“Not really. Atylem had been out fishing, see, and he hadn’t come back. But finally he did, two weeks later—and he said he’d found a whole new land five days across the water. And it was just chock-full of Flatfaces!”

“Oh.” Rod lifted his head slowly, eyes losing focus. “So. Your people decided the Eagle was wrong, eh?”

“You’re quick, milord.”

“And that meant the Kobold was right.”

Yorick nodded. “Doesn’t really make sense, does it?”

Rod shrugged. “That’s the way people think. I mean, we’re talking about public opinion, not logic.”

“Sure.” Yorick spread his hands. “Put yourself in their place. Why would the Eagle bring you so close to your old enemies if he were really powerful and wise?”

“But they were all the way across the water,” Rod said reasonably, “a day’s journey.”

“That’s what we all said.” Yorick nodded toward his friends. “We were Eagle’s leadership cadre, you see. I was his right-hand man—and Gachol over there was his left-hand.”

“And the rest were the fingers?”

“You got it. Anyway, we all said the Flatfaces couldn’t bother us much—not with all that water to cross. But one day we looked up, and there was a Flatface floating in the sky.”

Rod stiffened, galvanized. Toby, on his spy mission! But hadn’t Yorick left something out? A little matter of a raid?

But the Neanderthal plowed on. “Well! The fat was in the fire, I can tell you! That shaman—Mughorck was his name—he was out and about the village before the Flatface was out of the sky, shouting about how Eagle had betrayed us and now the Flatfaces were gonna come over like a ton of devilfish and knock us all into the gizzard!”

“Didn’t anybody argue with him?”

“A few of us did try to point out that one Flatface does not an army make—nor a navy, for that matter. But, I mean, this Flatface was flying! Everybody was panicking. Some of them were so scared, they actually started digging themselves holes to crawl into! I mean, they were talking magic, and they were talking sorcery—and Eagle had made a big point of telling them that he wasn’t magical, and he wasn’t a sorcerer. Not that anybody believed him, of course, but…”

“But it laid the egg of doubt,” Rod inferred. “I should be so lucky!”

The apeman frowned. “How’s that again?”

“Uh, nothing,” Rod said hastily. “I take it the people began to believe him, at just the wrongest time?”

“Right. After all, there was Mughorck the shaman, running around telling people that he was magical, and was a sorcerer—and that his god, the Kobold, could make them strong enough to defeat the Flatfaces, and, well… people don’t think too clearly when they’re scared stiff. First thing you knew, everybody was yelling and shouting that the shaman was right, and the Kobold had to be a true god, after all.”

“Didn’t you begin to get the feeling that the climate was turning unhealthy?”

“Just about then, yeah. We”—Yorick jerked his head toward his companions—“began to feel the wind shifting. So we headed up to the High Cave, to tell the Eagle to fly.”

“I hope he listened to you.”

“Listened! He was ahead of us—as usual. He had our knapsacks all packed. While we were slinging our packs onto our backs, he slapped our bows into our hands. Then he told us to disappear into the jungle and build a raft.”

“Raft?” Rod frowned.

Yorick nodded. “We had some really thick trees, with really thick bark, and they floated really well. He told us not to worry about where we were going—just to paddle it out into the ocean and hang on. Oh, and he told us to bring plenty of food and lots of drinking water, ‘cause we might be on that raft for a long time.”

“Without a sail or oars, it must’ve been.” Rod noted silently that the Eagle, whether or not he was a wizard, obviously knew the odd bit about science—which he should have, if he’d been running a time machine. It seemed that he knew about the Beastland-Gramarye current. “Did he tell you where’d you’d land?”

“Yeah—the Land of the Flatfaces. But he told us not to worry about it, because these Flatfaces were good people, like him.” He clapped his hand over his mouth, eyes wide.

The slip, Rod decided, had been a little too obvious. “Didn’t you want me to know he was good?”

“Uh… yeah.” Yorick took his hand away, bobbing his head eagerly, grinning. “Yeah, sure. That he was good, that’s all.”

“Thought so. I mean, you couldn’t’ve been worried about letting me know he was a Flatface—that’s been pretty obvious all along.”

“Oh.” Yorick’s face fell. “You guys are good at manipulating symbols, aren’t you?”

But how could a Neanderthal realize that words were symbols? His education was showing again. “So you built your raft and paddled out into the ocean—and the current brought you here.”

“Yeah.” Yorick eyed the wall of spearpoints that hedged him in. “And I don’t mind telling you that, for a while there, we thought maybe the Eagle had been wrong about you.”

Rod shrugged. “Can you blame them? Some of these men are locals; and your boys hit a village not far from here a few days ago. They turned it into toothpicks and meatloaf—and some of my soldiers had relatives there.”

“They what?” Yorick stared at him in stark horror. Then he whirled to his own men, pouring out a furious cascade of gutturals and barks. His companions’ heads came up; they stared in horror. Then their faces darkened with anger. They answered Yorick in growls of rage. He turned back to Rod. “I don’t mean to sound callous, milord—but are you sure about this?”

Rod nodded, fighting to keep his face expressionless. Yorick and his men were either actually surprised and shocked by the news—or very good actors. “They hit a village up north, too. I was there; I saw it. Most of the villagers got away, but they carved up my soldiers like hams at a family reunion.”

Yorick’s face worked for a moment; then he turned his head and spat. “That skinny, catbait Mughorck! He’s got to be behind it somehow!”

“Didst thou, then, know nothing of this?” Tuan demanded.

Yorick shook his head. “No one in the village did.”

“There were five score of men at least aboard that long ship,” Tuan said. “Many in your village must have known of it.”

“If they did, they did a real good job of keeping the secret,” Yorick growled. Then he pursed his lips. “ ‘Course, nobody really would’ve noticed, with that epidemic going on.”

“Epidemic?” Rod perked up his ears. “What kind?”

“Oh, nothing really serious, you understand—but enough so that people had to take to their beds for a week or two with chills and fever. You’ll understand we were a little preoccupied.”

“I’ll understand they were goldbricking,” Rod snapped. “This fever didn’t happen to affect only single men, did it?”

Yorick gazed off into space. “Now that you mention…”

“Simple, but effective,” Rod said to Tuan. “If anybody came knocking and didn’t get any answer, they’d figure the guy was sleeping, or too sick to want to be bothered.” He turned back to Yorick. “Nobody thought to stop in to check and see if they wanted anything, I suppose?”

Yorick shrugged. “Thought, yes—but you don’t go into somebody’s house without being invited. We left food at the door every night, though—and it was always gone the next morning.”

“I’ll bet it was—and your shaman’s friends had extra rations.”

“You’ve got a point.” Yorick’s face was darkening. “But we never thought to check on the sick ones—we trusted each other. You don’t know how great it is, when you’ve been alone all your life, to suddenly have a whole bunch of people like yourself. And we wouldn’t stop in just to say hello when we were pretty sure the person was feeling rotten; nobody wanted to catch it.”

Rod nodded grimly. “Simple. Despicable, but simple.” He turned back to Tuan. “So we got hit with private enterprise—a bunch of buckoes out for their own good, without regard to how much harm it might do their neighbors.”