When she was about fifty feet up, she signaled Rufo to stop lowering, drew her sword and saluted me. “Magnificent, my Hero!” We were all wearing swords; Star had chosen a dueling sword with a 34″ blade–a big sword for a woman but Star is a big woman. She had also packed her belt pouch with medic’s supplies, an ominous touch had I noticed, but did not, at the time.
I drew and returned her salute. They were not bothering me yet, although some, having finished lunch or having been crowded out, were milling around and looking me over. Then I sheathed again, and nocked an arrow. “Start pumping it up. Star, right toward me. Have Rufo lower you a bit more.”
She returned sword and signaled Rufo. He let her down slowly until she was about nine feet off the ground, where she signaled a stop. “Now pump it up!” I called out. Those bloodthirsty natives had forgotten me; they were watching Star, those not still busy eating Cousin Abbie or Great-Uncle John.
“All right,” she answered. “But I have a throwing line. Can you catch it?”
“Oh!” The smart darling had watched my maneuvers and had figured out what would be needed. “Hold it a moment! Ill make a diversion.” I reached over my shoulder, counted arrows by touch–seven. I had started with twenty and made use of one; the rest were scattered, lost.
I used three in a hurry, right, left, and ahead, picking targets as far away as I dared risk, aiming at midpoint and depending on that wonderful bow to take those shafts straight and flat. Sure enough, the crowd went for fresh meat like a government handout. “Now!”
Ten seconds later I caught her in my arms and collected a split-second kiss for toll.
Ten minutes later Rufo was down by the same tactics, at a cost of three of my arrows and two of Star’s smaller ones. He had to lower himself, sitting in the bight and checking the free end of the line under both armpits; he would have been a sitting duck without help. As soon as he was untangled from the line, he started jerking it down off the cliff, and faking it into a coil.
“Leave that!” Star said sharply. “We haven’t time and it’s too heavy to carry.”
“I’ll put it in the pack.”
“No.”
“It’s a good line,” Rufo persisted. “We’ll need it.”
“You’ll need a shroud if we’re not through the marsh by nightfall.” Star turned to me. “How shall we march, milord?”
I looked around. In front of us and to the left a few jokers still milled around, apparently hesitant about getting closer. To our right and above us the great cloud at the base of the Tails made iridescent lace in the sky. About three hundred yards in front of us was where we would enter the trees and just beyond the marsh started.
We went downhill in a tight wedge, myself on point, Rufo and Star following on flank, all of us with arrows nocked. I had told them to draw swords if any Homed Ghost got within fifty feet.
None did. One idiot came straight toward us, alone, and Rufo knocked him over with an arrow at twice that distance. As we came up on the corpse Rufo drew his dagger. “Let it be!” said Star. She seemed edgy.
“I’m just going to get the nuggets and give them to Oscar.”
“And get us all killed. If Oscar wants nuggets, he shall have them.”
“What sort of nuggets?” I asked, without stopping.
“Gold, Boss. Those blighters have gizzards like a chicken. But gold is all they swallow for it. Old ones yield maybe twenty, thirty pounds.”
I whistled.
“Gold is common here,” Star explained. “There is a great heap of it at the base of the falls, inside the cloud, washed down over eons. It causes fights between the Ghosts and the Cold Water Gang, because the Ghosts have this odd appetite and sometimes risk entering the cloud to satisfy it.”
“I haven’t seen any of the Cold Water Gang yet,” I commented.
“Pray God you don’t,” Rufo answered.
“All the more reason to get deep into the marsh,” Star added. “The Gang doesn’t go into it and even the Ghosts don’t go far in. Despite their splay feet, they can be sucked under.”