Fish Tails (62 page)

Arakny was summoned, the herbalist healer with them was summoned, a number of the men followed them, and they climbed to the site Abasio had recorded before he left them, just a few days before.

Abasio had not waited an instant. By the time the contingent from the Artemisian camp reached the clearing, Sun-­wings and Dawn-­song were there; so was Bear, slavering, coughing, covered in stinking substances, red and ocher, his eyes wild with fury; Coyote, nose twitching, lips snarling; the horses, shivering all over, Abasio with his arms across the horses' backs. And Needly, busy at Dawn-­song's side, stanching the blood that ran from a wound. And at Sun-­wings' side, quite still, Willum lay, still and white as death, the arrow through him, hard as stone.

A
TEMPORARY SPACE WAS MADE
ready in the Artemisian camp, and the Griffins were moved into it along with Willum and Needly. The healers from Artemisia were summoned. All said that Dawn-­song was not seriously hurt. Needly submitted to them samples of the potion she had already put upon Sun-­wings' torn wing, on Dawn-­song's wound, as well as the other potion she had administered to Willum and put on Sun-­Wings' leg. She explained what her grandmother had said about the stone medicine, explained that she herself had observed it being made and that the instructions were in her grandmother's notebook. She found the notebook, held it open while the Artemisians copied the information about stone medicine and the antidote. She retrieved the book and shook her head when they suggested they take it with them.

“Copy anything you can use, but the book is all I have left of her. I'd rather keep it with me.” She went on to explain that she'd put the stone medicine on Sun-­wings's leg, to prevent any permanent damage from happening while they were getting away from the hunter, and on Willum as quickly as she could reach him.

Everyone with some experience of herbal remedies or healing went to examine Sun-­wings's leg. It was not as warm as the rest of her. She could not move it, but it caused her no pain. It did not smell of rot. It was as though she had acquired a stone leg that blood no longer bothered to go into or out of. As for Willum, Willum was stone.

“And how long will this preserve the person?” one of the healers asked.

“If it's a whole body, long enough for that body to fix itself before the heart starts beating again. I know Sun-­wings's heart hasn't stopped. I put only a few drops on her leg, just enough to hold her leg as it was. Grandma once told me about a man who had a spear through him. They used stone medicine, then they took him somewhere and removed the spear, and after quite a long while his body healed inside and his heart started beating again.”

“You're speaking of surgery. We have no surgeons. The Edges have surgeons, but they don't let outsiders in. Tingawa, of course, has ­surgeons.”

“No,” said Needly, out of a terrible calm she had found inside herself and that she did not dare depart from. “They didn't cut, they just pulled out the spear. The man lay there for a long time, perhaps a year, and then he woke up and the hole through him was healed. The stone holds the person safe while the body fixes itself. It's like it stops time. Or slows it way, way down. Like a stone experiences time. Different for a stone than for a tree, or for you or me. That's why it takes so long to heal itself.”

They examined Sun-­wings's wounded wing, finding it to be healing with extraordinary rapidity. Needly explained the ingredients that went into the healing lotion. “Ah,” said an Artemisian herbalist to another. “Ah, yes, I've heard of that,” moving from one little discussion circle to another.

By the end of the morning, most of the Artemisians who lived in other areas were on the road back to their homes; Precious Wind and Xulai were using the far-­talker to seek advice from Tingawa; Needly was brought in to describe the stone medicine plant to the Tingawan at the other end. Willum was laid in the bed of the wagon, the arrow gently cut off even with his skin in back, only enough protruding in front that it could be pulled from the wound when and if that seemed appropriate. Needly sat cross-­legged beside him, her face ashen, her hand laid lightly upon his chest.

“Willum,” she whispered into the hovering void she could sense around him. It was a place of stillness. She doubted it had a location or reference to any known point upon the world she knew. Just now it was where Willum was and it was held around him. “I didn't know what else to do, Willum. Don't die, Willum. Just wait. Just wait. You don't need to wake up and you don't need to die. Time isn't moving where you are, Willum. We're going to figure something out. We really are . . .” and meanwhile the tears fell from her jaw onto her skirt, cupped between her knees, until it was as sodden and chilled as her spirit.

S
UBSEQUENTLY THERE WAS A GOOD
deal of talk: discussion among the Artemisians, loving words between the Griffins and Needly, mild argument between Abasio and Xulai, a subdued, sorrowful, and yet relieved exchange between Sun-­wings and Dawn-­song, even a few puzzled words from Kim. The discussions of possibilities ended with the decision to move the Griffins, mother and daughter, to a currently empty storage building that stood at one side of the plaza of the Wide Mountain Clan. Once they were there, Wide Mountain Mother's closest associates could help the feeding and treating of the wounded mother; there the Griffin child would also be safe and well tended to. Those who had traveled from Saltgosh could park their wagons nearby, the horses would have pasture. Everyone would be a safer distance from Sybbis and her tame horrors, if they were tame. Once that move was made, everyone could take a deep breath and try to decide what should be done next.

Abasio, meantime, was busy explaining to representatives of the men's groups what he had heard the huge hunter say. He had repeated it to himself, over and over; now he repeated it to them. “He said,
‘Nah. Li'l one's no good anyhow. Ahgar said nobody wans li'l ones. Practice on her. Gotta kill 'er firs', though, so she don' bite . . .'
We were behind him, we heard him clearly. That's exactly what he said.”

“The girl child had heard no previous reference to this person or thing the hunter called Ahgar?”

“She's so upset about the boy that she can't think straight. She says give her a little time, and she'll think back at what they heard. When he said he would practice on the little one, she told him it was better not to practice when he'd been drinking. He'd ruin the hide. You do understand this was a pretense she and Willum had set up? To delay things, hoping somehow to either get away or be rescued . . .”

“And your own feelings about this hunter?”

Abasio said, “My feelings are irrelevant. I can take you there to see for yourselves! Wide Mountain Mother wants to jump to the plaza to check out the building before the Griffins are moved. Xulai will go with her. Before they do that, we can jump to the clearing where we found the children. Unless something has found the body edible, it's probably still up there where we left it. Bear grappled with the creatures and ripped out his jaw and throat. He's been trying to get rid of the taste of the thing ever since! I can take several of you there and back this afternoon. We can even bring the body back here with us, if that makes sense.”

There was agreement. Bear and Coyote would go with Abasio and a group of a dozen hunters. Precious Wind would go along to be sure all the right buttons were pushed. Several of the Artemisian women would also go, Arakny among them. Precious Wind hooked the
ul xaolats
together so that the same journey lists could be shared; then those making the journey assembled around Bear, Coyote, Precious Wind, and Abasio, all linked by touch of hand.

They went.

The Artemisians who had not before known of or experienced travel via
ul xaolat
stood in shocked silence for a moment, trying to orient themselves. They had been moved to the center of the open space, and Abasio pointed them up the hill where the great carcass lay as Bear had left it. Some men moved out to the edges of the clearing, fingering weapons, keeping watch. Bear and Coyote went to examine the carcass. Their previous journey had been precipitous; there had been no time for inspection. They were immediately joined by Precious Wind, Abasio, and Dark Wolf, one of the hunters.

“By all the gods of earth and water, wind and sky, he stinks!” the Artemisian hunter exclaimed. “And he's almost as big as that one with the ganger queen. I have never encountered such a stink.”

“Ungh,” agreed Bear. “He tasted rotten, awful, too. Left a coat of something on my teeth. Been chewin' leaves ever since; haven't got 'em clean yet. Wasn't like human.”

“When have you tasted humans?” asked Abasio.

“I've tasted you,” said Bear. “When we found you, I licked your leg and you jumped like a frog.”

The Artemisian took another analytical breath and made a face. “The body stinks like that one with the queen.”

“ 'S not just dirt,” said Bear. “Abasio says he smells like Ogre. It's a different smell. Nothing else smells like that. You ever smell Ogre?”

Dark Wolf shook his head. “Never have. Hope I never will.”

Abasio said, “It's definitely like Ogre smell; worse, maybe. The thing may be a human-­Ogre half-­breed. Maybe some Troll genetics in there.”

Coyote said, “A hybrid. That's what the old man called me, the one who taught me words after I could speak.”

Dark Wolf turned to find Abasio behind him, pacing off the length of the carcass, which he and two others had pulled straight on the ground.

Abasio muttered, “I was talking about the created creatures not long ago with Xulai. We thought giants might be pure human genetics, with all the size controls turned off. I have a dreadful feeling that they don't stop growing. They keep right on getting bigger as long as they can get food. Trolls were an animal-­human genetic mix. My guess is human and either wild boar or some kind of big cat or bear or a thing from far away called a hyena. Bear says from the smell, he's sure it's wild boar. I'm almost positive that Ogres were the result of a breeding between giants and Troll females. This man isn't as big as an Ogre, at least, not the Ogres I saw some years ago. They were maybe a third again as tall. But he's a lot bigger than any man I've ever seen. I'm generally thought of as tall, and he's half to two-­thirds again my height.”

One of the hunters asked, “Is there any advantage to taking the body back with us?”

Abasio nodded. “Yes. The very great advantage of getting him away from here so the ones who made him or use him won't know he's dead. He knew someone or something. He came back drunk. He got the drink from someone. He talked to someone about a Griffin hide, someone named ‘Ah'g'r,' or ‘a Gar.' ” He made a face. “That's as close as Needly can come to the sound. I think it's a corruption of ‘Ogre.' ”

Coyote said, “It could have been that, Abasio, but maybe it was more like ‘A Gar.' Like you'd say ‘A hunter' or ‘A trapper.' ”

“More like a label than a name?” Abasio rubbed his head, which ached.

Precious Wind said, “Possibly! It is also perfectly possible it meant ‘Ogre.' Xulai and I believe the creatures are at least partly Ogre. Which reminds me that I have unpleasant news for you, Abasio. We thought Sybbis had one of these creatures as a kind of guard or who knows what. She actually has at least twenty-­four of them, some bigger than this one. Precious Wind thinks she has a breeding population of them. And Coyote is probably right. ‘Ogre' or ‘a Gar' might be the collective label for what they are.”

Arakny offered, “It makes sense, as much as anything does in this mess. That's what Sybbis calls her new . . . consort. She speaks of him as ‘uh Gar.' ” She glanced at Precious Wind. “
A
Gar, of whom there are . . . obviously others.”

Precious Wind turned toward Abasio. “Xulai says you connect this creature to the men you met in the northern forests, when you were on your way to Woldsgard, some years ago.”

“There are similarities, yes, but the northern men didn't stink like this. They smelled bad, but it was a sweat, smoke, dirt smell that men accumulate in the forest, in and out of campfire smoke, skinning animals, getting blood on them, bathing seldom, if ever. Their smell was similar, but nowhere near this strong. I think the northerners were all, or almost all, human, maybe a little bit of something else in an ancestress back several generations.”

Arakny mused, “So if Ogres are the result of Giant-­Troll female breeding, could these be the result of Troll females bred by those northern men? And could they, looking into the past, be the result of some experimentation—­of which there seems to have been entirely too much!”

Precious Wind said, “Remembering what the child—­Needly—­said, can we assume this one went somewhere to meet with another one? During the time before he came back, drunk, and shot Willum? Could he have spoken with someone from Sybbis's camp?”

There was a moment of half-­whispered babble. Abasio bowed his head in thought. “Sybbis was at your encampment. Right? Last night. Was the person she called a Gar there with her?”

There were murmurs, heads shaken. None of them had gone near the ganger camp.

Precious Wind murmured, “My map shows just one unpleasantly rocky ridge that extends between the Catland road and the Findem Pass road from their junction all the way up into the mountains. We're facing the south side of it here, and it's not far across. It's difficult terrain, but it's no real distance to speak of. I think it's possible this one could have crossed the ridge and met with someone from Catland.” She shook her head in frustration. “I left my genetic analysis equipment in Artemisia, Abasio. I need to take samples from this body . . .”

“Let's simply move the whole carcass,” Abasio countered. “Someone may come looking for it. I'd as soon nothing was found here. Its kinfolk may be vengeful.” Though heaven only knew what its kinfolk might be!