«Richard Blade!» shouted Swebon. «One canoe will come to the bank for you. Get into it. Leave your club behind.» The sticks hanging from Blade's belt looked somewhat like the spirit sticks the Yal tied to trees when they made sacrifices. No doubt Blade's sticks were used in the sacrifices of the English. It would not be proper to take them from him.
Blade nodded. «Thank you, Swebon. I will be happy to come among your people.» He picked up his club, tossed it into the water, and stood with his arms folded on his chest, watching the canoe heading toward him.
Chapter 4
Blade wasn't quite as happy among the Fak'si as he told Swebon he'd be. So far they hadn't done anything openly unfriendly, and they seemed willing to follow their chief's lead in dealing with Blade. On the other hand, there were more than forty warriors in the four canoes. They carried either a spear or a bow and a quiver of arrows, most of them had heavy wooden clubs hanging at their waists, and all had crocodile-hide shields ready to hand.
They weren't particularly pleasant-looking, either. They all resembled the dead man Blade had seen in the jungle about five and a half feet tall, stocky, well-muscled, and blue-skinned. Most of them had spectacular white tattoos all over their chests and arms, and a few had their faces tattooed into grotesque masks. The sides and backs of their heads were shaved, and the rest of their hair was fastened into a topknot with elaborate bone pins and ornaments.
The leader in the canoe made a space for Blake in the stern and he sat down. The paddlers backed water and the canoe slid out into the river again. Blade noted that the paddles were long, narrow, and balanced at the upper end with stones tied in place with vine. With nine pairs of muscular arms working steadily, the canoe rapidly gained speed.
Blade's canoe fell into line immediately behind Swebon's, giving him a chance to look at the chief more closely. Swebon was a trifle taller than most of the others, and his tattoos spread down onto his thighs. Unlike the others, who wore only plain hide loinguards, Swebon wore a loinguard of reptile hide and a bone bracelet around one ankle. Several scars crossed his chest and shoulders, and another cut across his forehead, stopping just above his left eye. At the moment he was leaning back almost lazily on a pile of leaves and rushes, but Blade sensed alertness and leashed power in the man. Swebon would clearly be formidable, either as friend or as enemy.
The day grew steadily hotter and the paddles splashed monotonously. Blade felt himself growing drowsy and fought against it. He was a long way from being safe enough among these people to risk going quietly to sleep now. If they were really determined to kill him they could probably do so whether he stayed awake or not, but if he was awake they'd have a fight on their hands. The prospect of that fight might keep them from planning any hostile move in the first place.
All four canoes were heavily loaded, but with the current behind them they seemed to be making a steady six or seven miles an hour without the paddlers really breathing hard. Their construction helped. From a distance they looked like ordinary dugouts, each hollowed from a single log. Seen close up, they turned out to be built in sections, the seams between each section calked with bark, grass, and some sort of dried sap. A line of branches bound end to end ran down the center of the bottom, linking all the sections together.
These canoes were remarkably ingenious craft, Blade realized. By building them up from a series of sections, they could be built in whatever length the Fak'si needed-twenty feet, thirty, fifty. If one section sprang a leak, it could be thrown away and replaced without having to dispose of the whole canoe. If a canoe had to be hauled across land for some reason, it could be dismantled into its sections, moved to the next riverbank, and put back together there. By accident or skill, the Fak'si had managed to reach something rather close to mass production for their canoes amazingly close, considering the tools they had to work with. Blade's respect for them went up quite a bit.
The Fak'si paddlers seemed almost as tireless as machines. They made no stops all day, eating and drinking as they paddled and relieving themselves over the side when they needed to. The long shadows of twilight were beginning to reach out across the river before they even slowed down.
After that, they headed for the bank the minute they saw a clear spot for a campsite. The canoes were unloaded and each crew took a share of the campsite. Then all forty turned to and pulled each canoe in turn completely out of the water.
By this time twilight was turning into night. With strokes of an iron-headed hoe, Swebon cleared a patch of ground, chanting to himself as he did so. When there was a large enough patch of bare ground, two of the hunters used flint, dry grass, and twigs to get a fire started. Then wood was piled on the fire until the flames shot up six feet high or more.
Blade noticed that the men worked in silence, with almost military precision. He also noticed that those with spears kept their weapons close to hand, the archers kept their bows strung, and everybody left his club hanging at his waist. He even caught one or two of the men casting doubtful looks at the fast-darkening waters only a few feet away, when they thought no one was looking at them.
«Swebon,» said Blade. «I see that your warriors seem to be on guard against an enemy.»
«This is so,» said the chief. He didn't seem interested in saying more, but Blade wanted to draw him out.
«Are these enemies men, or are they-? I do not have your name for them, but-«Blade squatted down and with a twig drew the outline of one of the horned crocodiles on the ground.
Swebon smiled. «Yes, we watch for the Horned Ones. They are thick along the Yellow River at this time of the year, and they are always hungry. So we watch, but I do not think we will see them coming against us tonight. They do not often come against so many men, and the-fire also protects us. The Horned Ones hate light.»
Blade nodded. «I learned this quickly, after I met them.»
«It is well to learn quickly, about the Horned Ones. Those who do not learn quickly seldom live to learn at all.»
«I am sure of that,» said Blade. «We have such creatures in England and in other lands where the English have traveled. But our-crocodiles, we call them-are not so large, and they have no horns.»
«Did you see many of the Horned Ones as you came to the Forest?» asked Swebon. His curiosity seemed to be getting the better of his caution about Blade.
«Enough to learn much about them,» said Blade. He thought of mentioning his jaw-bracer, but decided against it. The jaw-bracer might be considered a weapon and be taken from him, and in any case it hadn't been tested in action. «I reached the Forest by land, so I did not spend much time close to the rivers. When I spent the night close to one, I climbed a tree and slept in the branches.»
«A strong one, I hope,» said Swebon. «The Horned Ones can knock down trees with their tails if they are angry.»
«Thank you for telling me that.»
Swebon seemed to hesitate, then went on. «Did you meet any other-any others of the Forest People-as you came toward the Yellow River?»
No doubt he meant other, perhaps, hostile tribes. Fortunately Blade could not only reassure him but tell the truth at the same time. «No. I saw no other living men of any tribe or people, and only two dead ones. One was of the Forest People, the other-I do not know if he was truly a man, but-«
«Was he taller than you, and hairy like an animal?»
«Yes.»
«Ah, then you found one of the Treemen. Where, and how did he die?»
Blade described his discovery of the two bodies and watched Swebon's eyes widen. Then the chief sighed. «I thank you for this news, though it is not good. At least now we know for certain that the Treemen took Cran.»