But water? Wherever it collected at the base of the slope, there lay his drink. As to the knot in his stomach? It came as the first pang of hunger. The thing about having survived starvation was that he knew how far he could go on empty.

Walking to the edge of the tumbled block, he looked back down the drop. He had climbed up that, could see the last of the fine roots he’d scrambled across as they relaxed into their usual slow, sinuous motion. By now, any trail he’d left had faded back into the normal rhythms of forest life.

“Pus in a bucket, I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone, let alone how far.”

The miracle was that he’d made it. That some chokeya vine, biteya bush, you’re screwed vine, sidewinder, spike, or skewer hadn’t grabbed him and killed him.

“So, if being a quetzal got me this far . . . ?” Dek cocked an eyebrow, tried to imagine himself back into a quetzal’s body. Tried harder. Still didn’t happen. So, how had Demon done that? Taken over all of his consciousness, essentially stolen his body and turned off his mind?

He was staring up at the mountain wall again, the futility of his circumstances beginning to take hold, when he saw movement. A lot of movement, like a thousand sparkles of color against the craggy rock wall no more than a couple hundred meters to the south.

The jinking flight—fluttering and uniform patterns of movement—was familiar. Like a nightmare come to life.

He knew that shape as the closest of the flying beasts rose up above the trees. The four wings, the keel-shaped breast, the furry tail and gleaming knife-like claws on the beast’s wrists.

Mobbers.

And they were headed his way.

37

Talina hadn’t slept well. She awakened late, blinked the rheum out of her eyes, and sat up in her makeshift bed. Light spilled in through the film-covered window. Not that window washing was one of her preferred occupations, but she’d have to attend to some cleaning today. Maybe get Dek to help her. The man liked to brag about how he’d scrubbed toilets, so she’d let him take a whack at the scum on the . . .

She glanced across, saw that his bedding was thrown back. Empty.

Didn’t make sense. Normally, she’d have awakened at the crackling of the plastic emergency bedding the guy was sleeping in. And she should have heard him dress. Dek’s boots were gone, too. Surely she should have heard him clumping across the duraplast floor. What had he done? Tiptoed out in his sock feet to put his boots on in the front room?

Whatever. Maybe he had breakfast ready. She’d found mint plants in the wet areas the day before. Be nice if Dek had a cup steaming for her.