The wind whipped the answer back at them. "One means to take you to someone. If you cooperate, we can go easy, if you want to make it hard, hard it'll be." He backed away from the door, but kept the light fixed on them. "Come out. Now. Bring the cats with you. Stop soon as you're out. One will tell you where to go then."
Switching to interlingue, Rohant said, "If we let him get us away, then…" He broke off as Shadith pinched his arm. "What?"
"He understands interlingue. I can feel him react to what you just said, to what I'm saying now."
"Dio."
Kikun strolled past them, went out through the opening and stood waiting for them.
Shadith sighed. Here we go again, plans down the tubes. All that work wasted. Ah well, tie a knot and go on, where's that case? Ah.
She slid the muddy strap over her shoulder and followed Kikun. After a minute, Rohant growled and followed her.
With the Fanatic's flare lighting the way, they moved quickly through the trees, despite the rain and wind and the treacherous, thorny canes of the amtapishka vines that sprawled in furious complication between the root gnarls, canes the wind whipped about their ankles like sawchains. Shadith was very glad of her boots and amused despite her predicament by Kikun's skip-dance as he adroitly and effortlessly avoided the thorns. He had even less trouble than the cats who loped along unconcerned, though they were still not liking the rain much.
The flit had its canopy pulled over and one of Silvercreep's men was visible through the translucent bubble, curled up asleep in the back. The Fanatic made them crouch down beside it where they couldn't be seen; when he was sure Rohant had the cats under control, he rapped on the canopy. "Ocsipishopasti."
Shadith wrinkled her nose as the click failed to happen and the word stayed a collection of nonsense syllables. That's not in the vocab Ginny put together for us; it's either obscene or a password. Maybe both.
There was a sleepy grumble, then a hatch opened in the canopy and a tousle-headed local looked out. The Fanatic shot him, waggled his gun at Rohant. "You, Hunter. Pull him out," he snapped. "Move."
Rohant didn't move. "I'm going to bring Sassa down. Stay loose, will you?"
"What is this Sassa?"
"Bird. Raptor." The hawk came dropping through the trees, perched on the canopy. "You see." Rohant got to his feet, hauled the dead local out of the flit and, tossed him to the ground. Arms crossed over his chest, he faced the Fanatic. "Anything else?"
"Get the bird away from the flit and keep it away from one if you want it alive."
"He comes with us. Like the cats."
The Fanatic stared at him, his face deeply shadowed, illuminated by the dim light coming from inside the canopy and the backleak from the flare. "I see. You and the others move away from the flit, take your livestock with you. Don't make me shoot, the noise might bring company none of us would like. I repeat, I will NOT allow the Gospah to have you. I'll kill you if I think Kwantawiyal is about to get his hands on you."
Expressionless and silent, he watched them move away from the flit; when he considered they were far enough off, he stopped them and backed toward the hatch. Without taking the gun or the light off them he sat in the opening and drew his legs up, then maneuvered himself inside. "Hunter, come here. Climb in and sit at the offseat, put your hands on the board and wait."
He gave Rohant no chance to jump him and when the Dyslaeror was in place, he called Shadith, then Kikun. Getting them into the flit was tricky and difficult, but he managed it without losing control over them, which considering the storm and the darkness and the cramped quarters was an impressive feat of juggling.
"Hunter, call your beasts. One humors you for the moment, but if you wish them alive and intact, don't push."
Rohant snorted. Staccato whistles repeated in groups of two brought the cats leaping inside. He settled them by his chair where they lay grooming each other, happier than they'd been anytime since the rain began. He had more trouble with Sassa, had to land him on the rim and walk him inside. Announcing his disapproval of all this with short sharp cries and ruffled feathers but pleased to be out of the wet, Sassa let Rohant coax him onto one of the seats with no more than a token protest.
The Fanatic pulled the hatch shut and locked it.
The space under the canopy filled with the smell of wet fur and feathers-and the anger-musk boiling off Rohant.
"Singer." The husky hoarse voice brought Shadith's head around.
"What?"
"Do you know anything about these machines?"
"Why me?"
He answered with iron patience. "Being female and a child you are less apt to let pride lead you into foolishness. Well?"
"I can fly this one, yes. Give me a minute to look over the board."
"Do it."
She tapped up the lights, nodded to herself. Export job, not much more than three buttons and a lever, as foolproof as you can get, probably sealed drives, unit replacement when something breaks. Wonder how long it's been since anything on this piece of junk has been replaced?
Clicking her tongue with disgust, she ran her fingers across the stained and gritty board (carefully not-thinking about what those smears were made of), flicked on the drives and listened to the whine build up louder and louder with an ominous beat in it that set her nerves twanging.
She started to say something, clamped her teeth together at a loud yell from outside. Two locals came from the trees and rushed at them. Swearing under her breath, she fed in some power and felt the flit wobble as the ragged drives began lifting them slowly too slowly off the ground. Despite her misgivings, when she saw one of the shadowy forms raise his rifle, she turned up the feed. The pellet ricocheted from the nose of the flit, went screaming away, then the drives kicked in, the lift suddenly accelerated and the flit went surging into the tree tops. Breath catching in her throat, she managed a nervous laugh. "Nothing like a little encouragement." She took the flit crashing through the springy fronds as more pellets went whinging off the sides or whistling through the canopy-one cut a hot line across her arm. "Sar!"
The lumbering flit was a beast to fly, with all the responsiveness and airworthiness of a mud turtle, but she wrestled it a bodylength above the fronds and brought it to a precarious hover. Over her shoulder she said, "Where now?"
"You see the compass?"
"Of course. So?"
"It's corrected for these latitudes and true north, so you don't need a deviation chart. Do exactly as one tells you. Put the nose on and proceed along that line until one tells you to turn again." A lot more than I need to know, you makbee minkha. Deviation is your problem, no sweat for me. lust give me the line. Why southwest? Kikun said we should head east. The coast is that way. I don't want to go away from the coast, we need to get to that city, what'd Ginny call it? Ah. Aina'iril. Someone's going to have to do something about this idiot. Someone… I suppose that'll turn out to be me. Ya-yah, that crease burns. Got to get a bandage on it when I have a minute. I'm leaking like a dripping faucet.. blub blub. Gods, who knows what filth is getting into my blood!
Shadith brought the flit around, flew for a few minutes longer on manual, listening to the laboring of the drives. "This thing sounds sicker than before. You think those d'dabs might've hit something?"
The Fanatic settled his gun on the armrest. "It flies, forget the rest." There was a throaty purr in his voice; he wasn't trusting her an antiquated inch, but she thought she could feel him developing a kind of proprietary fondness for her.
"Hmp." She waggled the lever, clicked her tongue as the otto:P refused to engage. She repeated the shift several times, feeling about for the catch. It finally kicked in with a lurch and a shriek that made her wince. "That's the question, friend. How long it's going to keep flying."
"One will deal with that when one can't avoid it any longer."