Our most serious confrontation came as we hunted jehruk, the largest flesh eaters of the mountains. I had already taught her much about the jehruk—how they invaded our territory, how they stalked and killed leaf eaters that should have been ours, how they hid in the vines, almost indistinguishable from the leaves around them, and leaped out on unwary people. They camouflaged themselves well, those great ones. Their natural coloring was like the deep judge blue-green. Judges refused to eat their flesh claiming that they and the jehruk shared a common ancestor. They saw the jehruk as their wild relative and they took pride in its ferocity. I saw the jehruk as a creature to test myself against. It grew to be at least my size and it fought me with every intention of smashing my head from my shoulders.
On an earlier hunt, I had fought a fairly small one weaponless and killed it while Alanna watched. And when the fighting was done, she stood back looking at me strangely.
Later when we were camped, she washed my few small wounds and rubbed healing ointment on them. As she worked, she shook her head from side to side and spoke in her own language.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
She answered without hesitation. “That I lost you for a while as you fought that creature. I watched closely, but most of the time I couldn’t tell which was the animal.”
I blazed white in spite of myself. Only Alanna would say such a thing seriously. She behaved like another Hao, this furless one. She thought she was blue. And though that made me angry sometimes, it also pleased me.
I pulled her down and got her wet with the ointment she had been rubbing on me. We rolled together on the ground like animals until she made her “laughter” sounds, and on until she made other softer sounds of pleasure. Her body had grown accustomed to me as I had told her it would. We pleased each other very much now. Sometimes during our nights together, we forgave each other for the days. Sometimes, but not always.
The jehruk hunt that forced me to decide what to do with her was a piece of foolishness that we took a long while to forgive each other for. Alanna would have been killed if I had not been with her. And perhaps I would have been killed if she had not done what she did. Perhaps. But at the time, I was in no mood to show gratitude.
We were alone, tracking a huge jehruk—a creature that, by the size of its tracks, had to be half again as large as I was. Alanna had her knife and the weapons that she had had Choh make for her. These were a collection of sticks called a bow and arrows. My fighters had shown much white over them until Alanna began to bring in impressive kills almost as soon as I began teaching her to hunt.
Now she carried her most powerful bow—the best that Choh had been able to make. More than once, I had rubbed the soreness from her arm after she practiced with it. Her arrows were straight and metal-tipped—also Choh’s best. Alanna had brought down large leaf eaters with them. Now she wanted a jehruk—and I wanted to see her go after one. The hunt was hers. I only followed and watched. She understood that it was a test.
We had sought the jehruk for three days without luck. In fact, we had circled around and were nearing home when we came upon the tracks of Alanna’s jehruk. And then Alanna, who had been so watchful for the three days, let the creature see her before she saw it.
It was on all fours and partly concealed by the tree? and vines growing near the small stream to which it had come for water. I saw it just before it saw Alanna. She was several paces closer to it than I was but she did not see it at all. Even as I called a warning to her, the jehruk charged.
She was quick with her bow. It was an old weapon to her. She put one arrow into the jehruk’s chest just before the creature would have reached her. That slowed it, but did not stop it. I stopped it.
I reached her the instant before the jehruk would have, and knocked her out of the way. Then I met the jehruk. It reared onto its hind legs to greet me with long claws and teeth ready—and it did look like a somewhat deformed Kohn. Its face was long and almost as flat as ours. But its jaws were larger and more powerful. Its teeth were long and sharp. Also, its body was too long and its limbs too short to be Kohnlike. And it had no hands. Only the long claws of its feet.
The jehruk raked the air above my head as I hit its midsection hard, knocking it to the ground. Then, on the ground as we struggled, it raked my back. It brought up its hind feet to disembowel me but I twisted aside. All the while it screamed aloud and burned yellow from the pain of its wound. Once I had it by the throat, but it was too strong, too large, too much maddened by pain. On my own, I would never have chosen to fight it weaponless. Weapons were meant for animals as large as this. We rolled among the vines, biting and tearing at each other, hurting each other, but not enough. All I did, all I had time to do, was defend. I could not overpower the creature. I could not even free my hands for a moment to tear out its eyes. A moment’s laxity on my part and it would tear out my throat. It was trying.
Then its yellow luminescence flared even brighter. It gave a scream of agony, twisted its body, screamed again, and sprawled limp across me. Over it stood Alanna, pulling her bloody knife out of its back. This time she had been able to distinguish the animal.
She wiped her knife on the fur of the jehruk, then stepped away from it and from me. She looked to see that I was able to get up, but her glance was quick and guarded. She did not seem to need the words I had to say to her. But I was angry enough and in enough pain to say them anyway.
“You are as blind as a corpse,” I raged as I came to stand over her. “You endanger yourself, you endanger me. How much time have I wasted trying to teach you to see?”
She made no excuse, only stood with her head bowed. There was no excuse. She had already shown me how well she could see.
My back in particular hurt me now and I reached around to feel what damage the jehruk had done. My hand came away bloody and half covered with bits of fur torn loose. I turned and walked away from Alanna, went to the stream. I waded in and let the cold water soothe my wounds and carry away the loose fur.
When I came out of the water, I found Alanna cutting vines of the necessary lengths and thicknesses to help us drag home what we could of our kill. I had taught her how to do this. She seemed subdued. She worked silently, and did not look at me. Clearly, she was ashamed. I felt no sympathy for her. My camouflage ability would be marred for some time until my wounds healed and my fur grew again. It was always dangerous to be without full camouflage ability.
“I have ointment,” she said finally. “It might help your back.”
And I thought: Save it for your own back.
“Diut?” She laid a hand on my arm exactly where the jehruk’s claws had raked. My fur hid most of that wound and no doubt she did not see it. But I felt it. That was enough.
I turned, striking her across the face as I moved. She stumbled back, almost falling, then moved quickly to escape. I caught her arm and held her while I beat her. At first she struggled to break away. Then suddenly, she stepped in close to me and before I knew what she meant to do, she dug her fingers into a wound on my shoulder.
My body flared in yellow agony. I would surely have killed her then had she not managed to break away.
She ran to get her bow from where she had left it leaning against a tree. But even hurt, I was too fast to let her fit an arrow into it.
She leaped back from me as I snatched away her bow. Then suddenly she was crouching, her knife in her hand. I stared at her.
“Do you think I will let you kill me with that?”