by Louise Wise
‘Honnards? They use them for slaves?’ He remembered seeing the natives in the back of the trailers.
‘They use the birds to find their lairs. The birds are trained to sit in the trees over a prim’s den and squawk. The prims know they bring the Jelvias now and are aware, so the wardens are going further away from the valley. Into the forests, or so I hear.’
‘Oh god.’
‘What does that mean?’ Molver said, and looked at him inquiringly. When he didn’t get an answer he said, ‘Sometimes you speak funny. Why haven’t I seen you before? I think I’d remember you…’ he broke off, indicating Fly’s scars by stroking his own cheek. ‘Have you been living in the forests since the ship crashed?’
‘Yes. Living with the prims.’
‘Really?’ The boy looked impressed. ‘I felt sorry for them in the valley. It was like seeing a wild animal caged.’
‘They aren’t animals!’
As if he felt Fly’s rage, the boy flushed. ‘I was sympathising with them, not, you know, the other.’ He moodily flicked off a piece of bark from the trunk he was sitting on. He looked up and said brightly, ‘Have you met the goddess?’
Fly’s eyes snapped to his face, and the boy flinched, his brightness evaporating. Fly feigned a smile. ‘Goddess?’
‘Because you live in the forests, I thought you m-may have met her. There’s lots of talk about her living here,’ he said, warily at first, but when Fly didn’t snap he continued, ‘Her eyes are leaf green and her hair is a fire that never goes out. She has magic powers,’ he added, leaning forward with a sudden animation.
Fly remained passive. ‘How’d you know about this “goddess”? Has anyone seen her?’
‘She’s been spotted a few times. They say she’s either a mutant prim or a goddess, but either way, her magic exists.’ He shifted under Fly’s gaze, but Fly didn’t relieve him of it. ‘They first saw her when they sent the birds into the forests for prims,’ he went on.
‘Are the wardens searching for her?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. He appeared anxious as if he’d sensed the worry pouring off Fly. ‘Some say she’s a myth.’
‘She’s a myth.’ Fly stood up. ‘I have to go.’
Molver sprang to his feet. ‘Please can I come with you? Maybe you could help me find my friends?’
‘What friends?’ Fly was smothering the fire. He looked over his shoulder at the boy. ‘The friends from the valley or your friends from “home”?’
‘I’ll tell you the truth. P-please, take me with you.’
The haryn gave a high-pitched whine and Fly jerked his head in the animal’s direction. Then he heard it. Thunderous hooves vibrating through the forest floor. He slipped the noose off Pip’s neck and slapped the animal’s rump. As the animal ran off, Fly hurried into the thick undergrowth pushing Molver in front of him. He dragged him down as a wild-eyed animal dashed past, then three Jelvias astride three haryns followed. All held spears high above their heads and were whooping with delight. Silence ensued. Fly stood up, followed by Molver.
‘We need weapons,’ Fly said.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Jenny pulled Diana off her breast and laid her down, covering her with a fur. Melinda and her baby were asleep next to her. An arm thrown out and a hand circled around her baby’s ankle, as if to ensure the baby would stay by her side. The tiny creature had begun to grow a down of fair hair all over its body, but despite the fur it still looked incredibly human.
Day five. Jenny drew in her knees and hugged them to her chest. She glanced towards the mouth of the cave. There had been constant activity all through the night, but it’d been unlike the usual activity of the night-time hunters. The honnards had been quiet and instead of bringing back the normal prey to eat they brought home larger animals with antlers or horns.
Jenny crawled to the entrance and pushed back the foliage curtain. She started with surprise in seeing so many honnards in the camp. They was sitting in groups all doing different chores: removing horns and antlers from dead animals, crushing bone and rock, sharpening bone and rock, skinning, peeling away sinew, cutting away hooves, skinning… nobody was talking. It was all very serious.
Jenny stood up and let the curtain of vine fall behind her. She walked around the camp and other than a few ‘chuff-chuffs’ of greeting the silence ensued. There were piles of bloody antlers and hooves, and severed animal legs that several honnards were scraping away at. Other honnards were bringing dried sinew out into the open and pounding the strands over rock. The result, to Jenny, was like dental floss. Others were cooking a syrup-like soup as they chewed on the dental floss. They spat the floss into the syrup, fished it out with sticks and handed the gloopy mess to a waiting honnard who used it to attach sharpened bone to wood. These newly-made spears were placed in the sun to dry.
Native-wolves began to fight over the body of a dismembered animal, breaking the strange silence until one ran off with part of it in its mouth. A honnard stood up and bellowed at the remaining wolves and they ran away.
‘Chi-Chi, huff, Che-lers, huff-chuff.’
Jenny looked round. It was Bo; the injury on his chest was uncovered and it looked to be scabbing over.
As he came towards her, she indicated the supply of stone and wood. ‘What’s going on?’
We’re making weapons.
‘Do you think the Jelvias will come back?’
We need to be cautious.
As Bo walked away, Jenny scanned the site. More large animals with antlers or horns were being dragged in. Honnards were organised into a kind of weaponry production line, and the piles of spears and hand weapons were growing steadily.
‘Oh, my god!’
The honnards weren’t just preparing for another visit from the Jelvias, they were preparing for war.
Melinda’s baby began to cry from inside the cave, the noise woke Diana and she let out an angry wail. Jenny crouched and peered inside the cave as Melinda scooped both babies up in her over-long, hairy arms. Both babies quietened. Jenny steeled herself from going into the cave, and watched from behind the hanging vine.
The honnard, unaware of being watched, made soft noises, and cuddled both babies against her chest. She rocked gently back and forth, looking from one baby to the other. Her face was serene and the expression in her eyes was pure love.
Jenny felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. There wasn’t going to be a happy ending. She’d either die without knowing what happened to Fly and be driven mad in the process—or die looking for him.
Diana deserved a happy ending. If Jenny was going to die looking for Fly, there was no need for Diana to perish. The baby looked perfectly content in her babysitter’s arms. She didn’t understand who her mother was—didn’t care as long as she was fed and kept warm.
Jenny closed her eyes but tears found their way onto her face as she said a silent goodbye.
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, strengthened her resolve and went into the cave. She couldn’t look at Melinda or Diana, and only reached for the net bag of Fly’s weapons. She dragged it out and went to find Bo.
He and Zack were inspecting their piles of drying weapons.
‘If you’re going to war you’ll need better weaponries,’ she said, and the honnards turned.
She pulled open the net and held up a bow, then slowly and deliberately placed the arrow in place. She aimed at a tree and let the string go. The arrow whizzed over the heads of the watching honnards and became embedded in a branch.
There was a silence and then many chuff-chuffs.
Zack held out his hairy arms and Jenny handed him the bow and arrow. He sniffed it, turned it over in his large, plate-like hands, and then held it aloft as if showing the others. He was talking, or chuffing, and the honnards seemed to be listening. Every now and then he’d look at her and every time he did the others tossed their heads and howled.
The goddess is our new leader!
She will help us finish what the Jelvias s
tarted!
We’ll get our people back!
We’ll show the Jelvias we aren’t to be messed with!
Jenny felt a prickle of thrill run up her backbone. She picked up another bow and arrow and gave it to Bo. Fly had made five bows, and several handfuls of arrows. She kept one back for herself as she gave the others out, then slowly, knowing she was being copied, placed the arrow in the bow, turned and aimed at a tree.
The honnards copied her and grasped it relatively easily. She was impressed. She gave her bow to another native. She had the one and only sword and intended to keep that for herself. She showed them it, nevertheless, and exhibited its effectiveness by slashing at branches. Zack looked at the pile of spears as if comparing them to the sword.
A bird screeched in the sky. It flew overhead, looking down at them with its small black eyes. Something zoomed from the ground and hit the bird. It fell, hitting trees, and lay somewhere on the forest floor.
They all looked at the honnard who’d fired the arrow.
Then the group broke out into triumphant chuffs, howls and shouts. Zack threaded his bow with another arrow and fired it towards where the bird had been. It was followed by other arrows being pinged into the sky.
‘I guess we’re going to have to make more arrows,’ Jenny said.
The natives were in an uproar of excitement:
Let’s get to work!
Make more arrows!
The Chi-Chi is amazing!
Three cheers for the Chi-Chi!
Jenny watched for a moment as they practiced with their new weapons. She felt eyes on her. It was Bo. His long nose wriggled as if he was sniffing.
‘Chuff-huff,’ he said. ‘Che-lers, chuff.’
‘The Jelvias will kill you if you go in without a plan,’ she said.
Do you have a plan?
Even though it was her own mind making up Bo’s words, she hesitated. ‘Yes, I do,’ she said. ‘The plan is simple. It’s to use me as bait.’
Chapter Twenty Eight
‘You’re limping.’
‘I’ve a weak ankle,’ Fly said.
They were walking along the coastline, the mountains behind them.
‘How?’
The boy either asked too many questions or came out with stupid statements. He’d only just got off the subject of the goddess so Fly felt he had something to be thankful for.
‘Broke it in the ship crash and it never mended properly,’ he replied automatically. His mind was on Jenny and how they were going to live without being discovered by the Jelvias. If she was still alive. It worried him that Bo had run off into the forest with a Jelvia following. If Bo panicked and ran to the safety of his clan, the Jelvia would have been led straight to Jenny.
‘I killed five birds with only my hands,’ the boy was saying. ‘Even that was too easy.’
Fly looked down at him. ‘Only five?’
‘Did I say five? It was more than that. Seven. Maybe even four.’
Fly chuckled. The sudden mirth surprised him. ‘How’d the Jelvias train them?’
‘I’ve seen the wardens tie the prims down and cut their throats to tempt the birds to eat them. The birds squawk to let other birds know of their find. I suppose they think all prims are food now.’
‘On their own territory a prim could easily kill a bird.’
‘There isn’t just one though, there are many. And they are followed by the wardens who have weapons. The prims don’t have weapons.’ He bent and picked up a seashell. Childishly he held it to his ear.
‘Time to tell me the truth about these friends of yours,’ Fly said.
Molver took the shell away from his ear. ‘OK,’ he said. He hesitated, obviously thinking what to reveal, and said, ‘I haven’t always been a valley prisoner. After the ship crashed, a few of us escaped and made a home in the mountains. We’ve been living a peaceful life, farming, making our own clothes.’ He indicated his attire. ‘But I was captured.’
‘How many escaped initially?’
‘Enough to worry the wardens but we didn’t intervene in their way of life and they left us alone. But I was captured.’
‘So you said.’
‘Don’t you want to know how?’ He didn’t give Fly time to answer. ‘I was hunting, running through the forest, zipping around trees, going faster and faster, my friends warned me—I’m known for my speed—that the wardens would use it against me, but I didn’t listen. Big mistake! I was running so hard and so fast I ran out of forest and ended up on the high grounds. The top of a mountain! I was found and captured.’
‘What do you mean “use it against you”?’
‘Huh?’
‘Your speed. How would they use it against you?’
‘Oh, that.’ He waved a hand. ‘For all sort of things.’
Fly laughed.
‘It’s true!’
‘I’m sure it is inside your head. Look,’ he said, pointing. ‘See the way the coastline curves around? And that little bit poking out?’ At Molver’s nod he said, ‘That’s where we’re heading. That’s my home.’
‘When will you help me find my home?’
‘When you tell me the truth.’
Molver was silent. ‘You won’t like me when you know the truth.’
‘I don’t like you now!’
‘I like you. They feared you on the ship, because of your face, I thought. It scared me. I thought you were a monster.’
‘So you do know me!’
Molver was unabashed. ‘Of course. I was told to stay away from you.’
‘I don’t remember seeing you at all.’
‘Like I said, I was told to stay away.’
‘How many are there in your group?’
‘Not many. Not as many as there are in the valley. But we’re well protected. The wardens haven’t been able to get in.’
It sounded like he was warning Fly. ‘If I was to help you get home,’ Fly said, ‘do you know where it is?’
Molver sighed. ‘Not from here. I thought I had a bit of an idea when I saw the sea but not now. This is all different.’ His arm swept the ocean scenery. ‘I can’t see the mountains from here.’
‘But you can from your home?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you live by the sea?’
‘Yes.’
‘That gives us something to work on.’
The boy looked up at Fly’s words. ‘Will you help me?’
‘I can’t promise that. Not yet.’
‘When you’ve found whatever you’re looking for?’
Fly’s look was sharp. ‘What makes you think I’m looking for something?’
Molver didn’t properly answer. All he said was, ‘I guess we’re both looking for something.’
Chapter Twenty Nine
Jenny lined Diana’s harness with the net and transferred the food and water she’d taken from home into it. She also packed in the cartons of inflammable liquid and Fly’s explosives. She’d wound rope around her waist, and feeling like a soldier of war, hung her sword from it. Outside, the honnards were bundling her arrows together with rope and swinging them up on their backs, then looping the bows over their shoulders.
There was an excitement in the camp and it bubbled in nerves in Jenny’s stomach. She dropped her gaze to Diana, asleep in her nest of fur next to her honnard brother. Melinda next to them; watching over them protectively.
Jenny reached down and picked Diana up; breathing in her scent. She smelled of Melinda. Jenny cuddled her and sucked in a breath on a feeling of heartbreak. She was really going to do this. She was going to leave her baby in the care of honnards.
She couldn’t do it. It was a stupid thought. She’d take her with her.
Melinda chuffed as if reading her thoughts. If you die out there, then she dies. If you die out there while she’s here with me, then she lives and has a chance. She held out her hands for Diana.
Jenny and honnard stared at one another. Yellow eyes on green. Then Jenny pressed a kiss on the
top of Diana’s downy head.
‘I can’t take you with me,’ she said against the baby’s head. ‘It’s too dangerous.’ The baby grunted, opened her mouth and yawned. Melinda chuffed quietly. Jenny looked at her. She chuffed again.
I’ll look after Diana.
‘I know you will.’ She looked down at Diana as the honnards outside began to move out of the camp. She could see Bo looking at the cave’s entrance where, inside, her heart was breaking.
You’ll hold the others up with your two-hourly feeds.
‘I must be mad.’
Sensible. Not mad.
Bo howled. He was calling her.
Trying not to think too hard, Jenny placed the baby into Melinda’s arms. The cavewoman cuddled her and made soft sounds.
‘If I don’t come back…’ she began, but tears blocked the words in her throat and she didn’t finish. She left the cave before she could change her mind and stood amidst a group of prehistoric men who looked as fierce as they smelled. She didn’t glance back. If she did she’d change her mind and she had to do this.
Bo solemnly handed her a spear.
‘Chuff-chuff, Chi-Chi, Ji-ji, fari, huff,’ he said.
We’re now husband and wife.
Jenny took the spear. What was she doing! She couldn’t leave Diana! She couldn’t!
A crowd of honnards surged forward, and Jenny was forced out of the settlement: a slight figure amongst stocky, hairy ones. There was a lot of ego-boosting howling, only it didn’t boost Jenny’s. The jungle was dark and boggy, and in single file, they walked, with Zack at the helm, through the dense trees.
‘Chi-Chi, chuff, fari,’ said Bo. He was looking at her with such wisdom in his yellow eyes that Jenny almost believed he understood her heartbreak.
She passed the abandoned buggy in a blur of unshed tears. Jenny couldn’t think about what she was doing, or even if she was doing the right thing. Already too much had happened. She’d been evicted from her home, lost her husband and given birth all in the space of a few days—and now she’d left her baby behind. She couldn’t think about it. Just carried on. One foot in front of the other.