Unicorn Point (37 page)

He pondered. He could go down and around himself, and loft a bomb at her, stopping her progress. But she would do it back to him the moment he tried. Meanwhile, he was al ready well up on the mountain, now; if he could find a way to intercept that other path, and get on it ahead of her, he could win.

He tried, but the mountain was implacable: he could not get to the other path. He could only see her head come into sight as she reached the point he had before she bombed him.
 
She seemed on the way to victory.

But he didn’t have to be at ground level to stop her! He threw his bomb in a high arc over the curve of the mountain.
 
It came down neatly on her head. “Oh!” she sputtered, but she did not lose her footing. His aim had been good, but she had moved, so that the bomb had hit her instead of the path before her.

He lofted another. This time she lifted her hand and caught it. It broke, but did not dislodge her. The water needed to strike her feet, or the path upslope, to be effective; her head or hand dissipated its effect too much.
 
If he threw another, she might manage to catch it unbroken, and hurl it back at him. He decided to wait for her to resume her climb, so that he could score on the path while her hands were occupied in climbing. But she waited, watching him. She might not be the smartest of women, but she was canny enough for this! It was a standoff.
 
But as he waited, another thought came to him. The first path had not gone anywhere, and neither had the third. It seemed likely that none of the paths that started at the base went all the way up. More likely, the final path would begin somewhere farther up. The player who figured this out first, and got to it, should be the winner.

But where could such a path be? He had been balked by the vertical tilt of the third path, and managed to cross to this one. The mountain was not large enough for many more sites.

He retraced his route. This time he saw it: another slight ledge piking up on the other side of the vertical path. It looked as if it did not go anywhere—but that could be deceptive.
 
He moved slowly and carefully, and managed to cross to that other ledge. Then he heard something: there was Tsetse, well up toward the peak, on the other side; all he saw was her right shoulder. Her path did go all the way up, and he had wasted time trying for this other one.
 
But he still had a chance. He brought out another water bomb. He threw it up, not at Tsetse, but at the peak of the mountain itself. The bomb came down on the point and broke; its water flowed down mostly on Tsetse’s side.
 
She made an exclamation of horror; then she slid down.
 
But the slope immediately below her was not steep, and the amount of water had been slight; she managed to recover after only a meter or two.

Meanwhile, Troubot found that his new path did move on up. It was a better path than it seemed from below; the cur vature of the mountain tended to conceal it. He followed it up, and soon realized that it, too, reached the top.
 
Tsetse was climbing again. Troubot threw another bomb, and rendered her path slippery again. She had to wait for it to clear before proceeding, and meanwhile he continued his ascent. She apparently had no bombs of her own. His deci sion to load up on them seemed to spell a critical advantage for him.

Then, as he was almost close enough to touch the peak and win, she moved. She did have a bomb; now it was looping toward him.

Its aim was good; it was going to splatter on the path just above him. He could not reach it in time. He did not try.
 
Instead, he hurled a bomb of his own, not at Tsetse, but at the other bomb.

The two bombs met in air, and exploded. But his had been thrown later and harder, and its force carried the spray of water away from the path. Some water fell, but not enough to dislodge him. He paused to be sure the path was not too wet, then proceeded on up.

Tsetse, peering around the slope, saw this, and scrambled toward the peak herself. Troubot lobbed another bomb at her, and washed her back down to the lesser slope again. Before she could recover, he made it the rest of the way and clapped his metal arm on the top of the peak.

A gong sounded. He had won!

Tsetse, below, looked so forlorn that he knew he would have felt terrible remorse, had he been a living man of her species. But as it was, what he felt was more like joy.

It was a long trek to the Ogre Demesnes, but Clip was glad for it, because it gave him time to think. He had to represent the Adept Stile against the ogres, and he was not at all sure his unicorns could win this siege. These days of travel with the Herd allowed him many hours to ponder strategies.
 
In the evenings and nights the Herd grazed, sleeping afoot.
 
Clip intended to do the same, but this evening he summoned his sister and niece for a conference in human form.
 
“My mind be taut with doubt,” he confessed. “It be easy for others to say a ‘corn can beat an ogre, being faster, smarter and more versatile, but that be illusion. In single fair combat it be either’s win.”

“Aye,” Neysa agreed. She had had experience with many kinds of creatures, and had long since lost the bravado of youth.

“But can a ‘corn not run an ogre through belly or heart with horn, and be done with it?” Fleta asked.
 

Clip looked at her. In human form, as in her natural one, she was much like her mother. Each had the same black hide, and the socks on the hind feet: Neysa’s white, Fleti’s golden, in contrast to his own blue hide and red socks. In this human form that meant black hair and black clothing, and white or yellow socks. Neysa was old and Fleta young, but that seemed to be most of the difference between them.
 
He was so glad they had reconciled at last!
 
“A ‘corn can run an ogre through, aye,” he said. “But an ogre can smash a ‘corn dead with one blow o’ his hamfist.”

“But ogres change form not,” she persisted. “A ‘corn could assume an aerial form and fly in close—”

“And the ogre will throw a rock and knock that flyer out o’ the air,” Clip responded. “Their aim be deadly!”

“Then in manform, with weapons—good bows and ar rows!” she persisted.

“An ogre can hardly be hurt by an arrow; it only tickles his hide. He can throw a rock as far as an arrow can fly, so the bowman needs must look to his own hide.” Fleta was silent; she now appreciated the problem. Unicoms normally ranged the fields, running and grazing; they seldom encountered ogres, who were more attuned to the jungle, and to canyons, where there was plenty to bash. In addition, she had been much occupied in recent years with her romance with the rovot, and the raising of their foal, and the loss of that foal. How would she know about ogres?
 

“How relate they to music?” Neysa asked.
 
“That be uncertain. I was traveling alone once, and was playing my horn, and came upon an ogre who seemed to be sleeping. I paused, wary o’ him, and then he woke and growled. I was tired, and sought not a fight, so pretended to see him not. I resumed my playing and trotted on, and he just stood there listening. After, I marveled, and thought mayhap he had liked my playing; the Adept Stile has termed my horn a mellow saxophone. But I be not sure; mayhap the ogre was tired too.”

“This accords with what I have noted,” Neysa said. “Me thinks the ogres like music, or at least be intrigued by it.”

Clip was interested. “Thinkst thou that many would pause for a serenade?”

“Mayhap.”

“We could do a rare show,” Clip said, working it out.
 
“Dancing in step, to our music, keeping a strong beat. An it distracted them, it be a fan way to fight.”

“In a siege?” Fleta asked, growing excited. “But that were folly for them!”

 
“Ogres be magnificently stupid,” Clip said. “Folly be well within their capability.”

“But how can we be sure? If we set up to play, and it worked not—”

“Aye,” Clip said. “Needs must we verify the effect, privately, lest we run great risk.”

“I will go ahead and play for one!” Fleta said eagerly. She changed form, and pranced as she played her pan-pipe horn, two melodies in counterpoint.

Clip paused. It had been years since he had heard her play.
 
He had forgotten her unusual talent: one horn, two tunes! It was a very pretty effect. She might have done well in the Unilympics, had she not been barred because of her miscegenation with the rovot.

Then he returned to the serious business at hoof. “Not thou, niece. Thou be too inexperienced to risk thyself thus.
 
I will do it.”

“But we seek to know the effect o’ a chorus,” she protested, returning to girlform. “At least let me go with thee, so we can play together. That be a fairer test.”

How neatly she had diverted his decision! She had not opposed it, merely modified it. He could not have tolerated the former, for as Herd Stallion he had a position to maintain, but could accept the latter. “Aye, then. But stray thou not far from me, an we hit ogre country.”

“Nary a hoofprint!” she promised.

“Cover for us,” he told Neysa, who nodded. If anything occurred that required his attention, she would handle it with out revealing his absence. The Herd could continue grazing undisturbed. Of course there were lookouts posted; nothing would come upon the Herd by surprise.

They started out, trotting side by side. He was fatigued from the days of constant travel, but the notion of finding a way to distract the ogres invigorated him, and he stepped right along. Fleta, younger, kept pace. He had had little to do with her, because she had been absent from the Herd most of the time, but unlike Neysa, he had not condemned her association with the rovot. In fact, he had been privately un derstanding. The rovot looked just like Bane, and she had always been Bane’s friend, and more than a friend. Animals were not supposed to have sexual encounters with human beings, but there was always a certain amount of experimentation that occurred, particularly among the young.
 
He himself, in his youth, had encountered a human village girl who had required cheering; she had shied away from him at first, until he showed her that he was a unicorn. His problem had been that he was a stallion cast out of the Herd, a “lesser male” who was denied sex with mares of the Herd until such time as he became strong enough and bold enough to challenge a Herd Stallion for dominance. Her problem had been that she loved a village lad who did not love her; she had not wished to be unfaithful to him, test he change his mind and return to her. But she did not regard a relationship with a unicorn to be significant in that manner. In addition, she was inexperienced, and wished to gain a better notion what it was all about, so that she could acquit herself well if the opportunity arose. So there had been an affair, and they had learned much together. Unicorn mares were interested in sex only when they came into heat, whereas human girls could do it anytime. It had been most interesting.
 

Then the man of her interest had returned, and Clip had departed speedily and quietly. It was understood that neither of them would ever tell others of this matter; it had been purely a private thing, of no larger significance. He had never had a relationship with another human girl, but he remembered that one with fondness. Of course it had not been as good with her as with any true mare, but it had been good enough, and he had liked her. So now he respected his niece for having the courage to do openly what was normally done secretly, and to fight for her right to her relationship despite the condemnation of her dam and most others.
 
Neysa, of course, had been far more straight-maned about it. It was not the fact of interspecies action that bothered her, for she herself had had an affair with the Adept Stile before he married the Lady Blue. It had been the openness of it, and the insistence that it be legitimized. Fleta had wanted to marry the rovot: a deed virtually unknown among unicorns, and certainly not appropriate miscegenously. That was the difference between Clip and his sister: she was more conser vative, and held more closely to the old values, flawed as they might be. It was understood that a stallion would take whatever sexual experience he could get, but that a mare would indulge outside of heat only for extraordinary reason, and then would be discreet. Indeed Neysa had been discreet; among unicorns, only he, her brother, knew for certain how close she had been to Stile.

Fleta, with Stile’s son, had been discreet. But then with the rovot she had been blatant, and that was the essence of her crime. Yet later she had proven that it could be done: that offspring was possible. That had been a shock to all ofPhaze, and values were still quivering. Now with Neysa’s change of heart, Fleta was accepted, and applauded for her courage and her achievement. Indeed, the exploits of the colt Flach had charmed them all, as he defied both parents and Adepts and remained hidden despite their worst efforts. There was true unicorn stubbornness.

Now, of course, they were fighting to recover Flach from captivity by the Adepts. Fleta might seem to be the bubbling, cheerful young creature of old, but she was not; the years of her separation from her foal had sobered her. She had wanted him to stay free, knowing how vitally that helped Stile’s cause, but she had also wanted him with her. Such inner conflict was not kind to individuals, even tough unicorns.
 
They ran into the sunset, eyes on the ground, making what time they could while light remained. Unicorns could see well enough at night, but this was unfamiliar terrain, and when the darkness closed they would have to slow to a safe walk.