Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [80]
“No,” Ehomba replied in his usual soft but unshakable tone, “I do not think that it will.”
Within the hidden depths of the close, something moaned. The hackles on the swordsman’s neck bristled at the sound. Tight-lipped, he tried to drag his friend back onto the sidewalk. Ehomba resisted.
The moan came again, and while Simna did not relax, some of the fearful tension oozed out of him. It was manifestly a human throat that had produced that muffled lamentation, and not some gibbering perversion set loose from the nether regions of unimaginable perdition.
“Here.” The dim outline of the herdsman could be seen picking its way through the rubble. “Over this way.”
Muttering under his breath, the swordsman lurched forward, cursing as he stumbled over discarded containers, rotting foodstuffs, and equally pungent but less mentionable offal.
The figure Ehomba was trying to help to its feet was slight to the point of emaciation. It was a man; a very little man indeed, barely four feet tall. It was hard to judge because despite the herdsman’s strong supportive arm, the figure’s legs seemed to have trouble working. They exhibited a distinct tendency to wander off by themselves, as if possessed of their own individual itineraries. Understandably, this caused some small difficulty to the rest of the attached body.
Once Simna got his arm beneath the man’s other shoulder, the two travelers were able to walk the hapless figure out of the close. He weighed very little. Back out on the sidewalk, they set him down, leaning him up against a wall. The swordsman wiped distastefully at his arm. The frail figure was rank as a wallowing boar and the stink attached to him displayed an unwholesome tendency to rub off on anyone making contact with it. Glancing in the humans’ direction, Ahlitah wrinkled his nose in disgust.
“Who are you?” Somehow ignoring the stench, Ehomba knelt to place his own face close to that of the barely breathing little man. “We would like to help you. Do you know what time it is?” He nodded toward the dark, empty street. “You cannot stay here, like this.”
“Glad to hear you say it, bruther.” Apprehensive and impatient, Simna stood nearby, his keen gaze anxiously patrolling the roadway. “Can we go now? Please?”
“Not until we help this poor unfortunate. If necessary, we will bring him with us.” The herdsman looked up at his companion. “I will not abandon him to the kind of fate the shopkeeper told us skulks through this city late at night.”
“All right, fine! There isn’t time to argue. Let’s get him back on his feet, then.” Simna bent to help the vagrant rise once more, only to draw back just in time as the figure forestalled its incipient deliverance by spewing the contents of his stomach all over the sidewalk.
“By Gieirwall, what a foulness!” Turning his back on the slumping frame, Simna inhaled deeply of fresh night air. Ehomba held his ground, though he was careful to keep out of the line of fire.
Slight as he was, the pitiful fellow had very little left in his stomach to regurgitate. That did not stop him from puking for another minute or so. In counterpoint to his rasping dry heaves, bells rang out solemnly the length and breadth of the city, simultaneously announcing and decrying the arrival of midnight.
“That’s torn it,” the swordsman muttered. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.” Bending low but keeping his face turned as much away from the fellow as possible, he spoke in words harsh and distinct. “Did you hear that, whoever you are? It’s midnight, and if all we were told is true, the defiled can now freely roam the streets in accordance with your damned Covenant. It is time, friend, to move your bony ass. Why Ehomba wants to save it I don’t know. If it was up to me, I’d leave you here, pickings for whatever shambles along.”
Rheumy yellow eyes turned to meet the swordsman’s. A shaky smile materialized on the bewhiskered, unwholesome face. Pressing one unsteady finger to the side of the tapering, twice-broken nose, the figure replied in a boozy cackle.
“Knucker