by Glen Cook
We hurried on. After a while Zeck Zack resumed talking so he could explain some of the nastier devices his folk used to booby-trap their backtrails. Some were quite gruesomely ingenious.
He had contributed nothing but carping before. His sudden helpfulness suggested the proximity of unicorns scared the tailfeathers off him.
41
After pausing at a brackish stream to water and gather firewood, we scrambled up several hundred feet of scree around the knees of a monster monolith of a butte and made camp in a pocket that couldn't be approached in silence by a mouse. The view was excellent. None of us, with our varied eyes, or even with the spyglass, could see anything moving in the twilight.
We settled down to a small, sheltered fire. Being in the mood myself, we broached one of the baby kegs and passed it around. It held only enough for a good draft each for me, Zeck Zack, Dojango, and sips for the grolls. "Yech!" was my assessment. "Drinking that was the second mistake I've made in this life."
"I won't be so forward as to ask what the other might have been," Morley said, "suspecting it might have been being born." He smirked. "I presume beer jostled on the back of a pack animal in the hot sun loses something."
"You might say. What possessed you, Dojango?"
"A slick-talking salesman."
We sat around the fire after eating, mostly watching it die down, occasionally assaying a story or a joke, but largely tossing out notions about how we might deal with the unicorns if it came to that. I didn't contribute much. I'd begun to fret about my revelation.
Something must have gone wrong. There had been time for them to reach the nest, I felt. Had the bloodslave betrayed himself? Had he been found out?
Without him prospects were poor. We could wander the Cantard looking until we were old men.
At some point I would have to admit defeat and head north with my false affidavit. I supposed we'd give up when our stores were depleted to just enough for the overland journey to Taelreef, the friendly port nearest us after Full Harbor. Going back into the shadow of the major's claw seemed plain foolhardy from there in the desert.
One of the grolls was telling Morley a story. Morley kept snickering. I ignored them and began drowsing.
"Hey. Garrett. You got to hear this story Doris just told me. It'll tear you up."
I scowled and opened my eyes. The fire had died to sullen red coals casting little useful light. Even so, I could see that Morley's words didn't fit his expression. "Another one of those long-winded shaggy-dog fables about how the fox tricked the bear out of berries, then ate them and got the runs and diarrheaed himself to death?" That had been the most accessible of the grollish stories so far, and even it had lacked a clear point or moral.
"No. You'll get this one right away. And even if you don't, laugh a lot so you don't hurt his feelings."
"If we must, we must."
"We must." He moved over beside me. In a low voice, he said, "It starts out like this. We're being watched by two of the night people. Laugh."
I managed, without looking around. Sometimes I do all right.
Doris called something to Marsha, who responded with hearty grollish laughter. It sounded like they had bet on my response and Marsha had won.
"Doris and Marsha are going to jump them. Maybe they can handle them, maybe they can't. Don't look around. When I'm done telling the story, we're going to get up and walk toward Doris. Chuckle and nod."
"I think I can manage without the stage directions." I chuckled and nodded.
"When Doris moves, you follow him and do whatever needs doing. I'll go with Marsha."
"Dojango?" I slapped my knee and guffawed.
"He watches the centaur."
Zeck Zack had backed himself into a tight place where nothing could come at him from behind. His legs were folded under him; his chin rested upon his folded arms; he appeared to be sound asleep.
"Ready?" Morley asked.
I put on my hero face that said I was a fearless old vampire killer from way back. "Lead on, my man. I'm right behind you."
"Big laugh."
I hee-hawed like it was the one about the bride who didn't know the bird had to be cleaned before it went into the roaster. Morley pasted a grin on and rose. I did so too, and tried shaking some of the stiffness out of my legs. We walked toward Doris.
Doris and Marsha moved with astonishing swiftness. I had run only two steps when I glimpsed a dark flutter among the rocks. Doris hit it. A great thrashing and flailing started. Another broke out behind me. I didn't look back.
When I got there, Doris had the vampire in a fierce bear hug, facing away from him. Sinews popped and crackled. Strong as he was, the groll was having trouble keeping the hold. Blood leaked from talon slashes on his hide. The blood smell maddened the vampire further. His fangs ripped the air an inch from the groll's arm.
Let that devil sink one and Doris was done for. It would inject a soporific venom capable of felling a mastodon.
I stood with a knife in one hand and silver half mark in the other, wondering what to do. Whenever a foot flailed out at me, I tried to cut the tendon above the heel.
Suddenly there was a flicker of light. Dojango was feeding the fire.
Doris pushed the vampire's ankles between his knees. I flung forward, trying to drive my blade into one of the devil's knees, to hobble it. It twisted half an inch. My point hit bone and cut downward through flesh harder than summer sausage.
A wound to the bone, a foot long, and when I was done about three drops of liquid leaked out. The vampire loosed one flat, shrill keen of pain and rage. Its eyes burned down at me, trying to catch mine with their deadly hypnotic gaze.
I slammed the half mark into the wound before it could start healing.
It was done so quickly, deftly, and instinctively that even now it amazes me.
The vampire froze for many seconds. Then dead lips peeled back and loosed a howl that terrified the stones and must have been audible twenty miles away; immortality betrayed. I clamped both hands on the wound to keep the coin in place. The night beast bent back like a man in the last throes of tetanus, hissed, gurgled, shook so violently we barely held on.
The flesh beneath my hands began to soften. Around the coin it turned to jelly. It oozed between my fingers.
Doris threw the thing down. The fire painted his great green face in light and shadow patches of hatred. The vampire lay among the rocks, still hissing, clawing at its leg. It was a very strong one. The poison should have finished it sooner. But they're all strong, or they couldn't be what they are.
Doris snagged a boulder twice as long as me and smashed the thing's head.
For several seconds I watched flesh turn to jelly and slide off bones. Then, as though the vampire's end was a signal, my revelation came.
I knew a direction.
When daylight came...
If daylight came. Morley and Marsha were embattled still. Doris was on his way to help. He collected his ten-foot club as he went. I shook all over and went to help myself.
Somehow, as we approached, the second vampire broke loose. It hit the ground, then hurled itself through the air in one of those hundred-foot bounds that have led the ignorant to believe they can fly.
The leap brought it straight toward me.
I don't think it was intentional. I think it jumped blind, with the fire in its eyes. But he saw me as he came. His mouth opened, his fangs gleamed, his eyes flared, his claws reached...
"He" or "it"? It had been male when it was alive. It could still sire its own kind. But did it deserve... ?
Doris's club met him with a solid whump! The vampire arced right back the way he had come and fell at Marsha's feet. Marsha bounced a boulder off him before he could move—if he could have moved.
I didn't go on. I headed for the fire and another of those skunky kegs and hopefully some unsober reflection.
Dojango was shaking worse than I was, but he was on the job, feeding the fire with one hand, keeping a crossbow aimed at
Zeck Zack with the other. He didn't look up to see who or what was coming toward him.
Another twenty-mile shriek shredded the fabric of the night.
42
"I make it twelve," I said. "One lame. If I stare through this glass anymore, my eye is going to fall out."
Morley took the spyglass, studied the unicorns playing around the water course and pretending they didn't know we were nearby.
Morley handed the glass to Dojango. He told Zeck Zack, "One of your traps worked."
The centaur wasn't talking to us this morning.
I retreated to higher ground, a better view, and contemplation of last night's revelation, which remained with me.
It amounted to a direction, a line on which Kayean and I were points. The trouble was, the line ran through me, so I had no certain idea which of the two ways pointed toward Kayean and which ran away.
The Old Witch hadn't mentioned that problem.
I favored going southeast. That would put the nest nearer Full Harbor and the roads toward the war zone. It also put a large, promising mesa astride the line.
"Hey," I called down. "Somebody bring me the glass."
Morley came grumbling up. "Who was your butt boy yesterday?"
"A genie. But somebody threw his beer keg on the fire last night." I trained the glass on the mesa, asked, "What took you so long with that thing last night?"
"I was trying to get it to talk. It was a new one, barely up from being a bloodslave. Not born to the blood. I thought it might crack. Hey! The stallion and two of the mares are taking off."
So they were. They headed up our back trail at a grand gallop. The other unicorns moved out of sight behind the scruffy trees lining the watercourse. I swung the glass. "Did you learn anything we can use?"
"Nothing you'd find interesting. What is it?"
"Somebody coming right up our back trail. Too far to tell for sure, but it looks like a big party."
He took the glass. "Fortune, thou toothless, grinning bitch. Here we are treed by unicorns and there—I'd give you odds—comes your major friend."
"No bet till they're close enough to show faces."
"You want a sure thing, don't you?"
"I've never had a gambling debt hanging over my head."
He scowled and returned the glass.
The male unicorn was back. He and the trained dogs lurked behind the living screen bordering the creek, waiting for us to make a break. The females had moved to a tributary dry wash a mile away.
Answering a question, I told Morley, "They'll jump out and try to panic the horses, which isn't hard unless the horses are well trained. If they succeed, they'll pick off a few, eat the horses where they fall, and carry the riders back to those who missed out on the hunt. If the horsemen regroup and come back at them, they'll just scatter and wait. People aren't going to bother carrying off dead horses."
"They ought to be close enough to see something."
I raised the glass. The riders were close enough to pick individuals from the dust but not close enough to distinguish features. "I'd guess fifteen horsemen and two wagons. See what you think."
He watched awhile, grunted. "They ride like soldiers. Looks like we trade bad trouble for worse. At least they seem to know where they're going."
"I know where I'm going, too. That mesa."
"Back the way we traveled for an entire day? When were you struck by this marvelous revelation?"
I ignored him. He didn't need to know.
The riders passed the female unicorns' hiding place. "Going to hit them from behind." I took the glass back. "Well. What do you know. Did you check that lead wagon?"
"No."
"Can you think of two women who might be roaming the Cantard with Saucerhead Tharpe?"
"What? Give me that damned thing." He looked. "That stupid bitch. Hell. Your pal Vasco and his boys are there, too. Regular reunion of the Garrett Appreciation Society. Looks like they're prisoners. I count ten soldiers and one officer."
My turn at the glass showed me he was right. "That's my Major No-Name. This puts me in a moral bind."
"Yeah?"
"I can't let those women get hurt."
"The hell. They asked for it. What would they do if they were up here and you were down there?"
I didn't get to answer that one. The unicorns burst out of the dry wash. At first it seemed their strategy was perfect. The soldiers' horses darted every direction. Then suddenly they were all facing the rush. The soldiers held leveled lances.
The groups crashed together. The unicorns broke first, running for the wash. One soldier and two horses were down. The unicorns had lost no one, but they had collected the majority of wounds.
An arrow smacked into the shoulder of the slowest. She stumbled, went down on her knees. Before she could rise, soldiers with lances overtook her. Major No-Name called something taunting. He sent five men to plink arrows into the wash. Angered, the unicorns came roaring out. In another brief mix-up, another soldier, another unicorn, and two more horses died. No-Name held his ground and mocked the attackers. The soldiers who lost their mounts took replacements from their prisoners.
"He do have a hate for unicorns, I think," Morley said.
"Here comes the boss female after orders."
"I'm going back down. Give me the high sign if he tells her to take the dogs with her,"
"Will do."
The major was expecting a fight. He made a makeshift fort of his wagons and baggage off his pack animals, put all the extra animals inside the barricade, armed his prisoners, and had them wait on the wagons. I wondered what he told them.
The male unicorn was either stupid or had lost a favorite. They do become mercurial when that happens.
I signaled Morley. I thought I knew what he had in mind. I didn't like it but I could see no alternative.
So. The dogs went howling toward the major's group. The unicorns charged behind. A fine, merry dust-up got started.
The male unicorn didn't want to watch. Morley proved that by racing from the foot of the scree to the watercourse unchallenged.
Zeck Zack was after him before he was halfway across. There is nothing on four legs faster—in the short run—than a motivated centaur.
The unicorn heard hoofbeats. He popped up to see what was happening.
It was too late. Zeck Zack was all over him, and showed us he had handled a unicorn one-on-one in younger days. It didn't last long.
All the while I was bounding down the slope. It was move-out time.
43
Everything and everyone was ready when I got down. I scrambled aboard my horse. For once we agreed on absolutely everything. We were a team with a single mind. That mind said, "Make tracks."
I got out ahead of the crowd so I could lead by example. I steered around the base of the butte so we were headed east again, until we reached a point where I could see the battleground. That journey took an hour and a half.
We halted. I raised the spyglass. Nothing moved except the vultures. From that lower angle of vision it was hard to tell how great the disaster had been. I could distinguish one wagon on its side. A vulture perched on a wheel.
"Somebody ought to take a closer look," I said, staring at Zeck Zack.
He nodded. Without comment he borrowed a couple of javelins and trotted off. The morning had wrought marvelous changes in him. "He might be back in the army," I told Morley. Dotes just grunted. I added, "Don't forget, somebody thought enough of him to get him Karentine citizenship."
"It isn't what you were, it's what you are, Garrett. And that creature is the worst kind of night trader. The kind that sells your kind to them."
Yeah.
Zeck Zack circled the mess a few times, closing in, then he raised a javelin and beckoned, knowing I had the glass on him.
"Let's go."
It was grisly. The dogs were all dead. So were most of the unicorns and a dozen horses. But there was not a human cadaver to be seen.
"They went on," the ce
ntaur said.
I told Morley, "For a Venageti he sure sticks tight to Karentine field doctrine. Challenge unicorns when you can. Carry away your dead. Poison the flesh of the animals you leave behind." Every dead animal had been cut dozens of times. Each cut was stained a royal blue where crystalline poison had been rubbed into the wound.
No one was going to profit from dead army animals.
I counted eight slain unicorns. They had kept at it until the dominant female had been killed. The survivors would be in bad shape.
Unicorns in that part of the Cantard would seek easier prey for a while.
I raised the glass and searched the base of the butte. There they were, looking back at us.
"See them?" Morley asked.
"Yeah. Burying their dead. Can't make out anybody special except Saucerhead."
Zeck Zack took a cue from that and galloped off toward the butte shadow where the major was returning the earth's children to her.
"Trying to ingratiate himself," Morley said. "So you'll be a little loose on the rein when the time comes."
"When do you figure he'll run?"
"When we start into the nest. We won't dare waste time chasing him. And with us keeping them busy, his chance of making it would be good. This is his country and he can still pick them up and put them down when he wants."
I watched Dojango for a minute. He was collecting souvenirs. He had cut the dew claws off a unicorn, had knocked out some of its razor teeth, and was trying to figure how to take its horn. That would bring fifty marks bounty in Full Harbor and more as a curio in TunFaire.
"What are you going to do about it?" Morley asked.
"Let him run. I won't have any more use for him."
Zeck Zack came prancing back. He reported that four soldiers and the major had survived, and four other men as well. I knew about Saucerhead. One of the others sounded like Vasco. The remaining two could have been anybody.
"Survived don't mean unscathed, either," the centaur said. "They got cut up pretty good."
"What about the women?"
