Page 13 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

Hooooooooo-oooo. Hoooooooooo-oooo.

We both got up into a crouch, looked around. The donkey stood where we had hobbled him, looking at us with wide, terrified eyes, trembling. The poor karker was too scared even to hee-haw.

The Spanth and I were getting good at talking without talking.

She flicked her eyes at the darkness beyond the firelight and back at me, with a little dip of her head for punctuation.

What the fock is that?

(That’s how she’d say it anyway.)

I gave the quickest, tiniest shrug.

The fuck should I know?

I peeled my bow, nocked a leaf-point. It sounded like an animal, so there’d be no armor, I hoped. Better to make it bleed with a wide blade than punch skinny with a bodkin point.

Now whatever was out there started making a sound like clicking. Not unlike Galva’s corvid. Fothannon’s furry balls, I hoped it wasn’t one of them.

Don’t let it be one of them, old Foxfoot, I thought.

More clicking, coming from multiple places. That’s Fothannon for you.

Don’t want one of them? Have three!

But I didn’t think it was corvids. I’d heard Dalgatha click, but I’d never heard her hoo.

Come to think of it, Dalgatha wouldn’t be an unwelcome addition to our camp. I caught Galva’s gaze, flicked my eyes to her chest.

You want to get that murder-bird out or what?

She shook her head.

It would take too long.

The donkey edged closer to us despite the hobble-rope above his fetlocks.

Hooooooooooooooooooooo.

Click-click-click-click-click.

They were closer now.

I saw a pair of yellowish eyes reflecting firelight back at us. Then another. The second pair bobbed up and down.

The donkey found his voice.

HAAAAAWWWW-he-HAAAAAWWWWW!

Should I try an arrow at one? I thought. I didn’t want to bring them on if they weren’t after us. Were they after us? Course they were, there was fuck-all else to eat in these mountains, and here we were, two shaved monkeys and a haunchy donkey. But what were they?

“Shoot one of them,” Galva whispered.

“You sure about that?”

“They are trying to decide if we are dangerous.”

“Are we?”