Lovers in the Woods (5 page)

“The wood really is beautiful. I heard that
it’s because of some chemistry that works behind the bark.”

“
No.” He cleared his throat when she looked
at him quizzically. He did not want to sound like a teacher. “There
were chrysalis remnants found in the trunks, which means the
Horlyns use the trunks as a kind of nursery. The chrysalises live
off the trees’ minerals until they bite their way through and
leave.”

“I never thought them to be so small in the
beginning.”

Sajitar bit on his lips to avoid smiling
about her naïveté. “We don’t know much about the evolution of the
Horlyns. Who even knows if that’s a correct name for
them?”

“
But you know some
things.” She pushed away a small branch that tickled her face. “You
sound as if you
’ve dealt with these beasts before.” Dark orange
leaves fell off and gently rested on her hair and shoulders,
crowning her features.

Sajitar wanted to paint a picture of this
fine combination of beauties. He wanted to look away from her face
but could not. A moment later, a thicker branch hit his shoulder.
He flinched and tried his best to ignore Rayenne’s smile. When the
way was clear again, he went on.

“
My grandparents came to
Belthraine to start anew. They had lived in a big city before and
searched for a planet where
rural
meant you really lived alone and did not have to
meet anyone.” He smiled at the memory. His parents and grandparents
were simple people with simple plans for life. There had been times
when he regretted he hadn’t inherited all their principles. “My
grandfather used to say that even a coach with two people was too
much for him. He called people a disturbance of his peace. When the
settlements grew he thought about moving away, deeper into the
woods. But the events
—I mean the clashes with the Horlyns, and there were more
than we know of
—
changed his mind. He was a settler after all, not an
adventurer.”

“So he learned about them first-hand?”

“He accepted that the settlers were only
guests, not owners of the woods.”

Rayenne laughed, nodding to herself.

“I understand. Your grandfather was the first
to say that cutting the trees is a crime against nature.”

“He would never have said that,” Sajitar
replied seriously. “After all, selling the trees put food on the
table, so to say.”

“And your parents?”

“My father took over the business and I can’t
say that he got lucky with it. The large corporations had already
begun to ruin the smaller ones. They were very effective.”

“I assume he wanted to hand the business to
you and you refused.”

Sajitar shot her a grim look. “Not
everybody wants to spend his life in the forest and live on selling
trees.” He waved off her next question. “Now, tell me something
about you, Ms Rayenne Whiteclaw. Did your father allow you to join
the police, or did you run away to enlist?”

Rayenne lowered her gaze and
spent the next minute gazing into the darkness ahead of them. Her
face had closed to him and he was undecided
whether he wanted to hear her story
or was glad she had stopped asking questions.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement.
Not much, just the twist of leaves, a sudden motion of lower
branches and a change of light.

Rayenne saw it too, and had her
rifle at the ready, pointing at bushes and trunks. In a rush of
leaves like a twitch of the B-horses tail
, the motion turned south. Her rifle
barrel followed. Rayenne squinted, trying to find the source. “What
was that?”

Sajitar shook his head slightly, unwilling to
start a discussion.

“Shadows.”

“Don’t talk about shadows. There was
some…animal, something. Shadows don’t make noise.”

He urged Tessla on when she slowed and the
mare reacted promptly. Rayenne followed.

“
If you start worrying about every sound
you hear, you’ll be mad by the time we leave the woods.”

She scrutinized him, anger narrowing her
eyes.

“Is that what you think? That I will get mad?
Just because I point my gun at some animal? Don’t be mistaken.”

Sajitar sighed. In this moment he thought
she was like the many lumberjacks he had accompanied through the
woods.

“You want to be sure nothing’s out there that
would kill and eat you.” He glanced at her, not knowing if he
should calm or feed her fears. His thoughts trailed around being
alone, without any company to hamper his leave, but then not. His
own irritation nagged him. “These woods are full of animals that
won’t show themselves to strangers like us. And the more you try to
find them, the more they will hide. It is said your family has been
all over the quadrant. So you should know about such a wood’s
population, shouldn’t you?”

She frowned so hard that Sajitar found it
difficult not to laugh. He could have told her more stories about
the beasts roaming the woods, about insects large as both his hands
together, about birds that spread their wings to darken the sky.
Every time he had entered the woods he had wondered what more he
would see. There was nothing on Belthraine as impressive as the
plants and animals in Emerald Green or Beechtree Pride. Yet he had
sought to live in the city, once. It had been such a big mistake.
He flinched.

“
So you say that I should just move on and
not look? Or is it a hint to trust you on the way
through?”

He was unable to hide his smile when he
turned.

“Both, I guess. Unless you truly bind and gag
me because you think I talk too much.”

Rayenne pursed her lips. Either she had no
more arguments or she didn’t want to utter them. She focused on the
surroundings once more and kept silent.

Sajitar exhaled, turning back to watch where
they rode. Tessla was a very reliable mare, but her interest
consisted of food and drink—-not unknown among men, too—-and he
wanted to pass through the woods on the safest route.

* * * *

The
wood’s
appearance changed. Now orange
was the dominating color, a dark glow surrounded by darker branches
and leaves in different shades. With the wind playing among them,
the leaves seemed to wave to the strangers passing by, mocking them
to get closer to their destruction. On the ground small animals
escaped the sound of approaching hooves. Overhead claws scraped the
bark and more than once Rayenne turned to make sure no one followed
them.

“I feel watched,” she admitted quietly. “All
the time. With this many sounds around, it’s hard to know if there
are animals or men behind us.”

“Be assured we would know if the assassins
had found us.”

Not for the first time Rayenne looked at him
inquisitively.

“What do you mean?”

“They’d shoot us, wouldn’t they?”

“
That’s not what I mean and you know it!
How do you know so much about the surroundings? Saji, you sound as
if you’ve spent half your life in these woods! I don’t like to be
lied to, so you'd better talk to me about what you know. What do I
have to expect, here?”

Sajitar turned to watch the path they had
made, no more than a few broken twigs and fallen leaves. The black
soil shimmered with stones the color of bronze. They reflected what
little light made it to the ground, and where the shimmer was
disturbed something moved. It was small and quick and within
seconds it had reached the next trunk to climb up quickly. Sajitar
exhaled and turned to Rayenne again.

“Just a Dikis.”

“Is it food for
us or the other way around?”

“It’s small but I’d prefer not to eat it. The
meat’s bitter.”

Rayenne’s brows twitched.

“So you have been here often enough to know
about which animals to shoot.”

“You catch them with a sling. And, no, I have
not been here so often. My grandpa and my father did. I learned a
lot just from listening to their stories.”

She cocked her head and her gaze tried to
penetrate his shield of listlessness. “Why do you pretend to be
ignorant? You were right. I come from a large family of pathfinders
and we recognize an insider when we meet one. You have the air of a
trapper around you. Don’t contradict! I followed you from the
woods’ edge. You made it look like you didn’t know where to go, but
you directed Tessla to the easiest path.”

“There are no paths in these woods.”

As if to stress the fact, a large branch
almost caught him. He ducked and glared at Rayenne when he sat up
straight again.

“I see.” She chuckled. “So we both don’t know
about these woods. Where do we sleep? Up on a branch?”

“Preferably.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He lowered his chin, glad to have shocked
her and not willing to let her see. Then he realized that his
thoughts had returned to having Rayenne close to him. The man
inside him admitted how attracted he was. The other part that was
not directed by hormones called for a stop to this unspoken
wooing.

“No,” he replied honestly. “We don’t have to
climb up for the night. We could—” He stopped and looked up through
the crowns.

“What?”

“Listen. It’s one of the air crafts your
people brought here.”

She shaded her eyes with her left hand.

“Right, it’s a Cordell, a flying
detective.”

“
Is it looking for us?”

“How should
anyone know we are here? And the news of the attack can’t have
reached HQ.”

He turned to her, frowning.

“You say the thugs have those crafts, too?
Where have we come to if the mob can hire pilots?”

“It’s not my doing,” Rayenne replied
indignantly. “In the briefing we were told that the larger gangs
were able to hire professionals. If the money’s good they
follow.”

“Isn’t it against their honor, or however
they call it, to fraternize with criminals?” He gazed at the sky
until the soft humming of the wind-carried craft disappeared. “They
can’t find us here, not like this.”

“Times have changed.” She eyed him. “You’ve
been to Belson Park. You know the spaceport. I don’t believe you
haven’t seen any of those pilots around there. They are a pretty
tough group, hard to overlook.”

“A guy like me doesn’t hang out with anyone
who flies. They’re all very arrogant. In fact,” he interrupted her,
“I kept pretty much to myself. I wanted to make money, not get
mixed with the wrong party.”

“Spoken like a true trooper. But you
can’t—”

“Wait!” He stopped his B-horse. “Be
quiet.”

They both strained their eyes and ears,
then suddenly a dark red animal took shape about ten yards in front
of them, emerging from the shadow in which it had lain hidden. At
first two long pairs of legs appeared, and they only recognized
them because of their careful movement. A triangular head and a
large body followed, then another pair of legs, even longer then
the first.

Sajitar took a deep breath. The Horlyn was
taller than an average man, the legs longer than his own. From the
oblong abdomen, thin strings hung down, touching ground. More of
them stood up straight and floated with the soft wind. He could not
tell if these were antennae, parts of the body or different insects
that preferred to live on the Horlyn. There was little known about
the insectoids. The specimens scientists had dissected had
triggered more questions than answers.

They already
knew that Horlyns laid eggs in trees. They grew in a chrysalis for
a long period of time. The moment they exited the trees, they were
about as long as a man’s hand and able to fly. Scientists called it
the first stage. While they grew to about ten yards in length the
wings fell off at the end of that growth and the Horlyns turned to
the second stage. Though wingless, they were fast on the ground and
at climbing trees. It was yet unknown if they preferred to live up
in the trees or on the ground. They were equipped for both areas
and had been seen everywhere. No one knew if they ever stopped
growing. The largest Horlyns were reported to be the size of a
large trunk. Without calling the man a liar, the statement was
doubted and it was reported that the scientists had examined the
man to make sure he was sane.

It was also common knowledge that Horlyns
were fierce enemies, fast and relentless, though their reasons were
hard to determine. Some said the animals protected their territory,
other said they were aggressive by nature. The many stories
cruising around that species indicated that they would smash a
human being to pulp if they wanted to.

Sajitar had decided that staying away from
them was the best way to stay alive.

“Don’t move. It will go away.”

Rayenne asked a
question with her eyes, but kept quiet.

They both watched the Horlyn
stretch in the open. It moved slowly
, and the antennae on the triangular head
turned in different directions. Large compound eyes scanned the
area. Suddenly, Sajitar had the image of hooded men in his mind.
They pointed at him and muzzles went up. Small explosions followed.
Winged Horlyns flew up and he heard the sound of beaten air and
fluttering leaves. They eluded with an elegant swing, escaping into
the higher regions of the woods where the bullets would not find
them. The hooded men suddenly threw their weapons away, screaming,
putting their hands to their ears before they went down.

The impression was quickly over, leaving
Sajitar dizzy. He shook his head and realized that Rayenne watched
him.

The Horlyn
walked between the trees, looking left and right as if searching
for something or someone. Sunrays reflected on its dark red skin
that changed color with every step. Scientists defined it to
consist of Chitin, but also very different constituent parts that
were not yet deciphered. The race of the Horlyns was too alien to
understand its full existence. That was also part of the fear men
had. Questions whether they were poisonous or able to maim men
remained. If lumberjacks went missing, no dead bodies were ever
found, which nourished rumors that Horlyns ate people, clothes and
weapons and all the rest.