To my surprise, the runt did not hit back. It seemed that for the time being he had decided to stay out of any scuffles, since he didn’t have the upper hand. And Layen and I were not too fond of the degenerate. Midge and Bamut behaved as meek as lambs and little by little the atmosphere stopped being so tense. Offenses took a backseat to survival. We were all stuck with one another, so we had to pretend that nothing had really happened. Toward nightfall on the fourth day, we stopped for the night in a sycamore grove. We’d covered a lot of ground over the course of the day, and we could allow ourselves to rest until morning with a clear conscience. “Are you sure it’s safe here?” Midge asked me. “Judge for yourself. We’ve been struggling through the wilderness at a trot for four days. We’ll head out for the road tomorrow. We’re going the right direction. If there was a pursuit, it’s turned back long ago. Otherwise they would have picked up our trail. I doubt a small fire would do much harm.
