“Disaster, Eistaa. All dead. I alone have returned.”
“I do not understand. Dead, how?”
Stallan raised her head and her back straightened with anger. “I set a trap. We were to kill the ustuzou when they came close. But they are animals, I should have known better. They came behind us and we were not even aware that they were there. Every hunter and fargi, killed. I fled. If I had stayed to fight I would be dead. You would not know what happened. I have told you. Now I die for I am shamed. You have only to speak the words, Eistaa…”
“No!” Vaintè called out as loudly as she could, angry and demanding, the negation rude in its intensity. Stallan gaped, alarmed, her death request forgotten for the moment. Even Malsas‹ reacted only with shock at this interruption. Vaintè spoke quickly then, before surprise turned to anger.
“I mean no insult, Eistaa. I spoke as I did only to save the life of Stallan. Do not command her to die. She is too loyal to the city, the city must be loyal to her. I ordered her to take her hunters and trap the ustuzou. If there is blame then the blame is mine. We need this brave fighter. The deaths were not her fault. We war with the ustuzou. Do not let her die for taking that war to them. I know I spoke in haste. I now await your judgement.”
Vaintè stood with lowered head. She had taken a terrible risk speaking out like this and might very well die herself for her temerity. But Stallan was too valuable to lose now. Stallan, the only Yilanè who had greeted her when she was the outcast within this city.
Malsas‹ looked at the two figures bent before her and considered what they both had said. In the silence the only sound was the shuffling rasp of feet as every Yilanè in the ambesed pressed forward to listen. A decision must be made.
“You spoke with crude haste, Vaintè. At any other time that would have been unforgivable and your death would have followed. But I smell too many other deaths in the wind and I would have you live to defend Alpèasak, just as you would have Stallan do the same. There is need for you both. Now tell me the meaning of this cruel event.”
“First my thanks, Eistaa. Like Stallan I live only to serve Alpèasak. The meaning is clear, and the meaning of past events are clear as well. An armed and dangerous force of ustuzou marches on Alpèasak. They must be stopped. The meaning of the visit by the creatures to the coast is now known as well. It was a ruse to distract us. When they returned to the mountains they separated and this pack of savage animals came south, secretly, determined. As soon as I found out about their presence hunters were sent to attack them. We were defeated. It must be our last defeat or I fear for our city.”
Malsas‹ was shocked by her words. “What harm can these beasts cause to Alpèasak?”
“I do not know — but I fear. The determination of their advance, the strength of their attack causes that fear. Would they dare risk so much if they did not plan damage of some kind? We must see to our defenses.”
“That we must do.” Malsas‹ turned to Stallan. “I understand even more why Vaintè risked her own life to save yours. You were the one who designed the defenses of this city, Stallan, is that not true?”
“It is, Eistaa.”
“Then strengthen them, reinforce them. You speak for the Eistaa. Demand anything you need. The safety of our city is between your thumbs.”
“I shall not let it slip, Eistaa. With your permission I shall see to it now.”
Malsas‹ looked after her retreating back with confusion and disbelief. “It is hard to understand affairs in this new land of Gendasi. Nothing is as it was in Entoban*. The natural order has been violated with ustuzou killing Yilanè. Where will this end, Vaintè? Do you know?”
“I know only that we will fight these creatures. And we must win.”
Yet try as hard as she could, Vaintè still could not keep the movements of doubt from what she said. All there could see the fear clearly in what she said.
Herilak held up his arm when he heard the shrill scream from the forest ahead. The hunters stopped as well — then looked around in fear as the scream echoed again: a heavy thudding shook the ground beneath their feet.
“Do you know what that is?” Herilak asked.
“I think that I do,” Kerrick said. “Go forward slowly now because the first fields should be just ahead.”
The trees were close together here and the game trail that they were following wound between them. Herilak led the way with Kerrick close behind him. The thudding sounded again and more screams — then Kerrick called out.
“Stop here! See those vines ahead, across the trail? They stick to the skin and can’t be pulled off. I was caught by them once. Warn the others. We are at the outermost fringes of the city now.”
They went forward cautiously, though any sounds they might have made would surely have been drowned out by the tumult in the meadow ahead. At the forest edge they stopped and looked with awe at the open field beyond.
Two immense creatures, each larger than the largest mastodon, were circling each other in the high grass, while a third looked on. Their wrinkled hide was yellowish-brown, their wide heads were heavily armored, while blood-red, bony plates covered their backs. One of them lunged at the other, snapping a horny, toothless beak, screaming loudly. The other turned sideways, swinging its tail around so that the great bony club at its tip lashed out. It hit the earth with a ground-shaking thud as the first creature moved aside to avoid it.
“Ruutsa,” Kerrick said. “They do that when they are fighting over a mate. That’s the female, there, eating grass. I know this field — I know where we are!”
He stamped a flat spot into black soil, then bent and scratched lines on it with the tip of his stone knife.
“Herilak, look — this is what the city is like. They have a model there that I have studied so long that I know it by heart, even now. This is what it looks like. The sea is here, these are the beaches, then the wall. Here is the ambesed, a big empty space where they all meet.”
Herilak watched intently as Kerrick sketched the city, then the fields about it.
“The fields surround the city in circles, wider and wider, and the ruutsa are right here.”
Herilak looked closely at the scratched lines, tugging at his beard in thought. “Are you sure that is where we are? It has been a long time since you left this place, they might have changed the fields, moved the beasts around.”
“Never, not the Yilanè. What is, is, and never changes. Little things may be different from day to day, but once a thing is set it is that way forever.”
“Then I believe you, since you are the only one who knows the murgu so well…”
A cry of pain cut him off and they turned to see one of the Sasku hunters rear up, then fall heavily to the ground. They ran to his aid and Herilak reached to tear the thorn-tipped vine from his arm: Kerrick stopped him.
“Don’t touch that — or you are dead too. It is too late to help him. The poison is in his body.”
The Sasku’s back arched with pain and there was foam on his lips, pink with blood where he had bitten his tongue.
He was paralyzed and unconscious — but it took him a long time to die.
“Unless you want this kind of death, don’t let anything touch you until we are well inside the fields,” Kerrick said. “Watch where you walk, don’t brush against any kind of plant. Some of the vines will stick to you, or as you have just seen — others will kill.”