He sniffed at a broken twig and shrugged. “If you say so. I can’t eat it, and I can’t make poison or medicine from it, so I don’t know.”
T’Cori smiled. “That’s all right. That’s why you have me. I will find the berries and plants, and you will carry them.”
“Whatever you say.”
Her grin was pure mischief. “Yes. And as long as you remember that, we will speak together well.”
Leopard Eye bowed his head. “I knew you when you were just a little thing. Before you climbed the mountain.”
“And how is it that you know me?”
He leaned on his spear. “Do you remember the Spring Gathering when we were twelve winters, when a boy kissed you and pushed you into the river?”
She furrowed her brows, struggling to retrieve the memory. It was a good one. “Ah … in fact, yes.”
He puffed out his strong young chest, and slapped it with the flat of his right palm. “That was me. That was Leopard Eye. Paw dared me.”
She was mystified. “Why me?”
“Well,” Leopard Eye said, “we knew Stillshadow was our mother. And we knew you were special to her, but not to Blossom, our sister. Are you still angry?”
“No,” T’Cori said, “but… don’t do that again!”
Leopard Eye’s smile was mischievous. “Which part? The push? Or the kiss?”
Her ears burned furiously. “Either. I’m the mountain’s bride, remember?”
Leopard Eye nodded. “That stops others, but not Leopard Eye. After all, I came from Stillshadow’s body. Even if I was not a hunt chief, I would still be her son. The mountain is not here. Always, I thought you beautiful. I still do. I would bring you meat,” he said.
She gasped. Among her people, this was at the very least a proposition and perhaps even a proposal of marriage, if the woman in question were a bhan of little status.
Outrageous!
“No, Leopard. We will not speak of it.” She paused. Then added, “But …”
“But what?”
“But I’d forgotten you pushed me in the river.”
“But … you remembered the kiss?”
Suddenly shy, she nodded. “The first I ever had. I got pushed in the river a lot.”
“While I live, no one will ever do it again.”
When Leopard Eye stood straight, he was a half head taller than Frog. “You danced for me on Great Earth. Before that day I had never seen your breasts or your seventh eye. When you danced, you danced for no one but me. I fought, for you.” He came closer. “That day you made me a promise. I ask only that you keep your pledge.”
T’Cori forgot to breathe. “What … was promised?”
“Your body spoke to me. It said: ‘If you are Ibandi, if you will fight for us, we will serve you.’Do I speak truth?”
T’Cori stammered. “We … yes. It is true.”
He squared his shoulders and straightened his spine. “I survived that battle. I claim what is mine.”
“Father Mountain’s child grows in my stomach,” she said hesitantly.
He placed his hand on the smooth, warm curve of skin. “Let me wash him with my own seed,” he whispered. His voice was a thief of thought.
Her num pooled in the pit of her stomach, then flew up like a raven, stealing all restraint with it. She groaned.
T’Cori searched for an objection in vain. Her heart betrayed her mind, or perhaps her sex betrayed both.
“There is only one thing I need to know,” Leopard Eye said. “A hunter lives by his word. Does a dream dancer?”
T’Cori felt herself lose the center of her num, the warm, calm place from which she made her very best decisions. She had no need to delve more deeply. There was a part of her that thrilled to this fine young hunter’s attentions. He had brought meat. His shoulders and back had been scarred in fighting for their lives and land.
It was not merely a matter of obligation. Despite the life growing within her, she welcomed his root. Her skin warmed, and her seventh eye softened in preparation for his touch. She longed to entwine her soul vine with his. Was she betraying Frog to feel so? To make sex for medicine was one thing, but wasn’t this yearning something else?
Or had her eyes finally opened enough for her to be the dancer her people needed? One with the ability to connect with the num, with the living fire of the jowk, that it might join with a sick one’s jowk to speed healing? Leopard set his spear aside and touched her shoulder. The sensation was like the tingle in the air after a strike of summer lightning.
The ocean of fire. The jowk. For the first time in months she felt her num flare, felt its threads reach out beyond her flesh, her soul vine entwine with this strong young hunter’s.
T’Cori groaned, and her hips rotated in instinctual response. This was like the first bite of a cactus fruit: hot and ripe and almost too delicious to bear.
There by the stream where they had gathered seeds and roots, T’Cori craned her neck back so that her mouth was a breath away from his. His warm full lips caressed the side of her neck. His tongue traced its way along the line of her jaw, tasting her salt. Her fingers assumed a life of their own, caressing his thigh. Such a strong, fine thigh! So accustomed was she to Frog’s legs that it was shocking to feel Leopard’s more corded muscles. So strong was Leopard that Frog seemed almost feminine in comparison. The voice in the depths of her mind, the thing that cautioned her against yielding to her instincts, fell quiet. And the voice that begged her to take him within her body, that yearned to milk his root until he lost control and groaned and thrust against her and made his seed …
That urge strengthened, until it was a roar of wind, a clap of thunder. Until all thought vanished in her driving, urgent need.
Leopard’s clever hands pushed her leather skirt aside and stroked the long, soft curves of her buttocks and legs. With gentle, irresistible strength he lifted her up and found a fallen tree trunk to brace her against.
Steady the breathing. Find the place within. Center. She babbled these things to herself, trying to keep this from being the personal satisfaction that her body now yearned for. She needed to calm herself, to protect her emotions. After all, she was Frog’s woman….
Leopard’s hands caressed her intimately. She looked back over her shoulder to watch him lick the fingers of his right hand. He slid them slowly inside her. Probing, preparing. It was hardly necessary: she could not remember being any more ready than at this single burning moment.
He pulled his fingers out and spit on his palms, moving his loincloth aside.
Fire surged within her as they joined. Let me wash your child with my seed, he had said. Together, they sought the rhythm older than all the days of men.
Side to side and in tightening spirals she pulsed her body. Her eyes were partially closed, so that light only impinged upon her mind in flashes. A glimpse of a tree. A cloud. Women with long, spotted necks. Just a glimpse—
A burning, a searing away of flesh and bone and nerve, leaving only the fire itself and not its fuel. Thank you, Great Mother! The Mk*tk had not stolen her num. Here it was, as strong as it had ever been. Perhaps even stronger. She was more than a woman of her tribe. More than a medicine woman. She was all women, in all of time, in all places. She felt herself falling into the long line of dream dancers, leading back to the first to crawl wet and blind from between Great Mother’s earthen thighs to howl at the sky.
That cry built inside her before she heard it, before she knew that she was going to open her mouth and scream. Her egg was unraveling, the jowk flying away with her. No smallest part of Sky Woman was in control of this. No part of the Nameless One remained to guide.
She was that rush of num. She was that rush of sweet wind breaking from her throat, joining with the rising call from the man whose hips rolled against hers, whose root burned like fire within her seventh eye.
And when her voice reached its height his own call joined hers. She felt the spasm as he washed her child. There was a rising bubble, like a l
eaf on a whirlwind, a last awareness of self crying and sighing …
Yes. Yes. Yes …
And then … there was light.
T’Cori and Leopard lay on the ground together. Her vision seemed somehow both softer and clearer than it had before they had made love. Reeds swaying gently in the wind. Unseen birds cooed and whistled, at peace with themselves and each other. She nestled back against him. Gradually, she remembered her name and place in the order of things. The whisper of the water and wind and the steady beat of her heart reconnected her to the things of this world.
Leopard Eye was pressed so closely to her that she could feel his heartbeat against her back, feel it even as the soul vine dissolved, as his root shriveled again and slipped from her body.
Leopard Eye deposited a hand of brief, sweet kisses upon her shoulders. T’Cori felt small and precious and … content.
A slow crawl of thought, as she came back to herself. Contentment. How often had she felt such emotions? It seemed wondrous to experience such warmth and wonder with more than one person. Something seemed to awaken within her, a part of herself that could find happiness with this man. A part which knew that, in a different world, she would have felt blessed to be his woman.
Did that mean that she did not love Frog? No. It meant that Great Mother was kind, that Her gift of love sheltered Her children from life’s pain and sorrow. And that gift was not given only once to each of Her children.
No, it was good. And if Leopard Eye was larger, stronger, different from Frog, Frog was different from anyone in the world. Anyone.
There were other men like Leopard Eye. There was only one Frog.
This was no betrayal. It was, however, a revelation. This was who she was, and had been born to be.
Leopard Eye’s belly tightened against her. At first she thought that he was ready again. Did her promise, made so long ago in the shadow of war—she and her sisters swaying together atop Great Earth—did those dances obligate her to satisfy him a second time?
She smiled. How absurd. She needed no promise to please this strong, fine young hunter. Such a happy obligation. Pleasing him was pleasing herself. She pressed back against him, then was surprised to feel the flat of his hands against her shoulder blades. Those hands, so recently gentle, now seemed to have grown hard and calloused, almost as if they were suddenly attached to another man’s arms.
“Shh …” he whispered into her ear. “Look.”
Chapter Thirty-one
As slowly as if the very act of seeing might bring disaster, T’Cori raised her head and peered across the stream. Long rounded blades of yellow knife grass obscured much of her vision. However, if she focused her eyes carefully, there in the midst of the grass burned two fearsome eyes the color of a smoke-wreathed sun.
Lion.
She understood instantly. She and Leopard Eye were hunted and alone, a half day from any possible help.
Leopard Eye whispered in her ear. “There are at least two.” His finger pointed ahead and to their right. She saw nothing but a field of yellow green, but she knew his hunter’s eyes were sharper than her own. “They wish to trap us between them. That is the reason the first has not moved.”
“What do we do?”
“Act quickly Or die.”
He took his spear up with his left hand, took hold of her shoulder with his right, and pulled her backward through the field. Swollen belly rubbing on the ground, she edged toward the rock wall behind them. If they could reach the rocks, and climb high enough, they would be safe. Could she manage it? With Leopard Eye’s help, perhaps. Otherwise, she and Frog’s unborn child were lost. Once, she had been a great climber, had snatched the garland from the top of the Life Tree at the Spring Gathering. Today might test whatever remained of those skills.
The fear drained her strength, made her suddenly sleepy and at the same time weightless, as if she were already in a dream.
The lion rose from the grass, and stepped toward them. No mane. Female, hunting for the pride. A scream clawed its way up T’Cori’s throat. The possibility that their new home in the valley and the new life within her might be torn away was almost enough to crack her egg.
Leopard Eye sensed her thoughts. “Don’t think, don’t feel,” he said. “There is no time. This is a hunting pair. One in front to hold us—the other will come from the side or the rear.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Run,” he said. “And climb. And fight.” The muscles in his shoulders hunched. She knew the resolve behind the words. Leopard Eye would delay them. She would run and try to climb. In the end, it would not matter: both of them would die.
“When I say, stand slowly,” he said. He clutched his spear, his left hand tensed upon it. His fingers left her shoulder, and she stood. The wind stank of hot, raw meat.
Then the wind, and everything else in the world, seemed to stop.
A second lion was to their right, only two tens of paces away. No mane: female. The cat was as long as Leopard was tall. Quiet as death it crouched, attending their every motion. Its eyes gnawed at T’Cori’s heart.
Somehow, Leopard Eye matched its num. In an instant, her gentle, urgent lover was transformed into a beast, another animal on the savannah, as wild and terrible as either of the great cats. His long face was drawn, the muscle at the corner of his jaw tensed into a knot. But below his shoulders he was loose, relaxed, as if preparing to dance rather than fight for his life. His body spoke a language any predator could understand: I am not easy prey.
Leopard Eye lowered his spear tip, maneuvering to remain between her and the lions. They were watching now, curious, perhaps. Were the cats wondering what these creatures were? Had they seen men before? Enough to hate or fear them or consider them a likely meal?
Her throat felt choked with thorns. Her belly felt as if she had swallowed rocks. The world darkened and spun.
Back. Back. Leopard Eye and T’Cori were moving toward the rise of the vertical rock shelf. If they had tried to move toward the open grass, she doubted that the cats would have allowed it. But back toward the rock … the lions doubtless thought that T’Cori and Leopard were trapping themselves.
“Hiyah!” Leopard thrust at the cats with his blackened spear tip. They blinked hard but did not retreat.
Then the smaller female rose and stepped into the stream. It stopped, lifted its paw and examined it with apparent distaste, but the prospect of fresh meat propelled it forward, up to its belly. Splash, splash, splash. And then up and out. Droplets of moisture hovered in the air before settling like motes of dust. A rainbow, one swiftly born, and just as swiftly dead.
Its eyes never left them.
“Run,” Leopard said. And holding her belly with her left hand, T’Cori did.
As she did, the lioness on the right charged. Leopard placed himself between the lioness and the dream dancer. The spear point jabbed at its eyes, so that it had to swerve. That was the last T’Cori saw as she ran with all the speed she could manage, ten paces to the wall. She searched for handholds and footholds, scrambling up as something hit the ground just behind her. Something brushed against her foot. She looked down and saw a female lion, with a white scar bisecting her face, leap up to claw at her as she climbed. Swift, sharp pain raked T’Cori’s leg, then the cat was falling back to the ground.
One speckled gray stone projected far enough from the wall that she was able to set her heel firmly. Pain in her calf made her gasp, but by then she was stable and used that moment to glance down.
Below her Leopard Eye crouched with his spear held at the ready. She screamed at him, “Climb!” But she knew that he could not hear her: all his attention was on the blood-crazed beasts coming at him from either side. Leopard had backed against a boulder. With his rear protected, he was trying to keep the lions at a distance. The right side of his face bore three gashes, side by side, one laying the cheekbone bare. Gore spattered his leg and arm. The lions were gaining greater and greater confidence and no longer seemed so h
esitant to attack.
The long, powerful muscles in the larger female’s hind legs bunched as it leaped. Leopard went under the lion, bracing his spear against the ground so that the tip slid into its belly. It screeched, then fell to the side, hind legs scrabbling at the dreadful stalk.
But at the same moment, the white-scarred lioness attacked, trapping Leopard on the ground. The back of its head obscured Leopard’s throat and chest.
If ever T’Cori had wished to close her eyes, this was the moment. She could not. His eyes stared up at her, body contorted.
She heard a sharp wet sound, like a piece of green fruit crushed underfoot.
T’Cori fought to summon calm. Then, despite her fear, she exhaled and breathed it to him. “Peace, hunter,” she whispered.
His eyes, fixed to hers, relaxed. His lips, which had so recently brushed her flesh, parted as if he were trying to say something to her. Did he see her? Know her?
Blood drenched the sand. The screams of dying man and mortally wounded lion drowned T’Cori’s own cries.
She pressed against the rock wall, shuddering, the afternoon’s hot wind suddenly cold. Her belly pushed her back onto her toes, made it impossible to crawl into the rock, to ask the earth itself to accept her body as it had when she climbed as a child.
Above her, the rock face leaned outward. There was no path for a direct ascent. She could perhaps scuttle over to her right, where outcroppings of rock and plants offered some grasp for hand or foot.
A third lion had joined the two below, a thick tawny mane proclaiming its gender. The female who had taken the spear to the belly paid no attention to the others, or to anything at all save its own ghastly wounds. The male seemed to be looking up at T’Cori, almost as if it wanted to speak. Did the lions of Shadow Valley have language? Did they transform into humans, or was it only the wolves who worked such wonders?
T’Cori had seen so many strange things in the last year. One more would hardly have raised an eyebrow. But here and now, if she was so foolish as to allow herself to become distracted, she would lose her grip on the wall and plummet to the waiting fangs below.
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