Glen Cook - Sweet Silver Blues

An arrow smacked into the shoulder of the slowest. She stumbled, went down on her knees. Before she could rise, soldiers with lances overtook her. Major No-Name called something taunting. He sent five men to plink arrows into the wash. Angered, the unicorns came roaring out. In another brief mix-up, another soldier, another unicorn, and two more horses died. No-Name held his ground and mocked the attackers. The soldiers who lost their mounts took replacements from their prisoners.

"He do have a hate for unicorns, I think," Morley said.

"Here comes the boss female after orders."

"I'm going back down. Give me the high sign if he tells her to take the dogs with her,"

"Will do."

The major was expecting a fight. He made a makeshift fort of his wagons and baggage off his pack animals, put all the extra animals inside the barricade, armed his prisoners, and had them wait on the wagons. I wondered what he told them.

The male unicorn was either stupid or had lost a favorite. They do become mercurial when that happens.

I signaled Morley. I thought I knew what he had in mind. I didn't like it but I could see no alternative.

So. The dogs went howling toward the major's group. The unicorns charged behind. A fine, merry dust-up got started.

The male unicorn didn't want to watch. Morley proved that by racing from the foot of the scree to the watercourse unchallenged.

Zeck Zack was after him before he was halfway across. There is nothing on four legs faster—in the short run—than a motivated centaur.

The unicorn heard hoofbeats. He popped up to see what was happening.

It was too late. Zeck Zack was all over him, and showed us he had handled a unicorn one-on-one in younger days. It didn't last long.

All the while I was bounding down the slope. It was move-out time.

Everything and everyone was ready when I got down. I scrambled aboard my horse. For once we agreed on absolutely everything. We were a team with a single mind. That mind said, "Make tracks."

I got out ahead of the crowd so I could lead by example. I steered around the base of the butte so we were headed east again, until we reached a point where I could see the battleground. That journey took an hour and a half.

We halted. I raised the spyglass. Nothing moved except the vultures. From that lower angle of vision it was hard to tell how great the disaster had been. I could distinguish one wagon on its side. A vulture perched on a wheel.

"Somebody ought to take a closer look," I said, staring at Zeck Zack.

He nodded. Without comment he borrowed a couple of javelins and trotted off. The morning had wrought marvelous changes in him. "He might be back in the army," I told Morley. Dotes just grunted. I added, "Don't forget, somebody thought enough of him to get him Karentine citizenship."

"It isn't what you were, it's what you are, Garrett. And that creature is the worst kind of night trader. The kind that sells your kind to them. "

Yeah.

Zeck Zack circled the mess a few times, closing in, then he raised a javelin and beckoned, knowing I had the glass on him.

"Let's go."

It was grisly. The dogs were all dead. So were most of the unicorns and a dozen horses. But there was not a human cadaver to be seen.

"They went on," the centaur said.

I told Morley, "For a Venageti he sure sticks tight to Karentine field doctrine. Challenge unicorns when you can. Carry away your dead. Poison the flesh of the animals you leave behind." Every dead animal had been cut dozens of times. Each cut was stained a royal blue where crystalline poison had been rubbed into the wound.

No one was going to profit from dead army animals.

I counted eight slain unicorns. They had kept at it until the dominant female had been killed. The survivors would be in bad shape.

Unicorns in that part of the Cantard would seek easier prey for a while.

I raised the glass and searched the base of the butte. There they were, looking back at us.

"See them?" Morley asked.

"Yeah. Burying their dead. Can't make out anybody special except Saucerhead."

Zeck Zack took a cue from that and galloped off toward the butte shadow where the major was returning the earth's children to her.

"Trying to ingratiate himself," Morley said. "So you'll be a little loose on the rein when the time comes."

"When do you figure he'll run?"

"When we start into the nest. We won't dare waste time chasing him. And with us keeping them busy, his chance of making it would be good. This is his country and he can still pick them up and put them down when he wants."

I watched Dojango for a minute. He was collecting souvenirs. He had cut the dew claws off a unicorn, had knocked out some of its razor teeth, and was trying to figure how to take its horn. That would bring fifty marks bounty in Full Harbor and more as a curio in TunFaire.

"What are you going to do about it?" Morley asked.

"Let him run. I won't have any more use for him."

Zeck Zack came prancing back. He reported that four soldiers and the major had survived, and four other men as well. I knew about Saucerhead. One of the others sounded like Vasco. The remaining two could have been anybody.

"Survived don't mean unscathed, either," the centaur said. "They got cut up pretty good."

"What about the women?"

"Not much scathing there. A little frayed around the edges, as anyone would be after that."

Morley muttered, "Bet we can thank that dope Saucerhead for that."

Zeck Zack went right on. "One of them kept screaming at me to tell you she going to crack your eggs, fry them, and feed them to the unicorns. When the boss soldier tried to shut her up, she bit him and gave him a knee in his eggs."

"My lovely little Rose. What a wonderful wife she'll make some poor sod. Well. Let's go." I urged my mount to face east. Our unity had begun to unravel.

"She does bounce back, doesn't she?" Morley said in a tone that sounded suspiciously like admiration. "You just going to ride off?"

"Yes. The major isn't going to make prisoners of anybody again. That's going to turn into a three-way marriage of convenience that'll be as rowdy as those marriages get. But they'll take care of each other. Do you think you could get Doris and Marsha to pull a wagon? We might have a use for it."

The one wagon was not damaged, just overturned and lacking a team.

"It's army. We wouldn't want to get caught with it."

"We won't."

He spoke to the grolls. They responded in what sounded like impolite terms. He told me, "They want to collect unicorn horns. Those could be more use than any wagon. Stick one of them in the heart with a horn and it's all over, sure as silver. And they can't smell horns coming."

"Deal, then. Wagon for horns. Those people back there are going to be burying and bickering for a long time."

The grolls took the deal. Crash! Down went the wagon onto its wheels. The grolls scampered from unicorn to unicorn, perhaps dreaming of buying a brewery.

A pair of adolescent females, outraged by the trophy taking and not too badly injured, charged out of the wash. It was disconcerting, watching the absent-minded way the grolls clubbed them to death.

We didn't try for the nest mesa that day. I wanted to go in early, when they had settled for the day, not late when they were about to awaken. Once they were soundly asleep, while the sun was high, it was almost impossible to wake them. Even the elder bloodslaves would have trouble responding.

So legend went.

We got out of sight of our pursuers, then went to work hiding our trail and laying false scents. Zeck Zack worked hard making himself useful. He knew all the tricks. He even had the grolls hand-carry the wagon two miles off to leave false wheel marks.