He closed the distance between them until he could hear their grunts and panting breath ahead of him, a turn or two in the trail. As dusk began to settle, he heard different sounds and crept forward to find that the path crossed another in a clearing. Here the Vandaayo had stopped and were now gathering wood for a fire and bracken for sleeping pads. Fulferin, still wrapped in the net that had captured him and trussed to a pole, lay inert beside the track.
Raffalon established himself behind a tree and observed as the part-men built themselves a good fire. They settled themselves around it, squatting or sitting cross-legged in a circle. They had been carrying capacious leather pouches from which they now drew gobbets of rank-smelling meat and bottles of fired clay. The sounds of tearing flesh and gurgling liquids were added to the crackle of the flames, followed by grunts and belches and the occasional growl when one Vandaayo paid too much attention to another’s victuals.
Dusk became darkness. At a sound from the other trail, the part-men became alert. They put down their uneaten meals and stood up, watchful. A moment later, they relaxed, though only slightly, as a second party of Vandaayo emerged from the forest, carrying their own pole-slung contribution to the ritual feast.
Greetings were exchanged—or at least that was what Raffalon thought the spate of grunting signaled. But he noted that the two groups did not mix, and that the party he had been following did not lapse into complete relaxation as the newcomers began gathering fuel for a second fire and leaves for their own beds. Indeed, two of the first arrivals left the communal blaze and went to squat beside poor Fulferin, while the other party put their own captive as far from the new camp as the clearing’s size would allow.
The last light was now fading from the leafy canopy above the thief’s head. He watched the proceedings as the newcomers made their own rough supper and the two groups settled for the night, each arranging its sleeping positions on the far side of its fire from the others, so that between the two hearths was a wide space of trampled grass that was clearly no-Vandaayo’s-land.
“Hmm,” the thief said to himself. After watching a little longer, he withdrew deeper into the forest, out of pointy earshot, and spoke softly to the small deity. “I am going to need both hands.”
He felt the hand that held the deity rise and find its way to the open neck of his tunic. A moment later, the little piece of wood tumbled down to rest against his stomach. The voice in his head said, As long as some part of me touches some part of you, I will remain in control.
The thief’s curiosity was piqued. “Are you actually within the wood?”
I am where I am. The eidolon opens a … conduit between there and here. Now, please get on with the rescue.
Raffalon shrugged and went farther back along the trail until he came to a place where he had crossed a small watercourse. He knelt and put his hand into the water, feeling along the stream bottom, and found what he needed. He rose and looked about. Fifty paces away, a lofty, well-leafed tree arched over the stream. He went to it, fished in his wallet, and drew out a stout knotted cord connected to a grapple. He threw this up into the branches and, luck being with him, it caught securely on the first cast.
He left the cord hanging and returned to the edge of the clearing, Fulferin’s wallet heavier by the weight of several pebbles, ranging in size from the width of his thumbnail to almost the breadth of his fist.
Staying within the tree line, he circled stealthily around the clearing until he found a tree that would best suit his purposes. He climbed until he found a comfortable crutch between two branches with a good view of the two camps. Then he composed himself to wait.
Night eased itself down over the clearing. The Vandaayo fires burned low and were refreshed. Then they burned down again. By now, all of the anthropophagi were curled or sprawled on the grass, save for one from each group. Raffalon noted that these sentries did not face the outer darkness and whatever threats might lurk there. They kept an eye on one another.
He waited until he saw one rise and go to fetch a new log for its fire. As the hunched figure bent to pick up the length of wood, the thief whispered to the deity, “A little luck would assist us now,” and lobbed a pebble out into the darkness. The missile arced across the dark air and he heard a satisfying snick as it connected with the Vandaayo’s hairless pate.
“Ow!” said the injured sentry, adding a stream of gobbling gutturals directed at its opposite number. The other group’s sentry peered across the open space and, though it could not ascertain the cause of the other’s pain, it recognized an occasion for mirth.
The head-struck sentry went back to its position, tossing the new log onto the fire. It squatted, rubbing its injury, and stared through slitted eyes at its counterpart, muttering what Raffalon took to be dire vows of retribution.
The thief waited until the second sentry saw that it was time for fresh fuel. As it stooped to lift a log from its group’s supply, he tossed another stone. He heard the same noise of impact as with the first, a similar cry of pain that was met with a hoot and jeers from the other side of the clearing.
The newly injured Vandaayo stalked to the edge of the open ground between the fires and addressed several remarks to the mocker, accompanied by juts of jaw and shakes of fists. The recipient of these attentions replied with words and gestures of its own, including the revelation of naked green buttocks and the sound of their cheeks being slapped by hard hands.
It was while the thief’s first Vandaayo target was thus bent over with its back turned to the second that Raffalon sped another pebble—this one larger—on its way through the darkness. It landed with a solid crack! on the butt-slapper’s head, bringing a new howl of rage and pain.
The freshly wounded Vandaayo spun around and charged across the neutral zone, its hand reaching for a cudgel thrust through a strap that circled its waist. Its opposite number drew its own weapon, a club ground from gray stone, and, bellowing its own war cry, rushed to meet the assault. They came together in the middle of the clearing and went at each other with all the fervor and indifferent coordination—compensated for by great strength—for which Vandaayo warriors were renowned.
The noise and tumult awoke the others, who sat up or got to their feet, blinking and staring about. Raffalon launched several missiles in rapid succession, including his largest. Aided by the luck of the small god, each found a target among one of the two clusters of sleep-fuddled part-men. One rock came down with sufficient force as to lay out the leader of the six that had snatched Fulferin. When his fellows saw their superior stretched out on the ground and their sentry doing battle, they took up their weapons and, ululating, charged the foe. The enemy, smarting from their own hurts, raced to meet them.
Raffalon descended lightly from the tree and turned to skirt the clearing to where Fulferin lay bound. But his legs disobeyed him and turned in the opposite direction. At the same time, the voice in his head said, We may need something to delay pursuit, while an image appeared of himself and the rescued devotee fleeing along a trail while some hapless and ill-defined person was left behind for the pursuing Vandaayo to squabble over.
“You are a cruel god,” he whispered as he headed for the other captive.
I am, by nature, a kindly sort of god, came the answer, dispensing what small blessings are within my power. But now I do as I must.