“Maelen!”
Fear welled in my mind. Was it only a husk of womankind, or Thassa-kind, who stood there unheeding?
“Maelen!” I put into that mental cry all the strength I could summon.
Simmle whimpered. She had pulled herself to Maelen’s feet, stretched out her head to rest it upon a dusty boot.
“Maelen!”
She stirred, almost reluctantly, as if she had no wish to return from that place of nothingness which had held her. Her fingers loosened and the wand fell from her grasp, rolled into the mud of blood and dust, a dead thing. Then her eyes came alive as she looked upon Simmle.
With a cry as desolate as any uttered by her animals, she knelt and laid her hand on the venzese’s head. And I knew that she was safely back with us again. For a time then it was a matter of tending the wounded, seeing what could be done for what was left of the company. There were no outlaws left alive, but also too many of the little people were gone.
I dragged a bucket down to the river and filled it with water, brought it back once, twice, for Maelen’s use while she wrought with her simples and herbs for the easing of the wounded. And on the third such trip my nose, recovering at last from the assault by stench, told me of danger—man scent, strong, recent, going off into the bushes. I put down the bucket and went to nose out that trail, though I had not gone far before the summons came via mind-touch for my return.
With a nagging suspicion that I had better follow that trail and soon, I returned. Someone had escaped the battle by the vans, and with a crossbow even one man could lie upslope and pick us off at his ease. Full of this I ran back to camp and Maelen, but before I could report my find she spoke:
“There is that I must tell you—”
“Maelen, there were—” I began to interrupt.
Almost imperiously she refused to listen, continued. “Krip Vorlund, I bring ill news from Yrjar.”
For the first time in hours I returned to the plight of Krip Vorlund. And I was startled by the wrench needed to bring my thoughts back from Jorth’s concerns to Krip’s.
“The captain of the Lydis appealed to fair law when you were taken by Osokun’s men. One of your shipmates was struck down and left for dead, but recovered to tell of what happened, identified the clan pattern he saw. Then it was a matter for the Overjustice, and a party went under claim-banner to Oskold’s, where they found your body. They took it back to Yrjar, believing Osokun’s treatment had broken your mind. The medico of the Lydis said that only off-world could they find the proper aid. Thus—” She paused, eyes meeting mine. Yet in hers there was nothing, for they looked beyond me, seeking something more than Krip Vorlund, or Jorth. “Thus,” she began again, “the Lydis went from Yiktor with your body on board. This is all I could learn, for there are strange troubles abroad in the city.”
Inside me somehow I knew she spoke the truth. For a long moment or so it had no meaning, nor did I listen to what else she was saying—it was as if she spoke some other language.
No body! The thought began to beat inside my head, growing louder and louder, until I could have screamed with the rhythm of the thumping. But as yet it was only a beating, not something I understood. Now she no longer looked into any far distance, but to me. And she tried, I believe, to reach through the beating to my mind. Only nothing she said meant anything. I was not Krip Vorlund, I would never be again—I was Jorth—
I heard sounds, I saw Maelen through a scarlet haze, her eyes wide, her lips moving. Her commands were far away, muffled by that beating. I was Jorth, I was death—I would hunt-
Then I was on the trail I had found in the bushes by the river. Hot and rich, the scent filled my nose. Kill—but to kill one must live a little longer. Be not too reckless, a barsk was cunning, a barsk was—
A beast with centuries of beast craft to call upon in mind. Let Jorth be entire. I withdrew, skulked apart as the remnants of what had once been a man, watching die going of the beast on the age old business of the hunt. Three different scents I nosed out, one from the other. No kasi—these men fled afoot. And around one hung a sickliness which told of injury. Three, heading back into the hills.
They would be watching for a tracker, yes. This was a matter in which to use all skill. Nose here, nose there, watch ahead for aught which could be an ambush. Perhaps the cunning of man was still joined with that of the beast.
It would seem that they could not climb the steeper slopes. Perhaps the hurt one was too great a burden, for the trail followed the easiest footing. I found once where they had paused and there was a blood-stained rag I nosed disdainfully. But they kept doggedly on the march, heading toward the border of Oskold’s land. Now I searched for other scents—those of the invaders I had seen in these hills. I was not of any mind to be robbed of my prey.
And ever there was a plucking at my mind from behind, though I held a barrier against that, refusing to open to call. I was Jorth and Jorth hunted, that was all that was real-just as perhaps Jorth would cease to be before another day. But if Jorth did so die, it would not be alone.
Up and up. I came to a place where two saplings had been hacked from their roots, and thereafter I followed only two sets of tracks, not three. Two carried the third, and their pace was much slower.
Now I left the trail, for we entered a gully between two sharply slanted rises, and I believed those I trailed would stay in the bottom of that cut. But I did not go at a blind gallop, rather did I slip from one cover to the next. Nor did I bury my nose on any close scent, remembering the trick the scout had played upon me.
Night came and still I caught no sight of them. I marveled a little at their ability to keep ahead, burdened as they were—unless they had left the camp before, not during, our attack, and so had more of a start than I had judged. The moon was with me, throwing into sharp relief the landscape, veiling part in shadows which cloaked my advance.
Then I saw them. The two on their feet leaned against a large rock outcrop. Even as I sighted them, one slid down that support and sat, his head drooping on his chest, his hands falling limply between his outstretched legs. The other breathed in great gasps, but kept on his feet. While on a rude stretcher lay the third, and from him came small whistling moans.
Two were done, I decided, but that other who still stood—him I watched carefully. He moved at last, fell to his knees, and brought forth a small flask he held to the mouth of the man on the stretcher. But that one flung up his arm and struck outward, uttering a harsh, excited cry. The flask hit the boulder and burst, leaving a dark trickle on the rock. He who had held it gave a hoarse grunt, tried to reach the fragments, then raised his head and looked about wildly as if hunting something in the wilderness about them to relieve his misery.
All this time the man who sat had not moved. But now he shook his head slowly from side to side as if trying to clear it of some clouding mist. Then he pulled back to his feet, bracing himself against the rock. The moonlight fell now across his face, and I saw that he was the one who had guarded Osokun’s rear when he and his companion had brought their wounded lord into the Thassa camp. I had not wondered about the identity of the three I had followed; somehow I had known from the first whom I would find here. Nor did it astonish me to see that I knew this one from an even earlier time, when he had done his lord’s will in the narrow cell of the border fort.
Krip Vorlund-who was Krip Vorlund-what call had he on Jorth the barsk for vengeance? It did not matter. These were my kill—
So much did I consider them my prey that I came into the open without any more use of cunning, and gave a war cry in the deep-chested growl of my kind. He that lay upon the stretcher would be helpless. The other two—let them fight for their lives. It was better that way.