One of these rocks stirred and rolled over with a crash.
A few of the fargi sleeping nearby opened their eyes with instant awareness. Heard nothing more, saw only the bright stars, closed their eyes, and were asleep again. In any case their night vision was so bad they would not have been able to see when another rock moved, quietly this time.
Slowly, cautiously, Herilak lifted his head up above the mound of tumbled boulders.
The big hunter looked about the camp. A crescent moon was just rising, but in the cloudless night the starlight clearly revealed the sleeping laager. The high-bulking forms of the beasts with eight legs, the smaller dark bundles of silent murgu. Drums of murgu meat to one side, bladders of them piled one upon the other.
There was a sudden blast of light, the sharp crack of hèsotsan as some desert creature touched the poisonous vines; Herilak froze, motionless. The murgu nearest to the light sat up and peered outward. The light slowly faded and went out. They settled back to sleep. Now, carefully and silently, Herilak moved the boulders aside until he could crawl free.
He stayed flat on the ground, then turned and called down into the black opening.
“Now. Quietly. Come.”
He crawled aside as another armed hunter emerged from the ground. There was a hault more behind him in the cave. They had dug it, dumped the earth into the river, roofed it with thick logs, then covered it again with the boulders they had so painfully rolled aside. The digging had started in the morning, as soon as the murgu who had spent the previous night here had galloped out of sight. Now they emerged one at a time, filling their lungs with the fresh night air. They had been sealed in there since midday : it had been hot, breathless, the air foul. None had complained, all of them were volunteers.
“It is as you said, Herilak,” a hunter whispered into his ear. “They always stay the night in the same place.”
“They do. And now we will do what we have to do. Kill.”
They were ruthless in their butchery, experienced killers of murgu. Only an occasional grunt of pain was heard as they stabbed down with knives and spears, slaying the sleepers one after the other. Only when the last one was dead did they use the captured death-sticks to slaughter the riding creatures. Some of these stirred and cried out at the smell of death around them, tried to run away and blundered into the deadly vines. One by one they were killed. The butchery was complete.
None of the hunters could sleep. They wiped the blood from their hands and arms as well as they could, sat and talked quietly until dawn. When there was enough light to see by, Herilak stood and issued orders.
“I want help here. I want to seal up this hole where we were hidden so nothing can be seen. Pull some of the bodies on top of the rocks. They might find the opening, I don’t know — but if they don’t it will be something more to worry them. They will then wonder how this happened, how we got past their defenses, and it could slow them down.”
“Will they go back then?” Nenne asked.
“No, that won’t happen,” Herilak said, feeling the anger rise within him. “They will keep coming. But we can slow them, kill them. We can do that. Now the rest of you, wait until it is full light and the thorns withdraw. Don’t touch anything, just use your spears to pull aside the vines. Leave everything else the way it is. We’ll take the death-sticks, some meat, nothing else. Pull the vines back into place when we go. This will be a sight to make the murgu very, very unhappy. I want it to be that way.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
They sailed south along the coast. The Paramutan were excited by this journey into the unknown, pointing out every new headland and bit of beach with shouts of wonder. Kerrick did not share this enthusiasm but sank deeper into a grim unhappiness with every day’s travel. Armun saw this and could only share his despair because she knew there was little she could do to help him. As they voyaged south the weather improved, but not his spirits. She almost welcomed the bad weather that followed because he had to work with others to reef the sails and pump out the bilge so had little time to think about the future.
The coastline made a turn here, they could see it on the map, until they were sailing due west. Although the sun was warm the winter storms lashed down from the north bringing squalls of rain. On their eighth day of sailing they ran through one cloudburst after another, starting soon after dawn, but by midafternoon the last squall had passed and the rainstorm had blown past them to the shore.
“See the rainbow,” Armun said, pointing to the great arch that spanned the sky, stretching inland from the sea. It appeared to end upon a rocky headland. “My father always said that if you found the spot where the rainbow ends you would find the greatdeer who would speak to you. When you found it there at rainbow’s end it could not escape and would have to answer any question that you asked it. That is what my father said.”
Kerrick was silent, looking toward the land as though he had not even heard her.
“Do you think that would happen?” she asked.
Kerrick shook his head. “I don’t know. I have never heard a greatdeer talk. They are good to eat — but I don’t think I would take their advice about anything.”
“But this is a special kind of greatdeer. You will only find it at rainbow’s end. I believe that it really is there.”
She said this firmly, watching the rainbow grow fainter and fainter still until it vanished as the storm swept inland over the wooded hills. Kerrick did not disagree with her, was sunk again into his depression.
The wind died down after the storm and the sun shone warmly. Armun turned her face to it and ran her fingers through her hair so it would dry. Only the Paramutan were unhappy, taking off their fur jackets and complaining of the heat. They were creatures of the north and grew unhappy when they were too warm. Kalaleq stood in the bow, the breeze ruffling the long fur on his back, peering ahead at the coast.
“There!” he cried out suddenly, pointing. “That is a new thing, a thing that I have never seen before.”
Kerrick joined him, squinting at the distant green patch on the shoreline, waiting until he was absolutely sure.
“Turn about, go to the shore,” he said. “I know what that is. It is…” His vocabulary failed him and he turned to Armun and spoke in Marbak.
“There is no word for it — but it is the place where the murgu bring their creatures that swim. The murgu are there, at that place.”
Armun spoke quickly in Paramutan and Kalaleq’s eyes grew wide. “They are indeed there,” he said, pushing over on the steering oar as the others rushed to the lines. They went about and on the opposite tack angled back to the coast, away from the Yilanè dock. Kerrick was looking at the chart, tracing it with his finger.
“This is it, it must be. We must land on the shore and approach it on foot. We must find out what it is doing here.”
“Do you think there will be any murgu there?” Armun asked.
“There is no way to tell from here — but there could be. But we must be careful, go cautiously, just a few of us.”
“If you go — I am going.”
He started to speak, but heard the firmness in her voice and only nodded instead. “We two, then. And one or two at most of the Paramutan.”
Kalaleq included himself in the scouting party and, after much shouting and arguing, Niumak was added as well because he was known as a great stalker. They ran the ikkergak ashore on a sandy beach. Armed with spears the small party set out along the sand.
The beach ended in a rocky headland, forcing them to go inland among the trees. The forest here was almost impenetrable with fallen trees tumbled between the living ones, thick trunks mixed with the smaller secondary growth. As soon as they could they worked their way back to the ocean, toward the sound of waves on rock.