If that were so, then the city of the bat-men could not be far from here, Ulysses thought. He was in luck.
Not so, Khyuks said. The place was only a small settlement, an outpost.
How many Dhulhulikh were in this attack force?
About fifty.
Ulysses had no way of checking on this at the moment.
How did they plan to fight the invaders?
As he asked this, he studied the finned and stonepointed wood darts in the belt around Khyuks' waist.
The Dhulhulikh would drop the darts on the warriors, of course. And Khrauszmiddum would be coming to attack on land.
At that moment, another batwing landed. He came up and stalled just outside the entrance and landed only a few feet inside. The Alkunquib stationed by the sides of the entrance leaped for him, but the batwing did a backflip through the hole and escaped them. A Wufea, however, sent an arrow through him, and the batwing dropped without a sound. They crouched inside the hole, waiting for a cry to arise announcing that the arrowed man had been seen. But no cry came.
"They'll be counting noses sometime later," Ulysses said. "And they'll start looking for the missing soldiers, you can bet on that."
"What do we do?" Awina said.
"If they don't start looking until dusk, then we get out of here. We go back into the jungle above. If they find us before dark, then we've got a hell of a fight on our hands."
He did not add that the batwings could simply starve them out.
Khyuks would answer some questions. Others he just would not. He was such a frail creature, he could not endure much pain. When the pain got too much for him, he fainted. And when he was revived and tortured again, he fainted once more.
He would not tell them where the city of the Dhulhulikh was. He did tell them that the city held the spirit of Wurutana. But he would not say what the "spirit" of Wurutana was. He insisted that he did not know. He had never seen Wurutana. Only the chiefs of the Dhulhulikh had. At least, he presumed they had. He had never heard any chief say that he had seen Wurutana. Wurutana's spirit, rather. This Tree was the body of Wurutana.
Wurutana was the god of the Dhulhulikh. Also of the leopard-men and the bear-men, though the simple Wuggrud had a number of other gods, too.
Ulysses was curious about the depth of control by Wurutana. He asked if the Khrauszmiddum and Wuggrud ever fought among themselves.
"Oh, yes," Khyuks said. "Every tribe fights his neighbour. But none fight us; all obey the voice of Wurutana."
And how many Dhulhulikh were there in all?
Khyuks did not know. He insisted, even after fainting several times, that he just did not know. He did know that there were many. Very many. And why not? They were the favoured of Wurutana.
Were there any people like Ulysses on the south coast?
Khyuks did not know, but he had heard that there were. After all, the coast was many flights away, and only a few of the batwings ranged far and wide.
Dusk eventually came. Khyuks was unconscious again. The batwings had ceased to fly by. Ulysses thought that they must be searching farther down the riverlet. By the time they discovered that two were missing, they would not know when they had dropped out. And it was next to impossible to search in the dark here.
As soon as he thought it dark enough, he gave the order to move out. Khyuks was tied to Ulysses' back and gagged. Ulysses had given his word that the batwing would not be killed if he gave information. It was true that Khyuks had not answered all the questions, but he had answered most. And Ulysses admired the little man's courage and endurance. He knew it was dangerous to be sentimental to an enemy, but he did not feel like killing the plucky little fellow. Moreover, he might be able to use him later.
They returned to where they had hidden the raft logs and the poles. The rafts were put back together, and the party launched itself out on the dark riverlet. The moonlight did not filter down very far. Occasionally, a ray broke through an avenue of branches. Once, a thin ray lit up great dark round objects in the water ahead of them. There was a snort, and a needle of water shot up from some aperture in the creature. Then the water boiled as bodies disappeared. The rafts pushed on through the roiling as the occupants waited, tensely, for the great hipporats to appear beside the rafts or, worse, underneath them. But the rafts proceeded unmolested.
Several times, Ulysses saw the seemingly endless lines of a legless crocodile slide out from the silvery-black bushes and into the silvery-black water. He waited for the violent upthrust of a short-jawed, many-toothed head onto the raft and the closing of teeth around the leg of someone — or himself. Or the lash of a mighty tail from the darkness and the smash of bone and pulping of flesh and the body flying into the riverlet.
More miles passed without incident. Birds and unknown animals gave their weird cries. Then the current picked up and they were going so swiftly that the polers had no need to shove against the bottom. Now they were busy pushing against the bank so that the rafts would not bump against them.
The great branch was leaning downward at a steeper rate, although the inclination was not noticeable in the dark by the raftmen. If it had not been for the pickup in the current's speed, they would have thought they were on a level.
Ulysses liked but also worried about the speed.
He crouched down by the bound Khyuks and splashed water from the riverlet onto the little face. The water made the unconscious bat-man open his eyes.
He croaked, "I am thirsty."
Ulysses dipped more water with his gourd and lifted Khyuks' head so he could drink. Then he said, "I think the water is rushing toward some fall. Do you know anything about it?"
"No," Khyuks said sullenly. "I know nothing of any waterfall."
"That means what?" Ulysses said. "That you are ignorant of this area or that there is no waterfall at the riverlet's end?"
"I didn't fly over the end of this branch when I came in," Khyuks said.
Ulysses said, "Well, we'll find out the hard way whether or not there is a cataract. I want to get out of here with all possible speed, and I'll keep us on the rafts until the last possible moment. There might be some difficulty, but not an impossibility, I hope, in getting off the rafts at the last moment."
He did not elaborate. Khyuks was not so deep in pain that he could not visualise what might happen. It could be every man for himself, and Khyuks, his legs and hands tied, would be dependent on someone else to get him ashore. There might not be enough time for anyone to carry him or throw him ashore, even if anyone felt so inclined.
After a while, Khyuks spoke again. It was evident that he loathed himself. He wanted to keep his mouth shut and take whatever was coming. But he was unable to face the death at the end of the branch. Perhaps, Ulysses thought, there was something especially horrifying about death in water to him.
"Judging by the current," he said slowly, "we must be about three miles from the end. Where the first cataract is."
Ulysses considered the possibility that Khyuks was not frightened. He might be lying so that he could trap them all, send them all to a falling watery death, including himself.
"We'll go another mile or so," Ulysses said. "Then we'll get off the rafts."
There was enough light so that he could see Khyuks' face. Now and then, the light strengthened as the moon's rays shot through openings between leaves and branches and trunks thousands of feet above them. The bat-man's face was as unreadable as a piece of leather.
At that moment, a cry brought Ulysses upright and raised a chill on the back of his neck. He turned around to see what Awina was pointing at. There was a big tree growing out of a dirt-filled crack about fifty yards away. It was only about fifty feet high, but it spread out horizontally to eighty feet or so on either side of the massive trunk. The cry had come from something on one of its branches. A moment later, he saw its origin. A number of dark bodies launched themselves from the dark mushroom shape out into the abyss below the great branch on the rim of which the tree grew. Great leathery wings spread out, and the little bat-men disappeared behind the vegetation. Within a minute, the first of them reappeared again, flapping strongly to carry himself up and over the rafts. And in another minute there were many more.
There was only one thing for Ulysses to do. If his people stayed on the rafts, they would be open to attack from above. Worse, they would have to quit the rafts later on while under attack and under conditions which would make it difficult to defend themselves.
He shouted an order, and the polers on the outside of the rafts shoved against the bottom. The rafts moved in toward the banks, and those on the bankward edges leaped out and grabbed the bushes. Meanwhile, Ulysses had begun tossing the heaviest boxes through the air and onto the banks. He hoped that the impact would not trigger the unstable black gunpowder. The boxes of bombs fell onto the bushes without reacting.
Then he lifted up Khyuks and heaved him with an effort that dipped the raft on his side. The little fellow, squawking, crashed facedown onto a thick growth. Wulka, a Wagarondit, picked him up.
By that time, the first of the bat-people was swooping down on the raft, his little hands holding a short spear. He never got above them; an arrow thudded into his chest and he fell with a loud splash. A great legless length launched itself from the bushes on the opposite bank, roaring as it went through the air.
Ulysses shot once, noted that his arrow had driven into the shoulder of a bat-man, and then turned and leaped onto the bank without waiting to see the man's fall. He held his bow out with his right hand and clutched at a branch with his left. His hand closed around a thorny length, and he exclaimed with the pain. But he did not let loose.
Something hit the dirt just beside his right foot. A missile cast, or dropped, by one of the flying men. Then he had dived over the bush, pulling himself over, and never mind possible damage to the quiver or the bow. When he was behind the bush, he crawled on through the vegetation until he was covered by a large and heavy bush. He roared at his chiefs and at Awina until they had all answered. In response to more of his orders, they made their way through the tangles until they were close to him. During this time, the bat-men had been swooping over the jungle and dropping or hurling assegais darts, and shooting small arrows. No one was hit, and after a while the bat-men quit their blind bombardment. They were losing too many weapons.