Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series Page 2

  But on the ninth day, that changed. All twenty hands moved into the hull and would not go above decks. They filled their orders, then stayed in the sweltering hold, playing cards without their tunics on, wearing only long breechcloths, as if they were Pwi, and sometimes one would look up nervously as if fearing that a superior would come down to check on them.

  Over the next few hours, the temperature climbed steadily until all the men were sweating even as they sat.

  Tull lay, listening to the Blade Kin talk as they played cards. Deep in the night the men yawned, and one human said, “It’s getting hard to breathe. When will they give us some more air?”

  “When it’s safe,” another answered.

  “Dathan,” a third Blade Kin suggested, “why don’t you run up there and get a nice breath of fresh air, then bring it back down here for the lot of us.”

  The man who had complained looked up, frightened, and the others laughed at his expense. “Laugh, you asses,” he said. “You didn’t see those birds swoop down on the deck. You didn’t have them chase you down below.”

  “When do you think they’ll open the vents?” another asked. “They can’t lock us down here forever.”

  Their sergeant, an old human with buck teeth, said, “As soon as they clear the eels from the shafts. We stay put till then.”

  “By God’s bloated belly, I’d hate to be a Pwi, trying to clean out those shafts,” one man laughed, and the others chuckled nervously. “I saw one fellow, they shoved him up a shaft, and they pulled him back with five big lampreys sucking on the back of his neck, sucking his brains out.”

  “Ayaah,” one man said, “better him than me.” The fellow glanced at Tull, as if wondering if Tull might be forced to take a turn in the shafts.

  The men spoke no more about what was going on, but Tull understood. The Creators had sent their gray birds to attack. The image flashed through his mind of the little humans he had seen in Craal, the eel-like creatures attaching to their hosts at the base of the neck so that they could bore into the brain stem, take control.

  Once the eel attached, the two could not be separated. Tull pitied any poor Pwi used that way.

  He could not sleep. The memory of how those eels slithering silently over the ground kept him awake. For hours Tull breathed the stale air, superbly alert, until cooler air broke into the hold.

  Only then did he let himself sleep. Tull dreamed that he was hunting with Ayuvah, Chaa’s dead son, deep in the redwoods where wild raspberry bushes grew leaves as large as plates and the vine maple grew tall and thin.

  Tull and Ayuvah ran, carrying their spears, and Tull’s stomach growled.

  The moss and brush before them was pitted and scarred—a giant mastodon had left its prints in the ground, and had gouged the moss with his tusks as they dragged the earth. Tull could hear it ahead in the forest, crashing through trees, snapping branches.

  “I fear the beast will not let us catch it, and I am hungry,” Ayuvah said, and the young Neanderthal stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow with his forearm.

  “I’m hungry, too,” Tull said.

  “Perhaps the beast will not give itself because we have not asked it,” Ayuvah said. “We are not hunting as men of the Pwi should.”

  Tull stopped, and he suddenly felt guilty. It was a lesson Ayuvah had tried to teach him long ago, to ask the spirit of the animal to give itself before the hunt.

  Ayuvah pointed forward to the shadows of the forest, and Tull saw a great shaggy brown back, like a small hill, moving ahead. “Perhaps we should not bother asking for this one,” Ayuvah said. “It is more than we could eat anyway.”

  Is it greed that makes me hunt this beast? Tull wondered. His belly cramped in on itself.

  Ayuvah studied Tull. “What do you hunger for?”

  Tull peered into the distance as the mastodon crashed through the forest shadows.

  His stomach tightened. But instead of mammoth, he thought of Bashevgo with its army of Blade Kin. He thought of gray birds sent by the Creators, dropping from above, with their worms of destruction. He imagined Eridani warships streaking through the night, and he wanted to end it.

  “I hunger for peace,” Tull said.

  Ayuvah nodded. “Then ask the spirit of the world for peace.”

  “How?”

  Ayuvah pointed at the rich humus with his spear.

  “Take off your clothes, lie naked on your belly, and beg the world for peace. Then listen to what it tells you.”

  In his dream Tull stripped and sprawled on the ground, naked, redwood needles pricking his bare skin, and he talked long to the earth, until the shadows of night fell, and he begged the earth to fill his belly with peace.

  Very faintly, like the thundering of a waterfall that is miles away, the ground trembled as if in answer.

  ***

  Chapter 3: Forebodings

  Fava nudged her mammoth’s small ears with both toes, urging it down through the mountains in the moonlight.

  They had left the firs early in the evening and traveled now through straggling ponderosa pine, nothing like the lofty redwoods of the south. The mountains had eroded to large rolling hills. Snow lay on the ground two feet deep, and traveling would have been all but impossible if not for the mammoths, which trundled quickly, crazed with “ice fever,” the fear that came on mammoths when forced north during the snowy season.

  Ahead of her in the moonlight, Hukm warriors armed with twelve-foot war clubs loped over the hills, a blur of white fur on white snow.

  Everything, the wide open sky, the lack of sea air, the army of Hukm—none of it had the taint of old kwea upon it, and Fava felt like a child, free to experience everything new, as if life were a stew cooked with exotic spices, none of which she had ever tasted.

  Fava found that she enjoyed the ride through the forest with the Hukm, in spite of unpleasantness ahead. Already they had turned west, leaving the hills of the coastal range, heading inland toward Bashevgo, another three weeks away.

  Fava worked her legs down under the hair on the mammoth’s neck. She had found that a hot mammoth under her legs and a thick red wool cloak taken from some Blade Kin slaughtered by the Hukm in a skirmish were all she needed to keep warm in the icy temperatures.

  Darrissea slept on the mammoth’s back, behind Fava, atop a load of food—a trick that Fava did not want to master. Stavan rode along on a mammoth beside them, and Fava was happy to see that her friend had found someone to love.

  A mammoth hurried up beside Fava, and the driver, a young Hukm girl that Fava recognized as Apple Breath, waved her fingers.

  Fava was learning the basics of Hukm finger language, and she found it quite odd. The Hukm described humans, Neanderthals, and Mastodon Men as “Meat People,” since they ate meat, and any herbivore with antlers was called a “knives-on-head,” whether it was a deer, moose, elk, goat, or ox.

  In some ways their vocabulary was very limited.

  The Hukm seemed so nonobservant as to appear stupid.

  Owls, swallows, eagles, and dragons were all simply “fliers,” while tadpoles, salmon, otters, and eels were classified as “swimmers.” A duck could be either a flier or a swimmer depending on whether it was in the air or on the water when spotted.

  On the other hand, the Hukm had names for every bush, weed, or tree, and described each with one of dozens of prefixes to define its taste. The bitter wild garlic was called “weasel-pee garlic,” and was easily classified with other plants that Hukm swore tasted of weasel pee.

  Still, Fava found that she could communicate so long as she kept from discussing herbs.

  In the thin moonlight Fava had difficulty following Apple Breath’s finger movements as she asked, “Why angry, Meat Person?”

  Fava realized that she’d been smiling. “I no angry,” she fingered back. “This Meat Person happy.”

  “You like Fruit Person?” Apple Breath asked. It was a question she asked a lot, as if convinced that Fava would change her mind and suddenly hat
e them all.

  Fava studied the girl. Apple Breath, like all her kind, seemed a benign, quiet beast-woman, camping without fire, chewing dry squash or sugar cane or rice or any of hundreds of sweet smelling fermented leaves. And Apple Breath treated her mastodons with more gentleness than most human taskmasters would show a Pwi worker. During the days she’d take the mammoths to windswept plateaus to feed, stroking the mammoths’ trunks or giving them special treats.

  “I like Fruit People. All Fruit people,” Fava fingered back, chopping her hand at the end for emphasis.

  “You like eat Fruit People?” Apple Breath asked.

  She seemed to think that humans and Pwi were predators, and all week she’d pointed out various animals—bobcats, skunks, snow owls, and mice—asking which Fava ate.

  Still Fava could not imagine the Hukm girl worrying about whether humans might eat her. Fava looked up into Apple Breath’s dark brown eyes, saw a sparkle of reflected moonlight, and realized the girl was teasing.

  “No like eat weasel-pee Fruit People,” Fava answered.

  Apple Breath burst out barking in staccato bursts, Hukm laughter.

  Suddenly, from over the ridge ahead, a Hukm let out a howl that cut off abruptly at the end, a signal for the whole caravan to stop while Ironwood Woman and Phylomon went ahead to investigate.

  Fava stopped, and upon the hill in the pale cinnabar moonlight, a Hukm waved his hands, finger talking. Fava could not make out his message, and Apple Breath repeated it for her.

  “Meat People ahead—” Then she used some symbols Fava did not understand.

  Fava sat and waited, wondering how big the army was. This far north it could only be an army of Blade Kin. The question was, would the Hukm attack tonight or be forced to retreat?

  As she waited, Phylomon and Ironwood Woman galloped past on their mastodons, and Fava urged her own mastodon ahead without asking permission.

  They crossed one hill, a second, and after nearly an hour came to a bowl-shaped valley where the pines opened into a small meadow.

  Camped in the snow were probably three thousand people, all Neanderthal households with women and children dressed in furs and occupying half as many tents as they needed. Many were forced to camp in the open.

  They had trampled and dug the snow out around camp, which seemed strange, since the snow should have provided good insulation, and they had ringed the camp with torches.

  Within this perimeter the Hukm had frightened the Neanderthal spearsmen witless, and their faces shone pale even in the moonlight. But as Fava rode closer, she saw that the Neanderthals did not have pale faces: They had painted their faces with white skull masks.

  “Okanjara,” she hissed.

  When Fava and Phylomon got near, the Okanjara retreated a few steps, staring in wonder at Phylomon. The blue man had taken off his coat and wore only a necklace and a breechcloth, so that his blue skin was naked to the air. Phylomon called, “How does the sky feel this night?”

  A white-haired woman answered. “The kwea of our meeting is good, Phylomon Starfarer—” she said almost as casually as if they’d exchanged greetings in town. But then she added darkly, “considering our many misfortunes and the strange company you keep.”

  “The Pwi and the Okanjara have long shared a common enemy with the Hukm,” Phylomon said. “We’ve all battled the Blade Kin together. How can it seem strange to find me riding beside Ironwood Woman?”

  “It is strange that you have so many Hukm here in the dead of winter,” the old woman said, “where the Hukm must carry food.”

  “Just as I find it strange to meet Okanjara east of the Dragon Spine Mountains,” Phylomon said. “Does your war against Craal go ill?”

  The old Neanderthal woman struggled forward through the deep snow, and Fava saw that she wore black moccasins and leggings, with the silver crow of a Spirit Walker. Fava touched her forehead in respect.

  “Our war goes ill,” the woman said, “but it is not Craal we fight. We have a new enemy, one I do not know how to defend myself from. Have you not seen the snow eels yet?”

  “Yes, Mother,” Phylomon said. “I’ve seen gray eels, carried in the beaks of large gray birds.”

  “I haven’t seen them with birds,” the old woman said. “The eels we’ve spotted are white and as cold as ice. They burrow under loose snow and bite those who dare walk or camp in the open, poisoning our people, and then they leave. They do not feed on us. They come only to kill.”

  Phylomon frowned.

  It has started, Fava realized. The Creators have begun trying to kill us all well before Phylomon has had time to attack.

  “When did you last see one of these eels?” Phylomon asked.

  “A week ago,” the woman answered. “They were thick around the Dragon Spine Mountains, and even a few days from there. Still, we keep a good watch. We’re going to Storm Hold, to the protection of the city walls, but the snow delays us. We have seen many Blade Kin coming down out of the north this year, at least three Dragon Riders with full contingents, all headed south from Bashevgo. It gladdens me that the serpents will be attacking them instead of us.”

  Fava considered the obstacles: three hundred thousand Blade Kin along with poisonous snakes in the snow—all waiting on the road ahead?

  Phylomon asked, “Will we find Blade Kin nearby?”

  “Not many,” the old woman said. “The snow is too deep for travel, and most of the Blade Kin passed through here before midwinter.”

  “We’ve seen many Blade Kin, in the south, too,” Phylomon said. “In fact, I suspect that Blade Kin from Bashevgo have wiped out Storm Hold, along with all of the other eastern cities by now. The Rough has been captured.”

  Several Okanjara cried out in dismay, and one young man shouted, “But where can we retreat? Why do the Creators attack us?”

  “There is no retreat,” Phylomon answered. “There is no sanctuary in the Rough, and if you are correct, then the Creators have already attacked here in the wilderness. They will use their eels to drive us into the cities, where we will think we are protected, and then they will attack our cities.”

  He went on to explain, “As for why they attack us, when the Starfarers gave the Creators charge over the planet, the Starfarers bid them to control the populations of plants and animals. In the west and north, the Slave Lords have overextended. Now the Creators hope to destroy us and repopulate the world with new people.”

  The woman laughed bitterly. “All our lives, we’ve fought the Slave Lords, and now the Creators will destroy them for us? I only hope I live to celebrate on the Slave Lords’ graves.”

  Phylomon smiled grimly. “So do I.”

  For the next several hours Phylomon acted as interpreter for the Okanjara and Ironwood Woman. Ironwood Woman wanted the Okanjara to join her attack on Bashevgo, but the Okanjara were leery of Hukm.

  For centuries the Hukm had frowned down on both humans and Neanderthals. The Hukm could not abide their stench, claiming that both humans and Neanderthals had the “putrid-smelling” flesh of carnivores.

  Add to that their smoking fires, their habits of peeing on bushes next to their camps and the habit of leaving their feces uncovered—all revolted the Hukm, so that the Hukm had never fought a battle side-by-side with any other species.

  In the end, Ironwood Woman got only part of what she wanted. Most of the Okanjara were women and children. Even those who could fight saw little reason to throw their lives away in Bashevgo.

  Five hundred Okanjara men joined their ranks, while the rest continued their slow trek to Storm Hold.

  At dawn, most of the camp packed up tents and began trudging through the deep snow, heading south.

  Fava watched Phylomon’s face. The blue-on-blue eyes were empty, and the creases around his eyes betrayed no emotion as he watched at least six hundred good warriors depart.

  “What hope have we of winning?” Fava asked.

  “I have hope,” Phylomon said. “In Bashevgo, four million slaves hunger for freedo
m. If they join us, if they revolt, we can easily throw down the Blade Kin. Besides, we now have five hundred trustworthy Okanjara warriors on our side. They may help even the match.” He watched the Okanjara and his eyes narrowed, calculating.

  “How? They are only five hundred against thousands of Blade Kin.”

  “We shall see,” Phylomon said, cryptically.

  Yet for the next five days he showed her nothing. The Hukm advanced over the plains, and twice the group came upon small bands of people—a brother and sister here, four there.

  In one band the humans introduced themselves, and Phylomon questioned two men, “Didn’t you once take a woman slave, a Pwi named Thomba?”

  The men froze momentarily. Phylomon gunned them down.

  He took a long time interrogating their companions, who swore they’d met the slavers only the day before and had no idea that they had been slavers.

  Fava felt amazed to see so many humans here so far north, where the slavers had scoured the land for decades, especially where the land was so inhospitable.

  At night, green dancing lights shone on the horizon in the north, and the winds driving across the hills were swift and vicious and icy cold.

  Each time they met a small group, they found them without a home, without even the shelter of a tent. The snow grew deeper, and at last Fava wondered aloud to Phylomon the morning after they came upon a third small camp, another brother and sister.

  “Two more humans?” she asked. “What are all of these people doing out here so far in the Rough—all in pairs, a man and a woman? They all claim to be trappers or hunters, but where are their traps? Where are their weapons?”

  Phylomon did not venture an answer, but he must have seen how odd it was.

  Fava pushed on. “They do not even look like slavers. They look like twins. And why do they join us so easily?”

  Phylomon didn’t answer, but she could see by the hard lines of his face that he, too, felt some sort of alarm.

  They were camped in a ravine when Fava spoke up, and Phylomon had made a fire to brew tea. The weather was so cold that even the tea could barely keep Fava warm. She huddled in a robe and said, “And have you noticed? Of the six we’ve brought into camp, none are old or have children. They are all the age of warriors.”