Kickaha didn’t try to argue with this logic. But he thought that the custom was wrong. No man could be blamed for being nervous if he knew he’d be exiled or slain if he failed. The very nervousness would cause impotency.
At least, the Thana did not demand, as did some tribes, that he prove himself publicly. He was allowed to go into a leanto surrounded by thick branches set upright into the ground. He chose the best-looking woman in the tribe for the test, and she came out several hours later looking tired but happy and announced that he’d more than passed the test.
Kickaha had some pangs of conscience about the incident, though he had enjoyed it very much. He didn’t think that Anana would get angry about this trifling infidelity, especially since the circumstances were such that he couldn’t avoid it.
However, it would be best not to mention this to her.
That is, if he ever found her.
That was the end of the trials. The chief and the shaman each chanted an initiation song, and then the whole tribe feasted until their bellies swelled and they could scarcely move.
Before going to sleep Wergenget told Kickaha that he’d have to pick a wife from the eligible females. There were five nubiles, all of whom had stated that they would be happy to have him as a mate. Theoretically, a woman could reject any suitor, but in practice it didn’t work that way. Social pressure insisted that a woman marry as soon as she was of childbearing age. If any woman was lucky enough to have more than one suitor, then she had a choice. Otherwise, she had to take whoever asked her.
The same pressure was on a man. Even if he didn’t care for any of the women available, he had to pick one. It was absolutely necessary that the tribe maintain its population.
Two of the five candidates for matrimony were pretty and well-figured. One of these was bold and brassy and looked as if she were brimming over with the juices of passion. So, if he had to take unto himself a wife, he’d choose her. Given his pick, he’d have wived the woman he’d proved his manhood on. But she was only borrowed for the occasion, as was the custom, and her husband would try to kill Kickaha if he followed up with a repeat performance.
As it was, the woman, Shima, could make trouble. She’d told Kickaha she’d like to get together with him again. There wasn’t going to be much opportunity for that, since she couldn’t disappear into the woods by herself without half the tribe knowing it.
Ah, well, he’d deal with the various situations as they came along.
Kickaha looked around. Except for the sentinel on top of a platform on top of a high pole in the middle of the fort, and another stationed near the apex of the giant tree, the tribe was snoring. He could open the gate and get away and be long gone before the guards could rouse the others. In their present stuffed condition, they could never catch him.
At the same time he wanted to get out and look for Anana, he felt a counterdesire to stay with these people, miserable and wretched as they were. His moment of weakness, of longing for a home of some sort, still had him in its grip. Some moment! It could go on for years.
Logically, it was just as likely that if he stayed here, she’d be coming along. If he set out on a search, he could go in the wrong direction and have to travel the circuit of this body of water. It could be as big as Lake Michigan or the Mediterranean for all he knew. And Anana could be going in the same direction as he but always behind him. If she were alive …
One of these days, he’d have to leave. Meanwhile, he’d do some scouting around. He might run across some clues in this neighborhood.
He yawned and headed for the leanto assigned him by the chief. Just as he got to it, he heard giggles. Turning, he saw Shila and Gween, his two top choices for wife. Their normally flat bellies were bulging, but they hadn’t eaten so much they couldn’t see straight. And they’d been pretending to be asleep.
Shila, smiling, said, “Gween and I know you’re going to marry one of us.”
He smiled and said, “How’d you know?”
“We’re the most desirable. So, we thought maybe …” she giggled again … “we’d give you a chance to see whom you like most. There’ll never be another chance to find out.”
“You must be joking,” he said. “I’ve had a long hard day. The rites, the hours with Shima, the feast …”
“Oh, we think you have it in you. You must be a great wiru. Anyway, it can’t hurt to try, can it?”
“I don’t see how it could,” Kickaha said, and he took the hand of each. “My place is rather exposed. Where shall we go?”
He didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping when he was wakened by a loud hubbub. He rose on one elbow and looked around. Both girls were still sleeping. He crawled out and removed the brush in front of the leanto and stood up. Everybody was running around shouting or sitting up and rubbing their eyes and asking what was going on. The man on top of the platform was yelling something and pointing out toward the sea. The sentinel in the tree was shouting.
Wergenget, his eyes still heavy with sleep, stumbled up to Kickaha. “What’s Opwel saying?”
Kickaha said the sentinel’s voice was being drowned out. Wergenget began yelling for everybody to shut up, and in a minute he’d subdued them. Opwel, able to make himself understood now, relayed the message of the man in the tree.
“Two men and a woman ran by on the beach. And then, a minute later, warriors of the tribe of Thans came along after them. They seemed to be chasing the two men and the woman.”
Kickaha hollered. “Did the woman have long hair as black as the wing of a crow?”
“Yes!”
“And was the hair of one man yellow and the other red?”
“Onil says one man had yellow hair. The other was black-skinned and his hair was the curliest he’d ever seen. Onil said the man was black all over.”
Kickaha groaned, and said, “Anana! And Urthona and McKay!”
He ran for the gate, shouting, “Anana!”
Wergenget yelled an order, and two men seized Kickaha. The chief huffed and puffed up to him, and, panting, said, “Are you crazy! You can’t go out there alone! The Thans will kill you!”
“Let me loose!” Kickaha said. “That’s my woman out there! I’m going to help her!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Wergenget said. “You wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Are you just going to sit here and let her be run down?” Kickaha yelled.
Wergenget turned and shouted at Opwel. He yelled at Olin, who replied. Opwel relayed the message.
“Onil says he counted twenty.”
The chief rubbed his hands and smiled. “Good. We outnumber them.” He began giving orders then. The men grabbed their weapons, saddled the moosoids, and mounted. Kickaha got on his own, and the moment the gate was open he urged it out through the opening. After him came Wergenget and the rest of the warriors.
CHAPTER TEN
After being knocked back into the channel, Anana had begun scrambling back up. The water by then was to her breasts, but she clawed back up the side, grabbing the grass, pulling it out, grabbing more handfuls.
Above her were yells, and then something struck her head. It didn’t hurt her much, didn’t even cause her to lose her grip. She looked down to see what had hit her. The case containing the Horn of Shambarimen.
She looked toward the black wall of water rushing toward her. It would hit within ten seconds. Perhaps less. But she couldn’t let the Horn be lost. Without it their chances of ever getting out of this wretched world would be slight indeed.
She let herself slide back into the water and then swam after it. It floated ahead of her, carried by the current of the stream rising ahead of the flash flood. A few strokes got her to it. Her hand closed around the handle, and she stroked with one hand to the bank. The level had risen above her head now, but she did not have to stand up. She seized a handful of grass, shifted the handle from hand to teeth, and then began climbing again.
By then the ground was shaking with the weight of the immense body of water ra
cing toward her. There was no time to look at it, however. Again she pulled herself up the wet slippery bank, holding her head high so the case wouldn’t interfere with her arms.
But she did catch out of the corner of her eye a falling body. By then the roar of the advancing water was too loud for her to hear the splash the body made. Who had fallen? Kickaha? That was the only one she cared about.
The next moment the rumble and the roar were upon her. She was just about to shove the case over the edge of the bank and draw herself up after it when the mass struck. Despite her furious last-second attempt to reach safety, the surface waters caught her legs. And she was carried, crying out desperately, into the flood.
But she managed to hold onto the Horn. And though she was hurled swiftly along, she was not in the forefront of the water. She went under several times but succeeded in getting back to the surface. Perhaps the bouyancy of the case enabled her to keep to the surface.
In any event, something, maybe a current hurled upward by an obstruction on the bottom, sent her sprawling onto the edge of the bank. For a minute she thought she’d slip back, but she writhed ahead and presently her legs were out of reach of the current.
She released the case and rolled over and got shakily to her feet.
About a half a mile behind her were three figures. Urthona. Orc. McKay.
Kickaha was missing. So, it would have been he that had fallen over into the stream. It also would have been he who’d dropped the Horn into it. She guessed that he must have threatened to throw it in if the others didn’t allow her to get out of the channel again.
Then they’d rushed him, and he’d released it and gone into the stream after it. Either on his own volition, which didn’t seem likely, or he had been pushed into it.
She could see no sign of him.
He was under the surface somewhere, either drowned or fighting.
She found it difficult to believe that he was dead. He’d come through so much, fought so hard, been so wily. He was of the stuff of survival.
Still, all men and women must die sometime.
No, she wouldn’t allow herself to give up hope for him. But even if he were still struggling, he would by now have been swept out of sight.
The only thing to do was to follow the channel to its end and hope that she’d run across him somewhere along it.
Red Orc was by now running away. He was going at full speed in the opposite direction. McKay had run after him but had stopped. Evidently, he either couldn’t catch him or Urthona had called him back. Whatever had happened, the two were now trotting toward her. She had the Horn, and they wanted it.
She started trotting, too. After a while she was panting, but she kept on and her second wind came. If she stayed by the channel, she couldn’t lose them. They’d keep going, though they had no chance with her headstart of catching her. Not until utter fatigue forced her to sleep. If they somehow could keep on going, they’d find her.
She believed that she had as much endurance as they. They’d have to lie down and rest, too; perhaps before she did. But if they pushed themselves, rose earlier from sleep, then they might come across her while she slept.
As long as she followed the channel, she couldn’t lose them, ever. But across the plains, in the mountains, she might. Then she could cut back to the channel.
There was a chance, also, that she could get lost, especially when the landmarks kept changing. She’d have to risk that.
She turned and started across the plain. Now they would angle across, reducing the lead she had. Too bad. Though she felt the urge to break into a run, she resisted it. As long as she could keep ahead, out of range of the beamer, she’d be all right.
It was difficult to estimate distances in this air, which was so clear because of the almost-total lack of dust and of this light. She thought the nearest of the mountains was about five miles away. Even with the speed with which landscape changed around here, it would still be a respectably sized mountain by the time she got there.
Between her and her goal were groves of the ambulatory trees. None were so large that she couldn’t go around them. There were also herds of grazing antelopes and gazelles. A herd of elephants was about a half a mile away, trotting toward the nearest grove. To her right, in the other direction, some of the giant moosoids were nearing another group of plants. She caught a glimpse of two lions a quarter of a mile away. They were using a grove as cover while sneaking up on some antelopes.
Far in the distance was the tiny figure of a moa. It didn’t seem to be chasing anything, but her line of flight would lead her near to it. She changed it, heading for the other end of the base of the mountain.
She looked to her left. The two men were running now. Evidently they hoped to put on a burst of speed and make her run until she dropped.
She stepped up her pace but she did not sprint. She could maintain this pace for quite a while. Seldom in her many thousands of years of life had she gotten out of shape. She had developed a wind and an endurance that would have surprised an Olympic marathoner. Whatever her physical potential was, she had realized it to the full. Now she’d find out what its limits were.
One mile. Two miles. She was sweating, but while she wasn’t exactly breathing easy, she knew she had a lot of reserve wind. Her legs weren’t leaden yet. She felt that she could reach the mountain and still have plenty of strength left. Her uncle was a strong man, but he was heavier, and he’d probably indulged himself on Earth. Any fat he’d had had been melted by their ordeal here, where food hadn’t been plentiful. But she doubted that he’d kept himself in tiptop condition on Earth.
The black man was powerfully built, but he wasn’t the long-distance runner type. In fact, sparing a look back, she could see that he’d dropped behind Urthona. Not that her uncle had gained any on her.
The case and its contents, however, did weigh about four pounds. Needing every advantage she could get, she decided to get rid of some of it. She slowed down while she undid the clasps, removed the Horn, and dropped the case. Now, carrying the instrument in one hand, she increased her speed. In ten minutes, Urthona had lost fifty yards. McKay was even further behind his boss now.
Another mile. Now she was wishing she could abandon the throwing axe and the knife. But that was out. She’d need both weapons when it came to a showdown. Not to mention that even if she got away from them, she had to consider the predators. A knife and an axe weren’t much against a lion, but they could wound, perhaps discourage it.
Another half a mile. She looked back. Urthona was half a mile away. McKay was behind Urthona by a quarter of a mile. Both had slowed considerably. They were trotting steadily, but they didn’t have a chance of catching her. However, as long as they kept her in sight, they wouldn’t stop.
The lions had disappeared around the other side of the trees. These were moving slowly along, headed for the channel. The wind was blowing toward them, carrying molecules of water to their sensors. When they got to the channel they would draw up along it in a row and extend their tentacles into the water to suck it up.
The antelopes and gazelles stopped eating as she approached, watched her for a moment, their heads up, black eyes bright, then bounded away as one. But they only moved to what they considered a safe distance and resumed grazing.
Anana was in the center of antelopes when they stampeded. She stopped and then crouched as big black-and-brown-checkered bodies leaped over her or thundered by. She was sure that she hadn’t caused the panic. The antelopes had regarded her as not dangerous but something it was better not to let get too close.
Then she heard a roar, and she saw a flash of brownish-yellow after a half-grown antelope.
One lion had shot out of the trees after the young beast. The other was racing along parallel with its mate. It was somewhat smaller and faster. As the male cut off to one side, the female bent its path slightly inward. The prey had turned to its left to get away from the big male, then saw the other cat angling toward it. It turned away from the
new peril and so lost some ground.
The male roared and frightened the antelope into changing its direction of flight again. The female cut in toward it; the quarry turned toward the male. Anana expected that the chase would not last long. Either the cats would get their kill in the next few seconds or their endurance would peter out and the antelope would race away. If it had enough sense just to run in a straight line, it would elude its pursuers. But it didn’t. It kept zigzagging, losing ground each time, and then the female was on it. There was a flurry of kicking legs, and the creature was dead, its neck broken.
The male, roaring, trotted up, his sides heaving, saliva dripping from his fangs, his eyes a bright green. The female growled at him but backed off until he had disemboweled the carcass.
Then she settled down on the other side of the body, and they began tearing off chunks of meat. The herd had stopped running by then. Indifferent to the fate of the young beast, knowing that there was no more danger for the present, they resumed their feeding.
Anana was only forty feet away from the lions, but she kept on going. The cats wouldn’t be interested in her unless she got too close, and she had no intention of doing that.
The trees were a species she’d not seen before. About twelve feet high, they had bark which was covered with spiral white and red streaks like a barber pole. The branches were short and thick and sprouting broad heart-shaped green leaves. Each plant had only four “eyes,” round, unblinking, multifaceted, green as emeralds. They also had tentacles. But they must not be dangerous. The lions had walked through them unharmed.
Or was there some sort of special arrangement between the cats and the trees? Had Urthona implanted in them an instinct-mechanism which made them ignore the big cats but not people? It would be like her uncle to do this. He’d be amused at seeing the nomads decide that it was safe to venture among the trees because they’d seen other animals do so. And then, stepping inside the moving forest, suddenly find themselves attacked.
The World of Tiers Volume Two: Behind the Walls of Terra, the Lavalite World, Red Orc's Rage, and More Than Fire Page 29