"Some say that the spirits of the dead war nightly, up here on Mucking Great Mountain. Our dead parents and grandparents pit rifle and spear and knife against fang and claw and speed, night after bloody night. They don't want to—but they must. Because if they lose, just once... just once... "
He narrowed his eyes fiercely. "The grendels will claw through the portal that separates life from death, and return to ravage Avalon again.
And not just Avalon. They'll go across the stars as we crossed between stars, back to Earth... "
A light dew of sweat dampened his forehead. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "What was that? Was that a scream? It sounded almost like a scream, a human scream. The scream of a soul already dead, but dying yet again. A soul now cast into some deeper, more terrible pit. And is that another? And another... ?"
The boys and girls strove to still their breathing and quiet their heartbeats, attempting to capture every word.
"But if the ghosts of the humans are dying once again then—"
There was a terrible shriek, and from beyond the ring of firelight lurched a woman soaked in blood. She staggered, one hand held piteously to her cheek. One eye was clotted with gore and the other was insanely wide, as if witness to all the terrors of hell.
After her, in a blur, came something inhuman.
Ten feet of hissing reptile bounded into the firelight: splay-clawed, barb-tailed, eyes dead to gentleness or love, merciless as glass.
It smashed her to the ground, perched atop her and howled--!
The children scrambled in all directions, screaming, crying—
Then silence, save for the crackle of the fire. The girl's bloody body lay still upon the ground, grendel perched above, triumphant—
And then she sat up, sputtering with mirth. "Justin Faulkner, you are an utter bastard!"
"It's the company I keep, Jessie." He grinned like a shark. "All right, round ‘em up!"
The "grendel" sat up, and a stocky, muscular Japanese boy of about seventeen Earth years climbed out of its hollow belly. His face was darkened with charcoal, and he laughed so hard he could barely breathe. Jessica slapped him on the back. "You should make some little, tiny buildings, some miniature artillery, and do a giant monster movie, Toshiro."
"Godzilla versus a four-hundred-foot grendel?" He shrugged out of the grendel skin. "You know, if we hadn't had to rebuild Tokyo every six months, Japan would have ruled all of Earth."
From all around them, just beyond the reach of the firelight, larger human figures returned, shepherding their younger siblings back to the firelight.
"Come on back!" they roared. "Sissies!"
Shy, embarrassed, the stragglers returned by ones and twos. They protested loudly but hid grins behind small heads, and wrung crocodile tears from laughing eyes.
Tentatively, then with growing enthusiasm, they examined the hollow grendel carcass, its thick forelegs and wide jaws, its stubby spiked tail. They ran their small fingers along its scales, each imagining that it was his father, her grandmother who slew the dragon.
Justin took his place at the center by the fire, and this time spoke in a normal voice. "All right, it was a joke. Not a pointless one. We want you scared. Grendels are dangerous. The Earth Born killed all the grendels here on this island. As children you've been safe here all your lives. Now it's time to learn about your world, all of it, not just this island. We are the Star Born. This world is ours.
"You've seen a dead grendel. Now you're growing up, and pretty soon you'll go to the mainland and see live grendels. And more. It's time to learn what happened to those two hundred. Earth's best and brightest, each of those Earth Born chosen from among more people than there are stars in these skies.
"Up to now you've lived by Earth Born rules. Now it's time for you to learn why they make rules, and why we live by them.
"Time to go to the mainland, time to learn why the Earth Born act so strange, and—it's time to learn what eats grendels. Now, off to sleep."
The children reluctantly headed toward sleeping bags and bedrolls. A few of the candidates tried to ask questions, but the Grendel Scouts wouldn't answer. "Bedtime. You'll learn, but not tonight."
"Why not tonight?"
"You'll learn it all. Now scoot!"
"Can Rascal sleep in my bed tonight?"
"Sure, your dog can sleep with you."
The children tumbled off to bed, pleasantly tired, utterly ready for sleep.
Jessica winced as Justin wiped the slaughterhouse blood from her face.
"Yerch. Tomato juice would have been just as good."
"Such a thought offends my creative soul."
"I did like the wasabi in the beef heart, Toshiro. Nice little touch.
You didn't do that last year."
"Musashi said to ‘pay attention even to little things.' " Toshiro stretched until his back crackled, and poked his bare feet close to the embers.
"I thought it went well," Jessica said. "Just the right balance.
Justin, you brought Sharon McAndrews. She's not twelve yet."
"She's bright, she's curious, and she's been asking questions about her mother," Justin said. "We have to tell her."
"Zack isn't going to like it."
"Freeze ‘im."
"We have agreed to the rules," Toshiro said. "We don't interfere until the Grendel Biters are twelve—"
"Wouldn't work," Justin said. "Either we tell Sharon now, or in a year she'll tease the whole damn story out of Cassandra, and then she'll tell the rest of the Grendel Biters. No preparation, just bang!, they know. This isn't the last time this is going to come up, either. Sharon won't be the only one to ask the right questions." He grinned. "And what's Zack going to do to me?"
"The Earth Born aren't always wrong," Toshiro said. His forefinger traced the scar on Jessica's neck. It was years old, almost faded, and most of it was hidden under her hair; but it trailed down her neck to her left shoulder. She snatched his hand, and kept it.
"I'd be more interested in what Dad thinks," Jessica said. "How does Coleen feel about this?"
"She thinks she can't go on fooling her little sister much longer," Justin said. "And I agree. You know their mother."
Toshiro nodded gravely. "Oh, well. Here, I brought some real food."
They moved closer to the fire to roast chunks of turkey breast over the dying coals, and they sat talking of and laughing over small or important things: the season's fish yield; skiing on the southern peaks; a review of the previous week's hysterical debate between Aaron Tragon and Hendrick Sills. (Postulated: Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was actually a misinterpreted satirical essay.) Modifications in the huge dirigible, Robor. The odds on next month's surf-off. The conversation went on for hours, until the laughter finally died down, and yawning took its place.
They were the Star Born. Their electronic servants could bring them all of Mankind's knowledge: history, science, drama, the great literature of a dozen cultures, and a hundred soap operas; but they lived in a primitive paradise, utterly safe, inoculated against every disease. There was more than enough to eat, meaningful work to do, and few dangers. They were a strong, clean-limbed clan. Their parents had been chosen after tests that made the old astronaut selection procedures look like child's play. Physically perfect and bright-eyed, they radiated the kind of relaxed familiarity that only those raised in an insular community can ever really know.
There were a few minutes of intense quiet, during which eyes met across the ember light, and nods preceded gentle touches of offer and acceptance. Two at a time they linked arms and drifted off into the shadows.
And then at last there were only four left: Jessica, Justin, Toshiro, and a young redhead named Gloria.