A Beautiful Friendship-ARC (12 page)

The battering rain had already eased as the squall line passed through, and much of the wind’s strength had died away, as well. He was glad his two-leg had gotten down before the wind could knock it out of the tree, yet every instinct insisted that the ground was not a safe place to be. That was certainly true for the People, but perhaps the youngling had one of the weapons with which its elders sometimes slew the death fangs which threatened them. Climbs Quickly knew those weapons came in different shapes and sizes, but he’d never seen the small ones some two-legs carried, and so he had no way to tell if the youngling had one.

Yet even if it did, its injured condition would leave it in poor shape to defend itself, and it certainly couldn’t follow him up into the trees if danger threatened. Which meant it was time to scout around. If there
was
danger here, best he should know about it now. Once the young two-leg reawakened, it might have ideas about how to proceed; possibly it even had some way to let the other two-legs know where it was and summon them to its aid. Until then he would simply have to do the best he could on his own.

He turned away from the two-leg and began to circle it, moving out in an ever-widening spiral while nose and ears probed alertly. There was normally little undergrowth to obscure one’s line of sight under the thick canopy of the mature forest, but there was far more of it here in the old forest fire’s scar, where sunlight could reach the ground. Low-growing scrub and young trees—future giants like the one from which the two-leg had fallen—were beginning to reclaim the clearing, and even this early in the season, they were putting out thick coverings of new leaves. He could see little enough through that riotous explosion of green, but at least the rain had not been hard enough or fallen long enough to wipe away scents. Indeed, the moist air actually made them sharper and richer, and his muzzle wrinkled as he tested them.

But then, suddenly, he froze, whiskers stiff and fluffy tail flattened out to twice its normal width. He made himself take another long, careful scent, yet it was no more than a formality. No clan scout could
ever
mistake the smell of a death fang lair, and this one was close.

He turned slowly, working to fix the location clearly in his mind, and his heart fell. The scent came from the clearing, where the undergrowth would offer the lair’s owner maximum concealment when it returned and scented the two-leg. And it
would
return, he thought sinkingly, for he smelled something more now. The death fang was a female, and it had recently littered. That meant it must be out hunting food for its young . . . and that it would be back sooner rather than later.

Climbs Quickly stood a moment longer, then raced back to the two-leg. He touched its face with his muzzle, willing it to awaken with all his might, but there was no response. It would wake when it woke, he realized. Nothing he did would speed that moment, and that left but one thing he
could
do.

He sat upright on his four rearmost limbs, curling his tail neatly about his true-feet and hand-feet, and composed his thought carefully. Then he sent it soaring out through the dripping forest. He shaped and drove it with all the urgency in him, crying out to his sister, and somehow his link to the two-leg lent his call additional strength.

Even from here he tasted the shock in Sings Truly’s mind-voice.

Climbs Quickly replied as calmly as he could, and felt a surge of astonishment from his sister. No one from Bright Water Clan would soon forget the terrible day Sun Shadow Clan had lost control of the fire and seen its entire central nesting place—and all too many of its kittens—consumed in dreadful flame and smoke.

she demanded.
there?>

Climbs Quickly paused, then drew a deep breath.

Sings Truly knew her brother well, and the oddness in his reply was obvious to her. But so was the unusual strength and clarity of his mind-voice. He’d always had a strong voice for a male, but today he reached almost to the strength of a memory singer, and she wondered how he’d done it. Some scouts and hunters gained far stronger voices when they mated, as if their mates’ minds somehow harmonized with theirs at need, but that couldn’t explain Climbs Quickly’s new power. Yet those thoughts were but a fleeting background for the chill horror she felt at the thought of any injured youngling trapped so near a death fang.

She started to reply once more, then stopped, tail kinking and ears cocking in sudden consternation and suspicion. No, surely not. Not even Climbs Quickly would dare
that.
Not after the way the clan elders had berated him! Yet try as she might, she could think of no way any Brightwater youngling would have strayed so far, and no other clan’s range bordered on the fire scar. And Climbs Quickly had named no names, had he? But—

She shook herself. There was, of course, one way to satisfy her curiosity. All she had to do was ask . . . but if she did, then she would know her brother was violating the edicts of his clan heads. If she didn’t ask, she could only suspect—not
know—
and so she kept that particular question to herself and asked another.

he replied, sending a burst of gratitude and love with the words. He knew what she’d considered, and her choice of question told him what she’d decided.

Sings Truly’s flat statement was a question, and he flicked his tail in agreement even though she could not see it.

he returned simply, and felt her hesitation. But then her answer came.

she said with equal simplicity—and the unquestionable authority of a memory singer.

* * *

Stephanie Harrington awoke once more. A weak, pain-filled sound leaked from her—less words than the mew of an injured kitten—and her eyelids fluttered. She started to sit up, and her mew became a breathless, involuntary scream as her weight shifted on her broken arm. The sudden agony was literally blinding, and she screwed her eyes shut once more, sobbing with hurt as she made herself sit up anyway. Nausea knotted her stomach as the anguish in her arm and shoulder and broken rib vibrated through her, and she sat very still, as if the pain were some sort of hunting predator from whom she could hide until it passed her by.

But the pain didn’t pass her by. It only eased a bit, and she blinked on tears, scrubbing her face with her good hand and sniffling as she smeared mud and the blood from her mashed nose across her cheeks. She didn’t need to move to know she’d smashed her knee, as well as her bad arm, and she felt herself shuddering, quivering like a leaf as hopelessness and pain crushed down on her. The immediacy of the need to get out of the tree had helped carry her to this point, but she was on the ground now. That gave her time to think—and feel.

Fresh, hot tears brimmed, dripping down her face, and she whined as she made herself gather her left wrist in her right hand and lifted it into her lap. Just moving it twisted her with torment—she wasn’t sure whether she’d broken it in yet a third place or not—but she couldn’t leave it hanging down beside her like it belonged to someone else. She thought about using her belt to fasten it to her side, but she couldn’t find the energy—or the courage—to move that shattered bone again. It was too much for her. Now that the immediate crisis was over, she knew how much she hurt. She knew how totally lost she was, how desperately she wanted—needed—her parents to come take her home. How
stupid
she’d been to get herself into this mess . . . and how very little she could do to get herself
out
of it.

She huddled there at the foot of the tree, crying hopelessly for her mother and father. The world had proved bigger and more dangerous than she’d ever quite believed, and she wanted them to come find her. No scold they could give her, however ferocious, could match the one she gave herself, and she whimpered as the sobs she couldn’t stop shook her broken arm and sent fresh, vicious stabs of pain through her.

But then she felt a light pressure on her right thigh and blinked furiously to clear her eyes. She looked down, and the treecat looked back. He stood beside her, one hand resting on her leg, his ears flattened with concern, and she heard—and felt—his soft, comforting croon. She gazed down at him for a moment, her mouth quivering in exhaustion, despair, pain, and physical shock. And then she held out her good arm to him, and he didn’t even hesitate. He flowed up her leg to stand on his rearmost limbs in her lap and place his hands—those strong, wiry, long-fingered hands with those carefully sheathed claws—on either side of her neck. He pressed his whiskered muzzle to her cheek, the power of his croon quivering through him as if he were a dynamo, and she locked her right arm around him. She held him close, almost crushing him, and buried her face in the dampness of his soft, outer fur, sobbing as if her heart would break. And even as she wept, she felt him somehow taking the worst hurt, the worst despair and helplessness, from her.

* * *

Climbs Quickly accepted the two-leg’s tight embrace.

People’s eyes didn’t shed water as the two-leg’s did, but only the mind-blind could possibly have mistaken the grief and fear and pain in the youngling’s mind-glow, and he felt a vast surge of protective tenderness for it. For
her
, he realized now, though he wasn’t quite certain how he knew. Perhaps it was just that he was becoming more accustomed to the taste of her mind-glow. One could almost always tell whether one of the People was male or female from no more than that, after all. Of course, this youngling was totally unlike the People, but still—

He pressed more firmly against her, stroking her cheek with his muzzle and patting her good shoulder with his left true-hand while he settled more deeply into fusion with her. It wasn’t as it would have been with another of his own kind, for she was unable to anchor the fusion properly from her end. But it was enough to let him draw off the worst of her despair. He felt the burden of her fear and pain ease and sensed her surprised awareness that he was somehow responsible, and a deep buzzing purr replaced his croon. He nudged her cheek more firmly, then pulled back just far enough to touch his nose to hers. He stared deep into her eyes, and her good hand caressed his ears. She said something—another of those mouth-sounds which so far meant nothing—but he felt her gratitude and knew the meaningless sounds thanked him for being there.

She leaned back against the tree, easing her broken arm carefully, and he settled down in her lap, wishing with what he hoped was concealed desperation that there was some way to get her away from this place. He knew she remained confused and frightened, and he had no desire to undo all the soothing he’d achieved, yet the scent of the death fang seemed to clog his nostrils. If not for her injured knee, he would have done his best to get her on her feet despite her broken arm. But the tough covering she wore over her legs had torn when she hit the ground, and the knee under it was swollen and purpling around a deep, obviously painful gash. He didn’t know if it was actually broken, but he needed no link to know she could move neither fast nor far, and he turned his mind once more towards his sister.

he asked urgently, and her reply astonished him.

<
We
come,>
Sings Truly repeated with unmistakable emphasis, and he blinked. Surely she didn’t mean—?

But then she sent him a brief burst of her own vision, and he realized she did. She was leading every male adult of the clan herself. A
memory singer
was leading the clan’s fighting strength into battle with a death fang! That wasn’t merely unheard of—it was
unthinkable
. Yet it was happening, and he poured a flood of gratitude towards her.

she told him dryly.
you
from Broken Tooth and Digger . . . or Song Spinner! Now leave me in peace, Climbs Quickly. I cannot run properly with you nattering at me.>

He pulled in his thought, basking in his sister’s love and trying not to think about the implications of her warning. From the glimpse he’d shared through her eyes, she and the others were making excellent speed. They would be here soon, and only a very stupid death fang would risk attacking anything with an entire clan of People perched protectively in the trees above it. It would not be long until—

* * *

Stephanie had fallen into a half-doze, leaning back against the tree. But her head snapped up instantly as the treecat came to his feet in her lap with a harsh, rippling sound like shredding canvas. She’d never heard anything like it, yet she knew instantly what it meant. It was as if the link between them transmitted that meaning to her, and she felt his fear and fury . . . and fierce determination to protect her.

She looked around wildly, trying to find the danger, then gasped, eyes huge in a parchment face, as the hexapuma flowed out of the undergrowth like a great, six-legged shadow of death. It was five meters long, black as night, with its coat seamed with the scars of old combats, and it must have weighed six or seven hundred kilos—as much as a good-sized Old Earth horse. Its lips wrinkled back, baring bone-white canines at least fifteen centimeters long, and its ears flattened as it sent its own rippling snarl—this one voiced in basso thunder—to meet the treecat’s.

Terror froze Stephanie, but the treecat leapt from her lap. He sprang up onto a low-growing limb and crouched there, threatening his gargantuan foe from above, and his claws were no longer sheathed. For some reason, the hexapuma hesitated, twisting its head around them staring up at the trees, almost as if it were afraid of something. But that couldn’t last, and she knew it.