“Is this the place where she landed?” Gunugul asked. Vaintè signed assuredness of location. “Then she is still hunting. We will all enjoy pleasure/satisfaction to have fresh meat. I will have bladders floated ashore so we may leave when she returns.”
Vaintè watched the crewmembers bring up the bladders and slide into the river with them. The water looked cool, the forested shore inviting. She had been in the smell-filled confines of the uruketo too long. A moment later she was slipping down from the uruketo’s back and swimming strongly towards the beach.
“Excitement of discovery,” one of the crewmembers called out, pointing to the corpses of five large deer lying in the tall grass.
Vaintè admired them, then looked up as Fafnepto herself appeared from under the trees. She signed urgency of speaking as Vaintè began to compliment her on her kill.
“There is a thing I would have you see Vaintè. This way.”
“Has it to do with those we seek?”
“No. But I think it is the ustuzou you told me of. They are beyond these trees.”
“They can be dangerous!”
“Not now. All dead.”
The skin tent was on the far side of the small meadow near the stream. Two large ustuzou were crumpled on the ground before it, a third smaller one was lying nearby.
“I killed them before they saw me,” Fafnepto said. “You said they could be deadly.”
“You searched the structure?”
“Yes. None there. Many hides — and a hèsotsan.”
One of the ustuzou lay face upwards. Vaintè turned the other one over with her foot claws, hopefully, but it was not Kerrick. “You were right to kill them,” she said.
“Is this the stone tooth of which you spoke?” Fafnepto asked, pointing to the spear in the dead hunter’s hand.
“It is one kind. Another is sent through the air, very much like the dart from a hèsotsan. Not poisonous but a great deal heavier. They are very dangerous beasts.”
“Then we can be sure that the uruketo you seek is not near here.”
“A wise observation. The search will continue.”
Vaintè walked back to the shore in enforced silence, her body rippling with the intensity of her thoughts. She knew that the search for the uruketo and the Daughters of Life, as well as the renegade scientist, would go on. She had told Saagakel that she would do this. And Fafnepto was here to aid her in that search. But it would not go on forever. Now that she thought about it she realized that she cared little if Enge and her accomplices lived or died. Not now, not after seeing the bodies in the clearing. The sight of those dead ustuzou drove the present search from her thoughts. It wasn’t important. What was of primary importance, what she really needed to do, was to find Kerrick.
Find him and kill him.
“Message of urgency/import for the Eistaa,” the fargi said, trembling with the effort to remember what she had been instructed to say, to be clear and comprehensible in her speaking.
Lanefenuu leaned back on her board, her mouth working hard on a large portion of jellied meat. Her advisers sat in a circle about her, their attitudes appreciative of her wonderful appetite. She threw the bone aside and gestured a truncated continuance of talking to the fargi. The creature gaped in ignorance.
Muruspe caught the fargi’s attention. “You are ordered to speak. Finish telling what was told to be said.” The fargi gasped with sudden comprehension when she understood the simplified commands, spoke quickly before she forgot everything.
“Ukhereb reports discoveries of relevancy. Requests presence of Eistaa for revelation.”
Lanefenuu waved the fargi out of sight, heaved herself to her feet, signed for a water-fruit and used it to clean her hands. “A request for my presence signifies matters of importance,” she said. “We go.”
As they left the ambesed two of her advisers hurried ahead to be sure her way was clear, the rest trailed behind. Muruspe, who was her efensele as well as first adviser, walked at her side.
“Do you know what it can be, Muruspe?” Lanefenuu asked.
“I know no more of it than you do, Eistaa. But my hope is that these Yilanè of science have uncovered some evidence of the ustuzou that kill.”
“My hope as well. A matter of lesser importance would have brought Ukhereb to the ambesed herself.”
Akotolp was waiting at the dilated opening in the wall to greet them, signing pleasure and joyful anticipation.
“Apologies of request-for-presence from Ukhereb. That which we wish to show you could not be brought easily/quickly.”
“Show me at once — anticipation becomes unbearable.”
Akotolp led the way into the dusky interior, then through another partition into a chamber of darkness. Only when the entrance had been sealed was it possible to see by the weak red glow being emitted by a cage of insects. Ukhereb held up a damp sheet of some white substance with dark marks upon it.
“This image would vanish if exposed to daylight at this moment. I wished the Eistaa to see it at once.”
“Explanation of significance, meaning unclear.” She bent close, following Ukhereb’s pointing thumb.
“Image obtained from high in the air. These are trees around a clearing. This and this are the structures made of animal skins that the killing ustuzou erect. Here a group of three ustuzou, here more. And here and here.”
“I see them now! They are so ugly. They are the same kind as the one killed here in the city?”
“They are the same. See the light fur on the head, skins bound about below.”
“Where are they now?”
“North of the city. Not close, but north of us on an island on the shore. I will have other images for you to look at soon, the processing is now going on. In one of them I believe there is a hèsotsan.”
“One of our hèsotsan,” Lanefenuu said angrily. “This must end. Twice they came here, killed Yilanè, took hèsotsan away with them. This shall not happen a third time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Even though the air was stifling under the trees, the biting insects a torment when they passed through the swampy areas, it was still good to be moving on the trail again. As pleasurable as life had been on the island, it had become a little too much like the valley of the Sasku. The sammads were now in one place and it seemed as though they were going to stay there. In the past there had been winter hunting and summer hunting, the berries and mushrooms of the autumn, the fresh shoots and roots in the spring. All of this had changed. The game was always close by, fruit ripe the year round, more of everything than they could possibly ever eat. But the cycle of the year was in the Tanu blood and they grew restless when they were too long in the same place. Now they were moving, four of them, heading north. Hanath and Morgil scouted ahead, sometimes fell behind and stalked game, ran to catch up with them. For Kerrick and Armun the trek was the greatest pleasure. They were together — and that was enough. They had no regrets at leaving the children behind — since they were far safer in the midst of the sammads than they would have been here on the trail.
If Kerrick had one regret it was the perfunctory leavetaking he had had with Nadaske. He had kept putting it off, one day ran into the other, there was always so much to do. Then it was the day to leave. It would have been easy to just have gone, certainly that would have pleased Armun, but he found that he could not do it that way. Nor was Arnwheet there, he was away with the other boys. They were ready to go. The last of the smoked meat and ekkotaz was being packed in on top of the stone knives, there was even some of the charadis cloth that Armun wanted to bring. It was time to leave. When Kerrick realized this he had simply turned his back and started towards the shore. Ignoring their shouted queries; he was doing what he had to do.