RAHM! THE ONE COMING UP
ON THE RIGHT OF —
Rahm swung his ax, and one of the feinters dove aside and rolled away. The other danced back. And Rahm saw the big soldier, crouched low, coming at him — for an instant.
It was a very long instant, though.
Beneath the helmet’s rim, the soldier’s eyes, as gray as stone, seemed only a moment away from magma red. The effort that twisted the face (the soldier’s teeth were bared), seemed to Rahm an image of absolute, blood-stopping evil.
Recognizing it, Rahm felt himself lose purchase with his right foot on the grass and earth that had grown so black and slippery. The part of him that knew how his own blows were timed, saw, as clearly as if it had been written out on one of Ienbar’s scrolls, that the only back-swing he could get in would not connect with any vital part — maybe knock aside the running man’s forward arm, if that. This mad creature — who had started to holler now — would collide with him, surely cut him, and likely stab him and stab him and stab again …
Then something fell between them — ropes? But they were moving, Rahm saw, backward, away from him. Rahm glanced left and right. The ropes — tied together in some sort of net — had taken several others of the soldiers, too.
If a big man runs head-on into a rope net, the net should give some — two feet, three feet, maybe even twice that. The berserk soldier was no more than five feet from Rahm when the net caught him and started sweeping back.
The big soldier hit those ropes as though they were solid. His free hand grasped a cord near his head. His sword arm went directly through, between thick strands. If you were a wall, and someone ran smack against you, that’s the only other way you’d ever see that expression on a man’s face: the jaw-jarring jerk — when his chest hit — shook Uk’s whole body. The sword flew forward from his hand — Rahm winced to the side, slipping more.
But the blade went clear of Rahm’s right hip, by a palm’s width — before it slid, spinning, back from grass onto gravel. Rahm reeled again — but kept his balance.
Winged Ones — fifteen, twenty of them, or more — pulled the vine web back across the common. Soldiers stumbled back behind it. At the sides Winged Ones ran with it. At the top others flew with it. Some cords in the web were of a lighter color than the rest; and from the way some soldiers within were struggling to pull one loose from a face or an arm or a, leg, Rahm realized in a strangely attenuated knowledge, those lines were cave-creature filaments! The Winged Ones at the net’s top now descended, making the web a cage. Within were at least twenty-five Myetran soldiers. And the Winged Ones had their own, strangely gripped blades —
“… Friend Rahm!” It was not Kire’s voice, but a familiar mew.
Gasping, Rahm turned to see, like a huge and moving shadow beside him, wings spreading, beating in dawnlight —
“…Vortcir?”
“Jump on, friend Rahm!”
While the wings turned before him, Rahm dropped the ax and staggered forward. He threw himself at the furry shoulders, caught himself. As they lifted, he called out, sliding, holding his breath then letting it all out: “…Vortcir! I cannot hold thee — !”
“Of course you can!” declared, the Handsman. And he banked, so that they moved in a far gentler rise; and Rahm, pulling himself forward on his friend’s back, sucking in exhausted gasps, looked over Vortcir’s shoulder. They sailed left, swooped around, then sailed right, then left again, gaining only a dozen feet each sweep. Wings labored either side of Rahm, as Vortcir circled and circled the common.
On the ground, with their long blades, Winged Ones were not being kind to the soldiers under the net. But Rahm’s eyes fixed on the lieutenant.
Kire stood, head hanging and powergun pointed straight into the air. He looked as exhausted as Rahm felt. Slowly Kire’s arm went down — and his head rose — so that the gun was pointed at the Winged Ones fighting around the netted Myetrans. There were far more Winged Ones about than Myetrans …!
KIRE, NO — !
(Vortcir’s translucent ears jerked. Beneath Rahm, the jerk went through all of Vortcir’s body, as if it were a moment’s pain.) Kire’s arm dropped to his side. Then his gloved hand, with the gun, started to rise again.
KIRE!
(Vortcir’s ears flicked.) The gun dropped again.
And over Vortcir’s shoulder, Rahm saw Naä reach the ground at the light tower’s base and run toward Kire, to take his arm. He saw Kire try to shake her off, once — saw her take his shoulder again…
Vortcir soared higher, and, beyond the trees and hut roofs, Rahm could see the Myetrans’ tents. Moving among them — and occasionally taking off from among them — were not Myetrans, but Winged Ones! Not twenty or thirty, but what seemed hundreds!
“Look there, beside us!” Vortcir called in the wind.
Rahm looked out to his left. By some kind of rope, two Winged Ones pulled something through the air — a kind of glider. It was a larger version of the wood and leather toys Rahm had seen skimming between the flyers in the mountains. Much larger, though — larger than one of the Winged Ones! Piled on the upper side of this one — and there were more of them, many more of them in the air — was a bundle of net. On another was a rack of long-handled knives. On still others, were bound-up balls with spikes jutting from them, whose use Rahm could not even imagine.
“You smell of blood,” Vortcir remarked. “But that’s better than your skinny friend who stinks of garbage. And — ” because, on Vortcir’s back, Rahm had started to shake and could now see only shimmering and shifting cloud and light — “you are crying.” Though — certainly anyone could hear — they were the grinning sobs of relief.
“What’s going to happen to us? Hey, Uk — what’s going to happen? I’m bleeding bad! I’m bleeding bad, now — what’s going to happen!”
“Shut up, boy — !”
“Shut your mouth — and be quiet!”
“What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen — ”
There was a grunt in the darkness. “You want to know what’s going to happen? You’re going to have a red hot fever by tonight. And in three days that gash in your leg is going to be filled with little white worms. And you’re going to have flies crawling all over you. And your mouth’s gonna dry up, and you’re going to cry for water, only if somebody brings it to you, you won’t be able to drink it; and if somebody pours it in your mouth it isn’t going to make no difference, and you’re gonna hang around like that for seven, eight, nine days, with your tongue cracking and bleeding, turned all black — then you’re going to die. That’s what’s going to happen. An’ I just hope I’m dead already when it does — probably will be. Cause what I got’s a lot worse than what you do.”
“Don’t tell him that, Uk. You don’t have to tell him — ”
“Hey, Uk? That’s not what’s going to happen — is it, Uk? That’s not what’s gonna happen…? Oh, no — don’t tell me that!”
“The boy don’t need to know that kind of thing — ”
“Then why’d he ask, if he didn’t want to know? They pulled their damned blades — when they had us under that net, hacking at us. They didn’t cut to kill — you can’t fight a war like that! You can’t do it like that! That’s not the way to do it!”