Ulysses stopped the caravan and studied them. They were almost as tall as he but as slim as greyhounds. Their fur was reddish, and their ears were set more forward on their heads. Though their faces were as human as those of the Wufea, their teeth were also those of carnivores. They were definitely not feline. There was something doggy about them. They even stank like dogs, and they sweat from their tongues.
Kdanguwing, the chief of the Alkunquib, said, "Lord, shall we charge them?"
The other chiefs scowled at him for presuming to talk. Ulysses held up his hand for him to wait and regarded the enemy even more closely. Their big war drums were beating, and they were all doing a little dance while their chiefs harangued them. They were strung out in a crescent which would enfold the caravan.
He gave orders and the war party spread out in a wedge with himself at the head and the wagons in the centre of the mass. It was a formation that had taken a long time for the undisciplined savages to adhere to.
Most of the warriors were armed with bows and arrows, but a number carried bazookas. These would have to dismount, however, to be effective, since the bazooka handler could not touch off the rocket himself. The tops of the wagons were platforms on which rocket tubes were mounted on swivelling columns.
Ulysses gave the order to advance, and the wedge started at a trot toward the canines. That a numerically inferior force would dare attack them on their home grounds seemed to paralyse the canines for a few minutes. But the chiefs finally got them going, and they came running at Ulysses' party. Their ranks got progressively less organised the nearer they came to the horsemen, and by the time the two had almost met, the canines were in a state of chaos. Every man—or every dog-like man—for himself.
Ulysses stopped the cavalry, the bazooka men dismounted, and the archers fired a volley. This was followed by six more volleys, each under the direction of sergeants who watched Ulysses for signals. It was an excellent exercise. The training paid off, and about two hundred Kurieiaumea went down with arrows in them.
Then, as they broke and ran, rockets struck among them and exploded. Though the warheads carried stone chips as shrapnel, the main effect of the missiles was panic. They threw away their weapons and fled. The cavalry advanced slowly and then stopped while a number retrieved the arrows and cut the ears off the dead and the wounded for trophies.
Two hours later, the dog-men, reorganised, their courage renewed by the scorn of the chiefs, attacked. And again they were cut down and sent running.
It was a great day for the felines, who had usually lost whenever they encountered the canines on their own grounds. They wanted to push on, burn the dog-men's villages, and massacre the females and children, but Ulysses forbade this.
Two days later, the blackish mass ahead became a dark green. Later, they saw blooms of many colours and hues. Grey streaks appeared in the green. These hardened into immense trunks and branches and roots.
Wurutana was a tree, the mightiest that had ever existed. Ulysses, thinking of Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse religion, thought that here was one to match it. It was a world tree if he were to believe Ghlikh's and Ghuakh's description. It was like a banyan tree ten thousand feet high in many places and spreading out for thousands of square miles. It extended branches which eventually dropped to the earth, dived into the earth, and re-emerged as new trunks and new branches. It was a solid mass, all continuity. Somewhere in that vast octopus of tree the original trunk and branches were still living.
When they came to the first branch, which plunged from a great distance into the ground before them, they paused in awe. Then they rode around the grey corrugated-bark pillar and estimated that this branch was at least five hundred yards in diameter. The bark was so thick and fissured and indented, it looked like a heavily eroded cliffside.
They were all silent. Wurutana was overwhelming, like the sea, a great earthquake, a flood, a hurricane, a cyclone or a huge meteorite falling.
"Look!" Awina said, pointing. "There are trees growing on The Tree!"
Dirt had collected in many of the deep fissures, and seeds had blown or been dropped by birds, and trees had taken root in the earth in the fissures. Some of them were over a hundred feet tall.
Ulysses looked inside the gloom at the bottom. So thick was the vegetation above, very little sun penetrated down here. But Ghlikh had said that it was easier to travel in the upper terraces than on the bottom. So much water dripped from the tree onto the ground that it formed vast swamps. There were also quicksand and poisonous growths that did not seem to need the sun, and snakes that were venomous and cared not at all for the light. The caravan would disappear in the bogs and marshes within a few days.
Ulysses did not trust the bat-man, but he could believe this account. A dank unwholesome odour was breathed out from the roots. It stank of decay and pale furtive things and soil under water that would suck up anybody who was foolish enough to venture on it.
He looked up along the nearest branch. It came down at a forty-five degree angle from somewhere in that green and multicoloured welter several miles away.
"We'll ride on to the next one," he said, "and look around."
It was already evident that they would have to leave the horses behind. It was too bad they were not domesticated goats. He had seen goats bounding from the edge of one bark-ledge to another. They were orange-haired creatures with doubly curved horns and little black chin whiskers.
There were other animals, too. Black-bodied, yellow-faced monkeys with long ringed tails. A baboonish monkey with a green posterior and a scarlet coat. A tiny deer with knobby horns. A coatimundi-type animal. Something hog-like and grunting. And birds, birds, birds!
They rode for a half-mile until they came to the next branch—or root—entering the earth. Water flowed down a channel, a deep groove, on its back and into a creek bed. Ghlikh had said that there were many springs, creeks and even small rivers in the grooves on the tops of the branches. Now Ulysses could believe it. What a mighty pump this tree was! It must send its roots deep into the earth, driving through stone, and it sucked up the water contained in the rock and tapped domes of water far underground. It might even tap the ocean and turn its water into fresh liquid, rejecting the salts. Then it exuded the water at various places, and springs, creeks and riverlets ran.
"This is as good a place as any," he said. "Unpack the horses. And let them go."
"All that good meat!" Awina said.
"I know. But I don't like to kill them. They've been of service to us; they have a right to live."
"They'll get eaten up before the week's over," Awina grumbled, but she relayed the order.
Ulysses watched the two bat-people while the unloading was taking place. They sat by themselves under the shade of a projection of bark and talked in low tones. They had been allowed to come this far because they were useful as scouts and they talked so much that they provided information even when they were trying to conceal it. They had warned the party about the dog-men, and they had given Ulysses enough data to piece together some partial pictures of what lay ahead.
But they also were probably detailed to spy on the invaders, and they would betray the party at the best time. At least, Ulysses had to proceed on that assumption.
He paced back and forth for several minutes and then decided that he would allow them to accompany them for a few more days. The Tree was an environment with which everybody except the two bat-people was totally unfamiliar. The party needed all the advice it could get. And although The Tree did not have so many open places, it had enough for the two to fly through. They could make scouting trips ahead of the party. The only trouble was, what if they went ahead to notify somebody that Ulysses and party were coming?
He would take a chance on that for a few days.
He went back to the pile of material and picked out what they should take. Climbing around on this tree would be like climbing a mountain most of the time; they could take only the most essential things. At the moment there did
not seem to be much use for the heavy bazookas and rockets. He hesitated for a few minutes and then decided to get rid of them. He would, however, keep a number of the bombs.
He did not want the bat-people to come here and pick up the rockets, so he emptied them and set fire to powder. The resultant explosions shook up The Tree for miles. Hours passed before the monkeys and birds quit squawking and chattering.
After making sure that everything was properly bundled and strapped on, he signalled for them to follow him. He went up alongside the stream, leaping from projection to projection of the bark as if he were crossing a creek on stones. He was glad that he carried four extra pairs of moccasins. The rough bark would wear out the toughest leather in a short time. The others had calluses on their soles like iron. The two bat-people, however, had to be carried. Their weak bandy legs could not get them far along the branch. When he heard their carriers complain, he decided that the bat-men should not be burdens. He made them fly on ahead and wait for them. But he used the excuse that he needed scouts. This was an environment where ambush was fearfully easy.
They spent the rest of the afternoon toiling alongside the stream. The groove running down the spine of the branch was about fifty feet wide and ten deep in the middle. Coming down at a forty-five degree angle, its force was too much for anyone to wade in it. But Ghlikh said that higher up, where the branch was horizontal, the flow was slow enough for bathing. There were also fish, frogs, insects and plants in the stream and, of course, the creatures that ate these. And nearby would be the creatures that ate those predators.
A half hour before dusk, they came to the horizontal part. Here they rested while Ulysses studied the situation. They were partly in a gloom here, and when the sun was directly overhead they would be in complete duskiness. There were branches overhead that were just as big or larger, and these were covered by vegetation, including big trees. Moreover, at places between the branches, on horizontal and vertical planes, lianas and vines grew in an intertwining complex that looked solid enough to hold a herd of elephants.
There was a curtain of solid lianas and flowers that held strange seashell-shaped structures in which lived little shrew-like animals. These apparently made their nests with saliva which dried out to become hard as cardboard. Ghlikh advised against approaching the tiny beasts, because they had a painfully poisonous bite.
There were other dangers, all of which he described to Ulysses. Or at least he claimed to have covered everything.
Ulysses tried not to look appalled. But Awina and some others who had heard Ghlikh seemed depressed. They were a quiet bunch that night as they cooked their meat over small "smokeless" fires. Ulysses did not try to cheer them up; silence was to be desired. If they continued to be gloomy, however, he would have to do something to raise their morale.
He put together a fishing pole and, using a piece of deer meat as bait, went fishing. He caught a shell-less turtle and was going to throw it back when he decided he would try it for breakfast. His second cast got him a small fish which he did throw back. After about five minutes, he hooked a fish a foot and a half long. It had sturdy forefins and little feelers along the side of its body. It finally came in and then he discovered that it could also breathe air. It made a croaking noise and tried to scratch him with the tiny claws on the edge of its fins. He put it in a basket, where it continued to croak so loudly that he released it. He would catch it or its brother in the morning for his breakfast.
The problem of sleeping was solved easily enough, although not to his satisfaction. There were enough smaller fissures so that the entire party could be hidden, but, on the other hand, they could not sleep close enough together. An enemy could approach them and knock them off one by one without a guard even seeing him.
There was nothing he could do about it except to double the guards he would normally have stationed. He took second watch himself, and then lay down in a fissure near Awina. He closed his eyes but soon opened them. The hooting, screaming, moaning, croaking, booming, strumming and whooping made sleep impossible and plucked at his nerves. He sat up, then lay down, sat up again, rolled over and whispered to Awina. When he was tapped on the shoulder to take his turn, he had not slept at all.
The moon had come up then, but its light would not penetrate into this vegetable cavern. Its rays shone brightly several miles away on the plains, where Ulysses wished he were at that moment.
The morning saw all of them as red-eyed as the rising sun. Ulysses drank some water from the stream and then determinedly went fishing. He caught five of the amphibians, three trout-like fish, two frogs and another turtle. He gave these to Awina and she and several of the Wufea cooked them.
Ulysses talked cheerily, though not loudly, and after everybody had eaten the fish (they loved fish) they all felt better. Nevertheless, when they shouldered their packs, they were still tired. The shadows fell on them as they passed from the few spots where the sun penetrated to the lengthy stretches beneath the canopies of branch and liana and they fell silent. There were places where the vegetation was so thick that the bat-people could not fly, and then they had to be carried on the backs of two warriors.
The second day, they were in better condition. The noises of the night were more familiar, and they had gotten more sleep. They were eating well. The fish were still being caught. A Wagarondit shot a big scarlet boar with triple sets of curved tusks, and they roasted and ate it. Also, there were many trees and bushes with berries and fruits and nuts. Ghlikh said that none was poisonous, and so Ulysses ordered him or his wife to sample each before the others ate. Ghlikh did not like the order, but he smiled grimly, and he obeyed.
The third day, at Ghlikh's recommendation, they went up a trunk. He said that if they climbed to the upper terraces, they would find the going easier. Ulysses thought that flying creatures, such as other bat-men, might also spot them far easier, but he decided to go along with the bat-man for a while.
The party had been forced to travel on trunks before, of course. To get from one branch to another was quite easily done if the branches happened to be linked with a complex of lianas and other vegetation. Usually, this was the condition. But now and then they had to travel around a trunk to get to another branch. This was slow but reasonably safe, if one did not look down. The bark was like a very rough cliffside, and climbing up was as easy as going up a chimney with one open side. Ulysses managed the ascent well enough, though his hands and back were torn and bloody. Here the lesser weight, the wiriness and the fur of the nonhumans were to their advantage.
Breathing heavily, Ulysses finally pulled up over the last ledge and was on a branch. He had started climbing early that morning, and it was almost dusk. Below, it was already nightfall; the depths looked cavernously gloomy. The yowl of a leopard-like cat rose past them, sounding far away. A monkey pack whooped about a thousand feet down. He estimated that they were at least eight thousand feet above the ground. Yet they were not at the top of The Tree. The trunk rose at least another two thousand feet, and there were a dozen great branches between the one on which they stood and the tip of this trunk.
It got cold up here after dusk. Twigs, branches and logs from dead trees were collected and piled at the bottom of those fissures which were not filled with dirt. Up here, the dust was not as thick as below and there was more naked bark. The sun went down, and then clouds moved around them. Shivering and damp, they moved in closer to the fires.
Ulysses spoke to Ghlikh, who was sitting near him by the flames.
"I am not so sure that your idea was a good one. It is true that there is less vegetation here, and so we can move more swiftly. But the cold and the wet may make us sick."
The bat-man and his wife were pale demon figures in the fog and the flickering light of the fire. They were enfolded in blankets out of which their naked heads and the leathery wings projected. Ghlikh's teeth chattered as he said, "Tomorrow, my Lord, we will build a raft and go sailing down a stream. Then you will see the wisdom of my advice. We will cover
so much more territory so much more swiftly. You will see then that the discomfort of the nights are more than offset by the ease of travel of the days."
"We shall see," Ulysses said, and he got into his sleeping bag.
The cloud moved over his face like a wet breath and covered it with droplets of water. But the rest of him was warm. He closed his eyes, then opened them to check on Awina. She was in her bag, but sitting up with her back against the wall of the grey fissure. Her large eyes were fixed on him. He shut his eyes then but still saw hers, and when he slept he dreamed of them.
He woke with a shock, his heart hammering, his breath coming hard. The scream was still ringing in his ears.
For a minute, he thought he had dreamed. Then he heard the exclamations of the others and the noise as they fought to get out of their bags. The fire had gotten low, and the figures scrambling around in the dark looked like monkeys at the bottom of a pit.
The Stone God Awakens Page 7