“Then that is where we will look first.”
The journey was largely an uneventful one, though Horhon ordered everyone to be on their guard, for there was no telling what kind of danger they might find up ahead. Gangahar was looking about the field when he spotted a nentenen lying on its side in the grass.
It was dead.
As they circled the carcass Katakana noticed a repellent stink. She moved in closer and pointed out something very peculiar. “Look. This one has no wounds. It just died.”
Horhon bent toward the gigantic corpse and sniffed. “It has been dead for a while. More than a day.” Glancing skyward she noticed a flock of soros circling overhead. “Strange, they should have picked its bones clean by now.”
“Over here,” Gangahar shouted from across the field. “I found another one.”
This time it was a crested mullatod, its spotted hide torn open where some animal had fed on it; several soros lay sprawled on the ground nearby. Horhon looked up as Antayak came speeding in.
“There are more bodies at the river. Others are spread out on the field. They too are dead,” he informed them.
Gangahar grimly agreed. “So many animals dead. What could have killed them all?”
“Something. We must look closer.” Horhon was determined to resolve their ignorance surrounding this mystery. Seeing all these bodies made her want to find the answer all that much sooner because this awful thing might happen again. However the answer eluded her. She was greatly troubled by this fact, that what should have been easy to understand was not, and though the sun was now up high this whole affair was still a complete mystery.
“Whatever happened here is still happening. Look.” Katakana pointed to a soro that was flopping about in the grass, writhing in agony. She drew her claws and killed it quickly. “Two of our own hunters dead, others dead here. I fear there will be more death coming.”
“Then our lives depend on us finding the cause of it that much sooner. Now find me the answer,” Horhon told everyone urgently. “It must be here, somewhere.”
An animal track led straight down to the beach. There was a narrow strip of coarse sand running to the water’s edge, though the river itself was filled with larger stones that the breaking waves splashed over.
And something else was caught there.
Wading out into the white foaming water Horhon pushed the animal’s dead bulk over. A tarser. It had probably died somewhere upriver and the current carried it down here and washed it up onto the rocks. But what had killed it? She looked across the water and spotted another one beached further down. There were probably more bodies. She would never find out standing around here. Climbing back onto shore she shook herself dry and leapt away.
Gangahar was the first one to notice Horhon was missing. After a brief search he picked up her scent and tracked her to the river. There the trail ended. She must have crossed over because her tracks were nowhere in sight. Perhaps he should return to tell the others. The sun was hot on his face and he licked his dry teeth as he approached the water. As he was about to drink, something landed with a splash behind him. He felt a pair of strong hands tug on his tail and pull him forcefully backwards.
“What is the matter with you?” he snapped. “Let go of me!” Again he tried to wrench himself free yet Horhon still held fast to his tail.
“The water . . .” Her mouth gaped open, she was breathing that hard. “Don’t drink it!”
Though Gangahar was still angry his face had a puzzled expression. “Why not?”
“Because I found something. But first we must go back and tell the others.”
He was piqued for her not telling him now. Whatever it was she was going to show him had to wait until they returned to the others. Curiously, she also ordered them to not drink from the river. After a short while they came to a place where a small stream emptied into the larger river. Oddly, the thick shrubs and grass that grew along its banks were brown and shriveled up.
“Do you see this?” Horhon pointed.
He did. The water flowing out of here was thick and black and it smelled incredibly bad. Gangahar had to stand away and take a deep breath of air.
“Smells terrible,” he choked. “What is it?”
Instead of responding, she leapt away at a fast pace. Further upstream Gangahar finally caught up with her. That was when he noticed the odd-shaped rocks piled up on the bank behind her, yet after a closer inspection he realized that these in fact were not rocks at all, but something else. Several of them were broken open, their smelly contents drained dry, though many of the others were still leaking directly into the stream. Gangahar had a bad feeling when he saw that this was the spot from which the foul stench emanated.
“What is this strange place? And what is that spilling into the water?”
Finally Horhon spat with fury. “Poison!”
“So you believe this is what killed our hunters, also killed all those animals?” He took her grim silence for agreement. For a moment he glanced back at the heap of drums. Undoubtedly she was thinking the same thought. “I can think of only one place from where this might have come.”
“There is death in everything these Iranha do,” Horhon said bitterly. “It is not enough that they trap and kill us. Now they poison us with their garbage.”
“At least we know. No more of us shall die.”
“I fear there are other places like this one, and we shall see more deaths in the future.”
“So what now?”
“We return to tell the others. Come on,” she said. “I want to get out of this place immediately and never come back again.”
Chapter Eighteen
These past four days had been the longest in Ilon’s short life. Katakana told him he could have died, yet he never actually considered the possibility since most of that period was just a painful blur. While the illness was still with him, he was improving. Yesterday he was able to stand up. Today he could walk, though not very far, yet each time he went a little further he knew that he was getting stronger.
On the sixth day he managed to climb outside and hobble onto the field, though by the time he sat down in the grass he was so exhausted one of the hunters had to carry him home. After three more days he was close to normal. The only reminder of the past now was his interminable headache, but this too was starting to ebb.
Unfortunately Krugjon’s recovery came at a much slower pace, yet he was beginning to show some signs of improvement. His fever had broken and he was able to speak again. However his vision had not improved at all, and after waiting and hoping it would change, everyone in the trod knew this disability was a permanent one. He was blind and would never see again.
At first Krugjon refused to believe it. He swore it was just a temporary condition that would soon correct itself. Although this never happened he persevered, going outside every day to hunt. It had been days since he had eaten, but he was more stubborn than he was hungry. When Horhon insisted that he eat some of her food he hurled it to the ground and screamed that he would sooner die than eat something that he was unable to catch himself. It was insane for him to go on like this. Everyone in the trod could see he was wasting away, yet he was a hunter and could choose whatever he wanted. Any sort of discussion with him always ended in argument. He never listened, until the day he ran head-on into a tree and broke his arm. The pain was awful and the broken bones never set correctly. That was when he finally gave up trying. Now all he ever talked about was his death.
Out on the field the sky was beginning to cloud over and distant thunder was the first sign that rain was coming. Some of the hunters were already asleep inside their burrows before a heavy squall sent the others jumping in off the field. Katakana was the last. In her mouth was a bloody hunk of meat which she deposited on the floor and nudged it gingerly forward with her toe.
“This is for you. Just killed.”
Krugjon sniffed, then grudgingly accepted her offering only because he had no other choice. Making the slightest nod of gr
atitude he leaned forward and closed his jaws around the food, swallowing the meat whole.
Taking his eating as a sign of acceptance, Katakana mistakenly said, “You should come hunting with me tonight. I know a place where you can easily kill—”
“No!” His snarled response caused her to draw back; she would not ask him again. “I am useless to everyone, including myself. What good is a hunter if the only thing he can see is the darkness? It would be better if I were dead. I should have died with the other two,” he said bitterly. “Then I would not be such a burden to everyone.”
“The only burden is the invisible weight you put upon yourself. You are turning to skin and bones and will never get your strength back if all you ever do is sit around here. Instead you must adapt. You must find other ways to hunt.”
“I cannot do it!” Close to tears, his teeth clenched, so great were his emotions. “I am not a hunter anymore, will never be one again.”
Katakana turned away whenever he spoke like that. “I am going to sleep. This is now the time to think about tonight.”
As expected, when she rose later in the evening Krugjon remained in his burrow, though she never bothered to ask him because she knew the decision was made. Sure enough, when Horhon tried to rouse him she was sent away after he told her to leave him alone.
“He will surely die of unhappiness,” Horhon said to Katakana as she passed her in the tunnel.
“What can be done? He is a proud hunter who will never accept our help.”
“The Iranha are the real cause of it. This would never have happened had he not drank their poison. To see him this way now makes me hate them more than ever.”
“You must stop thinking so much of these Iranha,” Katakana scolded her.
“You are right. I should just stop. I should never think of them again. And while all those around me are falling into their hands I should be thinking of anything but that.”
“That is not what I meant,” she scowled.
“Do you understand what is happening? I know you must, but I feel as if I am the only one to keep them from being forgotten.”
“All your thinking and talking about them is starting to rot your brain, Horhon. To hate them as much as you do—and what has all of this accomplished? Are we any better off now?”
“If it is results you want then let us seek them out tonight.”
“You mean strike at them again, risk our lives. For what? To be chased away, even worse—killed. No, I choose to stay here.”
“And wait for them to come here to you?” Her anger was so great Horhon clenched her fists and shook them. “How can I make you understand that while we wait, while we do nothing, more hunters are being killed. Undoubtedly our turn is coming, unless . . .”
Katakana rolled her eyes, knew exactly what was to be said next. “Unless we listen to Ilon? He is too strange.”
“Maybe to you,” Horhon retorted with genuine pride in her voice. “Yet I see great things for him in the future.”
“I see him just as he is now. The same,” she added in the hopes of strengthening her argument. “It is hard to believe one like that can ever hope to accomplish so impossible a task, when we, strong hunters all, cannot face our enemy without dying.”
“They are not invincible. Even they can be killed. So like us they too must be vulnerable, must possess a weakness that can be exploited. Ilon knows of things that we cannot. If there is any way to wipe out the Iranha for good, he will find it.”
“Then he will search only to find what others have already found. Death.” Her next thought she spoke with a level of honesty that few other hunters would have admitted. “I think I would rather run away from them than decorate the floors of their city.”
What she said was not a good thing to say, though it was the truth and even Horhon herself was forced to acknowledge that she too, preferred this option. However, the situation and the circumstance were such that their only possible choices were to fight back, or face extinction. Horhon would have to convince her to fight, somehow.
“The time has come for us to leave.”
“But why?” Katakana protested. “The hunting is good here—and the Iranha are almost certainly everywhere else.”
“Is that all you want, to stay here and eat?” Appalled by Katakana’s hard-heartedness, Horhon’s sneered coldly. “Other trods are being destroyed. Can’t you understand that to survive, to have lasting peace, we must fight.”
“Then let the other trods come to us instead. I have no great wish to join your mission in death.”
“We have no choice. Wherever we go the Iranha will find us just as they did in the past. Found us, attacked us, and chased us. Twice we escaped. Only the next time we might not be so lucky.”
“I stay with you, Horhon, only because you are a proven leader. More than once you have guided our trod to safety. But Ilon . . . follow him . . .” Her deep voice trailed off to a low, steady hum. “I do not think so.”
“Like it or not, one day you will. We all will.”
“You can’t be so sure.”
“I can be. Was his birth not a sign to us all that someone or something knows of our plight? Why else do you suppose he is here among us when it is obvious he belongs on another world?”
Not all of her predictions were absolute, Katakana knew. In fact more often than not Horhon was wrong, or at least had given them information that any of the hunters could have figured out for themselves. All these seasons of waiting, hoping to see this bright future come about, only to see it worsen, discouraged her. But Ilon himself was proving to be the biggest disappointment of all. Saskakel was right. He was no Egris, nor was he any sort of decent hunter either. Yet Horhon was listening to him while ignoring the advice of her best hunters. Deep down Katakana secretly wondered how much longer she could bear listening to Horhon tell her about the future.
Not even once more, she was sure.
Chapter Nineteen
“What is that you are making?” At the end of her question Horhon leaned forward and waited expectantly.
“A spear,” Ilon replied.
Some of the others who were watching from nearby, saw what was going on and came over to get a closer look.
“What exactly is that?” Gangahar asked inquisitively.
He tried to explain, yet little of what he described made sense to his listeners. These were only vague impressions, old memories dredged up from his previous life, or it may well have been someone else’s past. However he did recall an image of fur clad hunters, though his own interpretation elicited snorts of laughter from the audience. Finally he gave up and said simply, “A thing of death.”
“Really? Let me see it.”
One by one they passed the sharpened stick around, until it reached Saskakel, who as usual saw only what he wanted to see and pronounced it worthless. “Better thrown onto your fire to burn. Then at least it would be good for something.”
Ilon would hear no more of his disaffection and took back the spear with a swing of his arm. “Just as you kill with your teeth and claws, I kill with this.”
“You kill?” The shock of hearing him speak about killing for the first time set Saskakel stumbling backwards. He expressed astonishment, disbelief. “You plan to kill—with that—your death spear?” His jaw was clenched so tight that it was all he could do to keep himself from bursting out laughing.
Insulted by Saskakel’s blunt remark, Ilon plunged the sharp tip of his spear deep into the ground. “Is that so hard to believe, that I can kill?”
“It is,” Katakana admitted reluctantly.
As he stared around at the silent faces he knew they were all thinking the same thought. These hunters took his day to day presence here very much for granted. In fact many in the trod were still as yet undecided about his status, though most actually considered him just a helpless thing that needed their protection. He stomped his foot to show the strength of his feelings. No more! All that changed now. The future would be very differen
t from the past. Yet he had no illusions about the future either.
“When I come back with blood on this, you will see that I can kill,” he told them all.
The next morning Antayak’s eyes were almost closed when Ilon poked his head through the opening of his burrow where he just had curled up to go to sleep.
“I’m going hunting.”
“Not this morning.” Antayak yawned. “So tired. We’ll hunt after the sun falls.”
The others were fast asleep in their burrows so Ilon slipped outside on his own, his spear at his side.
It was an excellent day for hunting. Already he had walked a good distance onto the field, never even once stopping to rest, and all the while his body dripping with sweat. Shielding his eyes from the sun he surveyed the shimmering territory ahead of him. Some sparsely planted grass ringed the sand dunes. Further to the west, where the hills flattened out, he could just make out the pointed, snow-capped teeth of a mountain range beyond. Snow. Ilon touched his forehead and wiped away the film of grime and sweat. He had forgotten what it was like to be cold, for he had lived all his life here, close to the desert. But being within sight of the mountains reminded him of his other life, when winter reached down into the valleys and hills, bringing with it fierce winter winds and blowing snow. It was a lifetime ago, yet he could almost smell the frigid wind right now, feel its icy blast shocking through him. Maybe he would go to those mountains and see, some day.
An animal trail crossed in front of him. The track was made by a creature he did not recognize, yet he could see where its claws dug into the sand. Ilon raised his spear. With much practice his aim was improving and he could now throw his spear and seldom miss its target. Yet he and his tiny spear were no match against a big meat eater, and so he steered clear of its spoor and headed north instead. Only later did he come upon the freshly butchered remains of a nentenen. An experienced stalker had killed it and would undoubtedly soon return. And these were the same tracks he had seen before. Ilon hurried away.
The Battle for Tomorrow (Ilon the Hunter) Page 15