north, though Fiddler's Jump was far to the south. Perhaps he hoped to throw off the pursuit by taking the less likely route. Or perhaps he expected to find better wood for a raft there. Or perhaps there was some other reason that Ramon had not yet fathomed.
They walked in silence, only the crackling of old leaves and needles under their feet to compete with the whooping calls of anaranjada, the scolding of flatfurs, the chittering chorus of vinegar crickets. It was midmorning before they came to a game path running through the trees. The soft, fibrous spoor of the kyi-kyi told Ramon that the antelope-like beast had been by within the last day, and likely the last few hours. These would have been good hunting grounds, he thought, and felt a stir of unease, the source of which he couldn't quite identify.
Ramon guessed that they would reach the river itself before nightfall. The other Ramon was bound to be close. He guessed that it would have taken him three days to make a decent raft, if he had the right tools: ax, wood, rope. And all his fingers, of course. The other Ramon was going to be working at a disadvantage, but ...
But the smart thing would be to slap together something thirdrate - a raft barely strong enough to float - and use it to flee farther downriver. Once he had more distance, the man could afford to spend the time to make something sturdy. It would be a balancing act: speed against the danger of trusting himself to something so flimsy that it could come apart in the water. Ramon walked, trying to remain silent, and wondered what risks he would have taken in the other man's place. It was a tug deep in the flesh of his neck that brought his mind back to Maneck.
The alien had stopped. Its hot orange eye looked dull. The red, swollen eye had darkened like congealing blood. Its skin, neither ashen nor displaying the slick dancing patterns it had first had, was the matte texture of drawing paper and the color of charcoal.
"We must pause," Maneck said. "We must regain our strength."
Ramon felt a stab of annoyance. There wasn't time for this. But it was also a sign that Maneck was weak. The devil wasn't shrugging off the injuries from the other Ramon's trap. That, at least, was a good sign. Maneck might still be armed, but it wasn't invulnerable. If the other Ramon could only find a way to break the alien's hold on him, then together they could destroy it.
Ramon pursed his lips. There was a tightening in his chest that he didn't like. Not illness, but regret. The memory of the kii crushed beneath the powerful Enye returned to him. As the hours passed, the memory of the dream he'd had the night before was fading, the sadness becoming not an emotion but the memory of one. The conviction he had felt that any price would be justified if it turned aside the horror of gaesu also faded, but did not vanish. It was Maneck's thought, not his, and he knew it. That didn't stop him from feeling the urgency of it, though.
"All right, monster," Ramon said. "We rest. But only for a few minutes. We don't have much time."
The alien considered Ramon, its quills stirring in a way that made Ramon think it was both amused and exhausted, then trudged to the wide, thick trunk of a fire-oak with leaves as wide as Ramon's two hands together and bark that collapsed with a sound like packing foam when Maneck leaned against it. Ramon hunkered down beside the game path, rubbing his chin and staring out into the forest. It was strange to have gone so long without a shave. Normally by now his whiskers would have been getting almost long enough to go from prickly to nearly soft. Instead, his neck and chin sprouted a kind of weak fuzz, like he was twelve years old again. He opened his robe and considered the scar where Martin Casaus had sliced him with the sheet metal hook. The pale line was wider now than it had been, but still not the ropy, puckered scar that it had been before the aliens got hold of him. The machete scar on his elbow was still hardly more than a lump under the skin. It was growing, though. He was becoming the man that he remembered being. And at least he