Winter in Eden

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ortnar hobbled off at dawn, leaning heavily on his spear, to find the track of the Yilanè. Kerrick wanted to go in his place, but he knew that the big hunter was a far better tracker and woodsman. While Armun fed the children he cut long, stout poles to make a travois, using the straps from their packs to bind it together. He was fixing it to the mastodon when Ortnar returned.

“They came from the sea,” he said, dropping wearily to the ground, his face running with sweat and taut with pain. “I found where they came ashore, where they laid an ambush that the saminad walked into. They’re gone, back to sea.”

Kerrick looked up at the sky. “We are safe enough until we get further south. They won’t have any birds looking at this area, not after the killing. We’ll leave now, go as far south as we can before we have to travel by night.”

“The owl…” Armun said. Kerrick nodded.

“We are still better moving at night. The raptors fly high, can watch a bigger area. That is all we can do.”

Once they had passed the dead sammad they came to the well-marked track it had made, then followed this south.

Arnwheet ran behind the plodding mastodon, thinking it was all exciting and fun, stopping to admire the giant heaps of fresh dung. Darras walked in silence, numbed by what had happened, staying close to Armun. Arnwheet quickly tired of walking and swung onto the travois where the little girl soon joined him. Harl at thirteen was far too old for this babyish comfort and walked on with the others.

Ortnar refused to ride on the travois — though his toeless foot kept him in constant agony. He was a hunter, not a child. Kerrick mentioned it just once, did not speak of it again after the hunter’s snarled refusal. In midmorning a spring rain began to fall in a fine drizzle, becoming heavier as the day progressed. Slowed by the glutinous mud, Ortnar fell farther and farther behind until he was out of sight.

“We should wait for him,” Armun said. Kerrick shook his head.

“No. He is a hunter and has his pride. He must do what he must do.”

“Hunters are stupid. If my foot hurt I would be riding.”

“So would I. That must make me only half a hunter because a Yilanè would not walk unnecessarily.”

“You are no murgu!” she protested.

“No — but at times I think like one.” His smile faded and he strode on unhappily through the rain. “They are out there somewhere — and something terrible is happening. I must find out what it is, go to the city.”

Kerrick was reluctant to stop at midday — but Armun insisted because they had not seen Ortnar since the storm had begun. While she took out the food, he cut some pine branches to shelter them from the cold rain. Harl brought water from a nearby stream and they gulped mouthfuls of it to wash down the repellent meat. Kerrick finally spat his out. They must hunt, get fresh meat, cook it. He had not noticed any game, but it must be there. Something moved in the forest and he grabbed up his bow, fitted an arrow to it — but it was Ortnar. Stumbling forward, slowly and steadily. He had a brace of woods pigeons slung over his shoulder.

“Thought we could use… the fresh meat,” he gasped as he slumped to the ground.

“Let us eat them now,” Kerrick said, worried by the drawn lines in Ortnar’s face. “We can light a fire, the smoke won’t be seen in the rain. Harl, you know how to find dry wood. Get some.”

Armun plucked the birds, with Darras’s enthusiastic if not too skilled help, while Kerrick built the fire. Even Ortnar sat up and smiled at the smell of birds roasting on green-wood spits. The birds were half raw, barely warmed through when they ate them, but they could not wait. They had had enough of frozen fish and stinking meat.

All they left were the well-gnawed bones. Then, warmed and with their stomachs filled, they resumed the walk with more energy than they had started the day with. Even Ortnar kept up with them at first, though as time passed he fell farther behind until he was out of sight again. The rain stopped and the sun was visible behind the thin clouds. Kerrick looked up at it and decided that they would make an early halt. He must allow enough daylight for the injured hunter to reach them before dark. When they came to a glade of large oak trees, with a stream nearby, he decided that they had gone far enough.

Cutting branches from a stand of pine and building them into a shelter for the night kept him busy for some time. But not long enough. Ortnar still had not appeared.

“I’m going back along the track,” he said. “I’ll look out for game.”

“You will need me to help,” Harl said, reaching for his small spear.

“No, you have a more important task. You must stay here and be on your guard. There could be murgu.”

The hunting was only an excuse: he was worried about Ortnar. Walking back along the track he did not even think of hunting. Something had to be done — but Ortnar could not be forced to ride in the travois. Yet he should. When they had been eating the birds he had noticed that there was blood dripping from the wrappings of Ortnar’s bad foot. Kerrick must talk to him, say that he was slowing them up, endangering them all. No, this would be no good, for the hunter would then leave them and strike out on his own. He began to worry. He had come a long way and the hunter was still not in sight. There was something ahead — dark on the track. He raised his spear and went forward warily.

It was long after dark and Armun was torn by worry and fear. The sun had set and they had not returned. Should she send Harl to see what was happening? No, best to stay together. Was that a shout? She listened and heard it more clearly this time.

“Harl, watch the children,” she said, seizing up her own spear and hurrying back along the rutted path.

There Kerrick was, coming along slowly, a dark bulk over his shoulders. Ortnar, hanging limply.

“Is he dead?”

“No, but something is very wrong,” he gasped out the words for he had carried the motionless body a long way. “Help me.”

There was little they could do other than cover the unconscious hunter with furs, make him comfortable under the shelter. There was foam on his lips and Armun wiped it gently away. “Do you know what happened?” she asked.

“This is the way I found him, just collapsed in the mud. Can you tell what is wrong with him?”

“There are no wounds, no bones seem to be broken. I have never seen anything like it.”

The clouds blew away and the night was clear: they dare not light a fire. They took turns sitting by the unconscious figure, making sure he stayed covered. Near dawn Harl awoke and offered to help, but Kerrick told him to go to sleep again. When the first light filtered through the leaves, Ortnar stirred and moaned. Kerrick bent over him when he opened his right eye.

“What happened?” Kerrick asked.

Ortnar struggled to speak and the words came out slowly, mumbled, for his lips were twisted. Kerrick saw that not only was his left eye closed but the entire left side of his face was slack and unmoving.

“Hurt… fell down…” was all he could say.

“Drink some water, you must be thirsty.”

He supported the big hunter’s dead weight as he drank. Most of the water dribbled down his chin because of his slack lip. After this Ortnar slept, a more natural sleep, and his breathing was easier.

“I knew one like this in our sammad, when I was small,” Armun said. “She was like this with the eye closed, the arm and the leg on the same side unmoving. It is called the falling curse and the alladjex said it was because she had a spirit of evil inside her. “ Kerrick shook his head.

“It is the wounds in his feet. He pushed himself too hard. He should have rode.”

“He will now,” Armun said, calmly practical. “We will spread some of the branches on the travois, then tie him on. We will be able to go faster.”

Ortnar was too ill to make any protests about being carried. For some days he lay as one dead, waking only to drink and eat a bit. As the days grew warmer the game became more plentiful — and more dangerous. There were murgu here. They killed and ate the small ones — but knew that the giant flesh eaters were out there as well. Kerrick walked always with his bow ready and an arrow notched — and wished often that their hèsotsan had survived the winter.

Ortnar could sit up now and hold his meat with his right hand. He could even hobble a few steps leaning on a crutch Kerrick had cut for him, dragging his useless left leg.

“I can hold a spear in my right hand still — that is the only reason I stay with you. If there were other hunters here I would sit under a tree when you left.”

“You will get better,” Kerrick said.

“Perhaps. But I am a hunter, not a drag-leg. It is Herilak who has killed me. Before I fell my head was on fire, here, where he struck me. It burned there and through my body, then I fell. Now I am half-dead and useless.”

“We need you, Ortnar. You are the one who knows the forest. You must guide us to the lake.”

“I can do that. I wonder if your pet murgu are still alive?”

“I wonder, too.” Kerrick was glad to talk of something else. “Those two are like — I don’t know what. Children who have never grown up.”

“They look grown up enough to me — and ugly.”

“Their bodies, yes. But you saw where they were kept. Locked away, fed, watched over, never allowed out. This must be the first time that they have been alone and on their own since they came out of the sea. The murgu take the males and lock them away even before they learn to talk. If those two are still alive after the winter it will be something to see.”

“It will be something better to see them dead,” Ortnar said bitterly. “All of the murgu dead.”

They traveled only at night as they moved steadily south, concealing themselves and the mastodon under the trees during the day. Hunting was good: raw fish and stinking meat only a bad memory. They were lucky in that none of the bigger murgu ranged the thick forest and the smaller ones, even the flesh eaters, fled before them. Ortnar was watching the trail carefully and found where they had to turn off toward the round lake. This path was narrow and overgrown and had not been used for a long time. It was impossible to follow it at night so they were forced to travel by day, hurrying across the infrequent open places, looking worriedly up at the sky.

Kerrick led the way, spear ready, for Ortnar had said that they were getting close to the lake. Going cautiously and as silently as he could he looked about carefully under the trees and into the shadows. Behind him he could hear the distant cracking of branches as the mastodon pushed through the forest. Ahead of him there was the snap of a breaking twig; he froze.

Something was moving in the shadows. A dark figure, a familiar form, too familiar…

A Yilanè — armed!

Should he try to reach his bow? No, the movement would be seen. She was coming closer, stepping into the sunlight.

Kerrick stood and cried out.

“Greetings, mighty hunter!”

The Yilanè spun about, staggered back, mouth gaping with fear, struggling to point the hèsotsan.

“Since when do males kill males, Nadaske?” Kerrick asked.

Nadaske stumbled back and sat down heavily on his tail, signing fright and death-approaching.

“Oh ustuzou who talks, you have brought me to the edge of death!”

“But not over the brink as I can see. You are alive and I am happy to see that. What of Imehei?”

“He is like me — strong and alert, and of course a mighty hunter…”

“And a fat one too?”

Nadaske made motions of rejection and anger. “If I look fat to you now it is just because of our prowess in the forest. When all the good meat was gone we grew lean before mastering the craft of the hunt and of the fishing. Now we excel — there is something horrible coming!”

He raised his hèsotsan, then turned to flee. Kerrick called out to stop him.

“Dispose-of-fear, entertain-joy. My comrades come with a great beast of burden. Do not flee — but do go to Imehei now and tell him what is happening so he does not shoot us for our meat.”

Nadaske signed agreement as he waddled quickly off down the track. There was more cracking as tree limbs broke and the mastodon pushed up beside him.

“We are very close,” he called out to Armun. “I have just talked to one of the murgu I told you about. Come ahead, all of you, and do not be afraid. They will not hurt you. They are — my friends.”

It sounded strange when he said it like that, in Marbak, but it was the closest word that he could think of for the concept of efenselè. Family, that would be a better word, but he did not think that Armun would take to that very kindly. Or even saying that the murgu were part of this sammad. He hurried ahead, anxious to see and speak with the two males again.

Ortnar rolled free of the travois and dragged himself to his feet, stumbled after it. They came to the lakefront in this way, pausing under the trees beside the immense stretch of sunlit water. Imehei and Nadaske were waiting in motionless silence under a canopy of green vines, hèsotsan clutched in their hands. The mastodon was pulled to a halt and Kerrick was aware of the Tanu behind him, stopping, standing as unmoving as the Yilanè males. In the silence a flock of brightly colored birds flew low over the water, calling loudly as they went.

“These are my efenselè,” he called out to the males, stepping out into the sunlight so he could be understood. “The large-gray-beast-unintelligent carries for us. There is no need for weapons.”

When he turned back he saw that the little girl had her face buried in Armun’s clothes: she and Arnwheet were the only Tanu not holding spears. “Ortnar,” he said, softly, “you marched with these males, they never harmed you. Armun, you don’t need that spear — you either, Harl. These murgu are no threat to you.”

Ortnar leaned his weight on his spear and the others lowered theirs. Kerrick turned away from them and crossed to the still rigid males.

“You have worked hard here,” he said, “have done much while I was away.”

“Are those small-ugly ustuzou young?” Imehei asked, weapon still at the ready.

“They are, and they are Yilanè even when small unlike your young. Do you stand all day like gaping fargi or do you bid me welcome, offer me cool water, fresh meat? A female would. Are males inferior to females?”

Imehei’s crest reddened and he put the hèsotsan aside. “It has been so peaceful here I have forgotten the sharpness of your female-male speech. There is food and drink. We make your ugly efenselè welcome.”

Nadaske with some reluctance put his weapon aside as well. Kerrick let out a deep breath.

“Pleasure-companionship,” Kerrick said. “Welcome-at-last.”

He fervently hoped that it would stay that way.