Two cubs were the normal birth, and Hiero found them enchanting. They decided the new, furless person was a fine toy; as he strolled through the encampment of an evening, he usually had a bouncing, wiggling, furry bail in the crook of each arm.. Behind tagged a trail of older children and shy adolescents, racking him with so many questions at once that his head ached from trying to sort out the thoughts and answer them. He was welcome at every hearth and tried to eat at different places every day.
In the evenings, he always paid a formal call—for the catpeople were very formal—on the Speaker, where he chatted for an hour or so with her, B’uorgh, and the young Speaker-to-be, she whom he had clubbed on his first encounter. Her name, as close as he could form it, was M’reen, and she bade fair, in his opinion, to being as smart as her teacher.
The personal relations of the catfolk were subtle and often hard to understand. There were pair bonds and also deep affection between couples, but sex seemed to be indiscriminate. Any mother’s cubs were hers, but some shes stayed always with the same male and others changed mates. He gathered there were festivals when all rules were abrogated for brief periods. At such times they burned the leaves of a certain herb and grew wildly excited, if not actually intoxicated.
The Speakership was selective and took long training; but, as Hiero might have guessed, B’uorgh had fought his way to his position as hunting and war chief and would someday be challenged again by one of the younger males. Should he survive all such combat, as sometimes occurred, he would become one of an honored circle of elder males who advised the Speaker and helped to preserve tradition.
On certain nights, the Pride held group sings, for want of a better word. These were mixtures of poetry, chanting, and, Hiero thought privately, just plain yowling. Sometimes the massed rumbling and purring was soothing and at others made his ears ache, though he always gravely expressed vast appreciation. During the week he spent with the Pride, they held several in honor of his arrival and alliance.
Hiero found the catfolk delightful. He was even able to help with a problem that had been concerning the elders, that of a slowly declining birth rate. He discovered that the Pride, being so group-minded, had more or less stopped intermating with the other two Prides. There were obvious results in terms of inbreeding. He politely told the Speaker and her council of old males that this simply had to stop and that the younger folk of the three Prides should be made to meet more often. Outmating should be strongly encouraged, and the reasons for it should be thoroughly gone into and explained to all the folk. He was solemnly thanked for the advice and told it would be adhered to in the fullest way possible with personal independence! He wondered about this, but M’reen told him privately that it would happen, though probably slowly. One did not give Pride members orders, only veiled and delicate suggestions. This would result in the idea’s seeming to be of their own origination.
Every other night or so, those able to do so hunted. Of course, the new friend had to be taken along, not that he needed any urging. He could not run at their pace, so the game came to him. The Wind of Death was not used, since the adults of both sexes preferred not to utilize it unless they were in a hurry or at war. Hiero never found out what it was made from, but he strongly suspected a natural secretion of the glands, enhanced by the juices of a rare plant. It was a secret held by certain of the females, who alone could release it. It had been discovered long ago and had been used to help them escape from the horror of the Unclean.
Their favorite game was becoming scarce in the neighborhood, but they located a specimen and took the Metz out one night under a bright moon to see how he felt about it. He was positioned in a certain place, not too far from the trees, which he thought tactful, and told to get ready. He understood that the honor of the kill was to be his and wondered what it might be and if, indeed, he were capable of holding up his end. The catfolk would not tell him what it was. Knowing their whimsical humor, he wondered if one of the trunked giants were being herded in his direction.
He was therefore considerably relieved when he heard the drumming of hooves and the angry snorts of a fast-running herbivore. However, when the moon gleams showed him the prey, he was not so sure.
From the head down, the form was that of a giant buck. Over the deep-socketed eyes grew two long, straight horns, mighty enough weapons in themselves. But on the broad muzzle rose another, a straight stem which forked into two more evil-looking points. As the enraged animal twisted and darted at the tormentors who were herding it in his direction, the man wondered how they escaped, even with their speed, from the vicious and lethal lunges. When at length it sighted him, a solitary and fixed target, he had no more time to think. Meeting those terrible horns head-on would obviously be insane. As the brute charged, he hurled the heavy spear straight at the broad chest and then dodged, whipping out his long dagger and poising it.
The broad spear sank to the socket, for a brief moment bringing the great beast up standing. In that moment, he aimed and threw the knife from no more than ten feet away, not at the body, but at the nearest bulging, bloodshot eye. The blade sank to the hilt. With a final bellow, the animal fell over, its brain pierced instantaneously. The other hunters let out a wild, squalling cry of triumph, and Hiero felt that his knees were somewhat weak.
On examining the kill while they cut it up to carry back, Hiero thought his knees felt even weaker. The animal’s eyes were surrounded by rings of heavy bone, and a very slight miss would have proved useless! He thanked his Creator silently for the good shot.
You did very well with old Four-Horns, came B’uorgh’s jovial thought. We could not have helped, not at that range. One reason we like him so much is that he frequently gets the hunter. Always good sport when we meet him.
Hiero formally thanked all the hunters for the wonderful opportunity they had provided. They did not need to know his private feelings, which was just as well!
VIII
Any Port in a Storm
The hoppers, even the picked beasts of the royal Guard, were very tired. All the interminable day, they had sped from one end of the battle line to the other as the guard followed its royal mistress. The princess had been everywhere, her gilded mail and bright plumes shining like an oriflamme of war as she rallied lagging spearmen here and sent fresh lancers there. Each threatened point had seen her, cheered her to the marrow, and then fought the harder as a result.
But the day was lost, nonetheless. The royal army, outnumbered and with its flanks turned, had been forced to withdraw. The rebel duke, or one of his advisors, had planned shrewdly and moved far more quickly than either Luchare or the king had believed possible. Also, the cunning Amibale had used several unexpected tricks, either through his own sharp wits or through Unclean guidance. Joseato was in it somewhere, but Amibale, Luchare reflected glumly, was quite clever enough on his own. A revolt of the beggars and thieves, allied with disgruntled petty shopkeepers, had erupted in the city as the army was setting out. It had been put down quickly and the ringleaders promptly hanged, but this cost both time and lives. As a result, when the two armies finally met, twenty miles south of D’alwah City, the royal troops were already tired from street fighting and had sustained losses.
Amibale, who to do him justice was brave, had brought not only the troops of his dukedom but also hordes of savages, some of unknown races, to assist. A particular menace was the swarm of small, pallid men used as skirmishers, who fired clouds of poisoned arrows from both bows and blowguns. And there was worse. The Unclean wizards were coming out into the open at last. A regiment of the ape mutants, the Hairy Howlers, stormed against one wing, while a mob of shrieking, chattering Manrats assaulted the other.
Moreover, so quickly had Amibale moved that the full resources available to the royal army simply had not been there on time. The Mu’aman infantry, summoned from their western plains, had not arrived. Would they come late or not at all? Had they, too, been rotted with treason? The village militia and the frontier guards had
not had time to draw back, either, nor had most of the hardy boatmen of the bays on the Lantik, stern fighters and badly needed.
So the battle had been fought and lost with the household troops, plus the personal armies of the loyal nobility who lived near the capital. Indeed, at one point the center had almost broken under a heavy onslaught, and only the unexpected arrival of Count Ghiftah Hamili, charging in person at the head of his two lancer squadrons, had saved the stricken field. Any doubts that Luchare might have had about the silent count were cleared on the spot as, fighting like a demon at the front of his hoppers, he drove back Amibale’s infantry.
But it was not enough. Sullenly, unbroken but unable to maintain the fight, the royal army fell back, covering its flanks and snapping at the enemy as it did so. There was no choice. By nightfall, Luchare was conferring with her commanders while the battered troops were being entrenched on the outskirts of D’alwah City itself. There was still no word from the outlying districts, and rumors of a new and dreadful attack from within had started in the city. There was little talk and no laughter at all in the tired ranks that night.
Around a tiny fire, four silent figures crouched. The fire was burning in the mammoth crotch of a tree so vast it could have shaded a small town unaided. A fifth person, posted as a sentinel, peered from a branch a little higher up. Far below, out of sight even in the daylight, hidden by innumerable leaves, vines, and limbs, lay the nighted swamp from which the tree had sprung, ages in the past.
Hiero was conferring with M’reen, B’uorgh, and Za’reekh, a powerful young warrior. On watch above them, Ch’uirsh, the other youngster, could join in the mingled thoughts when he chose. Usually the two young males were silent when their elders spoke, but they sometimes disagreed and they had the right to be heard. There was a mental silence now, for they were all listening to the sounds of the morass many hundreds of feet below.
A hideous bellow erupted upward, croaking and guttural, but so enormous in sheer volume as to make the very perfumed air of the trees seem to shiver. All the myriad forest noises appeared to hush at the terrible cry.
What is it, Hiero? B’uorgh had learned as had the others, that their new friend could tap the minds of many other beings, while the catfolk were restricted to those of their own species. Above the man’s head a great, scented blossom waved, giving off a wonderful aroma as he concentrated. Once more the monstrous, raging grunt reverberated up through the foliage. At length, the Metz relaxed again and smiled.
I don’t know. An Elevener, one of our friends whom I have told you of, well, one of them might be able to find out. They specialize in all life, everything that breathes, you know. I can’t distinguish between lots of the lower types, the ones with little or no brain. This may be a reptile, like a snake or lizard. But I rather think it’s an amphibian, something like a frog or a salamander. They have even less brain than the reptiles. I get a feeling of blind, fumbling anger on a very low level. I met something like that once before, up in the Palood, the great marshes of the North. Their intelligence is so sluggish you can’t detect them at all. At least, I can’t.
A frog! If that’s a frog, it could jump up here. The thought came down from Ch’uirsh.
Nothing that makes that much noise could jump anywhere, M’reen retorted. It might just push the tree over, though. She shuddered appreciatively, the firelight catching the smooth muscles under her dappled coat. I’m glad we can travel up here and not in that muck down there.
Hiero decided not to mention that some of the incredible frog monsters of the Palood could jump very well. Anyway, he felt that it was not one of them, making the night hideous, but some vast, crawling thing that lurked in the mud and water at the bases of the great trees.
The little party had been on its way north for over two weeks now, and the past two days had been spent traversing the swamp. The jungle at the foot of the giant tree boles was quite dangerous enough, so much so that they had always to be on the alert, by day or night. But when they encountered the beginnings of this huge bog, it was an obvious impossibility to continue. They had seen tracks on its edge which made any such idea unthinkable. The catfolk were runners of the open plains, and they knew nothing of this shrouded murk and its inhabitants. The trees went on as if the dark water at their feet were simply a new form of soil, so the travelers simply did the logical thing. They went aloft. They lost time, of course. Sometimes the vined highways and the mighty limbs came to a dead end, and they all had to backtrack. But Hiero always knew where his home lay, his built-in compass never ceasing to function. He could get a rude sighting on the sun through the leaves as well, and thus their course, to the north, stayed pretty constant.
There were other advantages. The cat people and Hiero were good climbers. Then, too, the really monstrous things, such as whatever wallowed far below at the moment, were not apt to be climbers at all. The air was cool and fresh, and there was plenty of game, in the form of unwary birds and mammals. Only that afternoon, B’uorgh had scurried up a nearby trunk and neatly cut the throat of a large nesting bird. It and its half-grown young had made an excellent dinner, with plenty left over for the morrow.
Nothing in this life was completely safe, of course. Once they had been forced to scamper for their lives when a nest of tree vipers had all leaped or slithered at them. At another point a colony of malignant-looking apes, far too much like the Hairy Howlers for Hiero’s liking, had followed them a long way, obviously nerving themselves up to an open attack. They were big, stump-tailed brutes, glossy black and with savage, naked, green faces and horrendous fangs. But just as Hiero had been about to kill one and risk losing his spear, the whole gibbering crew reached the end of some obscure and invisible boundary.
Hiero’s group hastened away, leaving behind the barking and chattering mob in the sea of verdant leaves. The two young males Were furious at being chivied along in this manner and pleaded to be allowed to go back and wipe out the horde, but B’uorgh’s coughed orders put an end to that nonsense at once, and they subsided.
The man realized how lucky he was. He certainly had not been looking forward to his lonely but inevitable journey through the incredibly dangerous southern wood. For one thing, he had to sleep at times; for another, he had been there before, though in another part, and had some idea of the perils which lay hidden in the depths of the giant trees. He had been taken wholly by surprise, therefore, when the old Speaker called him to a sudden meeting and blandly informed him that four of her people would go with him. The war chief, the young Speaker-to-be, and the two younger warriors were all volunteers, but also came with her full consent and approval.
You go into great peril, as great as any you have been through, we think. Hiero had informed the tribe, through necessity, of some of his recent adventures and had not even been sure that they believed him. The art of telling tall tales was well developed among this strange people.
The soft-furred hand laid its naked palm on his as the Speaker continued. Hiero, you go to fight the ancient enemy of us all. Your she fights for you far away, and so do others. You are our friend. If the defilers, the cub-killers, the naked-faced mind-warpers, if they should be the victors, how long would we be safe, we whom they have forgotten, perhaps? Not long, we all think. We are few in number, and none outside knows of us as yet, save only you. But how long would thai last if the enemy with the terrible machines you tell of were to conquer all who now oppose them? No, we must help, for your errand, even though we do not fully comprehend it, is of the utmost importance. It must be so, for you do not lie and you have shown us how they hate you and have tried to kill you, not once but many times. You must be one of their chief est foes, if not the most important. Friends are for help, and you shall have ours. This chewed-up, old scar-fur of a B’uorgh can be replaced easily enough. The doughty individual in question simply purred; he knew what condition he was in, moreover, looked it.
The Speaker sighed mentally. I would come myself to see new things and learn much of the outer worl
d I will never know. But I can send M’reen. She will be my eyes and ears. l can train another, should she be lost, though she is a good mind. The two young males are idiots, like all males, both the young and the older. Still, they are among the best hunters in the pack. They can help guard you. And M’reen has the secret of the Wind of Death!
It had been hard to thank them all, especially since he alone knew, or at least had some idea, of what they were getting into. And they had done another thing without being asked, which made him feel even more warmly about them. They had sworn, quite simply, to leave the humans out in the villages alone and, while remaining secret, to kill no more of them for any reason. No more babies would be removed as pets, nor would solitary hunters be hounded to a terrified doom. This was a great concession.
Now here they were, Hiero mused, watching the blunt faces with their brows black-barred and lively, lambent eyes, the rippling muscles, and the ivory claws stretching as their owners eased their limbs. Who would have thought this only two weeks ago? For indeed they had been a fantastic help. It was very hard to winnow out thoughts in this life-infested jungle; though he did his best, not all inimical creatures were detectable in time. The great ape-things were very intelligent, and he, concentrating on lower carnivores and other predacious forms of existence, had missed them completely. It was the young Za’reekh who had heard the rustle of branches, unswayed by treetop breezes, and thus had warned them in time to turn from the ambush. The catfolk had no noses worth speaking of; indeed, Hiero’s was far better. But their eyes and ears were fantastic and, in the often dim light, invaluable. It was M’reen who had heard the whispering rush of the oncoming brood of vipers and thus had turned them back, fortunately to a series of broad, flat limbs.
Their aid was well worth having, and they were good company too, though Ch’uirsh was going to get nailed one of these days for his practical jokes! Finding a giant worm from a bromeliad growth on one’s chest in the small hours of the night was a bit much. The priest-warrior grinned to himself. He had flung the supposed serpent off with a yelp of horror before even getting a good look at it. B’uorgh, also wakened, had wanted to scalp the young hunter, but M’reen had given him a good talking-to instead. A Speaker-to-be, even a young one, in a female rage, had made Ch’uirsh’s ears go back in instant regret for his folly. Hiero contented himself with a very brief lecture on the idiocy of frightening people who had a lot of real dangers on their minds. And that was that. It had been funny, though.
Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) Page 54