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Reynot!”
    “Quiet!”
    The lamps came into Kiril's line of sight, and he ducked closer to the trunk. There was nothing he could do about the horse. He could see their beams dodging back and forth steadily. One lamp fell and winked out. It didn't reappear. There was little sound now but the nickering of the animals.
    “Where is Hispan?” The voice creaked with fear. Somewhere a bird twittered. Again the searchlight passed through the woods. It swept over someone hugging a tree like a lizard.
    Who? Kiril couldn't tell. He began to tremble uncontrollably, and sweat stung his eyes. His teeth chattered and he bit his thumb to quiet them.
    “We're losing ourselves here. Back off— is that a horse?”
    Kiril jumped.
    “It's Reynot's horse. Somebody got him!”
    “Get together in a circle until the next fire dove rises. Quickly!”
    “Hispan is gone. What's that?”
    “Where?”
    Kiril decided the best thing would be to leave. But which way? Away from the road he might run into what had swallowed Barthel. He had no judgment for distances at all. But he decided leading his horse out would be better than waiting for the next light. He tugged at the reins and urged the animal to follow. “Not a sound!” his lips said.
    His feet felt their way in the dark with tiny crunches. His back prickled — at any moment he expected a light and a bullet. But they were still talking among themselves, about twenty meters back. A dim twinkle was starting to the north — another fire dove was rising, a bright one.
    “Quiet — and step this way!” he heard Barthel say. “To your left.”
    They were waiting for him behind a thrust of granite. Bar-Woten had a green-smeared face and was smiling like the Lotus Contemplative, without showing his teeth. They were barely visible in the dark, standing next to a streak of phosphorescent fungus.
    “I've found the way out,” Bar-Woten said. “Due north. No troops surrounding the forest, no one to block our way.”
    Kiril said he felt ashamed the soldiers of Mediweva were so incompetent. Bar-Woten laughed softly and guided him by the shoulder to a narrow natural path.
    “Where did Barthel go? I saw him drop,” Kiril said.
    “Into a ditch,” Barthel said. “Tumbled me about, put the horse on its back and spilled the supplies. But I gathered them up, pulled the horse to its side and kept it quiet until I could hear what was going on. The Bey came to tell me all was clear but to be quiet.”
    “Orders still stand,” Bar-Woten said.
    They left the forest in a few minutes and rode across fields of wild oats. When morning caught them they were riding hard for the north and the borders of Mundus Lucifa.
     
     
     
     
     
     

Hegira

Four
    The countryside of Mediweva was slowly changing its character. Lowlands and plains gave way to high, craggy peaks and green river courses. Forests became thinner and scrubby; green turned sere. The air grew cool. And still they were pursued.
    The parties trailing them had given up steam vehicles. Now the chase was mounted and on foot. Bar-Woten figured it wouldn't end with the border of Mundus Lucifa, either — Ibisians, rumored or otherwise, were not popular in any land. So he stripped off all signs of his past twenty years and gathered together the accouterments of a mountain traveler — animal-skin clothes from the game they shot, rough bark fabric sewn together with the fibers of spear-tipped succulents, a collection of furs over his shoulder. Barthel put aside his Ibisian clothes and went nearly naked like an aborigine from Pashkesh — a role he could mimic well enough by simply down-grading his Arbuck tongue to grunts and slides. Kiril remained a penitent and replaced his cat with the remnants of a hide Bar-Woten had tossed aside.
    The trio moved rapidly and efficiently, never so fast as to wear their horses down. They were in generally unpopulated countryside. Replacing good mounts would be difficult.
    Because they frequently took cuts across