Children of the Plains

Chapter 2

For many hours Amero remained in the top of the elm tree, his back braced against the knobby trunk. He’d heard shouts far away, but it had long since grown quiet all around him — quiet as death. Menni had cried weakly for while, and then he too fell silent.

Amero called now and then to his father, his mother, and his sister, but no one answered. He was afraid to call Menni. The little boy might try to get down from the tree and come to him, and he had no doubt the killer pack was still out there in the grass, watching, lurking.

Finally, he had to give up shouting. His throat was too parched to continue. From his uncomfortable perch he took stock of the situation. He feared the worst. There was no escaping the fact that neither Oto nor Kinar would abandon their children if they were alive. They might have found some place to hold off the beasts, but this was the only grove of trees in the vicinity — hilltops or caves were in short supply on the savanna. The realization of their deaths made his eyes sting and his throat tighten. Amero scrubbed his smarting eyes. Not yet, not yet! His first task was to live. There would be time for grief later.

He had no food, no water, no weapons. His hands, knees, and feet were raw from falling and climbing. His right leg burned where the creature had raked it with its claws. His buckskin breeches hung in tatters. He pulled them off and draped them on the branch. It was cooler in his loincloth anyway. His life seemed to depend on how long he could remain in this tree. Without food and water, it wouldn’t be long.

The sun dipped below the horizon, and the first stars appeared in a flawless purple sky. Amero gazed at the emerging lights. His mother had told him about the stars — how they were the eyes of great spirits on the shore of heaven and how there were patterns in their arrangement. Her people had named these patterns. There was the Winged Serpent, symbol of the great spirit Pala, which stretched from one side of the sky to the other. Facing him across the vault of heaven was the stormbird, Matat. Kinar always called Matat “she,” and Pala “he,” though she never explained why.

Amero yawned. He had to keep alert. To occupy his mind, he tried to recall the names of the other constellations, but none came to him. Failing that, he dredged up more of his mother’s stories. His favorites by far were the tales of far-off places and things seen by Kinar’s father, Jovic. Jovic had witnessed and done amazing things, things the boy Amero always wished he might do some day.

His eyelids closed, his head slowly coming to rest on the branch.

“Long before I was born,” Kinar always began, “my father Jovic traveled to the mountains far to the west. There he saw heaps of stone shaped into blocks with even sides. The blocks were so big Jovic realized whoever shaped them must have been giants, at least three times the height of normal men.”

Amero smiled sleepily at the memory. The giants grew with every telling of the story.

“Jovic saw strange markings on one block, pictures carved and colored,” continued Kinar. “The pictures were of faces like his own, but unlike too. The stone faces were painted blue, and the hair on the faces’ heads was white as snow.”

Amero’s eyes snapped open. His injured right leg had slid off the branch, jerking his body sideways. He drew it up quickly and shuddered. A leaping beast could have dragged him to the ground by that dangling limb.

Were the animals even still there? He strained his eyes in the darkness, gazing deep into the shadows for signs of the pack. The songs of night birds were a good sign the beasts had departed. Perhaps he could descend, backtrack to the stream, and fill his belly with cool, fresh water.

The sound of a dry twig snapping rang out. The birds ceased their rhythmic call.

“Oto?” he said in a loud whisper. “Is that you? Kinar? Nianki?”

“Oto?” replied a voice in the night. Amero gripped the tree harder. It was not a voice he knew.

“Who’s there?” he said more loudly.

“Who’s there?”

He’d once heard an echo-spirit in a canyon, but he’d never heard of one living on the plain. “Nianki, don’t jest with me,” he said uncertainly.

“Don’t jest with me.”

For a fleeting instant, Amero spotted a pair of glowing white eyes a dozen paces away. They were low to the ground and wide-set, just like the eyes of the killer pack animals.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

“Who’s there?” mocked the voice.

“I’ll not come down!”

“Come down. Come down.” From the shadows all around the tree, the two words were repeated, over and over. More eyes gleamed. Amero counted ten pairs in all.

He sighed and sagged on the branch. Wasn’t there easier prey for them to catch? Then his eyes snapped wide open.

They had talked to him? What sort of unnatural beasts were these?

Shaking with fear, he climbed to the highest part of the tree that would hold him and wedged himself into a narrow crotch. He picked open the lacings along the sleeve of his buckskin shirt and braided the ends together to double the strength of the binding. He dropped the useless shirt onto a lower branch. Looping the braided lacing around his waist, Amero tied himself to the tree. The hide laces would not support him if he fell, but they would steady him enough to sleep.

One pair at a time, the eyes below vanished. When they were all gone, the only sound was their peculiar yelping cry — slower now, sounding more and more like cruel human laughter.

The night seemed endless. It passed in fits and starts, as every cricket in the grass, every bat flickering through the treetops brought Amero to instant wakefulness. When at last he did sag into deep slumber, a horrible apparition invaded his rest.

Out of the darkness crept one of the beasts, glowing dimly. The creature slunk to the foot of the elm tree and slithered up the trunk without using its paws at all. The combination of snake-like movement and blood-smeared muzzle sent shudders of fear through Amero. He tried to untie the thongs holding him in place, but his arms would not rise. His lips parted to cry for help, but no sound came forth. Closer and closer the faintly luminous creature came, its dark eyes fixed on Amero’s face. When its cold, damp nose touched the sole of his dangling foot, he found his voice. He woke screaming.

The sun was well up. He blinked against its bright rays and raised a hand to shield his eyes. Memory of the terrifying immobility that afflicted him in his dream caused him to raise and lower both arms, just to assure himself he could. As the evil image faded from his mind, a lingering impression remained; someone, some thing not human was nearby. It was watching him with curious detachment, the way Amero studied anthills or wasp’s nests when he was a little boy.

Wind stirred the sparse elm leaves. There were clouds aloft this morning, small puffs of white on a field of hazy blue sky. Amero fervently wished for rain. He’d had no water since yesterday, and the heat and his exertions had left him wrung out and very, very thirsty. He pulled a slender branch close and licked the underside of the leaves. The faintest patina of dew remained, and tasting it only made him feel thirstier.

Amero loosened his lacings and stretched his stiff limbs. He spotted a line of black gardener ants trooping along a lower branch. He swept a dozen or so off into his palm and ate them quickly. They were tart, a little crunchy. He’d eaten ants before when nothing else was available.

Clearing his parched throat, he called to Menni. His brother’s tree was only twenty paces away, but he’d heard nothing from the baby for a long time, and he was worried. It was one thing for a thirteen-year-old like Amero to spend the night in a tree, but a toddler less than two? An ache grew in Amero’s chest as imagined the worst. He had to check on his brother. He must find out whether the boy was all right.

He plotted his way before leaving the safety of his tree: If he took a roundabout route to Menni’s tree, he could move from the safety of one climbable tree to the next. The first tree that could support his weight looked to be eight paces distant; the next one after that, six.

Cautiously, Amero descended. The grove was quiet. Only the hum of locusts broke the silence. He darted from tree to tree, keeping low, with every sense alert for the sound of the returning pack.

By the third climb he had Menni’s tree in sight. Amero wanted to call to his brother, but he was terrified the child wouldn’t answer. Leaving his last perch, he picked up a fallen limb — a feeble weapon — and advanced slowly on Menni’s hiding place.

Something in the tree stirred with every breath of wind. Amero squinted against the glare and tried to make out what it was. It was too small to be Menni.

Within a few steps he realized his brother was no longer there. The object blowing with the breeze was a scrap of cured rabbit pelt. Menni had worn a bonnet lined with rabbit fur.

Mutely, Amero plucked the pathetic scrap from the tree. The slim trunk had lost much bark, the marks fresh and still bright with oozing sap. It was easy to imagine what had happened. The pack had butted and battered the small tree until Menni lost his hold.

Dark bloodstains on the ground lent painful support to this vision. Amero let the tears run down his cheeks for a moment, grieving for his lost brother. He knelt in the dirt and closed his hand around Oto’s panther talisman. It had done Menni little good. Perhaps the spirit of the panther owed protection only to its conqueror.

A rustle in the bush brought Amero’s mourning to an abrupt end. His heart contracted to a small hard knot when he glimpsed gray forms flitting through the grass. They’d been waiting for him! He threw down the worthless talisman and bolted.

The pack had already maneuvered between him and the center of the grove. He had the impression of six or seven animals in front of him, maybe four or five behind. There were trees all around, but none were much more than saplings. Still, given a choice, Amero preferred to take his chances in the trees rather than on the ground.

He angled for a likely looking elm. The beasts saw his change of direction and closed in rapidly. Up he went, clawing at the rough bark. He heard the snap of empty jaws as he swung his legs up and over a low branch. Having failed to catch him, the beasts immediately fell to slamming their broad, ugly heads against the truck. The blows were powerful. As Amero clung to the tree for his life, he realized little Menni could never have held out against such an onslaught.

There were eleven of the gray beasts below him, circling and yelping. In a strikingly uniform movement, they all dropped on their bellies and lay still, gazing up at him.

Now what? Having failed to catch him on the ground, were they planning to wait until hunger and thirst loosened his grip?

He crept up, a finger at a time, putting the maximum distance between him and the pack. In his mind he named the animals yevi, “laughing dogs.” All predators were smart, but the yevi exhibited intelligence beyond that of wolves, panthers, or bears. Were they spirits of some kind? They bled and died like other beasts. Were they people — people of a beastly sort? He’d seen centaurs, and he’d heard the story of Grandfather Jovic’s meeting the bull-headed men of the east, so it seemed possible the pack were a strange race of people.

The treetop bowed under his weight, and he lost his grip for an instant. Frantically, he hugged the slender trunk as it bobbed from side to side. The tough green elm hadn’t cracked yet, but he doubted he could spend the night up here. Other, stouter, trees were too far away.

The springy treetop reminded him of one of his father’s old tricks. Oto was widely skilled in trailcraft, and once he had shown Amero and Nianki how to make a snare from a live, bent-over sapling. Game as large as wild pigs could be snared, and the force of the unbending tree was often enough to fling the catch in a complete arc and dash it to death against the ground. If only Amero could use the power of the elm to toss him to another, bigger tree. He tried deliberately bending the treetop down, gauging the force required to hold it in place. However, he had to abandon the notion. There was not enough strength in the tree to throw him to safety, but more than enough to throw him to the waiting yevi pack.

He retied his rawhide lacings around the trunk and settled down to wait out his foes. As the sun mounted higher in the sky, he noted with grim satisfaction the yevi were panting in the heat. He resolved to die in the treetop if need be, but he would not fall. He could not allow the pack to claim his entire family. Better that his dry flesh should feed the crows.

At sunset, half the yevi pack rose and departed silently into the bush. Their sudden movement, after so many hours of stillness, roused Amero from his lethargy. His heart leaped at the sight of the departing beasts, but when he recognized only half the pack was leaving, he knew they were simply going for food and water. The remaining yevi stayed behind to keep their eyes on their treebound prey.

He was finished. If they could go for sustenance and he couldn’t, Amero was doomed. He couldn’t outlast them. As night arrived, Amero sank into despair. He was so weak from hunger and thirst. Even signs of approaching storm clouds didn’t bolster his failing spirits. The yevi would never give up. Their single-minded devotion to his destruction went far beyond the normal needs of predators. A herd of elk, passing by in mid-afternoon, garnered no special attention from the pack. Why did they so earnestly seek his life?

Clouds boiled in from the east. Blue-white flashes of lightning illuminated the thunderheads from within, sometimes breaking into the open and crashing to earth. The sound of thunder rolled across the wide savanna, and the elm grove tossed in the wind. The first raindrops to fall were fat, heavy, and startlingly cold. Amero licked his lips gratefully each time he caught one.

The yevi remained in their vigilant positions, never flinching at the thunder or lightning, never seeking shelter. They reminded Amero of the stone fetishes he’d seen in the Kharland, carved by men of the southern plains to appease the spirits of the hunt. Wind and rain came in gusts, enough to appease the worst of Amero’s thirst, but still the yevi waited.

A close flash of lightning lit up the entire sky. By the dazzling light Amero glimpsed an extraordinary sight — a vast dark shape high in the sky, silhouetted against the purple clouds. It was long and sinuous, with a pair of immense, narrow wings flapping slowly. It was certainly the biggest bird Amero had ever seen, but before another blast of lightning could bring him a clearer glimpse, the thing nosed up into the clouds and was gone.

“Stormbird,” he marveled aloud. Oto had spoken of these. Like the star-pattern in the sky for which they were named, stormbirds were enormous, rare creatures.

“They fly in the edge of every storm, carrying lightning in their claws and thunder in every stroke of their wings,” Oto had said. “They never touch earth and can swallow an entire flock of geese as one meal.”

Amero could hardly believe he was seeing a stormbird with his own eyes.

Just then, fiery fingers of lightning struck the ground less than a hundred paces away. The tree trembled, and bits of scorched wood and dirt pelted him. He ducked his head to avoid the debris and saw the yevi were on their feet, milling around and whining. Amero cinched the lacings tighter and wished for another, closer strike. Perhaps that would send them away for good.

Thunder boomed in the grove, and still the yevi didn’t leave. They did break their circle around Amero’s perch, collecting in a tight knot on one side of the tree. Amero devoutly wished they would skulk into the bush, driven away by the crackling lightning and booming thunder. Instead, they remained, huddled together and evidently quaking with fear. Common predators would have abandoned Amero to his fate. Why did the yevi remain?

The storm blew itself out at last, rolling westward across the plain toward the great forest. Before long Amero saw stars through rents in the clouds, and the incessant flashes of lightning galloped away. The night was left dark once again.

Refreshed by the rain, Amero resolved to escape the yevi on the morrow. He slept a second night in the treetop. One way or another, it would be his last night there.

Dawn arrived, fresh and bright. The short, sharp rain had brought green shoots out of the ground overnight, and the air was filled with buzzing insects. The abundant bugs attracted swarms of birds, so the morning was astir with noisy, colorful life. Amero stretched his aching arms and legs and wondered if his neck was developing a permanent bend.

Ten members of the yevi pack were still on watch beneath Amero’s tree. Drying mud matted their fur, and they looked generally bedraggled, but their menace was unchanged. Amero felt the cold clutch of helplessness again as he tried and failed to come up with a plan to escape.

Four more yevi appeared from the bush, looking quite clean and rested. Without a sound the pack spread out in a circle around Amero’s perch. Strangely, the beasts aligned themselves facing outward, not inward, as though they were defending the tree instead of besieging it.

“Get out of here!” Amero shouted in exasperation. “Go! Go now!”

There was no answer from the yevi. Could he have imagined hearing their voices the other day?

A flock of birds whirled in and filled the branches of Amero’s elm. There must have been a hundred tiny black-and-tan birds, all chirping at once, making a tremendous din. They were highly agitated — some hopping back and forth from one limb to another, fluffing their wings, some even daring to land on Amero’s head or shoulders. The shrill peeping reached a crescendo, then in a body the noisy flock took to the air. They circled the grove once and flew away.

Curiously, the yevi were backing up, slowly contracting their circle. A few on the west side broke ranks and trotted around to the east side, filling the gaps between the beasts already there. Whatever was coming, whatever had startled the birds and worried the yevi pack, was coming from the east. From the mountains.

Straining to see in that direction, Amero was surprised to feel a sudden chill run down his back. He was even more astonished to look up and see a man come striding toward the grove. He was too far away for Amero to make out his face clearly, but the boy could tell by the stranger’s shock of red-gold hair that he wasn’t Oto. Amero had never seen anyone with hair that color before.

“Stop!” he shouted. His voice was a weak croak after his prolonged ordeal. “Beware! The pack — the yevi!”

The animals were rooted to the spot. On came the stranger through the widely spaced trees. He carried no spear nor club Amero could see. The boy was horrified. The yevi would tear the man to pieces.

“Go back! Danger!” Amero cried.

At last the man seemed to hear him. He halted twenty paces away and looked up at him. Though the sun was bright and the glare terrific, the stranger didn’t shade his eyes.

Two yevi crept forward a few steps, lips curled, snarling ferociously. The stiff gray fur on their humped backs rose, flaring like lion’s manes.

Surely the man could see them! Amero thought. Why did he approach so casually?

The stranger resumed his easy pace toward Amero. Two yevi detached from the circle and charged, their claws tearing up clots of muddied soil. Amero closed his eyes and turned away. He’d seen enough of what the yevi could do.

The air quivered, as if from thunder, but there was no sound. The hair on Amero’s arms stood up. Instead of the man’s screams, he heard a concerted yelping from the pack. He opened his eyes cautiously and saw the two attacking yevi had been thrown back. Their bodies lay unmoving, limbs jutting out at twisted angles.

What had happened?

Three more beasts broke ranks and attacked. The fiery-haired man extended his left hand, the fingers spread. When the yevi were within leaping distance, he waved his hand, as if shooing a fly. The air before him blurred — once more Amero felt the hair on his arms stand on end — and the three attackers seemed to be grabbed by invisible hands in mid-flight. They were hurled backward with great speed, landing in a heap near the foot of Amero’s tree. From the way they bounced, they must have broken every bone in their bodies.

The pack exploded. The gray killers flung themselves at the stranger, who repeated his gesture with both hands. Not only the air but the earth trembled, and the yevi scattered like leaves in last night’s storm.

Once the grove was clear of the pack, the man stood in the shadow of Amero’s elm and looked up. He was tall and well-made, though not unusually big or brawny. His skin was lighter than Amero’s, lightly tanned by the sun, and it was smooth and free of scars and marks. He was barefoot and wore a simple loincloth of buckskin, inlaid with strips of some shiny green hide — tortoise shell, or snakeskin of some kind. It was the stranger’s hair that intrigued Amero most. Not only was the color unique, it was short and shaped to his head like that of the black men Amero had seen just days ago. While theirs had been tightly curled, this man’s hair was as straight as Amero’s.

“You can come down now,” said the stranger in a low, musical voice. “They will not bother you again.”

“Who are you?” asked Amero, trying to maintain a firm grip on the tree.

The stranger did not respond, but merely stared up at him with a mildly interested expression. In spite of his innate wariness, Amero found his fingers slipping. He was so weak, so tired from his long captivity in the tree that it was hard to hold on another moment.

Helplessly, Amero asked, “You’ll not… hurt me?”

The stranger sighed. “What I did to those creatures I could do to you whether you are in the tree or out. Remain there, if you wish.”

His words sounded logical, and Amero was simply too exhausted to resist further. He loosened the laces that held him to the tree. Soon his feet were on firm ground, but his legs wouldn’t support him. His knees folded, and he found himself sitting down hard on the ground.

“My family, out there,” he murmured. “Have you seen anyone else?”

“No.” The stranger’s eyes — a light blue color, like the sky — betrayed no hint of emotion. “I saw only you.”

Amero pulled himself upright. “Are you a spirit? Do you command the wind — is that how you defeated the yevi?”

“‘Yevi?’ Ah, you have named them already.”

Amero was about to repeat his question when a single animal reappeared from the tall grass. The boy pressed his weakened body against the tree, unable to haul himself up. However, flight was unnecessary.

The stranger frowned at the yevi. “Begone,” he said simply.

You thwart our hunt. Amero heard the words distinctly, though the beast’s jaws never moved. Why do you protect our prey? What is he to you?

“This is my land,” the man replied, smiling. “I do as I will. You don’t belong here. Tell your master to send no more hunting packs into my domain. I won’t tolerate poaching.”

You dare challenge Sthenn?

The stranger shrugged. “I know your master well. He can seek me any time he chooses, but he won’t. He’s a coward. He prefers to use vermin like you, you ‘yevi’ — ” he nodded at Amero in acknowledgment for the name — “to accomplish what he wants.”

The gray beast let loose a guttural yelp. And what will you do, mighty one? Take up humans as your favored pets?

“They’re too frail and stupid to make good pets, but I won’t have you randomly butchering creatures on my land, either. Go and tell your master what I’ve said.”

He turned his back on the yevi and started to walk away. Amero pulled himself to his feet, intending to follow the man, but the yevi sprang for the boy’s throat. It never made it. There was a brilliant flash, the smell of singed flesh, and the yevi was blasted to scorched bits.

Amero rubbed his eyes, and his vision quickly returned. “You destroyed it!” he said, agog.

“I should have known a creature like that could not be trusted. Well, when none of the pack returns, my message will be just as clear.”

He walked carelessly away, Amero limping at his heels. “You never told me your name,” the boy said. There was no response, so Amero added, “I have no family, no one. Can I go with you? I can… I can serve you.”

The boy limped faster, hissing in pain each time his injured leg touched the ground. Desperate, he began listing his accomplishments. “I can fish, gather berries and roots, make snares, skin rabbits, knap flint, and… and if this Sthenn comes looking for you, I can guard your back.”

At the mention of the name, the stranger whirled and seized the boy with both hands. An image flickered through Amero’s mind, an impression of vast size and enormous power. A light seemed to glow from within the man’s oddly colored eyes, and Amero feared he was about to be roasted like the last yevi.

“Where did you hear that name?” the man demanded.

“The beast spoke it,” Amero replied in a strangled voice. The man’s grip was painful.

His blue eyes narrowed. “You understood what the beasts said?”

“Yes. They spoke to me yesterday, trying to lure me out of my tree — ”

“Tell me what else it said!”

The boy hastily recounted the exchange he’d just heard between the yevi and the stranger. When he was done, the man released him. Fear and exhaustion robbed Amero completely of strength. He sank to the grass.

“Now that’s… interesting,” was all the stranger said.

“What will you do with me, spirit-man?” he said weakly.

His rescuer seemed lost in thought, but finally said, “Duranix.”

“What?” asked Amero.

“My name is Duranix, and no, I won’t kill you. In fact, you may follow me.” It didn’t sound like a request. Duranix strode away, due east toward the distant mountains. A little stunned, Amero hobbled after him.

“Where are you going, Duranix?”

“Home.”

“What’s home?”

Duranix glanced back. “A place to live. Where one sleeps at night. Where is your home, Amero?”

“I have no home.” Amero swallowed a lump in his throat and looked down at his scraped, dirty feet. He would not cry. He was a man, and men did not cry. Oto never did. “We make a new camp every night. If you stay in one place too long, you go hungry. All the food gets eaten or runs away.”

“I see what you mean. I too travel a lot, but I always return to my home.”

In spite of his grief, Amero felt a stirring of curiosity. Lifting his tear-stained face, he said, “Where’s home?”

“Where the mountains meet the plain and a river breaks on a high cliff, that is home.”

“Oh, a waterfall. How large is it? What is it called?”

Duranix smiled. “Just ‘home.’ What would you call it, Amero?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to see it — but I could make up a name for it, if you want.”

“No doubt you would. Humans name things the way bees work a field of cornflowers. Here’s one, here’s another, here’s ten more.”

Heart singing with hope, Amero pushed himself to his feet. He took a step, then the sky seemed to spin around his head. The ground rushed up to meet him and he knew no more.

Duranix looked down at the unconscious boy for a moment, then effortlessly plucked him off the ground with one hand and tucked him under his arm.

“How can you understand the beasts?” Duranix said to the unconscious boy. “Why did I hear your thoughts of pain?” He answered himself. “Time will tell. Sleep now, boy. When you wake, we shall be home.”