Artemis Awakening (2 page)

The landslide poured over Griffin, scouring his exposed skin, blinding and half-smothering him, causing him to gasp and wheeze as he struggled against being carried away by the terrible stream that flowed over him.

The cascade was beginning to subside to a trickle when Griffin became aware that the rope was pulling from his fingers, burning the tender skin of his palms. Almost too late, he realized that his yet unseen rescuer was attempting to haul him up. Although his palms were raw and his fingers ached, Griffin clamped down and felt the rope tighten in reply.

A muffled cry of exultation rewarded his effort. The pulling became stronger. Inch by inch, Griffin was hauled from beneath the earthy debris. When his head broke the surface, he gasped for air. What he drew into his lungs was so full of dust and grit that he choked and coughed, but it was air.

The accented voice spoke again. “Hold tight. We’re going to start pulling again.”

Although his tortured hands protested, Griffin did as he was told. He was aware that any attempt on his part to kick or roll might restart the landslide. Even this slow tugging caused pebbles to trickle by, their rattle and hiss sounding like the warning of a venomous serpent.

When at long last the ground beneath him was stable, Griffin rolled to his feet. He was bruised all over and bleeding in several places. Nonetheless, he refused to give even the slightest wince. Although he was the odd scholar in a family of warriors, still he was a Dane of Sierra and he had his pride.

A Dane of Sierra who will need a miracle or two if he is ever to see Sierra again. Still, who ever said pride was a reasonable thing?

As soon as Griffin was certain his footing was secure, he located his rescuer. She stood beneath the trees higher up the slope, the rope that had saved him still caught in her hands. Griffin had expected a woman—the voice had told him that much—but he had not expected a woman anything like this one.

She was tall—perhaps a hand’s breadth shorter than he was, and he was counted a tall man. Her hair was the shining iridescent black of a raven’s wing, her eyes a deep amber gold. Both went well with skin tanned golden brown. She was attired in soft leather trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. Her feet were booted.

This woman was not lovely in the soft, drawing-room fashion Griffin had been taught to admire at the university, but was slimly elegant in the manner of one of those handmade knives his brother Siegfried collected.

Griffin thought his rescuer must be as deadly as a blade as well. At her waist was sheathed a hunting knife. Over one shoulder she wore a quiver holding grey-and-white-fletched arrows. Near to hand was the hunting bow that fired those arrows. She studied him quizzically, then began coiling her rope.

“Are you a seegnur?” she asked in her oddly accented Imperial. “I think you must be, for I have never seen a vessel like the one that you came from. Yet, there are tales of such vessels in the lore.”

Griffin considered. Her words held an archaic flavor, but he could understand most, all but the most crucial. What was a “seegnur”? It was not included in his language induction vocabulary. He decided on a partial answer.

“My name is Griffin Dane. I am very grateful for your aid. Without it, I fear I would now be dead.”

“Quite likely,” the woman agreed with dry practicality. “Your boat—I think that was some manner of boat?—is quite wrecked, yet I think it is made of harder stuff than flesh.”

“Wrecked?” Griffin repeated in disbelief.

He labored uphill so that he could see into the ravine. The shuttle had continued its slide in a nose-first, upside-down fashion. All but the stern was buried beneath a considerable amount of sand, gravel, and rock. A few trees, ripped from their roots by the force of the landslide, poked out of the debris, mute witnesses to the violence of the event.

“Well,” he said, “I’m certainly not getting it out of there.”

“Now that your vessel is broken, will you fly away then?” the woman asked. “The lore says the seegnur could fly.”

“I’m not sure what a ‘seegnur’ is,” Griffin admitted, “but if I am one, I certainly cannot fly.”

“Not all the seegnur could,” the woman said, and Griffin realized her words were meant to be comforting.

He forced himself to look away from the wreck of his shuttle. The woman had seated herself on a rocky outcropping large enough that the mountain itself would need fall away before it went anywhere. The puma had reappeared and was resting its head in her lap. Griffin estimated that the creature was something like nine feet long from nose tip to tail tip, a formidable animal indeed. He also noticed that it wore a series of copper hoop earrings in one rounded ear.

“You are Griffin Dane,” the woman said. “I am Adara the Huntress. This is Sand Shadow. She apologizes for frightening you before, but she did not expect the shell of your vessel to open in that manner.”

The way in which Adara said “the huntress” made quite clear this was a title, not a merely a professional designation. Here was someone who, at least in her own assessment, was a person of importance. Griffin bowed slightly from the waist, rope-burned hands pressed against his thighs.

“I am pleased to meet you,” he said. He noticed the puma’s ears flickering back and added quickly, “And Sand Shadow as well.”

The puma’s eyes narrowed, but in the relaxed manner of a cat well pleased rather than in annoyance.

Does she understand me then?
Griffin thought.
I remember tales that some of the animals on Artemis were genetically engineered so that they might provide a greater challenge. Could this be one of their descendants?

He longed to ask but decided against it, at least not until he knew these two better. They were his only hope of survival and he dared not offend them.

“Adara the Huntress,” Griffin said, “my ship may indeed be wrecked, but I believe I can get back inside it and retrieve a few things that would be useful. I already owe you my life. May I impose upon you for further assistance?”

Adara looked at him and her dark amber eyes crinkled in a smile of appreciation.

“You speak very prettily, seegnur,” she said, “but I think both courtesy and request come from the heart. We will help you. Let us wait to make certain the landslide is well and truly ended. Meanwhile, I can take you to a stream that runs with clean water and offer a cut from a somewhat lean but still quite tasty haunch of venison.”

“I will accept your kind hospitality, lady.”

Feeling the ache of his stiffening muscles, Griffin toiled up the slope to join his rescuer. Then he followed Adara and Sand Shadow a short way to where a south-facing hollow sheltered a pocket-sized mountain meadow. The promised stream splashed and gurgled along one edge, pooling at the lowest point before overflowing and continuing its way down.

“I will fetch the venison,” Adara said. “Sand Shadow will guard you while you bathe, lest some wandering creature decide you may be edible after the dirt comes off.”

She chuckled as she vanished into the shadowed pines. The puma settled into a sunny patch of thick grass and yawned, once again displaying a magnificent array of fangs.

Griffin contemplated the pool. Although the sun was pleasantly warm, he knew that this high up the water would be very, very cold. However, there was no avoiding this bath. He was filthy, and Adara the Huntress did not look like someone who would respect a request for heated bath water.

Though in the days of old,
he speculated as he peeled off his coverall,
certainly hot springs or such would have been available. The Imperials—I wonder if that is what Adara means by “seegnur”—liked their comforts. Of course, if the springs were artificially heated, they would now run cold.

Griffin thought of his shuttle as he had last seen it, mostly buried beneath dirt and rock. If he could get into it, he could retrieve a comm unit and contact his orbiting ship, but what if he couldn’t get in? As Griffin stepped into the stream, the cold water was not the only thing that made him shiver.

*   *   *

When Adara returned, she found Griffin Dane much cleaner, although his hair was still dripping wet and his lips were blue with cold. For the first time, she got a good look at his attire unsmudged by debris. This proved to be a one-piece garment, colored two-toned green. Although it had been through a landslide, it showed not a single rip or tear, nor even as particularly dirty.

More evidence,
she thought to herself,
that Griffin Dane is a seegnur, even though he does not seem to know the word.

The twitch of Sand Shadow’s ears and flick of her tail told Adara that the puma had found the man’s bathing quite amusing. Images of Griffin combined with those of a fluffed and splashing robin showed the determined fashion with which the man had tackled the icy plunge.

Adara chuffed at the cat.
You might have offered to dry him.

He would have died of fright.

Adara considered, then thought apologies.
You’re right.
She turned to Griffin Dane.

“I have a towel you can use to dry your hair,” she offered. “I’ll make a fire. Sand Shadow should have done so, seeing how cold you are.”

Griffin Dane accepted the cloth gratefully and immediately began to tousle the darkened gold of his wet curls.

“Sand Shadow should have made a fire?” He looked about for the puma.

“She has gone to get some wood,” Adara said, scraping the ground clear and arranging a circle of river rock around it. Next she used flint and steel to strike sparks into the dry pine punk she shook from a small bag on her belt. “Something she could have done before. Like all cats, Sand Shadow goes from activity to purest indolence with great speed and enthusiasm.”

“Oh?” Griffin said.

His tone invited Adara to say more, but she ignored the hint. She wanted to know why, after so many generations—Bruin said that something like five hundred years had passed—a seegnur had returned to Artemis. She wanted to know what had brought this Griffin Dane here. The lore had always been mixed regarding the seegnur. Some tales presented them as wise and talented. Some as grasping and cruel. This seegnur seemed neither wise nor particularly talented—although he had shown courage. Nor did he seem cruel.

Still, Griffin Dane might be minding his manners because he needed her aid. Best to wait and watch and learn. Was he alone? Part of a larger excursion party?

Adara fed her flickering flame with dry grass, then a handful of twigs broken from a scrub oak near at hand. She saw Griffin Dane move to the fringe of the hollow, carefully concealing the stiffness of his battered body. When he returned, he brought with him a dried pine bough.

“Will this help?” he asked.

She smiled up at him. “It will. I wonder where that lazy puma has gone?”

“I could go look for him,” Griffin Dane offered. Adara admired his offer, because Sand Shadow was right. Griffin Dane was afraid of the great cat. “Or I could mind the fire so you can look for him.”

“Her,” Adara said. “Sand Shadow is female. I think she will call if she needs help but, if she continues slow, I may take you up on that kind offer. In the meantime, are you injured? I have an ointment that is very good for bruises.”

She saw Griffin Dane consider denying his injuries, saw, too, that he ruled this to be stupid bravado. Faces and bodies were like game trails. The signs were subtle, but could be read by one who learned the marks.

Bruin, who had been Adara’s teacher, had made certain that Adara learned how to read those marks.

“Too often,” Bruin had said, “those born to hunt believe they know what destiny has shaped them to be. They refuse to learn more. I think otherwise. One cannot hunt forever.”

Those lessons had been a trial, with none of the joy in them that Adara felt when tracking or drawing a bow, but Bruin had been right. The best hunters ranged through wide areas that touched upon many settlements. Knowing how to read those one might meet only once or twice a season was a good thing.

“Yes,” Griffin Dane said. “I would appreciate a share of your ointment. My coverall protected most of me from cuts and scrapes, but I am one massive bruise.”

Adara dug into her pack and came out with two squat pottery jars. “Rub this first ointment anywhere but open wounds. For the rest, use this second ointment. If you wish, I can anoint your back.”

Again the hesitation, then somewhat awkwardly, “That would be very kind.”

At that moment, Sand Shadow returned. The puma had found a nice bit of seasoned scrub oak and had broken off enough to make two neat bundles. These she had slung over her back. Now she pranced into the hollow, pleased as a house cat who had caught a mouse.

Griffin Dane, caught in the act of peeling down the upper portion of his coverall, froze in midmotion.

“Do you have another companion, then?” he asked.

“No,” Adara replied, enjoying his confusion. “Why do you think that?”

“But if no other companion, who loaded the wood onto the puma’s back?”

“She did it herself,” Adara said. “Admittedly, she’s more skilled than many, but haven’t you seen an adapted creature before? The lore says that the seegnur themselves created them.”

She stopped herself before repeating what Bruin had speculated, that the adapted had continued to change in the years since the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines.

“I have not,” Griffin Dane said. “Our history—what I suppose you might call our ‘lore’—tells of such things, but the manner of creating such was lost in the great war.”

Adara had the feeling that Griffin Dane was not saying everything he might, but did not press.

“Do you have any companions with you? You have shown no anxiety such as you might if someone was trapped within your vessel, but what about elsewhere?”

Griffin Dane stood with the upper portion of his coverall hanging loose around his waist, leaving his upper body bare. If he hadn’t been so badly battered, he would have been an admirable sight, well muscled, with a light down of chest hair. Now, however, he was marked in shades of red, many of these turning the darker purple of deep bruises.