We left many pointed and cunningly positioned stakes along the trail. I hoped a manhound, loping after us, sniffing the scent from our baited shoes, would leap full onto the sharp point of the stake and so wriggle with the dark blood dropping down until he died.
I’d far rather see, I own, one of the hunters in that position, but I knew them. They used the manhounds to track and corral the quarry; then they stepped in with their beautiful and expensive crossbows, their swords and their spears.
Once, Mog shrieked at me, “You ninny, Dray Prescot! The shoes the guides give us are baited. The manhounds can pick up the scent a dwabur off! Why do you not kick off the shoes?”
“Quiet, you old crone!”
Rapechak took his shoes off and was about to hurl them into the jungle when I stopped him. His fierce beaked face swung down to look at me, and his eyes glared, ready for an instant quarrel. I had suffered much from Rapas in the past. But I was prepared to explain to this Rapechak.
“Later. Later we will dispose of the shoes. Not now.”
He would have argued, but I swung away, shouting about a tree trunk the halflings were trying to angle as a deadfall, and threatening to crush their own stupid brains out in the process. Rapechak put his shoes back on.
We could march for some distance yet. There was plenty of light from the Twins and later from She of the Veils; the enemy would be fatigued. Already, as seemed to be their custom, a Fristle man carried a Fristle woman. I didn’t want to have to help the two human girls, for I had Mog to worry about and, to a different degree, Turko. He was in great pain, but not a murmur of complaint passed his lips. And, to me a strange fact, he still looked handsome. Suffering sometimes ennobles and makes one look radiant; not often.
When I calculated that we would exhaust our strength without adequate return by pressing on, I told everyone to take off their shoes. We found a great tree and climbed into its lower branches and there with the rammed-in thorns formed our palisade and made camp. We ate the rest of the food, and water was found in a nearby stream. I looked at this bedraggled band.
“Rapechak,” I said. And, to a Brokelsh, “You, too, Gynor. Are you done yet, or are you for a little sport?”
They didn’t understand. When I explained, both Rapa and Brokelsh gave expressions of pleasure in their respective halfling ways.
We three, then, struck off along the trail where it turned along by a river. We had prepared stakes which we used to make of that trail a death trap, unless one went cautiously, and inspected every fold of leaf. Presently, after a bur or so, we came to a gorge into which the stream fell. We threw the shoes down, having rubbed them well along the brink.
“May all the manhounds go to the Ice Floes of Sicce!” said Gynor, the Brokelsh. He was strong and his black body-bristles sprouted fiercely.
We went back to the camp and Turko looked up and said, “Mog is still here, Dray Prescot,” to which I replied, “Good,” and so we all rested. We set watches, for that was prudent, here in the rain forests of Northern Faol.
In the morning, by first light, a mingling of opaline radiance, we set off again along the small trail leading off from the other side of the tree. Here we set no traps but pressed on as far and as fast as we might. Those of the slaves whose feet were in the worst condition had rags wrapped about them, and we all struggled and slipped through terrible country, half-naked, gleaming with sweat, for it was very hot, panting and plunging on. We looked very much like fugitives then.
At a resting place, when it was time to move on, for I would not stop to catch food and eat, Turko looked up as I lifted him.
“Leave me, Dray Prescot. I cannot go farther. I am done for.”
I ignored him and got him on my back.
Mog cackled as Rapechak, who understood I meant what I said, prodded her on.
“He is a fool, that Khamorro!” The old witch spat out the words. “Migshaanu the Pitiless witnessed it!
He attacked the great kham Chimche when Chimche would have broken you like a reed, Prescot! And now look at him, his guts caved in.”
I said to Turko: “I believe you attacked Chimche, Turko, and for this I thank you. Now do not prattle like a baby onker. I will not leave you for the manhounds.”
“So be it, Dray Prescot.”
I could not tell him that great kham or not, Chimche would have been a dead man if he had fought me, without Turko’s assistance which, truth to tell, had thrown me off balance. A fighting-man, used to the melee, as it is known among my fighting clansmen, keeps the eyes in the back of his head well open all the time. As witness poor Alex Hunter, back there on a beach in Valka. And that seemed a long time ago, by Zair!
That day we hurried on rapidly, and turn and turn about the stronger helped the weaker. I noticed the two girls, who claimed to be rich merchant’s daughters, kept close to me. Beyond learning that their names were Saenda — the fair one — and Quaesa — the dark one — and that they came from different parts of Havilfar and already were putting on airs, one claiming superiority over the other, only to have some other remarkable fact brought to life in opposition, I took no notice of them except to see they kept up with the party.
My plans had gone disastrously wrong, all because of those fool Khamorros, although Turko was a Khamorro and was proving a tough and reliable companion.
Although, as you will instantly see, I have forged ahead in this story; for at this time Turko was badly injured, in great pain, and a liability on our onward progress. Once he saw that I did not mean to abandon him he remained quiet and did not suggest I leave him again. Mog, however, mentioned the idea more than once, having discovered how much more pleasant travel was across my shoulder than struggling and stumbling through the gloomy aisles of the forest.
And perhaps, if you guess I did this to spite the Star Lords — you would not be wrong. We were attacked by a species of risslaca, all squamous and hissing and tongue-flicking and claw-clicking; but I was able to slide the thraxter into an eye, and then into the thing’s scale-white belly, and so dispatch it. Turko stared up at the fight from where I had dumped him beside the almost-invisible trail. When it was all over, he grunted as I lifted him, whereat I said: “I would not cause you pain, Turko. For the sake of Opaz, man, tell me!”
All he would say was: “It is better than lying on the ground and rotting and being eaten by ants or snapped up by a risslaca such as you have just slain.”
Oh, yes, he was tough, was Turko!
After a time, he said, “You have handled a sword before.”
“Yes.”
“The trick with the knife, when Nath sought to slay the old witch. That was clever.”
Truth to tell, I had looked back at that old Krozair trick and knew it to be not at all bad. I had not been using the great Krozair longsword which, with its two-handed grip, is suitable for the quick subtle twitchings and flickings necessary, and I had been aiming for a flashing sliver of a knife and not a clothyard shaft. Yes, that had been something of a little Jikai. I said, “A knack, Turko. Now, rest as best you may.”
Presently Rapechak, prodding Mog, pressed up to my side.
“I will carry Turko the Khamorro, if he will allow, Dray Prescot, if you will take charge of this — this-”
Rapechak rubbed his thin shanks and glared at Mog. “She is a devil from the Ice Floes of Sicce, by Rhapaporgolam the Reaver of Souls!”[2]
I did not chuckle, although I believe my lips ricked up.
“And what do you say, Turko?”
He faced a struggle, then, did Turko the Khamorro. Only later when I learned more about the Khamorros and the awful power their belief in their khamster sanctity has over them could I realize that for a Rapa to touch a Khamorro was far worse than, for instance, the touch from an Untouchable of old India.
Not understanding all this at the time, I said, “Rapechak has shins that are black and blue from the old witch. I shall not allow her so to maltreat me. Let Rapechak carry you for a space, Turko, my friend.”
Turko yielded. He said something under his breath, and I caught the trailing words: “. . Morro the Muscle’s recompense and atonement.”
We pressed on, for by this time the Manhounds of Antares lolloped on our back trail, and the traps would only hold them up for as long as they were stupid enough not to do the obvious. When I caught a glimpse through a gap in the overhead cover of a skein of fluttrells winging past, and ordered instant stillness until the magnificent flying beasts and their armed riders had passed, I suspected that they must be a part of the manhunters’ search.
