"They let us have him back, though," said the skinny hatchet-faced man named Smokey. "Day later, poor Frankie came staggerin' back into camp starkers. They'd blinded and gelded him and cut off his hands—and then really got down to business with hot pitch. His mind was gone, o' course. Small hope the Howlers blunked him before they had their fuckin' fun 'n' games."

  "Suffering Christ," growled Uwe.

  "We got a bit back," Denny offered. His black face flashed a wry smile.

  "You did," said the bandy-legged little Singhalese named Homi. He explained to Chief Burke, "On our way home, a Howler came at us in broad daylight—oh, maybe forty kloms down the Moselle from here. All dressed up in his bloody monster suit like a great winged naga with two heads. Denny let him have an iron-tipped arrow in the guts and he went down like a rotten willow tree. And would y'believe? All that was left was this hunchbacked dwarf with a face like a stoat!"

  The men grunted in reminiscence and a couple of them whacked Denny on the back. The latter said, "At least we know now that the iron works on both kinds of exotics—right? I mean, the Howlers are nothing but screwed-up Firvulag. So if our noble spook allies ever forget who their friends are..."

  There were murmurs of agreement and a few quiet laughs.

  Chief Burke said, "It's a point to keep in mind—although God knows we need Firvulag help to bring off Madame's plan against Finiah. The Little People were agreeable to the original scheme. But I'm afraid adding iron to the equation might give them second thoughts."

  "Just wait'll they see us take out some Tanu with the iron," Smokey said confidently. "Just wait'll we equalize things with them dog-collar sumbitches! Why—the damn Firvulag'll kiss our feet! Or bums! Or somethin."

  Everybody roared.

  An excited young voice from among the crowd of villagers shouted, "Why should we hold back on the Tanu until Finiah? There's a caravan going to Castle Gateway in two days. Let's sharpen up some arrows and bag us an Exalted One right away!"

  A few of the others yelled approval. But Chief Burke hauled himself out of his bath like an enraged bull alligator and yelled, "Simmer down, you turkey-turd shlangers! Nobody touches this iron without permission from me! It has to be kept secret. Do you want the whole Tanu chivalry on our necks? Velteyn would send out a screech like a goosed moose if we tipped our hand. He might bring in Nodonn—even call for reinforcements from the south!"

  They mumbled at this. The aggressive youngster called out, "When we use iron in the Finiah attack, they'll know. Why not now?"

  "Because," Burke drawled, in the sarcastic tone he had once used to freeze the collops of inept fledgling advocates, "the attack on Finiah will come just prior to the Truce for the Grand Combat. None of the other Tanu will pay much attention to Velteyn's troubles then. You know the way these exotics' minds work. Nothing, but nothing, gets in the way of preparations for the glorious shemozzle. Two or three days before Truce—when we hope to strike—not a Tanu on Earth will come to the aid of Finiah. Not even to help their pals, not even to save their barium mine, not even to beat back humans armed with iron. They'll all be hot to head south to the big game."

  The crowd fell back to palaver over the amazing single-mindedness of the exotic sportsmen, and Burke began to get dressed. Uwe waggishly suggested that the Tanu were nearly as bad as the Irish for loving a fight without considering the long-view consequences. There was universal laughter at this and not a single son nor daughter of Erin's Isle rose to defend the racial honor. The thought flashed into Burke's mind that there was a reason for this, and he ought to know what it was; but at the same moment Khalid Khan caught sight of the red man's healing wound.

  "Mashallah, Peo! You did scratch yourself up a bit, didn't you?"

  Burke's left leg was hideously indented at the calf by a purplish-red scar over twenty cents in length. He grunted. "Souvenir of a one-horned chozzer. It killed Steffi and damn near did for me by the time Pegleg shlepped me back here to Amerie. Galloping septicemia. But she caught it. Looks like hell, but I can walk—even run, if I care to pay the price."

  Uwe reminded him, "The meeting of the Steering Committee. Tonight. Khalid should come."

  "Right. But first we have to see to the needs of this gang. How about it, men? Food and drink's on the way—but is there anything else we can do for you now?"

  Khalid said, "Sigmund's hand. Aside from our three deaders, he's the only casualty."

  "What happened?" Burke asked.

  Sigmund sheepishly hid his stump. "Aw. I was stupid. Giant salamander sprang at me, fanged me right in the palm. You know there's only one thing to do, the way their venom works..."

  "Sig was bringing up the rear," Denny said. "All of a sudden we missed him. When we went back to investigate, there he was putting on a tourniquet cool as you please, with his vitredur axe and his mitt lying on the ground beside him."

  "You come along with us to Amerie's place," the Chief said. "We'll have her check it out.

  "Aw, it's all right, Chief. We put plenty of AB and progan on it."

  "Shut your pisk and come along." The Chief turned to the others. "The rest of you boys relax and eat and have a couple of days' sleep. There'll be a big council of war—a contingent one, anyhow—inside of a week, when the volunteers from the other settlements start showing up. We'll need you to work on this iron when we get the blacksmith shop set up some place where the Firvulag won't spot it. Till then, I'll take charge of the stuff. Put it out of temptation's reach."

  Then Burke raised his voice so that the entire bathhouse could hear him. "All of you! If you value your own lives, and if you give a damn about the liberty of humans who are still enslaved, forget about what you've seen and heard here tonight."

  A breath of assent rose from the assemblage. The Chief nodded and hoisted two of the heavy sacks. Khalid and Uwe dragged away the other four and they moved out of the bathhouse, trailed by Sigmund.

  "The meeting is at Madame's cottage as usual," Burke told the metalsmith as he limped along. "Amerie's living there now. We put her on the committee by acclamation."

  Uwe said, "That nunnie is some medic. She shrank Maxl so we don't have to keep him locked up anymore. And poor Sandra—no more suicidal threats now that the fungus is cured. Then there's Chaim's eyelid, all rebuilt, and she healed that big mother of an ulcer on Old Man Kawai's foot."

  "That'll make for quieter meetings," Khalid remarked. "One less thing for the old boy to complain about. This nun sounds like a handy lady to have around."

  The Chief chuckled. "I didn't even mention the way she cleaned up sixteen cases of worms and almost all the jungle rot. Madame might have to do some fancy politicking in the next election if she wants to hold on to the freeleadership of this gang of outlaws."

  "It never struck me that she relished the honor." Khalid was acerbic. "Any more than you did when you were in the hot seat."

  They plodded along, making almost no sound on the path that wound beneath the sheltering trees. The long canyon had many little dead-end tributaries from which the numerous springs debouched. Most of the cottages had been built close to these natural water supplies. There were some thirty homes altogether, in which dwelt the eighty-five human beings who made up the largest Lowlife settlement in the known Pliocene world.

  The four men crossed a rill on stepping-stones and headed up one of the rocky clefts to where a distinctive little house stood under a huge pine. The cottage was not built like the others of prosaic logs or wattle and daub, but of neatly mortared stone, washed white with lime and reinforced with dark half-timbering. It was eerily evocative of a certain elder-world dwelling in the hills above Lyon. Madame's rose cuttings, nourished by the manure of mastodons, had burgeoned into rampant climbers that all but smothered the thatched roof in blossoms. The night air was heavy with their perfume.

  The men came up the path, then halted. Standing in their way was a tiny animal. Stiff-legged, its oversized eyes gleaming, it growled.

  "Hey, Deej!" Burke laughed. "It's just us, pupikeh. Friends!"

  The little cat growled louder, the low rumble moving up the scale to become a threatening howl. It stood its ground.

  Chief Burke put down his burden and knelt with one hand outstretched. Khalid Khan stepped behind Sigmund, a memory and a terrible suspicion crowding to the fore of his mind. A memory of a rainy night inside a Tree when the cat had growled like this before. A suspicion of a valued companion who had been too good a woodsman to be surprised by the relatively sluggish attack of a giant salamander...

  Khalid slipped open the mouth of his sack just as the cottage door swung wide to show Amerie's veiled figure silhouetted against dim lamplight.

  "Dejah?" the nun called, rattling her rosary beads in what was evidently some signal. She caught sight of the men. "Oh, it's you, Chief. And Khalid! You're back! But what—"

  The turbaned metalsmith seized the hair of the one they had called Sigmund. With his other hand he pressed something gray and hard against the man's throat.

  "Do not move, soor kabaj, or you are dead, even as your brother before you."

  Amerie screamed and Uwe uttered an obscenity—for Khalid was suddenly struggling with a gorgon. Instead of hair, the Pakistani clutched writhing little vipers growing from Sigmund's scalp. These struck, sinking tiny fangs into flesh that puffed up, throbbed, as quasi-deadly venom flooded the blood vessels and went racing toward Khalid's heart.

  "Stop, I say!" roared the anguished smith. Involuntarily, his right arm tightened, driving the dull point of the iron lance-blank into the soft hollow below the monster's voicebox.

  The thing emitted a gurgling squeal and went limp. Khalid sprang away from the falling body, dropping the iron. It hit the earth with a dull thud and came to rest close beside the dead shape-changer. Amerie and the three men stared down at the creature, which could have weighed no more than twenty or thirty kilos. Flattened little dugs identified it as a female. Its bald cranium was monstrously compressed just above the eyes and elongated backward into a triangular bony collar. It had a mere hole for a nose and a massive lower jaw with loose, peglike teeth. The body was almost globular, the limbs spi-derishly thin, with the left forepaw missing.

  "It's not ... a Firvulag," Amerie managed to say.

  "A Howler," Burke told her. "Some biologists believe they're a Firvulag mutation. Each one is supposed to have a different true shape. All hideous."

  "You see what she was trying to do, don't you?" Khalid's voice was shaking from reaction and chagrin. He felt his left hand, which was now completely normal. "She saw us kill her mate with iron, and had to find out what the new weapon was. So she must have crept up on Sigmund as he marched at the end of the line and ... she took his place. Cut off her hand so she wouldn't have to carry the iron."

  "But they've never masqueraded as humans!" Uwe exclaimed. "What could have been its motive?"

  "Look at her—dressed in rags," Amerie said. She knelt down in the light from the doorway to examine the goblin body. One of the Howler's crude skin boots had dropped off in the struggle, exposing a humanoid foot—miniaturized but as perfectly formed as that of a child. There was a pathetic blister at the heel; evidently the little being had had to hurry to keep pace with the faster humans.

  The nun replaced the boot, straightened the pipestem legs, closed the glazed eyes. "She was very poor. Perhaps she hoped to discover information valuable enough to sell."

  "To the normal Firvulag?" Burke suggested.

  "Or to the Tanu." The nun got up and dusted the front of her white habit.

  Khalid said, "There might be others. Others who watched us at the smeltery. If this one could change to human shape, how will we ever be sure—"

  Burke picked up the iron blade, grasped the metalsmith's arm, and drew the rough lancehead across the skin. A few drops of dark blood sprang from the abrasion. "You're real enough, anyhow. I'll go test the rest of the crew right away. Later, we'll work out something a little less crude. Pinprick, maybe."

  He limped away toward the bathhouse. Uwe and Khalid hauled the precious bags of iron into the rose-covered cottage, then returned to where Amerie stood over the body. She held the cat, which was still gently growling.

  "What shall we do with her, Sister?" Khalid inquired.

  Amerie sighed. "I have a large basket. Perhaps you can put her in the springhouse for me. I'm afraid I'll have to dissect her tomorrow."

  ***

  As the Steering Committee waited for Chief Burke to return to the cottage, the Victualer in Chief offered samples of a new beverage. "We took some of that lousy raw wine of Perkin's and steeped this little forest wildflower in it."

  Everybody sipped. Amerie said, "That's nice, Marialena."

  Uwe said something in German under his breath. "You know what you've done, woman? You've reinvented Maiwein!"

  "That's it! That's it!" Old Man Kawai piped. He was only eighty-six; but since he had declined rejuvenation on a matter of principle, he resembled an unwrapped Oriental mummy. "Most refreshing, my dear. Now if we can only produce a decent saké..."

  The cottage door opened and Peopeo Moxmox Burke stooped to enter. The other committee members sat stark still until the red man gave a nod. "They were all kosher. I tested not only the smelters, but all the rest of the folks in the bathhouse as well."

  "Thank heaven," said the Architect in Chief. "What a thought—shape-changers infiltrating our people!" He wagged his neatly trimmed muttonchops, managing to look like an accountant who had discovered that a valued client was cooking the books.

  "Neither Firvulag nor Howlers had any reason to try this trick before," the Chief warned. "But now, with the attack coming up and the iron as a maybe not-so-secret weapon, we're going to have to be alert for other attempts. When the volunteers start arriving, every single one must be tested. And we'll test all participants before every important meeting or briefing."

  "My responsibility," said Uwe, who was Hunting and Public Safety. "Whip me up some needles, Khalid?"

  "As soon as I can get the forge hot tomorrow."

  The Chief took his place with the other seven committee members around the table.

  "All right, let's get this over as quickly as possible so Khalid can get some rest. As Deputy Freeleader, I call this meeting of the Steering Committee to order. Old business. Structures. Let's have it, Philemon."

  "The huts at the Rhine staging area have been completed," said the architect. "Everything is ready there except the main shelter pavilion. The boys will have our Hidden Springs visitor dorm ready in another two or three days."

  "Good," said the Chief. "Public Works. Vanda-Jo."

  A taffy-haired woman with the face of a madonna and the voice of a drill sergeant spoke up. "We've finished the masked trail from here to the staging area. A hundred and six bloody kilometers, invisible from the air. Corduroyed the last two kloms through the swamp—and don't think that wasn't a bitch! Still putting up the thorn boma around the staging camp to keep most of the critters out and the recruits in."

  "How about the launching ramps?"

  "Decided on pontoons. Inflated skins and boarding. Put 'em up at the last minute. Pegleg and his lads are contributing the skins."

  "Good. Hunting and Public Safety."

  "Nothing much new from me," Uwe said. "Most of my people are working with Vanda-Jo or Phil. I've liaised with the commissary at High Vrazel to help with quantities of game and staples when the extra bods start arriving. And we've set up a procedure for processing new arrivals here at Hidden Springs before sending them to the river."

  "Sounds okay. Domestics."

  Old Man Kawai pursed his scored lips. "There is no way we can come up with more than a hundred boiled-leather hard hats and chest guards by D-Day. You know how long it takes to shape and dry that stuff—even with the forms filled with hot sand. The volunteers are just going to have to go mostly bare-ass unless you want our people deprived. Do shimasho? I've done my best, but I'm no miracle man."

  "The shortage can't be helped," Burke said soothingly. "How about the camouflage nets?"

  "We'll be putting the big one in position tomorrow, just in case they get back early with the exotic flyer." The wizened ancient threw an anxious glance at the Chief. "Do you really think they've got a chance, Peo?"

  "Not much of one," Burke admitted. "But we won't give up hope until the last hour before the Truce ... Human Services."

  "Linen bandages ready," Amerie said. "We're assembling stores of oil and alcohol and all of the AB we can scrape up. Fifteen fighters have been rough-trained as front-line medics." She paused, her face furrowed with determination. "I want you to change your mind about having me accompany the fighters, Peo. For the love of God—when will they need me more than in a battle?"

  The Native American shook his head. "You're the only doctor we have. Probably the only one in the Lowlife world. We can't have you at risk. There's the future to think about. If we do liberate Finiah, we may be able to de-torc other medical people. If we fail and the troops come across the Rhine to our staging area ... it may be a long time until the next war. Our fighters will tend their own injuries. You stay here."

  The nun sighed.

  "Industry," said Burke.

  "We brought back two hundred and twenty kilos of iron," Khalid said. "Four of our men died. We have enough experienced people left to begin final work on the weapons as soon as we get some sleep."

  There were somber congratulations all around.

  "Provisioning."

  We've enough stored here to feed five hundred people for two weeks," Marialena said. "That does not include the five tons of instant rations we'll distribute to fighters going down to camp. You don't want any cooking going on down by the Rhine where the Tanu might spot the smoke." She pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her pink and yellow gown and mopped her ample brow. "Those poor souls are going to curse pemmican and parched bulrush roots before this thing is over."

  "If that's all they curse," Burke said, "they'll be lucky. All right, that leaves my report. Warlord in Chief. I've received word from Pallol, the Firvulag generalissimo, that his forces will hold themselves combat-ready for the last three days in September. Under optimal circumstances we'll mount the attack before dawn on the twenty-ninth, which will give us nearly two full fighting days before the Truce officially begins on October first at sunrise. After that, we humans'll be on our own—and Finiah better be ready for mop-up. I'll have more details on plans of attack at the war council later. Okay? Now—new business. We'll consider the matter of the Howler spy as already introduced and sent to Public Safety for action."

 

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