You dare challenge Sthenn?
The stranger shrugged. “I know your master well. He can seek me any time he chooses, but he won’t. He’s a coward. He prefers to use vermin like you, you ‘yevi’ —” he nodded at Amero in acknowledgment for the name – “to accomplish what he wants.”
The gray beast let loose a guttural yelp. And what will you do, mighty one? Take up humans as your favored pets?
“They’re too frail and stupid to make good pets, but I won’t have you randomly butchering creatures on my land, either. Go and tell your master what I’ve said.”
He turned his back on the yevi and started to walk away. Amero pulled himself to his feet, intending to follow the man, but the yevi sprang for the boy’s throat. It never made it. There was a brilliant flash, the smell of singed flesh, and the yevi was blasted to scorched bits.
Amero rubbed his eyes, and his vision quickly returned. “You destroyed it!” he said, agog.
“I should have known a creature like that could not be trusted. Well, when none of the pack returns, my message will be just as clear.”
He walked carelessly away, Amero limping at his heels. “You never told me your name,” the boy said. There was no response, so Amero added, “I have no family, no one. Can I go with you? I can... I can serve you.”
The boy limped faster, hissing in pain each time his injured leg touched the ground. Desperate, he began listing his accomplishments. “I can fish, gather berries and roots, make snares, skin rabbits, knap flint, and... and if this Sthenn comes looking for you, I can guard your back.”
At the mention of the name, the stranger whirled and seized the boy with both hands. An image flickered through Amero’s mind, an impression of vast size and enormous power. A light seemed to glow from within the man’s oddly colored eyes, and Amero feared he was about to be roasted like the last yevi.
“Where did you hear that name?” the man demanded.
“The beast spoke it,” Amero replied in a strangled voice. The man’s grip was painful.
His blue eyes narrowed. “You understood what the beasts said?”
“Yes. They spoke to me yesterday, trying to lure me out of my tree —”
“Tell me what else it said!”
The boy hastily recounted the exchange he’d just heard between the yevi and the stranger. When he was done, the man released him. Fear and exhaustion robbed Amero completely of strength. He sank to the grass.
“Now that’s... interesting,” was all the stranger said.
“What will you do with me, spirit-man?” he said weakly.
His rescuer seemed lost in thought, but finally said, “Duranix.”
“What?” asked Amero.
“My name is Duranix, and no, I won’t kill you. In fact, you may follow me.” It didn’t sound like a request. Duranix strode away, due east toward the distant mountains. A little stunned, Amero hobbled after him.
“Where are you going, Duranix?”
“Home.”
“What’s home?”
Duranix glanced back. “A place to live. Where one sleeps at night. Where is your home, Amero?”
“I have no home.” Amero swallowed a lump in his throat and looked down at his scraped, dirty feet. He would not cry. He was a man, and men did not cry. Oto never did. “We make a new camp every night. If you stay in one place too long, you go hungry. All the food gets eaten or runs away.”
“I see what you mean. I too travel a lot, but I always return to my home.”
In spite of his grief, Amero felt a stirring of curiosity. Lifting his tear-stained face, he said, “Where’s home?”
“Where the mountains meet the plain and a river breaks on a high cliff, that is home.”
“Oh, a waterfall. How large is it? What is it called?”
Duranix smiled. “Just ‘home.’ What would you call it, Amero?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to see it – but I could make up a name for it, if you want.”
“No doubt you would. Humans name things the way bees work a field of cornflowers. Here’s one, here’s another, here’s ten more.”
Heart singing with hope, Amero pushed himself to his feet. He took a step, then the sky seemed to spin around his head. The ground rushed up to meet him and he knew no more.
Duranix looked down at the unconscious boy for a moment, then effortlessly plucked him off the ground with one hand and tucked him under his arm.
“How can you understand the beasts?” Duranix said to the unconscious boy. “Why did I hear your thoughts of pain?” He answered himself. “Time will tell. Sleep now, boy. When you wake, we shall be home.”
Chapter 3
Nianki awoke in stifling darkness. Memory of the previous day’s terror returned. After slaying the last of the beasts stalking her, she’d crawled to the foot of the boulder and burrowed into the loose sand of the dry creek bed. Handful by handful she’d hollowed out a hiding place, and while the red moon still blazed like an ember in the sky, she crawled into her makeshift cave and slept like a dead person. The overhanging bulk of the boulder had warmed her during the night, but it must be daylight now – the sun-baked stone made the hole unbearable. Breaking through the thin wall of gravel and sand she’d erected to hide the opening, Nianki crawled into fresh air.
The gully was empty. The bodies of the beasts she’d slain were gone. Nianki tried to stand, but her wounds flamed with pain. Bracing herself against the boulder, she forced herself erect. This last movement drew her mouth open in a silent howl, but she did not allow herself to give voice to her torment. Even if the killer pack was no longer around, there were plenty of other scavengers who would find the injured Nianki a tasty morsel.
She found a length of dried vine to use as a crutch. It was as thick as her wrist and curled along its entire length, but it was stout. With its help she limped down the creek bed. A fallen tree blocked the way a few paces on. Nianki dragged herself over the obstruction and moved on, leaning heavily on her stick.
She knew her family was dead. If Oto were alive, he would have found her by now, and if he wasn’t, none of the others could be. Kinar, Amero, and Menni were not strong enough or swift enough to escape the deadly gray marauders.
So be it.
With each agonizing step, Nianki swore a private oath to Chisa, the great spirit of nature, that none of those creatures would be spared from her wrath – not male, female, or pup.
She would slay them all without mercy, until there were no more left to kill. It was an ugly, black vow, but it filled her with purpose and kept her moving forward.
Flies followed her, drawn by the smell of her wounds. Her tongue ached for water. The gully slanted down at a shallow angle, so she kept to the dry ravine in hopes of finding water.
Near midday the smell of water teased her nostrils. Nianki quickened her step, dragging her mangled leg through the loose gravel. Ahead, the gully was closed by a hedge of ferns and dense creeping vines. Now, she could hear the water as well. She tore through the greenery with stiff, bloody fingers and found a spring bubbling out of a split boulder. It collected in a moss-rimmed pool a hand’s reach below. Nianki wept at the sight of it.
She lowered herself on her belly beside the pool. Cupping her hands, she raised them brimming to her parched lips. Her first swallow tasted like blood, but she bolted it down nonetheless. Two more handfuls followed, the fourth she threw on her face. The clear pool grew murky. Exhausted, she let her face rest against the soft moss.
Kinar had tried to teach her which leaves and roots were soothing to wounds. Nianki had always been too impatient to heed her mother’s words. Only clumsy hunters allowed themselves to get wounded, she had thought. In fifteen years she’d suffered nothing worse than a few cuts and scratches. Now she worked her memory hard, trying to pry out the information Kinar had labored to impart.
Sumac soothes, larchit heals. The phrase surfaced in her fevered mind. Sumac was a woody shrub with pointed, shiny leaves, four leaves per stem. Larchit, also
called soft-tongue, grew in dry places. Its leaves were like dark green, fleshy fingers. When cut, the leaves exuded a clear sap.
Nianki opened her eyes. Kinar’s words, Kinar’s voice, resounded in her head as clear as sunlight.
Silver algae from a fast-flowing stream is good for burns, she’d said. The meat of acorns, dried and ground to dust, will stop bleeding.
“Mother —”
Be still, Nianki, and listen. This is slippery gum, and this is koti weed.
Nianki pushed herself up on her hands, half-expecting to see Kinar standing over her, but she was alone by the pool.
Gingerly, she peeled off her dirty, blood-soaked buckskins and slowly bathed her wounds. Those on her leg and neck were the most severe. She dipped a scrap of hide in the water and squeezed out the excess, using the soft nap of the buckskin to scrub away the dried blood and encrusted dirt. It was agonizing. Nianki banished the urge to weep by concentrating on her task.
She shivered. It was natural enough, sitting there half-naked, washing in cold spring water, but the strange heat in her face told her this was more than a normal chill. She’d seen bull elks survive a panther’s mauling, only to succumb a few days later to wound fever. Oto’s own father died after being gored by a wild pig, though his wounds had not seemed severe.
Nianki knew there were herbs for fever, but she found it increasingly hard to remember what they were. Sumac and larchit were fixed in her mind like trail signs. Lose them, and she would be lost indeed.
When her cuts and bites were clean, she dressed in her damp skins. Though it was another hot day, Nianki trembled as she threaded the lacing of her kilt and tunic. She put a smooth pebble from the pool in her mouth. Sucking on it would slake her thirst. Leaning heavily on her vine staff, she climbed out of the gully and surveyed her surroundings.
Their scattered, frantic flight from the pack had taken Nianki’s family far off their usual track. She could see the eastern mountains clearly enough, but the peaks presented an unfamiliar pattern. To the north and south lay trackless plain, as far as the eye could behold and well beyond. Back to the west lay several days’ worth of grassland, and after that, the great forest.
Huge clouds filled the sky north and west, the flat undersides growing darker and darker as more clouds piled up. Having no desire to limp through the rain, she decided to head south, away from the coming storm.
More than dislike of rain turned her feet south. Kinar came from there. Her people followed herds of wild oxen as they grazed northward in winter and south in summer. They lived in bands of twelve or more, often unrelated by blood. If anyone would be disposed to tolerate a lone hunter like Nianki, it would be the ox herders.
*
With her back to it, Nianki felt the storm coming before she heard the first thunderclap. The air was oppressive, and the dry heat of a typical late spring day was replaced by sullen humidity. Limping along with her arms full of sumac and larchit leaves, she took shelter under an aged cedar. After wedging herself into a crevice in the split trunk, she began to treat her wounds. Sumac had to be pulped before it was applied, so as the storm overtook her she methodically chewed sumac leaves, pressing the resulting spicy-smelling paste to her tom flesh. Chewing also kept her teeth from chattering. Fever burned deep within her breast. It was a cold fire, like Soli, the white moon.
When her neck was covered in sumac paste, Nianki broke a larchit stem and smeared the clear sap on her leg wound. It stung, but not as badly as washing it had.
In the distance, she saw the rain begin as a wall of mist sweeping across the savanna. Lightning crackled in the clouds, sometimes breaking out and striking the parched earth. Deer and birds fled before the storm. The sight of so much game made Nianki’s empty stomach growl. She chewed more sumac, which was oily and pungent; it dampened her desire for food.
The sighing wind rose to a drone as the storm came closer. Whirlwinds of dust danced by, chased by an army of errant leaves. Nianki flinched as a bolt of blue-white lightning stabbed the ground a few hundred paces away. Dry grass flashed into fire, only to be doused by the ensuing downpour.
The rain finally reached her, and she huddled deeper into the cleft of the tree. Rain raked over her, the cold droplets feeling like a lash of thorns. Nianki threw her good arm across her face to shield it from the driving spray. As she peered over her own elbow at the storm, she heard the drumming of massed hooves above the gusting wind. A herd of elk was stampeding. Her hunting instincts aroused, Nianki pushed herself up for a better view.
Elk were accustomed to thunderstorms – thunder alone wasn’t enough to send them trampling over the plain. Something else must have frightened them.
She saw no smoke. No grass fire could survive in the downpour anyway. Nianki braced herself against the tree and stared through the rain at the oncoming herd.
There! Topping a slight rise, a huge, winged shape came swooping after the terrified elk. Nianki gaped in wonder. Tapered, leathery wings rose in a high arc, the tips almost touching, and swept down again to brush the storm-tossed grass. The monster had a thick, streamlined body and a serpentine neck and tail. Its scaly hide had a shiny reddish-gold cast.
All she could think of was her father’s tales about “stormbirds,” huge flying creatures who lived in the sky and brought violent tempests in their wake. Nianki never imagined a monster like this could actually exist, much less fly with such speed and precision.
So rapt was her attention on the stormbird that she forgot the elk herd was bearing down on her. All of a sudden, a wall of brown bodies, antlers, and churning hooves came over the low hill just two hundred paces away – aiming straight at Nianki. There was no way she could outrun them, so she ducked behind the old cedar and fervently hoped the herd would split around this slight obstacle.
The stormbird opened is massive jaws, revealing fangs as long as Nianki’s forearm. Its snake-like eyes rolled back in its head.
A bolt of lightning erupted from its throat.
Stones and dirt flew, and the blast flung Nianki to the ground. She rolled over, expecting at any moment to be trampled by elk or seared by lightning. The ground heaved and shuddered for some moments, gradually settling down. Nianki raised her head.
The herd had split around the cedar tree and was rushing madly for the horizon. Charred carcasses littered the plain, and a smoking rent in the earth thirty paces long lay within spitting distance of Nianki’s tree.
Shaken, she hauled herself to her feet as the stormbird swept overhead. The air from its beating wings washed cold over her.
The monstrous snake-head darted down and snatched up one burned elk after another. It gulped the carcasses down amid a loud snapping of bones. Flapping its wings hard, the stormbird circled and gained height. Rain streamed down Nianki’s face as she watched it climb.
The monster glided in a wide half-circle, and for the first time noticed Nianki. Eyes the size of sunflowers peered down at her. She thought it would strike her with its lightning, but the monster held its turn and flapped away after the quickly disappearing herd. It looked back once, dropping its long neck in order to peer under its own wing.
Soaked to the skin and shivering, Nianki stood there long after the monster had vanished. The past few days had been a revelation. She who thought she knew so much about nature, about the world of the plains, had suffered two rude shocks. First, the pack of misshapen predators that had killed her family – now this! Had the world turned inside out? Were there spirits and monsters behind every tree, beyond every hill?
The smell of burned meat penetrated her reverie. She wandered among the charred remains of eight large animals, a head here, a haunch there. Hungry as she was, she couldn’t bring herself to take any of the stormbird’s leavings. She’d heard of people who burned their meat with fire, but the idea disgusted her. Meat should be eaten fresh or dried, not burned. Only scavengers ate charred food.
Yet, Nianki’s stomach writhed with hunger, sending shooting pains through her gut. Weak and
injured as she was, she couldn’t hunt her own game. She needed food to regain her strength – and there was food all around her, though blackened and smelling of fire. Swallowing hard, she slid to her knees beside a still smoking haunch.
Life’s a struggle, Oto always said. If you knock down an anthill every morning, the ants will build it back by evening. The ants had no choice, if they wanted to live, and neither did Nianki. She wrenched off the elk’s leg, hoping the flesh closer to bone might be less burned.
No luck. The lightning had blackened the poor beast right through to the marrow. Nianki sighed and chewed in silence as the rain continued to drench her and the dark, empty savanna.
*
She wandered south. Her fever got worse, and she lost track of the passage of time as she slept more by day and walked by night. Perhaps four days after seeing the stormbird – she couldn’t remember exactly how long it had been – Nianki found the cold remains of a hunter’s camp. They ate well, these hunters. She found the bones of a slaughtered pig, a pile of wild grape stems, and a broken birch-bark box that once held salmon jerky. She licked the grease from the bark box and gnawed the cast-off pig bones. It was her first food since the burned elk.
Barks and thin howls announced the arrival of a pack of wild dogs. Nianki feared the dogs more than she would a bear or big cat. Bigger predators were wary of humans and their cunning ways, but dogs were stupid and fearless.
She rooted in the debris left behind by the other hunters, thinking to find the boar’s leg bone or some other suitable club. She had better luck than she dared hope.
Tossed in the grass with the offal was a stone-headed spear. The shaft was broken midway, but the careless owner had thrown it away, flint head and all. Nianki held up the shortened spear and examined it by the failing light. The milky gray flint was finely knapped and quite sharp.
Just holding a spear, even a broken one, filled Nianki with new strength. When the dog pack’s scouts yelped close by, she howled back at them, daring them to attack. There followed only the sound of crickets, singing in the twilight. When she next heard the dogs they were farther away. For the first time in many days, Nianki smiled.
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