“The mammoth lord became very angry, and he raised his great trunk up until it put the dent into the moon Freya, and he said, ‘You should not need a nose as long as mine to smell out this plot! They want you to throw us down so that they can eat our children!’
“Ananoi agreed that this had all been an evil scheme. So together they gathered mammoth dung and sculpted it to look like a young mammoth. They hardened it by the fire, then wove a mat of long dry grass and covered the effigy so it looked as if it were covered with hair.
The next morning as soon as the sun rose Ananoi carried the effigy of mammoth dung and tossed it off the cloud, shouting, ‘Stay off this cloud, you evil mammoth woman!’ and he watched below.
“As soon as the effigy hit the ground, sabertooths and dire wolves boiled from their hiding places in the brush and pounced on the thing.
They thought they were tearing into flesh, so all of them ripped away great mouthfuls of dung, and then the wolves and sabertooths all rolled in the grass and tried to spit the vile dung out of their jaws.
“But some of the dire wolves liked the taste of the dung, and that is why even today, though they like meat more, sometimes you will see them eat dung.
“Vozha and Ananoi watched the predators and laughed from above, and Vozha trumpeted and stomped the cloud, making water fall from it and making thunder roll across the heavens.
Then the two heroes each grabbed pieces of dry dung and set it on fire and tossed it down on the dire wolves and sabertooths.
“Now, even today, when summer dries the mammoth dung in the clouds, the mammoth people celebrate by running through the clouds, causing thunder and rain. Then they hurl burning dung to earth, forming lightning, and that is why the sabertooths all hide in the bushes during a storm, and that is why the dire wolves all howl in mourning the night after a storm.”
Vo-olai smiled down at Wayan, and his eyes shone. Sitting there, listening to the story, reminded Fava of the times she had spent on her mother’s lap as a child, listening to her mother spin tales. It all seemed so long ago and far away, but it lightened her mood.
That night, Fava dreamed it was summer, and Wayan sat on her lap as she told stories and fed him blackberry tarts; another child also sat on her lap, a girl with hair the color that the Neanderthals call “maple-leaf” red. In the dream the girl was Fava’s own daughter, a child with soft skin, and sweet, carefree smile.
When she got up the next morning, Fava saw Darrissea’s wisdom in keeping the door closed and forbidding fires. From their window they watched six Blade Kin march north up the street through town. Some had guns and others carried gas tubes. All of them wore masks and camouflaged robes in forest green and brown.
They had a slave with them. Fava recognized the boy, a human named Mylon Storm. The Blade Kin stopped halfway to the bridge, and their leader pointed back toward Fava’s house. Two Blade Kin broke off, followed the road to the trail, then disappeared into the brush.
Fava rushed everyone to Tull’s workroom, then hid behind the door with only a knife in her hand. Vo-olai became wide-eyed and shouted that the Blade Kin were going to torch the house, and Darrissea kept speaking to her softly, trying to calm the girl.
But after what seemed an eternity, Fava peeked out the window again. Through a crack in the curtain she could see all six Blade Kin poking around the ruined houses on the far side of town.
“They only came to look for footprints outside the door,” Darrissea said. “Look! You can see their tracks in the snow.” Fava watched as the Blade Kin searched the ruins in the human part of town, then headed inland on the dirt road that led to Finger Mountain.
“What do you think they will do with Mylon?” Vo-olai asked.
“They must be expecting another ship,” Darrissea answered, “to pick them up and take them back to Bashevgo.”
Fava sighed, moved away from the curtains. “We don’t want to be here when they come back.”
“But,” Vo-olai asked, “what if we were? What if we went up to them and asked them to take us to Bashevgo so we could live with our husbands?”
“I’m sure they would be happy to give you a ride,” Darrissea sneered, and Fava realized that the human was not talking about a ride in a boat.
“No, I mean it,” Vo-olai answered. “I want to find Anorath and live with my sweet children.” Vo-olai’s whole body was trembling.
“Do you think that is what your husband would want?” Fava asked calmly, and she moved close and put her arms around Vo-olai. “Friend, would Anorath be happy knowing that you and your children will live in slavery? Or would he want you to be free? I think we should go to Bashevgo, to free Tull and Anorath.”
“You can’t think that!” Vo-olai said, her voice carrying an edge of hysteria. “Adjonai guards Bashevgo. He will hear your thoughts, punish you! You won’t ever get to the city. I can feel him—reaching for us!” The girl’s eyes widened, her face paled.
Fava had known other Pwi who feared the dark god this badly. She knew she could not talk to Vo-olai now.
“Shhhh …” Fava whispered. “Think of good things. Think of lying with Anorath in bed, or the summer when we were children and Scandal made ice cream for us.” Fava held Vo-olai and soothed her for a long time.
Darrissea went into the back room, began making dinner, and Fava followed.
“We can’t let those Blade Kin keep Mylon Strong, can we?” Darrissea whispered.
“They have weapons!” Fava countered. “What do you want to do?”
“We have a knife,” Darrissea pointed out. “We could cut spears. They will be easy to track in the snow, in the dark. They will have to sleep sometime.”
Fava dared not speak aloud for fear that Vo-olai would hear, but she knew it was decided.
Darrissea immediately began sharpening a broom handle to make a spear while Fava lit candles and boiled water in a small copper pan. Fava thought that Darrissea looked like a shadow, dressed in black cape, black armor, with her dark hair and eyes. The human girl talked casually as she worked.
“Did you see those Blade Kin today,” Darrissea said. “I thought they were disappointing—just normal men in camouflage, carrying weapons. I always expected something more of them, something monstrous and predatory, something inhuman.”
“Hmmm,” Fava answered.
“Nothing ever lives up to my expectations. Once I saw a relic from Earth, one of the fossils that the Starfarers extracted DNA from to recreate some kind of sea snails. The fossil sat in a shed up on Finger Mountain, covered with moss. I don’t know. Since it was from Earth, I guess I expected more. But it was just a rock, just a brown rock—until you looked into it and saw the fossils.
“I mean, we both came from the same planet, and it made me feel, I don’t know, like we were sisters or something. It made me feel old. Those snails lived four hundred million years before the first human walked the earth, and I realized they were my ancestors.
“Sometimes, I wonder if I’ll have kin living hundreds of millions of years in the future. Maybe they’ll be as different from me as I am from those snails. Still, we’ll be sisters. Maybe they’ll feel my presence stirring in their bones.”
Darrissea finished the spear, set it aside, and went to Tull’s crude stove. She fished some charcoal from it, then went to the wall by the cabinets, and wrote:
Stones
When a thumbnail flakes off moss,
it makes such a small sound.
A gentle tug of the finger
draws the roots from the rock
and sends the small ones scurrying:
Sal bugs and white lice
flee into the light.
Yet beneath the fragile moss
the stone barely holds its fossils.
The chalky white curve of shell
the bones of scallop, clam, and snail,
hoard truant hues of sunrise orange,
thunderhead blue.
For many their motion is hardly suspended,
T
rapped in the act of living
they struggle against the hardening clay.
Fava watched in fascination. Though she had read many of the girl’s love poems over the years, she had never seen the girl write one. Darrissea worked as if in a trance, slowly, contemplating each line, then stepped back.
“Now,” she said, “If I die at Bashevgo, perhaps a few of my words will live on—” She looked back at Fava and grinned wickedly. “Even if they don’t, in a few million years, perhaps someone will find my bones and write a poem about them.”
They worked quietly to prepare a dinner of cooked vegetables; just after dusk, Wayan came in from the front room.
“Why can’t I go outside?” he asked. “Vo-olai did.”
***
Chapter 24: Running Fast
Fava rushed to the window to look out. The snow had slowed, and rain was falling outside. She could see Vo-olai’s tracks, but no sign of the girl.
“How long ago did she leave?” Darrissea asked Wayan.
“A whole bunch of hours ago,” Wayan answered. Though Wayan couldn’t tell time, Fava felt certain that Vo-olai had been gone at least ten minutes. Fava couldn’t see her anywhere along the bay front.
“Do you think she went to get herself captured?” Darrissea asked.
Fava nodded. “The snow will melt by morning,” Fava whispered, “and Thor will be up soon. She went to follow the tracks of those Blade Kin before the snow thaws.”
“Damn her,” Darrissea muttered. “It’s getting dark, and she’ll reach them long before we could. Let’s get some dinner and wait for moonrise.”
Fava agreed, and they ate quickly. Fava put on her own Blade Kin disguise, grabbed Wayan, and left the food and clothes for Darrissea to carry. They slipped out into the night just before moonrise, moving through the burned-out town like wraiths, silent and quick, floating through the foggy rain.
They headed up into the hills, walking beside the swollen river through the ancient forest, until at last the town of Smilodon Bay became lost in the trees and darkness.
“We enter our underworld,” Darrissea whispered just out of town, “the appalling wood.”
They did not have to travel far to find the Blade Kin. They walked ten miles to the small village of High Pass relatively quickly. Just before dawn they spotted the Blade Kin’s fire shining through a hide window.
The Blade Kin had made camp in the shelter of a stable, and one guard sat in the shadows outside the door, a blanket over his head to keep out the rain.
“Someone will have to take out that guard,” Darrissea said.
“I’ll do it,” Fava offered, afraid Darrissea would muck it up. Yet Fava found her own heart pounding, her breath coming short. “Those are experienced swordsmen down there. You’ve never fought in a real battle.”
“Oh,” Darrissea said thoughtfully. “And how many men have you killed lately?”
“None. But I’m stronger than you.”
“And you’re shaking like a half-drowned rat!” Darrissea countered.
“Still,” Fava said, “I’ve seen you fight in practice. You aren’t very good.”
“I don’t plan to fight them if I can help it!” Darrissea whispered. “I plan to murder them—the way the Blade Kin murdered my father!”
Fava sat back, cowed by the vehemence in Darrissea’s voice. Even in the darkness the girl’s eyes shone with anger, and she was speaking too loudly.
Fava feared that the guard downhill would hear them. She glanced in his direction. The guard still sat, huddled under his cape. Fava was so frightened, she wanted to pee. Darrissea spun away in the darkness, and Fava let her go.
Fava shivered in the cold rain, feeling vulnerable, huddling with Wayan in the trees while Darrissea stalked the Blade Kin. If Darrissea got hurt, Fava would never forgive herself.
Darrissea circled through the woods to the building, crept up on it from behind, and Fava prayed silently that the Blade Kin would not suddenly get up or turn his head.
The wet blanket that he huddled under restricted his vision to the side. When Darrissea soundlessly ran from his left, she slammed her long knife into the man’s neck, and only then did Fava realize the man must have been sleeping, for he did not react until he was stabbed.
He lunged forward, tried to grab his sword, and Darrissea’s knife flashed in the moonlight as she stabbed him again and again until he dropped. Then Darrissea grabbed the disjointed corpse of the guard, held a hand over his mouth as he died. All in all, it was a sloppy murder.
Darrissea took her knife and the Blade Kin’s scimitar and slipped into the stable. Fava’s heart pounded, and she realized she could not just stand by.
She set Wayan on the ground and whispered. “If I leave you here, could you stay put and be quiet?”
The boy nodded solemnly, but Fava did not trust him. “I’m serious,” she said. “If you cry, or if you call out for me, or if you try to come to me, we could all get killed.”
Wayan nodded, his eyes wide in the moonlight. Fava hugged him. “Good. Stay here.”
She ran down to the stable, took the dead Blade Kin’s gun, and listened by the door.
All was quiet inside except for occasional rustling sounds from the hayloft. Fava waited for ten minutes, fifteen, and realized she was sweating.
The beads of moisture on her forehead were as much a product of her own body as they were of the rain. Wayan crept downhill, walking in the slushy snow.
When he reached Fava, he grabbed her leg, held on as if for dear life. Fava realized she had asked too much of the child, so she put her hand over his mouth, and waited. After nearly half an hour, Darrissea opened the door. The human girl’s face was pale, and her sword red with blood.
“Watch yourself—” Darrissea said, “a strange illness seems to be going around. People are dying all over.”
She smiled, opened the door wide.
Fava crept inside, and Darrissea climbed to the loft, began unshackling confused prisoners who all asked questions.
There were no Blade Kin dead on the floor and Fava was grateful not to be up in the loft. I’ve seen too many dead lately, she told herself.
Three prisoners climbed down from the loft. Mylon, Vo-olai, and an older woman named Tchavs—a dear friend of Fava’s mother.
Tchavs hugged Fava, grabbed Wayan and swung the child around. Mylon came up close behind, followed by Vo-olai. Vo-olai’s clothes were ripped and her eyes rimmed with tears. The Blade Kin had obviously raped her. For a few moments they all stood, touching.
Tchavs held them, and her eyes glowed. “We’re all that’s left of Smilodon Bay. What do you think we should do? Shall we head south for White Rock?”
“I’m not going south,” Fava said. “I’m heading north to Bashevgo, to free Tull and my family.”
Tchavs stared at her in dismay. “That’s not possible.”
“I think it is,” Fava answered, because she had to believe.
“Tull’s a friend, and I would like to see him free as much as any other man,” Tchavs said. “But this plan doesn’t make sense!”
“Perhaps,” Darrissea said. “But I will accompany Fava. You and the children should find a place to hide.”
“Where?” Tchavs asked. “The Blade Kin are everywhere.”
“There must be a deserted cabin they won’t check, someplace in the woods.”
“I know a place,” Mylon suggested, “a hut where my father used to hunt birds, on an island at Lake Easy Swim. It’s well hidden.”
“Can you take Tchavs there?” Fava asked.
“Yes,” said Mylon, disappointed. The young man would have preferred to come with Fava.
“Then you should leave before sunrise,” Fava suggested, “and stay with Tchavs. She needs someone to hunt for her, someone who can help until spring.”
Tchavs gazed at Fava. “You can’t take Wayan north with you,” she said forcefully. “You either have to stay with him here, or leave him in the care of someone else.”
> Fava held Wayan tightly a moment. After the past two days, hiding from the Blade Kin she felt as if he were her own son.
The thought of being separated cut her to the bone.
Tchavs put an arm around Fava. “Let me take the boy. He is Pwi. I will care for him as if he were mine.” Tchavs did not have to add the words “if you die,” Fava could hear them in her tone of voice.
Wayan clung to Fava’s neck and cried, “I want you! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Bashevgo,” Fava said, her lips trembling, “to bring Tull home.”
“Are the slavers there?”
“Yes,” Fava said. “I will have to try to find him, then run away from the slavers. I can run faster than you, and that is why I need you to stay here.”
Wayan pouted, looked around the room, trapped in indecision. It isn’t fair, dumping him off like this, Fava thought.
Wayan had never had much of a life with his own father, and only in the past few weeks, after Tull forcefully took the child from his own parents, had the boy learned to smile.
“Don’t you like me?” Wayan asked. “You wouldn’t have to carry me. I could run real fast. Watch—” he tried to squirm from her arms to show how fast he could run.
“We love you,” Fava said. “I would carry you if I could. You’ve never been a burden to me, only a joy.” She struggled vainly, looking for another solution. “I know you want to stay with me, but you want to live with your brother Tull, too, don’t you?”
“I don’t care about him. I want you,” Wayan said.
Fava held him close. “I know that’s not true,” she said. “Someday soon, I will bring Tull back, and he will build us a bigger house, like he promised. And we will get you a kitten or a puppy. But for now, you will have to go with Tchavs.”
The boy took the words as if they were a physical blow, a blow that shocked and dismayed him, a blow he would take silently, just as he had taken beatings from Jenks in silence. He stared up at Fava, and she saw the wounds in the child’s eyes.
Fava held him while the others prepared to leave. Mylon climbed to the loft, brought down the Blade Kin’s gas guns and firearms, and split them between the two groups.
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