The youngsters cut down a number of nearby cappas, lashing them together with the long grasses that grew beside the river. By evening they’d made three good-sized rafts and a number of limbs, widened at one end with their branches webbed by grass, to paddle us across. The youths went to fish while we made camp. It took them a long time to catch enough to feed us, but our meal that night was fresh and flavorful.
During my watch I heard the Symamt’h roiling with the sound of fish feeding on small night-fliers. The noise echoed in the dark over the water. I saw Heckt’er staring at the river.
“Stillseason is coming,” I said. “The fish are beginning to hide from the sun. Already they only rise to feed at night.”
Despite my explanation he looked uneasy. Most of the fish we had eaten had come from his line. Once again, I remembered his episode on the farm. Had he sensed something I’d missed?
The Symamt’h was quiet in the morning, with only the cool breeze rippling its surface. We lashed our packs to the rafts and set off. I had knotted all our ropes together and tied one end to the trunk of a cappa near the shore, playing it out as we crossed. The current was strong and the rope would speed our return.
We traveled three to a raft. Dyit’er came with Heckt’er and me while his parent, Piet’er, rode with Cann’an and Dam’an. Timb’il and Sark’il were on the final raft with two extra packs and the last of our provisions.
When we reached the middle of the river we paused to rest. I felt a bump against the bottom of my raft. A boulder or the upper branches of a fallen tree, I thought, though the river should have been too deep at this point for either to reach the surface. The bumping increased and, startled, I remembered the liapt’h. Could it possibly have come this far? I reached for my pack. Heckt’er was already scanning the water.
“There!” he cried.
A huge liapt’h broke the surface thrusting itself up onto the third raft. Its wide, elongated jaws reached for the packs of provisions, snapping eagerly while its short, clawed front legs scrambled for purchase. Green scales glistened as it pulled itself higher onto the raft. Then another appeared beside it, and another!
Before we could reach our firearms the weight of their bodies had capsized the raft. Timb’il and Sark’il plunged screaming into the water, which was now alive with frenzied liapt’hs. I loaded my firearm while Heckt’er and Dyit’er beat at the shapes in the water around our own raft with their paddles. One monster tried to mount our raft but Heckt’er thrust his knife into its protruding eye and it lashed backward, almost pulling him with it, for he refused to surrender his weapon.
I shot one of the liapt’hs attacking Timb’il and Sark’il, but already several long jaws had clamped round their limbs and I could do nothing more as they were pulled under. Then I had all I could handle keeping the liapt’hs from toppling our own raft, as did those on the raft beside us.
Heckt’er and Dyit’er stabbed at one trying to reach us and I shot it. They pulled it aboard and crouched behind its lifeless form. The Symamt’h ran yellow with liapt’h blood before the others were satisfied to leave us and feast upon their own dead. We paddled in haste to the shore.
We dragged our rafts high into the grasslands, for the only way home lay once again over the river. I sank one of the paddles into the dirt and attached the end of the rope to it, so that it stretched across the water. We would want to cross back with all the speed we could manage. Then I leaned on the stick and closed my eyes. Breath of Wind, what was happening? Three dead on a youth hunt?
I heard the sound of sobbing and turned, sinking on wobbly knees to the grass. Piet’er and Cann’an tried to comfort their weeping younglings, while shivering with horror themselves. Heckt’er sat apart, pale but dry-eyed, staring at the river. Surely he didn’t blame himself as he had when Bab’in died?
The thought made me wonder whether I had failed them. Timb’il had wanted to take Sark’il home, and I had stopped them. They would never go home now. Did Heckt’er blame me?
I couldn’t indulge such thoughts. I was the leader, I had to keep them going. There would be time later for guilt and grief.
We had only four packs between us and two firearms; Piet’er’s and Dyit’er’s packs had been on the third raft, along with the last of our provisions. The herd of harrunt’hs was still two day’s trek away. In the meantime, our only food was the dead liapt’h that Heckt’er had pulled onto our raft. I took out my knife and began to butcher it. Cann’an and Dam’an came to help me while Piet’er and Dyit’er silently built a fire of driftwood, encircled by rocks they had cautiously retrieved from the river shore. At night we burned the fire higher. I doubt anyone slept.
In the morning we found the harrunt’hs’ trail and followed it through the grasses. They had cut a wide swath in their grazing, and we walked down it, keeping close together. In the bright sun, on the track of our game, I began to relax. We would soon reach our quarry. The wind blew our scent north to the mountains while the harrunt’hs drifted west and we followed them undetected.
Since we were now only a day behind the harrunt’hs, we slept without a fire. The night was dark and cool. The movement of the grasses increased with the rising night wind, as though with the passage of ghosts. Nobody spoke, but we were all thinking of our dead comrades.
I felt that I’d missed something: something I should have noticed, and it disturbed me. But tomorrow we would reach our game. We’d have fresh meat and our youngsters would be hunters. Then we could go home.
The wind howled, the grasses swayed, and the dark night became darker. I dreamed we were being stalked by the harrunt’hs. In my dream I gaped in confusion as a one-eyed harrunt’h closed its herbivore mouth over Heckt’er’s arm, tearing into his flesh. I reached toward him but he faded, disappeared into the darkness. I could still hear his screams and I ran forward, gripped by the terror of nothing-as-it-should-be. He screamed again and the wall of nightmare that held me broke into reality. I awakened to hear Dam’an shrieking his parent’s name.
The grasses waved furiously as Cann’an was pulled by some unseen force racing away from us. For a moment I hesitated, nightmare and night attack intertwined. Then I charged after him with Piet’er close behind. We couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting Cann’an, and every step we took we fell behind while he and his assailant sped further and further ahead until, exhausted, defeated, we fell panting in the wake of his bloodied passage.
We returned to the youths. As we huddled together among the bruised grasses, I shivered in the cold night wind. It was then that I realized what I had overlooked.
The wind had been cool as it shook the forest treetops, cool as it chopped the broad Symamt’h into glittering wavelets. The wind was cool now as it raced in stealth between the concealing grasses. There was no hint of the heat of stillseason in the cool wind that shivered up our spines. I had convinced myself that an early stillseason was sending into premature hibernation birds and sadu’hs, fish and harrunt’hs. But Timb’il must have been right; something else hunted our forests.
“What was it?” Heckt’er asked me.
“We’ll kill an extra harrunt’h,” I said. “It will be drawn to the scent of fresh blood.” Piet’er understood at once.
Then Dam’an spoke: “and we will be waiting.”
I saw that he knew his parent was dead, that all we could do was lay a trap for the thing that had taken him and kill it.
“You bring honor to your parent,” I told him.
***
We dropped our packs when we were close enough to hear the snorts and whistles of the herd, the tramping of their hooves and the swish of grasses when they lay down and rose again. Piet’er wanted to rest until morning but I didn’t trust the treacherous night to wait on us.
The herd wasn’t large, a hundred beasts at most. We separated into two groups, Dyit’er and Dam’an with Piet’er, Heckt’er with me. Piet’er suggested we bring our firearms but I disagreed. Ghen do not hunt harrunt’hs with firearms. Besides, how could
we shoot while our younglings were leaping onto the backs of harrunt’hs to kill them with knife and claws?
Heckt’er and I moved west, counting our steps as we circled the herd. Piet’er took Dyit’er and Dam’an to the east around the resting beasts. We hadn’t finished walking when the lead buck’s startled whistle rent the night. Lurching to their feet, the harrunt’hs stampeded.
I thought it must have been Dyit’er or Dam’an who alarmed them prematurely and I snorted under my breath. I had no time to think or I would have known my error, for the herd was thundering toward the east. I only had time to point to a young buck racing by us, to aim my knife at its throat as Heckt’er leaped onto it, sinking his claws into its neck. I raced after them, but I was unnecessary. By the time I arrived, Heckt’er was standing beside his first large kill. My youngling was a hunter.
I realized then that the herd had stampeded toward Piet’er and the youths, not away from them. They must have been caught in its path. But we could only step back and wait as the beasts surged past us. Then I began to wonder what had stampeded them.
I grabbed up my knife and yelled to Heckt’er to arm himself and so we were ready when the courrant’h swept down on us. It was in feeding frenzy, already bloodied with its slaughter yet seeking more. Predator, not hunter, killing beyond its need. I readied myself in its path, arms raised. Its eyes burned into mine as it crouched on its powerful legs and screamed defiance, exposing rows of reddened fangs.
It must have sensed my strength, for it swerved toward Heckt’er. He stood his ground while the beast leaped yowling toward him. It massed twice as much as he and only its face was vulnerable. The deep double thickness of matted hair that covered the rest of its body protected it not only from the mountain cold but also from the reach of knife and claw. Heckt’er’s only chance was to sink his weapon into its open maw or one of its eyes, if he could do so before it tore him apart.
I’ve heard of grown Ghen, experienced hunters, turning and running before the charge of a courrant’h, but Heckt’er stood firm. He thrust his knife into the creature’s right eye, his aim straight and deep, while the claws of his left hand raked across its sensitive nose. With a scream it twisted its face aside and its terrible fangs clamped onto his offending arm as it bore him down. I reached them then and slashed my knife across the monster’s face, cursing myself for refusing to bring my firearm. It released Heckt’er’s arm with a roar and turned to me.
I was full of a furious terror for my child and without hesitation I plunged my knife, fist and all, into the courrant’h’s gaping jaws, and twisted. Retching and coughing, it reeled backward, dragging me over the bloodied ground, but I found my footing and thrust deeper until it groaned and fell, pulling me to my knees beside it.
***
We found Dam’an first, trampled into the ground, almost unrecognizable, then Dyit’er, lying between the stiff legs of a yearling calf. He trembled and moaned but would not open his eyes. I carried him away where he wouldn’t see the body of his parent. Piet’er must have thrown Dyit’er behind the dead calf and stood before them as long as he was able, frantically waving the charging harrunt’hs away from the path of his youngling.
Piet’er had been my friend, had trusted me. Cann’an, for all his belligerence, had followed me, and so had Timb’il. And their younglings. I should have led them home eating berries, as Timb’il wanted.
***
Heckt’er’s left arm was mangled but he was otherwise unhurt. I cleaned it and wrapped it tightly to stop the bleeding, then he helped me build a funeral pyre for Dam’an and Piet’er. I felt Dyit’er’s eyes on me, almost as punishing as Heckt’er’s refusal to look at me.
I dared not wonder what they might be thinking. I dared not think at all. Get them home, I told myself, and nothing else. Get them home, get them home... over and over, the words building a wall within my mind between the enormity of what I had done and the inadequacy of what I could now do.
For myself as well as them, I behaved with as much normalcy as I could manage. It is an insult to Wind to scorn the hunt we are given; therefore, I skinned the courrant’h while Heckt’er attended to the harrunt’h he had brought down. Together, we skinned two others the courant’h had killed. So much meat. I’d been too proud to lead my hunt home without meat. Now I had plenty of meat, and only two younglings to bring home.
We used the skins as sleds and packed the carcasses onto them, along with a fourth, half-eaten harrunt’h, which we dragged behind us. They slid over the taunting grasses with little resistance.
When we reached the Symamt’h we loaded everything onto one raft. I tied the half-eaten carcass around the edges of the other raft so that half the meat dangled into the water, and sent the baited raft down river. Using the rope I pulled us across as quickly as I could while the liapt’hs swarmed to our decoy.
***
As soon as we were in the woods I let Heckt’er and Dyit’er rest. We had a long trek ahead. I knew my forest and had no need to climb for direction, but now even the mangarr’hs had gone. A pall lay over the forest. We walked through the death-like stillness as though we were marked.
Every morning some of the meat was missing, no matter how we watched in the night. We found no footprints but our own, even when I brushed aside the leaves and twigs on the forest floor to leave damp soil exposed around us.
“It’s only mangarr’hs sneaking down the trees to snatch pieces of meat and scurry up again,” I reassured Heckt’er and Dyit’er. But it bothered me more than I let on. I showed them both how to use Cann’an’s firearm.
Dyit’er believed the thing that hungered between the hushed trees was only a sly mongarr’h. Dyit’er trusted my judgment, as had every parent and youth who died on this hunt, may I someday be forgiven. During the night, on his watch, Dyit’er left the circle of our campfire to relieve himself behind a tree.
Even a great hunter can be broken by being awakened too often with death at his campfire. Even great pride can be shaken by too many losses, too many miscalculations. I grabbed my firearm and ran toward the sudden silence where Dyit’er’s scream had broken off, pausing only to order Heckt’er to stay by the fire.
I found no trace of Dyit’er, not then, not in the morning. I saw signs of a struggle: snapped branches, blood spattered on leaves and soil. But I found only Dyit’er’s footprints stamped into the bloody ground, round and round, as though he had attacked himself, then charged away into the woods. I followed the bloody prints till they were hidden by the fallen leaves, calling his name among the silent trees.
I was responsible for Dyit’er’s disappearance. He was a youth in my care and I had failed him. I struggled again to push my thoughts aside, and yet they ate at me. Neither my pride nor my strength nor my skill nor my weapons had kept my companions alive. We were prey in our own forest. We were meat pretending to be carrying meat back to our people.
Heckt’er and I still had ten days’ journey home through a forest I no longer knew. For the first time, I was afraid. I wanted to send my child to burrow, like the sadu’hs. I wanted to hide him, quiet and still in the treetops, like the birds. We were too far from our home, too far from safety.
We abandoned most of the meat, carrying only what we needed, and I pushed us to greater speed. Heckt’er was hurting badly, almost despairing. Dyit’er had been a close friend, had trained with him and accepted him despite the age difference, when most of the others hadn’t. I told him that I would collect a party of armed hunters as soon as I got him home, and we would find Dyit’er; but he knew Dyit’er was already dead. I was too sick at heart to convince him otherwise. Sick with my failure, sick with fear for him.
We traveled for three days undisturbed. I began to hope that whatever prowled the spectral woods had been satisfied with poor Dyit’er and the harrunt’h meat we left behind.
Seven days from home. I barely slept. I was hallucinating with exhaustion when I finally lay on my mat. Heckt’er wakened me almost at once it seemed, but the night
was half over and I felt a little better. I suspected he would have given me longer except that his own eyes were closing beyond his power to prevent. I rose and sat by the fire, making him sleep so close I could touch him.
I have never dozed on a watch before. I have never been so depleted, and I was lulled by four days without incident. Once, twice, my eyelids drooped and twice I startled into panicked wakefulness to find the night quiet around me. Against my will I dozed.
Sudden movement and Heckt’er’s surprised cry awoke me in time to see the skins with the last of our harrunt’h meat disappearing behind a bushy cappa. Heckt’er leaped up to give chase and I lunged for him, grabbed his legs and pulled him down. I dragged him back to the fire and held him, though he did not struggle, held him tight against me with one arm while the other held my firearm, aimed into the darkness.
We were not disturbed again that night. At the first light of dawn we stamped out our fire and packed our mats, canteens and firearms. I spent a few minutes examining the trail of the skin, looking for clues to the fiend that shadowed us, but the skin had swept the ground clear except, here and there, for what appeared to be our own footprints.
We had not come from this direction. We hadn’t stood in this spot, yet there were the partial imprints of our feet! I wondered in horror if something preternatural stalked us, leaving our own footprints behind. I was being mocked, my hunting skill exposed in all its sham!
It is my Pride, I thought, grown beyond control, taking on a malignant life of its own. My fears blew wild, toward madness. It only attacks when I sleep! It’s after Heckt’er, because he’s become the focus of my Pride. I was cold and trembling and I stopped looking for clues, more afraid of what I might learn than of being pursued. I returned to Heckt’er and we left.
Six days from home; five if Heckt’er could keep the pace I set. Even I could not make it in less. Five days with no provisions, only the water in our water skins and what we could find on the trail. Five days and four nights from safety.
Walls of Wind and the Occasional Diamond Thief Boxed Set Page 8
