They were two days in from the trail head. The vroqupii surmounted the occasional ridge with ease. The beauty of the lower plateau captivated the travelers, from the rushing streams beginning their long race down to the Skar to the stunted but wide‑spreading evergreens.
Lyra was particularly interested in a convoluted pile of brush that Tyl called an aroyt. Covering as much as half an acre, the aroyt was a single growth that defended its highly edible trunk with an impenetrable armor of centimeter‑long thorns. There were also clumps of high mossy fungi that rose to their knees and held melt water like a sponge. Not that water underfoot was a problem. Most of the trail had been cut from solid rock. Soil was a precious rarity at this height.
They were approaching a saddle between a finger of Aracunga and a low hill when the two lead Brul who had disengaged themselves from the team to serve as advance scouts returned at a gallop. That in itself was extraordinary, since it was the first time the Redowls had seen a vroqupii move at anything faster than a walk.
Homat hurried to meet the outriders as the procession slowed. The scouts were clattering loudly to their companions as they traveled down the line.
"Maybe they've spotted Jakaie over the ridge line," Lyra suggested hopefully. Too hopefully.
Homat rejoined them quickly, his fright apparent in his expression. "The Brul are taking their animals out of harness."
"What?" Etienne looked toward the front of the team, could see the drovers working with the harness. "What the devil's wrong?"
"Exactly," Homat replied. "Many devils. Demons." Ibis eyes were wide.
"More strepanong? Or some other animal?"
"Not animal, not animal," Homat insisted. "Demons!" Etienne could see he was far more terrified than he'd been the night of the scavenger attack.
Etienne started up the line. "They can't unhitch and quit now! We're almost there." As he spoke, several vroqupii were already moving out of file. "You've got to make them stop, Homat."
"They won't stop, de‑Etienne. The strepanong they can understand, but no one can fight demons."
Desperately, Etienne turned to Tyl. "What's going on? What are they so frightened of?"
"I am not sure," Tyl murmured, "but I fear what I may know."
"Demons are in Jakaie," Homat went on. He turned to point toward the saddle just ahead. "Jakaie lies just over that ridge, but the demons are there. The Brul will go no further, de‑Etienne. They say they are going back to their homes as fast as their mounts will carry them. They complain that nothing was said in the contracts about dealing with demons."
"What kind of demons?" Lyra asked, trying to make some sense of the Mai's panic.
"Ice demons!"
"Ali, it is as I fear." Tyl turned and began talking rapidfire to his companions, the words flying almost as fast as if he were speaking Mai.
"Not the Tsla too," Etienne snapped angrily. The first retreating vroqupii were passing the boat now, heading back toward the Barshajagad. He stepped toward the nearest.
"You must stay!" he shouted in Mai. The Brul ignored him. He walked to the next in line. "You can't leave us here like this. We have a contract, an agreement." He struggled to recall the words Lyra had used to hold the drovers the night of the strepanong. "What of your commercial honor?"
"To flee from devils is no disgrace," the Brul announced with dignity, even as he looked back over his shoulder to make certain no demons pursued. And that was all any of them would say.
In less than thirty minutes the last vroqupii had disappeared over the slope behind them, its Brul urging it to greater speed. Etienne and Lyra considered their boat, marooned on a rocky plain, yoked to nothing.
"Ice demons," Etienne grumbled. "Didn't they see how easily we drove off the strepanong?"
"These are not strepanong," Tyl told him. "Thee must see to understand as thee had to see the Topapasirut to understand it. I sorrow for thee, Learned One. As for ourselves, we must go on to aid our brethren in Jakaie."
"Hey, what about us? Are we supposed to just sit here and wait for the next flood?"
"Etienne," Lyra said gently, "you're not thinking clearly. You never do when you lose your temper."
"So enlighten me."
"This town lies just over the ridge ahead." She stared meaningfully at the hydrofoil.
Realization brought embarrassment with it, though the Tsla did not perceive it. "Just ahead. We have plenty of battery power and we don't have to lift too high." Lyra nodded, turned to the Tsla. "These ice demons. They wouldn't happen to be the Na, would they?"
"What other demons of the ice are there? I thought thee knew." Tyl gestured toward the boat with his snout. "Thee will use thy spirit boat to help us?"
"To help you, yes, and ourselves, since we have to get it into Jakaie somehow. You know what to do?" Tyl nodded and moved with the porters to climb aboard. The Redowls followed.
"You wanted to see this legendary third race, the one that inhabits the Guntali," Etienne reminded her as they mounted the ladder. "Looks like you're going to have your chance."
"I'm not sure I like the circumstances, but it doesn't appear we have much say in the matter."
They checked out the boat's systems carefully. It had been several days since the repellers had been used. But the hydrofoil lifted easily off the ground and started forward on its cushion of air. The wooden platform hung beneath the hull, the huge heavy wheels spinning aimlessly. Bindings groaned but held.
Jakaie had better be as close as the Brul had indicated, Lyra thought as she guided them toward the notch in the rocks. Otherwise they'd have to squat down somewhere until the cells recharged the batteries.
Jakaie was built into a flank of Aracunga. The architecture was similar to Turput's but much heavier construction seemed to be the rule. The buildings boasted fewer windows. At that altitude the Tsla needed to conserve heat.
Off to the north lay irrigated fields filled with soil laboriously collected from notches and arroyos where it had gathered. The wall was the most obvious difference between Jakaie and Turput. It was an impressive wall; a good six or seven meters high but not especially thick.
Apparently Jakaie was high enough for creatures of the Guntali to mix with those of the Tsla ecological zone. Including, it seemed, the Na. He tried to visualize the Na in his mind's eye, using variations of the Mai‑Tsla pattern‑a bipedal, mammalian type. And that much was true. But the ways in which the new form diverged from those previously encountered caused the small hairs on the back of his neck to tense.
Several gates broke the town wall and no more than two dozen Na battered away at the largest. That two dozen Na would take on an entire town said more for their ferocity and disposition than all the fears expressed by the Brul.
Jakaie was large enough to harbor anywhere from five hundred to a thousand inhabitants, all of whom not only were on the defensive but appeared to be losing the battle. Tsla bodies were visible outside the wall. There was no sign of dead Na though one individual did sit some distance away from the fight. A big male, it was festooned with spears and arrows and was busily engaged in plucking them from his body as if they were so many bee stings.
As they watched from the straining hydrofoil, the gate gave way under the steady pounding from rocks and small trees. The Tsla inside scattered as the Na rushed in among them, and screams of terror pierced the clear mountain air. "Thee must hurry, Learned Ones, or many will die!" Swd called from the foredeck.
"We're moving as fast as we can," Etienne told him through the speaker membrane. "This boat wasn't designed for rapid travel out of the water."
Many primitives would have paused at the sight of so alien an object as the flying boat coming toward them. Not the Na. Either they did not possess sufficient imagination to be fearful of strange new shapes or else they were too confident in their own irresistible strength. A few bellowed in the hydrofoil's direction as it crossed over the wall, but the assault continued.
The hydrofoil bucked and rolled
uneasily as they began to pass over homes and streets. It wasn't designed to compensate for such uneven terrain. Everyone aboard was glad when Etienne finally set the boat down in a parklike area near the center of Jakaie. A few anxious faces, flexible snouts aquiver, peeked out at them from shuttered windows and portholes. The noise of fighting could be heard clearly. Etienne checked his pistol as Lyra urged him to hurry. "What, in a rush to shoot some more natives?" he chided her. "How are you going to justify that in your report?"
"If this town's devastated we won't be able to find the help we'll need to get us down to the river again."
"What makes you think the Tsla here have any interest in helping us? This isn't Turput." He scrambled down the boarding ladder.
"Because we're going to endear ourselves to them by helping to repel this attack. Not that I wouldn't help them anyway." She started toward the broken gate and he had to hurry to keep up with her.
Anxious to protect her precious Tsla, he mused. But she was right about one thing: they'd do it if they had to or not. Tyl and the porters had become more than natives during the journey Upriver from Turput. They'd become friends.
Tyl and the three porters were offered arms by oldsters and adolescents. Only Homat did not accompany the reinforcements. He remained with the hydrofoil because between his bulky clothing and the temperature he'd have been useless in a fight.
It was not as if they hadn't encountered violence on Tslamaina before Jakaie, but it was still a shock to stumble onto the decapitated body of a female Tsla lying in the street. The head was nowhere around and the sounds of combat were very close.
After the Na broke through, the Tsla retreated to their strong buildings to harry the invaders with spears and arrows. Etienne and his party rounded the side of one such structure and halted only a few meters from a cluster of ten or twelve farmers who were trapped against the wall by a pair of Na. The farmers were holding the attackers off with long pikes and sharp tools, yet it was apparent that if something wasn't done quickly the Na would pick them apart one by one.
Etienne had no time to admire Tyl's bravery as their guide darted forward, weaving with the waddling gait of his kind, to cut at the leg of one Na with a curved blade. It did not penetrate the leathery skin very deeply and he had to retreat in a hurry, leaving his weapon behind.
But the Na had felt it, grunted, muttered something unintelligible, then reached down to pluck the weapon from its ankle. The creature was four meters tall and covered with a thick, shaggy pelt. Its clothing was crude‑heavy sandals of some unknown leather, a leathery vest and breastplate, and a kilt of some similar material. A bone knife hung from a cord tied around the waist, the blade almost as tall as Lyra. As its main weapon, the Na clutched a club which had once been a tree of respectable size. It was panting heavily and a dark tongue lolled from a corner of its mouth. That made sense. An inhabitant of the Guntali would have little use for sweat glands.
Without a word Etienne moved to his left, Lyra to the right. As he ran he fired. Thick hair was burned black on the back of a pillarlike thigh. The Na howled and turned its attention away from the desperate farmers.
The creature's forehead was very low and its blunt snout seemed incapable of advanced expression, but there was no mistaking that snarl of hatred. It displayed four canines, two upper, two lower. The remaining front teeth appeared to have been fled to sharp points. One did not have to be an experienced biologist to realize the Na did not exist on a diet of vegetables.
It uttered something in words of single syllables as it brought the massive club down faster than Etienne would have guessed possible. He dove wildly behind a small wagon piled high with some kind of vegetation The club made kindling of the wagon and splinters bit at Etienne's exposed face. As he rolled to his feet he thought suddenly, What am I doing here? I should be behind a desk at a university, grumbling over sophomoric student reports and wondering who's going to show at the next faculty get‑together.
There was no time for regretful contemplation. The club swung parallel to the pavement and he heard it whoosh as he ducked and it missed the top of his skull by centimeters. Then a big hand was reaching for him, six treelike fingers with hooked nails at the tips.
He stumbled backward, away from that menacing grasp, firing as he fell. The bolt passed between the forefinger and first thumb to strike the Na in the left eye. It let out a thunderous howl, dropped the club and fell to its knees, shaking violently. The Na was dead by the time it hit the ground.
Etienne tried to rejoin his companions, only to find his path blocked by the other Na. It charged forward and brought its own club down with both hands. Etienne barely missed being pulped by diving behind a nearby wall.
Freed of the need to ward off two attackers, the farmers fanned out behind the survivor. Pikes and spears and scythes stabbed and cut at muscles and tendons. The Na roared and bellowed, frustrated in its attempt to locate the snoutless Tsla who had slain his companion. As a great tendon was finally cut, the beast fell to one knee swinging the club in a wide arc to kill a pair of Tsla who'd closed too quickly.
But now that the Na was down it no longer seemed so massive or invulnerable. Etienne took careful aim and fired at the base of the skull. The bone was so thick that it prevented the charge from penetrating to the spine, but the shock was sufficient to temporarily paralyze the creature and send it tumbling the rest of the way to the street.
It did his heart good, though Lyra would surely not have approved, to watch the peaceful, philosophic Tsla jump all over the body and start hacking it to pieces. Knowing that his help was needed elsewhere, he left the surviving farmers to their butchery.
He needn't have worried. The Na were in full retreat, harried by the persistent townsfolk. He spotted Yulour atop a crop‑loading ramp and climbed up beside him.
"You don't fight here, Yulour?"
"No, Learned One," said the slow‑witted porter. "I want to help, but Teacher Tyl tell me no. He say, I would only end up hurting myself."
Etienne nodded, commending Tyl's good sense. He picked his way back down the ramp.
The fleeing Na carried huge bales of some kind of dried meat from a storehouse they'd broken into, while others hauled off unknown booty in huge leathery sacks. The Tsla pursued them only as far as the ruined gate.
Etienne saw only one other Na corpse. Perhaps word of the two deaths he'd had a hand in had been enough to frighten the rest of the Na into giving up the assault. Or perhaps they'd gained what they'd come for. He could speculate on motivation later. Right now he was exhausted and more than glad to see them go.
Another folk might have pursued in an attempt to recover their stolen stores, but not the Tsla. There was no room in their philosophy for active military pursuit. And out on the open plain they would be at a disadvantage against their opponents, whose size and maneuverability would not be restricted by stone walls and narrow streets.
He slowed as he approached the shattered gate, to stare after the retreating Na. A group of curious locals began to gather around him. Smiling and making Tsla gestures of friendship, he forced his way through them to find Tyl deep in conversation with a silver‑furred elder.
The guide introduced him. "This is Ruu‑an, First Scholar of Jakaie. Ruu‑an, make greeting to the Learned Etienne, a scholar front a world other than ours. He comes here to learn about us ... and as thee have observed, sometimes to help."
"I am gladdened by thy presence," the elder said. His accent differed from that of Tyl and the other Tsla of Turput, but the words remained comprehensible. "Also that thee saw fit to put aside thy studies long enough to aid us in a most desperate time. I have been informed that thee helped to bring down two of the Na and thereby to hasten their flight."
Etienne holstered his pistol. "Does this happen often? From what I saw of the fight I don't see how you could survive repeated attacks."
"The Na assail us infrequently, and usually with less loss of life. Many times we will simply fall back agains
t the mountain and let them take what they will. They are not indiscriminate thieves and never take more than they can carry. But it has not been a good time for us and it was decided this time to resist. I do not think the choice wise."
"They come to steal your food?"
"When the time is hard on us, it may also be hard on them. Nor do they know how to grow food of their own. Despite their appearance, they have a hunger for the fruit of the soil. When it is scarce on the Guntali they will sometimes come down among us. I suppose they cannot be blamed. The life offered by the Guntali must be very hard."
"You sound like you're ready to forgive them," Etienne said, eyeing the bodies scattered both in front of and behind the ruined gate.
"We always do," the First Scholar told him. "Have they not souls just as we? They are more to be pitied than hated for their ignorance and weaknesses."
"I didn't see many weaknesses, but I've already learned that you Tsla are more forgiving than we humans." Already the townsfolk were busy removing the dead. That sparked an unpleasant memory.
"After the ... funeral ceremonies ... are concluded, what do you do with the bodies of your deceased?" He could not look at TyI as he said this. Sensing his discomfort, the guide discreetly allowed the First Scholar to answer.
"Here we cremate the bodies and then scatter the ashes upon our fields, so that as tillers of the soil those who pass on may help the next generation to grow better crops."
"So they can be stolen again by the Na. You ought to put a stop to it."
"That would be a fine thing," the elder said, "but alas, a thing not possible. We cannot chase the Na up to the Guntali. It is too cold for us and the air too thin for us to fight in. Up there, they are the masters.
"Similarly, they cannot fight long down here. The thick hair which protects them from the Guntali's cold soon causes them to grow too hot to exert their great bodies, and they must retreat."