I took up the knife left by Nath. It was of the same cheap manufacture as our own, but it was steel, for which I was thankful. His shoes, too, would be useful. Like ours they were cheap, crudely made from a single piece of cattle hide, pierced for thongs all around and then drawn up on a slip-string, like moccasins. There hung about them an odd little odor, as though they had not been perfectly cured. We set off, striking due east by the suns, walking smartly.
After a time, thinking to put a little heart into the slaves, for they were mightily downcast by the savage and inexplicable disappearance of Nath the Guide, I struck up a song. I took the first one that jumped into my head. It was Morgash and Sinkle, all about a man and a maid and the laughable plight of their marriage, and was known all over Kregen. These Havilfarese knew the song, and some of them joined in with me, and so, singing, we marched on across the undulating ground. I kept that old warrior’s eye of mine well open.
This night, I vowed, we would not sprawl out and sleep like a bunch of schoolchildren on an outing; we would march on by stages under the light of Kregen’s moons. She of the Veils and the Twins would be up early, and the maiden with the many Smiles would follow later, to make the land almost as bright as an Earth day.
Despite the horror I knew slavered at our heels, the march would have been pleasant had I been in certain company. Had Seg Segutorio been with me, or Inch of Ng’groga, or Gloag, Hap Loder, Varden, or Vomanus. Delia — well, I was not foolish enough to wish my Delia here in this situation. But she would have responded with her marvelous spirit and enjoyment of life, her brave smile and her untiring love. This Princess Lilah was a fine girl, but I could understand the air of strain, her distrait appearance of barely suppressed terror. I wondered how that other Lilah, that Queen Lilah of Hiclantung, the notorious Queen of Pain, was faring now.
And so, marching across that gardenlike plain, I fell to maundering in my thoughts about Nath and Zolta
— and Zorg, my oar comrade, who was now dead. I missed my two rascals, Nath and Zolta. I remembered many a fine carouse and singing session we had indulged ourselves in, back in Sanurkazz. There was Pur Zenkiren, too, Grand Archbold elect of the Krozairs of Zy. One day the great summons would come and I must return to the Eye of the World so that all the forces of the Zairians of the southern shore might go up against the Grodnim of the hostile northern shore of the inner sea. That day would come.
If Nath and Zolta were with me now — there’d be some wild goings-on, by Zim-Zair!
Twice during that long march we saw fliers crisscrossing above. We hid. I felt an invisible net was closing about us.
Some of the shoes we wore were thinner in the sole than others, and a Relt, one of those more gentle cousins of the ferocious Rapas, soon complained that his bare foot was hurting. We inspected the hole, and pursed our lips, and I gave him one of Nath the Guide’s shoes. The other shoe went in similar fashion to Sosie. We slogged on. In my usual fashion — a cross laid on me I do not seem able to be free of — I had taken charge of this little fugitive band in the absence of the guide. They looked to me — Zair knows why people always look to me in moments of crisis — and so I had to respond with due propriety. I told them when to rest, and I caught one of the little six-legged rabbitlike animals of the plains called xikks and we cooked and ate the poor creature. Presently I roused them and we set off again, and now, ahead of us and spreading to encompass both north and south, a massive and darkly brooding forest spread its waiting wings.
Everyone looked ahead, pointing and chattering.
A harsh and demoniac croaking blattered down from above.
I looked up.
Up there, circling in wide planing hunting circles, rising and falling on the air, flew a giant scarlet and golden-feathered hunting bird. A magnificent raptor, the Gdoinye, the messenger and spy of the Star Lords, who had snatched me from Vallia and dumped me down in a stinking slave pen. I shook my fist.
The raptor circled, its head cocked and no doubt one beady eye regarding us and relaying what it saw back to its masters, the Everoinye. I wondered, for a moment, if the blue radiance would engulf me -
but the raptor emitted another raucous squawk and flew off. I did not see the white dove of the Savanti.
“What in the name of the Twins was that?” said Lilah.
“A bird,” I said. “Had I a bow-”
“You would not shoot so wonderful a creature, surely?” said Sosie, shocked. I knew what I knew, and so I did not reply.
I looked back.
Dark against the ground the dreadful shapes of jiklos pressed hard on our trail. At once all was confusion and the slaves began a mad run for the forest. I kept close to Lilah. One of my shoes loosened, the slipstring slipping, and I kicked the thing off. I could run more fleetly in my bare feet than clogged down with these clumsy shoes, and so I loosened the other and kicked that off, too. We all ran.
We neared the trees, and I could see rocks and gullies in which the trees grew at crazy angles. Lilah was panting and gasping, her golden hair blowing.
I picked her up and ran.
Naghan had picked up Sosie, too, as the Fristle man had picked up the Fristle woman. We were all hunted slaves, no longer simply men or halflings.
I flung a glance back.
The manhounds were terribly close. Beyond them rode zorca-mounted hunters, yelling, waving their weapons, having a fine old time. I ran.
We plunged into the first outlying trees and I picked a gully and ran up it, dodging tree branches, hurdling fallen trunks. Naghan, carrying Sosie, ran with me. We plunged on into the thicker trees, clambering over rocky patches, diving into underbrush, scratched and torn, plunging on and on. Of course, my every instinct impelled me to dump Lilah down and, knives in fists, turn and battle these filthy manhounds, these high and mighty hunters. But I quelled that primeval instinct. My mission was to rescue Lilah, not to get myself killed in however enjoyable a way slaying manhounds and devilish hunters astride their zorcas.
Now we could hear the high excited keening of the jiklos. They were men! Men! Yet they were more fiercely predatory hunters than any bloodhound, any wersting, and to fall into their clutches would mean a hideous death.
We struggled and scrambled on, and came to a wall of rock.
“Put me down, Dray. We must climb.”
“Get started, Lilah. When you are at the top, I will follow.”
Sosie was already climbing, and Naghan following. Of the others I could see or hear nothing. Lilah sprang at the rocks, began to haul herself up by ridge and crevice, her long golden hair very bright in the waning light of the twin suns.
I waited.
After what seemed a very long time I heard Lilah call, and about to wheel about and follow her, I caught the feral movement in the greenery opposite, the dagger-bright flash of jagged teeth. A manhound sprang out from the trees, hurtled straight toward me.
And then — something for which I had not been prepared, the jiklo shouted to me, shouted words of a thick local language that, through the gene-manipulative pill of Maspero’s in far Aphrasoe, I was able to understand.
The manhound spoke in a thick rasping whine, a hoarse and bloodthirsty howl.
“You are done for, you two-legged yetch!”
He bounded straight for me. The long mane streamed back from the central crest. His nails glittered. His eyes were bloodshot. And his teeth — could they ever have been the teeth of normal man? Sharp and jagged, serrated, as he opened his mouth to snarl at me those teeth looked like the teeth of risslaca honed to rip hot flesh and blood!