“And we’re wasting ammo,” Locklear replied. “I have, uh, two eights and four rounds left. You?”
“Eight and seven. Not enough against beam rifles.” The big kzin twisted, then, ear umbrellas cocked toward the village. He studied the sun’s position, then came to some internal decision and handed over ten of his precious remaining rounds. “The brush in the arroyo’s throat looks flimsy, Locklear, but I could crawl under its tops, so I know you can. Hold them up here, then retreat under the brushtops in the arroyo and wait at its mouth. With any luck I will reach you there.”
The kzin warrior was already leaping toward the village. Locklear cried softly. “Where are you going?”
The reply was almost lost in the arroyo: “For reinforcements.”
* * *
The sun had crept far across the sky of Kzersatz before Locklear saw movement again, and when he did it was nearly too late. A stone descended the arroyo, whacking another stone with the crack of bowling balls; Locklear realized that someone had already crossed the arroyo. Then he saw Soichiro Lee ease his rifle into sight. Lee simply had not spotted him.
Locklear took two-handed aim very slowly and fired three rounds, full-auto. The first impact puffed dirt into Lee’s face so that Locklear did not see the others clearly. It was enough that Lee’s head blossomed, snapping up and back so hard it jerked his torso, and the rifle clattered into the arroyo.
The call of alarm from Gazho was so near it spooked Locklear into firing blindly. Then he was bounding into the arroyo’s throat, sliding into chest-high brush with spreading tops.
Late shadows were his friends as he waited, hoping one of the men would go for the beam rifle in plain sight. Now and then he sat up and lobbed a stone into brush not far from Lee’s body. Twice, rifles scorched that brush. Locklear knew better than to fire back without a sure target while pinned in that ravine.
When they began sending heavy fire into the throat of the arroyo, Locklear hoped they would exhaust their plenums, but saw a shimmer of heat and knew his cover could burn. He wriggled away downslope, past a trickle of water, careful to avoid shaking the brush. It was then that he heard the heavy reports of a kzin sidearm toward the village.
He nearly shot the rope-muscled kzin that sprang into the ravine before recognizing Scarface, but within a minute they had worked their way together. “Those kshat priests,” Scarface panted, “have harangued a dozen others into chasing me. I killed one priest; the others are staying safely behind.”
“So where are our reinforcements?”
“The dark will transform them.”
“But we’ll be caught between enemies,” Locklear pointed out.
“Who will engage each other in darkness, a dozen fools against three monkeys.”
“Two,” Locklear corrected. But he saw the logic now, and when the sunlight winked out a few minutes later he was watching the stealthy movement of kzin acolytes along both lips of the arroyo.
Mouth close to Locklear’s ear, Scarface said, “They will send someone up this watercourse. Move aside; my wtsai will deal with them quietly.”
But when a military flare lit the upper reaches of the arroyo a few minutes later, they heard battle screams and suddenly, comically, two kzin warriors came bounding directly between Locklear and Scarface. Erect, heads above the brushtops, they leapt toward the action and were gone in a moment.
Following with one hand on a furry arm, Locklear stumbled blindly to the arroyo lip and sat down to watch. Spears and torches hurtled from one side of the upper ravine while thin energy bursts lanced out from the other. Blazing brush lent a flickering light as well, and at least three great kzin bodies surged across the arroyo toward their enemies.
“At times,” Scarface said quietly as if to himself, “I think my species more valiant than stupid. But they do not even know their enemy, nor care.”
“Same for those deserters,” Locklear muttered, fascinated at the firefight his friend had provoked. “So how do we get back to the cave?”
“This way,” Scarface said, tapping his nose, and set off with Locklear stumbling at his heels.
* * *
The cave seemed much smaller when crowded with a score of worried kzinti, but not for long. The moment they realized that Kit was missing, Scarface demanded to know why.
“Two acolytes entered,” explained one male, and Locklear recognized him as the mild-tempered Stalwart. “They argued three idiots into helping take her back to the village before dark.”
Locklear, in quiet fury: “No one stopped them?”
Stalwart pointed to bloody welts on his arms and neck, then at a female lying curled on a grassy pallet. “I had no help but her. She tried to offer herself instead.”
And then Scarface saw that it was Boots who was hurt but nursing her kittens in silence, and no cave could have held his rage. Screaming, snarling, claws raking tails, he sent the entire pack of refugees pelting into the night, to return home as best they could. It was Locklear’s idea to let Stalwart remain; he had, after all, shed his blood in their cause.
Scarface did not subside until he saw Locklear, with the kzin medkit, ministering to Boots. “A fine ally, but no expert in kzin medicine,” he scolded, choosing different unguents.
Boots, shamed at having permitted acolytes in the cave, pointed out that the traps had been disarmed for the flow of refugees. “The priesthood will surely be back here soon,” she added.
“Not before afternoon,” Stalwart said. “They never mount ceremonies during darkness. If I am any judge, they will drown the beauteous prret at high noon.”
Locklear: “Don’t they ever learn?”
Boots: “No. They are the priesthood,” she said as if explaining everything, and Stalwart agreed.
“All the same,” Scarface said, “they might do a better job this time. You,” he said to Stalwart; “could you get to the village and back here in darkness?”
“If I cannot, call me acolyte. You would learn what they intend for your mate?”
“Of course he must,” Locklear said, walking with him toward the main entrance. “But call before you enter again. We are setting deadly traps for anyone who tries to return, and you may as well spread the word.”
Stalwart moved off into darkness, sniffing the breeze, and Locklear went from place to place, switching on traps while Scarface tended Boots. This tender care from a kzin warrior might be explained as gratitude; even with her kittens, Boots had tried to substitute herself for Kit. Still, Locklear thought, there was more to it than that. He wondered about it until he fell asleep.
* * *
Twice during the night, they were roused by tremendous thumps and, once, a brief kzin snarl. Scarface returned each time licking blood from his arms. The second time he said to a bleary-eyed Locklear, “We can plug the entrances with corpses if these acolytes keep squashing themselves against our ceilings.” The grav polarizer traps, it seemed, made excellent sentries.
Locklear did not know when Stalwart returned but, when he awoke, the young kzin was already speaking with Scarface. True to their rigid code, the priests fully intended to drown Kit again in a noon ceremony using heavier stones and, afterward, to lay siege to the cave.
“Let them; it will be empty,” Scarface grunted. “Locklear, you have seen me pilot my little craft. I wonder . . .”
“Hardest part is getting around those deserters, if any,” Locklear said. “I can cover a lot of ground when I’m fresh.”
“Good. Can you navigate to where Boots had her birthing bower before noon?”
“If I can’t, call me acolyte,” Locklear said, smiling. He set off at a lope just after dawn, achingly alert. Anyone he met, now, would be a target.
After an hour, he was lost. He found his bearings from a promontory, loping longer, walking less, and was dizzy with fatigue when he climbed a low cliff to the overhang where Scarface had left his scooter. Breathing hard, he was lowering his rump to the scooter when the rifle butt whistled just over his head.
Nathan Gazho, who had located the scooter after scouring the area near the pinnace, felt fierce glee when he saw Locklear’s approach. But he had not expected Locklear to drop so suddenly. He swung again as Locklear, almost as large as his opponent, darted in under the blow. Locklear grunted with the impact against his shoulder, caught the weapon by its barrel, and used it like a prybar with both hands though his left arm was growing numb. The rifle spun out of reach. As they struggled away from the ten-meter precipice, Gazho cursed—the first word by either man—and snatched his utility knife from its belt clasp, reeling back, his left forearm out. His crouch, the shifting of the knife, its extraordinary honed edge: marks of a man who had fought with knives before.