It was moments before she realized that one sheet was empty. Which? Far left … six Gleaner dead. The rest were untouched.
Beedj came forth briskly, swinging his scythe-sword. More Giants were coming down the earth wall. They conferred, then fanned out to explore, looking for evidence of what the Ghouls had done.
But Vala climbed up the wall to sleep in the payload shell.
At midday she woke ravenous, with the smell of roasting meat in her nostrils. She followed the smells down to the tent.
She found Gleaners and Machine People together. The Gleaners had been hunting. The fire they had made to cook their kills, Barok and Whand had used to make bread from local grass.
“We eat four, five, six meals in a day,” Silack told her. “Pint says you eat once a day?”
“Yes. But a lot. Are you finding enough meat?”
“When your men came down to eat, ours went to hunt more. Eat what you see, the hunters will be back.”
The flatbread was a good effort, and Vala complimented the men. Smeerp meat was good, too, if a bit lean and tough. At least the Gleaners didn’t have a habit found in other hominids: changing the flavor of meat by rubbing it with salt or herbs or berries.
Vala wondered about breeding smeerps in other places, but all traders knew the answer to that. One hominid’s local bounty was another’s plague. With no local predators to restrict their numbers, smeerps would be eating somebody’s crops, breeding beyond their food source, then vectoring diseases when starvation weakened them.
Meanwhile she had eaten everything in sight. Gleaners and Machine People alike were watching her in amusement. Silack said, “Heavy exercise last night.”
“Did I miss anything?”
Kay said, “The Ghouls were active. There aren’t any dead Grass Giants between the wall and the tall grass. Beedj found neat piles of bones in the grass. They didn’t touch the vampires. Saved them for tonight, I guess.”
“Considerate of them.” With their dead gone, the Grass Giants’ mourning was over, except … “More considerate if they would take the rest of our dead. Anything else?”
Silack pointed.
It wasn’t raining now. The clouds formed an infinite flat roof, way high. You could see a long way across the veldt. What Vala could see was a sizable beast-drawn wagon plodding toward Grass Giant domains.
Five great big-shouldered beasts. More than that high-sided wagon needed, though it was big.
“It will be here well before dusk. Even so, if your species can sleep in spurts, you will have time.”
Vala nodded and climbed up the wall to sleep some more.
Paroom was riding in the guide seat beside a much smaller red-skinned man. Three more Reds rode in the enclosed space beneath.
They stopped the wagon just under the wall, near the opening. They lifted a thing out of the wagon bed. Vala squinted, trying to see something almost invisible. Her mercenary instincts raced along her nerves, gibbering.
At the Fall of the Cities, flying vehicles were the most common of fallen objects. This curved transparent sheet was the kind of thing people found in fallen cars. Most were shattered. This one looked intact. Its value must be immense!
The Reds came forward, carrying it at the corners. Each carried a sword nearly as long as himself, hung from his back in a leather sheath. They wore dyed leather kilts and leather backpacks, men and women both, though brighter colors adorned the women’s. Their teeth were pointed, all of them, a double row of canines.
Valavirgillin, Kaywerbrimmis, Moonwa, the Thurl in full armor, Manack, and Coriack waited to greet them. The group had been pruned a little.
“Thurl, this is a window,” one Red male said solemnly. “It is a gift from the Marsh People, who cannot go from where they live. They beg that we shall ward them from the spreading plague of vampires. The Marsh People cannot flee, for only the marsh gives them life.”
Valavirgillin caught the Thurl’s questioning look. “We know species like that,” she said. “Marsh, desert, one side of a mountain, a forest that is all one kind of tree. Their bellies have changed to accept only one food, or they cannot survive cold or heat, or too little moisture in the air, or too much. But this is a magnificent gift.”
“It is. We will do what we can for the Marsh People,” the Thurl said. “These, our allies, were able to reach us …” and the Thurl made introduction, speaking slowly, pronouncing the names of Gleaners and Machine People with varying accuracy.
“I am Tegger hooki-Thandarthal,” the Red male said. “This is Warvia hooki-Murf Thandarthal. We travel with Anakrin hooki-Whanhurhur and Chaychind hooki-Karashk.” The other two Reds had moved away to tend to the loadbeasts.
The Thurl asked, “How do your people deal with rishathra?”
“We cannot,” said Warvia, and did not amplify.
Paroom grinned, and Vala grinned back, picturing the male Grass Giants’ disappointment. The Thurl as host spoke for all, as protocol required, but briefly. What point in enlarging upon a guest’s skill at rishathra, for a species that couldn’t do that at all? Tegger and Warvia merely nodded when he fell silent. The other Red males were not even listening. They were examining the vampire corpses lying on one sheet, and chattering at high speed.
Tegger and Warvia looked much alike. Their red skins were smooth; their faces were hairless. They wore kilts of soft leather with decorative lacing. They were as tall as Machine People, but much thinner. Big ears stood out from narrow heads. Their teeth seemed to be not filed, but grown that way. Warvia had breasts, but almost flat.
“We never hear of so many vampires found together,” Warvia said.
“You killed an army,” Tegger said. “Vampires lie everywhere. Your neighbors must be glad.”
Warvia asked, “The Ghouls, have they come?”
The Thurl said, “An army of vampires came the night before last. An army was gone when the shadow withdrew from the sun. You have seen the dead they left behind, but our own dead have gone with the Ghouls. They were half as many or a bit more, plus a hundred of Gleaners and four of our Machine People. The vampires are a terrible foe. Welcome to you.”
“We have seen nothing of the terror,” Tegger said. “Young hunters disappear. Our teachers lose their skill, we said, or some new hunting thing has found us. Paroom, if we did show disbelief, forgive us.”
Paroom nodded graciously. The Thurl said, “What we knew of vampires was half false. The Machine People empire came in time to help us.”
Vala was beginning to realize that no other Grass Giant could say such a thing. To disparage the tribe was to disparage the Thurl. “We must show you our defenses,” he continued, “but have you eaten? Should you cook while there is still light?”
“We eat our meat uncooked. We like variety. Grass Giants eat no meat, but what of Gleaners and Machine People? May we share? Let us show you what we have.”
They had five loadbeasts and the cage atop their wagon. The thing in the cage felt their gaze and roared. It was a beast as massive as a Grass Giant, and a killer, Vala realized. She asked, “What is that?”
“Hakarrch,” Tegger said with visible pride. “A hunter of the Barrier Hills. Two were sent us by the Gardener People for our sport. Hunted outside its familiar terrain, the male still killed one of us before we brought it down.”
It was a brag. Mighty hunters we are. We hunt the lesser hunters, and we’ll hunt your vampires. Vala suggested, “Perilack, shall we sample this? Not tonight, but tomorrow at our one meal.”
The Gleaner woman said, “Bargain. Warvia, tonight you may kill a loadbeast. Tomorrow and after, let us play host. We will feed all until the—” Shadow’s edge had bitten a piece from the sun, but the light was still bright. “—eaters of the dead deign to speak. You’ll want to taste smeerp meat.”
“We thank you.”