The landlord of The Jolly Vodrin, Hamdal the Measure, had told us Prince Tyfar had taken two regiments.  The reason for the statement now seemed clear as I circled briefly between the peaks, glaring down onto the Pass of Lacachun.  The men down there were of two kinds: crossbowmen and spearmen.  Hamdal had seen that and reported.  Just how many there had been to start with I did not know; I did know and with dreadful certainty that there were not many left now.

These soldiers were trapped.  They huddled in what cover they could find on a projecting floor of rock standing proud of the south side of the pass.  To either side the sheer faces of the lower cliffs lifted to the peaks above.  Yes, rather like jaws, those peaks.  And the tidbit in their gullet was being gobbled up by the clouds of skirling wildmen.

Against the north face I flew in shadow.  The sounds of the yelling down there drifted up attenuated.  The floor of rock jutting out into the pass, smothered with fallen boulders, provided the best - the only - place for defense.

The wovenwork shields of the wildmen were no proof against the crossbow bolts of the defenders.  Salix plants of various varieties grew in the upland soils, and, stripped, provided light strong canes for weaving.  Many moorkrim carried hide-and-skin shields, some fastened around wickerwork foundations.  The Harnalian shields of the spearmen down there would keep out an arrow cast from a flat bow if the angle was not perfectly at right angles.  All the same, the wildmen had bottled up this little force and were going about their business of exterminating it completely.

Nothing was going to stop me from bursting through them and landing among the survivors.  Down there Jaezila stood in the cover of a rock and, even as I watched, she shot in her longbow and took out a wildman who attempted to get his shot in first.  He went over sideways, flailing, with the long rose-fletched arrow through him.

At Jaezila's side, Tyfar stood, his head bandaged, giving orders to his men.

A nasty situation....

Down I went, hurtling with the tyryvol now thoroughly of the opinion that this manthing on his back was no longer to be trifled with.  Most of the wildmen had landed and taken cover the better to shoot up at the ledge of rock; but enough remained flying to make me punch through them with a rush and a whoop.

Even then, with me hollering like a dervish and crashing through in a thrashing of wings, a couple of the swods below loosed their crossbows.  Both bolts hissed past.  I yelled.

"I'm on your side, you pack of famblys!"  And then the wildmen took it on themselves to show their nastiness, and they shot my tyryvol under me.

I felt his body bunch and jerk with the bite of the arrows.  He uttered a shrill squawk and then a dolorous descending moan.  His wings trembled.  He fell.  We pitched down for the last ten or fifteen feet and I was only saved from a broken neck by his collapsing body.  I leaped off, feeling immense sadness for him.  After his little escapade over the valley with me dangling like a bobbin, we had come to an understanding.  His bright eyes glazed over.  His slim head on its slender neck shuddered and drooped laxly, and he was dead.

For a moment - a stupid, defenseless moment - I stood looking down on him.

"Jak!  Get your fool head down!"

"All right, Tyfar, all right."

I stomped across to his rock.  Two arrows broke against the face as I dodged into cover.

"Jak!" said Jaezila.  "Prince Nedfar - ?"

"He'll be all right.  Seg went back with him to find a needle-man."

"And you two came after me."  Tyfar put his hands on his hips and glared at us.  Trim, defiant, eager, a true comrade, he shook his head.  He looked as though he could go ten rounds with a dinosaur, bandaged head and all.

He winced when he shook his head.