He saw nothing. Just a blur of light. He blinked and moved his head — then saw them. Transparent creatures with rapidly moving tentacles. He could not understand it and turned to Akotolp for assistance. “I saw something, moving beasts, what were they?”
“Animals, minute ones, there in the drop of water, their images magnified by the lenses. Do you know what I am talking about?”
“No.”
“Exactly. You will never learn. Your intelligence is equal to that of the other ustuzou behind you. Dismissed.”
Kerrick turned and gasped when he saw the silent, bearded Tanu standing in the niche in the wall. Then he realized that it was only a stuffed and mounted animal. It meant nothing to him and he left quickly.
Yet he felt strangely disturbed as he walked back, the sun warm on his shoulders, Inlnu* plodding patiently behind. In thought and speech he was Yilanè. In form he was ustuzou. Which meant he was neither one nor the other and he grew upset when he thought about it. He was Yilanè, that was what he was, there was no doubt about that.
Unconsciously, as he told himself this over and over, his fingers pinched at his warm Tanu flesh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“The time has come for us to leave,” Stallan said. “It is here in the pictures, everything we need to know.”
“Show me,” Vaintè said. Her aides and the fargi pressed close to see as well, but a gesture drove them back. Stallan passed the pictures over, one at a time, with a careful explanation of each.
“These are the earliest, of the high valleys where the ustuzou usually winter. But this last winter the valleys remained frozen. The thaw did not come that brings them life during the rest of the year. Therefore the ustuzou must move south to find food.”
South, away from the cold of their winter, Vaintè thought, just as we flee south from the frigid winters of Inegban*. She wiped this repugnant idea away as quickly as it had come. There was no connection between the two facts, could be no connection between Yilanè and ustuzou. It was just a matter of chance. What did matter was that the creatures would have to move south to find food. She spoke aloud.
“South — where we can reach them.”
“You see the future clearly, Eistaa. If they stay, then they die of starvation. If they do not stay, why, we will be there to greet them.”
“When do we leave?”
“Very soon. See here, and here. The large beasts that drag the poles and skins. They come down from the hills. There is grass, but still gray and dead after the winter. And the white, here in the hollows, that is hard water. They must come further south.”
“They will. Are your preparations made?”
“They are. Supplies gathered, the boats fed, the armed fargi are ready.”
“See that they remain that way.”
She dismissed Stallan, put the hunter from her mind instantly, addressed her thoughts instead to the coming campaign. They would be going far inland this time and would be away all of the summer. They could not carry enough food with them for this long a time — so should she arrange for resupply? Or live off the land? This would be easier — and every beast they killed and ate would be one less for the ustuzou. But there would also have to be a reserve of preserved meat so their progress would not be slowed. Everything must be considered. Prisoners must be taken as well. The raptor’s chance movements would find only a few of the ustuzou packs. But questioning the prisoners would lead them from one pack to another until they had all been destroyed. A fargi hurried over at her gesture.
“Command Kerrick to attend me.”
Her thoughts went to the coming campaign until she was aware of his presence before her.
“Tell me of your health,” she ordered. “You are thinner than you used to be.”
“I am, but the weakness has gone, the scars from the sores are healed. Each day I make this fat Inlènu* run with me to the fields. She loses weight, I gain it.”
“We go north soon. You will go with us.”
“As the Eistaa speaks, so do I obey.”
He expressed this in the most formal manner when he left, revealing no other emotion. But the thoughts that churned beneath that calm exterior were quite different.
He was eager to go — yet was afraid at the same time. Most of his memories of the last voyage north were buried beneath the pain of his sickness. It had been easiest when he was the sickest because then there had only been unconsciousness with no memory of what had passed. But then had come the wakening days, the pains in his chest, the sores that covered his body. He knew that he should eat but he could not. He had been vaguely aware of the wasting away of his body, the close approach to death, but had been too weak to do anything about it. Only when the gradual and painful recovery had begun could he think of food again.
But that was in the past — and must be kept in the past. Though he still grew tired by the end of the day, each day he was that slight bit stronger. It would be all right. He would go with them and there would be other ustuzou to talk to. For a long time he had not permitted his thoughts to dwell on this, but now a strange excitement filled him and he looked forward eagerly to the expedition. He would talk to Tanu again — and this time he would remember more of the words. There was a sudden and inexplicable excitement when he thought about talking with them and he walked faster, until Inlènu* registered patient protest.
They started north a few days later, earlier than had been originally planned, for now they would be going slower. Vaintè wanted to see if they could supply their own meat as they went along. On the first day they traveled only until early afternoon before making a landing on a rocky shore. Stallan left at once with her best hunters, followed by a group of nervous fargi.
They returned well before dark, the fargi now burdened with the carcasses of deer. Kerrick looked on with strange excitement as they came up and placed the deer carefully before the Eistaa.
“This is good, very good,” she said with pleasure. “You are truly named, Stallan, for you are a hunter without peer.”
Hunter. Kerrick had never considered the significance of the name. Hunter. To enter the forest, move stealthily across the plain, to make the kill.
“I would like to hunt too, Stallan,” he said, almost thinking aloud. He bent to pick up a hèsotsan that lay nearby, but Stallan kicked it roughly away with her foot. The rejection was cruel and sharp.
“Ustuzou are killed with hèsotsan, they get no closer than that.”
Kerrick recoiled. He had not been thinking of the weapons, just the chase. While he was shaping a reply Vaintfe spoke first.
“Is your memory so short, Stallan, that you have forgotten that it is I who give the orders? Give Kerrick your own weapon. Explain to the ustuzou how it functions.”
Stallan stiffened into immobility at the strength of the command. Vaintè did not change her final imperative position. It was important that all Yilanè, even of Stallan’s rank, be reminded that she alone was Eistaa. And it pleased her to pit these two against each other, since their hatred of each for the other was so great.
Stallan could only obey. The fargi pushed close as they always did when something was being explained, while Stallan reluctantly held out the weapon to Kerrick.
“This creature is hèsotsan, developed and bred to be a weapon.” Kerrick gingerly took the cool dark length in his hands and followed the indicating thumb. “They are mobile when young, only changing their form when they get their full growth. The legs become vestigial, the spine stiffens until the creature looks like this. It must be fed or it will die. This is the mouth,” she indicated a black-lipped opening, “not to be confused with this orifice where the darts are inserted. The darts are picked from the bushes and dried — do not move your hand!”