Moonrise

little silver moon-medallion as the others. There were two long knives at his belt.

'That's Errol,' Nancy raised her head from his injury. '- Be careful.' Though not saying what Bajazet should be careful about. The boy at least seemed fully human, smiling, blue-eyed, his dark blond hair, stiff with grease and dirt, falling nearly to his shoulders. He appeared fully human, though as their eyes met, Bajazet found the boy's disturbing; they only watched, offering nothing more. A spider's still, attentive, empty look.

Richard suddenly heaved up to all fours, then stood, massive head cocked. 'Dogs,' he said.

Nancy let go of Bajazet's arm. 'Dogs… Prince, now you must run!' She bent, picked up his pack, tossed it to him.

Big Richard brought him his bow and quiver, stood looming over him. He smelled of spoiled meat. 'You run, now,' he said, his voice so deep there was a sort of humming to it. '- Run fast to the crest of this hill… then down its east slope to the valley. A narrow valley, shaded. Go along that, go quickly, and they may not catch you.'

Bajazet was happy to do as he was told, was anxious to run, run from these three self-called 'Persons' as he ran from the king – but his weary legs resisted, content to keep where he was.

The girl shoved him. 'Go! Run! We travel just to the north of you.'

Then, much later than these Made-things had, Bajazet heard hounds' faint baying below. – All this not a dream then, though stranger than a dream, with these creatures speaking… advising him.

But it was as if in a dream that he hung bow and quiver at his shoulder, and began to run away from them, on east across the clearing… then into underbrush. Remembering too late he'd left his blanket behind, Bajazet scrambled up the mountainside, struggling into his pack's straps. He looked back as he reached a stand of evergreens, and saw the three oddities were gone. No sign of them at all, so they might have been only a starvation vision, if it weren't for his aching forehead… the throbbing pain of the girl's fanged bite.

'We travel just to the north of you.' As they must have for days, and seen he was fed and kept warm as he was hunted. – They must have had a reason, of course, but Bajazet found he hadn't the strength to consider it. What strength he had must go to his legs, for now there was no question; the yelps of tally-ho echoed through the hills.

Good dogs… very good dogs had been brought to the hunt, to keep their tracking only for him, and not for the Made-things whose rich scents must have caused the pack to cast and circle, at least for a while.

But no thinking anymore. No questions… no compliments to fine hounds. There was only climbing and running to be done, scurrying, ducking branches, shoving past evergreens… then more climbing as the mountain's great rounded crest – already greening with the first breaths of Daughter Summer – still lay high above him.

Bajazet labored up and up. There seemed not enough air in the world for him to breathe, he was so weak and weary. Not enough… not enough. He hauled himself from sapling to sapling – then thought he heard a trumpet call. But certainly too near. Perhaps only the call of some other Boston-thing. Certainly not a trumpet, and so near…

If he had time, he could stop, unbuckle the damned sword-belt, throw bow and quiver away… wrestle the pack off. He could – if he had time – tug off his boots, strip his clothes, and run naked and too fast for anyone or anything to catch, following such swift, bruised feet.

Bajazet staggered along the massive granite round of the mountain's crest. Sunlight sparkled along fractures in the stone. He'd lost count of the lower hills come before, now rising to this.

His breath rattled in his chest like a ruined horse's, and his feet were bleeding in his boots. Might as well have had the damn things off. He would have wept if he'd had the time… Now, he wished he hadn't killed the king's son. Then the hunt behind him would have been pro forma (was there any fucking word Warm-times hadn't had?) Would have been pro-fucking-forma, and not this furious… unreasonable chasing.

He thought for a moment – halted crouched, gasping, trying to catch his breath – thought of begging the Mountains' Jesus to somehow save him. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. To plead, then die, was to die twice.

His vanity made him smile as he stumbled on, unsteady boots skidding, scraping on the stone. And another sound on the granite behind him, quick raspings coming. – He surprised himself by how fast he turned, how the rapier came sliding from its scabbard. It was surprising, as if the staggering, exhausted Bajazet had been one person, and this – drawn and on guard – was another.

Claws rattling on rock, an ambitious hound came bounding – ah, not pure hound, and therefore the ambition. This a half-breed ripper, with talent enough to scent his way once the pack had found the line, and the weight and jaw and muscle to pull prey down, and kill it.

A big shaggy rust-colored dog, a dog he didn't know. It came for him cleverly and fast, scrambling, not leaping. Seemed to be smiling, its long jaw stretched so wide.

The still-strong Bajazet, the surprising one, met it as he'd been taught to meet a furiously charging swordsman. The rapier's needle point stayed where it was, leveled low on guard. He held it still, and left it there while he bent his wrist and – as the dog came to him – swung his body back and away in a quarter-circle to the right, like an opening door, and out of the line of charge. In quartata…

The big dog lunged onto the sword's point, foaming, and drove itself deep onto the blade. Bajazet turned away farther, wrist wrenched into agony as the animal tried to turn with him… then suddenly shuddered, squatted and began to scream. It was the sound a terribly injured puppy made, betraying the dog's adult and ferocious bulk.

Bajazet yanked… yanked the long blade greasily free, and sheathing it still bloody, stumbled away from the noise of arriving hounds, horses' clattering hooves. The riders were shouting as they came.

He managed to run, blindly as an animal, labored east on uneven granite, then along a slope of stone… skidded down a steeper pitch – and stepped off the mountain's crest into the air.

… Falling, safe from the shouts and snarling behind him, Bajazet would have been happy to continue down through the air to whatever end. But he sailed only twenty or thirty Warm-time feet before striking brush, pitching forward in a cartwheel – sheathed rapier flailing, whipping his leg smartly – then toppling over a sheer edge.

Bajazet fell, struck – didn't try to save himself – but went tumbling and rolling, spinning and falling again until he struck a small fir tree hard. It drove the breath out of him as it drove green foliage into his face, harsh as a punch.

He managed to mumble, 'Oh, my God.' One of the oldest phrases known. Very ancient.

Managed that, tried to twist away from savage pain in his ribs – and went skidding down and down an endless dirt slope, his face numb, agony lancing along his left side. He no longer… no longer wished to be falling.

The oddest thing – seeming so unimportant – something whipped singing past him as he went. An arrow, he supposed, from one the Light Cavalry's odd uneven-armed longbows. Bottom arm shorter…

Faint echoing orders far above him. Perhaps 'Stop shooting!' The king would want him alive… if the mountain let him live.

Now it was only slower sliding – a bad bump – then on down with a sore ass and skinned hands. In a shower of dirt and stones, Bajazet dug in his boot-heels, dug too much, tripped, and did a slow somersault, crashing into alders… Stopped. He was stopped.

He'd shut his eyes, afraid the branches would blind him. Now, half hanging amid sagging limbs and broken twigs, Bajazet opened them and saw he was almost down the mountain's side. The slope eased through forest below him, down a long descent to a narrow valley, dark in the mountain's shadow.

… Trumpets. Those motherfuckers – what a valuable old word – would have found and be riding down a gentler way, to run him to earth at last. At least the dogs hadn't cared to try the pitch after him.

Bajazet no longer felt the pain of his bitten arm, his bruised forehead. Those now seemed quite comfortable, compared to deep bruises, badly scraped skin, and cracked ribs burning with each breath… And there could be no waiting, hanging in the trees like cooling venison. No waiting. No time.

He gritted his teeth, wrestled free of low branches, and had trouble getting his breath; it caught in his throat when the pain came. He clambered to the forest floor – still steep enough – found he could stand, and hobbled down the mountain's wide skirt. The king and his cavalry would be nearly down their easier path, and the long valley – narrow, already shadowed in Daughter Summer's first filmy dress of hazy green – wound away in thick low heather and leafing tangle between looming mountainsides… a very long run.

Bajazet attempted a trot from the last of the trees – and found, if he bore the pain, that he was able to almost run, though oddly, with a gimping gait. He followed the valley's little creek – a dark shallow flow that barely wet his