More aching tension. More seconds dragging by, turning into minutes.
Then discs swept down again. Craig heard someone rasp, "He's gone, Bukal. We couldn't spot him." And then Bukal, cursing: "We can't wait any longer. Not with Zenaor prowling."
Again, discs tilted skyward. All of them, this time.
Silence once more, broken only by the whisper of breeze and trees, the chirp of insects.
Craig crept back to his own saucer and wheeled it out into the open. Ten seconds later he, too, was climbing into Lysor's dark night sky.
Climbing—to what end, with every man's hand against him? Bukal or Zenaor, Baemae or barons, one and all sought his blood.
All but Narla.
Somehow, he had to reach her.
Grim, tight-lipped, he set a course southeast, veering just far enough north of the village so that he might pass Vydys' serfs undetected. Their very numbers might slow them. There was at least a bare chance that a lone man might reach Narla ahead of them.
Only then, as he sped on, he caught a sound.