Her soft, shaky agreement came quickly, but once again we had to do things the hard way. We couldn’t take the chance of anyone seeing our torches so we had to leave them there, sputtering on the rock floor, and go ahead without them. We edged slowly along one wall, seeing nothing in the deep darkness all about, but we didn’t have all that far to go. The tunnel ended at a blank face of rock with a single fold in it, and once we’d negotiated the fold we saw dark, cloudy skies and heard the sound of night creatures.
“See them there, about their campfire,” Aesnil whispered, squeezing my shoulder from behind. “How many do you make them to be?”
“Five,” I told her, positive about the number even though they were too far away to be probed. We seemed to have exited in the woods, a short way up a rocky slope. The men were camped at least fifty feet away, farther into the woods and below us to the left.
“They should not be there, camped and taking their ease,” Aesnil whispered angrily, compressing my shoulder even more. “They are undoubtedly the wood patrol, meant to move about singly and remain unseen. What if enemies came to attack?”
“Then they would surely be the ones who were attacked first,” I whispered back, reaching up to loosen her hold on my shoulder. “Is it your intention to march forward and remonstrate with them?”
“Certainly not,” she answered, sounding outraged even in a whisper. “I have scarcely put myself through rigor and danger merely to remonstrate with inept guardsmen. We must avoid them at all costs.”
“I think not,” I disagreed, looking back at the cheery campfire. “Their seetarr are tied not far from them, and riding is much preferable to walking. That is, if our destination is not too near to require mounts.”
“Our destination is not near at all,” she said, also looking toward the camp. “I had not considered the possibility of obtaining mounts, for it seemed unlikely that we would. Now that the possibility presents itself, we would be foolish to fail to take advantage of it.”
“Then, by all means, let us not be foolish,” I said, and began moving forward, away from the rock fold. Aesnil followed along behind me, her mind extremely pleased, her attention on walking softly and carefully.
There were a good number of dark shapes on the slope all around us, boulders and stones and rocks and pebbles. The overcast sky must have hidden us from observation as we made our cautious way down the slope, moving from cover to cover, but otherwise wasn’t much of a help. It was difficult seeing things even directly in our path, and the pebbles and silt kept making us lose our footing. The night air had started out being cool and damp, but by the time we reached the foot of the slope we were covered with sweat again.
I left Aesnil behind a boulder and moved forward into the woods alone, my mind questing all about against detection or attack, at the same time trying to ignore what my feet felt like. Going down that slope had hurt, but I didn’t have time to sit and clutch them and cry the way I wanted to. Babies had no business being out on their own, without someone to comfort their tears. If I wanted to be on my own, and I was sure I did, I had to forget about tears.
It took time and effort getting within twenty feet of the five men without being detected, but cheating helped. I was scarcely so capable in the woods that they were likely to miss my presence once I was near enough, so I watched their minds very carefully. As soon as the first one noticed something, I fed him a combined dose of conviction—regarding identification and relaxed dismissal. The two emotions worked to tell the man that I was a harmless night prowler, and lack of attack reinforced the belief. I was noticed three times and instantly dismissed as not being worth bothering about, and then I had reached the position I wanted.
The men were totally relaxed and enjoying themselves, but I picked up the definite impression that they were there for a relatively brief rest stop, not permanently settled in. Their campfire had been built against the damp of the night and the aftermath of the rains, and they were handing around a large skin of what had to be drishnak, the spiced wine l’lendaa liked so much. The evening breeze brought the smell of it to me, wrinkling my nose, but that was one time I was pleased to see the horrible stuff. I could tell from the way they drank, carefully rationing themselves, that they probably intended the supply to last the rest of the night at least; happily for Aesnil and myself, that intention was subject to change.
Careful to project to all five men at once, I began by sending unconcern and the feeling that there was no need to hurry, that they had all the time in the world. Once those thoughts were firmly established I went after the one who was being passed the skin, making him worried about the amount of drishnak left and concerned that he might miss his share. The worry and concern were too generalized to convey such specific thoughts, but the wineskin in his hands and the unconcern about everything else tended to establish a focus. The man took two long pulls, more than he had at any other time, then reluctantly passed the skin on to his right. I passed on along with the skin, and tackled the second man in the same way.
I may dislike drishnak intensely, but there’s no faulting the way it works. The amount the skin contained would have been enough to teeter twice their number of men; having only five of them to work on it put them all out cold even before the skin was empty. When the last mind slid down the well into oblivion, I stood up from behind the bushes I’d crouched near, stretched the newest aches out of my back and shoulders, then signaled to Aesnil to join me. She approached with caution, curiosity and worry intermingled, peered at the five motionless bodies, then laughed her tinkling laugh.
“Truly, Terril, your match does not exist,” she said, turning away from the campfire to hug me briefly but warmly. “We may now take two of their seetarr and depart.”
“We may take two of the seetarr,” I said, “but we may not depart as yet. To leave these men here, in such a way, would surely be to leave them to their deaths. We must somehow protect them from predators.”
“How are we to protect l’lendaa?” she demanded, impatiently. “Are we to stand over them with swords in our hands till they wake? They are sure to be grateful then, and strap us no more then till midday. Do not be foolish, Terril.”
“There must be a way,” I insisted, looking around, and then my attention was caught by the five seetarr. The big black animals were tied to a line strung between two trees, their reins fastened tight but their legs unhobbled. I’d checked them briefly earlier to make sure there were two who would accept new riders, and had found only one of the five was so attached to his present rider that even his thoughts didn’t stray far from the man. Seetarr are more than just dumb animals, their intelligence higher than most Rimilians know. Aesnil and I couldn’t have stood over the men and protected them even if we’d wanted to, but that didn’t mean no one else could.
I crossed the small camp and headed directly for the seetarr, swerving only to avoid the unconscious men. Now that I’d thought of something I wanted to get it done as soon as possible and then continue with our escape, hopefully before I became exhausted. I was already tired, already feeling what I’d done to the men, and I didn’t have all that much left. Whatever I did would have to be done before I reached the bottom of the barrel.
I quickly untied the two seetarr I’d chosen as mounts, and urged them to follow me back to where I’d left Aesnil. It took a certain amount of clambering and scrambling before we were in the saddles but climbing up was necessary; making the seetarr kneel would have wasted my strength. Then I turned back to the other three. The two who had no attachment to their riders made no resistance to the suggestion that they pull off the line and take themselves for a walk. Rope and reins snapped in any number of directions as two moved and one stood still, underscoring the puzzlement in the mind of the last to remain. I touched his mind and merged with the puzzlement, then changed it to determination as I brought his attention to the five men. When his concern appeared I increased it, then urged him to come closer and stand in a position above the unmoving bodies. By that time he knew there was something wrong, and wouldn’t have left his position of protection unless taken from it by his rider. I wiped at the sweat on my face with a sleeve, got the proper direction from