"Don't wake anyone. They're eight miles off, as the crow flies. None of them are crows. Maybe thirty miles on foot, if they had the least idea where they were or where we were. And they don't have horses or water any more," said Keilin with grim finality. "Get some sleep old friend. The ones that were still trying to follow me were going in the wrong direction."
He stood up again. "I'm for bed. Sorry, but I won't bother with food tonight, Bey."
"How many of them . . ."
"Twenty-two."
"But Keil . . . some of them must still be following you? You haven't killed that many of them, surely?"
Keilin turned to face Beywulf, and in the moonlight his face was much older . . . almost a grim death's-head. "I didn't kill any of them. I darted a few with narca. It makes you lose your wits for a few days. I dropped a few rocks on some of them. Broke a few heads and limbs. Then I drove off their horses, and left them out there without water. Their own stupidity and the desert will kill them. You'll see the vultures tomorrow."
He turned and unrolled his bedding, and crawled into it. He saw that S'kith, lying in the rock shadows, was still awake too. He saw teeth reflect the moonlight. The shaven-headed man must be giving him one of his rare attempts at a smile. Somehow it comforted him.
"Cay."
He sighed and sat up. "Yes, Princess." She hadn't really spoken to him much since she had been liberated from the Patrician's torture chambers. He had a feeling she still blamed him for suggesting they come via Port Tinarana.
She looked at him, studying him. Even in the moonlight he could see the tiny wrinkles around her eyes as she peered at his face. Then she slapped him. "Don't you ever do that to me again. I . . . I've been so frightened."
He felt his throbbing cheek. "Don't worry, Princess, I really wouldn't have left you here."
"You idiot!" He ducked the second slap, and she stormed away, back to her own bedding.
The cool morning brought him more abuse. "Bey tells me you took on twenty-two men out there. And they're not coming back," Cap said, his voice hard.
For an answer Keilin pointed out into the desert landscape. In the clear, pale morning air a twist of black dots circled slowly. "More back that way," said Keilin quietly, pointing to a second flight of vultures.
This slap rocked him on his heels. "Don't ever get smart with me, boy. You think you're so bloody clever. Just remember, even here in this oven you call your own, Beywulf can track you by smell alone . . . And I can—and I will—kill you, if I have to," Cap said grimly. "Now, mount up and let's get out of here, before your big mouth proves to be wrong, again."
The day after, when the sun was starting to sink towards the west, they rounded a bare sheetrock bluff to confront a totally incongruous sight.
Cap put it into words for nearly all of them. "Just what the Hell is that?"
Keilin volunteered no reply.
It was a building, perched on a desert scree slope, sun-baked and torn by the desert storms but still very recognizably a town building. Some of the windows were still intact, as was the faded sign above the door.
* * *
A. DYMETRAS. APOTHECARY.
MEDICATIONS, ASSAYING, CHARMS,
CONTRACEPTIVE POTIONS, ETC.
* * *
"Must be a hell of a demand for contraceptive potions around these parts," Bey snorted, looking at the barren hillsides. With an elbow that nearly sent Keilin flying and a wink as broad as his face, he said to Shael, "You'd better pop in and get a few, dear. Never know when you might next need one, hey broad beam."
She sniffed. "My morals aren't like yours, ape." It was a sign that she was beginning to recover from her ordeal in the Patrician's cellar room.
Bey chuckled. "Talking of some people coming out of other people's cabins . . ."
Coming closer there were other pieces of the story littered about. Two clean-picked human skeletons, their bare bones showing the gnawing of tiny teeth, as well as the attack of something that could split femurs.
"Hyena," was the only comment that Keilin vouchsafed.
Then Cap noticed the Morkth flying disk. He almost leapt from the saddle and jogged across to it. Kicking aside the scattered pieces of a carapace, he examined the machine with knowledgable care. Keilin saw he wore his shark smile of triumph. "Did you kill it, boy?"
"No. My partner. He got killed too," Keilin answered shortly, not caring if it angered the tall man.
Instead, the answer seemed to please Cap. "Hmm. Didn't think you were up to that level of combat. Still, unusual and lucky for you it had only one of them on board. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it." He took a black clip-on unit off the control panel. "I must keep this in mind," he said, as he turned to the others who had dismounted and were exploring the shop. "Come on, you lot. Time is awasting here. Pack it in with your looting and let's move along." Still for the first time in days he seemed pleased with life, and even was polite about the baked goanna they had that evening. Which, once she was told what the steaming, succulent flesh was, was what Shael tried to be.