Claude said, “Your calf muscle is all slashed to hell. And you can bet those tusks were poison-filthy to boot. There’s no way we can patch this out here, Peo. Your only chance is professional care back with Amerie.”
Cursing softly, Burke rested his huge gray head against the cypress and let his eyes close. “My own fault. Stupid schmuck, I was concentrating on covering our scent by taking us through that patch of stinking pitcher plants. Watching for hoe-tusker sign, traces of bear-dogs… and we get ambushed by a goddam hog!”
“Silence, child,” Madame ordered. “You derange my stitching.”
“It was no ordinary porker,” Claude said. He wrapped the chiefs leg in porofilm after packing the wound with antibiotic floe. The decamole leg splint was already inflated and ready to be fastened in place. “I think the beast that did this job on you was none other than Kubanochoerus, the giant one-horned Caucasian boar. It was supposed to’ve been extinct by the Pliocene.”
“Huh! Tell that to Steffi, poor feygeleh.”
Madame said, “I will finish tending Peo, Claude. See to Martha.”
The paleontologist went over to the hysterical engineer, studied her swaying, wild-eyed actions for a moment, and saw what had to be done. He grasped her by one wrist and yanked her roughly to her feet “Will you shut up, girl? Your stupid bawling will bring the soldiers on us! Do you think Steffi would want that?”
Martha choked in outraged astonishment and drew back one arm to slap the old man’s face. “How do you know what Steffi would want? You didn’t know him! But I did, and he was gentle and good and he took care of me when my damn guts were, when I was sick. And now look at him. Look at him!” Her ravaged, once beautiful face crumpled in fresh sobs. Martha’s momentary fury at Claude dissolved and her arm fell. “Steffi, oh, Steffi,” she whispered, then fell against the sturdy old man. “One minute he was walking along and smiling over his shoulder at me, and the next…”
The gray monster had burst without warning from a thick stand of reeds and charged the middle of the line of hikers, tossing Stefanko into the air and then savaging him. It had switched its attack to Peo when the chief drew his machette and tried to stop the animal’s awful gobbling. Fitharn had burst into illusory flame, driving the boar off the natural causeway into the swamp shallows. Felice and Richard followed the fireball with drawn bows, leaving the others to help the wounded. But there was no helping Stefanko.
Claude held the shuddering Martha in his arms, then pulled out the tail of his bush shirt and used it to wipe her streaming eyes. He led her to the mossy hollow where Madame was working on Burke and made her sit down. The knees of the engineer’s buckskin trousers were stained with dark blood and muck, but there were also bright scarlet patches down around both ankles.
“You’d better have a look at her, Madame,” Claude said. “I’ll take care of Steffi.”
He got a Mylar blanket from his own pack and went to the body, fighting to control his own rage and revulsion. He had known Stefanko only four days; but the ready competence of the man and the warmth of his personality had made him a congenial trail-mate on the trek from High Vrazel to the Rhine bottomland. Now Claude could only do his best to smooth the contorted face back into its accustomed smooth lineaments. No need to look so surprised any more, Steffi boy. Just relax and rest. Rest in peace.
A horde of flies had descended upon the ripped mass of intestines and moved only with sluggish reluctance as Claude rolled Stefanko’s body onto the metallic sheet. Using the heat-beam of his powerpack, the old man welded the edges of the Mylar into a bag. The job was nearly finished when Fitharn, Richard, and Felice came squelching back out of the jungle.
Felice held up a ridged yellowish object like an ivory marlin-spike. “We got the fuckard for what good it does.”
Richard shook his head in awe. “A pig the size of a goddam ox! Musta weighed eight hundred kilos. Took five arrows to finish it off after Pegleg trapped it in a thicket. I still can’t figure how anything that big could have snuck up on us unawares.”
“They’re intelligent devils,” Fitharn growled. “It must have followed us downwind. If I’d had my wits about me I’d have sensed it. But I was thinking about how we’d have to hurry to cross the river before the morning mist lifted.”
“Well, we’re stuck here now that it’s broad daylight,” Felice said. She held up the trophy horn. “This fellow saw to that.”
“Now what?” Richard wanted to know.
Felice had undipped the arrows from the holder on her compound bow and she now knelt to dip the stained glassy heads in the water beside the trail. “We’ll have to hide out on this side until sundown and then cross. The moon’s nearly full tonight. We could probably get over the narrow strip of east-bank lowland in a couple of hours and then bivouac among the rocks at the foot of the Black Forest scarp for the rest of the night.”
The Firvulag gave an exclamation. “You’re not thinking of going on?”
She glared at him. “You’re not thinking of turning back?”
Claude said, “Steffi’s dead. Peo’s in a bad way. He’s going to have to be taken back to Amerie by one of us, or he’ll lose his leg, or worse.”
“That still leaves five of us,” Felice said. She frowned, tapping the boar horn against her buckskin-clad thigh. “Pegleg could go back with the Chief. He could get help from his people along the way. And before you leave,” she said to the little man, “tell us how to get to the stronghold of this guy Sugoll.”
“It won’t be easy.” The Firvulag wagged his head. “The Black Forest is a lot more rugged than the Vosges. Sugoll’s place is up on the northeastern slope of the Feldberg, where the Paradise River comes off the snowfields. Bad country.”
“The Tanu won’t be looking for us on the other side of the Rhine,” she said. “Once we’re across, we probably won’t have to worry about any more gray-torc patrols.”
“There are still Howlers,” Fitharn said. “And at night, the Hunt. Airborne, if Velteyn leads it. If the Hunt spots you in the open, you’re finished.”
“Can’t we travel mostly by day?” Richard suggested. “Madame Guderian’s metafunctions can warn us of hostile Firvulag.”
The old woman had come up to the group, an expression of deep concern upon her face. “I am not so worried about les Criards as about Sugoll himself. Without his help, we may never locate the Danube in time. But if Fitharn does not accompany us, Sugoll may feel that he can ignore the King’s directive with impunity. And there is another matter for grave concern… Martha. She has begun to hemorrhage from the shock. Among the Tanu, she was forced to give birth to four children in quick succession and her female organs…”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Felice impatiently. “If she rests, she’ll pull out of it. And we’ll take our chance with Sugoll.”
“Martha is greatly weakened,” the old woman persisted. “She will become worse before she is better. This has happened before. It would be best if she returns with Peo and Fitharn.”
Richard looked dubious. “But now that Stefanko’s gone, she’s the only technician we’ve got. Without her help, God knows how long it might take me to trace the circuits on that exotic aircraft. And if the zapper needs work, I wouldn’t have a prayer of fixing it.”
“The expedition could be postponed,” Fitharn said.
“That would mean waiting a whole year!” Felice blazed. “I won’t do it! I’ll go get the damn Spear all by myself!”
Back at the cypress, Martha cried out to them, “We can’t postpone the search, Madame. Anything could happen in a year. I’ll be all right in a day or two. If I get a little help, I know I can make it.”