forward in a galloping waddle. Now soldiers did turn from
conversation or eating to stare uncertainly at the fleeing
wagon.
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Alan Dean Foster
The last few troops scrambled out of the wagon's path.
There was nothing ahead save rock and promise.
Someone stumbled over the body of the unfortunately
curious officer, noted that the head was no longer attached,
connected the perfidy with the rapidly shrinking outline of the
racing wagon, and finally thought to raise the alarm.
"Here they come, friends." Caz knelt in the wagon,
staring back the way they'd come. His eyes picked out
individual pursuers where Jon-Tom could detect only a faint
rising of dust. "They must have found the body."
"Not enough of a start," said Bribbens tightly. "I'll never
see my beloved Slqomaz-ayor-le-WeentIi and its cool green
banks again. I regret only not having the opportunity to perish
in water."
"Woe unto us," murmured a disconsolate Mudge.
"Woe unto ya, maybe," said the lithe black shape perched
on the back of the driver's seat. Pog lifted into the air and
sped ahead of the lumbering wagon.
"Send back help!" Jon-Tom yelled to the retreating dot.
"He will do so," Clothahump said patiently, "if his panic
does not overwhelm his good sense. I am more concerned
that our pursuit may catch us before any such assistance has a
chance to be mobilized."
"Can't you make this go any faster?" asked Hor.
"The lanteth is built for pulling heavy loads, not for
springing like a zealth over poor ground such as this," said
the driver, raising his voice in order to be heard above the
rumble of the wheels.
"They're gaining on us," said Jon-Tom. Now the mounted
riders coming up behind were close enough so that even he
could make out individual shapes. Many of the insects he
didn't recognize, but the long, lanky, helmeted Plated Folk
resembling giant walking sticks were clear enough. Their
huge strides ate up long sections of Pass as they closed on the
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
escapees. Two riders on each long back began to notch
arrows into bows.
"The Gate, there's the Gate, by Rerelia's pink purse it is!"
Mudge shouted gleefully.
His shout was cut off as he was thrown off his feet. The
wagon lurched around a huge boulder in the sand, rose
momentarily onto two wheels, but did not-turn over. It
slammed back down onto the riverbed with a wooden crunch.
Somehow the axles held. The spokes bent but did not snap.
Ahead was the still distant rampart of a massive stone wall.
Arrows began to zip like wasps past the wagon. The passen-
gers huddled low on the bed, listening to the occasional thuck
as an arrow stuck into the wooden sides.
A moan sounded above them, a silent whisper of departure,
and another body joined Talea. It was their iconoclastic,
brave driver. He lay limply in the wagon bed, arms trailing
and the color already beginning to fade from his ommatidia.
Two arrows protruded from his head.
Jon-Tom scrambled desperately into the driver's seat, trying
to stay low while arrows whistled nastily around him. The
reins lay draped across the front bars of the seat. He reached
for them.
They receded. So did the seat. The rolling wagon had
struck another boulder and had bounced, sending its occu-
pants flying. It landed ahead of Jon-Tom, on its side. The
panicky lizard continued pulling it toward freedom.
Spitting sand and blood, Jon-Tom struggled to his feet.
He'd landed on his belly. Duar and staff were still intact. So
was he, thanks to the now shattered hard-shelled disguise. As
he tried to walk, a loose piece of legging slid down onto his
foot. He kicked it aside, began pulling off the other sections
of chitin and throwing them away. Deception was no longer
of any use.
"Come on, it isn't far!" he yelled to his companions. Caz
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Alan Dean Foster
ran past, then Mudge and Bribbens. The boatman was assisting
Clothahump as best he could.
Hor, almost past him, halted when she saw he was running
toward the wagon. "Jon-Tom, muerte es muerte. Let it be."
"I'm not leaving without her."
Flor caught up with him, grabbed his arm. "She's dead,
Jon-Tom. Be a man. Leave it alone."
He did not stop to answer her. Ignoring the shafts falling
around them, he located the spraddled corpse. In an instant he
had Talea's body in a fireman's carry across his shoulders.
She was so small, hardly seemed to have any weight at all. A
surge of strength ran through him, and he ran light-headed
toward the wall. It was someone else running, someone else
breathing hard.
Only Mudge had a bow, but he couldn't run and use it. It
wouldn't matter much in a minute anyway, because their
grotesque pursuit was almost on top of them. It would be a
matter of swords then, a delaying of the inevitable dying.
A furry shape raced past him. Another followed, and two
more. He slowed to a trot, tried to wipe the sweat from his
eyes. What he saw renewed his strength more than any
vitamins.
A fuzzy wave was fanneling out of a narrow crack in the
hundred-foot-high Gate ahead. Squirrels and muskrats, otters
and possums, an isolated skunk, and a platoon of vixens
charged down the Pass.
The insect riders saw the rush coming and hesitated just
long enough to allow the exhausted escapees to blend in with
their saviors. There was a brief, intense fight. Then the
pursuers, who had counted on no more than overtaking and
slaughtering a few renegades, turned and ran for the safety of
the Greendowns. Many did not make it, their mounts cut out
from under them. The butchery was neat and quick.
Soft paws helped the limping, panting refugees the rest of
248
THE HOUR Or THE GATE
the way in. A thousand questions were thrown at them, not a
few centering on their identity. Some of the rescuers had seen
the discarded chitin disguises, and knowledge of that prompted
another hundred queries at least.
Clothahump adjusted his filthy spectacles, shook sand from
the inside of his shell, and confronted a minor officer who
had taken roost on the wizard's obliging shoulders.
"Is Wuckle Three-Stripe of Polastnndu here?"
"Aye, but he's with the Fourth and Fifth Corps," said the
Sd-aven. His kilt was yellow, black, and azure, and he wore a
|-lhin helmet. Two throwing knives were strapped to his sides
I'beneath his wings, and his claws had been sharpened for war.
"What about a general named Aveticus?"
"Closer, in the headquarters tent," said the raven. He
brushed at the yellow scarf around his neck, the insignia of an
arboreal noncommissioned officer. "You'd like to go there, I
take it?"
Clothahump nodded. "Immediately. Tell him it's the mad
doomsayers. He'll see us."
The raven nodded. "Will do, sir." He lifted from the
wizard's shell and soared over the crest of the Gate.
They marched on through the barely open doorway. Jon-
Tom had turned his burden over to a pair of helpful ocelots.
The Gate itself, he saw, was at least a yard deep and formed
of massive timbers. The stonework of the wall was thirty
times as thick, solid rock. The Gate gleamed with fresh sap, a
substance Caz identified as a fire-retardant.
The Plated Folk might somehow pierce the Gate, but picks
and hatchets would never breech the wall. His confidence
rose.
It lifted to near assurance when they emerged from the
Pass. Spread out on the ancient nver plain that sloped down