Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [118]
“No time for that.” With a soft snarl, Ahlitah started back toward the entrance. “I’ll take him to the stable and we’ll wait for you there. You’ll be wanting to go upstairs and drag those two worthless humans you insist on calling your friends out of bed.”
“I will be quick,” Ehomba assured the big cat.
Marking the room numbers as he made his way down the narrow passage, Ehomba halted outside number five. As was customary in Netherbrae, the door was not locked. Lifting the latch as quietly as he could, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room was in total darkness, the curtains having been pulled across the window.
A sharp blade nicked his throat and a hand clutched at his left wrist, pulling it back behind him.
“It’s too late for maid service and too early for breakfast, so what the Gojorworn are . . . ?” The fingers around his unresisting wrist relaxed and the knife blade was withdrawn. “Etjole?”
Turning in the darkness, Ehomba saw the subdued glint of moonlight on metal as the swordsman resheathed his knife. “Having trouble sleeping, Simna?”
“I always sleep light, long bruther. Especially in a strange bed. That way I feel more confident about waking up in the morning.” Weapon secured, the shorter man stepped away from the wall. “You jested that I might be having trouble sleeping. I might ask you the same question.”
“Get your clothes on and your things together. We are leaving.”
“What, now? In the middle of the night? After that meal?” To underline his feelings the swordsman belched meaningfully. The sound echoed around the room.
“Yes, now. After that meal. Ahlitah is waiting for us in the stables—with another. His name is Hunkapa Aub.”
Grumbling pointedly, Simna began slipping into his clothes. “You pick up companions in the oddest times and places, bruther. Where’s this one from?”
“From a cage.”
“Hoy, from a—” In the darkness of the room the swordsman’s voice came to a halt as sharply as his movements. When he spoke again, it was with a measure of uncertainty as well as disbelief. “You broke that oversized lump of animated fur out of its box?”
“He is more than that. Hunkapa Aub is intelligent. Not very intelligent, perhaps, but no mindless animal, either.”
“Bruther, no matter where we go you seem to have this wonderful knack for endearing yourself to the locals. I wish you’d learn to repress it.” Darkness blocked the faint light from the single curtained window as the swordsman slipped upraised arms through a shirt. “When they discover their favorite subject for culinary target practice has gone missing they’re very likely to connect it to this late-night leave-taking of ours.”
“Let them,” Ehomba replied curtly. “I have little use for people like this, who would treat any animal the way they have, much less an intelligent creature like Hunkapa Aub.”
Simna stepped into his pants. “Maybe they don’t know that he’s intelligent.”
“He talks.” Anger boiled in the herdsman’s tone as he looked past his friend. “Where is Knucker?”
“Knucker?” In the dusky predawn Simna quickly assembled his belongings. “You know, bruther, I don’t believe the little fella ever came upstairs. Near as I can recall, when I left the townsparty traveling two steps forward, one step back, he was still drinking and carousing with the locals.”
“Are you ready yet?”
“Coming, coming!” the swordsman hissed as he struggled to don his pack. “Ghobrone knows you’re an impatient man. You’d think it was this Visioness Themaryl who was waiting for you downstairs.”
“If only she was.” Ehomba’s tone turned from curt to wistful. “I could make an end to this, and start back home.”
They found Knucker not far from where the three of them had originally been seated, sprawled