in heah, where theah's some covah."
The unicorn shook his head, the mane of gold rippling
in the filtered tight. "It will not be good enough, tigress. I
can see that you are powerful as well as well-versed in
war, but there are too many of them, and you will be
fighting in very close quarters. If they come at you from
all directions simultaneously you won't have a chance.
You require a more defensible position."
"You know of one?" Jon-Tom asked him.
"It is not far from here. I think if we can get there we
will be able to stand them off."
"Then let's get the hell out of here," he muttered as he
shouldered his pack.
Mudge held back, torn between common sense and the
effort he'd put into their supper. Roseroar saw his hesitation.
"A full belly's small consolation to someone with his
guts hangin' out. Ah declah, short-whiskahs, sometimes
ah wondah about yo priorities."
"Sometimes I wonder meself, lass." He looked longingly
back at the lost roast as they hurried through the woods,
following the stallion's lead.
Drom maintained a steady but slow pace to enable his
newfound friends to keep up with him. Everyone watched
the surrounding woods. But it was Roseroar's ears they
relied on most.
"Stayin' carefully upwind of us, but I can heah them
movin' faster. They're still behind us, though. Must think
we're still in the camp."
"Wait a minute!" Jon-Tom called a halt. "Where's
Mudge?"
Roseroar cursed under her breath. "Damn that ottah! Ah
knew ah should've kept a closer watch on him. He's gone
back fo some of that meat. Yoah friend is a creature of base
instincts."
"Yes, but he's not stupid. Here he comes."
Mudge appeared, laboring beneath a section of roast
nearly as big as himself. "Sorry, mates. I worked all day
on this bloody banquet, and I'm damned if I was goin' to
leave it all for those bastards."
"You're damned anyway," snapped Jon-Tom. "How
are you going to keep up, hauling that on your back?"
The otter swung the heavy, pungent load off his shoulders.
"Roseroar?"
"Not me, ottah. Yo stew in yoah own stew."
"We're wasting time," said Drom. "Here." He dipped
his head forward. "Hold it still."
A quick jab and the roast was impaled on the spiral
horn. "Now let's be away from here before they discover
ourflight." He turned and resumed his walk. "Disgusting."
"What is?" Jon-Tom asked as he jogged alongside.
"The smell of cooked flesh, the odiferous thought of
consuming the body of another living creature, the miasma
of carbonized protein, what else?"
Suddenly Jon-Tom wasn't so hungry anymore.
Creepers and vines strangled the entrance to the ancient
structure. Roseroar was reluctant to enter. The strangely
slitted windows and triangular doorways bespoke a time
and people who had ruled the world long before the
warmblooded.
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Alan Dean Foster
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
231
"Sulolk used this place," murmured Drom as he trotted
inside.
Distant shouts of outrage came from behind them,
deciding the tigress. She bent beneath the low portal and
squeezed in.
The single chamber beyond had a vaulted ceiling that
enabled her to stand easily. There was more than enough
room for all of them. Mudge was admiring the narrow
windows, fashioned by a forgotten people for reasons of
unknown aesthetics but admirably suited to the refugees'
present needs. He notched an arrow into his bow and
settled himself behind one thin gap.
Jon-Tom took up a stance to the left of the opening,
ready to use his steel-tipped staff on anyone who tried to
enter. A moment later he was able to move to a second
window as Roseroar jammed a massive stone weighing at
least three hundred pounds into the doorway, blocking it
completely.
"This is a good place to fight from." Drom used a hoof
"A small spring flows from the floor of a back room.
Cracks in the ceiling allow fresh air to circulate. I have
often slept here in safety." He indicated the damp grass
growing from the floor. "There is food as well."
"For you," admitted Jon-Tom, watching the woods for
signs of their pursuers. "Well, we have what's in our
packs and the roast we saved." He glanced to his right,
toward the other guarded window. "You shouldn't have
done that, Mudge."
"Cor, it ain't no fun fightin' on an empty stomach,
mate." He leaned forward; his black nose twitched as he
sampled the air. "If they try chargin' us, I can pick 'em off
easy. Our 'omy friend's right. This is a damn good place."
Rosewar was eyeing the wall carvings uneasily. "This is
a very old place. I smell ancient feahs." She had drawn
bom longs words.
There was a thump as Drom settled down to wait. "I
smell only clean grass and water."
Threatening shouts began to emanate from the trees.
Mudge responded with some choice comments about
Hathcar's mother, whom he had never met but whom
thousands of others undoubtedly had. This inspired a rain
of arrows which splintered harmlessly against the thick
stone walls. One flew through Jon-Tom's window to stick
in the earth behind him.
"Here they come!" he warned his companions.
There was nothing subtle about the bandits' strategy.
While archers tried to pin down the defenders, an assort-
ment of raccoons, foxes, and cats rushed at the entrance,
carrying a big log between them. But Roseroar braced her
massive shoulders against the boulder from behind and
kept it from being pushed inward, while Mudge put arrows
in the log wielders as fast as they could be replaced.
"Another bugger down!" the otter would yell each time
an arrow struck home.
This continued for several minutes while Mudge re-
duced the number of Hathcar's band and Roseroar kept the
boulder from moving so much as an inch inward. No
martyrs to futility, those hefting the battering ram finally
gave up and fled for the safety of the woods with the
otter's deadly shafts urging them on.
No one had approached Jon-Tom's window during the
fight. Mudge and Roseroar had done all the work and he
felt pretty useless.
"What now? I don't think they'll try that again."
"No, but they'll bloody well try somethin' else,"
murmured the otter. "Say, mate, why don't you 'ave a go
at 'em with your duar?"
Jon-Tom blinked. "I hadn't thought of that. Well, I had,
but it's hard to think and sing when you're running."
"Why make music? To aggravate them?" asked Drom
interestedly.
"Nope. 'E's a spellsinger, 'e is," said Mudge, "and a
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Alan Dean Poster
right good one, too. When 'e can control it," he added by
way of afterthought.
"A spellsinger. I am impressed," said the unicorn.
Jon-Tom felt a little better, though he wished the golden
stallion would quit staring at him so intensely.
"What do you think they'll try next?" Jon-Tom asked
the otter.
Mudge eyed the trees. "This bunch bein' about as
imaginative as a pile o' cow flop, I'd expect them to try
smokin' us out. If four legs there is right about the cracks
in the roof lettin' air in, they'll be wastin' their time."
"Are yo certain theah's no back way in?"
"None that I was ever able to discover," Drom told the
tigress.
"Not that you'd fit places where some o1 the rest of us
might," observed Mudge thoughtfully. He handed his bow
and quiver to Jon-Tom. "I'd better check out the nooks
and crannies, mate. We don't want some nasty surprises to
show up and stick us in the behind when we ain't lookin'."
He headed for the crumbling back wall.
Jon-Tom eyed the bow uncertainly. "Mudge, I'm not
good at this."
"Just give a shout if they come at us again. It ain't 'ard,
mate. Just shove an arrow through the window there. They
don't know you can't shoot." He bent, crawled under a
lopsided stone and disappeared.
Jon-Tom awkwardly notched an arrow, rested it on the
window sill as Roseroar took up a position behind the one
the otter had vacated.
"Ah don't understand," she murmured, squinting at the
forest. "We all ain't worth the trouble we're causin' this
Hathcar. That ottah brought down five or six o' them. If ah
was this fella ah'd give up and go in search of less deadly
prey."
"That would be the reasonable thing to do," said
Drom, nodding, "except that as chief he has lost face
already before his band. He will not give up, though if he
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
233
suffers many more losses his own fighters may force him
to quit." The unicorn climbed to his feet and strolled over
to Roseroar's window. She made room for him.
"Hathcar!" he shouted.
A reluctant voice finally replied. "Who calls? Is that
you, meddler with a spike in his brain?"
"It is I." Drom was unperturbed by the bandit leader's
tone. "Listen to me! These travelers are poor. They have
no money."
Cuscus laughter rang through the trees. "You expect me
to believe that?"
"It's true. In any case, you cannot defeat them."
"Don't bet on that."
"You cannot break in here."
"Maybe not, but we'll force you out. It may take time,
but we'll do it."
"If you do, then I will only lead them to another place
of safety, one even harder to assault than this one. I know
these woods, and you know I speak the truth. So why not
depart now before suffering any more senseless losses? It's
a stupid leader who sacrifices his people for no gain."
Muttering came from different places in the trees, proof
that Drom's last words had hit home. Hathcar hastened to
respond.
"No matter if you lead them elsewhere. We'll track you
down no matter where you go."
"Perhaps you will. Or perhaps you'll find yourselves
led into a trap. We of the forest have ways of defending
ourselves against you lovers of civilization. There are
hidden pits and tree-mounted weapons scattered through-
out my territory. Follow me and find them at your peril."
This time the woods were silent. Drom nodded to
himself. "Good. They're thinking it over, probably argu-
ing about it. If they come to their senses, we may be able
to get out of here without any more violence."
Jon-Tom peered through the narrow slit in the stone.
"You think they'll really react that sensibly?"
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Alan Dean Foster
"I don't know, but he knows I'm talking truth," said the
unicorn softly. "I know this section of forest better than he
does, and he knows that I know that."
"But how could we slip out of here and get past them?"
Drom chuckled. "1 did fudge on that one a bit. Yet for
all he knows there are a dozen secret passages out of
here."
"If there are, they're bloody well still secret." Mudge
emerged from the crawlspace he'd entered and wiped
limestone dust from his shirt and whiskers. "Tight as a
teenage whore. Nothin' bigger than a snake could get out
the back way. We're safe enough here, all right." Jon-Tom
gladly handed back the otter's bow and found himself a
soft place on the floor.
' Then I guess we wait until they attack again or give up
and leave us alone. I suppose we ought to stand watch
tonight."
"Allow me, suh," said Roseroar. "Ah'm as comfortable
with the night as ah am with the day."
"While we wait to see what they'll do," said Drom,
"perhaps now you'll tell me what you people are doing in
this country, so far from civilization."
Jon-Tom sighed. "It's a long story," he told the uni-
corn, and proceeded to relate it yet again. As he spoke, the
sun set and the trees blended into a shadowy curtain
outside. An occasional arrow plunked against the stone,
more for nuisance value than out of any hope of hitting
any of the defenders inside.
Hathcar had indeed lost too many in the futile attack to
try it again. He knew that if he continued to fling his
followers uselessly against an impregnable position they
would melt quietly away into the woods. That night he
moved away from the main campfire and sought counsel
from an elderly rat and wolf, the two wisest of his band.
"So how do we pry those stinking bastards out of
there?"
The rat's hair was tinged with white and his face and
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
235
arms were scarred. He picked at the dirt with one hand.
"Why bother? Why not let them rot in there if they so
desire? There are easier pickin's elsewhere."
Hathcar leaned toward him, glaring in the moonlight.
"Do you know what happened today? Do you? They made
a fool of me. Me, Hathcar! Nobody makes a fool of
Hathcar and walks away to boast of it, nobody! Not on
their own legs, they don't."
"It was just a thought," the rat mumbled. "It had to be
said."
"Right. It's been said. It's also been forgotten." The rat
said nothing.
"How about smoking them out?" suggested the wolf.
The cuscus let out a derisive snort. "Don't you think
they've already thought of that? If they haven't tried to
break out, it means they aren't worried about smoke; and
if they aren't worried about it, it probably means it won't
work if we try it."
"Could we," suggested the rat, "maybe force our way in
through the roof?"
Hathcar sighed. "You're all looking at the obvious, all
of you. I'm the onl
y one who can see beyond the self-
evident. That cursed four-legs led them straight here, so
he's probably telling the truth when he says he knows it
well. He wouldn't box himself into a situation he wasn't
comfortable with. He says they can slip out anytime and
hide somewhere else twice as strong. Maybe he's lying,
but we can't take that chance. We have to take them here,
while we know what we're up against. That means our
first priority is to get rid of that horned meddler."
"How about moving a couple of archers in close?
Those with good night vision. If they can sneak up against
the wall they might get a clear shot inside."
Hathcar considered. "Not bad, except that if they don't
snuff the unicorn right away that fucking water rat's likely
to get 'em both. I've never seen anybody shoot like that."
He shook his head.
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Alan Dean Foster
"No, it's not good enough, Parsh. I'm sure they've got
a guard up, and I won't send any more of the boys against
that otter's bow. No, we have to bring the unicorn out
somehow, far enough so we can get a clear shot at him. By
himself, if possible."
The rat spat on the ground. "That's likely, isn't it?"
"You know, there may be a way."
Hathcar frowned at the wolf. "I was only half-serious,
Brungunt."
"I'm wholly serious. All we need is the right kind of
bait."
"That blow you took in Ollorory village has addled
your brains," said Parsh. "Nothing's going to bring that
unicorn out where we can get at him."
"Go on, Brungunt," said the thoughtful Hathcar.
The wolf leaned close. "It should be done when most of
them sleep. We must watch and smell for when the stallion
takes his turn as sentry. If they post only the one guard, we
may have a chance. Great care must be taken, for it will be
a near thing, a delicate business. Bait or no bait, if the
meddler senses our presence, I do not think he can be
drawn out. So after we set the bait we must retreat well out
of range. It will work, you'll see. So powerful is the bait,
it will draw our quarry well out where we can cut off his
retreat. Then it won't matter if he bolts into the woods.
The important thing is that we'll be rid of him, and the
ones we really want will be deprived of his advice and
aid."
"No," said Hathcar, his eyes gleaming, "no. I want
that four-legs, too. I want him dead. Or better yet, we'll
just hamstring him." He grinned viciously in the dark.