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By that time, the first of the bat-people was swooping down on the raft, his little hands holding a short spear. He never got above them; an arrow thudded into his chest and he fell with a loud splash. A great legless length launched itself from the bushes on the opposite bank, roaring as it went through the air.
Ulysses shot once, noted that his arrow had driven into the shoulder of a bat-man, and then turned and leaped onto the bank without waiting to see the man's fall. He held his bow out with his right hand and clutched at a branch with his left. His hand closed around a thorny length, and he exclaimed with the pain. But he did not let loose.
Something hit the dirt just beside his right foot. A missile cast, or dropped, by one of the flying men. Then he had dived over the bush, pulling himself over, and never mind possible damage to the quiver or the bow. When he was behind the bush, he crawled on through the vegetation until he was covered by a large and heavy bush. He roared at his chiefs and at Awina until they had all answered. In response to more of his orders, they made their way through the tangles until they were close to him. During this time, the batmen had been swooping over the jungle and dropping or hurling assegais darts, and shooting small arrows. No one was hit, and after a while the bat-men quit their blind bombardment. They were losing too many weapons.
In the meantime, the archers had brought down five of the fliers. The bat-people retired to the tree for a conference.
Despite their retreat, they held the upper hand. Their enemy could only go so far in one direction and then they would have to climb down the trunk or up the trunk to get to another branch. If they did this, they would be exposed, and the bat-people could kill off the entire party with little or no casualties to themselves.
If their enemy continued to hide in the dense vegetation of this branch, they would just be putting off the inevitable. The bat-people could send for more fliers and, in time, flush them out. Especially since they would be restricted in their hunting and could be starved out if the winged men did not care for a direct battle.
Ulysses had tried to count his foes while they were zooming over in the moon-speckled darkness. He estimated they numbered about a hundred. At the moment, they were gone except for six sentinels who kept diving and climbing but always just out of effective range of the arrows.
Ulysses crouched under the bush and tried to think of what to do. And while he thought, he became aware of a very faint murmuring sound. He requested quiet from those around him and, within a minute, thought he could identify the noise. It had to be the distance- muted roar of a waterfall.
He gave orders to the nearest, Awina, who relayed them. There was some delay because the party, for the most part, was reluctant to leave their present location. This gave them excellent protection but Ulysses knew his "men" and what they were thinking. He yelled at them and told them what would happen in the future if they did not get going. Once it was explained, they reacted swiftly enough. They just did not live much in the future; they had trouble seeing past their present situation.
The end of the branch, or, rather, the place where it abruptly bent at ninety degrees to the horizontal, was two miles away. The party made slow progress because of the thick vegetation and also because they were under orders to move slowly and quietly.
Ulysses saw the spume of white and black about a quarter of a mile before he got to it. He had climbed a tall tree to get a better look, at the same time making sure that he would not be seen by the bat-men, who were flying overhead now and then. The mists rose up and spread out to some distance, as he had hoped. Up in the tree, the roar of the falling water was unfiltered by the jungle.
He was about to climb back down when he saw a Dhulhulikh flap by. He clung to the tree and tried to make himself look like a barky excrescence. No moonlight hit him directly, though enough sieved through the leaves to make the darkness more silver than black. The bat-man went by once, winging so slowly he was just short of stalling. Then his wings beat faster and he climbed as he banked. He came back toward the tree, moving through patchy areas of blackness and pale yellow, the moon's rays bouncing off his bald head and catching beams off his wings, which were darker than his body. He came down just above the tops of the brush, and then flew upward, beating his wings to keep from a complete stall. Just before he landed on the branch of the tree, on the other side of the trunk from Ulysses, he did stall. And he landed as smoothly as an owl on the branch.
He had no talons with which to grip the branch, but he reached out and grabbed a smaller branch and so kept himself from going ahead. After he had folded his wings, he turned to face away from Ulysses. He wore a belt with a stone knife and carried in one hand a short slender spear. From a cord around his neck hung a coiled instrument. Ulysses guessed that this was a horn of some kind. The fellow was sitting there to watch for the enemy. If he saw them, he would summon the others with his horn.
There was no noise from below loud enough to rise above the soft thunder of the waterfall. His men had seen the bat-man and were waiting for the next development. The jungle looked unpopulated.
Ulysses left his position and worked his way around the trunk. His bow and quiver were at the foot of the trunk. Fortunately, they were on the side of the trunk opposite the bat-man and were also in the shadows. Ulysses had only his switchblade knife, which was held between his teeth. He had to cling with both hands and move very slowly. Even though the waterfall drowned out noise, it was not so loud that the keen-eared bat-man would not be able to hear the rustle of leaves or creak of branch.
The man continued to face away from Ulysses as he moved out on the same branch as the one he sat on. He stood upright, balancing himself easily, because the branch was thick. He slid one foot ahead and then brought the other up, slid his forward foot ahead, brought the other up, and so on. Once, he stopped and took the knife from between his teeth. The bat-man's wings half-spread, flapped slightly and then folded back in. In that moment, Ulysses saw the hole in the membrane of the right wing. And he recognised the silhouette of the man's head and the set of the shoulders. It was Ghlikh.
His intention to kill was gone. He could use Ghlikh.
Killing would be easier than capturing. He had to make sure that he could knock Ghlikh out and at the same time keep him from falling. Though Ghlikh weighed only about forty- five pounds, he could be hurt or even killed by a thirty-foot fall. Ulysses also had to make sure that he didn't rush too swiftly or he might go over along with him.
He approached very slowly, afraid that the little man would detect the bending of the branch under his two hundred and forty-five pounds. But Ghlikh was not out near the slender part of the branch. He was halfway, still on the thick part. And so Ulysses was able to chop him along the side of his neck, not too hard, because he was afraid he would snap the thin, probably hollow-boned, neck. Soundlessly, Ghlikh collapsed and fell forward, and Ulysses had to grab with the other hand and seize his wing. He called to those hidden in the brush, and they came out. A moment later, he dropped the unconscious man into waiting arms. By the time he got down, Ghlikh was tied and gagged. A few minutes afterward, his eyes opened. Ulysses stood in the moonlight so that Ghlikh could see who had captured him. Ghlikh's eyes widened, and he struggled. He was still squirming when he was hoisted onto Ulysses' back as if he were a backpack. Ulysses told Wulka, the Wagarondit chief who was carrying Khyuks, to hit Ghlikh again, and Wulka gladly obeyed.