* * *
Day followed burning day as the uruketo swam slowly west along the coast. When the waves broke on the sandy shore they moved steadily, with at least three Yilanè on the fin at all times watching the coast slip by. Only when there were large inlets and bays did their progress slow as they made a careful search of the indented coastline. It became even slower when they came to one large bay with islands, it appeared to be a river mouth, that had to be carefully searched. Fafnepto was on the fin, blinking in the sunlight as she looked at the cool darkness under the trees close by. When they turned by a rocky headland she pointed it out to Vaintè.
“Oddness of rock shape, memorable/unforgettable. I will go ashore there and hunt fresh meat.”
“Appreciated by all. When we have finished the search we will return and meet you here. Good hunting.”
“For me, it is always good hunting.” She climbed down the fin and slipped into the water.
It took almost the entire day to search the bay. After that they started up the river through large, sweeping bends. For the first time Vaintè began to worry that their search would be in vain. She knew that Gendasi* was large, but had never truly appreciated the size of this new continent. Always before she had followed on the track of the ustuzou, going where they led. Now, on her own, she was beginning to realize that even something as large as an uruketo would be difficult to find—when she had no idea of where to look. The river was still wide and deep, moving inland in lazy loops. The other uruketo could have easily come this way. Should they search further? It was a great relief to discover that sandbars soon blocked the channel and they had to return. There was no need to follow the river any more. Those they searched for must still be somewhere along the ocean’s shore.
It was late afternoon before they returned to the rocky headland. Fafnepto was nowhere to be seen.
“Is this the place where she landed?” Gunugul asked. Vaintè signed assuredness of location. “Then she is still hunting. We will all enjoy pleasure/satisfaction to have fresh meat. I will have bladders floated ashore so we may leave when she returns.”
Vaintè watched the crewmembers bring up the bladders and slide into the river with them. The water looked cool, the forested shore inviting. She had been in the smell-filled confines of the uruketo too long. A moment later she was slipping down from the uruketo’s back and swimming strongly towards the beach.
“Excitement of discovery,” one of the crewmembers called out, pointing to the corpses of five large deer lying in the tall grass.
Vaintè admired them, then looked up as Fafnepto herself appeared from under the trees. She signed urgency of speaking as Vaintè began to compliment her on her kill.
“There is a thing I would have you see Vaintè. This way.”
“Has it to do with those we seek?”
“No. But I think it is the ustuzou you told me of. They are beyond these trees.”
“They can be dangerous!”
“Not now. All dead.”
The skin tent was on the far side of the small meadow near the stream. Two large ustuzou were crumpled on the ground before it, a third smaller one was lying nearby.
“I killed them before they saw me,” Fafnepto said. “You said they could be deadly.”
“You searched the structure?”
“Yes. None there. Many hides—and a hèsotsan.”
One of the ustuzou lay face upwards. Vaintè turned the other one over with her foot claws, hopefully, but it was not Kerrick. “You were right to kill them,” she said.
“Is this the stone tooth of which you spoke?” Fafnepto asked, pointing to the spear in the dead hunter’s hand.
“It is one kind. Another is sent through the air, very much like the dart from a hèsotsan. Not poisonous but a great deal heavier. They are very dangerous beasts.”
“Then we can be sure that the uruketo you seek is not near here.”
“A wise observation. The Search will continue.”
Vaintè walked back to the shore in enforced silence, her body rippling with the intensity of her thoughts. She knew that the search for the uruketo and the Daughters of Life, as well as the renegade scientist, would go on. She had told Saagakel that she would do this. And Fafnepto was here to aid her in that search. But it would not go on forever. Now that she thought about it she realized that she cared little if Enge and her accomplices lived or died. Not now, not after seeing the bodies in the clearing. The sight of those dead ustuzou drove the present search from her thoughts. It wasn’t important. What was of primary importance, what she really needed to do, was to find Kerrick.
Find him and kill him.
“Message of urgency/import for the Eistaa,” the fargi said, trembling with the effort to remember what she had been instructed to say, to be clear and comprehensible in her speaking.
Lanefenuu leaned back on her board, her mouth working hard on a large portion of jellied meat. Her advisers sat in a circle about her, their attitudes appreciative of her wonderful appetite. She threw the bone aside and gestured a truncated continuance of talking to the fargi. The creature gaped in ignorance.
Muruspe caught the fargi’s attention. “You are ordered to speak. Finish telling what was told to be said.” The fargi gasped with sudden comprehension when she understood the simplified commands, spoke quickly before she forgot everything.
“Ukhereb reports discoveries of relevancy. Requests presence of Eistaa for revelation.”
Lanefenuu waved the fargi out of sight, heaved herself to her feet, signed for a water-fruit and used it to clean her hands. “A request for my presence signifies matters of importance,” she said. “We go.”
As they left the ambesed two of her advisers hurried ahead to be sure her way was clear, the rest trailed behind. Muruspe, who was her efenselè as well as first adviser, walked at her side.
“Do you know what it can be, Muruspe?” Lanefenuu asked.
“I know no more of it than you do, Eistaa. But my hope is that these Yilanè of science have uncovered some evidence of the ustuzou that kill.”
“My hope as well. A matter of lesser importance would have brought Ukhereb to the ambesed herself.”
Akotolp was waiting at the dilated opening in the wall to greet them, signing pleasure and joyful anticipation.
“Apologies of request-for-presence from Ukhereb. That which we wish to show you could not be brought easily/quickly.”
“Show me at once—anticipation becomes unbearable.”
Akotolp led the way into the dusky interior, then through another partition into a chamber of darkness. Only when the entrance had been sealed was it possible to see by the weak red glow being emitted by a cage of insects. Ukhereb held up a damp sheet of some white substance with dark marks upon it.
“This image would vanish if exposed to daylight at this moment. I wished the Eistaa to see it at once.”
“Explanation of significance, meaning unclear.” She bent close, following Ukhereb’s pointing thumb.
“Image obtained from high in the air. These are trees around a clearing. This and this are the structures made of animal skins that the killing ustuzou erect. Here a group of three ustuzou, here more. And here and here.”
“I see them now! They are so ugly. They are the same kind as the one killed here in the city?”
“They are the same. See the light fur on the head, skins bound about below.”
“Where are they now?”
“North of the city. Not close, but north of us on an island on the shore. I will have other images for you to look at soon, the processing is now going on. In one of them I believe there is a hèsotsan.”
“One of our hèsotsan,” Lanefenuu said angrily. “This must end. Twice they came here, killed Yilanè, took hèsotsan away with them. This shall not happen a third time.”
TWENTY-NINE
Even though the air was stifling under the trees, the biting insects a torment when they passed through the swampy areas, it was still good to be moving
on the trail again. As pleasurable as life had been on the island, it had become a little too much like the valley of the Sasku. The sammads were now in one place and it seemed as though they were going to stay there. In the past there had been winter hunting and summer hunting, the berries and mushrooms of the autumn, the fresh shoots and roots in the spring. All of this had changed. The game was always close by, fruit ripe the year round, more of everything than they could possibly ever eat. But the cycle of the year was in the Tanu blood and they grew restless when they were too long in the same place. Now they were moving, four of them, heading north. Hanath and Morgil scouted ahead, sometimes fell behind and stalked game, ran to catch up with them. For Kerrick and Armun the trek was the greatest pleasure. They were together—and that was enough. They had no regrets at leaving the children behind—since they were far safer in the midst of the sammads than they would have been here on the trail.
If Kerrick had one regret it was the perfunctory leavetaking he had had with Nadaske. He had kept putting it off, one day ran into the other, there was always so much to do. Then it was the day to leave. It would have been easy to just have gone, certainly that would have pleased Armun, but he found that he could not do it that way. Nor was Arnwheet there, he was away with the other boys. They were ready to go. The last of the smoked meat and ekkotaz was being packed in on top of the stone knives, there was even some of the charadis cloth that Armun wanted to bring. It was time to leave. When Kerrick realized this he had simply turned his back and started towards the shore. Ignoring their shouted queries; he was doing what he had to do.
“You go from here?” Nadaske said, signing instant death. “Farewell forever then. Sharp stone teeth will rend Nadaske as soon as you are out of sight.”
“I will be back, very soon. We go north to trade, that is all.”
“That is all? That is everything. Our efenburu grows smaller all of the time. Imehei is gone. I look about me now and I do not see young wet-soft. Now he will come no more, for you will be gone. There is only loneliness in this place.”
“You are alive here—and you do not go to the beaches.”
Nadaske did not grow angry at this, turned instead and looked out at the empty ocean, the unmarked sand along the shore, pointed to it. “Here are beaches of loneliness. Perhaps I should have gone to the beaches of death with the others from the hanalè.”
Kerrick could say nothing, add nothing. The despair of his friend was resolute. They sat in silence awhile before Kerrick stood to leave. Nadaske watched him with one eye but did not answer him when he spoke. In the end Kerrick could only walk away and leave the solitary and lonely figure on the beach, staring out at the empty sea.
But that was behind him now, forgotten in the pleasures of the trail. They had been walking for some days, to the count of more than half the count of a hunter, when Hanath found the signs of others along the trail they were following.
“See—here and here, they have bent the twigs as a sign for those who came after them. And that could be a track.”
“An animal track,” Kerrick said.
“That too, but Tanu have come this way as well.” Morgil was down on all fours and sniffing at the ground. “They have, they must have gone there by the water.”
The trail here skirted a vast bay, then crossed a river. Instead of staying with the rutted track they went along the river until Morgil smelled the air.
“Smoke!” he shouted. “There are Tanu here.”
It was dusk before they came to the other sammads, the same ones that had been left behind when Herilak and his sammad had gone south. They called out and the hunters came running, the sammadar Har-Havola in the lead.
“We searched, never found you,” he said.
“You did not go far enough south,” Kerrick said.
“We are far enough south here. There is no snow in the winter, the hunting and fishing are good.”
“And your death-sticks—they live?”
“Of course. One was stepped on and died. The others are as they always were.”
“Then we have much to tell you. Our death-sticks died, but we now have others.”
Har-Havola was distressed. “You must speak to us of this. Come, we will eat, there will be a feast. There are many good things to eat here and you will try them all.”
They stayed one day, then another with the sammads, until on the third day it was decided that they must leave. “The trail is long,” Kerrick said. “And we must go to the north and return as well.”
“When next we hunt we will go to the south,” Har-Havola said. “We will find your sammads on the island you have spoken of, tell them we have seen you. But we will keep our death-sticks from theirs as you have warned. May your journey be short, may you return in safety.”
They went on through the heat of summer. Yet the fall of the year was coming closer every day, and every day they were that much further north. It was cool before dawn now, the dew lay thick upon their sleeping skins. When the deep ruts of the track they were following led to the shore, the ocean lay before them, slate gray under a gray sky. They sniffed the salt spray blowing in from the breaking waves and Armun laughed out loud.
“It is cold and damp—but I like it.”
Hanath shouted with pleasure and hurled his spear in a high arc, far down the beach where it stuck upright in the sand. He dropped his pack and ran to get it, Morgil shouting and running after him. They came back, panting and happy.
“I’m glad we made this journey,” Kerrick said. “Even if the Paramutan aren’t there, it was still worth coming.”
“They will be there. Did not Kalaleq say they would return, that no ocean was too wide to stop him?”
“Yes—and he also said if he had no boat he would swim the ocean. The Paramutan are great braggarts.”
“I hope that they come.”
They followed the beach towards the north, building their fire that night in the lee of the sand dunes. The rain that began to fall after dark was cool and the fog that rolled in from the sea was damper and even cooler. Autumn was not too far away.
In the morning Kerrick stirred the fire and put the last of the wood upon it. The salt-encrusted driftwood crackled and burnt fiercely with yellow and blue flames. Armun spread their skins before it to dry. The two hunters still lay wrapped in theirs, reluctant to emerge. Kerrick poked them with the butt of his spear and elicited only groans.
“Up!” he called out. “We need some more wood for the fire. Beasts of great laziness—emerge!”
“You had better get it yourself,” Armun said.
He nodded agreement and pulled the wet madraps onto his feet, then trudged to the top of the dune. The rain had stopped and the fog was burning off, clear rays of sunlight touched color from the sea. There was fresh seaweed, shells and other debris at the high tide mark. Any wood there would be too wet. But there was an entire dead tree further along the beach. He would break some branches from that. Kerrick sniffed the sea air and looked out beyond the breakers and spray. Something dark rode up on a wave, then was gone. He dropped to the sand—was it an uruketo? What were Yilanè doing this far to the north? He shielded his eyes and tried to find it again among the whitecapped waves.
There it was—but not an uruketo at all.
“A sail!” he shouted. “A sail, out there—the Paramutan are out there!”
Armun ran to join him, the two hunters finally aroused stumbling up behind her.
“It is a sail,” she said. “But they are going south. What are they doing out there?”
“The seaweed,” Kerrick shouted. “Hanath—run and get some, wood too, even if it is wet. Build up the fire so they can see the smoke!”
Kerrick stirred the fire until it burned fiercely as the two hunters staggered back with their burdens. He spread the seaweed out thinly on top, so that it crackled and smouldered but did not extinguish the fire; white clouds of smoke boiled skyward.
“They are still going south,” Armun cried. “They haven’
t seen it.”
“Bring more!”
The fire roared and the column of smoke thickened and climbed higher before Hanath shouted from the beach.
“They have stopped, they’re turning, they’ve seen it now.”
They watched from the top of the dune as the ikkergak wallowed in the water, sail flapping, then came about on the other tack with the big sail billowing full. It came racing towards the shore, rose up on the waves and was carried forward with a rush, onto the sand in a flurry of foam. Dark figures waved and shouted to them while one of them hung tight to the bow. Let go and dropped into the sea, splashed ashore. The two hunters hesitated but Kerrick and Armun ran across the sand towards the ship.
A wave washed over the Paramutan and he stood up, dripping and spluttering and calling out with joy.
“Here, not believed, hair of sunshine, friends of years.”
“Kalaleq!” Kerrick shouted as the Paramutan staggered, laughing, from the sea. He seized Kerrick’s arms and shook them, turned to Armun and shouted with joy, put his arms around her as well, until she had to push him away as his strong fingers seized her bottom.
“Where were you sailing to?” she asked him.
“South—but too hot, see I wear nothing but my fur.” When she looked down he let his tail drop to reveal his privates but she slapped his arm and he lifted it into place again. The Paramutan never changed.
“Why—south?” Kerrick asked, clumsily, trying to remember the complex language.
“To seek hunters. We waited on the beach to the north but none came. We have hides and many good things. Then we thought to look further south, look for hunters. Never thinking that friends would await us here.”
Hanath and Morgil came close and there were mutually incomprehensible greetings. Other Paramutan soon joined them. Shouting with pleasure and bringing the inevitable gifts of raw and rotten fish. Morgil’s eyes bulged and watered as he forced himself to swallow a vile mouthful. Then they all went to the fire to share the fresh meat there. Kerrick cut off pieces of raw meat from yesterday’s kill and these were received with cries of intense pleasure. Kalaleq gobbled his down, smearing his face with blood, while he told Armun everything that had happened since they had parted.
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