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Master Rhomda!
Dane felt a sudden impulse to crouch down and hide; through the telescope it
seemed that the calm dark eyes must see him, but the spearman turned calmly
away. Dane glanced at the party. There were at least five of the blue tunics, and
perhaps fifty others, and they were moving through the undergrowth very
methodically, searching the bushes with their spears.
Had they been hastily summoned to pursue the fugitive Star Demons? Or were they
merely hunting the mysterious white Star Beast, the one Dane had heard about in
the tavern? Dane did not want to find out.
Dane scanned the area quickly with the glass, concentrating on the course of a small
stream that ran down from the hills a little ahead of them, to join with the river
below. There was a fine clear path of bare rock to its edge, but it would be in plain
sight of the men below them.
But a little way downstream, the water veered sharply back toward them in a wide
meander, along a jumble of boulders and scrub. A stand of tall trees shrouded in
vines shielded it from sight. Dane remembered a spur of exposed rock that ran in
that direction.
This area was becoming definitely unhealthy. Dane wriggled back down the slope,
handed the telescope to Rianna, and explained the situation in whispers to Dravash.
Quickly moving back to the earlier rock spur, he led them across rock to the stream.
In one place he made them leap from boulder to boulder across soft, betraying turf,
glad that they had all, except Joda, come from somewhat heavier worlds, and the
boy was young and limber. They reached the stream without leaving a track or a
broken twig. Dane plunged in and they followed him, along the edge where the
water was shallow; although Aratak and Dravash moved out
into the center of the stream where the water was over the heads of the humans.
Dravash waded stolidly, ducking the branches that dipped over the water, but
Aratak slipped down and swam silently ahead, scouting out the stream.
Dane was thoughtful. If their pursuers were not already following their trail into the
hills, they would before long; if Master Rhomda's party had not yet heard of their
escape from the city, and were hunting the Star-Beast with six legs, they would
certainly soon turn their attention to the more easily identifiable party of "Star
Demons." If the searchers were beating the hills for them, the valley was obviously
the place to be; but the valley was thickly jungled and they could not hide their trail.
But would the pursuers think to look for them on the far side of the river?
That night they swam the river, Rianna and Joda holding on to Aratak as they
drove through the heavy current. Dravash insisted on helping Dane, and after
feeling the strength of the river, Dane was grateful for the big Captain's help. Dane
was sure they would be safe on the far side; he doubted any human could swim it
unaided, and so far their pursuers were all humans.
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For several days they moved cautiously through the jungle beyond the river; but
sooner or later, they knew, they would have to pass through thickly settled areas,
hoping to pass unnoticed through the common people of the villages.
"If," said Joda to Rianna, "you will put on a skirt, give the spear to Dane to carry,
and bare your breasts like any decent woman, we will all be a lot safer." That made
sense, though Rianna hated the long wrapped skirt and the way it shortened her
stride; for they must move between scattered patches of woodland between the fields
of various small villages. But there was no disguising the color of Rianna's eyes,
though she smeared around them with ashes to simulate the crude cosmetics of the
village women; or Aratak's enormous bulk. Sooner or later, no doubt, some rumor
of them would reach the city, and they could only hope the rumor would be late, and
grossly distorted. And to keep a consistent rumor from rising, of a woman and a
man with strangely colored eyes, and an oversize saurian, they sometimes split up;
Dane would wander through the rising dust of ploughed fields, between villages,
with Rianna and Joda alone, like a commonplace family group, sometimes stalking
like a bodyguard behind one of the saurians, to rendezvous at the next village, while
the dark-skinned throngs hurried by intent on their own affairs.
A musician played on a small harp with an extra string fastened only at one end,
that was used like the bow of a violin, and people danced joyfully in the dusty
marketplace. An occasional juggler or wandering mime drew small crowds at a
crossroads. But most of the people were farmers and their wives, carrying produce
to markets, laboring in fields wrested painfully from the jungle, and perpetually at
war with the encroaching tendrils and vines that kept trying to creep out into the
ploughed lands.
Once in a marketplace Dravash brought out some coins the "jewels from Raife"
were too dangerous here, they would cause too much comment; that must wait for
another big city. He bought a small drum and squatted in the market, starting up a
quick musical tattoo that brought crowds running. Joda was shocked most
musicians were human, for it was beneath the dignity of most of the First People
but Dane knew what the Sh'fejj was thinking. Fugitives, people with anything to
hide, would be trying not to attract attention. Under Dravash's whispered orders,
while Dane and Ri-anna hid in the crowd, Joda went round the crowd, holding out
his turbanlike headgear for the listeners to toss little coins into.
But as they traveled, the patches of jungle between the fields thickened, the villages
grew farther apart and poorer. Wooden palisades surrounded the clusters of domed
huts, with the cleared fields around them keeping back the jungle, and hopefully
discouraging the rashas.
The rashas. It might have been a pleasant trip, without the rashas. The big cats
became a more and more constant menace as the travelers finally took altogether to
the jungle. Dravash and Aratak, with their greater height and the advantage that
the rashas did not find them edible or attractive, took on the task of guarding their
protosimian fellow-travelers, and became adept at spotting the great cats roosting in
the lower branches. Even so, only Rianna's quickness with the spear kept their
talons from Joda on two occasions, and once Dane took a long scratch on one arm
that festered and hurt for days. Dane lost track of how many they had killed. He
thought sourly, If the people along here knew, they'd give us a medal as public
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