Into the Raging Mountains Page 6
Ver visibly relaxed, and soon snores were heard from under her ordertable. As she had no logical work sounds to cover the extreme nasal noises, the baker walked with some alacrity to the storefront and changed her welcome sign to closed. Grabbing the white, marble-smooth mortar and pestle, she commenced smashing and pulverizing nuts in preparation for nextday. The sound almost covered the roar of his snores.
Wrapped in her work and heavily pondering her few options, Alizarin was taken by surprise with a rapid knock on her door. Looking up, abruptly awakened from her inner thoughts and manual work, her face lit with a smile to see her old friend, Rethendrel, standing smartly at the locked door of Sunbaked. Rushing to the door, to welcome him, she had to stop and consider her dilemma. Can I let him in? He waved at her through the window of the door, and made a beckoning sign. Unlocking the door, she stepped out into the path.
“Top of the eventide to you!” Alizarin said, as always.
“And the rest of the nightfall to you as well!” He replied as was their custom.
“What brings you here this sunfall? Is all well with you and yours?”
“All is well with mine, though I fear my sister Gretsel’s time is closer than we thought. There is some worry about the baby coming early, so I thought it best to get the provisions now to keep her safe. It’s not every day a man becomes an uncle!” The light in his eyes, sparked by the arrival of new life, dimmed somewhat with worry.
Alizarin said anxiously, “That is exciting, yet isn’t she too early? Will Theress be able to care for her?” A thought crossed her mind, “I can come if you need me,” she offered.
Gratefully, Rethendrel replied, “We actually were hoping you would come. Gretsel is steady now but weak. The baby hasn’t yet dropped, but she cannot rise from her bed for too long. The down pull comes and goes.Urrdsa is attending a difficult birthing at the far end of our lands. Can you come to us in two nexteves? There is a spare room. It would be a relief and a blessing to have an extra pair of hands available.”
“I have only ever assisted my mother at birthings, never done one alone but together I am sure Theress and I will manage Gretsel well,” she said.
“A benediction on you, lass. Here is my order for two nexteves hence. I will come for you with Samton to pull us all and our supplies home. Here is half the payment.”
Taking the list and moneybag from Rethendrel and reading it over, Alizarin concluded, “Wonderful. I will lend my prayers to yours that Gretsel can rest for the big day. I will bring spare clothing for a fortnight and a few extras, in case of need.”
“Done!” he said.
As Rethendrel shook her hand and they parted, Alizarin thought of the poor mother, Gretsel and her terrible, suffering burden of waiting and praying for a healthy baby. Small adventures … In her mind, a plan was forming. Later, recalling it, she would identify it as intuition.
*
Chapter Three
What Comes Creeping Here?
Hiding behind the largest grouping of leaves, pushing her body down into the crevice created by one craggy trunk splitting into three, quiet and still, she waited. Breath shallow and low, body motionless, she would not be seen from the forest floor gazing skyward. This was Azure’s favorite game and it was a good one.
*
Down below, under the canopy of nearby forest, the gathering lurkers were hungry. Slithering quickly, faster than a man could run, having long since left the breadth of their own domain, they came with an accuracy that would scare the Gods. There was no escape from their trap. They knew it. In a slowly constricting, coordinated circle, they diligently sought their prey. And sought. And sought.
Trunks were no barrier to their weighty bodies, which they simply stretched thin around and along the bark and wrapped their contracting muscles ever upward. Under the canopy of dense forest or within it, they would not be denied: kings of the hunt. The quarry would be taken and devoured.
Snouts lifted in the air, scenting it, tasting it. The lurkers moved a slight way along the forest path and stopped, continuously repeating their search. Five lurkers had joined this hunt. Five hungry, moist mouths salivated for their reward: crunchy, hairy, yielding human flesh. The first to find their prey would be the luckiest, eating the most of the spoils. All sought to be the first.
When the gray priests had first come with their tempting offering of cows and bleating goats, the lurkers came, and ravenous with hunger, ate and ate. Two incautious acolytes went missing that day. The priests sent a benign condolence letter and a small pittance of remuneration to the families, extolling the lost acolytes’ dedication to the Great Falcon God’s work, to satisfy their foreseen petty greed and grief.
When the priests returned the next time to the forest glade, wisely they sent only one priest doing penance and several expendable servants, with much more loudly braying and kicking livestock. After the five lurkers who answered their initial calls were temporarily sated, the very nervous priest bound their hunger to the Will of the Falcon. Their prey was set, their path of service determined. No other physical food would satisfy them until they achieved their goal or died of starvation. Five had answered the call, and now, five hunted.
*
As children are apt to do, the treed girl fidgeted, picking tiny bits of moss off of the closest shelves of bark. As even adults are apt to do, she grew impatient. Not much of a game, this. No action! Bunches of sitting around, waiting. She wanted to run and run far. Her little mind was often overeager to begin an adventure, never realizing how much she would eventually treasure the quiet lulls between the vicious tornadoes and upheavals of living.
Wondering if the game was over, or if her playmates had forgotten her in favor of fadingsun treats, she cautiously peered over the edge of the great cradle of the tree. The forest floor was empty in all directions. Listening with great care and staring intently at the spotted fern shadows still brought her no new information about her pursuers. Tired of the game of hide and seek, her short span of attention had moved on.
Slipping down the enormous trunk, she started planning a tantalizing new game for her friends. Maybe Chase the Rabbit? A game where we all play together. Sitting alone was not entertaining enough, not for the precocious child. Resolutely determined to start anew, she wandered down the main, flower-strewn path, rockhopping and oblivious to any native forest dangers.
Hunger stirred her stomach. Crunching on a pocketed biscuit left over from sunrise meal, she scampered along the footpath and immediately regretted having brought no pouch of water. Nearing the edge of the boundary trees, with her home and surrounding buildings in sight, her heavily knotted rope shoestrings loosed. Having been told repeatedly by her mother about the hazards of tripping in poorly tied shoes, Azure stopped at the broken outcrop of Lookout Rock. With a child’s spry agility, the girl clambered to the top. Looking out over the vastness of the forest-filled valley, she sat down in the warm, fading sunlight with focused intent to mend her transportation problem.
*
Down below her, cloaked in the fan of green leaves that filled the land, a snout lifted in the air, pausing, then stopped, sniffing again to fix the scent. Not that one. The lurker slid on, past the little boy dressed in a tan tunic and scuffed skinshoes, who was partially obscured by the shade of a berry bush. Hiding so intently, the child’s concentration, alertness, and heavy breathing, along with the lurker’s nuanced ability to find prey, made Yelton stand out in the vegetation like a red flag to a bull.
The lurkers’ stomachs growled as the Will of the Falcon incantation negated the obviously choice morsel. It pushed the scaly beasts on, albeit very reluctantly. Looking back for a few steps, beastly minds strained to go back to the tender meat and tear, tear, tear up the softness! Snouts salivating, mind-bound, resentment growing, the determined lurkers had no choice but to neglect the meal of hiding, fat boy and search on.
No path the Gods chose was an easy one for their disciples. The lurkers’ ferocious appetites and reptilian minds ha
d not made or been given a choice to serve, though. Bound by the desires of another, their essences continuously rebelled against the forced hunger and the overriding command. It felt like a stinging whiplash within their minds, driving them on, heedlessly.
Hunters, yes—assassins, no. Bound slaves to a god’s will, they vowed a species resentment and revenge against the imposition. They were driven on and on towards a marked goal, going mad with hunger, while easy food was plentiful in their midst. Within their minds, they screamed in frustration.
One lurker, the only female, was heavy with eggs and should never have been tricked into the summoned hunt. Her ability to grouphunt or even keep up with the pace was slowly fading, yet she could not stop to deposit the eggs. Even if she were able to, the divine hunt would force her to move on, and abandon her eggs to a shallow nest and certain destruction. Stiffly walking, awkward in motherhood’s determined fierceness, she hunted, not for her animal hunger but for her unhatched eggs.
As far as she had scented and traveled for this prey, the true danger was that after their hatching her new young would be too distant from familiar territory and quickly exposed to unknown predators. The only chance of survival for her eggs lay in a fast resolution to the imposed assignment. Snout lifted, she searched with growing despair and exhausted breath.
The shifting breeze brought a new scent. There, up ahead, the Prey! The other lurkers responded as one and fanned out toward their final goal. Encircling—ferocious hunger—snarling. Constricting their circle. Rejoicing!
*
“One rabbit ear, two rabbit ears, cross the bunnies, into their hole and ta-da! One shoe done.” The child’s beaming pride of accomplishment was obvious, and her skill notable for a girl of four cycles. Tossing one slightly scratched leg aside, scooching up her bent knee, the girl intently crouched over her remaining two disobedient shoestrings. “One rabbit ear, two rabbit ears, cross the bunnies, run into their hole, peek out the other side, and ta-da! Two shoestrings done.”
The fading sun shone down warmly as dusk approached. Happy, she laid back on the promontory and closed her eyes for a moment, contented. Cupping her hand to her mouth, she yelled jubilantly to the sky and surrounding bushes, “I am right here on Lookout Rock! Friends, come find me! Let’s play together!”
*
Claws scratched the rock’s base. Flush with the elation of mastering her wayward shoestrings and warmed with the rock’s heat, the girl never heard the lurkers coming. On and up they came, ravenous, undeniable, slithering, strong, and wild. Two of the leanest males reached the top within moments, powerful claws digging into the porous rock, muscles rippling to lift them to the promontory.
They looked around for their determined prey. Questing. Seeking. Searching. … Searching? Confused, the lurkers looked at each other, tongues and snouts sniffing and licking furiously. There was nothing between them.
Escaped! Accusations were glared and screamed at each other as the two lurkers faced off in desperate hunger, circling each other. Joined by the third and the fourth reptiles, all famished and crazed in mindless hunger. Where is the prey?
Smelling the air, scenting the rocky ground, the bound beasts knew they had cornered their targeted goal. They had done what was asked of them, mercilessly driven, traveling far. Unkind fate that, having arrived, driven by bottomless hunger, they could not find the child. Four lurkers screamed and hissed, crying their fate to the uncaring sky. The fragile groupmind needed for the hunt began to collapse into selfish, exhausted chaos.
The lone lurker down below at the rock’s base, climbed partly up the rock wall, impatient. Hissing, but unable to continue up the steep grade, she did not understand the dilemma of the others. Pain wracked her. And came again.
She could not stop the birth process of her own tired body. Freed from the need to hunt further onward with the focused prey surrounded, the female lurker took the last of her powerful stamina and desperately dug down into the soft earth with her sharp claws. Food can wait. The hunt is finished. She could stop. Dig now. Birth now. And her mind was gone from the shredded collective.
Four exhausted lurkers lay on top the rocky, sun-filled promontory, unable to move from their destination. Yet they could not complete the task demanded. They had reached their target and the binding spell would not allow them to move away. They were right on top of their target, as if the selected child lay among the beasts. Dimly, they were aware of the female lurker separating from them, having entered her laying and breeding subconscious.
Unable to move, yet unable to feed, minds determined to survive rebelled, searching for a way around the binding incantation. Hunger and humiliation drove them. Having accomplished their task, but not destroyed their prey, the lurkers thought together on the elemental levels. Did the spell require them to eat that specific prey or just to hunt the child, assuming they would feast?
Ahhh, a way out of the trap. They had been bound to the hunt, but not the consumption. Relief!
The imposed binding shattered. Freedom awaited them. Racing down the rock face with renewed agility, they plunged into the underbrush and began to flush small animals, gulping them whole as they ran straight back to their known land and full rivers. Sometime later the four beasts recovered enough of their cunning and grouphunt ability to realize they had left the female. It would be mooncycles before the female and young could travel home. With a mental shrug, the remaining lurkers moved on. More food for us.
*
Laying on the warm rock’s caressing surface, Azure dozed on and off. Waiting. Again. The other village children were so slow, it was often frustrating. Again, she called out, “Friends, come find me! Let’s play a new game! Come! To Lookout Rock! Yelton! Brigget! Lorayn! Cethel! Come here!”
Echoing words sent out into the dense forest and were absorbed by the foliage. Then the natural quiet settled in again. A rustle in the leaves and branches off the main path produced a small, slight girl dressed in a tunic of tan and roped belt, followed moments later by another taller girl with her blonde hair in braids.
“Hello!” Azure cried.
“Hello. Why did we quit the game? Cethel didn’t find us. Brigget and I are talented at hiding. You would have never found us either, Azure.”
“Where were you?”
“We will never tell,” she said, and giggled. “We swore a sisteroath. Might need it again to outwit dumb boys. Speaking of …”
Cracking branches with stumbling feet, hands outstretched for balance, Yelton and his solid five-cycles-old body came blundering out of the forest from the opposite end of the path where the girls had emerged. Tan tunic torn slightly and rope belt flapping against his legs, Yelton said sheepishly, “I almost fell asleep. That game was too long. I want some of my mother’s biscuits and apple juice.” His cheek still had the mud and imprint of sticks and dry leaves. His hair was no better. With the petulance of a little boy, he demanded, “Let’s go back home.”
“We cannot leave until Cethel returns. He cannot be left alone in the forest.” Brigget sternly replied.
“Where is the slowpoke? Couldn’t even find one of us, what a sluggard!” exclaimed Lorayn. Cupping her hands round her mouth to amplify her words, she called out, “Cethel! Cethel! Come to the Lookout rock, Cethel! We are done playing! You are not the witch anymore! Let’s go!”
Thirsty and hungry, the little group of friends waited expectantly for Cethel to turn up. All scrambled up the rock face and sat with Azure looking over the tall trees toward their houses and the wafting cinnamon smell of baking apple pies. A little monster seemed to stir in each belly, and growls from within small, empty tummies were heard all around the promontory.
A voice spoke next to them as a hand appeared from the side of the rockface, “Quit your caterwauling, you babies! I am here! Jerusha’s Pickle! What a bunch of whiny nincompoops.” Mouth squished in disgust, Cethel clambered up on the rocktop.
*
Gangly and freckled, carrot-orange hair in disorder, with two bro
ken leaves hanging off of his temple, Cethel was the oldest of the group at fourteen cycles of age. He emanated resentment whenever he was not the designated leader of the local children. His game of hide and seek had been ruined again by bossy Azure. That twerp of a four-cycle-old kept stealing his friends and his rightful place as their leader.
Obnoxious, little, blue freak. Maybe the earth will swallow her up one day. That would be the best day ever! Or maybe she will run away, far away. Cethel could only hope. Azure became more of a burden and a nuisance to him and to his desire for leadership of this little band, with every daily encounter.
All of the other children, now reunited with Cethel, emerged from the woods skipping and laughing. Straight as a fletched arrow, they flew for Laylada’s kitchen and the presently-steaming, warm and buttery apple pies. Passing the well in the front yard, Brigget stopped and hauled up a bucket of water for her sister Lorayn, Yelton, and Azure. Cool water splashed as Brigget poured it from the well bucket into the drinking pitcher.
Cethel brushed past the thirsty babies and their labor for water. Cethel was a man, at least in his own mind, and walked with a leather bag of water at all times. Arriving first at the kitchen would mean he got to eat seconds on crumbly-crust apple pie even sooner. Fast as he could walk, without appearing to care too much, he headed to the backyard, directly to Laylada’s playhouse. Around the herb garden and grunting pigs, in back of the main clapboard house, he found Laylada sewing a torn pair of breeches, and talking to herself under her breath.
Feeling a bit awkward, having arrived before the others, Cethel picked up some rocks and started throwing them at the distant, stuffed scarecrow, its straw blowing in the breeze.
*
Laylada looked up from her repair work. Noticing Cethel had arrived, her brown eyes narrowed. He always wants to eat. They were almost of an age, Laylada and Cethel, but the amount of food he stuffed in his ever-ready mouth was stunning. Easily, he ate twice her usual helping and in half the time, too. An expensive friend to have. Besides, Laylada was too busy to notice any advantage to boys as friends, as she had to keep up the herb garden and babysit her aunt Sansha’s two girls, Verta and Danya.