Sosie, and so let my eyelids close. Tomorrow we would cross the plain and reach safety and then I could deliver the Princess Lilah of Hyrklana to her friends and take off for Vallia. As sleep overcame me, I wondered vaguely if I might not prosecute two of my obsessions on Kregen as I was so near Havilfar. For on Havilfar lived the scarlet-robed Todalpheme who had taken Delia to Aphrasoe and who might therefore tell me where that marvelous Swinging City was situated on the face of Kregen. And the other obsession was to discover more of the fliers, the vollers, and their manufacture.
So I slept and with the first rays of Far and Havil striking low over the plain I awoke, sat up and rubbed my eyes, and reached for the cheap knife and stood up — and Nath the Guide was gone.
Chapter Seven
In a babblement and confusion the slaves ran about looking for Nath the Guide. They shouted along the stream and broke through thickets, and looked behind clumps of rocks. I studied where the guide had slept. His gear still lay where he had left it — blanket, shoes, knife, a leaf with a few palines — and as he had slept a little apart from us, whatever had taken him in the night had rested content with the one meal. Lilah shivered. “Poor Nath!”
“Leem, by Hanitcha the Harrower!” Naghan said fiercely.
“We are on our own now.” The squat-bodied Brokelsh rubbed his black body hairs as he spoke. “We had best move now!”
“We will eat first,” I said. “And then we will march.”
I did not anticipate an argument, and broke bread and gave some to Sosie and Lilah. We shared out what we had. In truth, it was little enough, and I fancied I must hunt our meat before the suns sank beyond the western horizon. “Also,” I said, “we will set watches through the night.”