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other three fingers on each side, however, were of normal size, giving the creature good hands for grasping. And the head was very large for the size of the body. The miracle was that it could fly at all. It was surely at the outside limit of its growth-any larger, and it would lose the power of flight.

At this moment, however, it was walking toward diem. It wasn't without grace when it walked, but it was dear that it was more at ease on branches or in the air. A long-distance hiker it would never be, not on those feet.

Those feet.

Zdorab knew enough to hold his tongue. Young Yasai, alas, did not. "Oykib was right," he blurted out. "No way did those feet make those footprints back in the village."

Elemak turned slowly toward him. "So maybe it wasn't this thing that made the prints. Do you think I didn't know that was a possibility? The fact remains that this fellow was the lookout for the kidnappers. If he doesn't have Zhivya, he knows where she is." Elemak took a step downward, toward the creature.

Almost at once, the creature stopped, and then did the most extraordinary thing. He reached down and took from his foot a small number of stalks of grain that he had been holding. Then he laid them down in the grass, making a great show of each one, as if counting them out. When they were all laid out, the creature took a step backward.

"That's grain from our field," said Obring.

"Did you just realize that?" asked Vas,

"Does it matter?" asked Meb.

"He thinks that's why we came up here," said Padarok, Zdorab's own son. "Because he stole our grain. He's giving it back."

"And when did you become an expert on overgrown bats?" asked Elemak.

"It makes sense," said Padarok stubbornly.

Zdorab waved a hand at him, trying to get him to shut up.

"No, I won't shut up, Father. This whole thing is ludicrous. The angel took some grain from the field and he doesn't know a thing about Zhivya. If somebody had stopped to give this any thought at all, we wouldn't have spent all night climbing a mountain in pursuit of an innocent man."

Elemak's hands snapped out and seized Padarok by the head. Like his father, Padarok had not grown into a very tall man, and he was slight of build. He looked like a puppet in Elemak's massive grasp. "Man?" Elemak demanded. "You call that thing a man?"

"Figure of speech," Padarok murmured.

"That man, as you call him, knows where my daughter is!" With those words Elemak shook Padarok. His whole body went limp. For a moment Zdorab feared that the shaking had done brain damage, had perhaps even killed him. And even though Padarok's eyes immediately fluttered open and he moved his limbs, the hot rage that surged inside Zdorab did not fade. To his own surprised, Zdorab found himself in the odd position of holding a scythe over Elemak's shoulders and neck, say-ing to him the most unbelievable words. "Let go of my son," he said. "Now."

Elemak turned slowly and regarded Zdorab with lizard eyes. "And if I don't, will you cut off my arms?"

"Only if I miss your neck," said Zdorab.

Elemak let go of Padarok. "Don't threaten me, Zdorab. Even if you've forgotten who our enemy is, I haven't." With a quick movement Elemak snatched the scythe out of Zdorab's hands, so quickly that Zdorab could barely register that it had happened. For a moment Elemak stood there, the scythe poised, and Zdorab wasn't sure whether Elemak meant to strike him or his son. But then he cast the scythe to the ground and strode to where the creature waited.

The poor thing visibly wilted under the head of Elemak's fierce glare, but it stood its ground. Elemak reached out a foot and ground the stalks of grain into the muddy grass, "I don't care about the grain," he said. Then he reached down and snatched the creature up by one arm. "Where's my daughter!" he bellowed.

"What language do you expect him to answer in?" said Padarok scornfully. "Or should he draw you a map in midair?"

Please, don't goad him, don't provoke him, Rokya; Zdorab thought the words but didn't say them. Because he was also proud. He had spent his life bowing to men like this, so they wouldn't hurt him. But his son did not bow. He might have inherited my height, thought Zdorab, but he has his mother's spine.

Elemak's answer was to roar in