Forbidden Land Page 19

  She cocked her head, concerned. Specks of blood dotted his cheeks, arms, belly, and legs. Without fur, the winged things would suck his blood as voraciously as they sucked it from the muzzles and ears of grazing animals—or as voraciously as she sucked it from the throat wounds of her own prey.

  But she could not hold him all the time to keep him warm! She could not maintain a constant vigil against the winged biting things! She must leave the cave to hunt before they all starved! She picked him up and licked the blood from his bites. Holding him close, she went to sit at the edge of her aerie in the warmth of the hole in the sky. Her shoulder ached high on her back, where the ripping, slashing teeth of the dog had done their worst. The beast cub rooted hungrily at her breast. She let him suckle and felt relieved when he stopped shivering. If he was to survive, this hairless little one would soon need more than mother’s milk and masticated meat. He would need a new, thick, furry skin.

  What strange, weak creatures these beasts were! Without fangs, fur, or claws, they were so puny, she wondered how they managed to make kills at all. But as she watched them cavorting around the carcass of the fallen sloth like young, fractious colts, she knew that they were clever. She had seen the way they mastered fire, the way they maneuvered prey, and the way they used throwing sticks and somehow persuaded wild dogs to leap to their defense.

  She frowned again when a new understanding dawned within her. As a pair of the beasts bent to hack off the huge clawed feet of the sloth and then wave them exuberantly, she realized that they all were covered from neck to toe in the skins of dead animals. This was how the beasts managed to survive! Now she knew how to keep her beast cub warm and free of bites!

  He was asleep now, with one little hand curled about her breast. Ugly and tiny though he was, a mother’s tender love for him warmed her. She rocked him, hunkering low, staring into the distance.

  The beast pack was leaving the kill site now, and she watched as they disappeared toward the hills. Never had she seen beasts return to a kill site once they left it. Sniffing the wind, she smelled warm blood and freshly killed flesh. Birds were winging in on the scents. Her belly groaned and ached with need.

  The wanawut circled in great agitation and frustration before returning the sleeping beast baby to the nest. Quickly covering him with a thick, insulating matting of leaves, feathers, and tattered fragments of skins, she went back to the edge of her aerie to scream the warning of the wanawut at the animals that were now feasting on the sloth. It was a resonant roaring, which filled the sky and sent birds screaming in all directions. Not without satisfaction, she saw the carrion eaters pause; some scattered while others turned back to their feeding.

  She made a series of deep, warning grunts. She would drive them off soon enough, for on this day she would take up her man stone and leave her cubs sleeping unprotected in their aerie for the first time since she had brought them here. On this day, although her shoulder was not fully restored to its power, she would hunt again and kill any animal that stood between her and the sloth. On this day she would move quickly on the carcass, or the predators already feeding would not leave enough meat to satisfy her or enough of its long, thick fur to cover her beast cub. On this day she left the cave and began the descent of the mountain wall.

  “Did you hear it?” Xhan’s question trembled with fear. No one spoke, although all had heard it. No one wanted to name the source of the sound.

  “It was ... far away. Very far,” Zhoonali said at last, standing motionless as the other women gathered around her with their little ones.

  “To the north,” whispered old Teean, the one man in camp. “And not so far as before, I think.”

  The hunting party was still out from the encampment. Although Teean was a small man and as thin as a winter starved running animal, he was flexible and stouthearted. He held his spears, and from the way he stood, no one would have doubted that despite his age and leanness he could use his weapons—and use them well.

  For what seemed forever, the old man stood a cautious vigil, listening for the cry of the wanawut. He circled the encampment like a wary old wolf, shaking his spears and making his terrible faces. But the beast was not heard again, and at last the hunters returned.

  “Did you hear the howling?” The question came from Mano. The youth was flushed with excitement. His spear had been the first to strike the bear-sized sloth, and now its claws—except for the two he offered as gifts to his mother and grandmother—hung around his neck on a length of thong.

  Xhan and Zhoonali beamed with pride as they accepted these still-bloodied offerings from him, for the strong, curling claws of the giant sloth were coveted digging tools.

  “We heard it scream from the far cliffs above the place where we took the camel under yesterday’s sun,” he went on. “This one boy wanted to go back, maybe track it down and kill it, but the others—“

  “Men do not seek out or dare to look upon that which howled from the mountain!” Ram was a. hunter in his prime, short, thick thighed, and broad across the neck. His wide, bony face held a scowl that would have warned any circumspect youth to silence. Mano, however, was not circumspect; he was bold and antagonistic by nature. “The magic man Navahk wore the skin of a wind spirit on his back!” he reminded Ram.

  “And Navahk’s life spirit walks the wind as reward for that bit of arrogance!” Ram hurled back.

  The hunters and women murmured agreement. Yanehva, the headman’s middle son, stepped forward to have his say. “The wind spirit was not the only meat eater drawn to our kill. We saw

  lions, leaping cats, and many birds when we looked back. Other animals will come to that place

  now—foxes, wolves, lynx, even the great bear with the shovel-nosed snout. It is not a good thing to leave so much meat at a killing site .. . unless it is intended to draw predators. Torka was right about that.” Even before he finished speaking, he drew back from the others, because all were glowering at him, even his father. He had said the wrong thing. No one ever spoke well of Man of the West. Yanehva bit his lip and hung his head, ashamed. “Torka is gone!” The headman’s

  face was congested with anger. “Why does a son of mine speak of Torka or care what he has said or has not said?” “

  “And with Torka have gone the burning sky and the trembling earth! With Torka have gone the last of the storms and the dark clouds that eat the sun! With Torka have gone his worn—“ Cheanah stopped, shook his head, then went on just as hotly. “This Place of Endless Meat is ours now, and in it we will hunt as our ancestors have always hunted! We cannot take all the meat of every animal that we kill! Our young men must learn the way of the kill even though they, dwell in a camp full of meat.

  Torka!” Cheanah spat the name as though it were a foul thing. “The wind spirit is far away to the north. We do not have to hunt there again. This Place of Endless Meat is rich with game! To the south, east, and west will our people go for meat if the wind-spirit wanawut claims the north country! Cheanah says that this is a good thing! We have found only sloths and camels in that open country. We will hunt there no more!”

  The wanawut gorged herself. She cracked the sloth’s bones with her massive, crushing jaws and molars, sucked its blood, and gulped its meat. She had no trouble driving away other carrion-eating mammals and birds if they came too close, although most had retreated the moment she had emerged from the scrub growth, snarling and waving her fists.

  The carcass was ripe with the stink of the beasts and of their flying sticks. She kept an eye out for them as she ate and made certain that her other senses were alert for any sign or sound of their return. There was still so much good meat on this sloth. How could the beasts be so wasteful?

  The wanawut purred as she ate, thinking of her waiting cubs. She clutched the hollow tube of shaggy, bloodied sloth skin that she had peeled back from the arm of the carcass. It was a good, thick skin and would keep the beast cub warm.

  It was time to go back to the safety of her mountain aerie, but fir
st, before the long climb, she would take one more chew of meat, one more Birds suddenly flew skyward somewhere within the high scrub growth of the plain, and several antelope broke from cover to leap away toward the river.

  The wanawut stopped eating, rose, leaned into the wind, and smelled .. . lion! She saw the old male emerge from the willows to stand looking at her out of eyes that were the color of the hole in the sky but without its warmth. Her head cocked to one side. His kind usually fed by day.

  The lion’s head went down; so did the wanawut’s. She saw his yellow eyes half close, yet somehow she sensed that they were observing her more sharply than before. She had never seen such a big lion, or one with such a pale pelt. Had it not been encrusted with mud from a roll in the shallows of one of the many nearby pools, the coat would have been nearly white. His mane, however, was black—as black as his intention for her as he stood between her and the way back to her cave.

  She moved to his right, to walk past him. He blocked her. She moved again, to his left. He circled to intercept her, then stopped dead, roaring, shaking his great maned head to tell her that she could not pass .. . that she, not the mutilated carcass of the sloth, was to be his meal this night.

  The wanawut screamed in outrage and bared her teeth. She stomped and waved her arms, flailing her fists and displaying her man stone. The lion was not impressed. She stomped again, hard on both feet, then gestured menacingly and showed her teeth once more. The great cat merely lowered his head, flicked his tail, and came toward her, crouching now, pacing himself. When he was close enough, he would spring.

  With her man stone in one hand and the cub covering in the other, she stood her ground, not believing that he would charge her if she faced him down. She was simply too big, too powerful, too agile, and too well armed. Her claws were bearlike, and her stabbing teeth could be equaled only by a leaping cat’s. The lion’s musculature was massive and designed for the kill, but hers was the same .. . only she walked upright, much like the beasts.

  In a white arc of pure, black-maned power, the lion leaped at her. As he did, she ducked, then came up beneath him, shouldering him hard, knocking him off balance so that he fell onto his side. Stunned, he lay still, but only for a moment.

  That was enough for the wanawut to perceive the weakness of her still-injured shoulder and to feel pain. Warm liquid ran down her leg. She looked: Somehow the lion had opened a long, deep gash on the outside of her right thigh—from hip to knee. She hooted low, concerned and confused, until, alerted by the lion’s snarling, she looked up to see him coming at her again. This time he did not leap. He simply walked forward, smelling her blood, sensing her weakness and fear.

  He was old and wise, this lion—but he was not wary. With an unexpected feint forward, she slashed his face hard with her man stone, then stabbed deep and quick. The lion’s eye was ruined, and the entire left side of his face was laid open before he could turn away. She watched him circle madly, pawing at his face, before he turned and ran.

  She waited for him to disappear into the cover of the willow scrub from which he had emerged to attack her. When she could no longer see him, she turned her back, and pressing the sloth skin into her thigh wound to ease the pain as well as to stanch the flow of blood, she began to limp home.

  It was dark by the time she returned to her aerie. Hurting, weak, and in shock from loss of blood, the wanawut was nevertheless more concerned for her cubs than for herself. She went immediately to the nest and peered in to find the beast ling uncovered.

  He lay so still. His skin was so cold, she was certain that the breath had left his body. Her own cub was fussing with hunger; but it was warm and could wait for her attention.

  She lifted the little beast and, cooing to him all the while, breathed the warmth of her own life onto his puckered skin and into his tiny nostrils, ears, and mouth. Still fearing that he was dead, she held him close and seated herself, cradling him in the fold of her thickly furred arms until he began to shiver.

  He was alive! Relief nearly overwhelmed her. Exhausted, she leaned back against the cold, stony wall of the cave and listened to the cries of her own cub. The sound was strong with life. Despite her pain, her long, virtually lipless mouth turned downward into a smile. The hungry, healthy wails were almost as comforting as the pleasure that she found when the beast ling stopped shivering and burrowed deep, searching for a nipple.

  She let him suck for a while, then put him on the ground by her folded legs and, grimacing against the throbbing agony in her thigh, inserted him into the hollow casing of sloth skin. It was still wet and warm and softened with her blood. The beast ling snuggled into it happily. When she rose to retrieve her own nursling and returned to sit against the wall, the tiny beast was fast asleep and as content as if she still held him in her arms.

  Had the lion had his way, both she and her babes would be dead. Troubled, the wanawut blinked and tried to will the memory away. She was weary. Her shoulder ached. Her thigh hurt. She was weak ... so weak.. ..

  She fell asleep before she knew enough to wish for sleep and did not wake until the needs of her hungry cubs roused her. Her leg and shoulder were stiff and painful. She felt no stronger than when she had gone to her rest, but the sight of the cubs made her feel better.

  She nursed and dreamed of Mother and of other strong, gray-furred creatures of her own kind. The beast cub, warm in his sleeve of sloth skin, slept again, too, until she felt the need to lift him and exhale breaths of affection onto him.

  A wind was rising now, weaving among the clouds so that now and again the light of the hole in the sky turned the gray morning to gold. It illuminated the face of the beast ling and for the first time the wanawut recognized in the features of the babe those of the man, dressed in the skins of a golden lion, who had ventured into the far country in pursuit of the abandoned beastling

  Her clawed, hairy-backed fingers traced the delicate face of the tiny boy as she mouthed the beast’s strange, never-to-be-forgotten lamentation: “Man-aravak.”

  And, to her amazement, the infant in her arms cooed, delighting in the sound of his own kind and of his own name.

  Manaravak!

  Lonit almost cried out the name of her lost son, the feeling was that strong in her that he was alive, alive and calling out to his mother to come and take him into her arms, away from’Lonit?” Torka spoke her name. She turned.

  “Do not look back,” he said, extending a hand to her. “Come. We must go on now, into the wonderful valley.”

  And it was wonderful. For several days and nights they had observed it as they rested on the high ridge that overlooked the valley. They raised individual lean-tos and consumed the last of their traveling rations. They recuperated from the long trek across the Forbidden Land.

  Time passed quickly. By day the wind brought them the sweet scents and sounds of the world below. By night, when cold air swept downward from the mountain heights, they listened to the echoing voice of the spirits of the stony crags, to meltwater thickening and congealing into ice, to bergs colliding on the surface of the great gray lake that lay behind them, and to the restless shifting and grinding murmurs of the north-canyon glacier.

  Now they donned their pack frames again. With the dog walking ahead, they strode on, under the warm sun or beneath gathering clouds, following the mammoth through upland groves that were strongly scented from pungent spruce wood and Life Giver’s kind. They moved quietly, for although they walked in the tracks of their totem and were confident that no danger would come to them through him, they could not predict the reaction of the kindred of Life Giver. This was mammoth country. As strangers, they knew it was wise to tread respectfully through the land of the great tuskers. This they did, keeping their distance when Summer Moon and little Demmi pointed with delight at baby mammoths browsing in the woodlands with their huge, shaggy mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, while young bulls grazed in pairs, aloof from their females but wary and watchful of them all the same.

  Downward the ba
nd traveled, through a wide, easily traversed, sunstruck defile, which bore neither scent nor sign of the vast glacial mass that lay on the other side of the mountain. Spruce trees and slender, greening hardwoods shadowed them as they descended. Never in all of their lives had they seen such tall trees.

  Their progress was slowed by a gradual thickening of the undergrowth and by their wariness of what might lie lurking within it. Even the dog was intimidated.

  “So much scrub! So many trees!” Wallah whispered, looking up as she paused and absently rubbed her hip.

  Grek, hunching forward as though the shadows cast by the trees were pressing him down, prodded his woman on. He did not like this place. A man was at risk when he walked amid groves, where trees grew taller than his belly and undergrowth was higher than his knees.

  Grek worked his jaw a little harder as he looked up and around, walking beside Wallah. Although these trees were twice his height, Grek could perceive no threat in them. They were widely spaced and full of sunlight. When he raised his head to draw in the scents of the defile, he could smell only the good aromas of sun-washed rock; the clear, cool meltwater cascading from the heights; the sweet, graceful, wind-stirred shadows redolent of plant life; the fragrant, sap-rich spruce needles; and the swelling leaves of hardwoods. Now and again he caught the acrid scent of mammoth .. . and the vaguely sour hint of fecal droppings left behind by various ground-dwelling creatures: rodents, foxes, badgers, lynx ... a moose somewhere deep and far away within the trees, grazing by some upland pool—a cow, with young. Grek could smell an udder and milk clotting in the sunlight on the muzzle of a fawn.

  Meat, he thought, and stood tall once again as, following Torka, he took a turn to the right and paused, sucking in his breath.