The troupe had frozen in place again, but they still did not seem to attract the attention of the monsters. The creatures continued to drift lazily above. Several of them, however, were capable of very quick movement. When one of the mules brayed loudly out of sheer nervousness, the three turquoise-blue monsters currently above the road suddenly sprang into startled life and darted into the protection of the leaves so quickly Xylina could not believe it.
After more than a dozen of these monsters had passed by with no incident, Xylina relaxed. She was not surprised when, shortly after that, Ware started the column moving again.
The monsters continued to appear above them, and now that they were in motion, these strange creatures began to pay them a little more attention. It seemed to be completely benign, simply curious attention. The beasts drifted downward to hover over the road for a few moments, twisting to one side or another to peer down at them with a bright eye. After a time, their curiosity seemed to be satisfied, and they moved up and away again.
Perhaps the party did not look edible, Xylina thought. That was encouraging, actually.
More variations appeared: round creatures covered with spines, slender ones with huge, gauzy draperies trailing from them, flat ones with appendages like fans. All of them were brilliantly colored, and all of them showed either simple curiosity or complete indifference to the travelers.
Now Xylina caught sight of something new on the ground on either side of the road. These were enormous black mound-like objects, covered with spines as long as the wagons. At first, she thought that they were some kind of growths, like the spiny objects back in the “rock garden” area-but then she saw one moving.
It crawled like a snail, although she could see no way for it to do so, unless, perhaps, there were feet of some kind hidden under the bottom spines; the spines waved restlessly in all directions as it crawled, but it did not seem to see them-or, for that matter, to see anything at all. It bumped into the base of one of the plants even as she watched, and lurched its way around the plant by continuing to bump into it, before resuming its journey across open ground.
It finally came to rest just beside the road. Recalling the lesson of the purple “tree,” she was very loathe to take her men by it.
Fortunately, that was a decision she did not have to make. One of the yellow and red beasts drifted into view above, and turned to peer down at them. It saw the spine-creature-and its behavior changed completely. It turned from a graceful, gentle beast to a predatory killer.
It dived down out of the fronds, like a falcon stooping on prey. It attacked the spine-creature aggressively, biting at the spines and snapping them off. In a moment, it had been joined by three more of its kind that appeared as if by magic, and together they attacked the spine-creature without mercy, as it waved its spines at them in a futile gesture of self-defense. Soon they had denuded the entire top of the creature, and were attacking the outer skin of the beast. Once they had begun that part of their attack, it was soon over. The outer skin was broken, and the three monsters devoured the creature as quickly as a child would eat a sweet fruit, diving down to snatch away mouthfuls of flesh until there was nothing left but an empty shell and the broken spines. Then they transformed again into the peaceful creatures they had been. They rose into the tops of the leaves, and drifted away, sated and replete.
Cautiously, the caravan drew near the remains. It was hard to believe that such a large animal had been reduced to fragments so quickly. Hazard stepped forward to pick up one of the broken spines and hefted it in his hand, a thoughtful look upon his face.
The piece he held was as long as his arm, and ended in a wicked point. It was hollow, and Xylina wondered if a shaft could not be fitted to it, giving them a kind of spear. In the hands of a thinking creature it could be much more effective than it had been on its original owner.
Evidently Hazard had the same notion. “Our own weapons are the only ones of their kind, mistress,” he said to Xylina. “It would not be a bad thing if we could use these materials that we have at hand, and save our old weapons as much as we may. These, we could afford to lose, I think. They might make good arrows, or throwing spears.”
Xylina nodded. “Let us stop long enough to gather as many of these spines as we can,” she told the others, raising her voice so that it carried to the rest of the men. “Put them in the weapons-wagon; we can figure out what we can do with them when we stop for the night. Keep anything that looks useful-and take care with the points. They might be envenomed.”
Soon the poor creature had been completely denuded of its ineffective defenses, and the end of the wagon had been heaped with broken and whole spines. Only when they had gathered everything that looked worth salvaging did they move on.
But the attack on the spine-creature served to remind them that they were far more vulnerable than it had been, in many ways. They had been rather cavalier until now, since the floating monsters did not appear hostile. Now they were on the alert; ready in case the benign creatures suddenly decided theydid look edible.
And that proved to be their salvation.
The plants had begun to thin, but there were other things, neither plant nor animal, but an odd amalgam of both, taking their places. These were mound-like creatures covered with waving tentacles, about the size of the spine-creatures, but rooted to one spot. They seemed delicate, vulnerable, far more helpless than the spine-creatures. The tentacle-creatures were pastel in color rather than the bright colors of the floating monsters, and that reinforced their look of delicacy, but a quick demonstration proved that they were deadly.
One of the spine-creatures bumbled out into the open again, and the brightly colored floating monsters saw it. Several of them dived upon it to begin picking it apart, and one of them ventured too near to one of the tentacle-beasts. In fact, it brushed against two or three of the gently waving arms.
Immediately, the tentacles shot out to touch the monster. That was all they did, but the beast froze; then shuddered as if it had been struck a terrible blow, and uttered a strange, thin cry. At the sound of that cry, the others of its kind fled, leaving behind their prey and their fellow. The spine-creature, left alone, bumbled off into cover. The floating monster seemed trapped by the gently caressing tentacles.
The monster thrashed, strongly at first, but gradually weakening. The tentacles continued to hold it as it writhed, weakly, then stopped moving altogether. The tentacle-beast reached out again with more of its tentacles, and wrapped the silent form in a close embrace, then drew it towards the center of the beast. There it sank into the mass of tentacles, and disappeared. Presumably to be eaten.
Xylina stared at the tentacle-beasts, and tried to measure their proximity to the road by eye. One or two of them were too close for her comfort. The tentacles moved too much; some of them would reach near enough to the road that they could have touched the men or the animals.
“Mistress, I don’t think those creatures can actually see anything,” Hazard ventured after a moment. “They seem to be as blind as the spiny-beasts. I think that you would probably have to touch one of their limbs before they knew you were there; that would be when they knew to attack.”
Faro had urged his mount up beside hers while the young fighter was talking, and he grunted agreement. “That’s exactly what I was going to say,” he told them both. “They can’t see us, and they can’t move. So as long as we don’t touch those things-”
“Look!” cried Hazard. He pointed at another of the tentacle-beasts. “There is someone in there!”
Xylina blinked, and rubbed her eyes to clear them, then looked again. Therewas something hiding shyly in the tentacles of the beast; her eyes were not deceiving her, nor were Hazard’s. “It’s not someone,” she said, “It’s something.”
It was something about the size of a child, bipedal and upright, and peering out at them with huge green eyes, and covered with golden fur. It hid well within the tentacles, and did not seem to be taking any harm from them. The
closest thing she could compare it to was a lemur, for it had very long arms, but that did not seem to keep it from walking erect. It was surely not human, for it wore no clothing and carried no weapons, and it had a sharply pointed muzzle like a fox.
“Should we try to capture it, mistress?” one called Barad asked eagerly. “We could keep it with the dogs! It would make a fine beast for the Queen’s menagerie!”
But Xylina noticed that he looked from the lemur to Ware and back again, and she suspected that he had other things in mind than catching it for the menagerie. She had a vague notion of what he might be thinking of-that this two-legged beast might be worth considerable as a freak in a black-market show. Certainly it would be different.
The notion made her uneasy. This creature-it was a wild thing, and she could imagine how frightened it would be. Perhaps it was intelligent. That would be worse.
Xylina shook her head. “No,” she replied slowly. “No, let it be. If we disturb the tentacle-beast, it will probably sting us. How would we capture the lemur without coming to harm ourselves? The lemur is doing us no harm, and there is no point in risking ourselves to catch it. We should let it alone. We don’t know how to care for it, even if we could capture it, and it would probably die if we took it away from here.” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Ware nodding in approval.
“Let us simply pass these creatures as quietly as we can,” she continued. “I think if we are very careful, we can get by them without mishap.” She looked down the road, and frowned a little. “It will be night soon. I would prefer not to make a camp anywhere near them-and I would like to find a place to camp with some running water nearby.”
The wagons edged past the tentacle-beasts carefully; the mules sweated with fear, but fortunately did not balk, though they must have sensed their danger. It did not help that the tentacles groped constantly; the sightless movement was unnerving at best, and brought danger a mere finger-length away at worst. It was horrible to remember that the tentaclescould stretch, and that if the beast knew a man or a wagon was there, they would stretch out to give him one of those deadly caresses. And the wagons could not be driven off the roadway; they would sink into the soft ground at the side of the road.
One of the dogs could not bear the waving tentacles, and finally broke the leash holding it in the wagon, fleeing and howling with fear. Unfortunately, its mindless panic sent it blundering right into another of the tentacle beasts, and if there had been any doubt in the mens’ minds about whether those tentacles would be effective on them, the dog’s instant demise cleared that doubt immediately.
The poor beast let out a terrified shriek as the first tentacle brushed it; the dog howled in pain as more tentacles joined the first. Then it gurgled as it thrashed convulsively as the tentacles continued to hold it in that deadly embrace. It died quickly after the last convulsion ended; it was carried into the middle of the tentacle-creature, and vanished like the monster had, into an unseen maw.
None of the men wished to go lemur-hunting after that.
As nightfall approached, they finally came upon a clear spring welling up from a rocky outcropping in a relatively clear spot. The plants had thinned to the point that sunlight reached the ground, and the resultant light allowed other things to flourish among them, things that looked more like the plants and bushes Xylina knew from Mazonia. Some of them bore what looked to be fruits and berries, but in colors and shapes that none of them recognized. Although fresh fruit would have been very welcome, there was nothing that Xylina recognized as edible, and she really did not want to experiment with her men’s lives. So instead, she directed them to empty and refill all the water containers, set up her palisade of stones, and ordered Horn to prepare a meal with the dried and preserved provisions, and the conjured stuffs she provided for the purpose of flavorings. It seemed cruel to subject them to bland provender in the sight of what might have been fresh food, when simple conjuration could add to the flavor of their meal.
Their defenses seemed secure, as secure as she could make them. They had held until now. But she was not easy in her mind. They had already seen that some creatures about here could fly-and how could anyone predict what would appear at night? A stone palisade would prove little defense against monsters capable of dropping down out of the air.
For that matter, there was no telling if something capable of climbing the palisade was not out there.
She wondered, as the men set up camp, if she should keep her fears to herself. Perhaps she was being too cautious. It would do no good to agitate the men with her imagined beasts. But on the other hand, it would be stupid not to alert them to the possibilities of attack from above. Not just stupid-insanely suicidal. She had no right to risk their lives because she was afraid she might sound foolish.
So as they gathered to share supper, she also shared her fears for the night. She opened up the possibility of floating and flying carnivores, or creatures large enough to climb over their defenses. She reminded them of the sand-burrower. It did not make for a cheerful meal.
“If any of you have any ideas of how we can defend ourselves from attack from above or below, I would like to hear them,” she said when she had finished. “I had thought of creating a metal mesh across the top of the palisade, but the problem with that is that it would be too large to support itself. The only other mesh I made like that needed to cover a much smaller area, and was supported quite evenly on all sides. Besides, some of these beasts have tentacles long and thin enough to reach through such a mesh, unless I made the holes between it very fine, and that would make it even heavier. A metal plate with holes in it might serve, but these monsters might be able to lift it, for I have no way of anchoring it to the stones. And in any case, that much metal would surely attract lightning if we were to have a storm tonight.”
Hazard stroked his beardless chin in thought. “If such a construction were to fall, it would surely crush us,” he pointed out. “I am not certain that I would like a conjuration of that nature suspended over my head all night long.”
“And I am not certain I would, either,” Xylina agreed. “That is the problem with such things; I can’t fasten them to the rock walls that I have created, and if there is a monster out there large enough to shift it, it will fall on top of us all. If I create pillars in here to help support it, there will be very little room for us to move.”
“What about an active defense?” Jan asked. “What if you made a lot of sharp poles thrusting upwards, like the spines on those spine-balls we saw?”
“The spines did not help those creatures much,” she pointed out. “And if I planted them that closely together, there would again be no room for us.”
“What of a solid wooden roof?” asked Faro.
“Fire,” she replied succinctly. “And wood can be broken. Rock and the amalgam I made for the bridge are both heavier than metal. And there is another thing; making our palisade is very tiring for me. I could begin creating a large covering of metal mesh or wood or almost anything, but frankly I am certain I could not finish it.”
It cost her something in pride to admit that, and from the surprise on the men’s faces, it must have been the first time they had ever heard a Mazonite say that something was beyond her.
“You can create oil, can you not?” Barad asked.
She nodded. “Several barrels’ worth, I believe.”
“Then let us make torches and have a trench of oil about the inside of the palisade,” Barad suggested. “If something seems to be coming over the wall, or attempting to fly down into our camp, we can set fire to the oil. I have never seen a wild beast that would willingly fly or climb into fire.”
That seemed the best solution possible, and this was precisely what Xylina did.
As the last of the light died, they set their guards. There were twenty-nine of them altogether; they set watches of nine, ten, and ten. Ware would command the first watch, Xylina the second, and Faro the third. The rest drew lots for which watch they would take.<
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The first watch passed without incident, but midway through the second watch, Xylina’s fears of an attack from above were realized.
The first watch had noted strange lights that passed overhead, but they did not seem to portend anything, and they did not descend far enough down that anyone could see what they were. Xylina guessed that they might represent some night-flying version of the floating monsters, creatures which carried lights like fireflies, or like the foxfire found in rotting stumps. They might even be lights like those that floated above swamps: false-lanterns, the Mazonites called them. All about them, the night remained peaceful. Xylina dozed through the first watch, waking from time to time as the men spoke with each other, but there was nothing to suggest that they were in any danger.
The sounds from outside the palisade, which had been suggestive of insects and small animals, suddenly changed midway through the second watch, however. Xylina had patrolled with the rest, listening carefully to the chirps and buzzes of insects, and the rustling noises that could be small animals disturbing foliage. She peered up at the floating lights-red and green and blue, some in patterns, some alone. Nothing threatened, and she began to feel very foolish.
Then the night grew suddenly quiet. Alerted, she strained her ears for some sign of what had come to prowl out there, for surely something had, and had disturbed the night-creatures enough to silence them. But Gurt heard the noises first-scraping sounds, but very loud, as if something was being dragged through the sand outside. As these sounds drew nearer, Xylina felt the hair on the back of her neck rising. Whatever was out there, it was heading for the palisade.
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold Page 29