Save it, Siona! Use it to destroy him!
The eager whining of the D-wolves penetrated Kwuteg's consciousness. They were too close. He knew then that he would not escape.
But Siona must escape!
He risked a backward glance and saw one of the wolves move to flank him. The pattern of their attack plan imprinted itself on his awareness. As the flanking wolf leaped Kwuteg also leaped. Placing a tree between himself and the pack, he ducked beneath the flanking wolf, grasped one of its hind legs in both hands and, without stopping, whirled the captive wolf as a flail which scattered the others. Finding the creature not as heavy as he had expected, almost welcoming the change of action, he flailed his living bludgeon at the attackers in a dervish whirl which brought two of them down in a crash of skulls. But he could not guard every side. A lean male caught him in the back, hurling him against a tree and he lost his bludgeon.
"Go!" he screamed.
The pack bored in and Kwuteg caught the throat of the lean male in his teeth. He bit down with every gram of his final desperation. Wolf blood spurted over his face, blinding him. Rolling without any knowledge of where he went, Kwuteg grappled another wolf. Part of the pack dissolved into a yelping, whirling mob, some turning against their own injured. Most of the pack remained intent on the quarry, though. Teeth ripped Kwuteg's throat from both sides.
Siona, too, had heard Ulot scream, then the unmistakable silence followed by the yelping of the pack as the wolves resumed the chase. Such anger filled her that she felt she might explode with it. Ulot had been included in this venture because of his analytical ability, his way of seeing a whole from only a few parts. It had been Ulot who, taking the inevitable magnifier from his kit, had examined the two strange volumes they had found in with the Citadel's plans.
"I think it's a cipher," Ulot had said.
And Radi, poor Radi who had been the first of their team to die... Radi had said, "We can't afford the extra weight. Throw them away."
Ulot had objected: "Unimportant things aren't concealed this way."
Kwuteg had joined Radi. "We came for the Citadel plans and we have them. Those things are too heavy."
But Siona had agreed with Ulot. "I will carry them."
That had ended the argument.
Poor Ulot.
They had all known him as the worst runner in the team. Ulot was slow in most things, but the clarity of his mind could not be denied.
He is trustworthy.
Ulot had been trustworthy.
Siona mastered her anger and used its energy to increase her pace. Trees whipped past her in the moonlight. She had entered that timeless void of the running when there was nothing else but her own movements, her own body doing what it had been conditioned to do.
Men thought her beautiful when she ran. Siona knew this. Her long dark hair was tied tightly to keep it from whipping in the wind of her passage. She had accused Kwuteg of foolishness when he had refused to copy her style.
Where is Kwuteg?
Her hair was not like Kwuteg's. It was that deep brown which is sometimes confused with black, but is not truly black, not like Kwuteg's at all.
In the way genes occasionally do, her features copied those of a long dead ancestor: gently oval and with a generous mouth, eyes of alert awareness above a small nose. Her body had grown lanky from years of running, but it sent strong sexual signals to the males around her.
Where is Kwuteg?
The wolf pack had fallen silent and this filled her with alarm. They had done that before bringing down Radi. It had been the same when they got Setuse.
She told herself the silence could mean other things. Kwuteg, too, was silent... and strong. The injury had not appeared to bother him too much.
Siona began to feel pain in her chest, the gasping-to-come which she knew well from the long kilometers of training. Perspiration still poured down her body under the thin, black running garment. The kit, with its precious contents sealed against the river passage ahead, rode high on her back. She thought about the Citadel charts folded there.
Where does Leto hide his hoard of spice?
It had to be somewhere within the Citadel. It had to be. Somewhere in the charts there would be a clue. The melange spice for which the Bene Gesserit, the Guild and all the others hungered... that was a prize worth this risk.
And those two cryptic volumes. Kwuteg had been right in one thing. Ridulian crystal paper was heavy. But she shared Ulot's excitement. Something important was concealed in those lines of cipher.
Once more the eager chase-yelps of the wolves sounded in the forest behind her.
Run, Kwuteg! Run!
Now, just ahead of her through the trees, she could see the wide cleared strip which bordered the Idaho River. She glimpsed moon brightness on water beyond the clearing.
Run, Kwuteg!
She longed for a sound from Kwuteg, any sound. Only the
two of them remained now from the eleven who had started the run. Nine had paid for this venture with their lives: Radi, Aline, Ulot, Setuse, lnineg, Onemao, Hutye, Memar and Oala.
Siona thought their names and with each sent a silent prayer to the old gods, not to the tyrant Leto. Especially, she prayed to Shai-Hulud.
"I pray to Shai-Hulud, who lives in the sand."
Abruptly, she was out of the forest and onto the moon-bright stretch of mowed ground along the river. Straight ahead beyond a narrow shingle of beach, the water beckoned to her. The beach was silver against the oily flow.
A loud yell from back in the trees almost made her falter. She recognized Kwuteg's voice above the wild wolf sounds. Kwuteg called out to her without name, an unmistakable cry with one word containing countless conversations-a message of death and life.
"Go!"
The pack sounds took on a terrible commotion of frenzied yelps, but nothing more from Kwuteg. She knew then how Kwuteg was spending the last energies of his life.