Wisteria felt intoxicated at his touch, as if every inch of her body raged with desire for him. Even the webbing between her toes seemed to tremble, and she wondered how long it had been since she had felt so alive. She gasped, and Tull picked her up and carried her to the pond.
“Wait,” Wisteria said, “the others will see us. They’ll know what we’re doing.”
“Then let them ache with jealousy,” Tull said. “I must have you.”
He carried her to a spot beside the pond where the grass was still green. Some young mallards flew up from the rushes at the far side. Tull stripped her and made love to her like a wild man, raking her back with his nails. She laughed aloud, and as dusk became full night with a million burning stars, he took her higher than she’d ever been before. It seemed to her that she was like the dragon, soaring free, burning from his heat. And after several hours, when they lay together naked and exhausted, she asked, “So, did you reach the heights? Did you burst into flames at my touch?”
Tull was silent for a moment. “Almost, my love, almost,” he said. And Wisteria’s heart fell with disappointment. Then Tull smiled, “Let’s try again.”
Wisteria laughed and climbed atop him and kissed him long and passionately. The world felt magical and she realized that for the first time in her life she was perfectly happy. With all her father’s plans for a marriage to some businessman in the south, she was surprised at how perfectly happy she felt at this moment, out in the Rough, naked, straddling a half-breed. They bathed in the pond in the moonlight then afterward dressed and returned to camp to lie in their furs and watch the dragons. There were many flying high tonight.
“The dragons are searching for the winged Dryad and her lover,” Phylomon said. Wisteria was not sure if he was speaking to them or if she were catching the tail end of some other conversation. “The dragons are talking to each other, telling one another of yesterday’s hunt. You watch, the skies will be full for months.”
After awhile, Tirilee asked Phylomon in her melodic voice, “Will Falhalloran ever rise again?”
Phylomon answered, “No one knows. The red drones are energy vessels, and their fuel has limits, but no one knows much about their creators, the Eridani. The Eridani believed that humans were too young a race to inhabit the stars, so they sent the red drones to keep us planet-bound. When they first tried to restrict us to the number of worlds we would inhabit, they demanded that we not leave for five thousand years. A thousand years have passed since the war. When the Eridani ships grow old enough, their liquid brains will die. I do not think that that will happen for four thousand years. If Falhalloran still exists at that time, the city might be repaired.”
“None of us will be here to see it,” Scandal said wistfully.
“Who knows?” Phylomon said. “Miracles happen daily. Why, look at Tull and Wisteria: When humans came to Anee, we had had a lot of genetic upgrading. We’d extended our memories, lengthened our lives. Made ourselves stronger. Every human was a Dicton. In those days, humans and Pwi were so different in their genetic makeup, that a mating between Wisteria and Tull would have been thought impossible. A miracle.”
Tull asked. “Then how does it happen?”
“The Creators made the first Dryads—beings that were neither human nor Pwi. Some Dryads, like the women of the redwoods, breed with members of other species. But some Dryads attracted the Neanderthals with their singing, and when they mated, the males were born Neanderthals while the females were Dryads. Obviously, the genes that produce a Dryad are a sex-linked family that is expressed only in females.”
“Dryads never give birth to males,” Tirilee said.
“Supposedly not,” Phylomon agreed, “But in the pine forests on the west coast, solitary trappers often find male children dumped on their doorsteps. To some Dryads, males are born. And, as you know, Dryads can mate with humans as well as Pwi.
“So, it happened that a Dryad gave birth to a male child who carried enough human genes and Neanderthal genes so that his offspring could mate with both groups, and our blood lines became mixed.
“There are no purebred humans anymore. Those who are close are Dictons. Even among the Slave Lords who have struggled to maintain their racial purity, such children are uncommon. My younger brother once told me that he believed the Creators made Dryads partly for that purpose—to rid Anee of humans who carry the memories of words that define us as part of a Starfaring culture.
“In a way, I think it would be a good thing. We as a people have never had to learn how to think, how to create. When someone wants a ship, they have a Dicton design it based upon his inherited memory, and in a way that is a shame. The designs are always adequate, but we never improve on anything done on old Earth. Our thoughts, our culture—all have become stifled, static. In a way, I wish that my brother had been right, that the Creators could rid the world of the Starfarers.
“But I do believe my brother was only engaged in a wild fantasy. It is true that the Dryads destroyed our racial purity, but it is also true that few Pwi are purebred Neanderthals. The old woman we met on the trail a couple of weeks back is among the last. The psychic powers of some purebred Neanderthals is a marvelous curiosity.”
“Then it is not good for humans and Neanderthals to mate,” Tull said, “if the Neanderthals lose their power, and the humans have lost their inherited memories.”
“I’m not sure,” Phylomon said. “I think it may be good. My people had become all intellect—cold, calculating, unfeeling. When the Eridani banished us to Anee, it was easy for them to conquer this world. Perhaps too easy. They had no intellectual challenges, and they did not respond to physical challenges. It was easier for them to enslave the Pwi and live their sordid lives on Bashevgo than it would have been for them to work honestly.
“And as for the Pwi, their complex emotions, the shroud of kwea through which they perceived the world, robbed them of clear sight. They lost the ability to dissociate themselves from their pasts, and so they were never free from childhood fears.
“I think that both races need something that can be found in the other. And I see a new race emerging, a race of men like Tull, who can think with both their hearts and their minds.
“When our ancestors came here, their bodies were changed so they could travel on vehicles faster than light. And we have lost those days of glory. Yet, two thousand years ago, our ancestors communicated on simple radio waves, and those waves are making their way to us now. Within a hundred and fifty years, radio signals will begin to reach us from Earth, and I believe your great grandchildren will build a receptor to capture those signals and learn how humans first entered the Nano Age. Your descendants could rise up and carry all of Anee back into that age again.”
“Why should we?” Tull asked. “If the Starfarers created us as mere curiosities, would they welcome us?”
Phylomon hesitated. “They would welcome you. Tull, not all of the Starfarers saw the Neanderthals as mere entertainment. When the Eridani sent their red drones, only a few humans were cruel and thoughtless enough to take slaves. Most of us Starfarers deplored the idea, but we did not think of destroying our own brethren. The thought of going to war with one another appalled us. It did not appall the slavers. For the first two hundred years, they lived and bred on Bashevgo, and we ignored them and they ignored us. Some among us went so far as to raid their strongholds and release their Neanderthals. We thought it only a game at the time, but eventually it turned to war, and they struck the first blow. We’ve never really recovered from that blow. But I tell you in all seriousness: If you regain the stars, you will find humans who look upon you as brothers.”
Up in the sky above the camp, a dragon’s wings seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. It careened in a controlled drop, then its wings went limp and it plummeted. The breeze carried the scent of Tirilee, and Wisteria thought the girl smelled unusually pleasant, earthy, like a rose garden or a wheat field. Wisteria inhaled the scent deeply.
She watched the dragon as
it dropped beyond the treetops over a nearby hill. Its death cry sounded, a long ululating scream that pierced the night, yet the sound came from high and far away—for the dragon had uttered the scream when first shot.
Beside her, Tull breathed deeply, inhaling Tirilee’s aroma, and he sounded as if he choked back a sob. Wisteria heard him breathe the words, “God, let me stop burning.”
***
Chapter 9: Blade Kin
The four-hundred-mile journey from Sanctum to Seven Ogre River became the easiest part of the trip. Short Tail’s mammoth pulled the wagon in the morning, the group would eat and practice their weapons training, and in the evening Born-in-Snow pulled the wagon a few miles before they settled in for the night.
The mammoths worked eagerly, for the smell of winter filled in the air. Their mating season was on, and they grew restless for their migration south. They often swung their necks, raking the grass tops with their great tusks, as if clearing snow from their paths.
Geese and ducks gathered on the ponds, and even in the low areas the leaves changed to yellow and brown, then blew away at the slightest touch of a breeze.
Phylomon knew the Rough well, and when they reached a small mountain range, he guided them so that the trail seemed made for wagons. Along the volcanic fault lines, the crust of the earth was cracked like a giant’s discarded crockery, and these places were hard to negotiate. Often the party had to travel miles to find a path up or down a steep cliff.
When clearing the path, one Hukm stood atop the lead mastodon’s head to watch for enemies. Sometimes a nearsighted woolly rhino would grunt and paw the ground at the sound of their approach, or follow the wagon at a hundred yards trying to decide whether to charge, but if it did not leave quickly, someone would fire the swivel gun and the rhino would wheeze, arch its tail, and run away.
The journey would have been easier if not for signs of the armies of Craal. Two hundred miles out of Sanctum, the party discovered a garden where Hukm had farmed for the summer. The grapes were still on the vine, pumpkins and squash getting ready to rot in the sun, leaves and bushes moldering. A dozen dead Hukm lay in a mound nearby, their tents pulled down.
Fifty miles farther on, the party stopped for a day. While coming over a small hill in the evening, they glimpsed hundreds of campfires. Phylomon estimated that it was an army of at least five thousand Thrall warriors, heading south for the winter to harass the Hukm. By the next night, the army had left.
The approach to the White Mountains was wet and cold, for they gained altitude on the plains. Tull often consulted his weather globe, hoping for clear skies. Winter was coming early, bringing gusty winds and pelting rains, and for a week the party just stayed on the wagon. As long as Scandal did not try to sit in the barrel, dry seating inside was ample for the rest, and they spread a tarpaulin over the whole wagon to keep the rain off the food and poor Scandal.
The Hukm liked the rain. Both of them shed the last of their brown summer fur and grew white winter coats; they seemed invigorated by the wet and cold.
One night as they approached the jagged White Mountains, at the end of a frosty day where the mammoths slogged through mud in drizzling rain, the Hukm stopped at a foaming, icy river. Wisteria peered sullenly out the barrel, and when the Hukm stopped, they dove headlong into the frigid water and splashed about like bears chasing salmon.
Wisteria decided she liked the Hukm. They were often cool and aloof, spending nights away from camp, yet one night, Scandal put his boots beside the fire, trying to get them dry, and when he woke in the morning, someone had filled his boots with tea and placed them in the coals to brew. Scandal walked around camp, screaming blue-faced at everyone, accusing them of the crime. And the next morning, though he’d placed his boots under the shelter of the wagon to dry for the night, he found them in the fire again, only this time they were filled with urine. No human had a bladder so large, and Scandal cursed the Hukm in human and Pwi, but the Hukm just stood beside their mammoths seeming cool and unperturbed until Scandal used every gesture on them that Phylomon had ever warned him against.
Though the journey was cold and dreary, Wisteria felt a warmth in her heart unlike anything she’d ever known. At nights, when it was cold, Tull brought stones from the fire for her to curl up with. He washed her clothes for her and was incredibly tender. Yet each night he made love to her like a wild man, whispering into her ears and handling her as if she were some frisky but untrained colt. She loved the change, and for her, every night was like the first night of a honeymoon.
Once after his rough lovemaking ended, she was so content that she felt impelled to ask, “Something has changed between us. Do you feel it? Something has changed.”
Tull laughed. “I asked you to teach me how to love you, and now I have figured out how.”
The answer was simple, almost childish. She sighed contentedly. “Teach me how to love you, Tull,” she said. “Teach me how to love.” But she knew the words were a lie, for she could already feel her love for him glowing within. She thought of the rage at Phylomon that had once burned within her, the sense of futile anger, and how she had rashly promised Garamon she would sabotage the quest. The whole idea seemed absurdly petty. Instead, she needed this quest to succeed, needed a safe place for her child to grow. She knew now that she could never betray the father of her child.
So for her, the days passed in bliss. Six weeks out from Sanctum, she realized that the rest of the group was somber. One day the rain clouds rose high enough so that they could actually see the White Mountains some eighty miles distant.
“Damn,” Phylomon muttered. “We’re still a good two weeks behind schedule. The mountains are already white with snow, and we have another three hundred miles to the river.”
“Does it matter?” Wisteria asked. “I mean, that’s why they call them the White Mountains, isn’t it?”
“They shouldn’t be white this early in the season,” Phylomon said. “The snow will slow us down, and we spent too much time crossing the Dragon Spines. Any more delay could be very costly. Still, if the snowfall is light, three sunny days might burn it off.”
But that night a cold rain fell.
After everyone had wrapped themselves in blankets, Phylomon held a council. “We’re in for a hard trip over the mountains,” he told them.
“Why?” Scandal asked. “We can put runners on the wagon and the mammoths could pull us through the mountains fine, couldn’t they?”
“Yes,” Phylomon answered, “But I’d hoped to go over Raven’s Peak Pass, since Ironwood Woman said it was least watched. But it’s a narrow pass, and high, and with these fresh snows we’d run too much of a risk of getting buried in an avalanche. Yet there are only two other decent passes within a hundred miles.”
“And how well are they watched?” Scandal asked.
“You saw one small army a few days ago,” Phylomon said.
Ayuvah said, “I fear such an army as I would fear a scimitar cat. We could never pass them.”
“The passes will be well watched,” Phylomon said, “But with winter coming on, they will not be so well guarded.”
“What do you mean?” Scandal asked.
“During the winter, the Hukm move south so they can forage. The armies of Craal move south to fight them. We should be free of large armies, and the fortresses in the mountains will carry a minimal guard. Still, even in the winter, the kings of Craal often send the Blade Kin through the passes to scout the movements of the Pwi and Okanjara out in the Rough. Any lone stranger we meet is bound to fight with skill—and Ironwood Woman warned me that these men have guns. They’ll be watching for runaway slaves, making sure that none get through the mountains in winter. Ironwood Woman said that sixteen thousand of her people died at their hands, so she raided them. They’re well-armed now, and skittish.”
Wisteria knew of the Blade Kin—slavers, murderers and rogues far worse than any pirate who sailed in the east. It was said that the worst criminals in Craal were sentenced to fight
in arena battles until they died, but every few years, the Minister of Retribution freed the best fighters and made them his Blade Kin. They were tolerated only because the slaves feared them worse than death. Rarely could a slave pass their watchful eyes and escape Craal.
“I would rather brave the pass than the Blade Kin,” Ayuvah said.
“Me, too,” Scandal admitted.
Phylomon sighed deeply. “We’ve got a couple of days until we make it within striking range of any of the passes,” he said. “Maybe some good weather will blow our way, and we can get through at Raven’s Peak.”
“What are the chances we can make it past the Blade Kin unseen?” Wisteria asked.
“They’ll be less vigilant now that winter is on,” Phylomon said slowly. “I’d say our chances are good.”
Wisteria listened to the tone of his voice and was surprised: One would think that a man as old as Phylomon would lie more convincingly.
***
Chapter 10: Moccasin Prints
As the weather grew colder, Wisteria saw more signs that the others were nervous. Ayuvah would eat his breakfast, then vomit afterwards. When Wisteria asked Ayuvah if he was ill, he replied, “No, only afraid. We sit on the wagon, and every day it carries us closer to Craal. Perhaps if we had to walk, I would not think about it so much.”
Ayuvah was a brave man, a proven fighter. She wondered how he could be so afraid of a place he’d heard of only in legend. At night, Tull and Ayuvah practiced with their weapons—sword bashing on spear. The two Neanderthals battled with their might and their hearts, as if their very lives depended upon each blow, and at nights when Wisteria looked upon Tull’s body, bruised from practice, she worried that perhaps he was right. Perhaps his life would depend upon those swings.
Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series Page 6