Fast, vigorous motion might have roused them initially, but it was the only recourse now. Kagur fumbled for her sword with numb fingers, yanked Eovath's dagger from its sheath with her off hand, and slashed and hacked as best she could with Holg's dead weight riding on her back.
Somehow, it was enough. After a moment, it became clear that once their jaws closed, the plants never willingly let go, but she managed to cut apart enough of them to pull free of the rest. She staggered back out of the thicket.
Voices rasped among the trees and tree-ferns, calling to one another. "Kagur!" Eovath rumbled.
Curse it, the hunters were catching up! And the thicket was no help, just one more obstacle stretched across her path!
Or was it?
The reptiles surely realized the crimson flowers were dangerous, and for that reason, they might assume no one would or could take refuge among them. Yet, maybe because they mainly ate the Vault's oversized flying insects, most of the double-lobed traps grew high on the stalk. So it was possible someone could hide in the thicket safely if he or she kept low.
Hating the deadness in her fingers that made every frantic action clumsy, Kagur laid Holg on the ground, pulled the amber bead fetish from around his neck, and swiped wet blood from his body. Then she scurried down the front of the thicket, flicked drops of blood on the ground, pressed a clear footprint in soft earth, and dropped the fetish at the end of the false trail.
Then, with the voices of her hunters growing still louder, still closer, she rushed back to Holg. She dropped to the ground, and, crawling, dragged the unconscious old man into the shadows at the bases of the stalks.
Not all the sweet-smelling crimson jaws grew too high to threaten her. Some coiled down to bite. She shifted away when possible, ripped them from the stem when necessary, and kept moving.
She hadn't penetrated nearly as far as she'd hoped to when something, pure instinct perhaps, told her to freeze. She did, and a moment later, Eovath and three of the reptile-men came into view and peered into the gap.
Despite the cover the plants afforded, Kagur found it all but impossible to believe her foster brother's yellow eyes didn't see her when only a few paces separated them and she could see him clearly. Still, lying absolutely still, she told herself he wouldn't. She and Holg were not going to die like this, with the giant unpunished and the Blacklions unavenged.
Maybe Gorum heard and approved of that silent vow, for Kagur turned out to be correct. From the left, where she'd left the false trail, a sibilant voice jabbered. Eovath and his companions turned and headed in that direction. Other reptile-men followed.
Kagur lay still for a while afterward, to make sure her foes were truly gone and simply to catch her breath. Finally, when the numbness in her hand was giving way to a painful jabbing, she hauled Holg back out into the open. The old man was still breathing, and as best she could judge, the bleeding had finally stopped. But he showed no signs of coming around.
Scowling, she hoisted him back onto her shoulders and marched in the opposite direction from Eovath and the reptile-men. When she thought she might have traveled far enough to avoid them henceforth, she turned her steps toward the section of the crags where Nesteruk had tried to steer her.
Arriving with the same startling swiftness as before, night interrupted her trek, and she realized she had no way of carrying Holg up a tree. She simply had to lay him on the ground and keep watch with her bow and sword ready, while great beasts snarled and roared in the dark. Fortunately, none of them happened her way, or if they did, she never spotted them, and they passed her by in favor of other prey.
In time, Holg started to whimper. She touched his brow and felt the fever burning in his skin. Without truly waking, he fumbled for her hand, called her Ulionestria, and insisted the solution to the riddle was in the items on the tabletop in the portrait.
Kagur resumed her march as soon as day returned. Though mottled pink and itchy, her sword hand was essentially well again, but her back ached from carrying her burden.
She happened on more of the tart yellow fruit and gobbled it as she trudged. Eating made her more alert despite her sleepless night.
Gradually—far too gradually to suit her—the ground rose, the vegetation grew sparser, and glimpses of giant reptiles became less frequent. Crags loomed before and then around her. If she peered, she thought she could even make out the spot where they became the cavern wall.
But she didn't sight any human beings, or even orcs. Maybe Holg had been wrong. Maybe no one lived up here.
Maybe. But she stumbled onward even after the way became steep and difficult, and pebbles pattered away beneath her feet. It was too late to try anywhere else. For good or ill, the highlands were the old man's only chance.
And finally, after both the yellow fruit and her water were long gone, when her throat felt full of dust and the ache in her back had spread to torture her hips and knees as well, two figures rose up from behind the rock formation above her. Unfortunately, they were hefting javelins.
Chapter Twenty
The Dragonfly Tribe
Kagur had struggled so long and hard to reach this place that the threat of the javelins enraged her. And the warriors who held them were just a few strides away. She could drop Holg, rush them, subdue them, and force them to help.
Then she scowled as she realized exhaustion, desperation, and perhaps her own warrior instincts had her thinking like a fool. Even if she did win the skirmish she'd just envisioned and took the sentries captive, it would still be unlikely she could coerce help from their entire tribe. She had to put aside the lessons of a journey where she'd met nothing but enemies, man-eating beasts, and outright horrors, and comport herself with the courtesy she would have shown to other Kellids at an assembly of the following.
She raised her hands in what she hoped anyone would recognize as a sign of peace. No javelins flew down at her in response. So far, so good.
Next, she laid Holg down and set her longbow beside him. Even if the sentries didn't understand what it was, they might take it for a fighting staff like the shaman's. She took off her baldric and quiver and set down the rest of her weapons as well, even Eovath's dagger.
She waved at the unconscious man and her bow and blades, then held out both hands palms up in a gesture of beseeching. Since she was sure the sentries wouldn't understand the language of her people, it was all she could do.
The sentries spoke back and forth. Then they came down the trail. They still held their javelins in such a way that they could throw or jab in an instant if need be, but if Kagur was reading their expressions and body language correctly, they didn't truly expect or want a fight.
Their hide garments were as crude and scanty as Nesteruk's kilt, and like his knife, the tips of their weapons were made of flint. Still, now that Kagur was seeing them up close, she was surprised at the degree to which they resembled her own people. They were broad-shouldered and muscular, and like most any Kellid warrior worthy of the name, bore their share of scars, which their near nakedness displayed to good advantage. That skin was deeply tanned, and their hair, worn long and loose, was black and straight.
The two men took a closer look at Kagur, Holg, and the weapons on the ground. Then the older one spoke to her.
She shook her head and answered, "I don't understand. But you see the old man's hurt. He needs your healer."
The sentries conferred briefly. Then the older man gave his javelin to the younger and hoisted Holg in his arms. He started back up the trail, and his fellow tribesman motioned for Kagur to follow.
Since the sentries hadn't confiscated her weapons, Kagur inferred that they'd decided she could be allowed to keep them. Moving slowly in case she was mistaken, she picked up her gear and tramped upward. It was a relief not to have Holg's weight draped across her shoulders anymore, but not enough of one to put an end to all her aches and pains.
At the top of the trail, where crags rose in a semicircle around a broad, flat space and the mouths of cav
es opened in the rock, was the habitation she'd been seeking. A squatting craftsman chipped away at a piece of flint, a half-grown girl cranked the spit roasting a lizard the size of a boar, and two other youngsters wrestled while their friends looked on. But everyone stopped what they were doing to gape at Kagur, Holg, and their escorts.
The older sentry shouted something that was presumably an explanation, reassurance, or both. Then he headed for a cave mouth on the left.
Enough sunlight spilled through the opening to reveal the abundance of drawings rendered in reddish brown, ochre, and white pigment on the walls inside. Kagur noticed hunting scenes and the image of a dragonfly repeated over and over again. Maybe it was the emblem of the tribe.
The older sentry called out, and a stooped, gray-haired woman emerged from the darkness farther back in the cave. Like Holg, she wore fetishes dangling from her neck. She also had dragonflies painted above each eye and on the backs of her hands.
She and the warriors conferred, and the man carrying Holg set him on a pallet made of dry grass with hide spread on top. Then the Dragonfly shaman set to work.
Kneeling beside Holg, her upper body rocking back and forth, she chanted with her painted hands upraised. At the end of every prayer, she pressed them against the old man's body. Although it wasn't always easy to tell beneath the crusts of dried blood, the old man's wounds shrank and puckered, some healing entirely and leaving only scars behind.
Finally, the gray-haired woman stopped rocking and chanting and took a deep breath. Kagur stooped and touched Holg's forehead. He didn't feel hot anymore.
But he wasn't waking up, either.
Kagur looked at the gray-haired woman. "Will he live?" she asked, only remembering as the last word left her lips that she and the healer didn't speak the same language.
But the wise woman seemed to guess what Kagur was saying. She pinched a wisp of Holg's white hair between her thumb and forefinger to call attention to it.
Kagur could interpret that easily enough: Holg was an old man. He'd pushed himself hard ever since leaving the camp of the Fivespears, and now he'd taken grievous wounds. The Dragonfly shaman had done everything she could to help him, but only time would tell if it had been enough.
Kagur nodded, and the wise woman spoke to the sentries, who waved for their guest to accompany them back out of the cave. Kagur was reluctant to leave Holg, but neither did she wish to refuse her hosts, and there was nothing more she could do for the old man anyway.
The sentries conducted her to a place where water hissed down the face of a cliff to form a pool, the runoff from which then spilled away to fill a second one lower down. The warriors cupped their hands in the liquid and drank as a way of inviting her to do the same.
She did. The water was cold, tasted of iron, and so eased her parched body that she shivered.
When she'd drunk her fill, the men took her to the lower pool. There, they washed their hands, then mimed the act of scrubbing all over their bodies.
Kagur hesitated to lay her weapons and even her armor and clothing aside. But the cave dwellers had induced her to divest herself of her bow and sword once already and hadn't taken advantage of the opportunity to harm her.
So once again, she did as they'd suggested, and found it refreshing to scrub away gore, sweat, and the grime of her long, hard trek. Although it was somewhat disconcerting when people gathered to gawk at her.
At first, she had no idea why she was even more of a curiosity naked than when wearing what must to them be exotic clothing. Then she realized the sun of the Vault had bronzed the spectators all over their bodies, whereas she was pale where the sun of the tundra had seldom touched. She must seem a strange piebald creature in their eyes.
But at least they weren't laughing or jeering, and she tolerated their scrutiny as best she could. She did her best to rinse the filth from her clothing, too, and then, seeing little alternative, wrung it out and put it back on damp.
Afterward, some of the cave dwellers brought her lizard meat, mushrooms, and slices of orange melon. She made herself nod in acknowledgment before wolfing down each successive portion of her meal.
When she finished eating, the sentries led her back to the Dragonfly shaman's cave. She gathered they were indicating she was welcome to stay in the same place as Holg if she wished.
She settled herself near the old man's pallet. Farther back in the gloom, the Dragonfly healer muttered to herself and burned something that produced drifting coils of acrid smoke.
Eventually, night seized the Vault in its grip, turning the whole cave black as ink. Sometime after that, Kagur slept and dreamed of Eovath. The giant laughed and laughed at her failure to destroy him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Flint and Feathers
When Kagur woke, the sun was shining in the mouth of the cave, and the Dragonfly healer was washing the blood and dirt off Holg's face with a hunk of gray fungus that held water like cloth. She dunked it in a big gourd whenever it dried out.
"How is he?" Kagur asked.
As before, the wise woman seemed to understand the question. But her only answer was a shrug.
Kagur sighed, reached for her coat of reinforced leather, and then realized that, after all the weeks—or had it even been months?—of marching, she'd finally come to a place where she didn't need it. She still hung her baldric over her shoulder, but left the armor, longbow, and quiver where they sat.
When she exited the cave, people hurried to bring her breakfast. Before, she'd discerned a resemblance between these folk and her own people. Plainly, both groups deemed hospitality sacred.
In fact, as she looked around at men chaffing each other as they set forth to hunt, a mother holding and crooning to a crying baby, and a gangly youth scurrying toward a pretty girl with a snub-nosed impish face just emerging from a cave, nearly everything seemed familiar in its essence. For a moment, she felt bitter grief and longing.
Then those feelings warped into an anger partly directed at herself. She didn't understand why, but neither did she question it. Anger was easier to bear.
She didn't belong here. She should be out hunting Eovath. It was maddening to know she'd been one instant away from shooting him when the winged reptiles hurtled down.
Yet she couldn't just wander off and abandon Holg. She was stuck here, no matter how it galled her.
So, frustrated, full of restless energy, she prowled aimlessly about until she spied the worker in flint she'd noticed the previous day.
He was a man of about her father's age, with pale blue eyes, a humorous cast to his expression, and a twisted leg with old scars creasing it from thigh to ankle. Today, he sat chipping away at a spearhead while a boy who resembled him carved the length of wood likely intended for the shaft.
Kagur decided that perhaps she didn't have to stand idle with worry and impatience gnawing at her. Maybe she could occupy herself with a task that would ultimately help her kill Eovath.
She hurried back to the healer's tent and grabbed her bow and quiver. Then she approached the craftsman and his son. The worker looked up and smiled. Intrigued, other villagers paused to watch and find out what Kagur intended.
She pointed to herself and said her name.
The lame man pointed to himself and said, "Denda." He indicated his son. "Bok."
Kagur drew one of the remaining arrows from her quiver and proffered it for his inspection. The steel head gleamed in the sunlight.
A couple people cried out. Others stepped back or reached for the knives in their kilts.
Apparently, the Dragonfly tribe knew of Eovath and his metal axe. And they didn't like the giant any better than did Nesteruk and his tribe or orcs.
Kagur dropped the arrow, put her hand on top of her scalp, raised it to the sky to suggest someone inhumanly tall, and then violently shook her head. She mimed the act of chopping with an axe and shook it again.
It seemed a wretchedly crude and inadequate way of conveying that even though she too wielded steel weapon
s, she was no ally of Eovath's. But apparently the cave dwellers took her meaning, for they relaxed.
She cautiously picked up the arrow, indicated the tip, and then pointed to the spearhead. She curled her fingers in a beckoning gesture that she hoped communicated, give me, or, I need.
Denda snorted, gestured to the arrow, and then to the long, sturdy, finished spear leaning behind him. He was inviting her to compare what he considered the puny, useless article in her hand to a real weapon.
Kagur hated to lose one of her last steel-tipped arrows, but she needed to enlist Denda's cooperation. So she strung her bow, and, followed by the onlookers, walked the few paces to where level ground plunged away to become steep mountainside. She drew, sent the shaft arcing over the rocky slopes, and felt a pang of satisfaction when her audience exclaimed at how far it flew.
She walked back to Denda. He smiled thoughtfully, nodded, and picked through the pile of flints beside him until he found one small enough to make an arrowhead.
Kagur pulled another shaft from her quiver, showed it to Bok, and pointed to indicate the wood. She was trying to ask if he had anything suitable for carving into an arrow. But in so doing, she drew her own attention to what was on the end opposite the head, and then she felt like an idiot.
No bird sang or twittered in the Vault, nor were the creatures soaring high above the crags and tree-ferns actually avian. And if she couldn't procure feathers to fletch an arrow, she'd just wasted one for nothing.
But though Bok was looking at the arrow with interest, it wasn't the astonishment of someone who'd never seen feathers before, and that gave her hope. She touched her fingertip to a fletching and raised her eyebrows.
He nodded and pointed toward the lowlands. He seemed to be indicating that he and his father didn't have any feathers on hand, but that he knew where to get them.
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