His eyelids closed, his head slowly coming to rest on the branch.
“Long before I was born,” Kinar always began, “my father Jovic traveled to the mountains far to the west. There he saw heaps of stone shaped into blocks with even sides. The blocks were so big Jovic realized whoever shaped them must have been giants, at least three times the height of normal men.”
Amero smiled sleepily at the memory. The giants grew with every telling of the story.
“Jovic saw strange markings on one block, pictures carved and colored,” continued Kinar. “The pictures were of faces like his own, but unlike too. The stone faces were painted blue, and the hair on the faces’ heads was white as snow.”
Amero’s eyes snapped open. His injured right leg had slid off the branch, jerking his body sideways. He drew it up quickly and shuddered. A leaping beast could have dragged him to the ground by that dangling limb.
Were the animals even still there? He strained his eyes in the darkness, gazing deep into the shadows for signs of the pack. The songs of night birds were a good sign the beasts had departed. Perhaps he could descend, backtrack to the stream, and fill his belly with cool, fresh water.
The sound of a dry twig snapping rang out. The birds ceased their rhythmic call.
“Oto?” he said in a loud whisper. “Is that you? Kinar? Nianki?”
“Oto?” replied a voice in the night. Amero gripped the tree harder. It was not a voice he knew.
“Who’s there?” he said more loudly.
“Who’s there?”
He’d once heard an echo-spirit in a canyon, but he’d never heard of one living on the plain. “Nianki, don’t jest with me,” he said uncertainly.
“Don’t jest with me.”
For a fleeting instant, Amero spotted a pair of glowing white eyes a dozen paces away. They were low to the ground and wide-set, just like the eyes of the killer pack animals.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
“Who’s there?” mocked the voice.
“I’ll not come down!”
“Come down. Come down.” From the shadows all around the tree, the two words were repeated, over and over. More eyes gleamed. Amero counted ten pairs in all.
He sighed and sagged on the branch. Wasn’t there easier prey for them to catch? Then his eyes snapped wide open.
They had talked to him? What sort of unnatural beasts were these?
Shaking with fear, he climbed to the highest part of the tree that would hold him and wedged himself into a narrow crotch. He picked open the lacings along the sleeve of his buckskin shirt and braided the ends together to double the strength of the binding. He dropped the useless shirt onto a lower branch. Looping the braided lacing around his waist, Amero tied himself to the tree. The hide laces would not support him if he fell, but they would steady him enough to sleep.
One pair at a time, the eyes below vanished. When they were all gone, the only sound was their peculiar yelping cry — slower now, sounding more and more like cruel human laughter.
The night seemed endless. It passed in fits and starts, as every cricket in the grass, every bat flickering through the treetops brought Amero to instant wakefulness. When at last he did sag into deep slumber, a horrible apparition invaded his rest.
Out of the darkness crept one of the beasts, glowing dimly. The creature slunk to the foot of the elm tree and slithered up the trunk without using its paws at all. The combination of snake-like movement and blood-smeared muzzle sent shudders of fear through Amero. He tried to untie the thongs holding him in place, but his arms would not rise. His lips parted to cry for help, but no sound came forth. Closer and closer the faintly luminous creature came, its dark eyes fixed on Amero’s face. When its cold, damp nose touched the sole of his dangling foot, he found his voice. He woke screaming.
The sun was well up. He blinked against its bright rays and raised a hand to shield his eyes. Memory of the terrifying immobility that afflicted him in his dream caused him to raise and lower both arms, just to assure himself he could. As the evil image faded from his mind, a lingering impression remained; someone, some thing not human was nearby. It was watching him with curious detachment, the way Amero studied anthills or wasp’s nests when he was a little boy.
Wind stirred the sparse elm leaves. There were clouds aloft this morning, small puffs of white on a field of hazy blue sky. Amero fervently wished for rain. He’d had no water since yesterday, and the heat and his exertions had left him wrung out and very, very thirsty. He pulled a slender branch close and licked the underside of the leaves. The faintest patina of dew remained, and tasting it only made him feel thirstier.
Amero loosened his lacings and stretched his stiff limbs. He spotted a line of black gardener ants trooping along a lower branch. He swept a dozen or so off into his palm and ate them quickly. They were tart, a little crunchy. He’d eaten ants before when nothing else was available.
Clearing his parched throat, he called to Menni. His brother’s tree was only twenty paces away, but he’d heard nothing from the baby for a long time, and he was worried. It was one thing for a thirteen-year-old like Amero to spend the night in a tree, but a toddler less than two? An ache grew in Amero’s chest as imagined the worst. He had to check on his brother. He must find out whether the boy was all right.
He plotted his way before leaving the safety of his tree: If he took a roundabout route to Menni’s tree, he could move from the safety of one climbable tree to the next. The first tree that could support his weight looked to be eight paces distant; the next one after that, six.
Cautiously, Amero descended. The grove was quiet. Only the hum of locusts broke the silence. He darted from tree to tree, keeping low, with every sense alert for the sound of the returning pack.
By the third climb he had Menni’s tree in sight. Amero wanted to call to his brother, but he was terrified the child wouldn’t answer. Leaving his last perch, he picked up a fallen limb — a feeble weapon — and advanced slowly on Menni’s hiding place.
Something in the tree stirred with every breath of wind. Amero squinted against the glare and tried to make out what it was. It was too small to be Menni.
Within a few steps he realized his brother was no longer there. The object blowing with the breeze was a scrap of cured rabbit pelt. Menni had worn a bonnet lined with rabbit fur.
Mutely, Amero plucked the pathetic scrap from the tree. The slim trunk had lost much bark, the marks fresh and still bright with oozing sap. It was easy to imagine what had happened. The pack had butted and battered the small tree until Menni lost his hold.
Dark bloodstains on the ground lent painful support to this vision. Amero let the tears run down his cheeks for a moment, grieving for his lost brother. He knelt in the dirt and closed his hand around Oto’s panther talisman. It had done Menni little good. Perhaps the spirit of the panther owed protection only to its conqueror.
A rustle in the bush brought Amero’s mourning to an abrupt end. His heart contracted to a small hard knot when he glimpsed gray forms flitting through the grass. They’d been waiting for him! He threw down the worthless talisman and bolted.
The pack had already maneuvered between him and the center of the grove. He had the impression of six or seven animals in front of him, maybe four or five behind. There were trees all around, but none were much more than saplings. Still, given a choice, Amero preferred to take his chances in the trees rather than on the ground.
He angled for a likely looking elm. The beasts saw his change of direction and closed in rapidly. Up he went, clawing at the rough bark. He heard the snap of empty jaws as he swung his legs up and over a low branch. Having failed to catch him, the beasts immediately fell to slamming their broad, ugly heads against the truck. The blows were powerful. As Amero clung to the tree for his life, he realized little Menni could never have held out against such an onslaught.