Shadith stirred. The Ciocan's hand closed on her shoulder, the pressure comforting. "And save our own necks," she said.
"Yes. Along with heart, brain, and liver. The habit one mentioned, remember? Part of their belief system involves eating their enemies, those they can capture intact and unpoisoned. Absorbing their Hitsa, they call it. Hitsa is self-power, soul, and lifeforce combined. If they can't sell us, they'll eat us. They might even prefer that, you three have awesome Hitsa."
"Sari"
"Yes."
Rohant ran a thumbclaw along a mustache tail. "A couple of problems I can see. How do we get to them and how do we avoid spooking them?"
"We take the poleboats I told you about. You said you could use a pole."
"Can." He used a corner of the blanket to blot the-drip from his nose, sneezed suddenly into the wool, wiped his face again. "Dio! I hate this cold. Not without some noise. Especially when I don't know the layout or where the hell I'm going."
"I see. Shadow, that Talent of yours, can you provide a distraction so we can reach them without being spotted?"
"Oh, yes. But you'd better give me some idea what they'd do if the local life came swarming at them. I don't want to scare them into killing Kikun and running."
"They won't, as long as they don't see the Hand-behind. Which means we don't give them time to think about it." Asteplikota got to his feet. "We should wait till near dawn before we move, let them get settled to sleep. Anything to add, Ciocan? No? Good. Shadow, you took a little over an hour to find them and get back; did you run a straight line or turn a lot of bends? Will it take us longer poling?"
"Pretty convoluted. I don't know. Depends on how fast you pole and where the channels are. At a guess, half an hour, not much longer."
"I see. Get some sleep, both of you, one will wake you when it's time." Chapter 12. Running to the rescue, then just running
The poleboats slid across the thick black water with the soft sound of silk clad thighs rubbing together. Standing in the assymetric rear and working the pole with a minimum of drip and sweat, resolutely ignoring the ache in his head and the red misery of his nose, Rohant went first (cats riding before him), using his tie with Sassa to guide him through the labyrinthine web of channels. Shadith couldn't do both at the same time-take the expedition to the camp and organize the distraction-so she had to send Sassa ahead to mark the Pariah Camp for Rohant and give him the direction. She was in the second boat, the one Asteplikota was poling, curled by his feet as she mindrode a monster slither. No mere hitching this, she had a full lock on the brain. It had taken her a while to learn how to manage the tentacles and the rest of the swimming behavior, but now that she had these mechanics snapped in place, she forced the beast to expend energy at a punishing rate, raced him through the twisting channels, through tangles of weed and tree roots, drove him across sandy shoals, until he finally reached the deeper water about the islet.
She let him cruise around it, snatching at fish and other swimmers, crunching them and swallowing them, while she used him as a base to seek out and draw toward the islet the distraction she was constructing. She found a nest of watervipers, about twenty poisonous wrigglers long as a man's arm with stubby vestigal legs at intervals along the flat bodies; she brought them writhing across a shallow stream of clear water at the small end of the teardrop islet and into the tangle of trees and brush around the sandy glade at the big end where the Pariahs had their camp; she held them in a knot while she kept hunting. She found a pod of juvenile slithers in their amphibian phase, prodded them from their mud nests and brought them into the grass outside the circle of firelight. She collected small rodents, furwings, flying lizards,, and a swarm of muddaubers, brought them all into the dark around the sleeping Pariah shikwakola. She withdrew a portion of her attention, opened her eyes. "Ready when you are."
"Rohant, stop a minute." Asteplikota held back until the Ciocan planted his pole, then eased up beside the first boat. He brushed a hand over his long blond hair; the fogheavy nightwind was teasing at it, blowing the strands into his eyes. "How close are we? Do you know?"
The Ciocan blotted his nose on the blanket he'd thrown over one shoulder, thought about the question. "Given the channel doesn't change, maybe five minutes off. Far as I can judge." He slapped at questing biters. "Shadow?"
"Mmh?"
"What's happening?"
She struggled to pull enough of herself back so she could think and speak coherently without loosing her hold on the horde; when she answered him, she brought out the words in small units, sorting through the confusing clutter in her head from the dozens of sensory systems she was tied into "Sleepin. Two watch. Itchy.
They know some thing wrong. Noises wrong. Small lives acting funny, I think. Want to take a chance?"
Rohant smothered a sneeze in the blanket. "Where's Kikun?"
"In middle. Stretched flat. Legs neck tied to two trees."
"Can you get a ring round him to keep them off?"
"Instead of attack?"
"Along with it. No use taking them and losing him."
She frowned. Could she do it? She'd been using Sassa as a prime viewpoint so she could see the whole camp and lay out her attack; at the same time she was trying to keep track of the other viewpoints, ruffling through them like cards she was shuffling, clamping down on all those furious and rebellious brains, holding the horde in stasis until it was time to loose it on the Pariahs; she was rapidly finding out what her limits were and beginning to be frightened of what was happening inside her head. Once the attack started, though, she'd probably have more capacity available; the way her captives were churning about, even the mildest of them raging to bite something, she wouldn't have to do much prodding to turn them on the sleepers, especially when the Pariahs started hitting back. Trouble was, Rohant was all too right, there was no point in any of this if Kikun got skewered or poisoned. Her surrogates weren't going to worry about who they chewed on once they started to swarm; she had to set some kind of barrier around him that would keep them off. She reviewed her forces, made up her mind. "E-heh." she said finally. "Can do."
"Good. Pariahs could go for the hostage when the attack starts." He closed his eyes, leaned heavily on the pole. "Ante, you'd better stay with Shadow, she's going to be too busy to watch out for trouble. Shadow, fix on those sentries, the minute you see them getting really nervous or if they start moving toward Kikun, hit them with everything you've got."
She managed a few gasps of laughter, made a face at him. "Yeh papa."
The Pariah stiffened, turned to face toward the boats he still couldn't see. Before he had a chance to move or shout, Shadith sent the swarm of muddaubers bulleting toward him, turning their rage at her for slaving them into a fury at the first target available; at the same time she sent the flying lizards diving at the second watcher. She brought the vipers crawling into the camp and wound them in a deadly ring about Kikun who lay bright-eyed and smiling, who mouthed the words, Heyah, Shadow into the face of the Queen viper rearing over him. She drove the juvenile slithers out of the grass and aimed them at the sleepers and they came squealing their fury, their stubby legs whirring, their claws tearing up gouts of sand, their rows of teeth clamping on, then sawing at head, limb, torso, whatever they first closed on; she brought the horde of rodents into the ring of firelight, sent them leaping at the Pariahs, biting everything they could get their teeth into. The rest of the beasts she'd collected she let fly or crawl as they would, she had enough to do without them.
Rohant drove the blunt bow into the islet, went leaping into the chaos; using Shadith's stunner, tapping it on/off in micro-bursts and careful to keep the stunbeam off the sublife (he didn't want to flatten Shadith through her surrogates), he dropped Pariah after Pariah as the men came out of sleep into confusion and terror. Less than a minute after he hit dry ground he stood in the middle of bodies, counting them. "Seven down, Shadow. Get this zoo out of here, will you?"