Yaris was asleep; everyone was happy. Dorthea chatted with Robert extensively on the art of sunflower cultivation. He found it fascinating. He was amazed at how calm she was in the face of such unstable times. They had no way of knowing what would meet them when they reached the mountains. The Phoon could be waiting in ambush, or they could have made it to their homeland. As Robert understood it, invading the Phoon wilderness was something akin to committing suicide in the most unpleasant way possible.
“Do you think this will work out?” Robert asked.
“I don’t know,” Dorthea answered. “I think that eventually things do. Work out that is. It’s just the getting from here to there that’s the trouble.”
“In the long run, you mean,” Robert said.
“Yeah, I suppose I do, but…” She looked at her hands. “…you can’t always wait for the long run. In the long run, we’re all dead.”
“Comforting,” Robert said.
Dorthea laughed out loud. Robert found it contagious and laughed too, long and uninhibited.
The carriage began to turn off from the straight way to the mountain pass. Robert pressed over to the little window. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t know,” Dorthea said. “Nothing out there to stop us from headin’ on straight. Although, suppose they’re waitin’ between the mountains for us. It would be a bad idea to just go waltzin’ straight in.”
“Yeah,” Robert said.
They detoured far to the right, pulling the carriages up to the mountain slope north of the pass. Everyone disembarked. The Elite Guard began loading up with equipment: swords, smaller knives, bows slung over the shoulder and quivers at the middle of the back.
“The Phoon fight something like we do,” Ngare said. “Not quite as elegant, but they fight blade to blade. They have none of the strange weapons of the Alavarisians.”
“Yes, sir,” the Guard answered in unison.
“We will be badly outnumbered, but we’ll have the element of surprise. Keep your eyes wide and your hands fast.”
Ngare left the group and moved over to speak with Raahi.
“What do you think?” Raahi asked
“I think they’re in the pass. Hiding,” Ngare said, matter-of-fact.
“Could be.” Raahi scratched his mustache. “Should we wait for dark? Try to surprise them?”
“Very few have fought with them, the Phoon beasts. I have, years ago when my people went to war. They have strange eyes. I have heard it said that the Phoon see better in the night than cats, and I believe it.”
“Then we go soon.”
“Soon,” Ngare said. “Do you have a song?”
“I don’t know.” Raahi was thoughtful. “The sleeping songs I know are designed for human beings. I am not sure if they will take for the Phoon. Are they very different anatomically?”
“Different enough, I fear,” Ngare said.
“If we move in to the pass and they are hiding in the cliffs, we will be hopelessly exposed to their arrows from above.”
“Yes.” Ngare said nothing more.
“Well, what can we…?”
“Maybe a trick…in the Alavarisian style.”
Robert, silent and uncomfortable, stood next to Dorthea. He had no idea what it was that he was doing there and felt that he may as well have been at home sleeping. He wondered how Yaris could sleep when who-knows-what was on its way, but, then, she didn’t have much wrapped up in all of this. If Esmeralda was killed or the rescue went in some other way wrong, it wouldn’t mean much to her.
Ngare came over and put his hand on Robert’s shoulder. “You are going to have to stay here as we go in. I need you to keep sharp. There is really no telling how things might go once we enter the pass.”
“Okay,” Robert said.
“Good.” Ngare held out the bo staff he had instructed Robert with the previous night. “Take this. It is better for you to take one of the horses and run than to try to use it. But if you cannot run, you can try…something. Can you ride a horse?”
Robert considered. “I think I could figure it out if chased by blood-thirsty monsters.”
Ngare smiled. “Good.”
With that, he turned back to his fellow Elite Guard. They all formed a circle and began, very quietly, to chant. Not exactly like singing, they made a kind of bubbling, verbal noise that crawled rhythmically out of the circle with an aggressive urgency, for all of the lack of volume.
“What are they doing?” Robert asked Dorthea.
“Gettin’ ready, I guess,” she answered.
Mr. Chandrasekhar was outside the circle, pouring through a pocket-sized book, concentration etched on his face. He looked grim, unhappy with what he was finding. The chanting warriors dripped their music into the air. The song before the blade falls. Robert gripped the wood of the staff. Hands tense, eyes open.