The Battle for Tomorrow (Ilon the Hunter)

by Frederick Bell

  She grinned and told him, “Always,” and then added, “You worry like a father, Gangahar.”

  The others burst out laughing at his shocked expression, but he did not find this to be amusing at all and shaped his body to show his true feelings.

  “I will tend to her now,” Katakana said. “You must be hungry. Go and eat.”

  He was ravenous. Even so, her disarming words did not penetrate his thoughts until she twice repeated her simple order. Eat. That is what he would do.

  Later, when he returned from the woods, his mouth bloodied, his appetite now sated, Krugjon greeted him outside their burrow as he approached. “It is starting to happen. Horhon’s baby is coming.”

  It took only a moment for the full import of his words to sink in. But Krugjon must have anticipated his reaction and seized him by the arm even before he started for the burrow. “Katakana said you would be more a bother than a help. The females are expert. Let them attend to her. They will know what to do.”

  “So what can we do?” Gangahar asked him pointedly. What could he do? He wished he could be there now, at her side, as he always was.

  Krugjon was looking away—and that was his answer. “There is something important you must see. Here.” He handed over a strange object that Gangahar could see his own reflection in. He examined it thoroughly before his gaze returned to the hunter.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “Yahu brought it to me just now. I understood little of what he said, although I believe it was Ilistruk who sent him.”

  Again he peered at the object. But what he saw was clearly beyond his comprehension. “Doesn’t scratch. And see, it cannot be dented either. You say this came from Ilistruk?”

  “There is only one way to know for certain. We will go find her together.”

  Just as he finished speaking the sound of Horhon’s birthing screams echoed out of the tunnel, the last one dying to dreaded silence. Gangahar looked alarmed.

  “Perhaps I should stay.”

  Only once before had Krugjon ever watched a birth. It was nothing like he imagined at all. Through the haze of time he remembered his new daughter, the good feelings he felt then, but the excruciating pain it had caused his burrow mate was not something he wanted to burden Gangahar with, so he wisely did not speak of it now.

  “She is fine. When we are tracking for Ilistruk you will soon forget.”

  He sincerely hoped so.

  The two of them turned tails and bounded for the field, soon crossing the invisible line where the great forest ended and the grasslands began. Here they were leaping high, traveling further and further, until the tall trees became a flat line on the vast open horizon.

  As Krugjon expected, Ilistruk was waiting for them, her big ears and head sticking out over the grass. She was happy to see them, though the next moment the elation of this meeting quickly turned to a more immediate concern.

  “You must see this thing for I do not know what it could be.” Ilistruk led them over to the body. In that short time she had turned her back something was now crawling over the stinking corpse. “Get away from that!” she roared, snapping with her jaws at several tickridents who were scrambling away with shreds of flesh dangling from their mouths.

  Krugjon gazed upon the dead creature with obvious disgust. “Smells like it’s been dead for a long time.”

  “As I said, Yahu killed it only this morning.”

  With some trepidation he fingered the fleshy corpse. “What is this oozing from its body?”

  “It stained Yahu’s teeth where he bit the thing. I believe it is blood.”

  “What sort of creature has yellow blood? Do you recognize this ugly thing?” Krugjon queried Gangahar.

  He could only shake his head no, though when his clawed foot rolled the creature over he almost fell off his feet, so great was his shock.

  “Iranha!” he hissed in hatred. Remembering the destruction of trod Yaryar filled him with a fierce rage. His emotions were in turmoil, seeing this Iranha now here, this destroyer that he so fervently wanted to kill. With his bone crushing teeth and claws he tore it to pieces, hurling the dismembered corpse as far from him as he could, even bending to pick up the pieces and fling them away, out of his sight.

  While it satisfied Krugjon to see it decently destroyed, there was something else on his mind. “For what reason did it trek out this far, alone?”

  “It escapes me. And yet it is here so I can only wonder why.”

  “Even more importantly, you said the Iranha could not be killed.”

  “I said that only because I have never seen them be killed.” His eyes opened wider with this new and interesting revelation. “They can be killed.”

  “Then there will be many more deaths to come,” Krugjon promised.

  Gangahar’s nostrils were close to the ground, sniffing. “See how closely spaced apart these foot prints are? This thing could not have moved very quickly. Should we follow its tracks to see where it came from? There might be more of them.”

  As much as he wanted to, Krugjon felt less certain that they were going to find any Iranha in the desert once he spotted the black cloud building on the horizon. “Not today. A wind storm is coming,” he said. “We better get off this sand before it hits.”

  The hunters simply called it Chuduk, the windy season, when the heat of the desert whipped up the sand and sent roiling storms that could block out the sky for days. It had started early this year and they were lucky to have reached the forest in time. The sky behind them was already clouded over and their hides were dusty and dirty. The wind was howling above the tree-tops when Katakana saw the three hunters bound into sight. She amplified her distress with movements that brought them jumping forward.

  “Inside! Quickly!” She waved her one arm frantically in the air and wailed, “The baby . . . It is . . .”

  Dead, Gangahar thought in horror as he rushed forward and seized her by the arm. “Is Horhon’s baby all right?” he demanded.

  “You must come and see for yourself.”

  There was no happiness in her voice, only a grimness, a darkness that he thought for sure was death. Together they hurried inside. As they proceeded in tense silence Gangahar heard a scream that caused him to ask her, “What is that awful noise?”

  Shuddering, Katakana answered hoarsely, “The baby.”

  As they came into the central chamber where Horhon had birthed him, the three who were following behind Katakana now finally got to see what was making all this noise. From the shocked look on their faces it was all too clear that this was not the savior they were all expecting.

  “What is this thing?” Krugjon finally dared to ask.

  Lying on the floor was something totally alien to him, that even the dead Iranha he had seen outside now seemed only moderately revolting in comparison. Since its body was still covered in a wet sheen from the delivery he knew this was not something they had dragged in to eat.

  “My son,” Horhon growled at him for his rudeness. “As you can see, a male.”

  “Yes,” he shivered, “but what kind?”

  “The one who is Egris but who is not Egris,” she answered. Those had been Megog’s very own words to her.

  Gangahar recognized something familiar about him. “Like the ones in your dream.”

  “The same. The ones who are no more, so he is one of us.”

  While he appeared to have some of the fundamental body parts—legs, arms, a head and torso—everything about him was physically different from them. About the same size as an Egris newborn he was missing a tail, and maybe this was what made him appear smaller, but there was much more wrong with him. Little hands and fingers that were clawless, a mouth that was full of tiny, flat teeth—if these were even teeth. Gangahar guessed this was his mouth because that was where all of his noise was coming from. Even his ears were no more than a hole on each side of his head. It would be better if he didn’t say what he was thinking: he had the face that any mother would have wanted to e
at.

  “This small one is to lead us against the Iranha?” He opened and closed his mouth, thinking. “How?”

  “In the fullness of time he will deliver us from our hated enemy, destroy them all, as it was already foreseen.”

  “Why does he not stand up?”

  “He is just born,” she explained wearily. “Maybe it is too soon.”

  An Egris child stood up almost from the moment it dropped out of its mother’s womb. And within a very short time it was jumping, and killing as efficiently as an adult. This one just lay there, flopping around as if life was abandoning him—perhaps it should.

  “So much pain this small one caused you,” Katakana remarked. “You should return to your burrow to rest.”

  “I stay.” Horhon had no intention of leaving him here alone with them. He was rolling around on the floor, moaning fitfully, yet she felt sure this would soon end.

  “Such tiny legs,” Okinaw noticed. “How will he ever jump?”

  “I do not think his kind can jump.”

  “Then . . . can he hunt?”

  “All meat-eaters hunt.”

  It was his diet that most interested Gangahar. “Meat that he must kill for?”

  This incessant questioning was draining her. “Yes,” she answered testily. “But only when it has been burnt over the fire.”

  With each new thing she said his understanding grew. His forehead creased as he thought what next to ask her, though the frowning-faced hunter, Saskakel, spoke first.

  “Can his noises be stopped?” he complained.

  “No!”

  Her listeners scattered into the tunnels as she roared. Horhon was greatly annoyed and happy to be rid of them all at last. Undoubtedly the hunters were just as happy to be gone too. Over time his presence was something that they had better start getting used to, for even as the seasons changed nothing else did.

  Only Gangahar and Katakana remained but they were afraid to speak out of fear that she might bellow at them again. However, Katakana was the first one to notice that something had changed, and wandered over to look at him.

  “Look, his eyes have opened.”

  All three hunters bent over to stare at him, pushing their big snouts to within inches of his face. He seemed to have some awareness of their presence. When Gangahar moved backwards he turned his head to see where he was going.

  “He sees you,” Horhon said.

  As soon as she spoke his head turned back and he was looking directly up at her. Now he raised one arm to touch her on the face, and slowly dragged his fingers along the curve of her mouth, feeling the sharp points of her teeth.

  “Do you think he understands what we are saying?”

  “It is too early to know. Other Egris speak their first words after a full season, so he will learn.” While she sounded hopeful there were other things about him that she now expressed her private fears to them. “Whether he speaks or not, I worry that our ways will be difficult for him, that he will be among us, yet feel that he is not one of us.”

  “He is so different,” Katakana agreed. “If the Iranha attack us, he will be an easy target for them.”

  “For now the Iranha are the least of his worries. Until he gets bigger than this we will have to protect him from the other animals who might find him an appetizing meal.”

  Still Gangahar seemed worried. Their natural inclination was to follow the meat animals so he would have to be able to keep up with them or die. “What if he does not get up, and this is all he can do?”

  “He will.”

  As soon as she said the words he started struggling to sit up. In a moment he was sitting upright on his own, looking around in the dimness of the chamber. Their own eyes were accustomed to the perpetual darkness of their burrow, and the forest under which they were living, so she paid close attention to him to see if he possessed this ability too.

  After a while he rolled over and lifted himself up so that he was on his knees. Sensing that he was trying to stand up, Horhon shifted her tail and stretched it out in front of him. He must have known what it was for because he grasped hold of it and now climbed to his feet. As he stood shakily, his legs wobbling beneath him, he let go of her tail only to fall back down, though this did not prevent him from trying again. As soon as he was back on his feet he took his first step, then another one.

  “He is walking,” Horhon said excitedly. “He can walk.”

  Gangahar sounded relieved. “Then this is a good sign because the next thing he will have to do is hunt for food.” This may have been wishful thinking on his part, but he was hoping for the best nonetheless.

  While he wasn’t exactly running circles around them he was moving over his own two feet. Several times he stumbled down yet he picked himself right back up and kept going. What he needed to do was strengthen his legs so each of them took turns walking him around the chamber. Katakana had just finished her turn and was now debating what to call him.

  “He needs to have a name,” she said. “Have you considered one?”

  “Not yet,” Horhon replied. “First I shall have to give this some thought.”

  “Something important,” Gangahar added.

  Katakana then said, “If he is our salvation then let him be called as one who delivers us from the teeth of our enemy.”

  “I have a name.”

  “He speaks!” Gangahar gasped.

  All three hunters’ mouths fell open; they stared at him gape-jawed, with their big blue eyes bulging.

  Horhon could scarcely believe it. “You can understand our words?” At his headshake she asked him, “Then what do you call yourself?”

  “Ilon,” he answered in a clear, strong voice that everyone heard. “My name is Ilon.”

  Chapter Eleven

  For Ilon it was like waking from a long, dreamless sleep. There was no awareness of time. Instead there was only the slow, bit by bit realization that he was alive.

  I am alive, he thought. In some other place.

  In another body? Even as he pinched at his warm, fleshy skin, he had doubts whenever he thought about it. No. This felt too much like his old body. Yet he remembered the pain of coming into this world, lying under a creature that had just given birth to him. Then if he was a newborn why was he so big? He had not the delicate, tiny limbs, or the helplessness of a baby, but the thick, muscled arms and calves of an adult who could stand on his own feet. Even all his teeth were here in his mouth. And yet he had no hair, not any his body, nor on his head, so maybe he was something else now.

  Half-consciously he remembered pieces of his past, yet he recalled only enough of it to know that his existence here made no possible sense. Therefore his knowledge of the past held the key to his present. Had he been alive once before, another person? Indeed, these were important questions to ask himself. Yet even more importantly, where was he now, and, what was he?

  What he remembered came to him day by slow day, filtering into his consciousness. Ilon recalled a distant memory. While at first it left no more than a vague impression, it seemed so old that it might well have been a dream, or something that someone might have told him. Yet he saw himself as he once was, or it could have just as easily been someone else. He was a man, a hunter. Very old, he remembered that much. And he also remembered a cave, although unclear to him at first, but this too coalesced into a single, clear thought. He had survived all those years just to be there. Yes, that must be it, he told himself. I returned to that place, the home of my people. To die.

  Only for the very first time since he could remember did he finally accept that these memories were really his. That person had been him. He was Taal, he knew that, knew it as clearly as though the familiar word had been spoken in his ear. The very cave where he had come back to die, was where he had been born. His people, his family, his harden, living the life of the hunt and following the old ways. The images flooded back. Lende, his mate, and Aisahl, like a mother to him. And yet he knew—but he could not say how he knew, returning to
that cave as an old one to die—that all the others were dead. All dead.

  Because of the Uta.

  More a feeling than a memory, the word washed over him like fire in a howling rage. Uta. Enemy. Death. And then he knew, with sad insight, that he had died alone because he was the very last of his harden—and what was more, perhaps the very last of the Taal who walked the world.

  If I died, then is this death? Ilon asked himself.

  Perhaps it was because now strange and terrifying creatures hovered over him, black mouths gaped open, rows of pointed teeth shining. They were like something out of a nightmare. Their teeth, their claws, designed for efficient killing. These were superior killers who far exceeded even the most ferocious meat stalkers that he recalled from his memories. But they were hunters too, like him, yet beyond that he shared little else in common with them. However, they did speak, using a snarled, growling language that Ilon was certain could not be the language he remembered. So how did he know their words? How could he speak and not even recall where he had learned them? For him this was another mystery.

  Egris. This word he knew to be the people these creatures called themselves. The one who had birthed him had said he was Egris too, like her. So then he had two identities, was of two different peoples. But how could that be? Ilon knew he was physically different from them, in every conceivable way. Egris or Taal—which was he? For these endless days and nights he struggled with the insanity of it.

  On another night a second vision of his past life appeared. The memory of it was painful, disturbing, and so he tried to push it away, but he could not forget the light, the light that hurt. Looking into it, he had felt its thoughts, yet understood nothing of what it was, or wanted. It was not a good thing to remember, but it was an important thing, something that made his existence seem very important now. And important to these Egris creatures. They were protecting him, he knew, watching him constantly, every waking and sleeping moment.

  So far, all of his young life had been spent here inside the sand burrow. The fire beside him was a constant companion. His trod was all he knew. Ilon had no encounter with anyone else other than these same hunters who bent before him each day. He wasn’t permitted to go outside, so other than the occasional glimpse of daylight through the tunnel Ilon saw little of the outside world. Although from what he heard and understood he managed to piece together a picture that was disquieting. The world was not as he remembered it. Indeed it was a very different, even frightening world, and he could only imagine what it must be like for hunters as these, with their mouths full of sharp spikes, and knife-like claws for tearing flesh. What other unimaginable creatures of death might be lurking out there? Suddenly Ilon was glad that he knew very little of this strange and hostile world.