They smelled the smoke before they heard the flames, because a breeze from the sea was lifting it inland. By the time they reached the edge of the trees they could hear the fire, a deep and greedy roar.
«Why didn't they do this last night?» said Lee. «They could have barbecued us in our sleep.»
«I guess they want to catch us alive,» Grumman replied, stripping a branch of its leaves so he could use it as a walking stick, «and they're waiting to see where we leave the forest.»
And sure enough, the drone of the zeppelin soon became audible even over the sound of the flames and of their own labored breathing, for they were hurrying now, clambering upward over roots and rocks and fallen tree trunks and stopping only to gather breath. Sayan Kotor, flying high, swooped down to tell them how much progress they were making, and how far behind the flames were; though it wasn't long before they could see smoke above the trees behind them, and then a streaming banner of flame.
Creatures of the forest — squirrels, birds, wild boar — were fleeing with them, and a chorus of squealings, shriekings, alarm calls of every sort rose around them. The two travelers struggled on toward the edge of the tree line, which was not far ahead; and then they reached it, as wave after wave of heat rolled up at them from the roaring billows of flame that now soared fifty feet into the air. Trees blazed like torches; the sap in their veins boiled and split them asunder, the pitch in the conifers caught like naphtha, the twigs seemed to blossom with ferocious orange flowers all in a moment.
Gasping, Lee and Grumman forced themselves up the steep slope of rocks and scree. Half the sky was obscured by smoke and heat shimmer, but high above there floated the squat shape of the one remaining zeppelin — too far away, Lee thought hopefully, to see them even through binoculars.
The mountainside rose sheer and impassable ahead of them. There was only one route out of the trap they were in, and that was a narrow defile ahead, where a dry riverbed emerged from a fold in the cuffs.
Lee pointed, and Grumman said, «My thoughts exactly, Mr. Scoresby.»
His daemon, gliding and circling above, tipped her wings and sped to the ravine on a billowing updraft. The men didn't pause, climbing on as quickly as they could, but Lee said, «Excuse me for asking this if it's impertinent, but I never knew anyone whose daemon could do that except witches. But you're no witch. Was that something you learned to do, or did it come natural?»
«For a human being, nothing comes naturally,» said Grumman. «We have to learn everything we do. Sayan Kotor is telling me that the ravine leads to a pass. If we get there before they see us, we could escape yet.»
The eagle swooped down again, and the men climbed higher. Hester preferred to find her own way over the rocks, so Lee followed where she led, avoiding the loose stones and moving as swiftly as he could over the larger rocks, making all the time for the little gulch.
Lee was anxious about Grumman, because the other man was pale and drawn and breathing hard. His labors in the night had drained a lot of his energy. How far they could keep going was a question Lee didn't want to face; but when they were nearly at the entrance to the ravine, and actually on the edge of the dried riverbed, he heard a change in the sound of the zeppelin.
«They've seen us,» he said.
And it was like receiving a sentence of death. Hester stumbled, even surefooted, firm-hearted Hester stumbled and faltered. Grumman leaned on the stick he carried and shaded his eyes to look back, and Lee turned to look too.
The zeppelin was descending fast, making for the slope directly below them. It was clear that the pursuers intended to capture them, not kill them, for a burst of gunfire just then would have finished both of them in a second. Instead, the pilot brought the airship skillfully to a hover just above the ground, at the highest point in the slope where he safely could, and from the cabin door a stream of blue-uniformed men jumped down, their wolf daemons beside them, and began to climb.
Lee and Grumman were six hundred yards above them, and not far from the entrance to the ravine. Once they reached it, they could hold the soldiers off as long as their ammunition held out; but they had only one rifle.
«They're after me, Mr. Scoresby,» said Grumman, «not you. If you give me the rifle and surrender yourself, you'll survive. They're disciplined troops. You'll be a prisoner of war.»
Lee ignored that and said, «Git moving. Make the gulch and I'll hold them off from the mouth while you find your way out the other end. I brought you this far, and I ain't going to sit back and let 'em catch you now.»
The men below were moving up quickly, for they were fit and rested. Grumman nodded.
«I had no strength left to bring the fourth one down» was all he said, and they moved quickly into the shelter of the gulch.
«Just tell me before you go,» said Lee, «because I won't be easy till I know. What side I'm fighting for I cain't tell, and I don't greatly care. Just tell me this: What I'm a-going to do now, is that going to help that little girl Lyra, or harm her?»
«It's going to help her,» said Grumman.
«And your oath. You won't forget what you swore to me?»
«I won't forget.»
«Because, Dr. Grumman, or John Parry, or whatever name you take up in whatever world you end up in, you be aware of this: I love that little child like a daughter. If I'd had a child of my own, I couldn't love her more. And if you break that oath, whatever remains of me will pursue whatever remains of you, and you'll spend the rest of eternity wishing you never existed. That's how important that oath is.»
«I understand. And you have my word.»
«Then that's all I need to know. Go well.»
The shaman held out his hand, and Lee shook it. Then Grumman turned and made his way up the gulch, and Lee looked around for the best place to make his stand.
«Not the big boulder, Lee,» said Hester. «You cain't see to the right from there, and they could rush us. Take the smaller one.»
There was a roaring in Lee's ears that had nothing to do with the conflagration in the forest below, or with the laboring drone of the zeppelin trying to rise again. It had to do with his childhood, and the Alamo. How often he and his companions had played that heroic battle, in the ruins of the old fort, taking turns to be Danes and French! His childhood was coming back to him, with a vengeance. He took out the Navajo ring of his mother's and laid it on the rock beside him. In the old Alamo games, Hester had often been a cougar or a wolf, and once or twice a rattlesnake, but mostly a mockingbird. Now —
«Quit daydreaming and take a sight,» she said. «This ain't play, Lee.»
The men climbing the slope had fanned out and were moving more slowly, because they saw the problem as well as he did. They knew they'd have to capture the gulch, and they knew that one man with a rifle could hold them off for a long time. Behind them, to Lee's surprise, the zeppelin was still laboring to rise. Maybe its buoyancy was going, or maybe the fuel was running low, but either way it hadn't taken off yet, and it gave him an idea.
He adjusted his position and sighted along the old Winchester until he had the port engine mounting plumb hi view, and fired. The crack raised the soldiers' heads as they climbed toward him, but a second later the engine suddenly roared and then just as suddenly seized and died. The zeppelin lurched over to one side. Lee could hear the other engine howling, but the airship was grounded now.
The soldiers had halted and taken cover as well as they could. Lee could count them, and he did: twenty-five. He had thirty bullets.
Hester crept up close to his left shoulder.
«I'll watch this way,» she said.
Crouched on the gray boulder, her ears flat along her back, she looked like a little stone herself, gray-brown and inconspicuous, except for her eyes. Hester was no beauty; she was about as plain and scrawny as a hare could be; but her eyes were marvelously colored, gold-hazel flecked with rays of deepest peat brown and forest green. And now those eyes were looking down at the last landscape they'd ever see: a barren slope of brutal tumbled rocks, and beyond it a forest on fire. Not a blade of grass, not a speck of green to rest on.