Shadow Singer

by Marcia J. Bennett

  All was quiet; the only sound she could hear was the soft intake of air through Ssaal-lr’s short nose. She opened her eyes and looked up at the stars overhead.

  Deep in her heart, Poco knew that Screech had probably saved her life, yet somehow she felt that he had betrayed her.

  “Are they gone, Screech?” she asked softly.

  The fingers on her arm stopped moving. Poco could not see the derkat’s face, but she knew he could see hers.

  He rose and pulled Poco to a sitting position. Softly he coughed a greeting.

  Poco hesitated, then imitated the cough, telling Screech that all was well between them.

  “Screech,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Do you know what has happened to Dhal—or Taav?”

  Screech growled.

  In the dark, Poco could not tell if he was signing or not. Suddenly she felt his furred hands at either side of her face. Gently he moved her head back and forth, describing a negative response.

  “Have the derkat gone?” she asked.

  Screech moved her head up and down. Yes.

  “We have to go and look for Dhal, Screech.”

  Screech tapped Poco’s shoulder and moved her head to signal no. Then he took her hand and placed it against his chest and moved her head up and down. The message was clear: you, no; me, yes.

  Poco reached out and grabbed the derkat’s arms. “I am going with you, Screech! I have to know what happened to Dhal! I will not stay here alone!” Praying for you to come back, she added silently.

  Screech pushed her away and stood up.

  She scrambled to her feet, and her right hand brushed his fur.

  “Please, Screech—together?”

  For a moment the derkat did not respond, then he growled softly and took her by the wrist. He pulled her toward the path leading back to their camp, then hesitated. He stopped and left her and went back toward his pallet. When he returned, he pressed his sword into her hands.

  Poco shifted the sword to her right hand as Screech offered her a hold on his tail. He knew she was night blind and did not want her stumbling in the dark.

  She concentrated on moving as quietly as possible as she followed Screech down the grassy path. She strained her eyes trying to see ahead, but there was nothing but darkness; not the empty kind of darkness that frightened her because it hid the unknown, but a darkness that was composed of natural things that she could hear and feel, such as the chitter of night insects and the touch of grass brushing against her arms and face.

  She tried not to think about what lay ahead, but her mind continued to paint gory scenes, and she had to fight the rising fear that threatened to choke her.

  Suddenly Screech stopped.

  Poco could hear him sniffing the air. She followed his example and smelled smoke, grass and—something she could not name.

  The derkat moved a few paces forward, then turned and pressed her shoulders, pushing her down.

  She sank to her knees and grabbed the hilt of the sword with both hands. Her heart beat heavily in her chest as she peered into the darkness. She wished she had Screech’s night vision.

  He growled softly in her ear, then patted her shoulder. A moment later he was gone, moving away from her so quickly that her outstretched arm encountered nothing but air.

  Crouched where he had left her, Poco waited, braced for the hunting screams of derkat. Damn you, Screech, she thought, come back here!

  The minutes dragged by. Finally, Screech returned. As he pulled her up, he made a sound she had never heard him use before, a low whine that sent shivers down her back.

  “Screech, did you find Dhal?” she asked, pushing her greatest fear into the open.

  The derkat did not respond.

  Poco reached out and followed Screech’s arm down to his hand. “Sign to me,” she commanded him. “Did you find Dhal?”

  Screech’s hand closed into a fist turned downward, signing no.

  “You are sure he is not here?”

  “Yes. Sure.”

  “Do you think the derkat took him?”

  His clenched fist turned upward. Yes.

  “Gi and Taav? Are they gone too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think they might still be alive?”

  Screech did not answer the last question. Silently he took Poco’s arm and led her away from the camp.

  She allowed herself to be drawn away, sick with the feeling of helplessness and numbed by the thought that Dhal was lost to her forever.

  Screech made her lie down when they reached the place where he had made his night camp. He then lay down beside her and pulled her close, offering comfort in the only way he knew.

  Poco buried her face in his chest fur and cried herself into a state of exhaustion. Sleep finally claimed her.

  Chapter 13

  POCO AND SCREECH RETURNED TO THE CAMP EARLY THE next morning hoping to find some sign of a trail left by the derkat raiders. They found everything gone— bomal, packs, weapons, even the bodies of Retath and the dead atich-ar.

  Poco felt a moment of queasiness when Screech found a large, black bloodstain on the ground.

  “Whose blood, Screech?” she asked, forcing the words past her lips.

  “Bomal. Favorite meat of the derkat,”‘ he answered.

  Poco took a shaky breath and looked around the camp. Waves of despair washed over her as she thought about Dhal and wondered whether he was dead or alive.

  She turned to find Screech standing nearby. His face showed no emotion, but his silent watchfulness told her that he was worried about her. She believed that her show of weakness the night before had touched some responsive chord within him, a protectiveness that he had never before shown openly.

  Poco rubbed her eyes; they still felt swollen. She had not cried like that for a long time. Not since the night Trass died, she thought, ten—no fifteen—years ago.

  She knew that Screech was waiting for her to decide what they would do next. Why doesn’t he take the lead? she wondered. Why leave it up to me?

  Poco was tired, body and soul; her head ached and she was hungry and thirsty, and she certainly did not feel up to making any decisions at that moment.

  Screech moved closer. “Are you ill?” he asked.

  Poco shook her head. “Just tired, Screech.”

  Blue eyes locked with yellow as Poco took a deep breath and released it. “Can we follow them, Screech?”

  Screech’s tail flicked back and forth in short, whiplash movements as he signed. “We can follow. The trail is clear.”

  “How long will it take for us to catch up with them?”

  “Two days if we move quickly.”

  “We have no food and only the water you have in your flagon,” she reminded him.

  “I will find what we need,” he assured her.

  Poco nodded, then asked one last question. “Do you think Dhal might still be alive?”

  “We will know once we are on the trail. If he lives, he will be walking and I will find his prints.”

  A little while later, Screech stopped and pointed to the ground. When Poco saw the print of a boot heel at the edge of an anthill, a surge of relief flowed through her.

  “Dhal?” she asked, looking at Screech.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  Poco and Screech did not catch up with the derkat raiders for three days, then they took another two days to circle ahead and find a place where they could lie in wait for the approaching derkat radg. With each day that passed, the Chen-garry Mountains loomed closer. Screech believed that the derkat radg would travel straight east to the mountains, then follow the foothills southeast into the Reaches.

  One day Poco and Screech came close enough to the main radg to see a line of twenty-six derkat, divided by twos; each pair of derkat carried a litter on which rested bundles of bomal hides, a commodity tradable in the markets of the Reaches.

  Each night when they stopped to rest, Screech and Poco discussed ways to approach the radg without putting t
hemselves in too great a danger. The task seemed impossible.

  Poco and Screech sat side by side while they waited for the shadows on the grass to grow longer. Earlier that day they had approached the radg close enough to see Dhal and Taav; both seemed alive and unharmed.

  Poco finished sucking the last of the wild bora root that Screech had found that morning. The vegetable had satisfied her thirst, but not her hunger. Her hands were sticky with root sap and had pieces of grass adhering to them. She wiped them on her pants, wondering if she would ever feel clean again.

  Keeping up with the derkat radg had taxed her to the limit. Her back and legs ached from the steady, ground-eating pace Screech had set, and though he had managed to find something for them to eat each day, it never was enough. One day they had eaten raw plains-hen, a plump, brown bird with a strange whirring call. Another day all they had had was a bitter, red root which was hard to chew.

  Poco was tired and still hungry, but she forced herself to pay attention as Screech pointed out the defensive positions of the derkat at rest.

  “Notice how the old and young lie at center camp,” he signed. “Around them you find the mature females, and in the outermost sleeping circle are the mature males.”

  Poco glanced around the three distinct circles of sleeping enemies. They were scattered over a good size area, but as Screech pointed out, the lines of defense were plain. She could see five guards moving about, and she wondered how many more she was not seeing. She had been surprised to learn that the derkat did most of their traveling by night. Stopping by late morning, the radg would set a day camp, then all but a few would curl up and go to sleep.

  Poco and Screech were situated on a slight rise overlooking the derkat camp. The flatlands had changed to rolling hills as they neared the Chen-garry Mountains, and the grass was beginning to give way to scattered clumps of bushes and trees.

  Poco looked at the mountains rising steeply to the northeast. If she and Screech managed to free Dhal and the others, they would have to make a fast run to the mountain forests, for only there might they find a defensible position should the derkat give chase.

  “Screech, your eyes are better than mine. Do you see Dahl?” Poco asked.

  Screech pointed to the left of the second circle. “He is near the stack of trade goods. There is one guard nearby.”

  Poco strained her eyes but still could not see Dhal. “I wish we did not have to do this in daylight.”

  “It is the only way. When darkness comes, the radg will wake and move on again. We cannot wait any longer. Those hunters who left the radg yesterday, will return soon. We must free our friends before they arrive.”

  Poco hoped that Screech had not been so long away from his people that he had forgotten their ways. Screech had been only ten years old when Utura trappers had severed him from his radg in the Semco Hills and sold him to an exotic animal dealer in Port Cestar; in the fifteen years since his departure from the plains, he had lived a strange, furtive life in Port Bhalvar. Poco could not help but wonder if time and aloneness over the years might have warped Screech’s images of his kin. Was everything as he remembered it, or was he discovering a world he did not know? She found no answer in those calm, yellow eyes.

  “Screech, what will happen if we are caught?” she asked.

  “We die, or we become saato, something to be traded.”

  “Would they trade with us if we went down and talked to them?”

  “What do we trade?” he asked.

  Poco shook her head. Between them they had one sword, a knife, a wooden pendant, and a Ni armband. The armband might be worth one life, but never three, and in her heart Poco knew that she could not agree to a trade for Dhal and leave Gi and Taav to fend for themselves.

  She looked down at the camp. The thought of going into such a gathering of derkat left her feeling sick. There has to be another way, she thought.

  Screech stood and took a quick look around; then he came and sat down behind her. He reached out and pulled her back against him. “Rest now,” he signed, bringing his hands around in front of her. “I will watch. When it is time, I will wake you.”

  “I cannot sleep, Screech, not now.”

  “Try.”

  Poco leaned back against his soft-furred chest and closed her eyes for a few moments, but her thoughts would not let her relax.

  “Screech, do you know for sure that this radg is not the same one from which you were taken years ago?”

  “No.”

  “No, it isn’t? Or no, you do not know?”

  “I do not know,” he answered.

  “It is possible then?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it was your clan, would they welcome you back?”

  “Many years have passed. I am no longer the one they would recognize.”

  “But you would know some of them, wouldn’t you?”

  “Some.”

  Poco was silent for a little while; a new thought formed in her mind, one that had to be voiced. She sat up and turned halfway around so she could see his face.

  “Screech, if this radg turned out to be your home clan, would you want to stay with them? I mean—I would understand if you did want to stay. I always thought you might go home one day. It is just that we have been friends so long that—that I would miss you very much.”

  “There are many radgs on the plains. Chances are few that this one is my home radg.”

  “But if it is?” Poco pressed.

  “It would not matter now. You, Little Fur, and the Healer are my radg now.” Screech brushed the right side of her face with the back of his hand. “Is this not so?”

  Poco looked at the derkat and felt an easing of troubled thoughts. “It is so.” She smiled, and settled back against his furred chest.

  Chapter 14

  FNALLY THE TIME CAME TO MOVE. WITH A NOD SCREECH started down the hill, keeping low. Poco followed. She carried her sword tucked under her right arm, hand on the hilt, the point sticking up and out behind her.

  Nervous, she checked the knife in her wrist sheath. Her job was to free Dhal and the others from their ropes while Screech silenced the guard keeping watch over the prisoners.

  Ra-shun had slipped below the horizon and Ra-gar was casting long shadows in the grass. Screech estimated that they had approximately two hours before the derkat began to stir from their slumber. In that time Poco and Screech had to free their friends, leave the derkat camp as quickly and quietly as possible, and put as much distance between themselves and the camp as time allowed.

  The derkat would, upon waking, realize that their prisoners had escaped. Screech openly admitted that the chances of the derkat going on without giving chase, were slim. Still, they had to take the risk.

  Poco moved only at Screech’s signal once they were off the hill. He would go a few paces ahead of her, stop, peer over the top of the grass, then wave her forward. Four times he made abrupt detours either to the left or to the right. Poco followed. She realized the reason for the detours when, through a thin veil of grass, she saw the recumbent figure of a sleeping derkat.

  Moving with all the stealth at her command, Poco watched Screech stalk the derkat who stood guard over the pile of trade goods. They were by then well within the outer circle of sleeping derkat and working their way toward the second circle which, according to Screech, were all female and equally as fierce as the males when challenged.

  The guard turned his back to them and moved away.

  Screech looked back and signaled her forward.

  “Keep low,” he signed, as she reached his side. “Go straight ahead. The Healer is there.”

  “You?” she signed.

  “I will take the guard.”

  “Meet you where after?”

  “Go north toward the mountains. I will follow.”

  Poco looked into Screech’s eyes and realized that if anything went wrong, she might never see him again. In the next few minutes, either of them might be killed or captured.


  Poco knew that she loved this great, gray-furred being with a portion of her heart that would never belong to Dhal. The thought of losing him brought tears to her eyes. She reached out and caressed the fur over Screech’s left eye.

  “Take care,” she signed.

  She did not wait for him to respond, but turned and started in the direction he had indicated. As she neared the pile of bomal hides that marked the location of the trade packs, she saw Dhal and Taav lying against one of the rolled hides, their eyes closed in sleep.

  Carefully she pushed the grass aside and moved into the open where the grass had all been trampled. She stopped and looked for movement among the sleeping derkat. There was no sign of Screech or the guard.

  She hurried forward. When she reached Dhal, she carefully set her sword down and drew her knife; before she cut Dhal’s bonds, she clamped a hand over his mouth.

  His eyes snapped open. Fear showed on his face but a moment, then he recognized Poco’s disheveled figure.

  Poco lifted her hand from his mouth and signed slowly. “Be still.”

  Dhal nodded and quickly rolled to one side, offering her the ropes that held his arms behind his back. She quickly freed his hands, then went to work on the draak-hide cording that held his ankles together.

  Dhal tried to revive the circulation in his hands as he watched Poco work. Every few seconds he glanced at the derkat sleeping nearby.

  The last piece of cording broke. Poco looked up and smiled, then she saw the pain in Dhal’s face and took a good look at his wrists, which were red and swollen where the ropes had been too tight. But she knew that Dhal could deal with his own pain. Swiftly she turned and began to work on Taav’s ropes.

  Suddenly the scream of a derkat pierced the air. Taav jerked away, his eyes wide in fear. Poco sawed frantically at the ropes holding Taav’s legs.

  But already she was too late. The air filled with the rumble of anger as the entire radg woke.

  “Here, Dhal! Use this!” She slammed the hilt of her knife into Dhal’s hand.

  Then she turned, scooped up her sword, and moved to stand at Dhal’s back. A moment later Screech bounded around the mound of trade packs, his claws dripping blood. Poco did not bother to ask what had happened: obviously Screech had fought, but had failed to silence the derkat guard.