“You’ll only get in the way.” Ahlitah moved to intercept his ineloquent companion. “Leave it to the herdsman. Many’s the time I’ve seen him extract himself from desperate situations.” Fiery yellow eyes surveyed the arena of conflict. “He’ll do the same here.”
“And if he not?” Hunkapa Aub observed the flow of battle dubiously.
“Then he will die, and that prattling monkey with him. And I will try to find my way back to the veldt, and you to your mountains, and the sun will set tonight and rise tomorrow and the world take not the slightest notice of his strivings or ours. That is how it has always been and that is how it will always be.” A muted snarl sent every small rodent within hearing scurrying for their burrows.
“Ehomba will find a way to win, or he will not. If he cannot defeat the giant, it’s certain you can’t.”
“You could help too,” Hunkapa Aub pointed out guilelessly.
“I have sworn to support him.” The majestic ebony cat hesitated. “But I’d be in the way as well. There is a time to stalk, a time to pounce—and a time to wait. I think this is a time to wait. If you’re sensible, you’ll do the same.”
So Ahlitah and Hunkapa held back and watched. Hammer blow after hammer blow descended, cleaving the air with monstrous streaks of its etched metal head. Each time, its intended targets jumped or twisted out of the way. But avoidance, too, demands effort, and both men were growing tired.
“Do something, Etjole!” Breathing harder and faster than was reassuring, Simna ibn Sind wielded his sword as he yelled to his companion. “Blow him into a mountain, bring down a piece of sky on his head!” Even as he shouted this advice, the increasingly desperate swordsman knew he was suggesting the impractical. With he and Ehomba forced to dodge as often as they were, any wind the herdsman called up was as likely to blow them off the mountain as it was the giant, while anything falling from the heavens would smash into the ruins of the village with an unearthly indifference to whoever happened to be standing there.