The World Menders

the same time trying to pace himself because he had no notion of how far he must go. The land, the people, the silly mission he had propelled himself on—all seemed unreal under the heat of a somnolent summer day, and so it happened that when he abruptly came upon a ravished ol village the sight stunned him.

The lane took a sudden turning, and before him lay the still-smoldering ashes of collapsed huts and the pathetic scattering of dead olz, and the clinging, sweetly rancid odor of burned flesh seared his nostrils. Farrari gripped his staff with trembling fingers and contemplated the holocaust. These were the olz who should have had his protection, and he was too late.

Not until then did he notice other plumes of smoke pointing skyward against the scorching sun.

A shout and the patter of many small hooves shattered his bleak mood and sent him scrambling for a zrilm hedge. Moments later he saw the prancing gril legs as the kru’s cavalry flashed past. Farrari acted without thinking: he thrust his staff through a tangle of zrilm roots and braced himself, and he was quite as astonished as the rider must have been when a gril stumbled and crashed to the ground.

A bundle of spears dropped beside the hedge, and Farrari gathered it in, slipped through the opposite side of the hedge, and trotted along the edge of a field of tubers. At the end of the field he poked his way back through the zrilm and looked up the lane to where the soldiers had gathered about the fallen grit. Thoughtfully he balanced a spear in his hand. He stepped into the lane, took aim, and let fly.

With a dozen soldiers and grilz blocking the narrow lane he thought he could not miss; but the light spear, perfectly designed for throwing, whipped unnoticed above the heads of the soldiers.

Farrari’s second attempt grazed a gril’s flank. The beast reared and screamed, the soldiers turned their attention to the gril, and so little were they accustomed to being on the receiving end of thrown spears that incredibly they failed to notice Farrari.

He did not believe in pressing his luck. He filled the air with his remaining six spears, throwing as fast as he could take aim. Then he ducked for cover, and as he vanished into the hedge a spear whistled past his head, a snap throw by an expert and a sobering reminder to do his future target practice from concealment. Peering through the hedge, he noted with chagrin that all of his spears had missed. The soldiers made a hasty retreat with their dismounted comrade riding double, and as soon as they disappeared Farrari darted into the lane in search of spears. He found two and retired to the hedge to plan his next move.

The soldiers would be back. At this moment they were probably in conference with their commander, trying to convince him that they had not imagined an ol throwing spears at them, and when the commander had given the matter sober consideration he must conclude that an ol uncommon enough to throw spears could be the same one who’d been uncommon enough to stab durrlz in the dark. The soldiers would be back.

And Farrari would be waiting, though not where they expected to find him. He moved some distance down the lane, found a place in the hedge that satisfied him, and made himself comfortable. He watched and listened, and soon he discovered that the pattern of hedges had a distorting effect on sounds. Some were blocked out, others were amplified and their direction confused. Several times Farrari thought he heard grilz approaching, and when they finally came he did not hear them until they were almost upon him.

As he peered out cautiously, he was dumbfounded to see the third gril of the column crash to the ground, and an instant later a spear whistled from the opposite hedge and neatly impaled the leading trooper. He fell and his gril ran off braying wildly. Farrari managed to launch his two spears before the soldiers fled. He missed, but two more spears from the opposite hedge caught retreating soldiers squarely in their backs.

Farrari stepped from the hedge to survey the carnage: Three dead soldiers, one dying gril. He called out guardedly, “Who are you?”

The zrilm parted. Bran’s ugly face grinned out at Farrari. “I got to hand it to you,” he said admiringly. “I never thought of this. It beats killing durrlz in their sleep.”

“How’d you find me?” Farrari demanded.

“Wasn’t hard once I found out what way you were going. I just kept flying on ahead and waiting for you to catch up.”

“Flying—”

“Oh, that.” Bran shrugged. “I got two more platforms.”

“How’d you get so proficient with spears?”

“I dunno,” Bran said. “I just aim and throw.”

“That’s all I do.” Farrari said, “but I never hit anything.”

Farrari helped himself to a bundle of spears. Bran hurried to claim another, and they divided the third: Farrari could not help thinking that it was Bran who had destroyed the ol village, but recriminations would not have helped the dead olz. On the other hand, a show of resistance here would keep the rascz from killing ol elsewhere. Bran enjoyed killing soldiers; let him help.

“They’ll be back,” he told Bran “but they’ll take their time about and maybe send for reinforcements If they have any military sense at all they’ll change their tactics. If I’d paid more attention to Semar Kantz, maybe I’d know what they’ll do.”

Bran stirred impatiently. “Let ’em come,” he said.

“We’ll try a new location,” Farrari decided. “It’d be a mistake to always ambush them at the same place. And then we’ll separate: me on one side, you across the lane fifty meters away. Whichever way they come from, we’ll hold our fire until we have the whole troop between us. And once the fun starts, they’ll think there are more of us if we duck trough the fields and take up new positions.”

Bran grinned and nodded.

“Let’s find a place we like, then, and get under cover.”

They moved beyond the smoldering village and set their ambush. Time passed; nothing happened except that a large, multi-legged insect ran across Farrari’s bare leg and each foot punctured the skin. He stared in amazement at the double row of tiny blood spots, for he’d felt nothing at all, but a short time later the leg began to throb and swell. It was a horror the specialists at base had failed to mention.

The pain grew worse. Finally Farrari hobbled down the lane to Bran’s hiding place, and Bran took a look and grimaced. “Oh, one of those. Tomorrow you won’t be able to walk.”

“I can hardly walk now,” Farrari said disgustedly. “How long does it last?”

“Couple of days, unless I got a medical kit in the platform. I kept one in the other platform,” he added accusingly, “but I don’t remember if I got one in this one. I’ll go look.”

“Be careful,” Farrari cautioned. “Keep to the fields as much as possible.”

Bran nodded, parted the hedge, and scurried through. Farrari followed him and sat down by the hedge to watch Bran lope off across the field. After a time he felt uneasy in the open, even in a zrilm enclosed field, so he crept back into the hedge and waited there.

Then a squad of cavalry came down the lane. Farrari fingered his spears longingly but did not throw—an ambush seemed perfectly safe to him as long as he could hit and run, but he could no longer run. He watched the squad pass, instantly concerned about Bran—because these troops rode walking grilz, and a walking gril made no noise at all. It suggested that the rascz were setting up an ambush of their own.

As soon as the column passed, Farrari started after Bran. He used his staff as a crutch, but stumbling around the hills of tubers made slow and painful going. He crossed several fields and finally came to a lane, where he cautiously parted the zrilm and looked through.

Bran lay a short distance down the lane, his body bristling with spears. Farrari staggered to his side, but he knew before he reached him that he would be dead, that no one could survive so many wounds in vital places.

He paused there only for a moment, but when he straightened up the cavalry troop was almost upon him. With two good legs he might have reached the hedge—barely—but he could manage only a staggering lunge before