Spirit Walker Read online

  “What’s happening?” Fava asked.

  “Slavers!” Tull said. “Pirates from Bashevgo, I think—at least they are dressed in black. Denni is holding them back.”

  “How many?” Fava asked. Tull heard fear and bewilderment in her little-girl voice.

  He counted. “Ten or twelve that I can see.”

  “Denni can’t fight so many. He is swinging the brazier to warn us!” Fava said. She grabbed the war horn from Tull’s neck, pulling it so hard that the leather string broke.

  “No,” Tull said, “you’ll warn the slavers that we're here.”

  Fava put the horn to her lips and blew, letting the deep bellow add to the mating cries of the blue-crested hadrosaurs on the plain below.

  Tull watched through the glass as slavers turned as one toward the sounding war horn.

  Fava’s little-girl voice turned hard. “Now Denni and Tchar know we are coming. And the pirates know they have a fight on their hands!”

  Chapter 2: Slavers

  Tull and Fava jumped from the tree, straight into camp. Ayuvah and the others were throwing on their war gear.

  “Slavers have attacked Denni and Tchar,” Fava said.

  “How many?” Ayuvah asked, pulling on a leather helmet with brass studs.

  “I saw only ten or twelve,” Tull said. “But there could be more.”

  Ayuvah faltered. He looked at the boys. At nineteen and twenty, Tull and Ayuvah were the oldest in their group. The others were mere boys, none over fifteen, yet they were pulling out their war shields, strapping on leg guards with pale faces.

  The slavers were grown men with years of experience with the sword, and the Neanderthals could be walking into a trap. Besides Tull, Ayuvah, and Fava, there were only six boys in the camp. They stared at Tull and Ayuvah in disbelief, eyes wide from terror.

  Tull wondered, Is it better to lose all eleven of us, or only two?

  Ayuvah was the best fighter and hunter from their hometown of Smilodon Bay, and the boys would follow if he chose to fight. But surely if it came to a pitched battle, the boys would lose.

  It would be better to die, than to live our lives knowing that we had run from such a fight, Tull realized. He’d seen how shame could destroy a Neanderthal, sapping him of strength, of the very will to live. They were far more prone to such emotions than were humans. We have no choice but to fight, even if we are all killed or carried into slavery.

  An hour later, just as the sun rose in a pink ball on the horizon, Ayuvah and his party made their way through the dew-soaked fields to the leatherwood forest.

  They’d prepared for an ambush as they marched, but saw no sign of the slavers on the plain. Yet Tull was sure the slavers were watching. By now, they knew they would be fighting only nine Neanderthals. At a distance, would they know that six were only boys and one was a woman? Fava had come only to help distill the honey, yet she carried a shield and spear like any male warrior.

  The Neanderthals spread out in a fan formation as they crept to the honey tree, climbing over fallen logs, watching for rocks that could turn an ankle.

  At the tree line, five tan-and-silver iguanodons hunched among the leatherwood, feeding on flowery branches. The Pwi circled downwind of the tree.

  As they neared, Ayuvah stopped the younger boys with the wave of his hand. He sniffed the air, testing the scent. His nose was broader than a human’s, and his sense of smell was strong.

  “The slavers are gone,” Ayuvah said with certainty, and began stalking through the trees again. A moment later, someone cried out, “Denni, Tchar!”

  They found the two Neanderthals tied to the tree in the morning sunlight, naked and unmoving. Tull could only see Tchar well, and the boy’s right hand lay on the ground a dozen feet in front of him. The slavers had beaten him black and blue, and then torn the tree open. The angry bees had stung him many times, and Tchar’s face was so swollen that his eyes were closed. Tull circled the tree just enough to see Denni, and then wished that he hadn’t.

  The slavers had slit Denni’s belly open, then inserted a forked stick and twisted it, unrolling his intestines, pulling them out inch by inch and stringing them over bushes like sausages.

  The amount of blood dripping down Denni’s legs showed that he had been alive while the slavers did their work. Yet Tull had heard no screams. Perhaps he’d been too far away. Or perhaps Denni had suffered in silence, refusing to show weakness.

  Tull felt the veins in his neck throb, and for a moment the world went red as he fought rage and grief.

  Ayuvah rushed forward to cut the boys loose. He dragged them away from the tree and brushed the dead bees off Tchar.

  More than angry, Ayuvah seemed forlorn.

  “They’re dead,” Ayuvah said. For an instant Tull had dared hope that the boys clung to life.

  The younger Pwi watched the brush, fearful of an ambush. One boy began crying in fear while another made gagging sounds.

  Ayuvah searched the camp for a moment, studying footprints. The slavers had worn heavy boots, not the soft moccasins of the Pwi, and their tracks were easy to follow. “There were only ten slavers,” Ayuvah said after several moments. “They knew that we would hunt them if they took captives; they did not want to fight us.”

  Fava hissed, “We should hunt them like wolves anyway!” Tull could barely restrain himself from leaping into the trees to follow their trail.

  Ayuvah studied the faces of the boys.

  Tull realized that the slavers would have the advantage if they were not hindered by captives. Against experienced swordsmen, the boys would easily be cut down.

  “The slavers are probably waiting for us,” Tull said. “If we follow them, we’ll walk into their trap.”

  Indeed, a creeping worry hit him. There were few Pwi here in Hotland at this time of the year. His little band of honey gatherers were probably the only ones. So why were the slavers here—unless they had come specifically to hunt Tull and his friends?

  The implications worried him. The only people who knew he was here were people from his hometown of Smilodon Bay. There were only a few hundred people in town, and he knew them all, had known them all of his life.

  Could someone back home be in league with slavers?

  He peered at Ayuvah, who had painted his face blue and wore a necklace of teeth from a great bear. His friend was huge and strong, but there was wisdom on his brow. Ayuvah let out a breath and said, “Tcho-oh-fenna-ai.” It grieves me like death that we can do nothing.

  The Neanderthals carried the bodies of Denni and Tchar down to the river. In a brief ceremony, the Pwi threw flowers upon their corpses, and then gave them to the water.

  The young boys cried bitterly. With these two dead, it meant that the Neanderthals of Smilodon Bay had lost five men to the slavers so far this summer.

  The three others had simply been carted away at night after working in the fields.

  When the comrades finished with the funeral, they crept back to the fort, packed their kegs of honey, and prepared for the trip home. With slavers about, they could linger no longer.

  As a last act, they burned their little wooden fortress. It had served the honey harvesters and egg hunters for many seasons, but now that the slavers knew where it lay, the Pwi could never return.

  Tull felt empty and horrified. Always in the past, Hotland had seemed like a place of escape, a place of adventure and freedom, but now the memories of it would be forever tainted with the kwea of murder and mourning.

  Tull suspected that some of the slavers had been Neanderthals, thralls who had lived so long under the domination of the Slave Lords that they no longer minded enslaving their own. Neanderthals were stronger than humans, with a much keener sense of smell. Slavers used such thralls as trackers, so Tull worried that the slavers might hunt them at night by scent.

  Tull’s party retreated at a grueling pace, racing day and night over a range of hills, carrying their load of honey and watching for slavers.

  In the pass at F
roth River, Ayuvah topped a hill and stood for a long moment, surveying the trail below. Dinosaurs had trampled the vegetation along the river, and Ayuvah spotted a pack of raptors, tan with green spots—some breed of allosaur—stalking through the trees along the river with their heads hunched low. The raptors, vicious predators about twelve yards long, were heading south into the wind. Tull’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of them. He would never have spotted them on his own.

  “This way,” Ayuvah said, pointing west to give the raptors a wide berth. But when the rest of the party followed Ayuvah up a side path, Tull headed down the original trail, scuffing the dirt, snapping twigs. He hoped that the slavers were following them, and that they’d stumble into an ambush.

  Nothing can ruin your day like a pack of raptors, Tull thought. They attacked in lunges from three or four directions at once, snapping and feinting, creating openings for others in the pack.

  After a hundred yards, he loped back uphill and turned to catch up with his companions. Yet Tull could not rest easy. If the slavers were tracking his people, they might spot the raptors in time and turn back. Or they might not be following at all.

  The Neanderthals’ ship was up ahead, on the north fork of the Pteranodon River. It was small for a sea-going vessel, but it was too large to hide. Tull worried that the slavers had found it already. The discovery of the ship might have precipitated last night’s attack.

  What would the slavers have done if they’d found the ship? Burn it?

  No, Tull’s men had been filling it with honey. It was not as sleek or sturdy as one of the slaver’s vessels, but it was still worth a lot of money. They might not value the ship highly, but they’d want to steal it rather than burn it.

  Indeed, if they’d found the ship, they might have set a trap. What better way to catch slaves? Tull’s men wouldn’t have a backup plan. If they didn't make it to the ship, they might never make it off the continent at all except in the belly of a slave hold.

  So they marched all day and all night again, fearing what lay ahead as well as what came behind. As they neared the sea, could taste the salt air, they came to a small hill and looked down to see their sailing ship moored in the channel of a dirty brown river, pulled up between trees. The water had lowered over the past month, so that the ship tilted in the shallows.

  Everything looked peaceful. From the hill, they could see grass along the river, golden straw bleached by the sun and trampled by dinosaurs. There were few places where an ambush might hide.

  Dimetrodons lay on the riverbank, their sails upright, warming themselves in the morning sun. Giant turtles rested on fallen trees out in the river. A few small egg-hunting dinosaurs, miniature versions of the raptors, loped along the riverbank, hunting for crayfish, snakes and other small game in the shallows.

  Little gray pteranodons with soft down and spade-shaped tails glided over the river, snapping at giant dragonflies in shades of green, blue, and crimson.

  “We should send one man down to the boat,” Tull said. “To make sure that the slavers haven’t set a trap.”

  He glanced about, and saw the jaws drop on some of the boys. Fava peered at him in wonder. The others hadn’t considered the possibility of a trap.

  He didn’t dare send any of them. He didn’t want to lose another boy on this trip. “I’ll go,” he offered.

  He dropped his pack, then pulled his shield from his back. He tightened the strap on his leather helmet, drew his sword, and took a step down the trail.

  Ayuvah, eyes wide, grabbed Tull’s bicep to stop him. Ayuvah’s face seemed pale, his mouth parted in surprise.

  “Something wrong?” Tull asked. Ayuvah was always the first to spot danger.

  A whirlwind whipped through the grass, climbing up the hill. It collided with Ayuvah, then dispersed. Ayuvah stood for a long time, just watching the river.

  Fava ventured, “I don’t think the animals would be so carefree if the slavers were hiding down in the brush.”

  “It’s not that,” Ayuvah said. “I feel strange … so strange.” His voice trailed off. “I feel as if father is here, as if he has come for us.” Ayuvah closed his eyes, breathed slowly. “Yes, he wants us to come home.”

  Ayuvah’s father, Chaa, was a powerful shaman. He served as the Spirit Walker for his people, peering into the paths of the future. Yet a Spirit Walker could not use his sorcerous powers easily. He had to stand at the gate of death, leave his body behind, and send his spirit to travel the twisted paths of the future. Few Pwi who had the power were courageous enough to try, and even then, they only did it in times of deadly peril.

  “Yes,” Ayuvah said. “There is bad news at home.” Ayuvah lifted his chin, cocked his ear as if listening. “It has to do with serpents, dying sea serpents.”

  Tull pondered. For a thousand years, great serpents had protected his homeland from the dinosaurs that sometimes swam across the ocean from Hotland. Created by the genetic engineers that terraformed Anee, the serpents formed a living wall of protection, an “eco-barrier.”

  But over the past three years the number of serpents and the number of hatchlings had been decreasing until finally this spring there had been no serpent hatch at all. Everyone wanted to believe that it was only a temporary problem, but it sounded like Chaa had been forced to walk the paths of the future, to use his powers to seek a solution.

  Ayuvah said, “Yes, I am sure of it—Chaa wants us to come home. There are no slavers waiting for us at the ship. They gave up the hunt yesterday. We must set sail immediately!”

  Chapter 3: Homecoming

  Four days later, the Neanderthals sailed through serene waters up a long narrow fjord. The smell of land came strong. Redwood trees clung to gray cliffs, covering the hills like a ragged tapestry. Where a gentle valley met the water’s edge, the city of Smilodon Bay perched—a collection of expansive manors in the human part of town, with homes built from fitted stones and roofs tiled in copper, green with age. Flower boxes under the windows brightened the homes, while barns and dovecotes backed the properties like attentive servants.

  But the outskirts of town served as a stark contrast. There in “Pwi Town” squatted the poor huts of the Neanderthals—crafted of rough-hewn lumber and covered in tar. The smoke of smithies and cook fires shrouded the homes in in a grimy haze.

  Two wide-hulled trading ships had dropped anchor in the deepest part of the harbor, but the small Neanderthal vessel skirted past them, dropping sail and rowing up to the weathered docks.

  Several Neanderthal women were washing clothes on the rocks at the water’s edge; they raised a shout as the boat neared. A crowd of Neanderthal women and children rushed down to greet the boys, eager for news of their adventure. Their early arrival hinted at a good haul.

  But faces fell in dismay when one smiling mother rushed from her shack, and noted her missing son. No one had to tell her what had happened. The boys’ lowered heads, the empty seat in the boat—all told the tale.

  Denni’s mother let out a terrible wail, then collapsed, overcome with grief. Her husband had been taken by slavers many years ago, and the woman lived with the hope that someday he would escape and return home. With no other children, she lived with an aging sister.

  As she wailed and her eyes became stricken, Tull worried that Denni’s mother might die from this. Another young woman grabbed her as she fell, and the Neanderthal children began to wail also. They covered their heads with their hands, and the sound of sobbing and shouts of astonishment spread like the gush of wind that ripples over a field of wheat.

  Tull watched the incident unfold helplessly. He’d hoped that the news could have been relayed quietly, intimately. The Pwi had a saying: “Only the best of friends should bear sad news.”

  Among the Neanderthals, with their rich emotional lives, grief was a ravaging thing. It could strike like a plague, bringing entire families low. All too often, those who mourned gave up eating, gave up drinking, and gave up life.

  To avert disaster, now was the
time to celebrate Denni’s life, to speak soft words to the mother, praising what he had been. The proper way to break the news would have been to hug the mother and whisper the news to her, leaving a gift of tears on her shoulder.

  But Tull was not close to her, so he only squeezed her hand and peered into her stricken eyes. “Your son has a fine, strong spirit,” he said. “Denni walks among us still.”

  It was a stock sentiment among the Pwi, but Tull knew that his words did not help. She peered out at him from the depths of her sorrow like a wounded mouse from its burrow. There was no understanding or comfort in those dark eyes, only pain.

  Even to Tull, his words sounded hollow. It would take a more skillful speaker than he to paint a peaceful face on Denni’s death.

  The only hope for his mother would be if those close to her could rescue her from her grief. So the Neanderthals gathered around her in a tight knot, touching her, whispering words of comfort.

  Tull felt helpless, and the sentiment weighed him down like a stone. As a halfbreed, he was an outsider among the Pwi, tolerated more than welcomed, like a beggar who perpetually haunts a city. He let others carry the grim news to Tchar’s family, wishing that he could do more.

  For nearly an hour he waited near the docks while the crowd swelled. One old woman mentioned that Chaa was still on his spirit walk, that after five days he was unconscious. Fava ran home to see him, so Tull and Ayuvah unloaded the boat and each carried two kegs of honey up to Theron Scandal’s inn.

  It was late afternoon, and a warm gravitational wind had begun to sigh down from the mountains, hissing through the redwood trees. Up on the ridge above town, a tyrant bird, one of the smaller breed of dragons, swerved down the sky toward a redwood. It beat its stiff feathers once, twice, clutched the uppermost limbs in its talons, and swayed in the treetop.

  Tull watched the tyrant bird, with its gaping teeth and blood-red serpentine head adorned with a venomous horn, and its cold intelligent eyes. The tyrant bird posed no threat to him, since the ancient human Starfarers had genetically programmed it to hunt for different prey, yet Tull shivered at the sight of it, for a rage in its eyes spoke of judgment and an eagerness for execution.