Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series Read online

  Tull smiled faintly, stroked the curve of her breast and Wisteria suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

  “Let’s not make love,” she said. “Not yet. I’m still too weak.”

  Tull frowned, “You can push a wagon up a mountain all day, and be too weak for this?”

  “Yes,” she said. His mouth tightened to a contrite smile, and she felt surprised at how gullible he was.

  Tull shot her a long curious stare, as if to see if her face betrayed the lie. His arms turned limp at her waist.

  The nausea in her stomach grew. Is this guilt I’m feeling? she wondered. Guilt for not loving someone who loves me so purely?

  She knew it was more than that. She felt tenderness for him. She wanted his attention. But she couldn’t bring herself to love him.

  Perhaps it was the thought of Mayor Goodman, waiting back in Smilodon Bay for her to betray the party. To pretend to love Tull seemed a worse betrayal than ruining the quest.

  But that answer did not seem good enough. She’d been thrilled with the times she’d made love to Tull, the same way she’d been thrilled when she slept with Garamon Goodman, knowing that her life depended on her performance.

  The next morning when Wisteria woke, she felt confused. They’d camped in a high valley, and she rose while the fog was low and the sun crept up. Everyone else still lay abed.

  Tirilee lay against Phylomon. Tull slept soundly. Ayuvah had rolled so close to the smoldering campfire that if he moved another few inches, his furs would go up in flame. Scandal rested on his belly in his furs, and she could not tell if he slept. He could have been asleep, but one eye seemed narrowed to a slit.

  She wanted to bathe, so she pulled off her clothes and pretended that Scandal watched her. She smiled at the thought, then threw her clothes over her shoulder and crept down to the creek, hoping not to awaken anyone.

  The water was pure and clean and cold as ice, and she washed herself daintily at first, crouching by the creek and splashing her breasts and arms. When she grew used to the cold, she lay in the creek and closed her eyes.

  She felt good, she decided. She was willing to forgive Tull for his weakness, for his cuddling. Hell, she thought, I’m almost willing to forgive Phylomon for killing my father.

  She imagined herself telling Tull that she loved him, proving to the group that it was true by confessing that she had plotted with Mayor Goodman to sabotage the quest. Then, a little giddily, she imagined that she would thank Phylomon for killing her parents and leading her on this quest where she had found True Love, and she’d promise to help the others though it might cost her her life.

  She laughed at the thought, bent back to let her hair get wet.

  “What naughty little daydreams are you laughing about?” Scandal said softly. The fat cook squatted beside the creek, holding a green cotton towel over one arm, watching her.

  Wisteria put a hand over her breasts, tried to cover herself, then realized dully that Scandal had been awake when she undressed, that he’d been watching her all along.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Scandal smiled at her. “Admiring your body. Feeling close to—oh, nature.”

  “You’d better leave,” she said.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Scandal said. “They’re all out cold.”

  Wisteria giggled with embarrassment. For a moment she didn’t understand why, and then she realized that she laughed because she was relieved to know that the others slept.

  “You know,” Scandal said, pointing his finger, “I’m beginning to realize something about you.”

  “What?” Wisteria said. She wondered if she should sit up, should cover herself more fully. But he had already seen everything, so what was the point?

  “I’m beginning to realize that you, Wisteria, are a nasty lady. In fact, you’re an adulteress.”

  “I’ve never committed adultery,” she said in defense. “I love my husband.”

  “Of course you do,” Scandal said. “I’m sure you love him profoundly. But still, he doesn’t satisfy you.” As if to turn the subject, Scandal said, “Did you know that a Pwi woman has a larger birth canal than a human?”

  “No,” Wisteria said reflexively.

  “Ayaah, it’s true! She needs it. Pwi babies have such large skulls, with all that armor plating in their heads. So, you’d think that a Pwi man would need a larger organ to please his woman, right? But it’s odd, don’t you think, that human men actually have larger sex organs? The Pwi have got bigger hands, larger heads, more muscle. But in one area, they don’t compare. It’s a cruel trick of nature, and many a Pwi woman, I am sure, has mourned the fact. Pwi men are smaller than humans where it counts. Women who’ve tried both vastly prefer human lovers. Don’t you find that interesting?”

  “No—yes, I mean no!” Wisteria said, flustered. He’d said that she was an adulteress, and she thought back to the night when she’d slept with the mayor. It did seem that with the mayor, she had enjoyed it more. Was it the size difference?

  “Yes, you mean yes,” Scandal said, winking at her. “Let me tell you something. When I was young, I sailed round the world trading recipes. I studied hard to be a gourmet cook. But in all the ports of the world, I tried more than just the foods. In some places, I have heard, they still call me the ‘Gourmet of Love.’ And there is one thing I’ve learned in life: there are those who make love and there are those who don’t. You are destined to be one of those who do. You see, we belong to the great secret society of lovers. We have no particular hair or eye color to set us apart. We don’t need code words—we don’t even need to speak the same language—but wherever we go around the world, we recognize one another at a glance. And I know what you like: I can see it in your eyes. When I talk dirty to you, I can feel your arousal, hot and wet, like a thunderstorm sweeping in off the sea. I smell your desire as if it were perfume, as if it were the sweet scent of yellow roses blown through an open window.

  “Now, let me dry you off?” Scandal asked.

  Wisteria glanced guiltily uphill toward camp. Through the small strands of willows on the bank she spotted Phylomon making his way toward the creek.

  “No,” she said, glancing quickly up and down the creek for someplace to hide. There was no cover close enough. “Throw me the towel—Phylomon’s coming!”

  Scandal glanced back and tossed her the towel. She got up, wrapped it around her hurriedly.

  Scandal turned his back to her just as Phylomon came around the trees.

  “I … I beg your pardon Wisteria,” Scandal blustered. “I didn’t see you there!”

  Phylomon stopped in his tracks, turned his head to the side modestly.

  Wisteria complained, “If I’d known you would all be down here so quickly, I’d have bathed somewhere more private!”

  “Please forgive us. We didn’t mean to intrude,” Scandal said, backing toward camp. Phylomon looked at Scandal disparagingly, but even Wisteria could see that Scandal’s cheeks were burning in genuine embarrassment—at having been caught.

  Both men hurried back to camp without Phylomon offering any sign that he’d pursue the matter.

  Wisteria toweled off and then pulled on her clothes. Her head was spinning. She could not be certain what she felt. Relief that Scandal was gone? The desire to bed him? Love for her husband, guilt for not loving him enough? Shame at the way the memory of making love to Garamon made her blood race? All of these and more.

  When she returned to camp, Tull had risen. He hugged her, wrapped a fur around her. She hissed through her teeth, “You asked me to teach you how to love. You’d better start getting it right!”

  Tull backed away, startled. Wisteria giggled at his confusion, and then kissed him passionately.

  That day, as they pushed the wagon up over the pass, she welcomed the exertion, the mind-numbing forgetfulness it brought. The ground became rough, and they had to struggle to move the wagon as a team. When the wagon stuck on an uphill slope, and everyone pushed and pulled with
all their might, Scandal and Phylomon always dug down deeper and found just a little more strength hidden within them, then they’d break the wagon free and move it higher.

  Wisteria enjoyed working her frustration out on that miserable chunk of wood. Most of all, she loved being part of a team. For a few hours at least, like the sky and the water and the undefiled mountains around her, she felt pure.

  That night they camped near the top of the Dragon Spines. At sunset the sky was clear and Tull could see pine forests and plains down the mountains beyond them. Tull looked out over the countryside as far as he could see. It was only four hundred miles over the White Mountains to Craal and Seven Ogre River.

  They’d come nearly halfway to Craal. It seemed so far. Surely, no one in Smilodon Bay had ever been this far back in the Rough. Tull found that he was scouring the countryside, searching for the armies that Tchupa had promised, the Blade Kin with their war dogs and armored mastodons.

  There was a bit of dirty snow on the ground and Wisteria and Tirilee took a cooking pot, went up on the ridge to scrape the snow and find the cleanest to boil for drinking water.

  Scandal was trying to light a fire, and Phylomon sat on a black rock beside him, took off his necklace, and began striking it. It flashed like lightning, sending a call to the Creators, and Tull realized that it would also send a call to anyone in the valleys below.

  Tull bent over a pair of leather moccasins and sewed new soles onto them. The journey took its toll in moccasins, and the sharp mountain rocks were especially bad. After the spear point that wounded Ayuvah’s foot, Tull realized that he needed to take good care of his feet if he was ever to finish the journey. Ayuvah walked up beside Tull.

  “Brother,” Tull said, glancing at the bursts of light that sprang from Phylomon’s necklace, but spoke no further.

  “How does the sky feel tonight?” Ayuvah asked.

  “The sky is sad,” Tull said. “The sun grows cold and feels the darkness coming.”

  “You are troubled,” Ayuvah said. “You have been troubled for a long time.”

  Tull sighed. Many things troubled him, but he did not want to mention his fear of Craal. “I do not know what is wrong. It is my wife.”

  “Human women,” Ayuvah said. “You should have married Fava.”

  Tull looked at Ayuvah, and wondered if the Neanderthal was right. Fava had always been such a sweet girl. Tull understood her. He said slowly, “When I am kind to my wife, she becomes angry. I … I don’t know if she loves me.”

  Ayuvah put his arm around Tull’s shoulder. “Who can understand a human? Does she profess love at all?”

  Tull said, “She has professed love. When we married, I asked her to teach me how to love. I felt like a fool because … I wanted to please her. But now, she acts distant—strange. When I hold her, she leans into me, as if for comfort, then she slaps my hands away.”

  Ayuvah said, “Perhaps you should teach her how to love.”

  Tull could not explain why those words made him feel so empty. “She doesn’t want my kind of love.”

  Ayuvah did not answer for a long time, then began to weep softly.

  “Why are you crying,” Tull asked.

  “Because I’m afraid for you,” Ayuvah answered. “I’m afraid you will lose your wife. She is not like a Pwi. She might not stay with you. I don’t know how to help you.”

  Tull had never imagined that Wisteria would leave him. It was so unlike anything a Pwi would do, yet he knew that humans often rejected their mates.

  Scandal had been trying to light a fire, and he looked up, embarrassed. “Look here, the way you’re talking, I’ve never heard anything so stupid! We ought to melt the two of you down for lard. Look, Tull—just because a girl wants a little excitement in bed, doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you! You can play her game. Take charge, keep her entertained!”

  Tull resented the words. “Making love is not entertainment!”

  “Oh, I can see that you’re going to grow into a stodgy old bastard. You’ll be plenty of laughs in bed. Problem is, the women will be laughing at you, not with you.”

  “She’s the reason I draw breath. I don’t intend to make love for laughs.”

  “Well, I’m sure you don’t, but have you thought about what she wants? Sex is like rabbit meat—it’s dull and flavor-less and not much good for anything. Why, did you know that if you eat rabbit meat and nothing else, you’ll die within a month? Called rabbit starvation. The rabbit doesn’t have either the fat or the flavor to keep a man alive. So, when you eat rabbit, you’ve got to saute it in onions and wine and butter, bring out the flavor a little, give it the right spice and add a little fat. The same thing happens with sex. If you sleep with a woman and don’t offer any spice, you’re liable to bore her to death in a couple of months. You need to give her a thrill once in a while!”

  Tull looked at Phylomon for advice, but the blue man merely shrugged. “She seeks danger for entertainment,” he finally said. “Just as we all do. You Pwi hunt for eggs in Hotland, but prize carnosaur eggs above all others. The element of risk, the challenge, gives them greater value.”

  “Exactly!” Scandal said. “Life isn’t worth living, unless you live it on the edge!”

  “But no one would want to put their love in jeopardy,” Tull said.

  “We do strange things,” Phylomon answered. “I’ve watched Scandal, and in a single night I’ve seen him insult a dozen customers. He puts his business in jeopardy. He knows that he serves a good table, fine whores. Perhaps he is testing his customers, seeing if they will put up with his abuse because they prize his fare. I’ve also known people who spend their entire living on frivolities so that they keep themselves in financial jeopardy. I’ve known men of great learning who propound idiotic theories so that their standing in the intellectual community is placed in doubt. Even you, Tull Genet, seek the face of danger. I saw how you wanted to find the Mastodon Men. You sought to peer into the face of Adjonai, the God of Terror.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  Phylomon thumped his medallion absently. Flashes of light washed the hillside. “Wisteria knows that you love her, but she also fears losing that love, and the fear thrills her. She pushes you away, hoping you will pull her back to safety.”

  “To pull her close would be a lie. It would be like saying, ‘I love you no matter how much you hurt me.’ But if I lead her to believe that I do not crave her, I’d be lying.”

  “For her,” Phylomon said, “right now love may be mere entertainment. If you want to keep her, entertain her.”

  Ayuvah made a gagging sound, drew their attention. “Humans disgust me, to place love so low.”

  Scandal laughed and Phylomon dropped his necklace. “Get out your weapons. It’s time for practice. Tonight, I think you should learn how to fight in the dark, when you are exhausted to the bone.”

  Tull picked up his kutow and readied himself for battle.

  As Tull raised his weapon, a great bird swooped and perched on the rock before Phylomon, watching them with yellow, unblinking eyes.

  Tull had never seen a bird like it. It was gray, nearly large as a condor. Phylomon spoke to it slowly. “We need your help. The serpents are gone from the coast at Smilodon Bay, and saurs have crossed the ocean from Dervin’s Peninsula. We do not know why the serpents are gone. You must restock the oceans in this area immediately. We are going to Seven Ogre River to catch some young serpents, in hopes that we can return them to the coast, but we need your help.”

  Phylomon threw out his arms, scaring the bird away, and smiled. “At least now the Creators will be aware of our predicament.”

  “Will they answer us?” Ayuvah asked.

  “Who knows?” Phylomon said. “The minds of the Creators are not like ours. They sit in their caves and nurture their creations. It probably won’t strike them as important to reply. Certainly a Creator will not come to see us, but they might send a messenger—one that can speak—to request more information. At the very leas
t, they will look into the problem. They are single-minded in their effort to maintain the balance of this planet. They will not let the eco-barriers fail another season.”

  “Can we go home?” Scandal asked.

  “No. The Creators can recreate the genetic structure of anything living on this planet, but they cannot do it faster than it would take for the normal process to occur. When that bird reaches its Creator, even if the Creator were to begin gestation immediately, the eggs would not hatch until next year.”

  “That isn’t fast enough,” Tull said. “Chaa said carnosaurs will be here by spring.”

  “If nothing else, the Creators can localize the infection,” Phylomon said. “If we can keep the carnosaurs from spreading, the dragons will clean them out eventually. Still, there’s no telling how many people would die. We must go on. Gentlemen, get your weapons. It’s time for practice.”

  ***

  Chapter 3: Phylomon’s Message

  A week later, a dozen miles from Sanctum, they pushed their wagon over a mosquito-ridden bog into a grassy field. Scandal raised a shout. At the far end of the field, near a stand of spruce, a herd of woolly mammoths grazed by a pool. They were tended by four Hukm that had begun shedding their brown summer fur for coats of winter white.

  Tull and the others pushed their wagon forward with such eagerness that soon the whole party moved at a run. The Hukm spotted them and casually walked into the trees, then returned from the shadows carrying war clubs.

  They appeared to be a small family—a large female, her husband, two boys. Yet the Hukm boys were taller than Phylomon. Unlike humans and Pwi, who wear clothing out of a sense of modesty, the Hukm wore clothing only for decoration. Each was adorned with haphazard collection of bandoleers, armbands made of bark, or belts. They wore ornaments made of colored shells and agates in their ears and noses.