Earthfall (Homecoming) (24 page)

Those feet.

Zdorab knew enough to hold his tongue. Young Yasai, alas, did not. “Oykib was right,” he blurted out. “No way did those feet make those footprints back in the village.”

Elemak turned slowly toward him. “So maybe it wasn’t this
thing
that made the prints. Do you think I didn’t know that was a possibility? The fact remains that this fellow was the lookout for the kidnappers. If he doesn’t have Zhivya, he knows where she is.” Elemak took a step downward, toward the creature.

Almost at once, the creature stopped, and then did the most extraordinary thing. He reached down and took from his foot a small number of stalks of grain that he had been holding. Then he laid them down in the grass, making a great show of each one, as if counting them out. When they were all laid out, the creature took a step backward.

“That’s grain from our field,” said Obring.

“Did you just realize that?” asked Vas.

“Does it matter?” asked Meb.

“He thinks that’s why we came up here,” said Padarok, Zdorab’s own son. “Because he stole our grain. He’s giving it back.”

“And when did you become an expert on overgrown bats?” asked Elemak.

“It makes sense,” said Padarok stubbornly.

Zdorab waved a hand at him, trying to get him to shut up.

“No, I won’t shut up, Father. This whole thing is ludicrous. The angel took some grain from the field and he doesn’t know a thing about Zhivya. If somebody had stopped to give this any thought at all, we wouldn’t have spent all night climbing a mountain in pursuit of an innocent man.”

Elemak’s hands snapped out and seized Padarok by the head. Like his father, Padarok had not grown into a very tall man, and he was slight of build. He looked like a puppet in Elemak’s massive grasp. “Man?” Elemak demanded. “You call that
thing
a
man
?”

“Figure of speech,” Padarok murmured.

“That
man
, as you call him, knows where my daughter is!” With those words Elemak shook Padarok. His whole body went limp. For a moment Zdorab feared that the shaking had done brain damage, had perhaps even killed him. And even though Padarok’s eyes immediately fluttered open and he moved his limbs, the hot rage that surged inside Zdorab did not fade. To his own surprised, Zdorab found himself in the odd position of holding a scythe over Elemak’s shoulders and neck, saying to him the most unbelievable words. “Let go of my son,” he said. “Now.”

Elemak turned slowly and regarded Zdorab with lizard eyes. “And if I don’t, will you cut off my arms?”

“Only if I miss your neck,” said Zdorab.

Elemak let go of Padarok. “Don’t threaten me, Zdorab. Even if
you’ve
forgotten who our enemy is,
I
haven’t.” With a quick movement Elemak snatched the scythe out of Zdorab’s hands, so quickly that Zdorab could barely register that it had happened. For a moment Elemak stood there, the scythe poised, and Zdorab wasn’t sure whether Elemak meant to strike him or his son. But then he cast the scythe to the ground and strode to where the creature waited.

The poor thing visibly wilted under the head of Elemak’s fierce glare, but it stood its ground. Elemak reached out a foot and ground the stalks of grain into the muddy grass. “I don’t care about the grain,” he said. Then he reached down and snatched the creature up by one arm. “Where’s my daughter!” he bellowed.

“What language do you expect him to answer in?” said Padarok scornfully. “Or should he draw you a map in midair?”

Please, don’t goad him, don’t provoke him, Rokya; Zdorab thought the words but didn’t say them. Because he was also proud. He had spent his life bowing to men like this, so they wouldn’t hurt him. But his son did not bow. He might have inherited my height, thought Zdorab, but he has his mother’s spine.

Elemak’s answer was to roar in rage, and as he did, he snapped the creature like a whip. Zdorab saw, to his horror, that in Elemak’s grip the poor thing was like a brittle stick. He could see its arm break on both sides of Elemak’s grip, and at the same time both wings tore and began to bleed, while every joint seemed to have bent the wrong way and now could not get back. The creature screamed once and then fell silent, hanging limp and broken in Elemak’s hands.

“My my my,” said Meb. “Fellow doesn’t know his own strength sometimes.”

“Good work,” said Padarok. “Now that he’s dead, he’ll make a great guide.”

Elemak hurled the broken animal away from him. It struck the trunk of a tree and stuck there for a moment, then dropped lifelessly to the ground. “Where is my daughter!” Elemak shouted. “They’ve taken my daughter!”

His rage was so terrible that they all backed away from him, just a step, but it made their fear plain. Except Padarok.
He
didn’t back away.

And that meant that he would be the one to bear the brunt of Elemak’s helpless fury. Already Elemak was glaring at him.

So, again without thinking, Zdorab stepped forward. “We’re going back down now, Elemak. We all tried. But there’s no way we can find her, if she’s up here. If breaking and killing a helpless little creature will make you feel better, then you’ve done it. You don’t have to kill or break anything else.”

He could see Elemak visibly pull himself back under control.

“I’ll never forgive you for saying that,” Elemak said.

“There’s not a soul here that you haven’t promised, one time or another, never to forgive,” said Zdorab. “But we forgive
you
, Elemak. We all have children. It could have been any one of us. If we could bring her back to you, we would.”

“If you could bring her back to me,” said Elemak, “I would be your willing servant forever.” Then he stalked off, over the saddle, and down into the canyon.

Obring and Meb followed him immediately, but both paused as they passed Zdorab. “Who would have thought the little pizdoon had some spunk in him after all,” Obring said, laughing derisively.

“You keep
this
up,” said Meb, “and someday, who knows? You might actually get a hard-on. Then you’ll be half a man.” He patted Zdorab on the head and followed Obring and Elemak down.

Padarok came to Zdorab and hugged him. “Thank you, Father. I thought he was going to break my neck.”

“We saw what he wanted to do to
you
, Rokya,” said Zdorab, “because he did it to the angel.”

Then, from down by the tree where Elemak had flung the poor creature, Yasai called out. “He’s not dead!”

“Then maybe we should kill it to put it out of its misery,” suggested Zhatva, Nafai’s eldest son. They all gathered around the creature.

“This isn’t a dog,” said Yasai. “Oykib said he was sentient. A person, not a beast. Shedemei will be able to heal him if it can be done at all.”

The creature kept slowly blinking one eye.

“Are you sure that’s not a reflex?” asked Xodhya.

Yasai was peeling off his shirt. “Help me lift him onto this,” he said. “Without breaking his neck.”

“It’s already broken,” said Motiga helpfully.

“But maybe the spinal column isn’t severed.” Then Yasai whistled in surprise. “He’s so light.”

“It hurts him,” said Vas. “He’s closing his eyes in pain.”

“But not complaining,” said Zdorab. “He bears his suffering well.”

“Yeah, a real man,” said Zhatva. But there was little mockery in his voice. The creature was to be admired.

“What if Elemak sees that we’re carrying him?” asked Motya.

“I hope he does,” said Padarok. “This creature wasn’t threatening him in any way, and look what he did. Even if it had
been
a dog….”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Four of them took up the four corners of the shirt. The others carried their lanterns, and they began the slow journey down the canyon.

Eiadh heard the glad shouting of the children and knew that Elemak and the men who were with him had finally come back down from their night’s search. No doubt Elya would be exhausted and a bit frustrated that his search was in vain. But when he saw Zhivya, that would make up for everything.

Zhivya, perhaps worn out from yesterday’s excitement, was taking a late morning nap. Eiadh picked her up carefully; the baby stirred but did not wake. Eiadh’s one worry now was that she might remember something from the experience. She was old enough to toddle around now, but surely not old enough for memories to linger. There should be no nightmares of diggers looming over her crib or of journeys through long dark tunnels. There was nothing to worry about now.

Zhivya woke up as Eiadh carried her along toward the village’s edge. There was Elemak, tall and strong—for all his flaws, a fine man, a powerful figure. Eiadh remembered again why she had fallen in love with him, back when she was a foolish shallow girl in Basilica. True, he had proven not to have the self-control and the selflessness that she admired in some of the other men, and his temper meant that she and the children had to tread carefully at home. But he was her husband, and she wasn’t unhappy about that. Not today, not with their daughter rescued from the monsters of the underground.

As she approached, she could see that Volemak was telling him what had happened; as they spoke, Volemak cast his gaze toward her, and Elemak looked also, seeing that she had the baby. Elemak smiled at her. It could have been a bit more enthusiastic, but he was tired.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. Yasai, Rokya, Xodhya, and Zhyat were carrying something in a shirt—Yasai’s, no doubt, since he was barechested. Volemak directed them toward the ship, where Shedemei was studying the digger hostages. What was it? They hadn’t harmed one of the angels, had they?

As soon as she thought of it, she knew it was true. Volemak was remonstrating with Elemak, and now Eiadh was near enough and their voices were loud enough for her to hear.

“But he was unarmed?” Volemak was saying. “He didn’t threaten you at all?”

“I told you that I thought he knew where my daughter was!”

“So you crippled him? Even if you didn’t care that we have to live in this place and you have
needlessly
made enemies of a tribe of sentient creatures, you might have thought that brutalizing the one person who
might
have helped you was beyond stupidity!”

Volemak was too angry, Eiadh thought. Elemak didn’t respond well to tongue-lashings, especially in public. He had been faithful to the oath of obedience, but why push it?

Of course, she hadn’t seen the injured angel, and Volemak had. What had Elemak done?

“Oh, yes, I’m beyond stupid,” Elemak was answering. “But your perfect hero with the magic cloak was down playing god with a bunch of rats!”

“He got your daughter back, he and Oykib and Protchnu and I,” said Volemak. “And we did it surrounded by armed diggers that outnumbered us by hundreds, because
you
had insisted on taking all but a handful of our men of fighting age.”

“If you had commanded me to leave some behind,” Elemak began, but Volemak cut him off.

“Oh, yes, you would have obeyed—while you accused me of wanting your daughter to die. Well, Elya, she lived, no thanks to you. Now let’s see if that harmless angel is as lucky.”

“What am I supposed to do, kneel down and worship at Nafai’s feet? Is he supposed to be
my
god, too?”

That was too much for Eiadh. “You might thank him,” said Eiadh quietly. “He gave us back Zhivya.”

“No he didn’t,” said Elemak. “The cloak of the starmaster did whatever was done. If
I
had had the cloak, I could have done at least as well.”

“No you wouldn’t,” said Eiadh. “Because you would have been up the canyon with the cloak, no doubt using it to shoot angels out of the sky, and down here without it we would have been overrun and slaughtered by the diggers, every one of us.”

“How should I have known that some creatures we’d never seen before took the baby?”

“Oykib tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. It’s one reason you aren’t fit to lead us. You never listen, you just decide based on what you already know. Well, Elemak, you don’t know everything.” Eiadh heard her own words and knew she was saying too much. The rage in his face was frightening. He hadn’t looked at her like that since…since she took Volemak’s oath during the voyage.

“So this is my greeting from my wife when I come home,” he said.

“I meant to greet you with joy,” said Eiadh, bowing her head. “I’m sorry.”

Because she had submitted, Elemak could turn his anger to others. “So I was wrong,” he said. “I didn’t hear any of
you
arguing with me!”

They answered him with silence.

“So don’t go criticizing me if you haven’t the brains to come up with a better idea.”

“We all had a better idea,” said Padarok quietly. “We all knew that you were wrong. We knew it from the beginning.”

His words were like a slap in Elemak’s face. “Then why did you follow me?”

“It was your daughter who was missing,” said Padarok.

“That didn’t mean that I was
right
,” said Elemak. “It probably meant my judgment wasn’t at its best.”

“Yes, that’s what I was saying,” said Padarok.

“You followed me
because
my judgment wasn’t good?” asked Elemak. “You all knew I was wrong, and you followed me
because
I was wrong?” The contempt in his voice made a poor disguise for the confusion he was obviously feeling.

“Elemak, come inside, come to the house,” Eiadh said.

“No, I want to understand this,” said Elemak. “I want to understand why these so-called men are so stupid that they knowingly follow someone that they think is wrong.”

“Please, Elemak.”

“We didn’t follow you because you were wrong,” Yasai finally said. “We followed you because you were irrational. We didn’t know what you’d do if we refused to obey.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Elemak. “What mattered was finding my daughter. That’s
all
that mattered.”

“Was it?” asked Eiadh. “If
that
was true, you would have stopped and listened to Oykib when he tried to tell you that it wasn’t the angels who took Zhivya. Now please, stop arguing about it. Everybody’s home safe and nobody was harmed.”