Ye-ye-ye.
He stopped dead, his stick falling to the ground. It had been quiet so long that the distant call sounded like thunder. Amero knew all the songs, screams, and chatter of the plain. He’d never heard this noise before.
A hand fell on his shoulder. He jumped, alarmed. Oto could move like mist when he chose.
“Hear?” he whispered close to Amero’s ear. The boy nodded. “Stay,” hissed Oto and made a gesture behind his back. Nianki glided off to the right, into the sun-gilt grass.
Kinar and the baby stood close behind Amero. Menni knew enough to be quiet. He buried his face in his mother’s neck and clutched the panther talisman with dirty fingers.
Ye-ye-ye.
There was a scattering of dwarf elms about a hundred paces in front of Amero. The strange yelping came from there.
Oto angled off to the left, crouching, with his spear held high. He hadn’t gone a dozen steps before the sour smell of meat-eating predators reach his nostrils. Near, maybe fifty paces, and moving – moving to his right. The old hunter glanced in Nianki’s direction. She was just visible, walking upright through the dry weeds.
Nianki smelled nothing. The wind was on her right cheek, blowing toward Amero and Oto. She slipped the thong off her wrist so she could hurl her ax if necessary.
Something flickered through the grass ahead, a gray shape against the faded green of the dry foliage. She raised the ax and waited.
Ye-ye-ye.
Close – very close! Impatient, she charged forward, axe held high. She reached an area of trampled grass from which a trail led off to the left. Tufts of long gray hair stuck to the sharp grass. Nianki plucked a few and sniffed. Not wolf, not cat. What then?
Oto heard movement as well. He planted his left foot and hurled his spear at a target he sensed rather than saw. The keen flint head hit and buried itself solidly in something. He could see the spear shaft bob in tiny circles – his prey was still breathing.
He rushed forward, drawing his obsidian knife. As he parted the greenery, he saw a shaggy brown coat and a pair of stout yellow tusks. Wild boar? He’d speared a pig?
When he killed the great panther, Oto’s limbs had felt labored and slow, as if he were swimming in mud. Kills were like that sometimes. The spirit of a beast sometimes put a spell on the hunter to ward off a death-thrust, to spoil his aim. When Oto recognized the creature he’d killed was only a boar, the same sort of spell of slowness descended on him. Then he saw tooth marks on the snout and throat of the pig.
It had been dragged in front of him as a decoy. He’d wasted his cast on bait.
Fiery pain ripped into his leg. Oto’s lethargy vanished at the sight of his own blood coursing down his calf. Over his shoulder he could just make out a large gray beast, vaguely wolf-like in form, clamping onto his right leg. Oto roared in outrage and reached for his spear. Before his hand could close on the smooth wooden shaft another gray mass hurtled through the air and seized his wrist. Oto was jerked off his feet, falling facedown in the grass. Sharp fangs closed on his other arm, and he was dragged away, roots and rocks tearing at his face.
Oto’s cry spurred Nianki to a run. She tore through the grass toward her father. The hot odor of fresh blood filled the air. So too did the call ye-ye-ye, vented from a dozen or more beastly throats. Four-footed forms passed on either side of her. Nianki turned and brought her axe down on the hindquarters of a galloping animal. It shrieked and fell in the grass. She overran it and had to leap to avoid its snapping jaws.
“Yeee! Yeee!” it howled. Opening its long muzzle the wounded beast showed heavy, pointed teeth and a black tongue.
Bite this! she thought, whirling to hurl her ax at the creature’s head. There was a crunch of splintering bone, and the thing ceased howling.
There was no time to examine her kill. Nianki ran toward her father’s last shout. She found a dead boar with Oto’s spear in it. The grass was trampled flat all around and blood stained the leaves. There were signs something heavy had been dragged away.
A new scream – Kinar! The pack had doubled back!
Nianki jerked the spear from the pig’s carcass and ran toward her mother. She burst onto a horrible scene – Kinar and Amero back to back, Menni clutched tightly in his mother’s arms. Amero’s flimsy stick whipped in a desperate arc, holding off five shaggy gray monsters. They resembled wolves, having four legs, long canine snouts, pricked ears, and bushy tails, but there was something alien about their bodies. Their shoulders were massive and muscular, the forelegs too long, and all four paws gripped the earth like hands.
“Nianki! Help!” Amero cried. One of the animals had gotten hold of his stick. Two more took it in their teeth, and it was torn from his grasp.
Nianki speared the nearest beast through the throat. It screamed like a man, rolling and flailing in the dust. Another of the strange animals tried to seize the spear shaft in its jaws, but a blow from Nianki’s ax discouraged him.
“We’ve got to get away!” she gasped.
“Where?” her mother shrieked.
The only possible shelter in sight was the elm grove. “The trees! And pray to all the spirits these beasts can’t climb!”
Amero pushed his mother ahead, guarding her back. Nianki cut a path through the circling pack, jabbing at them with the bloody spear head. For several terrifying moments the creatures refused to yield. Then, without warning, they vanished into the untrampled grass. Panting heavily, Nianki urged her family on.
“Hurry! They’re not leaving – just regrouping!”
“Give me the baby,” Amero said to Kinar, pulling Menni away. The little boy cried furiously. “I can run faster with him than you can.”
Tears streaming down her face, Kinar agreed. The elm grove was sixty paces away. She forgot her sore feet and empty belly and ran for all she was worth. Despite his claim, she soon outstripped Amero. He called to Kinar, warning her not to get too far ahead. She paused, turned back to answer him, and was hit at the knees and neck by a pair of the gray predators. In an instant she was gone, dragged into the weeds.
“Mama! Mama!” Amero began the cry and Menni took it up. Raggedly, the older boy jogged to the spot where his mother had been. Another beast appeared in front of him. Amero recoiled, turning away to shield Menni. Instead of sharp fangs, he felt the shaft of his father’s spear scrape along his ribs as Nianki impaled the leaping beast.
“Mama!” he gasped, eyes wide with horror.
“I know,” said Nianki grimly. “Get Menni to the trees. Hurry!”
The first elm he reached was nothing more than a sapling, incapable of holding the toddler’s weight, much less his own. A larger specimen stood a few yards away The beasts were yelping behind him, and fear of them gave Amero strength. With Menni in his arms, he leaped up the trunk to the lowest branch. It cracked under the strain. He pushed Menni against the trunk and said, “Hold on there! Hold on hard!”
“Mama! Mama!” the child wailed, but he held on.
The broken branch giving way beneath him, Amero slid to the ground. Rough bark tore at his hands and knees. Menni clung to the trunk above him. Unless the pack could climb or leap, he was safe for now.
Amero spun around and saw Nianki fighting three of the creatures. They had surrounded her and now took turns darting in, trying to get their teeth in her. She crushed one’s skull with her axe, but she lost her grip on the weapon in the process. A fourth beast appeared and leaped at her exposed back. Down she went, and Oto’s spear flew away.
“Nianki!”
Amero took one step in her direction, but was promptly cut off by two of the animals. Their black lips curled, blood-flecked saliva drooled from their gaping mouths. Defenseless, Amero backed away. The closest empty tree was a good twenty paces behind him. If he turned his back, the beasts would be on him before he could make it that far.
“Ha!” he shouted, stamping his foot. “Go! Go!”
The nearer animal halted its advance and made its ye-ye call. Amero had the insa
ne idea the creature was laughing at him! He picked up a stone and hefted it significantly. The pair of predators spread apart. They were making it harder for him to hit them, Amero realized in astonishment. What sort of beasts were these, who showed such careful cunning?
“Ha!” he shouted again, and feigned throwing the stone. The nearer beast sprang aside. Once he was farther away, Amero threw the rock with all his might at the other. It struck the monster on the nose, and Amero took off running.
He tried not to hear the swish of long gray limbs in the grass behind him. He ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, his toes barely touching the ground. His goal was a stout gnarled tree, with a trunk as thick as his waist. A low branch beckoned as a handhold. Only five steps to go. Hot breath on his heels, the fetid smell of the creatures’ breath. Four steps. Something touched his buckskin-clad leg, and he put on a burst of speed he didn’t know he possessed. Three paces to go. Claws raked down his right leg, ripping his chaps, and grasped at his bare heel. Amero kicked free and coiled his legs to leap. One step. He launched himself at the branch and snagged it with both hands. Paws with sharp, grasping digits grabbed at his dangling legs. Amero swung his feet up and wrapped his legs around the tree. With a supreme heave, he rolled over on a stout branch less than two paces off the ground.
Panting, two of the pack circled beneath him, waiting to see if he would lose his grip and fall. When he didn’t, they trotted away, lolling tongues pink with clay dust. Amero heard Menni whimpering from his perch but the intervening trees blocked his view of the child. Once Amero managed to catch his breath, he climbed higher in the elm and searched for his mother, Oto, or Nianki. The air was still, and he could see nothing but grass.
*
After being knocked to the ground, Nianki had managed to gather her legs under her. Pain raced through her left forearm as the jaws of one of the creatures snapped shut there. Agony gave way to anger in an instant. Instead of trying to pry the animal’s mouth open, she resolved to cause it as much damage as possible. In short order she had gouged its eyes and kicked it repeatedly in the ribs. It slackened its bite, and only then did Nianki go for its jaws. She pried its long yellow fangs apart until its jaw snapped. Yelling at the top of her lungs, she grasped the monster by its hind feet and swung it in a wide circle, releasing the limp body, which tumbled into the tall grass.
Blood seeped steadily from deep wounds in her arm. Nianki held the injured limb tight to her chest and ran into the bush. She knew she had no hope of outrunning the pack, but she had killed several, and others had gone off in pursuit of Amero and the baby. If there were just one or two left, she might be able to turn the tables on them.
Her vision blurred. The hammering pain in her arm was spreading. Staggering with effort, Nianki skidded down a slight draw. In the rainy season there was a swift stream at the bottom of this hill. At this time of year it would be a dry wash, but where water passed, there would be rocks, and rocks were the tools Nianki needed.
She slammed into the thin trunk of a weeping willow and clung to it, gasping. She could hear animals crashing through the underbrush on both sides of the ravine. Were there two of them? More?
She slid off the tree trunk and pressed onward. A soft sand bank gave way to a bed of pebbles. Several boulders, washed smooth by the brook, rose from the dry stream bed. Nianki found two fist-sized stones, and with one in each hand, climbed atop the biggest boulder. She had hardly reached its summit before the beasts came yelping through the bush, their strange cry echoing in the still, hot air. There were three.
“Come!” Nianki yelled, forcing deep drafts of air into her aching chest. “I have stones enough for all of you!”
The monster on her left leaped. She brought both hands together and cracked the creature’s skull between the rocks. Its blood and saliva sprayed her face. As it fell heavily at her feet, its claws and teeth tore the tough buckskin of her shirt. The beast rolled off the boulder and fell lifeless to the stream bed.
A second animal approached more stealthily and succeeded in biting her on the back of her right thigh. Nianki screamed in pain and pounded her attacker’s jaws. Each strike cost it teeth, and the monster let go before she crushed its skull as she had the others. Nianki lost her footing – the boulder was slick with blood – and fell on her back. For a moment, all she saw was bright blue sky. The click of claws on rock followed, and the third animal seized her by the throat.
The beaded collar of her shirt saved her from death. The beast’s fangs could not penetrate completely the closely studded bear-tooth beadwork. Nianki pulled a knee up and tried to lever the creature off, but it gripped her shoulders tightly with its fingerlike claws.
She could feel her pulse thundering in her head and knew she was bleeding from the throat. Her left hand opened, releasing a rock. She had no strength left to hold it. With all the life that remained in her body, Nianki brought the stone in her right hand down on her attacker’s forehead. The savage creature’s response was to tighten the grip on her neck. Fangs penetrated her flesh more deeply. She hit the beast again, and was about to try one last time when she felt the animal stiffen and shudder.
Nianki pried the jaws apart and let the furry gray body fall to the side. She tried to rise, but her strength was spent. The world went dark before her eyes, and she collapsed across the smooth granite in a spreading pool of her own blood.
Chapter 2
For many hours Amero remained in the top of the elm tree, his back braced against the knobby trunk. He’d heard shouts far away, but it had long since grown quiet all around him – quiet as death. Menni had cried weakly for while, and then he too fell silent.
Amero called now and then to his father, his mother, and his sister, but no one answered. He was afraid to call Menni. The little boy might try to get down from the tree and come to him, and he had no doubt the killer pack was still out there in the grass, watching, lurking.
Finally, he had to give up shouting. His throat was too parched to continue. From his uncomfortable perch he took stock of the situation. He feared the worst. There was no escaping the fact that neither Oto nor Kinar would abandon their children if they were alive. They might have found some place to hold off the beasts, but this was the only grove of trees in the vicinity – hilltops or caves were in short supply on the savanna. The realization of their deaths made his eyes sting and his throat tighten. Amero scrubbed his smarting eyes. Not yet, not yet! His first task was to live. There would be time for grief later.
He had no food, no water, no weapons. His hands, knees, and feet were raw from falling and climbing. His right leg burned where the creature had raked it with its claws. His buckskin breeches hung in tatters. He pulled them off and draped them on the branch. It was cooler in his loincloth anyway. His life seemed to depend on how long he could remain in this tree. Without food and water, it wouldn’t be long.
The sun dipped below the horizon, and the first stars appeared in a flawless purple sky. Amero gazed at the emerging lights. His mother had told him about the stars – how they were the eyes of great spirits on the shore of heaven and how there were patterns in their arrangement. Her people had named these patterns. There was the Winged Serpent, symbol of the great spirit Pala, which stretched from one side of the sky to the other. Facing him across the vault of heaven was the stormbird, Matat. Kinar always called Matat “she,” and Pala “he,” though she never explained why.
Amero yawned. He had to keep alert. To occupy his mind, he tried to recall the names of the other constellations, but none came to him. Failing that, he dredged up more of his mother’s stories. His favorites by far were the tales of far-off places and things seen by Kinar’s father, Jovic. Jovic had witnessed and done amazing things, things the boy Amero always wished he might do some day.
His eyelids closed, his head slowly coming to rest on the branch.
“Long before I was born,” Kinar always began, “my father Jovic traveled to the mountains far to the west. There he saw heaps of stone
shaped into blocks with even sides. The blocks were so big Jovic realized whoever shaped them must have been giants, at least three times the height of normal men.”
Amero smiled sleepily at the memory. The giants grew with every telling of the story.
“Jovic saw strange markings on one block, pictures carved and colored,” continued Kinar. “The pictures were of faces like his own, but unlike too. The stone faces were painted blue, and the hair on the faces’ heads was white as snow.”
Amero’s eyes snapped open. His injured right leg had slid off the branch, jerking his body sideways. He drew it up quickly and shuddered. A leaping beast could have dragged him to the ground by that dangling limb.
Were the animals even still there? He strained his eyes in the darkness, gazing deep into the shadows for signs of the pack. The songs of night birds were a good sign the beasts had departed. Perhaps he could descend, backtrack to the stream, and fill his belly with cool, fresh water.
The sound of a dry twig snapping rang out. The birds ceased their rhythmic call.
“Oto?” he said in a loud whisper. “Is that you? Kinar? Nianki?”
“Oto?” replied a voice in the night. Amero gripped the tree harder. It was not a voice he knew.
“Who’s there?” he said more loudly.
“Who’s there?”
He’d once heard an echo-spirit in a canyon, but he’d never heard of one living on the plain. “Nianki, don’t jest with me,” he said uncertainly.
“Don’t jest with me.”
For a fleeting instant, Amero spotted a pair of glowing white eyes a dozen paces away. They were low to the ground and wide-set, just like the eyes of the killer pack animals.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
“Who’s there?” mocked the voice.
“I’ll not come down!”
“Come down. Come down.” From the shadows all around the tree, the two words were repeated, over and over. More eyes gleamed. Amero counted ten pairs in all.
Children of the Plains Page 2