Winter in Eden

CHAPTER ELEVEN

South of the city, south of the river, the swamps began. Here the tangled jungle and marsh came down almost to the ocean’s edge, made walking impossible except along the beach. Just above the surf line, long-legged sea birds were tearing at a dead hardalt that had been washed ashore. They suddenly took alarm and hurled themselves into the air, flying and screeching in circles as the two Sasku came warily along the beach. Their white headbands were each daubed with a spot of ochre to show that they were on a very serious mission. They did not seem happy about it. They looked at the jungle wall with obvious fear, pointing their death-sticks at invisible threats. As they passed the corpse of the hardalt Meskawino looked at it with disgust.

“It was better in the valley,” he said. “We should have stayed there.”

“The murgu came to the valley to destroy us — have you forgotten that already?” Nenne said. “It was Kadair’s will that we come to this place to destroy them, and that we have done.”

“They return.”

“We will kill these too. You whimper like a baby, Meskawino.”

Meskawino was too filled with fear to even notice the insult. Life here by the ocean was not at all to his liking, too different from the ordered existence he had enjoyed in their protected valley. How he longed for those solid stone walls.

“There, ahead, what is it?” Nenne said.

Meskawino stopped, took a backward step. “I see nothing.” His voice was hoarse with fear.

“Out to sea, floating in the water — and there is another one.”

There were indeed things there, objects, but too distant to make out what they were. Meskawino tried to pull back, to return.

“We must tell Kerrick what we have seen, this is important.”

Nenne stuck his tongue far out, a gesture of great contempt. “What are you, Meskawino? Woman or Sasku? Do you run in fear from logs floating in the ocean? What do you tell Kerrick and Sanone? That we have seen something. They will ask us what — then what will you tell them?”

“You should not have done with your tongue like that at me.”

“My tongue stays in my mouth as long as you behave like a Sasku. We will go south and see if we can discover what it is we have seen.”

“We go south,” Meskawino said with resignation, sure that he was going to his certain death.

They kept away from the surf, as close to the trees as they could get, walking in careful fear. But the beach was empty. When they came to a surf-eroded headland they climbed up through the scrub and palmettos, still going warily although they knew they could not be seen from the ocean. At the crest they parted the boughs with care and looked through.

“Murgu!” Meskawino moaned, falling forward with his face in his hands.

Nenne was not that easily frightened. The murgu were not close but were farther down the shore and in the sea. There were ship-beasts, the same as the one that had taken the survivors away when they had burned the city. He had seen it with his own eyes so knew what it looked like. But there were more of them in the ocean here, the count of two hands. And smaller ones as well plying back and forth to the shore bearing the killer murgu. They were being landed on the shore, were doing something there, he could not tell what because a wall of brush hid them from sight. Out to sea he could see more of the ship-beasts approaching, coming from the direction of the island there. It was all very strange.

“We must get closer, see what they are doing,” Nenne said. Meskawino just moaned, his face still buried in his hands. Nenne looked down at him and felt sorrow. Meskawino’s father and his only brother had been killed by the murgu. Anger and revenge had brought Meskawino here and he had fought well. That time was past. All of the deaths had done something to him and he was like a broken thing. Nenne had tried to shame him into being a Sasku once again, but it was no good. He reached down and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Go back, Meskawino. Tell them what we have found. I am going to get closer, to see if I can find out what work of Karognis they are up to. Go back.”

The fear was still there when Meskawino lifted his face, but relief as well. “I cannot help it, Nenne, it is not of my doing. I would go with you if I could. But my feet will not go forward, only back. I will tell them.”

Nenne watched as he sped back along the beach, his feet indeed working very well in that direction, then turned away. Now he would find out what was happening on the shore. With all the woodcraft he possessed he moved into the forest and went forward in silence.

It took a very long time and the sun was slanting down the sky before he was close enough to see the barrier clearly. It rose high, shielding the beach and the land behind it, stretching out into the sea. It was made of bushes of some kind, with large green leaves, though other kinds of darker growths were mixed in with it. He started forward along the forest’s edge when he saw the first body. Then another and another. He stood as paralyzed as Meskawino for a long time, horrified, before he could make himself take step after careful step back away from the place.

Although he trotted back along the sand at a steady ground-eating pace, he never caught up with Meskawino who must have run far faster, driven by his fears. For the first time Nenne could understand how the other felt.

Kerrick had heard of the Yilanè presence from Meskawino so had to labor hard to control his impatience as Nenne gasped water from a drinking-fruit, squeezed the remainder over his head and sweat-drenched body. When he could speak at last, Nenne’s eyes grew wide with the memory of what he had seen and his dark skin seemed paler as he talked.

“At first it was just one, a deer that had come to graze the shrubs. Dead, the vine with thorns wrapped about its leg. Then I saw the others, some just bones, creatures of all kinds, even murgu beasts, that had died on the growing wall. Birds as well, sea birds and others who had landed — and never left. Whatever grows there is living death that kills whatever comes near it.”

“But why? What can it mean?” Sanone asked, and the other listeners nodded in puzzled agreement.

“What does it mean?” Kerrick’s voice was grim when he spoke. “Nothing good for us. Think of it. The murgu are here in force with many of their beast-ships. They have a base on that island offshore where we cannot reach them. We could build boats — but I think we would die if we tried to land there. As long as they are on their island and we are here, why then there is no problem. But they have grown this death-place on the shore.”

“It is far from us,” Meskawino said in a faint but hopeful voice.

“It is now,” Kerrick said with no hope at all in his. “It will come closer or another one will grow closer, we can be sure of that. They are changing their tactics and I grow afraid. When they attacked us before this they sent armed fargi against us and they were destroyed. Now I have the great fear that the one who leads them is planning something much more intricate and deadly.”

How deadly was it — and how vulnerable? With this thought came a sickening fear. When he spoke again they could all hear it in his voice.

“I must go see this barrier on the shore. Will you show me, Nenne? Help me carry some things that I will need?”

“I will go with you. Now?”

“No, you must rest, and it is late. We will go in the morning.”

They left at dawn, going forward carefully and steadily, following the footsteps made the day before where they were still visible above the high-tide mark. By midday they had the barrier in sight, a green arc cut in from the sea. But there was one difference.

“They are gone,” Nenne said. “It was not this way before. The beast-ships were there and others were moving between them and the shore, large ones coming from the island. Now they are gone.”

Kerrick suspected some trap. The sea was empty, the afternoon haze making the island gray in the distance. There were other, smaller islands beyond it; Kerrick remembered them when he had passed in the uruketo, an entire chain of them. Alakas-aksehent, the succession of golden, tumbled stones. A perfect place to come ashore from the sea, to be safe from anyone on the mainland. But the arc of death planted on the shore — what did it mean?

“I will climb that tree, the tall one,” Nenne said. “From the upper limbs I can see over the barrier, see what lies behind it.”

He was a good climber, had climbed the valley wall many times, and this was much easier. Small twigs and leaves rained down as he swarmed up the wide branches. He stayed just a moment, then returned as quickly as he had gone.

“Nothing,” he said, his voice puzzled. “There is simply sand inside. Empty, the creatures who were there yesterday are gone. Unless they are buried in the sand — they are gone.”

“We will go to the place you watched from before, close to the killing area,” Kerrick said, taking up his bow while Nenne swung the leather bag to his shoulder.

The corpse of the deer was there, now buzzing with flies, beyond it the green wall studded with the dead creatures. Kerrick flexed his bow and selected an arrow while Nenne opened the bag.

Kerrick carefully tied the strip of cloth around his arrow, then dripped the charadis oil onto it from the skin container.

Nenne was hunched over to keep off the breeze while he scratched fire from the stones. He added dry twigs until small flames were crackling in the pit in the sand. Kerrick stood, half-drew his bow with the arrow he had prepared, bent and touched the oil-soaked rag to the flames. It caught fire, the flames invisible in the sunlight but the dark smoke clearly seen. Then he stood, drew the arrow far back, aimed high in the air — and released it.

It rose in a great arc and dropped into the green barrier. They could see it there, where it had impaled a leaf, smoking slightly. When the smoking died away Kerrick sent another burning arrow after the first, then another and another. The results each time were the same.

“They have learned,” he said, his voice grim as death. “They know about fire now. We won’t be able to burn them out a second time.”

Nenne tapped his forehead with puzzlement. “None of this do I understand.”

“I do. They have a base on land, one we cannot attack or burn.”

“We can use arrows and spears; they will not be safe behind this barrier.”

“This one, this size, I agree that they would not be safe. But if they grow a larger one they could retreat behind it at night — out of range.”

“These murgu do strange things,” Nenne said, spitting with distaste in the direction of the green wall.

“They do — because they do not think as we do. But I know them, I should be able to understand what they are doing. I must think hard about it. This has not been done without meaning — and I should be able to understand the reason for it being here. Let us get closer.”

“That is certain death.”

“For animals, yes. Just go carefully.”

Kerrick found his legs trembling as he put one foot carefully in front of the other on the hard-packed sand. As they came close to the deer Nenne seized him by the arm, stopping him.

“The vine with thorns that has the deer by the leg, see how it arises from the sand. Just where the deer is standing, near the grass it was eating. Why did the deer not see it and avoid it?”

“I think I know.” Kerrick bent and dug a half-buried clamshell from the sand, then threw it carefully underhand so that it dropped beside the corpse.

Sand flew aside as a green, thorn-tipped length lashed out of the sand and struck the shell.

“Lying just under the surface,” Kerrick said. “They are released when there is pressure above.”

“They could be growing anywhere here,” Nenne said, stepping carefully backward, walking in the tracks they had just made. “This is a place of death where nothing can live.”

“Not quite, look there, right at the base of the wall.”

They stood, unmoving and scarcely breathing as the leaves rustled and parted. A mottled, orange and purple head appeared, bright eyes looked about, withdrew. It was back a moment later, further out this time, a lizard of some kind. With quick movements it darted across the sand — then stopped, frozen. Only its eyes moved as it looked about. An ugly creature with a flat, thick tail, with swollen bulges on its back, shining in the sun as though it were wet. Then it moved on again leaving a trail of slime in its path, stopping at a clump of grass. It began to chew this with sideways motions of its jaw. Kerrick reached slowly into his quiver when it looked away, nocked an arrow, drew it back.

Released it.

“Good,” Nenne said, nodding approval as he looked at the impaled creature that kicked out sporadically then lay still. They retreated in a long circle and approached it from the ocean side, walking in the edge of the surf, bent over and looked at it.

“Ugly,” Nenne said. “See it drips with slime like a slug.”

“Perhaps that is protection from the poisons in the wall, probably the thorns as well. This creature was grown to live where everything else dies. There has to be a reason for that; the Yilanè who grow things do everything with a reason.”

“It is sick though — those boils on its back, one is opened.”

“Those aren’t boils or sores; see how regularly spaced they are.” With the tip of his bow Kerrick reached down and prodded the open bulge, disturbing it so that brown particles fell free. Nenne bent close over and looked at them.

“They are dry, I do not understand. They look like seeds.” Kerrick stood slowly and turned to look at the deadly green barrier, felt a chill at the same time despite the warm sun upon him. “I understand,” he said. “I understand only too well. We are looking at defeat, Nenne. Certain defeat. I see no way that we can win this battle, no way for us to survive.”