The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,124

whore. Ulaume could not imagine what he might have lived through over the past few days.

‘Come!’ Ulaume said. ‘Now Flick. We’re leaving.’

Flick looked confused for a moment. ‘Ulaume?’ He stared at the fresh blood on Ulaume’s shirt.

‘Quick, no time for talk. Come on.’ Ulaume grabbed hold of Flick’s left hand and dragged him out of the tepee, desperate to get him beyond the light of the camp torches. He was afraid that somehar would pass the back of the tepee and spot the dead bodies. Then the alarm would be raised.

Without words, Ulaume and Flick ran to the waterhole. Terez wasn’t there. ‘By Aru, I hope he makes it!’ Ulaume hissed. ‘You won’t believe it, Flick, but it was Terez who rescued us.’

Flick was staring at the dead har. The lion had wandered off after all. ‘Terez,’ Flick said weakly. ‘I wish we’d killed him.’ There was a bitterness in Flick’s voice that Ulaume hadn’t heard before.

‘Well, if we had, then the Uigenna might still have returned, and we’d have had no knight in shining armour to save us,’ Ulaume said, ‘so maybe you were right about Terez after all.’

Flick merely grunted.

Ulaume heard the sound of hooves on the packed earth and then Terez appeared out of the darkness with the reins of three horses in his hand. One of them was Ghost. The animals stomped and snorted behind him. Terez put a finger to his lips for silence, then indicated they should mount up. He began to climb onto Ghost, but Flick pushed him aside and swung into the saddle himself. Terez shrugged and mounted another horse.

They walked the animals for about a hundred yards from the camp, then urged them into a gallop. The trouble with desert travel, Ulaume thought, was that you left a very obvious trail. A mile or so from the Uigenna, Terez directed them east, towards the cordillera.

‘They’ll follow us,’ Flick said.

‘We have the lead,’ Terez said. ‘We must keep it up.’

At dawn, they had passed beyond the foothills and were in a deeply forested region. Here, Terez decided it was safe for them to rest the horses for a couple of hours. Ulaume and Flick were so shocked and exhausted, they were happy to let Terez take control. They would have to take it in turns to keep watch. Terez offered to do so first.

Flick and Ulaume did not contest this. They climbed into a wide hollow tree and here Ulaume took off his scarf.

‘Oh no,’ Flick said. ‘Your hair. Your face.’ He reached to touch Ulaume’s head, but Ulaume pulled away. He couldn’t bear for it to be touched now.

‘It’ll grow back,’ he said. ‘And bruises fade. How are you?’

‘All right. Better than you.’ Flick reached out and gripped Ulaume’s right arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Terez is the one who should be apologising, not you,’ Ulaume said.

‘Why did he come for us?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m just glad he did.’

‘We can’t let them take us again.’

‘We won’t. I’ll die first.’

Ulaume knew they should sleep, because they’d need their strength, but it was difficult to surrender to it. His senses strained to pick up sounds of pursuit. The best he could hope for was a short time out of the saddle. He wouldn’t sleep until he felt safe.

Flick clearly felt the same. He explained how Wraxilan was obsessed with Cal and believed that Flick was in touch with him. ‘He wouldn’t listen to me. It was what he wanted to believe. I felt that at any moment, one night, he’d go mad and try to beat it out of me, the information I don’t have.’ He paused. ‘Ulaume, those hara are… The things I did…’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t speak of it.’

Ulaume stroked his face. ‘We escaped. We survived. That is all that matters.’

Flick sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He paused. ‘We won’t be able to return to Casa Ricardo and live there as before, will we?’

‘No,’ Ulaume said. ‘It would be safer if we moved on.’

‘Where will we go?’

‘Just away,’ Ulaume replied. ‘Ask your dehara. Quest for the advice we need.’

Flick uttered a strange sound of angry despair. ‘I’m not sure I trust the dehara any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘OK,’ Ulaume said carefully.

Flick snuggled up against Ulaume for warmth, and Ulaume put his arms around him. Ulaume was just drifting off to sleep when he heard Flick say, ‘There is something terrible in us. We are no better than humanity, just stronger and more