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just did not live much in the future; they had trouble seeing past their present situation.
The end of the branch, or, rather, the place where it abruptly bent at ninety degrees to the horizontal,
was two miles away. The party made slow progress because of the thick vegetation and also because
they were under orders to move slowly and quietly.
Ulysses saw the spume of white and black about a quarter of a mile before he got to it. He had climbed
a tall tree to get a better look, at the same time making sure that he would not be seen by the bat-men,
who were flying overhead now and then. The mists rose up and spread out to some distance, as he had
hoped. Up in the tree, the roar of the falling water was unfiltered by the jungle.
He was about to climb back down when he saw a Dhulhulikh flap by. He clung to the tree and tried to
make himself look like a barky excrescence. No moonlight hit him directly, though enough sieved through
the leaves to make the darkness more silver than black. The bat-man went by once, winging so slowly he
was just short of stalling. Then his wings beat faster and he climbed as he banked. He came back toward
the tree, moving through patchy areas of blackness and pale yellow, the moon's rays bouncing off his
bald head and catching beams off his wings, which were darker than his body. He came down just above
the tops of the brush, and then flew upward, beating his wings to keep from a complete stall. Just before
he landed on the branch of the tree, on the other side of the trunk from Ulysses, he did stall. And he
landed as smoothly as an owl on the branch.
He had no talons with which to grip the branch, but he reached out and grabbed a smaller branch and so
kept himself from going ahead. After he had folded his wings, he turned to face away from Ulysses. He
wore a belt with a stone knife and carried in one hand a short slender spear. From a cord around his
neck hung a coiled instrument. Ulysses guessed that this was a horn of some kind. The fellow was sitting
there to watch for the enemy. If he saw them, he would summon the others with his horn.
There was no noise from below loud enough to rise above the soft thunder of the waterfall. His men had
seen the bat-man and were waiting for the next development. The jungle looked unpopulated.
Ulysses left his position and worked his way around the trunk. His bow and quiver were at the foot of
the trunk. Fortunately, they were on the side of the trunk opposite the bat-man and were also in the
shadows. Ulysses had only his switchblade knife, which was held between his teeth. He had to cling with
both hands and move very slowly. Even though the waterfall drowned out noise, it was not so loud that
the keen-eared bat-man would not be able to hear the rustle of leaves or creak of branch.
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The man continued to face away from Ulysses as he moved out on the same branch as the one he sat
on. He stood upright, balancing himself easily, because the branch was thick. He slid one foot ahead and
then brought the other up, slid his forward foot ahead, brought the other up, and so on. Once, he
stopped and took the knife from between his teeth. The bat-man's wings half-spread, flapped slightly and
then folded back in. In that moment, Ulysses saw the hole in the membrane of the right wing. And he
recognised the silhouette of the man's head and the set of the shoulders. It was Ghlikh.
His intention to kill was gone. He could use Ghlikh.
Killing would be easier than capturing. He had to make sure that he could knock Ghlikh out and at the
same time keep him from falling. Though Ghlikh weighed only about forty-five pounds, he could be hurt
or even killed by a thirty-foot fall. Ulysses also had to make sure that he didn't rush too swiftly or he
might go over along with him.
He approached very slowly, afraid that the little man would detect the bending of the branch under his
two hundred and forty-five pounds. But Ghlikh was not out near the slender part of the branch. He was
halfway, still on the thick part. And so Ulysses was able to chop him along the side of his neck, not too
hard, because he was afraid he would snap the thin, probably hollow-boned, neck. Soundlessly, Ghlikh
collapsed and fell forward, and Ulysses had to grab with the other hand and seize his wing. He called to
those hidden in the brush, and they came out. A moment later, he dropped the unconscious man into
waiting arms. By the time he got down, Ghlikh was tied and gagged. A few minutes afterward, his eyes
opened. Ulysses stood in the moonlight so that Ghlikh could see who had captured him. Ghlikh's eyes
widened, and he struggled. He was still squirming when he was hoisted onto Ulysses' back as if he were
a backpack. Ulysses told Wulka, the Wagarondit chief who was carrying Khyuks, to hit Ghlikh again,
and Wulka gladly obeyed.
The half-mile was covered as swiftly as possible. Ulysses had the honour of being the first to start the
climb down. The mists shrouded him, not only from the view of any bat-men who might be coming along
soon, but also from view of the others. What with the darkness and the clouds rising from the abyss, he
could barely see two feet before, or under, him. The droplets collected over his body and made him
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