They had deliberately made the entrance as small as possible, just barely large enough for him to squeeze inside. That meant that there wasn’t enough room for anyone to stand watch except Blade, because she was the one near the entrance, and he was crammed so far back that he really couldn’t see anything. As thunder roared and the rain fell down mere hand-lengths away from their noses, they looked at one another in the semidarkness.
“There’s no point in really standing watch,” he ventured. “I mean, one of us should try and stay awake, just in case one of us can hear something, but there’s no point in trying to look out. We made that mat too well; I can’t see anything from where I am.”
“I can’t see that much,” she admitted. “Are you sleepy? Your ears are better than mine; if you could take second shift, I can take first.”
“I have a full stomach, of course I’m sleepy,” he retorted, forbearing to mention the fact that he was afraid that if he didn’t try to sleep now, his stiffening muscles would make sleep impossible. In fact, he fully expected to wake up about the time she was ready to sleep. His sore legs and back would see to it that he didn’t oversleep.
That was precisely what happened. By that time, she was ready for sleep, warm and relatively cushioned, with him curled around her. She dropped off almost immediately, while he concentrated on keeping his muscles relaxed so that they didn’t go into cramps. That was quite enough to keep him awake all by itself, but the position he was in did not agree with his broken wing either. It probably wasn’t causing any damage, but the wing twinged persistently. He caught himself nearly whining in pain once, reducing it to a long wheeze and shiver.
So he was fully awake and wary when the usual silence descended outside in the canopy, signaling the arrival of the shadowy hunters.
Of all of the nights so far, this one was perhaps the most maddening and the most frightening. He was essentially blind, and he and Blade were curled in an all-too-accessible hole in the ground. If anything found them and really was determined to dig them out, it could.
But as he strained his ears, he heard nothing in the way of movement outside the mat of vines. He hoped that if anything heard them, their breathing and tiny movements might be taken for those of small animals that were too much effort to dig out, and which might have a rear entrance to this den through which they could escape.
I wish I’d thought of that and dug one. That might have been a smarter thing to do than rig those traps.
As the moments stretched out unbearably, he became acutely sensitive to every sound, more so than he ever remembered being before. So when he heard the deadfall “go,” it sounded as loud as a peal of thunder.
And what was more, he clearly heard the very peculiar cry of pain that followed.
It wasn’t a yelp, and it certainly wasn’t a shout. There were elements of both a hiss and a howl in it, and it was not a cry he had ever heard before in his life. It startled him, for he could not for a moment imagine what kind of animal could have made such a sound. It cut off rather quickly, so quickly that he wondered if he had managed to actually kill something with his trap.
Possible, but not likely, not unless our “friend” out there was extraordinarily unlucky.
Then he heard more sounds; another thud, tearing and breaking noises, something being dragged briefly, another hiss. Then nothing. His skin crawled under his feathers.
More silence, while his beak ached from being held clamped shut so tightly that his jaw muscles locked, and then, when he least expected it, the canopy sounds returned.
He waited, on fire with tension, as the faint light of dawn began to appear in the tiny gaps in their covering. When he couldn’t bear it any longer, he nudged Blade with his beak.
She came awake instantly, her good hand going to her knife.
“I heard the deadfall go,” he whispered. “I think we got something. Whether it was one of them, whether it’s still there—I can’t tell. If it is still there, I don’t think it’s still alive, though.”
She nodded, and cocked her head to listen to the sounds of the forest. “I’d say we’re safe to come out,” she said. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’m likely to be.” They’d discussed this last night; she was going to come out in a rushing attack, just in case there was something lying in wait for them, and he was supposed to follow. It had all seemed perfectly reasonable and appropriate last night. Now, with his muscles so sore, stiff, and cramped, he wasn’t certain he was going to be able to crawl out, much less rush out.
She drew her knife and wriggled around until she was crouched in place. With a yell, she threw off the mat and leaped out—inadvertently kicking him in the stomach as she did so.
His attack-cry was considerably spoiled by this. Instead of a fierce scream of defiance, all he could emit was a pitiful grunt, remarkably similar to a belch. But he managed to follow her out, if not in a rush, at least in a hurry.
There wasn’t anything there, which, although an anticlimax, was also a relief. “Sorry,” she said, apologetically. “My foot slipped.’1
What could he say? “It happens,” he managed, as graciously as possible—not very, but he doubted that she blamed him at the moment for not speaking with an Ambassador’s tact and dissimulation. “Let’s go check that deadfall.”
When they got close to where the trap had been, it was quite clear that it was going to be empty, for the remains of the vegetation they had used to conceal it were scattered all over the area. The trap itself was quite empty—though there was a trace of blood on the bark of one of the logs.
“We marked him,” Blade said, squatting down beside it to examine it further. “How badly—well, probably not too badly. Maybe a scrape, or a minor cut. Possibly a broken bone. But we did hurt him a little.”
She stood up and looked toward the tree where the decoys were hidden. “We’d better go see how they reacted.”
When they reached the base of the tree, they finally saw something of what their trackers could do, and some clues as to their nature.
Persistent. And . . . possibly angry. But not foolishly persistent.
There were scratches, deep ones, in the bark of the tree, about twice as high up on the trunk as Blade was tall. So the decoys had worked, at least for a while, and the hunters had been unable to resist trying to get at the quarry when it was openly in sight.
Or else they were so angry when one of their number got caught in the deadfall that they tried to get to us no matter how difficult it was going to be.
Now they knew this much: the hunters could leap respectable distances, but they couldn’t climb the tree trunk, which at least meant that they were not great cats. The ground at the foot of the tree was torn by claws, either as the hunters tore at the ground in frustration, or when they tried to leap up to drag their prey down out of the tree.