The arrow was just a bit behind the curlycorn, which galloped off, not in fear, it seemed to Minkus, but as if it had suddenly thought of a previous appointment.
‘Missed!' Ersol said and sent his arrow flying too.
They were not stupid men, on the whole, and it didn't take them too long to decide that they hadn't a prayer of catching the heretofore mythical creature so they stopped chasing it.
Thoroughly winded and disgusted, they turned back to where they had left the rest of their winter gear and the rabbits Sinead had left behind for them.
Something new had been added. What looked like an enormous calico housecat, the base of its tail thin, the tip bushy, was licking the last of the last rabbit from its mouth. Behind it lurked the curlycorn, quite as if, Minkus thought, the two beasts were conspiring against the hunting party.
Minkus was inclined to remonstrate with the beasts but de Peugh had worked his way into a leadership position and hushed the lot of them with a finger to his lips.
The cat sauntered towards the curlycorn and the two of them ambled off into the woods. With a stealthy wiggle of his fingers, de Peugh motioned them to follow.
Together they crept after the elusive beasts as quietly as five men unaccustomed to Petaybean groundcover could creep. The animals managed to stay just out of range, but did not seem to notice their arrows.
‘You can tell nothing here is used to being hunted,' Ersol whispered. 'They aren't taking anything fired in their direction personally.’
With another gesture from de Peugh, the men spread out and came towards the animals from five different angles. This time, when Ersol fired his arrow, it glanced off the flank of the curlycorn, which whinnied and began to run. The cat chased it, as if in a game. The men broke into a run too, and because of their angles, closed in on the cat.
Suddenly the curlycorn reared, his chest looming over Minkus. Now was the time to use the spear or never. But the cat evaded Mooney's dagger by springing straight across the shaft of Minkus's spear, knocking it aside.
Minkus, who fancied himself no mean hand at springing, threw himself at the cat at precisely the same time as the other four men. The cat's fur brushed his hands as his feet landed, tangling with eight other feet, and the lot of them plunged through the underbrush and down, down, bruisingly down into a deep, dark hole.
Landing on that part of his anatomy best suited for abrupt seating, Minkus was showered with debris from above. Looking up, he saw the faces of the cat, its teeth bared in a wide grin, and the curlycorn, staring down at him and his companions. Perhaps there was something to this anthropomorphism after all, he thought. He could have sworn that both animals wore expressions of profound satisfaction.
‘I think I broke my jaw,' mumbled Mooney. Or that was what Minkus understood him to say. Mooney's actual statement was obscured by what seemed to be the echo of his last word, distorted into 'Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha'.
After sending Liam and Seamus on to the other culling places, Sinead and the extra curlies turned back to where she'd last seen the cheechakos. It had started snowing in the time they took to make their plans, and a light coating of snow masked the lake shore and its surroundings. She missed the spot at first, for there was no longer any clothing or weapons or any trace of the dead rabbits.
‘I know I left 'em around here somewhere,' she said, dismounting and looking for a sign that would enable her to start tracking the men. Brushing aside some of the snow, she uncovered the vestiges of several sets of tracks, two sets leading away from the site and one leading back. There was also one clear set of the paw prints of a track-sized cat. She began calling but her cries were not answered, and after trying to tell one broken bush from another she gave up and decided to find Liam and Seamus instead so that she could send Seamus back to Kilcoole for help while she and Liam, the best tracker of the three of them, continued to search.
Clodagh was beginning to realize why religious congregations were sometimes called 'flocks'. The ones following her to the hotsprings had less sense than sheep and were noisier than magpies.
They insisted on walking to the hotsprings cave barefoot, even though she warned them about the coo-berry brambles that still guarded the entrance to the cave from the unwary and uninvited. The coobrambles had settled back into being ordinary weeds again, their extraordinary growth curtailed once the brambles had penetrated and removed all of the Petraseal, and most of the people who had painted the sealant, in four of the planet's communion caves. The brambles had been cut back, poisoned, and burnt but there was still a thriving growth at the hotsprings. You just had to know how to avoid it.
Clodagh did avoid it. The newcomers insisted on walking straight through the brambles and she had an awful time getting them loose again, finally having to resort to the small mist bottle of coo repellent she had thankfully remembered to carry with her.
Then the newcomers wanted to enter the cave by prostrating themselves and crawling in like worms, but Clodagh pointed out that since the entrance was through the waterfall, they could drown that way and really, truly, the planet didn't care a bit how they came in as long as they didn't have any Petraseal with them.
They did insist on grovelling and kissing the cave floor the moment they entered, though.
After genuflecting six or seven times, Sister Igneous Rock threw her outstretched arms into the air and cried, 'Speak to us O Beneficence…’
All they got was an echo, not of the last word, but of the O. It sounded like Wo, no, no…’
‘Tell us what you would have us do! How can we dedicate our miserable lives to your service? How can we redeem the error of humankind to your greater glory? How can we demonstrate that, though unworthy, we are more than willing to do your bidding? How can we convince You to show us your will?’
‘How?' echoed the others. 'Tell us how.’
Clodagh sighed. They could start by shutting up. Even if it had something to say today, which it apparently didn't, not even the planet could get a word in edgewise the way these folks carried on.
After a time, they did stop babbling. Clodagh had half fallen asleep by then.
Lazily, she roused up. 'You all done now?’
But just then, Brother Schist collapsed back down to his knees and yelled, 'Halleluja! I just heard voices!’
‘What? Where? Why should it talk to you and not to the rest of us? What did it reveal to you?' cried Sister Agate.
‘It said, "Fraggitall, these things have thorns.
‘Ah-ha,' Clodagh said, and stepped over them to the cave's entrance, sliding between the waterfall and the cliff face.
Portia Porter-Pendergrass and Bill Guthrie were tangling themselves to shreds in coobrambles.
Clodagh took her spray-mist bottle from her apron pocket, spritzed her way to them and tried to help.
‘Get away from me!' Portia shrieked. 'Guthrie, what kind of a man are you? Make this… this witch - let go of me!’
‘I thought you came to talk to me,' Clodagh said, genuinely puzzled. 'Sean said you folks wanted to.’
‘Pay no attention to her, Dama,' Bill Guthrie said. 'She's hysterical. She became addicted to one of her company's own tranquillizers - sad case, really. I wanted to talk to you about the pharmaceutical potential of some of the materia medica you have discovered on your charming planet but Portia thought we should just begin taking samples. Unfortunately, the samples seem to have taken us.’
‘Sure looks that way,' Clodagh said. 'Dama, if you just stand up and pick off the ones stuck to your clothes, I think you're free now. It's startin' to snow anyway. Coobrambles shrink when it snows. Come on over to the spring and let's wash and treat those scratches. You got some pretty deep ones.’