He gasped, fighting for breath, found it, filled his lungs. He paused only long enough to look upward, to see the damage he'd done as he fell through the tightly knit branches. "Forgive me, brother," he whispered, even as he forced himself into a sitting position and examined the stump of his left arm. The stump was still gushing blood and now there was another race against time for his life as he directed the clotting juices to flow, willed the severed arteries to close, watched, growing weaker, as his will gradually triumphed. When only an ooze of blood was coming from the raw stump he looked around.
He was in the far north of the valley, in that deserted quarter of hot, rushing springs. He was too weak to walk. To crawl back to the nearest house was a possibility, but as he began to move blackness came to him and when he once again saw the light through the mists of vapor from the hot springs, he knew that he was beyond his strength, that he'd lost more blood than he had imagined.
Alning. He had sent her away, after she'd followed him to the northern cliffs, but, perhaps, she had not obeyed. He called, but his voice was weak. He pursed his lips and used all of his will to put power behind a whistle. The effort brought the blackness back. When he saw again, he was still alone. Alning had, apparently, gone back to the village. His life was his to save.
A few yards away, over rough, rocky ground, a hot spring sent its steams into the warm air. His vision seemed to be distorted, but he was sure he saw a fat brother there. The fat brothers grew in the margins of the springs, bloating their stubby, multiple stalks with sap rich in the minerals of the spring. He began to crawl, slowly, slowly, painfully, for now the stump of his severed arm had regained feeling after the initial shock. He would never remember how many times blackness came to him, or how long that agonizing crawl of just a few yards continued. He saw light again and the fat brother was near, squat, swelled with its gorging, skin glowing as it accepted the gift of Du. He reached it. He had never had the need to graft, but the instinct for it was in him, and as he prepared himself his weak voice begged understanding, saying, "Forgive me, fat brother, but I have need."
He willed, and felt a prickling sensation at his bud point, that little node in the center of his belly. Felt the opening, used his sword—he'd clung to it during the fall and had dragged it, in its sheath attached to his woven feather belt—to lance a small opening deeply into the skin of the fat brother, rolled to press his bud point, felt a stir there, felt the opening of himself and the first harsh entry of sap from the fat brother. His system, shocked, protested. His toes cramped and his fingers curled into painful knots, and then the initial harshness was overcome and he was adapting and it was as if he could feel the life flowing back into his body. He judged the time of grafting by the wrinkles that began to appear in the flexible skin of the fat brother. The graft would cost the fat brother a sun cycle's growth. To cost the brother more was unthinkable. He had enough strength, now, to make it back to the village. He separated, felt his bud point contract.
"My brother," he said, in fondness, as he patted the fat brother's shrunken, wrinkled skin.
He had to rest often. When he was a short run from the village he encountered two newly mobile youths, gasped out his problem, and soon strong arms were around him, carrying him.
He felt the healing warmth of soil on his feet, opened his eyes. He was in the young house. The think vines had opened the ceiling to the light. All around him the new crop of young slumbered, not yet sentient. He felt the old, warm security of being a part of the earth. The soil of the young house, enriched by mulch, bird droppings, minerals collected from the accumulations in the springs, fed him through hundreds of small outreachings that had been engendered quickly by his regenerative organs. He was at peace. He slumbered, woke.
"Father," he whispered drowsily, for there was a familiar face close to his, a face full of love and concern.
"You have done well, my son," said Duwan the Elder.
"Sucker," Duwan said sleepily.
"Wake," The Elder said. "You must tell me." Duwan struggled against the feeling of peace and sleep. "North," he whispered.
"A landmark, son. Give me a location."
"Must kill."
"Yes. We must kill the thing before it can divide. Tell me where."
"I kill when—" He could say no more. Peace and sleep held him. When next he awoke his head was clearer. Alning was watching. He opened his orange eyes and saw her face, full of concern for him. "Little sister," he said. "I fear that I broke all your eggs."
"No matter," she said. "You are safe." A sudden urgency came over him, as he flashed back to that terrible moment when his arm was crushed by the strength of the sucker's maw.
"Little sister," he said, and there was life and command in his voice. "Free me."
"It is not yet time," she protested.
"Free me, now," he insisted, trying to lift his own feet from the warm security of the rich earth without success. Alning, her face showing fright, ran from the young house. Duwan the Elder was there within minutes.
"Free me," Duwan said.
"Now you can tell me the location of the monster," his father said.
"It is high, and you will not be able to find it without me. Free me." The Elder considered for a moment, looked closely at his son's eyes, burning with life, deep orange. "Yes," he said, reaching for a tool. Duwan's feet, freed, were hairy with extensions. The rich soil clung, but showered off as the extensions withdrew into their almost invisible sockets and the pores closed around them.
A force of twenty warriors had been quickly gathered. Over Duwan's objection, he was carried in a litter. The force moved at a swift trot, for time had been wasted. There were those among them, old, hoary, skin beginning to harden, who remembered the first struggles with the monsters of the rocks, when there were so many that the cliffs were a no-man's-land of instant, waiting death and the suckers, things without brains, actually huge colonies of mindless, one-celled entities, came down from the cliffs to decimate all fixed life and to lie in wait for any unwary mobile. At any given time a sucker could divide, and divide rapidly, although it was the nature of the beast to avoid small divisions. That trait of the suckers had enabled the people of the valley to, it had been thought before Duwan's encounter, eliminate the killers.
It was simple to find the tall brother whose branches had broken Duwan's fall and saved his life. Tender twigs, broken, were already turning brown and the seriously injured larger limbs were being cut off slowly by a tightening ring of growth near the trunk of the tall brother. The rock sucker had not moved. Duwan recognized it by its shape, saw the cunningly constructed cavity that was the thing's maw. It was a huge one, as well as they could judge, although the sucker imitated stone so well that it was difficult to determine for sure just how far it extended around the open, motionless maw.
Fire, that most deadly of friends, carried from the areas of eternal heat to the south, tended carefully, was coaxed into a blaze using the combustible, dead droppings of the tall brothers. Strong young warriors unslung their bows, saw to the stringing, tested, selected straight, strong arrows newly finned with fresh, multi-colored feathers. Duwan was standing, if a bit dizzily, longing to be able to take bow and send fiery death into the sucker, but he had no left hand to hold the bow. When all were ready Duwan the Elder gave the signal, and ten down-wrapped arrows were ignited in the blaze, and at a further signal went singing upward. Some bounced their metal tips off solid rock, five embedded, and burned, and a quivering began as the mindless beast's tissues began to char and smoke. A second flight of burning arrows sang upward and the sucker, feeling pain, tried to crawl, leaving behind a concave area of surprising size. The target now outlined clearly, another flight of arrows finished the job and the beast lost its hold, fell to crash heavily through the branches of the tall brother, dividing on impact with the ground into a dozen small, writhing masses that were attacked immediately and mercilessly by torch-wielding warriors, Duwan among them. He took satisfaction. He burned, and charred, and left no single mass unbrowned by fire and then refused to give up the search for tiny survivors until his father took his arm gently and led him back to the litter. Within a short time, Duwan, weakened by the trek, was immobile again, hundreds of tiny extensions drawing new strength from the rich earth of the young house. Watches were set on the northern cliffs. Roving pairs of warriors scouted the entire rock face of the valley. In the time of the long light rock suckers were sometimes mobile, oozing over the rocks seeking new points of ambush for unwary birds.