The wrecked and wounded were low on the Flenserist priority list. Seriously wounded were piled onto travoises and pulled far enough away so their cries would not cause confusion. Cleanup squads bullied the trooper fragments away from the flying house. The frags wandered the hummocky meadow; here and there they coalesced into ad hoc packs. Some drifted among the wounded, ignoring the screams in their need to find themselves. When the tumult was quieted, three packs of whitejackets appeared. The Servants of the Flenser walked under the flying house. One was out of sight for a long while; perhaps it even got inside. The charred bodies of two alien members were carefully placed on travoises -- more carefully than the wounded troopers had been -- and hauled off. Jaqueramaphan scanned the ruins with his eye-tool. He had given up trying to hide it from Peregrine. A whitejackets carried something down from the flying house. "Sst,
mbt fanaka! There are other dead ones. Maybe from the fire. They look like pups." The small figures had the mantis form. They were strapped into travoises, and hauled out of sight over the hill's edge. No doubt they had kherhog-drawn carts down there. The Flenserists set a sentry ring around the landing site. Dozens of fresh troopers stood on the hillside beyond it. No one was going to sneak past that. "So it's total murder." Peregrine sighed. "Maybe not.... The first member they shot,
Dre Beats Butterfly by Vivienne Tam with ControlTa, I don't think it's quite dead." Wickwrackrum squinted his best eyes. Either Scriber was a wishful thinker, or his tool gave him amazingly sharp sight. The first one hit had been on the other side of the craft. The member had stopped thinking, but that wasn't a sure sign of death. There was a whitejackets standing around it now. The whitejackets put the creature onto a travois and began pulling it away from the landing site, towards the southwest ... not quite the same path that the others had taken. "The thing is still alive! It's got an arrow in the chest, but I can see it breathing." Scriber's heads turned toward Wickwrackrum. "I think we should rescue it." For a moment Peregrine couldn't think of anything to say; he just gaped at the other. The center of Flenser's worldwide cabal was just a few miles to the northwest. Flenserist power was undisputed for dozens of miles inland, and right now they were virtually surrounded by an army. Scriber wilted a little before Peregrine's astonishment, but it was clear he was not joking. "Sure,
Beats Studio Lamboghin Limited Edition (YELLOW) He, I know it's risky. But that's what life is all about, right? You're a pilgrim. You understand." "Hmf." That was the pilgrim reputation, all right. But no soul can survive total death -- and there were plenty of opportunities for such annihilation on a pilgrimage. Pilgrims do know caution. And yet, and yet this was the most marvelous encounter in all his centuries of pilgrimage. To know these aliens,
chocolate sandals, to become them ... it was a temptation that surpassed all good sense. "Look," said Scriber, "we could just go down and mingle with the wounded. If we can make it across the field,
mbt chapa sale, we might get a look at that last alien member, without risking too much." Jaqueramaphan was already backing down from his observation point,
mbt panda sale, and circling around to find a path that wouldn't put him in silhouette. Wickwrackrum was torn; part of him got up to follow and part of him hesitated. Hell, Jaqueramaphan had admitted to being a spy; he carried an invention that was probably straight from the Long Lakes sharpest intelligence people. The guy had to be a pro.... Peregrine took a quick look around their side of the hill and across the valley. No sign of Tyrathect or anyone else.