'Ungrateful wretch,' Wratha was openly scornful. 'You who have nothing better to do but whine and wench! What's that for co-operation? Best quit your yelping, Canker, if you'd have gas to warm your kennels and clean water to drown your fleas!'
In return, Canker snarled a little and bared his canines, but while Wratha had the kneblasch that was as much as he could do.
And with that it was over. Their courses set — as individuals, as well as interdependent members of the stack — the Lords took their departure from Wratha's apartments. Vasagi was last to leave…
On his way down, Vasagi must pass close by the Lady Wratha's draughty landing bays. There he found Wran the Rage waiting for him, still seething like an active volcano. Wran came straight to the point: 'Why did you defend her? We could have been rid of her at a stroke; I would have taken her apartments, and left the ones I share now to my brother.'
She had kneblasch, Vasagi shrugged, gestured, backed off a little. Also she has commenced to fashion siphoneers. Why waste the Lady's best efforts? Time later to punish her — if such is required — when the stack is in working order. You agreed as much yourself, if not in so many words.
'It isn't simply that you fancy the whore?' Wran grinned unpleasantly. 'After all, you and she would make a grand team. You with your freakish face, and Wratha a hag under all that sweet girl-flesh! Is that it? Do you hope to partner her? Are you so tired, then, of the shrieks of your odalisques when you go to service them? Do they insist you mount from the rear, so that they need not see your face?'
Vasagi flowed forward now, his gestures sharper, less subtle, his telepathic 'voice' a hiss: Why do you insult me, Wran? Do you seek to provoke me? I have no chin, it's true, but that is of my choosing. Rather that than your chin, with its black and possibly leprous growth!
'Now who speaks insults?' Wran thrust his red face to the fore. 'As for my wen: it is a beauty spot.'
Oh? the Suck laughed scornfully. Then you could use a few more! But as Wran grunted and stepped closer still, Vasagi's tapering snout stiffened and his sharp siphon proboscis slid into view, dripping saliva. And: Best to remember, he warned, that your gauntlet is in your apartments, Wran. But me, why, I carry my weapon with me at all times!
Wran knew that Vasagi could strike at lightning speed, to pierce or pluck an eye, or penetrate an ear to the brain. He withdrew, however grudgingly, then turned on his heel and headed for the launching bays. But over his shoulder: 'Let's have one thing understood, wormface,' he snarled. 'Eventually the Lady's options will be down to two: to be my most obedient wife in Wranstack, or to die and make room for her betters! If it's the first — I'll en;oy cutting the sting out of Wratha's tail, believe me! And if it's the second,' he shrugged, 'so be it.' With that he passed from sight behind a jut of stone.
Not to be outdone, Vasagi sent after him: Better stick to your girl-thralls, Wran! Wratha's far too much woman for a fop such as you! His dart was too late; Wran had closed his mind; Vasagi's thoughts came echoing hollowly back to him.
It was probably as well. Wran was a maniac, after all. And shrugging off his irritation, Vasagi continued on his way..
Nathan stirred. The sun had been off his island for quite a while now and he was cold. The river gurgled close by; a fish jumped for flies, making a splash; the combination of sounds woke him up.
He awoke cold, stiff, aching, and saw in a moment how long — and how late — he'd slept. The sun was a bright flash of fire glimpsed through the treetops to the south; except for silvery glints striking from the river's ripples, its entire expanse stood in green, gloomy shade from bank to bank. Nathan had been asleep for… about fifteen hours?
He waded to the bank and began to backtrack westwards. As he left the boggy region for firmer ground, so something of the stiffness went out of his muscles and a little of the gnawing ache out of his back: Eleni's ointment, he supposed, and wondered where she and the Szgany Sintana were now.
… Jingling along the approach route to fheir new home, most likely. Tonight they would set up a makeshift camp, and tomorrow camouflage the place, make it semi-permanent, settle in. And if only Nathan could make his legs go a little faster, he would be with them — with Eleni — and have a place among them. In a way he felt like a traitor: to Lardis, to the memory of' Misha'and his mother, especially to his Szgany vow. But in another way he felt… new? Certainly he was making a new beginning. And in any Case, he knew that as long as he lived his vow would never be entirely forgotten.
In a spot where a beam of slanting sunlight fell through the riverside foliage, he paused and unfolded Nikha's map. The route didn't seem too difficult: go back to where the Sintanas had made camp, follow the disused trail east by south-east for some fifteen miles, then head south along the bed of a narrow, curving valley in the woods. Where the valley bent westward to follow the course of a stream, there climb a gentle slope onto level ground once more. Finally, still heading south for five or six miles through a broad belt of ironwoods (where with luck Nathan might strike another ancient track), he would come upon the grasslands. By then the woods would be ash, walnut, wild plum, and a few giant ironwoods. And depending upon where he emerged from the declining forest, the Sintana camp should be no more than two or three miles east or west. An accomplished tracker would conceivably follow direct in their footsteps.
That was what Nikha had said, anyway…
Nathan was furious with himself. If he had woken up just three hours earlier there would be no problem. He would be able to see where the wagons left the trail to turn into the forest, the ruts their wheels left in the loamy earth. There would be signs: crushed foliage, broken twigs, beast droppings. But the best of the light was gone now, and as yet he wasn't even back to their first meeting place.
He put on a little speed, loping through the trees parallel with the river until he was winded, then breaking into a stiff walk. Now, too, he began to feel just a little panicked, and he knew that that wouldn't help, either.
How far did he have to go: thirty, thirty-five miles? And how long in which to do it? It would be sundown in… oh, ten to twelve hours. Plenty of time, if he'd been out in the open on a good trail. But in the forest
… the light would be failing long before then. Of woodland creatures there wasn't much to fear; but if he got lost, that would be a problem. His new Traveller friends would worry about him; at least he supposed, hoped, that Eleni would. And for his part, he certainly didn't relish the thought of spending a long, lonely night in the forest…
It seemed a long time — too long by far — but at last Nathan was forcing his way through the shrubbery onto the old trail, back where he'd first seen the Szgany Sintana. Breaking camp, they had been careful to cover their tracks; if he didn't know better, he might not suspect that anyone had been here at all! Even so, they hadn't been able to disguise the deep ruts in the overgrown trail, which now he followed east at a steady, mile-eating lope. And as he went the forest grew up around him, the light faded, however imperceptibly, and the long afternoon grew longer…
Nathan discovered an ancient and entirely unscientific fact: that time in short supply diminishes faster than it is spent. He also found that concentration can be self-defeating: only do enough of it and sooner or later you will be concentrating upon your concentration, and not the matter in hand. His limbs and muscles had grown accustomed to their continuous, rhythmic effort until the dull pain of constant motion was very nearly hypnotic. Indeed it was hypnotic; for suddenly the trail was overgrown, with nowhere a sign to show that men, animals, vehicles had passed this way… because they hadn't! Despite all his best efforts of concentration, Nathan had passed the turn-off point without even noticing it.
Again he backtracked — a mile, two — and eventually discovered the truth: that the Travellers had left the trail where the soil was thin and the ground full of flints and pebbles. They had deliberately used the hard, stony earth itself to obscure their tracks and make them that much more difficult to follow; not to discourage Nathan, no, but to confuse anyone else who might come sniffing on their heels.
Going much slower now where the way wound along a narrow, thickly forested gully, he found shad droppings and commenced tracking again, following on until the valley widened out and turned west along the course of a deep, darkly gurgling stream. There, where the earth was stony again, he toiled up a gentle incline between the trees until once more he stood upon level ground. But somewhere along the way he'd lost the trail, and now the light was fading much more rapidly.
By now Nathan had been on the move for some eleven hours and his fatigue was rapidly gaining on him. Under the claustrophobic canopy of the trees his lungs couldn't seem to draw enough air, and with every staggering step his legs felt ready to crumple up under his weight. He needed to rest very badly but knew that he daren't stop.
