He stood up, an assegai held ready. Ready for what? His question got a volley of babble; everybody was as uncertain as he. The party was separated into three groups, each of which was around a fire at the bottom of a canyon-like fissure, the top of which was several feet above even Ulysses' head. Then a round object appeared in the fog near him, and a voice said, "My Lord! Two of our people are dead!"
It was Edjauwando, a Wagarondit from another group. Ulysses hoisted himself out of the fissure and others followed him. Edjauwando said, "Two have been killed with spears."
Ulysses examined the dead by the light of the fire, which had been increased with a pile of branches and twigs. The throat wounds could have been made with spears, but Edjauwando was just guessing about the weapons used.
The guards said that they had seen nothing. They had been stationed outside the fissures but had sat at their posts half in their bags and half-wrapped in blankets. They said that the screams had come from out there—pointing into the cloud—and not from the victims.
Ulysses increased the guards and then returned to his fissure. He said, "Ghlikh, what kind of sentients are in this area?"
Ghlikh blinked at him and then said, "Two, Lord. There are the Wuggrud, the giants, and there are the Khrauszmiddum, a people like the Wufea but taller and spotted like the leopard. But neither live this high up. Or, at least, very few do."
"Whoever they are," Ulysses said, "they can't be many. Otherwise, they would have rushed the whole group."
"That is likely," Ghlikh said. "On the other hand, the Khrauszmiddum like to play with their enemies as a leopard plays with a young goat or a cat with a mouse."
There was little sleep the rest of the night. Ulysses did doze off, only to be awakened with a hand shaking him by the shoulder. An Alkunquib, Wassundee, was saying, "My Lord! Wake up! Two of my people are dead!"
Ulysses followed him to the crevice in which the Alkunquib had slept. This time, the two dead were guards. They had been strangled and their bodies rolled over into the crevice on top of their fellows. The other three guards, only a few feet away, had heard nothing until the bodies struck the bottom of the fissure.
"If the enemy has any force at all, he lost a good chance to kill many more of us," Ulysses muttered.
Nobody slept the rest of the night. The sun came up and began to burn away the cloud. Ulysses looked around the area for signs of the attackers but could find nothing. He ordered the corpses to be wrapped up in their sleeping bags and tossed over the side of the branch. After the priests had said their little ceremonies, of course. It would have been more fitting, according to their religions, if the bodies could have been buried. But on this branch, any dirt that had collected in the crevices was occupied by a tangle of roots of trees or bushes. So the bodies went over the side in the closest approximation of a burial that could be arranged. They turned over and over, narrowly missing a great branch a thousand feet below and then disappeared into a liana complex.
After a silent breakfast, Ulysses gave the word to march. He led them along the branch for half the day. Shortly after noon, he decided to transfer to a slightly lower one which had been running parallel to theirs for several miles. Its vegetation was much thicker; the reason for this was the riverlet which filled a third of the area on its top. He was interested in building a raft according to Ghlikh's suggestion.
The transfer took place on an almost horizontal liana complex. Ulysses sent the party over in three groups. While the first crawled over, the rest stood guard with bows and arrows. This was a good time for their enemies to try a surprise attack, because those on the complex were too occupied in hanging onto the lianas and making sure their footing would not be on a deceptively firm, but actually insecure, plant. Those staying behind scanned the thick growths for possible ambushers. A thousand enemies could have been easily concealed at a very close range.
When the first party reached the other side, they stationed themselves to cover the next, while a third group remained as rear guard. Ulysses had gone with the first group. He watched the next party crawl over the complex, which sagged just a little under the weight of the Alkunquib and the supplies and bombs they carried. He had already explored the immediate area and made certain that there were no ambushers there.
When the first Alkunquib was about twenty feet from the branch, the third group raised a great shout. Ulysses, startled, saw that they were pointing upward. He raised his eyes just in time to see a log about ten feet long falling toward the Alkunquib warrior. It did not hit him, but it plunged through the tangle, ripping lianas and vines and creepers apart. The warrior suddenly found himself dangling at the end of a liana. Those behind him had frozen at the first impact, and then they scrambled forward recklessly as other missiles, logs, branches and clods of dirt, crashed through the tangle.
Screaming, the first Alkunquib lost his grip and fell into the abyss. Another was hit on the back with a log about two feet long, and he disappeared. A third leaped out to escape a chunk of bark as big as his head and fell through. A fourth tripped and hurtled through an opening which closed up after him. But he reappeared a moment later and reached the dubious safety of the branch.
By then the logs were falling closer to the first party and forcing them to retreat deeper onto the branch. Ulysses also had to step back, but he had ascertained that the missile-throwers were on the branch directly above. On the sides, rather, since they would have been forced to climb down the sides on the rough bark in order to deliver their fire. They were about six hundred feet up and so within range of the bowmen on the other branch. These were Wagarondit under the chieftainship of Edjauwando. He remained cool and barked out orders, and presently the arrows were flying in volleys at the side of the branch above.
The enemies were leopard-spotted felines with hairy tufts on their ears and goat-like chin whiskers. Six, arrows sticking out of them, hurtled through the complex. One struck an Alkunquib squarely, and both went through. The rest of the Alkunquib gained the other side and tore through the bushes to get underneath the branch where the Khrauszmiddum could not hit them. The Wagarondit had stopped firing by then, and Ulysses yelled to them across the two-hundred foot gap. After determining that the leopard-men had climbed back up the sides to get away from the arrows, he ordered the Wagarondit to come across. They did so as swiftly as possible, but before the last had reached safety, they were bombarded from above. This time, the logs and dirt missed all the targets.
Ulysses finally found the two bat-people cowering under a big bush with huge scarlet six-pointed leaves. They had been the first to come across, having launched themselves from the trunk and flapped across. He wished that he had sent them to the higher branch to scout around. From now on, he would do so. In fact, he had a job for them at this moment.
"I want you to fly around until you find where the Khrauszmiddum live," he said.
Ghlikh's skin became ever greyer. He said, "Why? What do you plan on doing?"
"I'll wipe them out," he said. "We can't just let them pick us off by twos and threes."
Neither of the two wanted to venture out into the open, but Ulysses said that he would cut their wings off and leave them behind if they did not obey orders. Then he decided to keep Ghuakh as a hostage while her husband went away. He did not use the word hostage or say why he wanted just one to do the scouting, but they understood him. Ghlikh reluctantly launched himself from a cliff-like projection of bark on the side of the branch, glided swiftly downward, began flapping, and then was spiralling upward. No missiles were thrown at him by the enemy.
While waiting, Ulysses had his people use their stone axes to build six large rafts. In about an hour the bat-man swooped down and made a landing on another liana complex. He crawled onto the branch and reported that he had seen a number of the leopard-men but no sign of their village.
Ulysses then told the bat-man that he wanted him to fly on down the riverlet and scout. He did not want to be ambushed while they were on the rafts; they were especia
lly vulnerable on these. Ghuakh would remain with him. Ghlikh did not comment. He took off and was gone a half hour. He had seen nothing in the dense vegetation.
The plant life was not the only plentiful life here. There were scores of butterflies of many colours, bearing intricate designs on their wings and backs. A dragonfly with a four-foot wingspread zoomed over the water, dipping now and then to seize large waterspiders that skated on pontoon feet on the surface. Sometimes, a leaf rustled, and Ulysses glimpsed cockroaches as big as his hand. A flying lizard coasted by; its ribs extended far out on either side and a thin membrane grew between the ribs. Once, on the opposite bank, an otter dashed out and dived into the water. This time, it was not hunting, it was escaping a hunter. A bird about three feet high, a smaller variety of the giant plains roadrunner, came after the otter. It dived in after the animal, and neither appeared again,
Ulysses sat for a while, thinking, while the others either stood guard or sprawled on the mossy vegetation that overgrew much of the branch. The source of the riverlet was a large hole at the juncture of the trunk and the branch. According to Ghlikh, the tree pumped up water and poured it out at various spots like this. The water either ran through the channel, which inclined imperceptibly until it cascaded when the branch took an abrupt declination, or, often, when the branch ran horizontally, additional springs on the way kept the water flowing, sometimes even up slight inclines.
This riverlet apparently ran for many many miles. Ghlikh estimated about thirty-five miles, though he was not sure. The branch, like so many, zigzagged. There were even branches that looped in on themselves.
At last, Ulysses rose to his feet. Awina, who had been lying by him, also stood up. He gave the order, and he stepped onto the first raft. Some Wufea got onto the raft with him, and they shoved off with long poles they had cut from a bamboo-like plant.
The current ran at a sluggish five miles an hour at this point. The water was about twenty feet deep at the centre of the channel and was clear for the first six feet. After that, it became murky. Ghlikh said that that was due to plants which grew from the bottom and released a brown liquid from time to time. He did not know what purpose the brown liquid served, but it doubtless had its use in the ecology of The Tree. Nor did he know why the liquid did not rise to the top and so discolour the entire stream.
There were fish in this stream. There were several varieties and sizes, but the largest was about two and a half feet long and looked like a red-and-black-spotted jewfish. They seemed to be plant eaters. A smaller, much more active fish with a pike's long underjaw fed off the water-skating spiders and also dashed after the frogs. But these usually escaped or else turned and gave battle. They had no teeth, but they clung to the side of the fish and scraped at the eyes. Once, a pike sheared off a frog's hind leg, and then the others closed in and tore the wounded animal to bits.
The raftmen kept the rafts close enough to the banks so that they could reach the bottom or even the banks and shove with their poles. They worked together at the low commands of the chiefs, shoving with a grunt as the chiefs counted. Others stood with bows and arrows ready.
The water level was almost up to the top of the banks, and the plants grew thickly along the banks.
Sometimes, they reached out and into the waters. And there were trees which had grown at a slant over the stream. These were alive with birds and monkeys and other creatures. The monkeys had thicker fur than their fellows at a lower altitude.
If it were not for the threat of the leopardpeople, Ulysses would have enjoyed this trip. It would have been nice to have sat down and just drifted, like Huck Finn in a stream that Mark Twain would not have imagined.
But this was not to be. Everyone had to be alert, ready to go into action on a moment's notice. And all, he supposed, expected a spear to fly out from behind the dense green and scarlet plants at any moment.
Two tense hours went by and then the rafts came out onto a widening of the stream almost large enough to be called a lake. Ulysses had seen other branches which sometimes spread out, but he had never been on one before. The water also became deeper, and the lakelet was four hundred feet wide. To get across, the rafts could either be pushed by the current, which had become very sluggish, or they could stay close to the banks, where the bottom was shallow enough for the poles to be used. Ulysses elected to stay in the middle where, at least, they could relax for a moment, since they would be beyond the reach of Khrauszmiddum javelins.
A moment later, he regretted his choice. A herd of beasts that looked from a distance like hippos waddled from the vegetation on shore and plunged into the water. Snorting and blowing, they cavorted around, coming closer to the rafts but seemingly not on purpose.
Ten yards away, they could be seen to be giant rodents which had apparently adapted to aquatic life. Their nostrils and eyes were on top of their heads, and their ears were provided with flaps of skin. They had lost all their hair except for a brush like a horse's mane on the back of their massive necks.
At this moment, on cue as if they were in a jungle movie, three large canoes appeared in the lake. Two came from behind them and one from the exit to the lake. Both canoes were of painted wood with snake heads projecting from the bow, and each held nineteen leopard-men, eighteen paddlers and a chief in the bow.
A few seconds later, Ulysses saw several huge creatures slither out of the plants on the banks and into the water. They looked like short-snouted, legless crocodiles.
Ulysses opened a waterproofed leather bag on the floor of his raft and took out a bomb. Piaumiiwu, a warrior whose duty it was to keep a lighted cigar in his mouth at all times, except when a fire was handy, handed him the cigar. Ulysses puffed on it until its end was aglow and then touched it to the fuse. It sputtered and then began to emit a thick black smoke which the wind took toward the two pursuing canoes. He held it until the fuse was about ready to disappear, and then tossed it in the middle of the hipporats.
The bomb exploded just before it struck the water. The beasts dived, and most of them did not come up at once, but one emerged just on the other side of Ulysses' raft. Its body, boiling out of the lake, sent water washing around the ankles of those on the raft. It snorted and dived again, and this time came up under the last raft, which tipped over. Yelling, a number of Wagarondit slid into the water, and some bags of supplies and bombs went into the lake, too. Then the behemoth dived once more, and Ulysses' second bomb blew up in the air just as it came up once again.
The leopard-men had been yelling at their quarry, but with the first bomb they fell silent. They also quit paddling and did not resume immediately, even though their chiefs screamed orders at them. By then, Awina had passed out several more bombs, and the best throwers had lit up their bombs. Four went out at the same time, one landing near three great hipporats. Three fell short of the two war canoes, but the explosions scared the Khrauszmiddum. They began to veer away, probably intending to stay out of range of the bombs but hoping to be close enough to cast spears.
The archers got into action then, and a number of paddlers and one chief fell with arrows in them. At the same time three archers fell, run through by spears thrown from the bank.
And a hipporat came up out of the water as if ejected by a catapult, seized the side of a war canoe with its two huge front paws, and pulled the canoe over on its side. The entire complement, screaming, went into the water.
There was a furious boiling here and there. Ulysses saw one of the limbless crocodiles rolling over and over with the leg of a leopard-man in its short jaws. The reptiles were also among his own men, those who had fallen into the water when the hipporat had tilted the raft up.
There was so much going on, Ulysses could not keep track of it all. He concentrated on the bank, where the greatest danger was. The ambushers were only evident now and then, seen through breaks in the vegetation as they threw spears. Ulysses directed the archers to fire into the thick green walls along the bank. Then he got the attention of the chiefs on the other ra
fts and told them to fire into the vegetation also. These transmitted the orders as soon as the men in the water had been pulled out.
The third war canoe, the one which had come in from the exit, was commanded by a chief brave to the point of foolishness. He stood in the prow of the canoe, shaking his spear and urging his paddlers to greater efforts. Evidently he meant to ram the first raft or to ride the canoe right up on over it and then board it.
The Wufea archers put an arrow through his thigh and six arrows through as many paddlers. But he knelt behind the snakeheads and shouted at his men to go on. The canoe came on, a little slower but still too swiftly to suit Ulysses. He lit another bomb and threw it just as a number of paddlers cast their paddles away and stood up to throw their spears. The canoe cut the water on a collision course with the raft. Nothing, apparently, could stop it.
Ulysses's bomb blew the front part of the canoe off and the chief with it. Water rushed in and flooded the rest of the hull, and it dived at an angle and disappeared momentarily just short of the raft.
The bomb had gone off so close that it deafened and blinded everybody on the raft. But Ulysses, his eyes streaming, saw what was happening a moment later. Most of the shattered vessel's crew were floating stunned or dead on the water, and then they began to go under as many-toothed jaws grabbed them.
The Stone God Awakens Page 8
