movin' faster. They're still behind us, though. Must think
we're still in the camp."
"Wait a minute!" Jon-Tom called a halt. "Where's
Mudge?"
Roseroar cursed under her breath. "Damn that ottah! Ah
knew ah should've kept a closer watch on him. He's gone
back fo some of that meat. Yoah friend is a creature of base
instincts."
"Yes, but he's not stupid. Here he comes."
Mudge appeared, laboring beneath a section of roast
nearly as big as himself. "Sorry, mates. I worked all day
on this bloody banquet, and I'm damned if I was goin' to
leave it all for those bastards."
"You're damned anyway," snapped Jon-Tom. "How
are you going to keep up, hauling that on your back?"
The otter swung the heavy, pungent load off his shoulders.
"Roseroar?"
"Not me, ottah. Yo stew in yoah own stew."
"We're wasting time," said Drom. "Here." He dipped
his head forward. "Hold it still."
A quick jab and the roast was impaled on the spiral
horn. "Now let's be away from here before they discover
ourflight." He turned and resumed his walk. "Disgusting."
"What is?" Jon-Tom asked as he jogged alongside.
"The smell of cooked flesh, the odiferous thought of
consuming the body of another living creature, the miasma
of carbonized protein, what else?"
Suddenly Jon-Tom wasn't so hungry anymore.
Creepers and vines strangled the entrance to the ancient
structure. Roseroar was reluctant to enter. The strangely
slitted windows and triangular doorways bespoke a time
and people who had ruled the world long before the
warmblooded.
230
Alan Dean Foster
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
231
"Sulolk used this place," murmured Drom as he trotted
inside.
Distant shouts of outrage came from behind them,
deciding the tigress. She bent beneath the low portal and
squeezed in.
The single chamber beyond had a vaulted ceiling that
enabled her to stand easily. There was more than enough
room for all of them. Mudge was admiring the narrow
windows, fashioned by a forgotten people for reasons of
unknown aesthetics but admirably suited to the refugees'
present needs. He notched an arrow into his bow and
settled himself behind one thin gap.
Jon-Tom took up a stance to the left of the opening,
ready to use his steel-tipped staff on anyone who tried to
enter. A moment later he was able to move to a second
window as Roseroar jammed a massive stone weighing at
least three hundred pounds into the doorway, blocking it
completely.
"This is a good place to fight from." Drom used a hoof
to shove the cooling roast from his horn onto clean rock.
"A small spring flows from the floor of a back room.
Cracks in the ceiling allow fresh air to circulate. I have
often slept here in safety." He indicated the damp grass
growing from the floor. "There is food as well."
"For you," admitted Jon-Tom, watching the woods for
signs of their pursuers. "Well, we have what's in our
packs and the roast we saved." He glanced to his right,
toward the other guarded window. "You shouldn't have
done that, Mudge."
"Cor, it ain't no fun fightin' on an empty stomach,
mate." He leaned forward; his black nose twitched as he
sampled the air. "If they try chargin' us, I can pick 'em off
easy. Our 'omy friend's right. This is a damn good place."
Rosewar was eyeing the wall carvings uneasily. "This is
a very old place. I smell ancient feahs." She had drawn
bom longs words.
There was a thump as Drom settled down to wait. "I
smell only clean grass and water."
Threatening shouts began to emanate from the trees.
Mudge responded with some choice comments about
Hathcar's mother, whom he had never met but whom
thousands of others undoubtedly had. This inspired a rain
of arrows which splintered harmlessly against the thick
stone walls. One flew through Jon-Tom's window to stick
in the earth behind him.
"Here they come!" he warned his companions.
There was nothing subtle about the bandits' strategy.
While archers tried to pin down the defenders, an assort-
ment of raccoons, foxes, and cats rushed at the entrance,
carrying a big log between them. But Roseroar braced her
massive shoulders against the boulder from behind and
kept it from being pushed inward, while Mudge put arrows
in the log wielders as fast as they could be replaced.
"Another bugger down!" the otter would yell each time
an arrow struck home.
This continued for several minutes while Mudge re-
duced the number of Hathcar's band and Roseroar kept the
boulder from moving so much as an inch inward. No
martyrs to futility, those hefting the battering ram finally
gave up and fled for the safety of the woods with the
otter's deadly shafts urging them on.
No one had approached Jon-Tom's window during the
fight. Mudge and Roseroar had done all the work and he
felt pretty useless.
"What now? I don't think they'll try that again."
"No, but they'll bloody well try somethin' else,"
murmured the otter. "Say, mate, why don't you 'ave a go
at 'em with your duar?"
Jon-Tom blinked. "I hadn't thought of that. Well, I had,
but it's hard to think and sing when you're running."
"Why make music? To aggravate them?" asked Drom
interestedly.
"Nope. 'E's a spellsinger, 'e is," said Mudge, "and a
232
Alan Dean Poster
right good one, too. When 'e can control it," he added by
way of afterthought.
"A spellsinger. I am impressed," said the unicorn.
Jon-Tom felt a little better, though he wished the golden
stallion would quit staring at him so intensely.
"What do you think they'll try next?" Jon-Tom asked
the otter.
Mudge eyed the trees. "This bunch bein' about as
imaginative as a pile o' cow flop, I'd expect them to try
smokin' us out. If four legs there is right about the cracks
in the roof lettin' air in, they'll be wastin' their time."
"Are yo certain theah's no back way in?"
"None that I was ever able to discover," Drom told the
tigress.
"Not that you'd fit places where some o1 the rest of us
might," observed Mudge thoughtfully. He handed his bow
and quiver to Jon-Tom. "I'd better check out the nooks
and crannies, mate. We don't want some nasty surprises to
show up and stick us in the behind when we ain't lookin'."
He headed for the crumbling back wall.
Jon-Tom eyed the bow uncertainly. "Mudge, I'm not
good at this."
"Just give a shout if they come at us again. It ain't 'ard,
mate. Just shove an arrow through the window there. They
don't know you can't shoot." He bent, crawled under a
lopsided stone and disappeared.
Jon-Tom awkwardly notched an arrow, rested it on the
window sill as Roseroar took up a position behind the one
the otter had vacated.
"Ah don't understand," she murmured, squinting at the
forest. "We all ain't worth the trouble we're causin' this
Hathcar. That ottah brought down five or six o' them. If ah
was this fella ah'd give up and go in search of less deadly
prey."
"That would be the reasonable thing to do," said
Drom, nodding, "except that as chief he has lost face
already before his band. He will not give up, though if he
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
233
suffers many more losses his own fighters may force him
to quit." The unicorn climbed to his feet and strolled over
to Roseroar's window. She made room for him.
"Hathcar!" he shouted.
A reluctant voice finally replied. "Who calls? Is that