FOR AN INSTANT, in blind panic, Larry whirled, turning to run. The speed with which the banshee caught the change in direction of movement paralyzed him again with terror; but during that split second of immobility, he felt a flash of hope. Kennard had begun to run, stumbling in helpless panic; Larry took one leap after him, wrenching him back, hard.
“Freeze,” he whispered, urgently. “It senses movement and warmth! Keep perfectly still!”
As Kennard struggled to free himself, he muttered swiftly, “Sorry, pal,” swung back his fist and socked Kennard, hard, on the point of the chin. The boy—exhausted, worn, defenseless—collapsed into the snowbank and lay there, motionless, too stunned to rise or to do more than stare, resentfully, at Larry. Larry flung himself down, too, and lay without moving so much as a muscle.
The bird stopped in mid-rush, turning its blind head confusedly from side to side. It blundered back and forth for a moment, its trundling walk and the trailing wings giving it the ungainly look of a huge fat cloaked man. It raised its head and gave forth that terrible, paralyzing wail again.
That’s it, Larry thought, resisting the impulse to stuff his hands over his ears. Things hear that awful noise and they run—and the thing feels them moving! It’s got something like the electrostatic fields of the kyrri—only what it senses is their movement, and their smell.
In this snowbank . . .
Very slowly, moving a fraction of an inch at a time, fearing that even the slightest rapid motion might alert the banshee again, he scrabbled slowly in his pocket for his medical kit. It was almost empty, but there might just be enough of the strongly chemical-smelling antiseptic so that they would not smell like anything alive—or, he thought grimly, good to eat.
“Kennard,” he whispered, “can you hear me? Don’t move a muscle now. But when I slop this stuff around, dive into that snowbank—and burrow as if your life depended on it.” It probably does, he was thinking.
“Now!”
The smell of the chemical was pungent and sharp; the banshee, moving its phosphorescent head against the wind, made strange jolting motions of distaste. It turned and blundered away, and in that moment Larry and Kennard began to dig frantically into the snowbank throwing up snow behind them, scrabbling it back over their bodies.
They were safe—for the moment. But how would they get across the pass?
Then he remembered Kennard’s earlier words about the banshees. They’re night-birds, torpid in the sunlight. The phosphorescence of their heads proved that they were no creatures of normal sunlight.
If they could live through the night . . .
If they didn’t freeze to death . . .
If some other banshee couldn’t feel their warmth through the snow around them . . .
If the sun shone tomorrow, brightly enough to quiet the great birds . . .
If all these things happened, then they just might live through their last hurdle.
If not . . .
Suddenly all these ifs, coming at him like blasts of fear from Kennard, stirred fury in him. Damn it, there had to be a way through! And Kennard seemed to have given up; he was just lying there in the snow, silent, apparently ready for death.
But they hadn’t come so far together to die here, at the last. Damn it, he’d get them over that pass if he had to burrow through the damned snowbank with his bare hands . . . .
The banshee seemed to have gone; cautiously, he lifted his head, ever so slightly, from the snowbank. Then, thinking better of it, he plastered the freezing stuff over his head before lifting it up, quickly surveying the pass above them. Less than a hundred feet. If they could somehow crawl through the snow . . .
Urgently, he shook Kennard’s shoulder. The Darkovan boy did not move. This last terror had evidently finished his endurance. He muttered, “Right back where we were—when we left Cyrillon’s castle—”
Larry’s fury exploded. “So after dragging me halfway across the country, within sight of safety you’re going to lie here and die?”
“The banshees—”
“Oh, your own god Zandru take the banshees! We’ll get through them or else we won’t, but by damn we’ll try! You Darkovans—so proud of your courage when it’s a matter of individual bravery! As long as you could be a hero”—he flayed Kennard, deliberately, intently, with his words—”you were brave as could be! When you could make me look small! But now when you have to work with me, you konk out and lie down to die! And Valdir thinks he can do anything with your people? What the hell—his own son can’t shut up and listen and co-operate! He’s got to be a goddam hero, or he won’t play, and just lies down to die!”