Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [201]
Cordelia made a nest of the bedroll for Gregor, and fed him little snacks and sips from their water bottle. Bothari stretched out in the back of the niche with the thinnest blanket folded under his head, otherwise seeming impervious to the stone. While Bothari dozed, Cordelia kept careful count of the net flow of hunters. By mid-afternoon, she calculated that some forty men had gone below and not come up again.
Two men were brought out strapped to float pallets, loaded into a medical-evacuation lifter, and flown away. A lightflyer made a bad landing in the crowded area, toppled downslope, and crunched into a tree. Yet more men became involved in extracting, righting, and repairing it. By dusk over sixty men had been sucked down the drain. A whole company drawn away from the capital, not pursuing refugees, not available to root out the secrets of ImpMil . . . it wasn't enough to make a real difference, surely.
It's a start.
Cordelia and Bothari and Gregor slipped from the niche in the gloaming, cleared the ravines, and made their way silently through the woods. It was nearly full dark when they came to the edge of the trees and struck Kly's trail. As they crossed over the ridge edging the vale, Cordelia looked back. The area by the cave mouth was marked by searchlights, stabbing up through the mists. Lightflyers whined in and out of the site.
They dropped over the ridge and slithered down the slope that had so nearly killed her to climb, hanging on to Rose's stirrup two days ago. Fully five kilometers down the trail, in a rocky region of treeless scrub, Bothari came to an abrupt halt. "Sh. Milady, listen."
Voices. Men's voices, not far off, but strangely hollow. Cordelia stared into the darkness, but no lights moved. Nothing moved. They crouched beside the trail, senses straining.
Bothari crept off, head tilted, following his ears. After a few moments Cordelia and Gregor cautiously followed. She found Bothari kneeling by a striated outcrop. He motioned her closer.
"It's a vent," he announced in a whisper. "Listen."
The voices were much clearer now, sharp cadences, angry gutturals punctuated by swearing in two or three languages.
"Goddammit, I know we went left back at that third turn."
"That wasn't the third turn, that was the fourth."
"We re-crossed the stream."
"It wasn't the same friggin' stream, sabaki!"
"Merde. Perdu!"
"Lieutenant, you're an idiot!"
"Corporal, you're out of line!"
"This cold light's not going to last the hour. See, it's fading."
"Well, don't shake it up, you moron, when it glows brighter it goes faster."
"Give me that—!"
Bothari's teeth gleamed in the darkness. It was the first smile Cordelia had seen crack his face in months. Silently, he saluted her. They tiptoed softly away, into the chill of the Dendarii night.
Back on the trail, Bothari sighed deeply. "If only I'd had a grenade to drop down that vent. Their search parties would still be shooting at each other this time next week."
Chapter Thirteen
Four hours down the night trail, the distinctive black and white horse loomed out of the dark. Kly was a shadow aboard it, but his thick profile and battered hat were instantly recognizable.
"Bothari!" The name huffed from Kly's mouth. "We live. Grace of God."
Bothari's voice was flat. "What happened to you, Major?"
"I almost ran into one of Vordarian's squads at a cabin I was delivering mail to. They're actually trying to go over these hills house by house. Dosing everyone they meet with fast-penta. They must be bringing the drug in by the barrel."
"We expected you back last night," said Cordelia. She tried not to let her tone sound too accusing.
The felt hat bobbed as Kly gave her a weary nod of greeting. "Would've been, except for Vordarian's bloody