I raised the glass and searched the base of the butte. There they were, looking back at us.
"See them?" Morley asked.
"Yeah. Burying their dead. Can't make out anybody special except Saucerhead."
Zeck Zack took a cue from that and galloped off toward the butte shadow where the major was returning the earth's children to her.
"Trying to ingratiate himself," Morley said. "So you'll be a little loose on the rein when the time comes."
"When do you figure he'll run?"
"When we start into the nest. We won't dare waste time chasing him. And with us keeping them busy, his chance of making it would be good. This is his country and he can still pick them up and put them down when he wants."
I watched Dojango for a minute. He was collecting souvenirs. He had cut the dew claws off a unicorn, had knocked out some of its razor teeth, and was trying to figure how to take its horn. That would bring fifty marks bounty in Full Harbor and more as a curio in TunFaire.
"What are you going to do about it?" Morley asked.
"Let him run. I won't have any more use for him."
Zeck Zack came prancing back. He reported that four soldiers and the major had survived, and four other men as well. I knew about Saucerhead. One of the others sounded like Vasco. The remaining two could have been anybody.
"Survived don't mean unscathed, either," the centaur said. "They got cut up pretty good."
"What about the women?"
"Not much scathing there. A little frayed around the edges, as anyone would be after that."
Morley muttered, "Bet we can thank that dope Saucerhead for that."
Zeck Zack went right on. "One of them kept screaming at me to tell you she going to crack your eggs, fry them, and feed them to the unicorns. When the boss soldier tried to shut her up, she bit him and gave him a knee in his eggs."
"My lovely little Rose. What a wonderful wife she'll make some poor sod. Well. Let's go." I urged my mount to face east. Our unity had begun to unravel.
"She does bounce back, doesn't she?" Morley said in a tone that sounded suspiciously like admiration. "You just going to ride off?"
"Yes. The major isn't going to make prisoners of anybody again. That's going to turn into a three-way marriage of convenience that'll be as rowdy as those marriages get. But they'll take care of each other. Do you think you could get Doris and Marsha to pull a wagon? We might have a use for it."
The one wagon was not damaged, just overturned and lacking a team.
"It's army. We wouldn't want to get caught with it."
"We won't."
He spoke to the grolls. They responded in what sounded like impolite terms. He told me, "They want to collect unicorn horns. Those could be more use than any wagon. Stick one of them in the heart with a horn and it's all over, sure as silver. And they can't smell horns coming."
"Deal, then. Wagon for horns. Those people back there are going to be burying and bickering for a long time."
The grolls took the deal. Crash! Down went the wagon onto its wheels. The grolls scampered from unicorn to unicorn, perhaps dreaming of buying a brewery.
A pair of adolescent females, outraged by the trophy taking and not too badly injured, charged out of the wash. It was disconcerting, watching the absent-minded way the grolls clubbed them to death.
44
We didn't try for the nest mesa that day. I wanted to go in early, when they had settled for the day, not late when they were about to awaken. Once they were soundly asleep, while the sun was high, it was almost impossible to wake them. Even the elder bloodslaves would have trouble responding.
So legend went.
We got out of sight of our pursuers, then went to work hiding our trail and laying false scents. Zeck Zack worked hard making himself useful. He knew all the tricks. He even had the grolls hand-carry the wagon two miles off to leave false wheel marks.
We set up for the night atop the corpse of a small butte not more than two miles from the face of the nest mesa. My head throbbed with the nearness of Kayean. From that vantage I could see most of the scrap facing the mesa and our back-trail.
"No fire tonight," Zeck Zack said as I crouched behind the spy glass trying to tell what kind of luck the major was having. "Also scatter a little and stay near the stones that got the hottest during the day. That is how they find their prey from a distance. Through their warmth. It would be wise, too, to keep too much metal from accumulating in one place."
"You wouldn't give them a holler, would you? To score a few points?"
"I've never been known for an inclination toward suicide. I am known to be quick-tempered, rash, foolish, sometimes even stupid. But not suicidal. I enjoy the good things in life too much." Wearing a distant look, he echoed himself, "Too much."
"You might remember that the major wants you as much as he wants me. Your blackmailing priest was a buddy of his and you know it," I added.
"He has to get out of the Cantard before he can cause me any grief. He has to get through tonight. Last night he was too strong for them. Tonight he won't be. Especially if they haven't fed for a while. And they have not. The two who came to Full Harbor could not restrain themselves, though their attacks put them at great risk."
"Why would they spot him more quickly than us?"
"Eleven humans are easier to find than one."
"Oh." The day was getting on toward failing. Those who were tracking us were having no luck and seemed now to be more interested in settling for the night.
"There." The centaur pointed. A darkness was rising from the mesa face.
I shifted the glass. "Bats. A billion bats." And coming up from a point right on the line through my head, my mystical connection with Kayean.
Morley came in from scouting around. For a city boy he caught on fast. I repeated the centaur's advice. He gave Zeck Zack the fish eye, then nodded curtly. "Makes sense. Don't sleep too soundly tonight, Garrett."
Right. With us here on the lip of it, I'd be lucky to get the old forty winks. You never admit it to the guys you're with, but you get scared. Damned scared. And this time there might be a bigger stake than just death. I could be dead and have to keep walking.
If you ask me, the difference between a hero and a coward is that a hero finds some damnfool way to con himself into going ahead instead of doing the sensible thing.
They never did give me much credit for sense.
I did sleep, because a hand shaking my shoulder woke me up. Morley.
I heard it before he told me. A hell of a row over by the foot of the mesa. Gods, how I had wanted to run over and warn them when they had chosen to camp less than a mile from the gate to the nest. But, like Zeck Zack, I am not renowned for my suicidal tendencies.
As Morley said, the women were at little risk, and they were the only ones we had to give a damn about. Still, I had a soft spot for Saucerhead Tharpe. Saucerhead was implausibly romantic. He deserved preservation as the last of a knightly breed.
I got up where I could see just as the last of two campfires yonder died. Not two minutes after that the screaming and banging stopped. And about two minutes after that somebody finally said something. Dojango: "Guess we don't have to worry about the army anymore."
No. I guess not.
Nobody got any more sleep. I stared at the stars and wondered about the size of certain mouths, and about how much Rose, Vasco, and the major had yakked it up among themselves. Between them they had enough to work out what I meant to do. Did they have guts enough to stay buttoned up on the chance I might get them out?