“What can be worse than that?” the satyr asked reasonably. “Try in day, not go. Try in night, likely not go, but maybe go.”

George could see one way in which things might be worse. He’d come out of this try alive, even if unsuccessful. If things went wrong again .. .

He wondered what was happening back at Thessalonica. The sally from inside the city had driven back the Slavs undermining the walls beneath the shelter of their tortoises, but had the barbarians attacked again? Had the Avar priest or wizard found yet another set of demigods to hurl against the protective power that came from St. Demetrius and from God?

And on those questions depended the answer to the truly important one: how were Irene and Theodore and Sophia?

“We’d better try and get back, any way we possibly can,” George said. “If it can’t be by day, it will have to be by night.” The children of Israel had traveled by night as well as by day, he reminded himself, with a pillar of fire to light their way as they went.

He did not expect God to give him a pillar of fire. Thinking of the children of Israel made him think of Benjamin the Jew, and thinking of Benjamin made him think of Dactylius and Rufus and John and drunken Sabbatius and Claudia and Paul and the rest of his friends back in Thessalonica. He also thought again of Menas back in Thessalonica. As they had before, his hands formed fists. Without Menas, he wouldn’t have been in this predicament. Rich though Menas was, noble though Menas was, George resolved he would have his revenge. One more reason to go back, he thought.

Daylight hours were short at this season of the year. Time seemed to crawl by anyhow. The satyrs went out hunting, and came back with rabbits and roots and herbs. They presented these to the centaurs as what George took to be a peace-offering. Nephele looked as if she wanted to fling the food in Stusippus’ face. But if the female did that, everyone would go hungry. Into the pot everything went.

George had seen the day before that centaurs had appetites in keeping with their size. He got only a few mouthfuls of stew, and a bit more dried fruit to go with it. After two days straight of fighting for his life, that didn’t feel like enough. His stomach made noises that might have come from the throat of a Slavic wolf-demon.

When darkness finally came, the shoemaker shivered. Part of that, he was not ashamed to admit to himself, was fear. Part, too, was cold. His teeth had chattered up on the wall when he’d drawn night duty. Being out in the woods was worse. He would have welcomed the company of a couple of rampantly erect satyrs in a bed of leaves--they would have helped keep him warm.

Instead, having bolted his meager meal, he slipped out of the encampment with Ampelus. None of the centaurs accompanied them. “For,” Crotus said as they were leaving, “strength having faded, stealth needs must serve. There the lustful ones surpass us, they being every inclined to sneak up on mortal women and so debauch themselves.” The male’s lip curled in scorn. “Mayhap their skulking habits shall this once prove of advantage to us.”

“Huh,” Ampelus said. “He not so smart as he think he is. One of these days, I climb up on rock back of Nephele, show that mare what loving can be.” The satyr’s hips twitched in lewd anticipation. George noted, however, that for all of Ampelus’ bravado, it made sure it was well out of earshot of the encampment before making a boast like that.

They walked quietly through the woods, down toward Thessalonica. All George heard were their footfalls, scuffing through fallen leaves. Or rather, all he heard were his own footfalls scuffing through fallen leaves.

Ampelus paced along beside him, silent as a shadow. No insects chirped: too late in the year. No nightjars called, no owls hooted.

Bare-branched trees raised their boughs to the sky, as if surrendering to robbers. Those boughs passed black in front of the nearly full moon that poured pale radiance over the hillside. Normally, George would have been delighted to have all the light he could if he was crazy enough to go through the forest at night. Now--. Now he said, “Won’t the moon make it easier for the wolves and whatever else is out there to find us?”

“Easier, yes.” The satyr played with itself for a little while, as it did whenever it was worried. “But they not need much light to see. Maybe they not need to see at all. Maybe they. . . know.”

“What will you do if they know?” George pronounced the word as portentously as Ampelus had done. “Run away again?”

“This” --the satyr gripped its swollen phallus with both hands-- “this is no sword. Can’t kick like donkey, like stupid centaurs do. Can maybe throw rocks. Maybe. What good in fight, I? Made to be lover” --that hip-rocking motion again-- “not fighter.”

“Well, even so--” George began, admitting to himself if not to the satyr that it had a point.

Ampelus cut him off. “Shut up, mortal George, or see how mortal you be. Not get through by fighting anyhow. Get through by sneaking. Sneaking, you be quiet.”

The satyr had another point there, even if it had been doing more talking than George. The shoemaker trudged along. Most of the time, he and Ampelus headed downhill toward their goal, pushing through the spell of resistance the Slavs and Avars had established against such ventures. Every so often, they climbed rises lying athwart their path, Ampelus judging that quicker than walking around. From one of those bits of higher ground, George caught a glimpse of Thessalonica, lamps and torches bravely burning inside the wall. The city hadn’t fallen, then. Relief made him feel as if he’d walked fewer miles on more food than was really so.

That remained true despite his also having seen the campfires of the Slavs and Avars around the besieged city. He hadn’t expected the barbarians to have cleared out since he was locked away from Thessalonica. As long as they were outside the wall, not within it, something might yet be done.

Ampelus suddenly grabbed George’s arm and pulled him to one side, ever so carefully skirting what looked to the shoemaker like a stretch of ground no different from any other. “What’s wrong?” George whispered. “Did you see a wolf?”

“Worse,” the satyr answered with a fearful shudder. “Saint do something holy there, who knows when? Ground hurt to go on.”

“St. Demetrius?” George asked.

Ampelus turned to stare at him. The satyr’s eyes flashed. The light, George thought, was their own, not reflected moonlight. “Who cares St. Who?” the creature burst out. “Is saint. Is holyfied ground. Is hurt. We go different way.”

“If we did go through the hallowed ground,” George said thoughtfully, “we would be doing something the Slavs and Avars and their powers don’t expect. It might gain us an edge.”

“I do not go through holyfied ground,” Ampelus insisted. “Hurt me too much. And like I tell you, I watch wolf eat one of your priests. Wolf not care about ground like I do.”

That was true. It was also depressing. And standing around in the woods arguing did not strike George as a good idea. Standing around in the woods for any reason did not strike George as a good idea. Being in the woods did not strike him as a good idea. But when all the other ideas looked worse … All the other ideas’ looking worse did not make this a good one. Of that the shoemaker was convinced.

He and the satyr pressed on toward Thessalonica. How they were going to get through the encirclement the Slavs and Avars had round the city bulked larger and larger in his mind. He had, at the moment, no idea. He decided to worry about it when the time came. He had plenty of other things to worry about till the time came.

An old man stepped out into the path ahead of George and Ampelus. His long beard and bushy eyebrows were green, and glowed brighter than Ampelus’ eyes had flashed. “Well,” George said, “it’s a good bet he’s not a wandering peasant, isn’t it?” He drew his sword.