"But don't chop anything yet," said Screwfloss. "We want to see if one attack can provoke the other trees."

Raggedy Ears elaborated for his Tinish audience.

"I said, pick up the axe!" Chitiratifor boomed at her. "You have a good chance at living if you do." He said something to his audience. They gobbled back at him, and he added. "Four to one odds in your favor. But you're sure dead if you don't move." His wagoneers had both cranked back their bows.

Ravna grabbed the axe's jaw handle and pulled it free of the sod. Flecks of needles fell from it and the edge glittered in the late afternoon light. It might be a utility blade, but it looked freshly sharpened.

On the other side of the trail, the wagoneers and Chitiratifor were watching her in the intense, still way that always bothered her about Tines. This wasn't all a matter of entertainment. Except for the bow-holding members, they had wiggled most of themselves into the protective cover of the root bushes. Only Chitiratifor, Screwfloss, and Gannon were still standing in the open. Gannon looked around, seemed to realize his exposure. He turned and headed for the nearest unoccupied bush.

And now the wagoneers were making noise again. They were chanting, a blend of harmonics that made Ravna's ears hurt. She knew the meaning: Do it, do it, do it. There were packs who chanted just that at the kids' ballgames.

Ravna turned to the tree behind her. On her right, Amdi danced around in frightened excitement, edging nearer to the root bush that could protect him. He had no secret messages, at least nothing he would chance on human hearing. On her left, Jefri was looking at Amdi and then at her ... and suddenly she realized that he and Amdi were playing a game, just as when they were very little, but now as a matter of life and death.

Do it, do it, do it.

"All right!" She walked toward the tree, gave the axe a little swing. An ancient human might have described the thing as double axe head fixed on a bale hook handle. There was no way she could get the full leverage a human would have with a real, made-for-human axe.

But the blade was sharp.

This particular tree was about eighty centimeters across, the bark almost as smooth as a baby's skin, but a pale buff color such as you rarely saw on modern Homo Sapiens. The tree seemed no different from the thousands of bannerwoods she'd seen the last few days. Its straight trunk extended some forty meters up, a beautiful slim tower. The lowest branches grew straight out. The nearest were some thirty centimeters above her head, their needles growing in great sheaves from the lumps that Screwfloss called "tensioning knots."

Do it, do it, do it.

She raised the axe and gave the smooth pillar a blow that was more a tentative tap. The blade sank a centimeter into the wood. When she eased the blade out, there was a film of clear sap on the steel and a little more oozing down the side of the tree. The smell of the sap was a dry, complex thing, somehow familiar. Oh. It was simply a sharp version of this forest's pervasive smell.

Most important, the scent seemed to have no effect on the peaceful drowse of this late afternoon. Above and around her, the needle leaves hung in greenish silence, unmoving.

On the other side of trail, the audience was not happy. The chant had stilled, but the wagoneers gobbled irritably to each other. Screwfloss had nothing to say, but there was an ironic smile in his aspect, as if he were waiting for someone to say the obvious.

Chitiratifor's voice boomed out, in Tinish and Samnorsk all at once: "Cut the tree, human! Chop up and down. We will see its insides, or we will see yours."

The wagoneers laughed and swung their bows back toward her.

She turned back to the tree and began whacking. Her blows were still weak, but she did as she was told, hitting upwards and then down, at something like the same target line. At this pace, it might take her an hour to cut the tree down, but she was gouging a deep notch in the wood, revealing the growth ring pattern that was near-ubiquitous in the trees of Tines World.

She paused, partly because she was out of breath, partly because she heard Amdi make an anxious wheep sound. She noticed that Chitiratifor had edged closer to the safety of a large bush.

The forest was no longer silent. She heard a clattering sound in the branches above her. The nearest branches trembled, clusters of needles shivering faintly, jerked about by the tensioning knots that anchored them in place. The knots themselves, were ... smoking? No, not smoke. It was a heavy haze of pollen, drifting slowly on the faint currents of the cooling afternoon. Where it floated through the brightest light, the reflection of the sun from the peaks above, it shone golden green.

On the other side of the path, some of the sporting humor had evaporated. The packs watched the drifting haze with wide eyes. As it floated outwards from Ravna's tree, the rattling of branches spread to the trees around her and then across the wagon trail, creating a growing, golden green alarm. The wagoneers squeezed back beneath their root bushes; not even their bow carriers stood in the open now.

When the rattling reached the trees around Chitiratifor, he finally gave up his brave stance and wiggled himself deep into his own bush. Only screwloose Screwfloss was left unprepared. He hadn't picked a big enough bush and now he was mostly unable to get adequate cover.

For the rest: the kherhogs were staring at them in uneasy wonder. Depending on how far the alarm spread, the wagons might not provide sufficient cover.

A dozen seconds passed. The rattling had spread beyond hearing, but no arrows had been triggered.

Screwfloss spoke up, sounding a bit nervous with his explanation: "When it comes, it could be an avalanche of arrows, my lord. Perhaps we have, um, overextended ourselves."

Chitiratifor gave him an amused look. "Perhaps you have overexposed yourself, you silly asses. I see a small bush behind this tree. It may be enough for you. Burrow deep!" Then his attention finally returned to Ravna. "Chop us more wood, human."

She turned back to her tree. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Amdi was all hunkered down, stubbornly refusing to take cover. What's the game, Jefri?

Do it. Do it. Do it.

She held the axe by the handle and the haft and took out all her fear on the poor dumb wood. Whack. Whack. Whack.

The arrow needles clattered louder than ever, and the alarm pollen grew chokingly thick. When she triggered the cascade, the pain was like arrows piercing her ears. She dived for the ground, trying to find cover in even the most shallow troughs of the earth. But the pain was not from real arrows. The pain was in the sheer power of Tinish screams.

"Get up! Run!" Some of Amdi was around her, trying to pull her to her knees. She came up, saw the rest of him racing toward Jefri.

It was chaos that didn't make much sense at the time. She staggered to her feet, still crouching against the ambuscade. But there were no arrows flying. Anywhere. And yet across the trail, the screaming grew louder, backed up by the fainter, whistling mouth noises of Tines in terrible pain. She couldn't see either of the wagoneers. The bushes they had been hiding under seemed lower and wider than before, and they trembled as if something struggled beneath....

Amdi pushed and pulled her. "Back to the wagons!"

As she stumbled along, she saw that not all the other Tines had disappeared. Most of Screwfloss was standing just at the edge of a root bush, hacking at its branches. His limper hadn't been fast enough to jump away; it was tangled at the edge.

Some of Chitiratifor was clear of the bush that was munching on him. He was fighting back with all his remaining hand axes. He almost had his bow carrier free of the trap. Then he noticed Ravna and Amdi. He gave a roar of anger, and his three free members raced after her.

Ravna ran. Ordinarily, that would have been a futile gesture. On open ground, pack members could outrun any two-legs, and packs with military training could give up consciousness for a brief killing charge. But the part of Chitiratifor that couldn't follow must be in terrible pain. The three that raced after Ravna seemed to be on an invisible leash. Never slowing, they circled wide around, heading back to the rest of their pack, where they resumed hacking at the bush that trapped them.

Screwfloss was doing much better. He had freed his one trapped member. It staggered along with a three-legged walk, but the pack was making progress in their direction.

"I've got him," shouted Jefri. He was closer to the wagons than she, but now he rushed back, scooped up Screwfloss' limping member in his arms.

"Help me, help me!" It was Gannon. The boy was on his elbows, his lower body hidden by the bush that had flattened itself upon him. Stark terror was on his face and his hands were reaching out to her.

She had not known Gannon Jorkenrud when he was a small child. At best, he'd been a snotty teenager, growing more malevolent with each passing year. But in the beginning she had seen him as she had all the Children, as someone she could help. There had been a time when he had not seemed evil.

By some miracle, she still had that axe in her hand. And now she was running across the trail, toward Gannon's beseeching hands.

Amdi was still pulling at her. "No! No! Please-"

Someone else just sounded angry: "Well, damn! Okay." That was the able-bodied part of Screwfloss, running back from where Jefri had set down the wounded part. Jefri came right behind him. They circled around in front of Ravna, blocking her from Gannon.

But they were doing what she wanted done. Jefri got to the tree, used his reach to attack the bush near its base, where there was no danger of striking Gannon. The four of Screwfloss used knives to cut the branches, then grabbed at Jorkenrud's jacket and began pulling him out.

Ravna was in the midst of Screwfloss now, pulling with him. She had Gannon around the shoulders. Every blow that Jefri struck with his battle axe sent a spasm through the bush and won another centimeter of freedom for Gannon.

Screwfloss shrieked and staggered back, losing his grip on Jorkenrud. Ravna looked up in time to dodge the metal tines. Raggedy Ears' loose members were among them, slashing. At least one part of a wagoneer had freed itself and joined the attack.

Jorkenrud slipped from her fingers, the relentless pull of the bush winning at last. As his body disappeared from view, there might have been one last scream, silenced with a crunching sound.

Bodies tumbled all around, bleeding.

She was on her feet, staggering back. She had never been in a fight before, but Johanna had regaled her with stories. Against even one pack, an unarmed human would be the loser. Stay on your feet. Climb some place where packs can't follow.

Something slammed into her from behind, sweeping her off her feet. Jefri! Then she was looking down, from over his shoulder. He was quickly backing away from the battle, of which she could now see nothing! Parts of Amdi swirled around them, bloodied. Amdi was unarmed, but Jefri still had his axe. She could feel him swing it, hear the screaming. He staggered, turned, and she had a glimpse of Screwfloss. That pack was armed in every jaw and forepaw, even the limper. Between them, Screwfloss and Jefri were making a controlled retreat from-not so much a pack as a killing mob, three from Raggedy Ears, two from the wagoneers.

They'd reached the nearest of the wagons. They had all of Screwfloss; if she wasn't counting anybody twice, Amdi was still eight. He had split into three groups and raced ahead, heading for the kherhogs Jefri shrugged Ravna to the ground. "Help Amdi. We're getting out of here."

In this, Ravna really could contribute. One two-legs was worth at least four pack members when it came to dealing with kherhogs. She got her animal hooked up to the front wagon before Amdi was done with the other animals. Her own kherhog was cooperative-maybe too much so; the wagon was already moving forward. The kherhog didn't want to be near the screaming carnivores.

"Don't let it run away!" shouted Amdi, even as he scrambled to guide the second and third wagons. There was blood all over him, but he was eight for sure.

Behind them, Jefri and Screwfloss were continuing the defense. The enemy mob ran back and forth across the trail behind them, darting forward repeatedly. Jefri held the center of the line, but Screwfloss-all but the limper-was rushing back and forth, cutting and slashing, matching the desperation of the attackers with his own brand of mad rage, chasing any who tried to flank the rear wagon and go after Ravna and Amdi.

Meter by meter, their three wagons proceeded away from the campsite. Ravna walked beside the lead kherhog. It wasn't pulling so nervously now. She had no trouble keeping up and staying on her feet. She glanced back. From somewhere under her own mortal panic, a tiny horrified vision rose ... of the nightmare that faced their enemy: The two from the wagoneers, the three from Chitiratifor, they were now about fifty meters from the trees that held the rest of themselves. They were beyond the reach of their mindsounds. Pursuit would be mindless and would give up any chance of pack survival.

The two wagoneer members broke first, turning and heading back toward the campsite. The three of Chitiratifor shrieked rage at this desertion, then shrieked rage at the escapees. The fragment took one more wild charge at Jefri and Screwfloss, and then turned back, desperate to save itself.

"The ones in the bushes, they're all dead, or they will be soon, either suffocated or crushed." That's what Screwfloss said when she asked him about Gannon and the others. His words were flippant, even more than usual. "Heh. What we gotta hope is Chitiratifor dies slowly, so what's left doesn't come after us till we are well gone."

They were pushing on as fast as they could go. It had been light when they escaped, but now twilight was deepening into night and the wagons' progress had slowed. For that matter, how do you do first aid when you can't see the injuries? The stolen lamps were somewhere on the wagons, but they couldn't stop and dig them out. When there had still been light, she had seen the general size of the problem. Everyone was cut up to some extent. Over the last ten years, Ravna had done her best to learn about first aid. Jefri's forearm needed a pressure bandage. She had managed that, and he understood how to maintain it. Amdi had looked ghastly, blood oozing now from three of his heads-and yet he seemed to be thinking as clearly as ever. Okay, maybe they were just scalp wounds, not near his tympana. She had wrapped his heads in strips torn from their cloaks. That made it harder for Amdi to hear himself think, but the bleeding stopped. "I'm fine," he said, "I just gotta pay more attention to where I'm at. Please. Check on Screwfloss."

Now it was really dark. One of Screwfloss was aboard the rear wagon, driving it along. The rest of him was sprawled in an exhausted jumble atop the second wagon with Ravna.

"We should stop, get you properly bandaged up," said Ravna.

"Naeh," said Screwfloss. "We gotta keep moving. How is Amdijefri?"

Ravna looked around. Jefri was walking by the lead kherhog, guiding it along. All eight of Amdi was trotting beside the middle wagon and its kherhog, keeping them on the road. "I'm good," said Amdi, but he was looking up at Screwfloss anxiously. "Are you all right?"

Screwfloss replied, "You did great tonight, Little Ones."

Ravna brushed her hand across the nearest of Screwfloss. "But are you okay, Screwfloss?"

"Am I okay? Am I okay? What kind of an idiot are you? I still have the broken leg you gave me; it hurts like hell. Then tonight you screwed us into trying to rescue Jorkenrud. He was more of a dirtbag than either of the wagoneers, you know that?"

Ravna was taken aback, remembering the moment when all she could think of was saving Gannon. She'd never thought of herself as a racist. That was a Straumer vice. She bowed her head. "I'm sorry, Screwfloss. It's just that I knew Gannon, I knew all the kids, when they were younger. I felt responsible."

Screwfloss emitted a soft laugh. "Would you have done the same if you'd known he was the one who smashed your face into the side of the fodder wagon? Never mind, I'm afraid you would have. You and Woodcarver are both so soft-hearted."

Woodcarver soft-hearted? Compared to what?

Screwfloss shifted uneasily under her hands, but let her touch and probe. She could see so little now, but there was blood all over, like Amdi. Keep him talking. "You were on our side from the beginning, Screwfloss. But you were part of Nevil's conspiracy, too."

"Of course I was! Didn't Flenser tell you he had tunneled into the conspiracy? You can't do that without being pretty damn credible."

"You had me fooled about the trees, right up to when the arrows didn't start flying."

"Heh, I had a good time with that. There really are arrow trees, you know. Just not anywhere near here. The crusherbushes are much rarer, a transient stage in the way these forests sometimes regrow. I couldn't believe our luck the other night when I saw that crusher grab you. My lies practically told themselves, though Chitiratifor was the perfect ignoramus. I don't know why Vendacious put up with him all these years. Remasritlfeer wouldn't have been fooled. But then he wanted you for Tycoon. We should be glad that's not gonna happen. We have a chance. We just gotta avoid Vendacious and Tycoon, and wiggle our asses back to the Domain."

It suddenly occurred to Ravna that she was in the middle of someone who could explain most of the deadly mysteries, and who surely must be a friend.

Twilight was past, but now the moon stood low in the south, its light chopping the forest floor into silver and shadow.

She used an open stretch of road to peer down between Screwfloss' huddled members. He wasn't talking so much now, though the one on the other wagon was peering alertly into the gloom, taking advantage of the moonlight just as she was. Then she realized that except for the outlier driving the rear wagon, Screwfloss was huddling, the dazed reaction of a pack that doesn't consciously understand how badly it is injured.

"Talk to me, Screwfloss."

The pack gave its human chuckle. "Yeah, yeah. I bet you have a million questions. And I have lots of answers, though if we knew exactly what was going on we'd never have wound up in this mess." He mumbled to himself for a moment. "We didn't realize how important Vendacious was. We didn't realize he might double-cross Tycoon. We didn't realize they would grab so much and all at once."

The words weren't slurred. The actual sounds were coming from all the pack. But there was a singsong cadence to the delivery; some member was not pulling its mental weight. Ravna slipped her hands gently between him, trying to encourage the pack to get out of its huddle. Here and there a jaw snapped at her distractedly, but the four slid apart. There was so much blood.

The one protected by the huddle was in a pool of it. The critter was humming to itself, not really in pain. In the reflected moonlight she could see it turn its head toward her, the faint glitter in its open eyes. She ran her hand up its shoulder, felt a faintly pulsing gash just short of its neck, the blood flowing past her fingers.

"Jefri!" she shouted.

Ravna and Jefri and Amdi did what they could, but it wasn't nearly enough. She'd stopped the bleeding. They'd found a clearing, coaxed Screwfloss down to lie in the moonlight, where they could find all his injuries. By then the one member was silent and unconscious, and it was too late to save it. The death was a peaceful, painless ending. It might not have happened if there had been pain and whistling screams. Instead, the member had quietly bled and bled, its pack just dazed enough to miss the mortal peril....

CHAPTER 22.

After that one stop, they rolled on through the night and into the next day, till fatigue stopped humans and packs and kherhogs.

Ravna took another look at everyone's wounds. Jefri and Amdi were keeping a nervous lookout all around, but mainly back along the way they had come. "I don't think any of the surviving fragments could have chased us this far," said Jefri.

"So what does Screwfloss think of this theory?" asked Ravna.

What remained of Screwfloss looked more lively than Jef and Amdi. After they stopped the wagons, it had slid off into the woods, a self-appointed scouting party. Yet now the remnant hissed when she tried to tend its wounds. The four were snouting around in the front wagon. After a moment, it pulled emergency rations out of the depths of a cabinet and began eating. It chewed grumpily, looking speculatively at the surrounding trees.

Amdi said, "I'm afraid he can't talk anymore." Amdi detoured around Screwfloss and brought both human and pack rations to where Ravna and Jefri had settled. She ate as much as she could. She was so tired. Everything was a bit of a blur. Today was actually warm. There was a faint, keening whine all around, gnats rising from every pond and river stillness.

Finally what Amdi had said percolated through her muzziness. "I've seen many packs of four," she said. "They can talk well enough."

"If that's how they've made themselves," said Jefri. He was sitting at the edge of Amdi, still a couple of meters from Ravna. She noticed that he still avoided her eyes, but there was an occasional flickering glance, challenging as often as not. He continued, "It should be obvious: the one that died was a principal speech center. So no more Samnorsk. It looks like his Interpack speech has gone, too."

"We should keep trying," said Amdi. "What's left has some speech capacity, I know it." Amdi was shaking his heads this way and that, but not as fierce negation; he was just trying to wave the gnats away.

Jefri brushed helpfully at Amdi's nearest faces. "Could be. It'll be a while before we know what's left of his mind."

"So he's a little like I was," said Ravna. But he won't let anyone help him.

Jefri nodded. "A little. But in many ways, he's an able-bodied pack. He drove his wagon well. His other wounds are minor."

The subject of their conversation didn't seem to be paying attention. He came to his feet and ambled over to the middle wagon. Being only four, his limping member seemed to affect the gait of the other three. Two of him flipped up the door on the wagon and searched around inside. When they hopped back to earth, they were holding a leather satchel and what looked like soap and clean cloaks. He swatted at the swirling gnats with his new cloaks, then turned and shambled off in the direction of the river.