On the Oceans of Eternity

Not much of one, an occasional brown drop. It led to the narrow band of riverside swamp.

"Cover me," he said, stripping off his buckskin tunic and taking knife and tomahawk in hand. He eeled through, the wind warm on his bare back as he followed the tiny clues-a broken tule reed, an impression in a patch of mud, tufts of brown and gray fur. A low uncertain whine greeted him.

"Perks?" he said incredulously. "Perks, boy?"

His left hand reached out through the reeds, his right ready with his tomahawk. The palm came down on a dead man's face, half-chewed away. He suppressed a startled curse and swept the tall tule rushes aside. Flies buzzed around the dead man's caked blood, and on more-his own and others'-that matted the wolf-dog's fur. Perks quivered, crawling forward on his belly, ears laid back, and licked his face and hands.

"Here, Perks. Steady, fellah."

A jet of fear went through him as the dog struggled to rise. He yelped gently as Giernas slid the tomahawk through the loop at the back of his belt and picked him up; the ranger moved carefully, but a hundred and twenty pounds was a considerable weight even for his strength.

Sue came ru

"He was tougher than one Tartessian, at least," Giernas said. "Do what you can."

He and Eddie and Jaddi were better trackers. He joined them, casting about through tall grass, riverside mud, beneath stands of live oak.

"Here's where the Tartessians left," Eddie said. "North-down the wagon track."

That would lead the enemy a day's hard ride north, and then they'd find the missing patrol's wagon-the Indians with it had peeled off by ones and little groups, in places where they'd be hard to trace. The wagon would be alone, destroyed, with its load of charred Tartessian bodies. That would drive the enemy troops absolutely bugfuck, of course.

"And they had most of our horses with them," Eddie went on, pointing. "Look."

Giernas nodded. They'd gotten familiar enough with their tracks to identify individuals by their hoofprints. Those were as individual as a man's fingerprints, when you knew how to look.

"They had a net of outriders all around," Giernas said. "Look, there and there."

Eddie frowned and nodded. "If Indigo got away, I don't think she could avoid or outrun them," he said unhappily. "Not after sunrise. They were pressing it hard, by the looks of it."

"Pete!" Jaditwara called, her voice faint with distance. "Eddie!"

They trotted over, ru

"That's two horses… Shadowfax and Grimma, isn't it?" he asked.

Jaditwara nodded; those were two of hers, a mare and a gelding named after characters from some old story she liked; she'd read big chunks of it aloud to them around the fire overwinter.

"Shadowfax is carrying a rider," she said. "But a light one. Grimma is on a lead rope."

Hope blazed up in him. "Spring Indigo got away!" he said. "She must have cut west and then south, back along the Tar-ties' trail. That's the one way they wouldn't look."

The three of them jumped up and ran down the trail for a quarter hour; even through thigh-high grass you could follow it, once you knew roughly what and where to look for. Peter brought himself to a halt and scratched his head.

"She stopped and changed off here," he said.

"Awe," Eddie said, and Jaditwara nodded.

"And she's pushing the horses hard," the ex-Fiernan ranger said, tossing her head in puzzlement. "Trot and gallop."

You could do that, if you had two mounts, especially if you sat light in the saddle. It was a good way to cover ground quickly, as well-better than a hundred miles in a day's journey.

Uh-oh, Peter Giernas thought, looking south.

"I think I know what she was doing," he said slowly. "She didn't know when we'd be back-everything went real quick, quicker than we thought-and she knew the Tartessians were out in force. Thirty or more, and with native trackers. Where would you go?"

Eddie leaned on his rifle and frowned, turning his head in a wide sweep. The fringe on the sleeve of his buckskins wobbled as he scratched his head.

"Over the river to the east?" he said tentatively. "Hide in the hills?"

"Cross two big rivers with a baby?" Jaditwara said. "And no more gear than in her saddlebags? No. She has to get shelter and food, and quickly, for her child's sake."

My son, Giernas thought, with a brief burst of fury, as quickly suppressed. You need a clear head now, goddammit.

"No," he agreed. "And she can't hole up with any of the locals, too much danger they'd turn her in."

"Well, she can't go west," Eddie said, waving. The land in that direction was even flatter and more open, millions of acres of grass to the foothills of the Coast Range. "So where would she go?"

"South," Giernas said grimly. "To the only place around here with crowds of people coming and going, strangers, where one more Indian woman with a kid wouldn't be noticed."

"Oh," Eddie said. Then: "Oh, shit"

Silent, they turned and ran back along their own trail, back to the camp. The locals were setting up, looking around for evidence of what had happened to their kin, building fires. Sue had Perks beside one of the fires on a section of hide, with water boiling and gear set out beside her. She nodded at their news.

"What do we do?" she said.

Pete forced words out. "What we pla

"Indigo?" Sue said gently.

"The longer she's in there, the more likely she and Jared are to get caught." He took a deep breath. "We'll have to make a few changes, though."

Sue nodded, then looked down. "I've given him a shot, but I had to short it-not sure of the dose," she said. "And this is going to hurt. A little further and that pistol ball would have lamed him for life. I think it's pressing on a nerve; he snapped at me when I touched it."

Peter Giernas knelt beside Perks's head; since Sue still had both hands, the snap would have been a warning only. The dog's eyes were wandering with the drug, but the black nose wrinkled and a long pink tongue flapped feebly at his hands. He took the heavy-boned shaggy head in his arms, remembering the puppy that had looked so sheepish when it piddled at the foot of his bed…

"It's okay, big fellah," he said quietly, taking the great scarred muzzle in one hand and clamping it closed, cradling the head against him firmly. "I know you did your best. You held them off while she got away. I'm sorry about your pups."

"Eddie, Jaddi, hold his paws," Sue said, washing off her hands and taking up the probe. "God, I wish I had more training for this-Henry should be here… All right."

She took a long breath and began. Perks whimpered, then gave a muffled howl and heaved against the hands confining him.

"Quiet, Perks!" Giernas said. "Quiet!"

The body in his arms went quivering-rigid. Sue's long-fingered hands moved; she swore, moved again…

"Got it!" she said triumphantly. The slightly flattened lead sphere thumped on the ground; Perks gave a long muffled whimper as she cleansed the incision and began to sew.