“That is what happens to skulkers who are too old for the hunt,” said Tulema. “If they are not employed as tame slaves to clean and cook like the old Miglish witch and her friends.”
“That will happen to you, then, Tulema, if you can eat only dilse.”
“Better, perhaps, ol’ snake, than the manhounds.”
I shook my head. “You are coming out as soon as you are fit and strong, Tulema. There is no argument. But the guides are few.”
“They know when there are customers. Who can blame them if they do not wish to spend time they need not, in here, with us slaves?”
So there was time for Tulema to eat well and to shed that half-starved look on her face that came from dilse, and for her supple body to be genuinely lithe and firm again, on good food. A day came when the stentors” horns blared out in the call that summoned the manhounds, and drove us slaves to the lenken bars, to be selected for the great Jikai. I looked at Tulema. As always, she shrank back, but she was as fit and well as she might ever be in this dreadful place, and I could not wait any longer. Out on the compound splashed with its jade and ruby light stood Nalgre, with his whip and his guards, talking in his important, belly-thrusting, strutting way with a group of customers. I recognized one man there; he was the heavily built Notor with the pudgy face from too many vosk-pies who had led the hunt when Lilah and I had escaped. Nalgre was speaking to him.
“Indeed, it is strange, Notor Trelth.”
“And you have no explanation, Nalgre? A long way, we went, a very long way, and a scuffle in rocks and trees. I looked for a kill on the plains.”
“Why not try the jungles this time, Notor Trelth?” Nalgre spoke with quickness, eagerness, anxious to please.
“Yes. I will give it thought,” said this high-and-mighty Notor Trelth. Tulema whispered: “There is a guide here, Dray-”
“Good.” At once I looked about for the lithe young man with the dark hair who was risking his life for us. I saw him with a group and pushed my way across with Tulema. Whether the guide might be persuaded to take us or not, he would listen to me when I told him the disastrous news.
Chapter Ten
Of course the guide would not believe me. He scoffed. His name was Inachos and he was as young and athletic as the other guides. Also he was a little impatient.
There had been no time to tell him in the barred caves, for the guards had thrust through and taken out the slaves Notor Trelth selected, and in the resultant confusion Tulema and I had been pushed out with the rest. There were eighteen of us, this time, a large party, and only when we had settled down for the night in the slave barracks had I been afforded the opportunity of talking privately with Inachos.
“What you are saying is lunacy. By Hito the Hunter! No guide would be taken unawares.”
“So I had thought. But it has happened, three times to my certain knowledge.”
“And you have told no one else?”
“To alarm the slaves would not have been wise. Their fate rests in the hands of the guides. You must take the news back to your villages and warn them.”
He looked at me, his head on one side, looking very alert and handsome. “I cannot believe what you say. But a warning must be taken, just in case.”
“I shall stay awake all night,” I said.
“If it pleases you.”
A cocky youngster, I thought to myself, one who believes no secret party of assassins can creep upon him in the pink moonlight.
Inachos the Guide must act his part as a cowed slave the next morning as we went through those ghastly preliminaries Nalgre the slave-master carried out with such relish. With Tulema near me, generally held by my left hand, I kept very close to Inachos. If he refused to take me seriously, I knew that tonight his eyes would be opened.
Nalgre approached us and Inachos stiffened up, but the slave-master flicked his whip lightly over me -
I bore it! I, Dray Prescot, bore it! — and then turned away as Notor Trelth called. Inachos relaxed, breathing hard through pinched nostrils, looking frustrated. I felt sorry for him. Very soon thereafter we were trotting away. Inachos said we could strike north through the jungle and find the coast easily where we might pick up a vessel from the island of Outer Faol whose people, simple fishermen, he called them, would call for the sake of the alligators in the mud-swamps. Faol was not really close enough to the equator or well-watered enough to possess a really dense rain forest. The jungle was capable of being traversed by many trails, although, of course, not being a pleasant place. I thought of what had previously been said about the northern jungle offering no real safety, but Inachos knew his business, and fisherfolk and a boat so close to hand sounded more tempting than another long slog over the plains.
Just over half a dwabur along the trail through the dim green and russet twilight of the forest, Inachos halted us to produce his cache of clothing, food, and knives. I put the shoes on, with a grimace, and took the cheap knife with the thought that around me there was literally a forest of wooden longswords. The longswords existed literally within the tree branches, as the greatest statues of two worlds already existed within the stones from which they were carved.
From my previous experience I did not believe the hunters would tackle us before the next day. That night Inachos found a comfortable dell by a small and somewhat marshy stream and we set up camp. He handed us the wine and my fellow slaves upended the leather bottles with great gusto. Tulema was exhausted. She sat with her back against the bole of a tree, licking the last of the paline juice from her fingers. I took a wine bottle over and she drank greedily. Inachos called: “Have some wine yourself, Dray Prescot. You will have need of it.”
“I like wine,” I said casually. “But I prefer tea.”
“Drink,” he said.
Tulema had left a few dregs swilling in the leather bag, but to please Inachos, for he had risked much stowing the wine away in the cache, I lifted the leather and drank what there was and went on drinking thereafter, miming. Inachos chuckled.
“Tomorrow we will be through the jungle. We will find a boat. And tonight, nothing will disturb our rest.”
We took precautions against the nocturnal denizens of the jungle. There are but a few snakes on Kregen, and these poor and miserable of spirit — with the exception of a breed of horrors of which I will speak later — but there were other perils and we twined vines about ourselves on the branches of trees, and rammed hard and thorny spikes in the wood to make a palisade. Already the slaves were yawning. Tulema was fast asleep. I fancied a conversation with Inachos, but he grunted and took himself off to a branch lower than those on which we slaves perched, saying that we must rise early. A Gon moaned uneasily in his sleep. His chalk-white hair glowed an eerie color in the light of the Maiden with the Many Smiles striking pallidly through the leaves. Even in the warrens of Magdag the Gons had been able to shave that white hair of which they are so ashamed. I kept my weather eye open for Inachos, who lay, a darker blot, against his tree lower down.
My eyes closed.
How long I sat there, wedged against a branch springing from the main trunk I do not know. I remember I recollected there was some powerful and compelling reason why I must keep awake this night. I had slept well on those other nights when we slaves had been run as quarry for sport, and the last time, with the voller merchant, Latimer, I had kept awake most of the night, or so I believed. I opened my eyes, blearily, gummily. I looked down.
Inachos no longer sat in his tree perch.
Instantly I was wide awake.
I picked out his form, creeping down the tree, going carefully, and as he went dropping dark drops down onto the wood from a wooden vial he had unstoppered, a wooden vial I had taken to be a stick. He was going carefully
