Followed by a flurry of thrown objects, the two females went up into the trees. Matthias felt the Hata’s lean but powerful arm around her waist as the cries of the infuriated Deyzara receded beneath them.
“You must to help self now,” Naneci-tok told her as they settled on a branch that was much too thin. “I can’t carry you anymore.”
Are you implying that I’m overweight? Matthias found herself thinking reflexively. But of course she was. Practically any human would be. Grown Sakuntala could fling themselves through the trees with apparent ease, but they could not carry much of a load while doing so. To them, humans and Deyzara were solid as well as short. Naneci-tok might be nearly two meters tall, but Matthias doubted the Hata who had saved them both from the mob weighed more than fifty or sixty kilos.
Looking down through the rain, Matthias saw the frustrated Deyzara still gesticulating furiously below. She and Naneci-tok couldn’t go back the way they had come. Nor could they make use of the walkway. It had been taken over by other Deyzara who expected the human, at least, to descend and try to cross on it. For the moment, their rage and resentment had overcome the fact that she was not their traditional enemy. It was enough to make her a target of their ire that she was accompanying one of the hated Sakuntala.
“This way.” Naneci-tok gestured encouragingly. “We go around.”
Around? Wiping blood from her face, an uncertain Matthias eyed the route the Hata was proposing. It consisted of a winding path through vines and loopers, utilizing branches and broad-shouldered shelf fungi made slippery with rain. The other alternative was to sit and wait, hoping the mob would grow bored and trickle back to their shelters and emergency rations before she stumbled and fell.