Yuen-Mong's Revenge (11 page)

     
"Atun, come, we must hurry," she urged and started crossing the river
at a shallow angle.

     
"Just-a-second," he replied when he saw the golden glint in his hand.
He crouched and found another three. Looking over the river bed, he
suddenly saw hundreds of them. "Yuen-mong, wait! Wait! There’s gold,"
he shouted, looking down-river to see where she was. He just saw her
scale the bank. Confident that she would wait for him, as she had always
done so far, he stepped into the river and collected more until his vest
pocket was full. Then he started down-river too, although it was hard to
turn his back to all that gold.

     
He had hardly taken a dozen steps when he found his path blocked by
a horde of howling savages, some holding their clubs ready to strike. He
turned to retreat upriver and ran straight into another group. The last he
remembered was an excruciating pain at the back of his head and then
everything went black.

     
The first thing that entered his consciousness was a throbbing headache. The ground he was lying on was grinding into his back. The light
hurt his eyes and he closed them quickly. He tried to move into a more
comfortable position, but found his arms tied behind his head and pinned
down and so were his feet. For a moment he had no recollection of what
had happened, where he was, why he was tied up. Slowly, his memory
returned. He had crashed on Aros; he had been rescued by a woman, and
suddenly he saw again in his mind the glitter of gold nuggets in the river
and heard Yuen-mong’s urgent call "come! hurry!"

 
     
Why had he not heeded her call? She never did anything without good
reason and if she said ‘hurry’ she meant it. And now he was splayed out
on the ground, naked, captured by the savages. Had she not said that they
usually kill all males, unless they intend to offer them as a sacrifice to the
craws? Was this the reason he was splayed out like this?

     
In sudden panic, he opened his eyes to see where he was. He was in
a sizable oval clearing surrounded by broadleafs, with low rock outcrops
at one end. In fact, he was lying on bare rock. He heard voices behind
him and tried to turn his head. At the edge of his vision he saw three
men, the tallest one was wearing his clothing that was far too big for him.
The vest looked more like a coat and he must have shortened the pant
legs. On his head he wore his cap with its sun shield pointing backward.
He must be their leader, Atun concluded. The one facing him wore his
underpants. A short distance farther back was a group of about three
dozen men in loin cloths, armed with bows and arrows. Their faces and
bodies were painted in black and white stripes. They were attentively
looking at the three men next to him. Beyond them, spread out under the
canopy at the edge of the forest, women and children were milling
around, many pointing and looking at him. The women were also only
wearing loin cloths, several nursing infants on their undernourished
breasts. All the children went naked. Many of the women looked
pregnant.

     
When the one in his underpants noticed that he was awake, he too
pointed at him, and the three came right up. The leader opened his mouth
with a horrible grin, revealing yellowish teeth with both incisors missing
and began to talk to him in an unfamiliar language with softly voiced j’s
and sh’s. At the end he spit in his face and nicked him in the rips, just
enough to draw blood. The other two immediately copied him. This was
the signal for all the men to form a circle, each holding a bow in his left
hand and an arrow in his right at breast level. They stamped the ground
to the rhythm of a drum and the circle began to rotate around him. When
they had completed a full round, a second drum joined in and the men
started to hum softly. At each completion of another round, a new drum
entered and the hum rose both in loudness and pitch, until after half a
dozen full turns the roar was ear-shattering.

     
Atun closed his eyes. He knew that they had started the ritual for their
sacrifice. Was this to be his end? Would they deliver him alive to a craw?
Was this dance meant to attract a craw? Cold fear gripped him. He
strained against his ropes, thrashing around violently. The roar of the
savages changed into jubilant howling, and they circled around him at an
increasing pace. Suddenly one by one they separated from the circle and
ran through its middle, jumping over him, spitting in his face while at the
same time jabbing an arrow at him, nicking him. Soon his whole body
was covered by small bleeding nicks. And then the howling stopped. One
by one the drums became silent. At the end, the savages retreated under
the canopy, where the women served them drinks.

     
His whole body was in pain. He had reached a stage where he was
beyond caring, waiting for the craw’s shrill scream to answer the
savages’ call, hoping for the end to come fast. But no bird appeared, only
the burning sensation of his battered body a reminder that he was still
alive, that the ordeal was not over yet.

     
As the shadows grew, a glimmer of hope returned. Somewhere out
there he knew was Yuen-mong. He knew that if she saw any way, she
would come to free him. He desperately needed to cling to this hope.

* * *

Yuen-mong had sensed the disturbance of the savages for a while,
coming from the south, but not approaching. It felt like a big group,
broadcasting the kind of excitement when they returned from a successful
raiding party. But then suddenly, it seemed to converge on them. She
wanted to cross the Goldnugget River as fast as possible, so as to get into
the no-man’s-land and out of their reach.

     
She instantly knew it when Atun was not heeding her call to hurry, but
by that time it was too late for her to return. The savages were almost
upon them. So she loped away from the river, north back into the forest
and a short time later she heard the jubilant howling and could almost
feel the blow that blanked out Atun’s frightened emanations.

     
She stopped running and leaned against the trunk of a broadleaf, closing her eyes, listening intently to the minds of the savages and searching
for Atun’s.
Have they killed him?
She could not be sure.
Why did he fail
to heed my call? … Gold? What use is gold on Aros?
There she had
thought that he had learnt his lesson the day of the storm. He had been so
intent on learning all she could teach him, so cooperative ever since then.

     
Not a person to dwell long on the past or to regret what could have
been, except to learn from it, she turned her mind to what she should do
next. She knew that she was in no immediate danger from the savages.
They were going south again. After waiting for a while she returned to
where she had crossed the river. There was no sign of Atun. The only
indication of what happened was the trampled ground at the river’s edge
and the disturbed pebbles and sand in the river bed. She spotted a small
pile of gold nuggets — the place where Atun had been struck down.
What was his fascination with this shiny yellow metal that it had made
him willing to risk his life?

     
Since the savages had taken him along, he must still be alive. They
were going to offer him to the craws. A cold shiver ran up her spine. She
had saved him from one, but in the end they would get him anyway. She
knew that on Aros, few humans ended life peacefully, most had a violent
ending, starving to death, falling prey to a craw, devoured by the night
scavengers when they did not make it back to safe ground, killed by
savages, succumbing to injuries. Few died of diseases; they rarely
reached the age where diseases set in. But he was still too young for his
time to have come.

     
Should she attempt to save him again? A third time? Was it worth to
risk her own life for a foolish companion?
No, it is not,
her rational mind
told her.
You have tried, you have failed for no fault of yours.
If she got
underway promptly, she would easily reach her cave before nightfall. She
was about to cross back over the river, when she spotted the three rods
that Atun had been carrying, lying between boulders at the edge of the
river, where they had briefly stopped for a drink. She bundled them up
with her own.
He will not need them anymore.

     
This thought brought a sense of loss. It had been good to have company, to get help for tasks that were difficult to do alone, to share things,
to talk and discuss things, to learn more about other worlds, even if at
times she had the need to be alone which he had seemed to understand
and accept. It had been such fun to be silly this morning at sunrise,
talking to the echo.

     
But how could she get him away from the savages. Tomorrow at dawn
they would stake him out on the estuary, perform their hellish ritual of
bloodying his whole body and when the first rays of sun struck, they
would shrink back into the forest, chanting, and wait for the craw to
claim their sacrifice. How could she even consider confronting a whole
clan with thirty to forty able-bodied men, in their own camp? And if she
did, it would have to be done before nightfall so that they could make it
to the river and wait out the night in the water, or else they would become
food for the night scavengers. It was crazy. The fool was not worth
risking her own life. She could not blame herself for leaving him to the
savages, but still she hesitated to leave.
You have begun to like him,
she
mused, pondering that for a moment. It felt OK.

     
What she judged as a crazy, almost suicidal mission, turned into a
grim determination. Maybe the very audacity of it would be her strongest
weapon. She crossed over to the north side of the river and ate a hearty
meal. It might be her last for a while. She hid all her gear up a tree, out
of reach of the night scavengers, keeping only a pocket full of dried
sweetberries for instant energy, her knife, her bow and six arrows, as well
as her sling which served to hold her hair in a pony tail. At the river she
had another drink and then searched for half a dozen perfectly shaped
round rocks, about two inches in diameter, adding them to the three she
always carried in her vest. Thrown hard, they could incapacitate, even
knock out a savage, and kill at close range to the head.

     
Next, she cut the bark of a young broadleaf. It was hard work. When
the dark brown sap began to ooze out, she smeared it over her face, ears
and neck, and arms and hands. Like this no white would give her away.
She was ready.

     
It was easy to follow the trail left behind by the savages. There was no
need to hurry. Their camp was no more than four kilometers to the south.
She had scouted it out before, both for curiosity and to learn about their
habits. One never knew when it could become important. As she got
closer, she could sense the commotion of chaotic minds. They were
doing their first sacrifice ritual. As long as this was going on, everybody
would be in the camp and it was easiest to get into position then. She had
chosen a spot south of the camp, near the rock outcrop, away from the
creek where the savages got their water, reducing the risk of encountering
any women. Not that she thought they would give her away, not after she
had saved one of them from certain death a few years ago. They knew
that she would not harm them. The children were another story. They
might venture a short way from their camp in any direction, but she had
to take that chance.

     
From her vantage point, she could hear the drums and the infuriating
howling. She would have to wait until sunset before she could dare to
find out where Atun was kept. She expected him to be in the middle of
the clearing, where she had seen another man being prepared for the
sacrifice. She knew that he would already be hurt over all his body, but
was helpless to prevent it. The nicks would heal in time.

     
When the last rays of the sun had vanished beyond the trees, she crept
closer and scaled the far side of the dark gray rocks that gave a good view
over the camp. Women were already preparing the fires placed all around
the perimeter to keep away the night scavengers. She spotted Atun,
naked, tied down, where she had expected to find him, about two thirds
up the clearing, but well within the range of her arrows. He did not move,
but she could see him breathe. She estimated the distance to the other
side of the clearing. It was shorter, but it was also where all of the other
women and children congregated. Maybe going straight through them
was the best way to escape. She was certain they would not try to stop her
and that this would create the greatest confusion. It was also right in line
to the river.

     
Next she searched the men who were sitting on the ground to the left
of Atun. She immediately recognized the headman in Atun’s clothing. He
looked ridiculous. If she had ever seen a clown in her life, she would
have said he looked like one. She hoped he would stay out there,
parading in front of his men, showing off. He would be an easier target.
She withdrew her head again. It was still too early. She had to time it
such as to give them just enough time to reach the river before the night
scavengers emerged, but not enough for the savages to pursue them
because of these creatures. While waiting she searched the noise for
Atun’s mind. After a while she could discern the familiar pattern. It told
her that he was in pain, but there was also a sense of calm there. Was it
resignation?