“You must do better than that, brave Sorli, bold Sorli. You are strong enough to tell me what happened that day.”
“My tongue speaks truth, Armun. Kerrick spoke of things that must be done in that place. I understood little. The Sasku seemed to understand, they remained when we left. We all returned with Herilak. We had done what we had come to do. The trail back was long…”
Armun sat with head lowered for a moment, then rose and unlaced the entrances. “My thanks to Sorli for telling me of these things.”
He hesitated, but she remained in silence. There was nothing he could add. He hurried out into the growing darkness, glad to be free. Armun sealed the tent again, added wood to the fire and sat beside it.
Her face was grim with anger. How easily these brave hunters had turned their backs on Kerrick. They followed him in battle — then left him. If the Sasku had remained with him he must have asked the hunters to stay as well. And there must be something important in the murgu city, something so important that it had come between the two leaders. She would find out about it in good time. The winter would be over and in the spring Kerrick would return. That is what would happen in the spring.
Armun kept herself occupied so that the winter would go faster, so she would not miss Kerrick too much. Arnwheet was now in his second year and unhappy at the confines of the tent. Armun had cured and scraped the softest deerskins, shaped them, then sewn them into clothing for him with thin lengths of gut. While the other babies his age were still being carried on their mothers’ backs he played and rolled in the snow. As was the custom, the other babies were being nursed until they were four, even five years old. Arnwheet was almost weaned by his second year. Armun ignored the dark looks and shouted remarks of the women: she was well used to being an outcast. She knew that they were just jealous of her freedom and nursed only to prevent more pregnancies.
So while their babies dangled out of their carriers and gummed their knuckles, Arnwheet grew strong and straight and chewed the tough meat with his growing teeth.
On a sunny, cold day, with no hint of spring in the air, she walked away from the tents with little Arnwheet trotting to keep pace. She carried a spear always now when away from the sammads — and was suddenly glad that she had it with her. There was something up ahead, in among the trees, making a mewling sound. She pointed the spear and stood ready. Arnwheet clung to her leg in wide-eyed silence as she tried to make out what it was. It was then that she saw the footprints leading from the trail, human footprints. She lowered the spear and followed them, then pushed aside the snowy boughs that shielded the boy. He turned about; his snuffling died away as he scrubbed at his face that was streaked with tears and blood.
“I know you,” Armun said, reached down with her sleeve to wipe his cheeks. “You are from Herilak’s sammad. Your name is Harl?” The boy nodded, eyes brimming. “Did you not come to my fire one night with the story of the owl you had killed?”
When she said this he began wailing again, burying his head in his arms. Armun lifted him with kind hands and brushed the snow from his skins. “Come to my tent. You will have something warm to drink.”
The boy pulled back, reluctant to go, until Arnwheet trustingly took his hand. They went back to the tent this way, each holding one of Arnwheet’s hands. There Armun stirred sweet bark into warm water and gave it to Harl to drink. Arnwheet wanted some too, but spluttered over the strong flavor and let it dribble down his chin. After Armun had cleaned the blood from the boy’s face she sat back and pointed at the bruises. “Tell me about these,” she said.
She listened in silence, Arnwheet falling asleep on her lap, and soon understood why the boy had cried when she had mentioned the owl.
“I did not know it was an owl. It was my first bow, my first arrow, my uncle, Nadris, he helped me to make it. The sammadar Kerrick said I did a good thing, for the creature that I killed was not a real owl but a murgu owl and it was right to kill it. That was then, but now the alladjex has said that it was wrong. That killing an owl is wrong. He has told my father that and now my father beats me and won’t let me sit by the fire when it is cold.”
The boy sobbed again at the thought. Armun reached carefully for the ekkotaz so she would not wake the sleeping infant, then gave Harl a handful of the sweet berry and nut paste. He wolfed it down hungrily.
“What you did was correct,” she said. “Old Fraken is wrong about this. The margalus Kerrick knows about murgu, knew that this was a murgu owl, knew that you did the right thing in killing it. Now go back to your tent, tell your father what I have said. What you did was a good thing.”
The wind was strengthening so she laced the tent flaps tight after the boy had gone. Old Fraken was wrong more often than right. Since her parents had died, since she had been alone, she had thought less and less of Fraken and his warnings and predictions from owl pellets. Kerrick had laughed at Fraken and his owl vomitings and had helped her lose her fear of the old man. He was stupid and foolish and caused trouble, like this thing with the boy.
Later that same night she awoke, her heart hammering with terror at a scratching on the outside of the tent. She groped for the spear in the darkness until she heard the voice calling her name. Then she blew on the fire until the coals glowed, added fresh wood and unlaced the flap. Harl pushed his bow and arrows in before him then crawled after them.
“He beat me,” he said, dry-eyed now. “My father beat me with my own bow when I told him what you had said. He did not want to hear it. He shouted that Kerrick knew all about murgu because he was half murgu himself…” His voice died away and he lowered his head. “Just like you, he said. Then he beat me again and I ran away.”
Armun burnt with anger; not for herself, she had heard worse insults. “Old Fraken could read the future better from murgu turds. And your father is as bad, listening to stupidities like that. Kerrick who saved the sammads, now he is away they are quick to forget. How old are you?”
“This is my eleventh winter.”
“Old enough to beat, too young to be a hunter and fight back. Lie there until morning, Harl, until your father wonders where you are and comes to find you. I’ll tell him about murgu!”
Armun went out in the morning and walked among the tents of sammads and listened to what the women were saying. There was concern over the missing boy and hunters were out looking for him. Good, she thought to herself, they only get fat lying around their tents and doing nothing. She waited until the sun was low on the horizon before she went out and stopped the first woman she met.
“Go to the tent of Nivoth, and tell him that the boy Harl has been found and he is in my tent. Hurry.”
As she expected the woman was not in that much of a hurry that she did not have time enough to stop along the way to tell others — which was what Armun had expected. She went back to her tent and stayed there until she heard her name being called. Then she went out and closed the flaps behind her.
Nivoth had a scar from an old wound on his cheek that pulled his mouth into a perpetual scowl; his temper matched his face.
“I have come for the boy,” he said rudely. Behind him the growing crowd listened with interest: it had been a long and boring winter.
“I am Armun and this is the tent of Kerrick. What is your name?”
“Move aside woman — I want that boy.”
“Will you beat him again? And did you say that Kerrick was half murgu?”
“He is all murgu for what I know. I’ll beat the boy rightly enough for carrying tales — and beat you too if you don’t stand aside.”
She did not move and he reached out and pushed her. This was a bad mistake. He should have remembered what happened when she was younger and they called her squirrel-face.
Her closed fist caught him squarely on the nose and he went over backward into the snow. When he struggled up to his knees, blood dripping from his chin, she hit him again in the same place. This was greatly appreciated by the crowd — and by Harl who was peeking through a slitte
d opening in the tent.
Hunters do not strike women, other than their own women, so Nivoth was not certain what to do. Nor did he have much time to think about it. Armun was as big as he was — and stronger in her wrath. He fled beneath the hail of her blows. The crowd dispersed slowly regretting the end of the fascinating encounter.
It did end with that. Harl stayed on in her tent and no one came for him, nor was the matter discussed in Armun’s presence. Harl’s mother had died in the last hungry winter and his father seemed to care nothing of the boy. Armun was glad of his companionship and the whole matter rested there.
Spring was late, it was always late now, and when the ice finally cracked on the river and floated away in great floes Armun looked to the east for Kerrick. Each day it was harder and harder to control her impatience, and when the flowers were in full blossom she left Arnwheet playing on the river-bank with Harl and went to find Herilak. He sat in the sun before his tent, restringing his bow with fresh gut for the hunting they had all been awaiting. He only nodded when she spoke to him and did not look up from his work.
“Summer is here and Kerrick has not come.”
His only response was a grunt. She looked down at his bowed head and controlled her temper.
“This is now the time to travel. If he does not come to me I will go to him. I will ask some hunters to accompany me who know the track.”
There was still silence and she was about to speak again when Herilak lifted his face to her. “No,” he said. “There will be no hunters, you will not go. You are in my sammad and I forbid it. Now leave me.”
“I want to leave you,” she shouted. “Leave you, leave this sammad and go to the place where I belong. You will tell them…”
“I will tell you just once more to leave,” he said, standing and towering over her. This was not Nivoth. She could not strike Herilak — nor would he listen to her. There was nothing more to be said. She turned on her heel and left him and went to the river, sat and watched the boys playing and rolling in the new grass. She could expect no help from Herilak, the opposite if anything. Then who could she turn to? There was only one she could think of. She went to his tent and found him alone and called the hunter away from the fire.
“You are Ortnar and are the only one still alive from the first sammad of Herilak, you who were of that sammad before it was killed by the murgu.”
He nodded agreement, wondering why she was here.
“It was Kerrick who freed your sammadar when the murgu captured him, Kerrick who led us all south when there was no food, who led the attack on the murgu.”
“I know these things, Armun. Why do you tell me them now?”
“Then you also know that Kerrick remains in the south and I would be with him. Take me to him. You are his friend.”
“I am his friend.” Ortnar looked around, then sighed heavily. “But I cannot help you. Herilak has spoken to us of this and has said that you will not go.”
Armun looked at him with disbelief. “Are you a little boy who pisses in his skins when Herilak talks? Or are you a hunter who is Tanu and does as he himself sees fit?”
Ortnar ignored the insult, waving it away with a slice of his hand. “I am a hunter. Yet there is still the bond of the dead sammad between Herilak and myself — and that cannot be broken. Neither will I go against Kerrick who was our margalus when we needed him.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I will help you, if you are strong enough.”
“I am strong, Ortnar. So tell me what this help is that will need my strength.”
“You know how to make the death-stick kill murgu, I have seen you use one when we were attacked. You will have my death-stick. And I will tell you the way to the murgu city. It is an easy track to follow after you have reached the ocean. When you get to the shore, you must decide then what you will do next. You can wait at that place until Kerrick returns. Or you can go to him.”
Armun smiled — then laughed aloud. “You will send me alone into the land of the murgu! That is a wonderful offer — but still better than any other I have received. I am strong enough to do that, brave Ortnar, and I believe that you are also very brave to risk Herilak’s wrath in this manner, because he is sure to find out what has happened.”
“I will tell him myself,” Ortnar said with grim determination.
Armun left him then, but returned when it was dark to meet him and get the death-stick and all the darts that he had made that winter.
Because her tent was away from the others, and she did not move among the sammads very much, Armun’s tent was laced tight and silent for two days before it was discovered that she was gone.
After some days the hunters that Herilak had sent out to find her returned empty-handed. Her woodcraft was too good; there was no trace of her to be found, no trace at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I have something to show you of great interest,” Kerrick said. The two Yilanè expressed concerned desire for new information, curiosity and gratitude, all without a sound as they chewed on the raw meat that Kerrick had brought them. “But to see it you are going to have to leave the hanalè.”
“Safety and warmth here, cold death there,” Imehei said, shuddering delicately at the same time. He looked at the empty leaf and expressed a small desire-for-more-food which Kerrick ignored. Both males liked to overeat and had a tendency to add weight.
“There is nothing to be afraid of outside, I can assure you of that. Follow me and stay close.”
They followed him just as closely as they could, almost treading on his heels while they looked about them with frightened eyes. They communicated fear and unhappiness at all of the burnt areas, shuddered away in even greater fear from the hunters they passed, as well as showing loneliness at the sight of the empty city. Only when they were inside the place of the models did they begin to feel more secure.
The model of the city of Alpèasak — Kerrick always thought of it by that name, though aloud he called it Deifoben like the others — was a physical description only. All of the groves and fields were clearly marked, but no indication was given as to what they contained. Many of them Kerrick knew from his days in the city, almost all of the nearest ones. While the Sasku explored these, and marveled at their wonders, Kerrick wanted to see the parts of the city that had been grown since his departure. He pointed now to a series of canals and swamps.
“We are going here. Not a long way and the exercise will be good for you.”
Both males lost their fear as they went, reveling in their unaccustomed freedom, looking at parts of the city they had never known existed. Fields of grazing beasts and swamps and walled stands of jungle with even more animals, both native and imported. In the early afternoon they came to a dike-walled swamp that aroused Kerrick’s curiosity. A well-beaten track led along its base, then went up a ramp to the flattened top. From here they could look down into the reed-filled swamp below, on past the reeds to the small lake at the far end. Creatures of some kind stirred the reeds, but they could not make out what they were.
“Emptiness of interest, boredom of watching,” Imehei signed.
“Pleasure of companionship, warmth of sun,” Nadaske said, always the more genial of the pair. Kerrick ignored their communication because they seemed to do it most of the time, unlike the female Yilanè who talked only when there was something important they wanted to say. Yet Imehei was right; there was little of interest here. He turned about to leave when Nadaske called for attention and pointed down at the reeds.
“Movement of interest; some creature there.”
They watched as one of the reptiles emerged cautiously from the swamp’s edge. It was sinuous and snake-like, looking up at them with tiny eyes. Then there was another and still another. They must have been drawn by the forms outlined against the sky. Kerrick looked more closely now and saw the white bones at the swamp’s margin. Perhaps the reptiles were fed at this spot. He still could not identify them. With his heel he pried loose a s
tone and dropped it into the mud at the water’s edge. There was a wriggle of motion as the nearest animals slithered over to examine it, then retreated back into the shelter of the reeds. They had sinuous green bodies, snake-like except for their tiny legs, with small blunted heads. He was sure that he had never seen them before — yet they were strangely familiar.
“Do you recognize them?” he asked.
“Slimy, crawlies.”
“Not good to eat.”
The males were not of much help. Kerrick was about to leave, but turned about for a last look. Then he knew — without a doubt he knew what they were.
“We go back now,” he ordered, leading the way down the ramp.
After returning the males to the hanalè, Kerrick sought out the others. Sanone was there, and Kerrick hurried to him, cutting into the mandukto’s formal greetings.
“We must get meat at once, we can’t have any deaths. And they have gone many days at least without feeding.”
“I would aid you, Kerrick, if you would tell me what it is you talk about.”
“In my haste I cloud my meaning. I have found a pen, a bit of swamp, that has small murgu in it. We must feed them and look more closely, but I think I know what they are. The shape, the size is right. Immature hèsotsan. Death-sticks.”
Sanone shook his head in bewilderment. “Like much of what I see here in Deifoben, what you speak of is beyond my comprehension.”
“You can understand this. The murgu do not make things, the way we make bows — or looms for cloth. They grow creatures for their needs. The death-sticks are alive, as you must know since you have fed them yourself. But when they are young, they are as I saw them today, small creatures in a swamp. When they grow older they change into the death-sticks that we use.”
Sanone understood now and struck his fists together with pleasure. “Wise-beyond-your-years, Kerrick, you will be our salvation. These creatures you speak of will be fed, will grow and we will have all the weapons we will ever need to live in this murgu-filled world. Now we will bring them food and examine them more closely.”
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