The Companions (53 page)

Joram came to mind, with all his tales of sneaking here and skulking there, which on occasion had forced him to wriggle like a snake. I wriggled, though imagining was easier than doing. People are not built like snakes, and they aren't waterproof, either. I reached the far stream side wet through and thoroughly chilled, while the Simusi howled on, uninterrupted.

The combe was narrower than the dale. The strip of stream bank between the water and the vertical high-water bank was also narrow, the upper edge of it overhung with arching grasses, roots, and branches that made a tunnel along the damp earth wall. I went slowly along inside it, right hand on the dirt, left hand pushing the branches and roots away from my face. The Phaina had said the dogs were digging dens into this bank, but if so, the overhang hid them completely. I was likely to stumble into a hole before I saw it. Behemoth would probably resent that.

I was dithering when a small breeze came toward me, heavy with the odor of dog, and through the masking branches, I saw the three males emerge suddenly onto the stream bank. They drank with quick laps, ears alert, then stood with their heads turned upstream, toward the cacophony that was still going on. In a moment they trotted upstream in single file, only a few arm's lengths below me, never noticing I was there.

I couldn't let them go. I stepped out onto the bank and called, “Behemoth. Titan. Wolf!”

They stopped and turned, unwillingly. The fur along Behemoth's spine rose into a ridge. His lips drew back from his teeth. He stalked toward me, tail down, ears down, and from behind me I heard Scramble say, “Noh. Yuh noh Simusi, ogh!”

She was beside me, with Veegee and Dapple behind her. Scramble went forward, mouth open, breathing words that floated away from me toward the dogs. I caught only fleeting scents. Milk scents as they spoke of puppies. Blood smell as they spoke of death. My perfume. The smell of the Simusi and one of those warning, keep-off smells I'd learned on Moss. The male dogs replied. Veegee joined in the conversation, then Dapple. I could only intuit what the females were saying. “You can stay and try to be Simusi, but we won't. We care about ourselves, our families, our dogness. You pretend you are like Simusi, but they know differently. You will be another of their slaves, like the pitiful humans, like the others…” A set of smells I didn't recognize flowed by, new vocabulary.

Then Scramble came back to me. It had taken very little time, actually, though it had felt like an age. “Wha, Shewel? We gho?”

“Will Behemoth go with us?”

“Me my sisrs gho. Ish he wans lil wons, he gho.”

The sisters going was good enough for me. I told them to follow me, but instead of returning the way I'd come, I plunged straight away from the den openings, down the
bank, through the icy, knee-deep water, up the far bank of the combe, and into the trees. There, well under cover, we turned left and kept going until we had passed the open end of the dale. The detour put us opposite the place I had left the woods, and required no wriggling to get there. I turned to see who was with us, and wonder of wonders, two of the males were close behind while Behemoth stalked after them, a considerable distance back and not hurrying.

We recrossed the chilly water, climbed one more bank, and were in the forest. Scramble cast about for my outward trail, finding it almost immediately. With the dogs smelling the way, we went more quickly than when I had been alone. As we approached the bonfire, the howls rose to an ear-piercing crescendo. I went slowly to the edge of the wood, pointed at the cage where Gavi still knelt, face pressed against the bars. “What will they do with her?” I asked.

Behemoth said, “Hunningh hoomans nigh.”

“Their night for hunting humans?”

“Es.”

“Will they…will they give them a head start?”

He gave me a long, calculating look. “Es.”

I returned his look with one of my own. “Will you help me save her?”

He turned away, ignoring me, speaking with Wolf and Titan. Scramble pushed her way among them and growled. If I'd been doing the talking, I'd have been reminding him that Gavi had saved his life when the willog demon was choking him. Behemoth actually whined. I'd heard Joram speak to Matty in exactly that same tone: “I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean…”

They returned to me. “Wha yu nee?” Scramble asked.

“I need one of you to sneak over there and tell Gavi…No!” I was being stupid! I could understand virtually everything the dogs said, but it was foolish to expect Gavi to understand them at all, much less under the circumstances. “No. Just wait here for me!”

Scramble came after me, taking my wrist in her mouth to
tug me back, but I told her to let me go. I had to do it myself. I was already as wet as I could be, so another Joram-wriggle through the stream added little additional discomfort. The cage stood at the very edge of the firelight, not far from the stream, and Gavi was still pressed against the near side. Others in the cage simply sat with empty faces, reacting to nothing. They didn't even move when I spoke Gavi's name, very softly.

“Jewel,” she whispered. “Oh, Jewel. Can you get me out of here…?”

“Listen.” I put a hand up to cover her mouth. “Listen carefully. They will release you and give you a head start. Cross the stream and run uphill, to your left, close to the trees. Close, Gavi, and uphill! Do you understand?”

She nodded. I looked curiously at her cage companions. She whispered, “These others in the cage with me, I think they're all dead people from the battleground on Moss. The ones in the other cage are mostly Derac, and they're alive. Tonight they hunt us, tomorrow the Derac, I think.”

I couldn't take time to contemplate the risk if they hunted Derac tonight. I patted her hand and slithered backward through the water once more, away from the ring of firelight. When I gained the cover of the forest, the dogs were waiting. We went quickly uphill, upstream, staying close to the edge of the trees. When we came to the place my trail turned to go over the ridge, we stopped.

No one needed to tell the dogs to be silent. We could see the fire down the slope, hear the howls building to the final climax and fading into silence. Though we had come a considerable distance, I could still make out the monumental forms of the Simusi sitting there, the firelight reflected from their eyes. I heard the creak of wood. A cage door, or doors. The Simusi sat, unmoving. Time went by. We heard panting breath first, then the thud of running feet coming toward us up the dale. Not many. Two or three people, perhaps. When I caught sight of Gavi, I stepped out to intercept her…and an unexpected companion. Oskar! The lame man running for his life, lame leg and all.

I pulled them into the trees, Scramble and the others began a mass urination out in the grass, Behemoth tore shreds of Gavi's clothing away in his teeth and ran out and up the meadow, dropping bits of the fabric as he went. They'd planned this while we had been waiting! We heard a great baying from near the bonfire, as the Simusi went off in various directions, a few into the woods at either side, others downstream and away, yipping madly into the night, perhaps a few in our direction, though Gavi and Oskar had been the only ones to run uphill.

Oskar collapsed completely. Gavi was beside him immediately, saying, “He gave me chin leaves to chew, so they wouldn't smell us when we ran.”

“He couldn't run,” I said, stupidly. “He could barely walk.”

She babbled, “He told me he'd been planning for a long time. He knew where they'd do it. He had some drugs to kill his pain and let him move fast; he had these chin leaves to hide his smell; and he'd found some secure places in the woods. He told me he'd lead them away while I went this way to the trail, then to the left, to the place the Phain live, but when I told him you were waiting…”

I said, “Gavi, listen! Have they turned the Derac loose, to hunt?”

She shook her head. “No. Not yet.”

“Then let's give Oskar a few moments to rest. Titan, Wolf, let's see if Behemoth needs help.”

We ran, the big dogs and I, my hand on Titan's shoulder to keep myself balanced on the uneven ground. We had not gone far before we heard growls, snarls, harsh throaty coughs. We came through a fringe of trees to see Behemoth confronting a furious Simusi who was twice his size. Behemoth was not cowering. The fur on his neck and spine was up, his teeth were showing. Titan and Wolf slipped away from me, one right, one left. I caught a flicker from Behemoth's eyes and knew he had seen us, though the Simusi had not, for he was too busy demanding obedience and submission. The air was full of scent commands and sound defi
ance, most of the noise from Behemoth, who wasn't having it. When the two other dogs were in place, Behemoth waited no longer and attacked.

I thought he would be hurt at once, probably killed, but then, I had never seen him fight. More importantly, I had never seen him fight in company with other dogs. The three of them were like a well-engineered machine, each reading the others' intent, each moving in accord with the others' speed and direction. Their teeth slashed like sabers as they leapt forward and back on spring-steel legs, their thick coats baffled the Simusi's attempt to catch hold of them during the few early moments when he had a choice. Then both his rear legs went out from under him, the ligaments cut, and he no longer had any choice at all. He gave just one surprised yelp of pain before he fell, two huge jaws fastened in his throat, the third pair ripping out his belly.

The moment stretched. I let it go on, wanting them to relish their victory. They had measured themselves against the godlike Simusi and won. They could not envy an enemy they had conquered, and I wanted them to savor it, to remember it, though we could not take as long as it merited. They'd done well, three against one, but there were dozens of Simusi running the hills around and not that many of us.

“Come,” I whispered. “Quickly. There are more of them out there.”

The dogs slowly released their hold and stepped back. I started to turn away when a strangled sound from Behemoth made me look back. The body of the Simusi was changing. The huge paws were liquefying in a slow ooze that was not shapeless but reshaping. The legs, too, and the muzzle, becoming another shape, not the one we had seen before. I quickly pulled my recorder out of my pocket and focused it upon what was happening. The glossy fur melted like wax to be replaced by carbuncled, mucus-covered hide. The sleek muzzle became twisted bone, the narrow jaw and fangs melted into a lipless, gaping maw crammed with tentacled suckers, like tangled worms. What lay there at last
was a creature of indescribable…I could find no word. Every animal I have ever seen pictured had a natural grace and elegance when in its own environment. Great wrinkle-nosed elephant seals, monstrous on the shore, became graceful in the sea. Clumsy albatross, tripping over their own feet on land, became glorious in the sky. Insects, monstrous on the hand, become elegant on the branch. I wondered in what hideous environment a creature like this one could be anything but a horror. I made myself go near it and look for some sign of life. Movement. Breath. A flow of fluid, anything.

Nothing moved. It stank. I prayed it was truly dead, but we could not stay to make sure. We raced back to the others. I pulled Oskar to his feet, put my arm around his waist, and told the dogs to lead on. It was Veegee who thrust her head between Oskar's legs from behind, heaving him onto her shoulders and moving along beside me to carry the old man's weight. We made the best time we could across the rocky area where the paths diverged. I scanned the area for Witt. If he had hidden nearby, he would see us, hear us.

Howls came from the ridge above us, no longer distant. They had picked up our trail, or Gavi's, or Oskar's, but at least they were coming from the side, not behind, which meant they had not yet found the body of their…pack-mate. We hastened along the rock outcropping, back toward the main path. Witt emerged from under a bush, about halfway along. He started to whimper about the howling, and I hissed at him to be quiet or I'd cut his tongue out. The threat sounded vicious even to me. I wondered if I meant to do it. Inasmuch as I had no knife with me, it was unlikely even though he went on whimpering.

At the main path, we turned right and fled down the defile between the two rocky banks, turning left at the far end, along the wall of stone, still under the cover of the woods. Scramble and Dapple stayed back, behind us. Over my shoulder I saw them urinating on the path, scratching it. I doubted it would do any good. As I had understood what
Oskar had said during our trip to the Phaina's, we had left Phain territory and had crossed into Simusi territory now. Nonetheless, we went on, following the directions the Phaina had given me.

“Where are we going?” Gavi whispered to me.

“Somewhere along here, there's an old stone hut. The Phaina is meeting us there.”

“Ehr!” said Dapple, nose pointed ahead.

Almost invisible among the trees and against the piled rocks it had been made from, the hut was half-buried in vines. The plank door sagged, and the old shutters were splintered. At the moment, I didn't care what it looked like, I only wanted walls around us and a place to rest. We went in. The place smelled of moldy hay and mice. I reminded myself that Splendor, or its foyer, was not necessarily immune to mice, nor, possibly, to fleas, leeches, cold winds, and disappointment. Gavi and I thrust the shutters closed and yanked the sagging door shut. Oskar lay down on the hay with a gasp of pain, and the dogs fell panting beside him. Witt glared at them and started to say something, changing his mind after a glance at me. With a martyred expression, he sat down on the bare floor. There was no sign of the Phaina.

I crouched at the door, peering through a wide crack in the old boards. When nothing appeared, I put my pack down to use as a pillow and lay down with my eyes still next to the crack.

“Where are we going?” Witt asked.