Master Freddy had replayed his session with Gavan Feeny for Tahmm, who'd then taken off for Many Geese, with two men in an armed scout. En route he'd spotted a sizeable party of braves riding east to join Mazeppa, but that was not what he'd come for.
Now, hopefully, he'd found the site. From 10,000 feet, the old soddy winter villages were clearly discernible on the green early-summer prairie. The weather had been dry enough that the roof grass on the low huts had died back. The village Tahmm examined held some thirty huts, but the grass and ground around them suggested they hadn't been occupied for two or three years.
What had taken his attention, via scanner, was a man lying on one of the roofs, perhaps asleep, his face shaded by a broad-brimmed grass hat. Two horses grazed nearby; apparently the man on the roof had a partner inside. Tahmm locked on a gravitic vector that intersected the surface thirty yards in front of the soddy, and rode it down, decelerating smoothly the last hundred yards, stopping inches above the ground.
The man on the roof sat up and slid off the mound-shaped soddy, landing lightly on moccasined feet, watchful, strung bow in one hand, an arrow nocked. Another man pushed aside the buffalo-hide door flap and came out, also with bow in hand.
Tahmm extruded the ramp and stepped out, a hand raised in greeting. "Mazeppa has asked me to bring his troublesome son to him," he called. "To answer questions."
The Fohannu had left his cap inside the scout, exposing his white cranial fur. He resembled a burly human with prematurely white hair. Presumably these particular two Dkota had never seen "Sky Chief" close up. At any rate there should be some of the cult they didn't know.
The two Dkota looked at each other. Tahmm started toward them. "Leave him bound," he said. "It will be safer."
The senior guard nodded, and they ducked inside. A minute later they reappeared, supporting Lemmi between them. The Dinneh's brown face was gray-tinged, swollen and cut. His feet dragged. His wrists had been freed, the cord cut.
Tahmm gestured. "Bring him," he said. Together the two Dkota half carried, half dragged their prisoner. Tahmm's copilot emerged watchfully. At the ramp, the two Fohanni took over from the guards. Lemmi seemed comatose, even moribund, his body aura on the verge of disintegrating. But his spirit aura was—not strong, but aware, connected.
"Lemmi," Tahmm murmured, "hang on. You can make it."
When they had him secured on the stretcher, Tahmm returned to the hatch and looked out. "Thank you," he called to the guards, then stepped back inside, and the hatch slid shut. A minute later his healing hands were busy with Lemmi's aura.
The guards watched the scout rise, shrink skyward and dwindle out of sight. "He will answer no one's questions," said one of them. "I should have gone to Mazeppa yesterday, when he first had convulsions."
The other didn't answer. They'd followed orders. Mazeppa had beaten the prisoner badly, probably ruptured something in the man's belly.