Great Sky Woman (28 page)

One or the other of them would die this day.

The Mk*tk spun, arms wide, eyes bloodshot and lips pulled back from his mouth exposing great, flat, thick, yellowed teeth. Shrieking challenge, it charged him.

Frog stood his ground for a breath and then jabbed his second spear at the left ribs, wove out of the path of a grasping arm and jabbed at the right, swift enough to nick the Mk*tk, but almost slow enough to be grabbed as his foe clawed for him. The Mk*tk wrenched the spear from Frog’s grasp, spit on it, then cast it aside.

Frog ran for his life.

Twice the Mk*tk’s fingers scraped the back of Frog’s neck, but the boy twisted this way and that, and he managed to stay ahead. Never had he run so! On and on he went, through reeds and rushes, across open and bushy plain, arms and legs pumping, the Mk*tk roaring in pursuit, barely ten paces back. His heart threatened to burst, his lungs burned as if he had swallowed fire, but he never slowed. At last the giant began to drop back, and Frog knew that the wound was finally weakening him. Perhaps the poison was beginning to work as well. But Frog was almost exhausted and had run out of clear ground: the Mk*tk had trapped him against a tumble of boulders and spikey wait-a-bit bushes. The giant scrambled up over the rocks after him, his eyes burning in the waning daylight.

Then Frog was cornered, and the Mk*tk’s hands were upon him, hissing as Frog slashed at him with his knife, tearing at the boy with fingers so strong they ripped at his arms and thighs like an animal’s claws.

Frog stabbed again, angling his blade at the heart, and
now
the Mk*tk screamed, a terrible sound. Despite the pain and the weakness from the wounds, the Mk*tk’s mighty fingers closed on Frog’s arm, crushing muscle against bone. Frog screamed and leaned in, pulling down, working the knife side to side. The Mk*tk caught him a bone-cracking blow with the side of a balled, giant fist. Frog felt as if Father Mountain had fallen on him.

He was thrown to the side. Frog hit the ground and rolled as much as he could, but the breath had still been slammed out of him.

The Mk*tk pawed at the knife buried in his side, and screamed more words Frog could not understand. The giant tried to pull the weapon out but his hands were slippery with blood, and couldn’t secure enough of a grip. For the first time a real expression of pain and dismay creased his flat, blunt features. He coughed, a thick bright red bubble blossoming at the corner of his mouth. He wiped at it, glaring at the crimsoned palm with a confused expression. Again the Mk*tk wrenched at the knife, for a moment turning his back on the young hunter almost as if he had forgotten Frog was there.

Frog jumped onto that broad back, twining his arms around his enemy’s neck, raking at the eyes with splayed fingers. The strength in the Mk*tk’s body staggered and disheartened him. He was unyielding, unbending. Nothing Frog did seemed to make any difference at all. The fact that he was wounded and stunned, stabbed, smashed in the head with a rock, and poisoned…all of that, and this much power remained? Was this a man at all?

Then the Mk*tk fell backward, his weight almost crushing Frog. Frog screamed and pulled the knife from the Mk*tk’s side, slashing at the bigger man’s throat, sawing and tearing until thick, hot, salty blood spurted and flowed back into Frog’s eyes and mouth. He gagged, fought his own stomach’s spasms and held on. For a moment the struggles grew more violent, hammering Frog back against the ground so that he feared he would lose consciousness.

Frog’s ears were filled with a roaring sound. The Mk*tk’s screams? His own? To the end of his days he could not have said.

And then…the giant was still.

It took Frog almost as long to push his way from underneath the Mk*tk as it had taken to kill him. Covered with gore, he stared at the bloody corpse, unable to believe that he himself was actually alive.

He stopped shaking, suddenly understanding the implications.

He was alive. And the Mk*tk was dead.

Frog Hopping had slain his first man.

Chapter Thirty-four

Heart pounding, Frog sawed off the Mk*tk’s hairy ear, then found his way back through the brush to the nameless one. Every step was agonizing. What manner of creature had he slain? Fire Ant had been right to creep away. Survival against such a foe was victory in itself.

T’Cori was crouched shivering in the darkness. She groped around her, unable to see.

“Frog?” she gasped.

“It’s me.” His chest still heaved. How strange: to be exultant and nauseated at the same time. His kill had been a man, not a four-legged. Somehow, it was different.

“What happened?”

“There was only one of them.”

“And?” she asked.

“I live. He does not.”

She threw her arms around Frog and tried to press her mouth against his face. Embarrassed, he pried her away. “It’s late,” he said. “We can camp here.”

And so they did.

Frog decided not to summon a fire. If the Mk*tks found their cousin’s body, they might be raised to a fever pitch of rage. Did such beasts love one another? Did they play? Would they seek revenge? It was hard to put his mind into theirs, to imagine what thoughts and feelings they might have.

As they rested the girl clung to him for warmth. And more than warmth. Late in the night, after he thought she had fallen asleep, she began to circle her hips against his buttocks. “Ibandi man,” she whispered, lips close against his ear. “I would have you, if you want me.”

Although his root was growing more interested by the breath, Frog drew back. Fawn had sexed Frog. Fawn was dead.

“It is not done. You are mountain daughters.”

“The Mk*tk made me one of their women,” she said, her voice pinched. “Your seed can make me Ibandi once again.”

The southern men had satisfied their hungers with her, and now she begged Frog to sex her. Did the dancers’ secret teachings say that would make her part of the great Circle again?

Regardless, he could not do it. It was not safe, not seemly to sex with her at such a time. The entire situation confused him, and confusion at such a time was an invitation to disaster.

But still, his belly was warm to her. “You are a dream dancer,” he said. “You have courage and strength.”

Sullen at the rejection, she pulled away. “No man will ever want me.”

“You are a mountain daughter,” he reminded her.

She lowered her eyes. “Great Mother is ashamed of me.”

“Father Mountain loves courage,” he said. “Doesn’t Great Mother as well?” And although he stuck with his decision not to share sex with her, he held her close until morning, and that much, at least, was good.

He was glad, though, that her fingers did not stray to feel his root, which was now fully awake. Regardless of the decisions he had made, it had its own notions of right and wrong.

The next day brought more walking. T’Cori and Frog reached a place where he could climb high and look in all directions. The wind was sweet-smelling, and from their position they could spot winding game trails through the grass. Here and there and there, ibex and nyalas and bongos had made way in single file, blazing a path for their fellows.

There he waited for half a quarter, looking. No one. Nothing. He and the girl had been very careful with their footprints whenever possible, walking in water, on rocks, doubling back, wiping out their tracks. Frog used every trick that he knew or could invent, and at last was convinced that he had thrown their pursuers off the scent. Perhaps one escaped woman was not enough to motivate their enemies to follow them so deeply into Ibandi territory. But if the Mk*tk found their slain kinsman…?

At this point, they began to move with more confidence, trusting in speed to succeed where stealth might fail.

On the fourth day they reached a steep decline leading to a long, open stretch of savannah. He looked down, spotting an abandoned campsite. Frog was relieved to see that the method of arranging the fire pit looked more Ibandi than Mk*tk. They were nearer home.

They were forced to descend a steep ravine, where the rocks looked more secure than they actually were. Twice he slid and almost fell, catching himself, but T’Cori shamed him by descending with a lighter, surer foot. So her tiny stature was good for something after all!

At that thought, Frog lost his footing completely and fell, remembering his monkey rolls only at the last moment, contracting into a tight ball and thumping his way down the rest of the ravine. He was lucky not to have split his head on a rock!

He dusted himself off, peeking back to see if she was laughing. Her expression was nothing but concern, and he felt he had maintained sufficient dignity to continue on.

The camp looked childish, as if the camper lacked complete hunter skills. But then, what was he doing so far from any encampment, something that was usually reserved for the most experienced hunters?

Frog dug around the campsite with his spear’s blunt end, and found bones. They were human bones, and had been gnawed. Scraps of dried and twisted ligament and sun-cured skin bound the bones together. Not all of the bones were here. Some had been taken away, for ease of consumption elsewhere.

“What happened here?” the girl asked.

“Blood,” he said. “And fire.” Frog looked at his companion, wondering. Should she have foreseen this? He dug into the ashes and found a skull. He did not know skulls well enough to be certain, but he thought it was a bit small for an Ibandi hunter. The back of the skull was cracked, as if someone had struck it from behind, he thought.

Running from a foe? Wrestled to the ground and pounded with a rock?

“Recent?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“No,” he replied. “The bones are bleached. For many moons. Someone camped here. At first I thought it was Ibandi, but now I am not certain. A young Mk*tk, perhaps.”

She shook her head, pointing. “Not Other,” she said. “Not Mk*tk. They make their fires on level ground; they do not dig pits.”

Frog squatted. “This is dug,” he said. “Not well, but…smart.” He set the skull down and pointed. “See the windbreak? This one watched and learned. He did not know, but he thought.” Frog looked even more carefully, walking around the bones, feeling a certain degree of respect for the unknown hunter.

“He was afraid,” she said.

“He?”

“Women are taught to build fires with the rocks in a broken circle. This is a man’s fire.”

“Ah,” he said. “And how do you know he was afraid?”

T’Cori closed her eyes and spoke softly. “He was staring out into the savannah as he made this. He wasn’t careful to make a circle. It was as if he built it only to protect himself, with the rock at his back.”

“How can you see that?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It seems obvious.”

“Well, it didn’t work,” he said. After he examined the site a bit more, Frog added, “He was young.”

“Young?”

“Yes,” he said. Despite his fatigue, he was enjoying their talking together. It was unlike conversing with his brothers, Uncle Snake or even Break Spear. Something about the way she spoke made his own thoughts clearer. “The men teach basic knotting, but all elders have their own way. Only the children tie knots the exact way they are taught. This one didn’t have time to develop a knot of his own. He was young. And afraid.”

Frog peered more closely at the bones, studying. Then his mouth opened, and his spine flamed with utter horror.

“What is it?” she asked.

He could find no words.

“You knew him,” she said. It was not a question.

Frog killed the flash of emotion, shut it away deep inside, hoping she could not read his expression. She touched his arm, but he shook her hand off. “I have to bury him,” he said.

She opened her mouth as if about to speak, and then seemed to recognize something in his face. She remained quiet.

Surrounding Frog were the last vistas his old friend Lizard had ever seen. These dry rutted hills, endless fields of brown grass trees with spiky, jutting leaves. Had the dust devils danced for him, then, as they danced for Frog and the nameless one now?

If Father Mountain had been real, Frog might have cursed him.

“They might be close—” she began.

“We bury him,” he repeated, his voice like stone. Frog felt a pain in his gut, a sense of loss so intense that it frightened him. Always his heart had known Lizard was gone. But seeing his bones…

All the last few days’ dreadful events seemed to well up within him at once. Frog sank to his knees, unable to speak.

T’Cori knelt beside him, carefully taking the bones from his grasp. “He has new bones now,” she said. “He dances with his ancestors on Great Sky.”

How can you know? What if you’re wrong?
he wanted to say, but could not. In peering into her clear, placid face he seemed to find strength he’d not possessed a moment earlier. “Yes,” he whispered. “He has new bones.”

Together they clawed a trench in the earth, gathered what bones they could, and covered them with sand.

As Frog knelt, T’Cori danced and sang for Lizard. “Your bones are dry already,” she said. “So I know your flesh has made its way to Great Sky, there to dance with our fathers.”

Frog nodded. “I will see you again one day, my friend. And when I do,” he whispered, “you will tell me your tale.”

He stood, grateful to her, but unable to find the words to voice that gratitude. So instead of trying they continued on their way. And later, when Lizard’s death came back to him and the tears started from his eyes again, she took his hand, and they walked that way together for a time, in silence.

Frog found tracks the next day, spent tens of breaths examining the brush and studying three-toed aardvark and four-toed serval tracks near a stream, and for the first time since the burial T’Cori thought her protector seemed happy.

He carefully selected a wild fig tree, saying, “These branches are thick enough. Up!” and she followed his commands, climbing up into the makeshift blind.

From that secure place she watched as, through the afternoon, he used a flat rock to dig a pit, and his black obsidian knife to cut stakes to line the bottom.

“Can’t I help you?” she asked.

“No.” He panted, drank a bit of water from his gourd and offered her a sip. “I have to do this myself.”

Frog took the gourd back, slung it around his neck, and then wiggled his way into tall grass near the water hole, waiting.

Throughout the day flies buzzed, and little biting mites swarmed in the fig tree. Their jaws were large enough to irritate but not to draw blood. She examined them more closely. “Spice mites!” she said, and using her fingernail crushed one with a pleasure quite unbecoming for a dream dancer. “Stillshadow needs you for her fever brew. I will lead my sisters back to you. We will make soup,” she said. It was probably her imagination, but the mites bit her less frequently after that.

Three quarters passed before the boar appeared, snuffling toward the water. Suddenly, Frog sprang up hooting and waving his spear. The pig bolted blindly. At the edge of the pit it seemed to recognize its danger and clawed at the dirt for purchase, but slid in and tumbled down onto the stakes.

It squealed in agony, and had torn itself half free of the stakes when Frog jumped to the edge of the pit, spear in hand. He thrust down into the pit many times, and finally the boar stopped bellowing.

Frog puffed and strained and gasped as he rolled the boar’s pierced carcass out of the pit, but after he did, his lips curled in a broad smile.

Low white clouds boiled slowly above them. The wind whistled, rousing a tribe of dust-folk into their eternal dance. It was a good day, a very good day indeed.

He pulled the pig to a clean spot, and turned it over onto its back. He made the first cut at the sternum, at the center bottom of the rib cage.

He cut out the kidneys from against the backbone, cut off the eggs and root. Frog grinned at T’Cori as he hacked out the liver. “This is the best,” he said, and handed the gory chunk up to her. “Only the hunters get this,”

She took a tentative bite, then tore into it with relish, blood running down her chin and reddening her smile.

They wove vines to create strong, useful straps. Frog crossed branches to make a sled on which they mounted the boar. Then, their mood truly light for the first time since the burial of Lizard’s bones, they used the straps to drag the sled home to Fire boma.