There was a low chuckle.
«Poor old tumpier. What a shame.»
Dark figures moved against the moonlit bulk of the tump. A jagged gash wept black blood. No knives had been used; the felinas had simply slashed at the tump with their tough fingernails and chewed their way in.
“ Now,” said Karina.
She’d already picked out Iolande, the tallest of the grupo — the mother, skilled in battle. Iolande stood a little apart from the others, frozen in the act of cramming a chunk of meat into her mouth, her fingers dripping while she watched the oncoming grupo with narrowed eyes.
«So.… It’s El Tigre’s little girls. Go home, kids. Find someone your own age to play with.»
«Take the others!» shouted Karina. «I’ll look after this old cow!»
«You’ll regret your choice,” said Iolande calmly, and jammed the wad of flesh into Karina’s eyes as she came in, blinding her for one vital moment.
Karina felt a knee crash into her groin and she doubled up, pawing at her eyes. Instinctively she swayed aside as she fell, and felt the wind of Iolande’s other knee as it swept past her head. This was for real. Iolande was fighting, if not to kill, at least to maim. On the ground, Karina grabbed for the other woman’s knees. She caught one of them. The other foot slashed into her flank, cutting flesh. She let go and rolled away. The wind had been knocked out of her.
Little Friends.…
Her vision cleared and she looked up. Iolande was standing nearby, breathing normally, unmarked, a faint smile on her face. Behind Karina, a little way off, the baffle rolled on.
«Had enough, pretty Karina?»
Karina hurled herself forward, the Little Friends driven from her consciousness by the sheer violence of her rage. Iolande jumped as she came in, pulling herself up by the trappings and hanging from the tump’s back, and slashed at Karina with her feet — but she didn’t quite allow for the strength and speed of the girl. Karina turned in mid‑leap, caught Iolande’s foot and, still turning, dragged the woman to the ground.
Iolande yelled as the ligaments other knee tore, sending hot needles of pain through her leg.
Karina maintained her grip, twisting the foot back until Iolande screamed again. Then Iolande’s other foot caught her in the stomach with devastating force, hurling her against the tump. She fell aside in the nick of time, barely avoiding Iolande’s rush.
For a moment they stood face to face, recovering their breath. They hardly noticed the shouts and thump of flesh on flesh from nearby. They watched each other, and then they heard a male voice shout with pain.
And Iolande smiled.
There was a perfect confidence in her smile, a knowledge that her grupo was mother-taught in fighting, a certainty that they would win.
Karina watched her eyes. Karina’s face was streaming sweat and her hair hung like wet kelp. The skirt of her tunic was missing and blood seeped from a deep wound in her side. Her eyes were wide and steady, and they watched, watched.
Iolande thought, Mordecai, she’s beautiful .…
Her head spun.
And her smile became fixed; a grimace of twisted lips.
Karina said, “ Scream, Iolande.»
She reached out with hooked fingers and drew her nails deeply down that smiling face, gouging the flesh. She took her hand away, still watching the eyes, while parallel rivulets of blood trickled down Iolande’s face, two on either side of the nose, flowing aside at the bow of the upper lip then entering the mouth at the corner, dribbling into the smile and forming a little lake in front of the teeth before flowing again, down the chin.
«Scream, Iolande.»
Now Karina’s hand fastened on the neck of Iolande’s tunic and jerked downwards, exposing the breasts. The sounds of battle had ceased but Karina didn’t notice. Iolande had suckled eleven children and her breasts were just slightly pendulous, in contrast to the trim muscularity of the rest of her body. Karina’s fingers, hooked into claws, reached towards those vulnerable breasts. Iolande smiled her bloody smile, her mind emptied of thought.
«No, Karina!»
Saba had her by the wrist, tugging at her, pleading. «That’s enough! Leave her alone! They’re beaten — beaten, all of them!»
Karina blinked.
The spell was broken. Iolande crumpled to the ground.
«We’ve got them all.» Teressa appeared, dragging another felina, and flung her down beside Iolande.
The tump was wriggling now, moving away as though the pain of its wound and the savagery of the fighting was too much. Runa pulled two more girls forward. They were crying; little mews of mortification. Karina said shakily, «I didn’t think you could do it. I thought I’d have to get Iolande to surrender.»
The tumpiers began to gather, coming from all directions to view the prisoners.
«Bastards!»
«Always knew it was a grupo. Jaguars don’t do that kind of damage to the tump. Look at the poor brute — the pain’s beginning to get through to him!»
«Well done, Karina.»
Karina said, «How’s Haleka?»
The elderly tumpier limped forward, assisted by Saba. «Pain is of little consequence,” he said. «It comes, it goes. More important the effect upon the tump. I would like to express my gratitude to you and your grupo, Karina, but.…» His face was like parchment in the moonlight and suddenly he coughed, clutching his chest. «Would you … mind controlling the tump for a while? I am not quite capable at this moment.»
So saying, he sagged against Saba. She laid him carefully on the ground. «He went to help me,” she explained, «and he took a hell of a kick in the ribs. Maybe something’s broken.»
Leaving him there, Karina went after the tump. She wanted to get away from them for a moment, to sort herself out. Events of the past few minutes had left her very frightened. For the first time in my life, she thought, I completely lost control of myself .…
And the words sounded in her head. Lost control of myself.
It was a horribly apt phrase. She had lost control, and something else had gained control, pushing her aside.
Just for a moment, the Little Friends had stopped being mere assistants, and had taken over .…
A fit of shivering took hold of her, and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. She gulped, breathing deeply at the cold night air, and the pain of her wounds swam back. To divert herself, she turned her attention to the errant tump.
“ Basta!» she shouted; the traditional cry.
The tump ignored her.
Suddenly concerned, she ran around to the front of the beast and laid her hand on its nose, leaning against it.
«Basta! Basta!»
The tump moved on, thrusting her aside. She peered into its eye as it moved past. “ Basta, you brute!»
Still the tump undulated forward, an irresistible mountain of meat, moving relentlessly downhill, towards the coastal plain. Karina punched it, shouted at it, kicked it, climbed on its back and tried to guide it — but it was no use.
Haleka’s tump had gone loco.
Bor
«It is done,” said the handmaiden. «She is in the tumpfields.»
The walls of the Dedo’s cottage were hung with animal remains; furs and skulls and skeletons of creatures which the handmaiden had never seen living. A giant pelt almost covered one wall; russet with the hairs running in an unusual direction. Behind it hung a big skull of a carnivore with two upper canines lengthened like tusks and fitted into curious sheaths which extended downward from the lower jaw. Next was a batlike creature with a considerable wingspan, a leathery skin, a long jaw with sharp teeth and an odd lump which extended back from the head and seemed to counterbalance the jaw. There were all manner of creatures, big and small, all carefully preserved and displayed, occupying two of the four walls and hanging from the rafters.