His two handlers for the night appeared a moment later, winded.
“He always hears your voice, Shem, and heads straight for you. He could sniff you out from anywhere in the forest, couldn’t he?” One of the handlers, dressed in a dark brown mottled jacket and trouser, grinned.
The second handler in brown gestured to the three being bound. “Looks like good hunting tonight, eh?”
The three captives stared at them, stunned by the appearance of two more men as if the trees had just spat them out, along with an abnormally huge dog that could have been spawned by a gurgling black cavern.
One of the captives managed to cough out his gag. “Who are you?!” he demanded. “And whose side are you on, anyway, Quiet Man?!” he said to Zenos.
The man in the black jacket stared at him for a moment before saying, “Get them out of here.”
He turned, took the dog by the rope around his neck, and said, “Alongside, Barker. One more problem in the woods tonight. Alongside, alongside.” And he jogged down through the trees back towards the east in what he hoped was the direction of Mahrree.
Fourteen innocent lives, he reminded himself as they weaved through pines and scrubby oaks.
Fourteen.
In his mind a scale presented itself: the fourteen on one side, and the one man lying dead on the other. The fourteen clearly outweighed the one, but when Shem stepped on to the scale with the fourteen, suddenly it was all out of balance.
It was his duty. It was why he was there. He was guilty only of eliminating the guilty. In the mathematics of it all, that made him innocent. In a few hours he might believe it. His initial training would take hold of both his heart and mind, and reassure him that this was all right.
But for now the deed was still so raw in his mind.
At least it was dark. As long as it was always dark when he does such things, he might be able to live with the memory of what he didn’t see. It was his graphic imagination that haunted him.
Fourteen innocent. Fourteen innocent. Because of him.
---
Mahrree sat at the edge of the forest curled up under an evergreen bush that was so pungent she knew she’d never forget its scent, no matter how hard she tried. And it would always be tied to her memory of that night. She sobbed silently, shamefully, with the horrible realization.
She was a coward.
Just like everyone else.
---
Shem did his best quiet jog through the woods trying to discern where she might be. Along the edges, most likely. But he didn’t dare get too close. The soldiers were still patrolling, looking for large dark objects moving strangely through the forest. Crashing through the bushes next to Shem was the world’s noisiest spy—the very beast every man in the army had been futilely looking for since dawn. Through the trees he could see the dim movements of soldiers and horses, and watched the uneven pattern of their passing.
Shem slowed his progress and caught Barker by the rope around his neck.
“Halt, Barker,” he whispered when he knew a gap in the patrols was beginning. “Down there.” He crouched down next to the dog. “That rock in the distance? That’s not supposed to be there. Watch it for a moment . . . see? It’s quivering slightly. That’s Mahrree. Now Barker, you need to go down to her and take her home, all right?” He slipped the rope off of Barker’s neck. “Away from me. Home, home, home,” he commanded as he had so many times before, and pushed him in the right direction.
Shem held his breath as Barker first decided to water a pine tree, then started in an unwieldy lope through the trees. The effect was precisely what Shem had hoped for. Barker’s awkward jog through the dried leaves sent the ‘rock’ Shem identified to her feet, terrified that something was coming.
“That ought to cure your curiosity about the forest for a time,” Shem whispered as Mahrree, panic-stricken, backed up quickly out of the woods. She collapsed to her knees and covered her head with her arms just as Barker lumbered out of the forest and flopped on her. Mahrree’s cry of terror was muffled by the thick black fur of her rescuer.
“Sorry about that, Mahrree,” Shem whispered and shook his head sadly, “but you really don’t belong out here. Someday, though. Someday we’ll come for you, too.”
---
“Get off! Get off, please!” Mahrree cried and flailed as the massive weight overwhelmed her. She kicked and pushed and tried to remember some of the defensive techniques Perrin had taught her, but she was useless.
Panicked, cowardly, and now useless.
It was the licking that completely startled her.
“What?” she gasped, scrambling to stand up. She pushed back her hood and looked at her attacker. “Barker? Barker! What—? Where—?”