And Inachos the Guide had no need to reply: “And I, also! This work makes a man thirsty! The yetches stink so!”
No, there was no need for them to say these words to convince me, to make me see what a credulous fool I had been.
Everything fell into place.
With a shout full of bestial hatred I charged into the clearing, bounded across the open space, struck Inachos senseless with a smashing blow to the nape of his neck, and reached in my hands and hauled his companion all tumbling onto the jungle floor.
Even then, I swear, I did not mean both of them to die, for I wished to question them. But Inachos must have had a weak skull, or my blow must have been too hasty and impetuous. As for the flier pilot who had come to pick the guide up — when I turned him over I saw the hilt of his knife thrusting up from his chest. As he tumbled out of the flier the knife had sliced whicker-sharp between his ribs. I wrenched it out with a foul Makki-Grodno oath.
What a credulous idiot I had been!
The guides were not being murdered by assassins sent by Nalgre. Oh, no! Nalgre hired the guides. They came into the caves and told the slaves they would take them out to safety, and the poor deluded fools went out, gaily, expectantly, filled with hope. They thought they were being taken to safety, and then, every first night, the guide would disappear and the slaves were on their own. They would be ripe fodder for the great Jikai! How much more cunning this system was to get the slaves out and running. Without hope, they might run, but they would not give sport.
The quarry were given a reason to run by the guides. They thought that with a whole day’s start they stood a chance. And, too, I saw another sound reason for this dastardly plot. The different parties of slaves could be channeled into different parts of the island. Then different hunts would not become entangled and Nalgre would not have to face irate customers whose quarry had been snapped up by neighboring hunters.
And — that doughy-faced Notor Trelth had agreed to hunt through the jungle and the guide, Inachos, had directed us northward so as to keep within the confines of the jungle!
The more I considered the foul scheme the more I saw its elegance and simplicity — and its horror. Maybe there were no real rear entrances to the caves.
Certainly, the manhounds had entrances there, to herd the slaves out for selection. All the time I thus reviewed the diabolical schemes of the Kov of Faol and his slave-master, Nalgre, I paced back and forth in the moonlight.
Then I went back to the tree where my companions slept and tried to rouse them. Every last one was fast asleep in a drugged stupor.
That provided the last evidence. The wine so thoughtfully provided by the guides, which they did not drink through care for their charges, was drugged. The guides simply got up and walked away and were picked up by flier.
If I bashed a length of timber against the tree in my anger, I feel that needs no explanation. In the end I had to unlash all the slaves, every one, and Tulema first, and carry them, snoring, over to the airboat. The flier would just take all the eighteen of us, although we were jammed in — no novelty to slaves accustomed to being jammed in hard together in barred prisons. Delia had given me instructions in the management of airboats. I took the flier up quickly, savagely, sped low over the jungle in the streaming light from the moons of Kregen. The flight had to be undertaken right away; it would have been madness to have waited until the morning. Come the morning, though — and here I believe my lips ricked back over my teeth in a most ungentlemanly fashion — the great hunters on their manhunt would find no quarry for the manhounds to drag down, for them to loose at with their gleaming beautiful crossbows, for them to chop down with sword and spear.
When, at last, Zim and Genodras — or, as here in Havilfar, Far and Havil — dawned over the jungle levels I brought the airboat down into a cleft in the trees. Below, a river ran, a broad sluggish ocher-colored river, with mud-banks and the scaled and agile forms of water-risslaca active about their own form of hunting. At least, much as I was wary of risslaca and with horrific memories of the Phokaym, they, at least, hunted for food.
I took the airboat low along the dun water and at last found what I sought, a place where the banks had eroded and fallen and the jungle had voraciously grown over the tumbled earth and so created a roofed space beneath. Management of the voller was a tricky business, but I got her neatly inserted under the overarching leaves. She was a craft built along somewhat different lines from those I had been accustomed to in Vallia and Zenicce, being altogether sturdier of construction, with lenken planking and bronze supports, although still of that swift and beautiful leaf-shape. The Gon rolled over, snorting, and pushed into Lenki, a Brokelsh whose black bristles were the thickest I had seen on one of his kind, and Lenki snorted in his turn, and turned over, and struck a Fristle, and so, with much groaning and blowing and yawning, the whole pack of slaves woke up. Leaving them to sort themselves out I swung down beneath the trees to the water’s edge. Certainly there is much beauty in the greenery of Kregen. A profusion of gorgeous flowers was opening to the first rays of the twin suns, and I stood on the ledge of soggy earth watching as moon-blooms opened wide their second, outer, ring of petals, and as scarlet and indigo and yellow and orange flowers of a myriad convoluted shapes prepared themselves for the day. A swim, which I would sorely have welcomed, filthy as I was, was not to be recommended. Many risslaca had woken up and were prowling. I scooped a handful of the water and splashed my face and body and heard a harsh and malevolent croaking in the air above my head.
I looked up.
The Gdoinye hung there, his pinions beating against the dawn breeze down the river, his head cocked. In the streaming mingled light of the suns he looked glorious, shining, refulgent. I shook my fist at him.
“You are an idiot, Dray Prescot!”
“You told me that before, on a beach in Valka!”
“An onker of onkers, Dray Prescot, a get-onker!”
“So I know!” I shouted back as the accipiter swung there, squawking hoarsely at me. Without a thought I knew those in the airboat could not be a witness to this astounding confrontation.
“You will be allowed a little more time to play your games. We trust they amuse you. There is yet time.”
“Time for what? I play no games with you. Why do you force me against my wishes-”
But, with a hoarse cry, the raptor interrupted.
“We do what we do for reasons beyond your understanding, Dray Prescot. When you grow up, you may then grow a brain to comprehend the simple facts of life on this planet. Now you are as a suckling baby, as your antics here in Faol have shown.”
“Antics!” I roared. “Antics! I’ve been trying to do what I thought was right — and no damned help from you! How do I know who-”
“When you reach Yaman you may discover answers you will never find in Aphrasoe.”
“I didn’t ask to be brought to Kregen! But now that I’m here I have found my own destiny! If you want my help you’ll have to-”
But the Gdoinye had heard enough of my puling roaring, for he winged up and away, a golden and scarlet messenger of glory, from a bunch of Star Lords I’d as lief squeeze between my fingers and let drip through in a red mush. He soared up, shining in the mingled light of the twin suns. His last harsh cry streamed down with that opaline light.
“You are a fool, Dray Prescot!”
Then he was a mere black dot against the suns-glow.
I cursed.
Oh, I cursed!
But, of course, there was nothing for me to do but go back and do as the Star Lords ordered and get Tulema out to a place of safety. After that. . and then I knew that after that, before I could investigate the scarlet-roped Todalpheme, before I could spend pleasant days discovering more about the vollers, before, even, I could return to Vallia and Delia, I would have to return to the barred slave pens of Faol and warn the slaves. I would have to defeat the Kov of Faol and Nalgre and put paid to this foul and despicable game they played with their two-faced treacherous guides. When I turned back to the cleft in the river bank with its camouflage of trees the slaves were out of the airboat and clamoring their wonder like a pack of jackdaws. Of them all, apart from Tulema and myself, only one was a human being, the rest being halflings of one sort and another. This young man, who had fed himself well in the caves, kept much to himself and spoke little. He said his name was Nath, but I did not believe him. He had red hair, and so might be a Lohvian. When a Brokelsh had pressed him, this Nath had said he came from Thothangir, and, again, I did not believe him. This Nath na Thothangir walked toward me swinging one of the guide’s swords. I eyed him meanly.