Star Hunters (2 page)

The hares' noses twitched and the pressure on him increased. His hand inched down, unsnapped the holster flap, eased the pistol out. The hares shook and whined. The pressure built higher. He emptied the magazine into the hares, the darts phutting into the white fur or skimming past into the grass behind. He staggered as the pressure was suddenly cut off.

The grass stirred again. He wheeled to face the new danger, frightened and angry.

A wilding boy stood watching him. He was small and wiry, his green-silver skin stained and dirty. He watched to see what Manoreh would do, then projected a complex
FEELING: QUESTION?/DESIRE
.

Manoreh holstered the darter. “Who are you?” he asked, hoping for but not expecting an answer. Wildings never spoke.

The boy waited, still sending his silent message.

Manoreh sighed and projected:
QUESTION?

The boy smiled, his dark blue eyes laughing. He pointed to the dead hares,
QUESTION?

Manoreh nodded. Projected:
ASSENT
.

The wilding boy scooped up the hare bodies. Trailing a broad
APPRECIATION
, he trotted off and was lost in the haze of dust.

The sun dipped lower and the cloud cover spread a growing shadow over the Sawasawa. Manoreh ran steadily, his feet beating to the rhythm of the bush songs he repeated continuously to ward off the betraying memories.

He heard the hounds before he saw the Fa-men coming toward him. He stopped, mouth pressed into a grim line as the red-eyed dogs circled around him, growling and snapping at his boots, yellow teeth clicking together a hair away from the leather. Fa-men. There was a sickness in his stomach when he thought of them. Dangerous fanatics. Hating the wildings and everything to do with the Wild. Hating all products of technology which they called corrupting abominations. They wore animal furs, despising woven cloth. They carried assegais rather than darters or pellet rifles and were expert in their use. He was in some danger, he knew that. They tolerated the Tembeat but that toleration was easily strained. They cultivated the blindrage and gloried in the bloody results.

The Fa-men rode slowly toward him, their hatred reaching him, sickening him yet more until he was at the point of vomiting. There were four of them, assegais at ready. Ignoring the hounds, they spread out and stopped their mounts so that all were facing him, spear points less than a meter away.

“Wild Ranger.” The Fa-kichwa stroked the scars on his right cheek then jabbed his assegai at Manoreh. “Trying out the wilding boys?”

The Sniffer giggled shrilly. “Sold four legs for a two-leg ride.” Sniffer jabbed at him, the spear point drawing blood from his arm just below the shoulder. “What'd you do with your faras, little Ranger? Huh? Huh! HUH!” He was a little man, twisted and so ugly that the yellow river clay painted on his skin and the black-worked scars on his face disappeared before his monumental hideousness, a meager man, skin stretched taut over tiny bones. He continued to poke at Manoreh, working himself into a dangerous state of excitement.

“Mohj-sniff!” The kichwa's voice was indulgent but firm. “Back off. You—Wild Ranger.” The sneer in the words was deliberately exaggerated. “Your clan? What are you doing here?”

“Clan Hazru, Mezee Fa-Kichwa. Took the harewalk three years ago. I affiliate with Kobe of Kisima, being wed to his daughter.” His voice was low and uncertain. He knew they relished his weakness and this angered him. But the sudden caution that damped their hate when they heard his father-in-law's name gave him a small, bitter satisfaction. He sucked in a deep breath. “The hares march, Fa-Kichwa.” He shrugged. “My faras went berserk and threw me. I run now to warn the Holdings.” With an outward calm he pointed the way he'd come. “Little more than three hours behind me.”

“Fa!” The Fa-Kichwa looped the assegai's thong over his shoulder and wheeled his mount. By the time Manoreh faced around again, the four were galloping with their hounds toward the mountains.

He started running again, smiling at the Fa-men's panic. “Scrambling for the Standing Stones,” he murmured. “Going to crouch there shivering in their boots, praying that Fa will chase the hares away.”

In the thickening twilight he came to the bridge his grandfather had built across the Chumquivir, a tributary of the Mungivir which was the great river running the length of the Sawasawa. This was the southern boundary of his father's land, his now. Though several planks of the bridge were broken or missing, the pilings seemed sturdy enough. He stepped cautiously onto it, keeping close to the shaky rail. The bridge trembled underfoot and groaned each time he put pressure on it, but held him while he crossed. He stepped reluctantly into the shadow of the ufagiosh trees and walked with increasing slowness toward the place where the ufagiosh merged with a ragged emwilea hedge. The sickness in his stomach returned. His emwilea. Rank now, and wild. Canes growing haphazardly out from the tight center, coiling like poison-tipped barbed wire across the rutted earth. The high roots were choked by the round, fuzzy leaves of hareweed. When he saw a bay, a small silver-green wiggler who preferred running with the farash to grubbing in the earth, he'd spent hour after tedious hour grooming the hedge along this section of path.

He hesitated, looked up. Through the sparse leaves of the ufagio he could see the clouds lowering, as the wind whipped up the dust and the dry storm came toward him. He cursed softly.
Another plan rotted out
. He scowled toward the south.
Four hours lead on them. But the storm would slow them down some
. He walked slowly along beside the emwilea hedge, shoulders hunched over, head drawn down. Anger: hot, ready to explode and spew the pieces of his soul across the land. Grief: like acid eating at him, an itch that had no anodyne. Fear: colder than the glacial ice he'd walked the faras over when he crossed the Jinolimas coming and going. Anger-grief-fear were pressing against his consciousness.

The uauawimbony tree outside the gate postponed his anguish and rattled a warning.
No one left to warn
. Manoreh ducked under the umbrella spread of the whippy branches and rested his palm against the brain node, a dark bulge like a head sitting on a spread of twenty-four legs, the cone-shaped circle of trunks that met in the middle forming a dark secret cavity where he used to sit giggling while the wimbony whipped about like a wild thing. The tight wood was cool and soothing under his hand, reminding him of a happier time. He stood a moment reluctant to think of the painful
now
, but sand was beginning to blow, skipping like fleas under the branch tips. He ducked back under the fringe and walked to the gate.

The carved gate was knocked flat, the gateposts standing like broken teeth. The watchtower was a wreck, twisted over, spread along the ground by one of the windstorms that had blown by since he left. He knelt by the rotting gate and tore a section free. His fingers twisted in the spongy remains eaten away by time and the tunneling siafu. The wood turned to dust and splinters in his hands, and scores of siafu eggs fell onto the patchy gravel beneath. Dust. Manoreh opened his fingers and stared at the dull gray dust filming his skin. He wiped his hand across the front of his jerkin. Dust. He stood and crunched across the wood into the silent shattered quarters of the bound families. Mud houses melted away, thatching scattered and rotting, rafters jutting up like old bones. And silent. Except for the dust grains whispering along the earth and the howling wind. He walked along the rutted street, remembering the loud cries of the weavers and dyers, the clangs from the smithy, the chant of the story teller in the center of a ring of children, the shouts of children running naked through streets and side alleys. Filled with lively human voices and the noises of energetic living before the hares came, it was a silent accusation to him now. Why was he alive? And why did he leave the land dead?

The wind was rising to a howl, tugging at his tangled bush of dark blue hair. He walked silently past the emptiness, dry weeds crackling under his boots, leaves and dry weeds rolling past him, driven by the dust-laden wind that scoured at his skin and brought tears. His inner eyelids oozed upwards, triggered by the smarting and he saw less clearly, the wet transparency blocking off some of the feeble twilight. Thunder rumbled repeatedly, directly overhead as the dry storm took hold of the abandoned Holding.

He felt Haribu Haremaster tickling at him, insinuating spirit fingers into the private places of his mind. When he tried to fight free of them, he was distracted by the rage-grief-fear that walked with him into this devastation of his childhood. He pressed his hands to his face and tried to repress the boiling emotions that weakened him and pointed him out to Haribu.

It walked by his side, not touching him, a red ghost in the haze of red dust. He burned his head slowly, then bowed to the presence. The spiky head, beaked like a heraldic bird, nodded back. He walked past the court wall. Then at the archway he hesitated, wondering if the Mother Well had been covered or was choked. For a brief moment it seemed important that he know, then feeling empty, he plodded away, the red ghost matching him stride for stride. He reached the wall that enclosed the kitchen garden. The path was choked with old leaves and branches. His feet crunched through them with heavy slow regularity. His head ached. He would have wept but could not with his inner eyelids in place. He cupped his hand over his mouth and breathed deeply, a long shuddering sigh. The red presence swirled closer, wrapped its arms around him, sinking claws deep into his body, the hook beak driving toward his neck. He felt again the cold agony of his grief and the lava heat of his anger as the ghost began to merge with him.

Haribu Haremaster moved closer.

“No!” He gasped then ground his teeth together, the dust gritting, rasping at his nerves. Weighted down by the clinging specter, Haribu sniping at him, Manoreh stumbled around the corner, staggering stiff-legged through wind debris that swirled around his feet and rose in choking whorls to attack his face and hands. He shielded his face and lurched along the walkway that led to the barn.

His feet knew the stones, though everything was swallowed by darkness and dust. The red ghost slid away, but glided beside him, its dark eye smudges fixed on him. Waiting. Like Haribu waited.

Manoreh slammed into a wall. The barn. He felt along the rough bricks until he found the sliding door into the milking section. Head tucked down, holding his breath, he rocked the door loose and slid it open. He thrust himself through the narrow opening, losing some skin to the rough brick. He shouldered the door shut and turned to face the thick blackness inside.

Hands guided by old habit, he felt along the wall till he touched the lamp. Praying that after three years the wick was intact enough to take a spark, he wound it up about an inch, relaxing at the smell of the lamp oil. After a few futile attempts with the striking box, the wick caught and diluted the darkness inside the barn with a weak yellow light. The rough wooden stanchions came out of the blackness like narrow gray shadows; beyond them he saw the red ghost watching.

Ignoring it, he slapped at his leather jerkin and shorts, releasing clouds of dust. His ancestor had built well. The barn was tight against the storm. Still ignoring the ghost, he worked through the triangular gap of one of the stanchions, barely fitting where as a boy he had wriggled through with room to spare. He groped through darkness toward the back of the barn, stumbling over abandoned tools and equipment, working his way carefully toward the old wellhouse and its ancient hand pump.

As Manoreh touched the handle, worn smooth by long use, his grandfather's spirit stood beside him, a big knotted old man, dark blue laughter in his squinting eyes. Manoreh worked the handle until he heard the clean splash of water hitting the stone of the trough. This ghost, his grandfather's spirit, was a friendly, happy presence, giving Manoreh strength to fight off his aches. He plunged his hands into the cool liquid and splashed it over his face, washing away the dense coating of dust. He pumped more water and drank, swallowing again and again, feeling half his anguish vanish with his thirst.

He moved cautiously back into the fringes of light. He could near the silken whisper of dust driving against the barn. The storm was building. He thought of the hares crouching on the Sawasawa and smiled grimly. Hundreds of them would be dead before morning and more would be weakened, delaying their march.

He stretched and yawned, feeling comfortably tired, the spirit of his grandfather strong on him. He went to the milking lanes and brought the lamp back. Then looked around for a place to sleep. The hay was damp and stinking of mildew. Manoreh grimaced. Another indictment of his neglect. His father would be grieved. Manoreh stood quiet in the darkness hoping that Father Ancestor would come like Grandfather Ancestor, bringing peace at last and a gentler end to grieving. He did not come.

Manoreh sighed and stretched out on the floor. A hard bed and a cold one. Briefly he regretted the pack tied behind Shindi's saddle, then composed himself to sleep. Futile to regret what couldn't be helped. The lamp light wavered as the oil supply burned away. He wrinkled his nose at his lack of thought.
Open flame inside a hayfilled barn. Stupid
. He extinguished the flame then lay back staring up into the darkness.

Overhead the dry storm turned to wet and rain began to patter on the roof. He listened for leaks and felt a brief flash of pride when he heard none. He turned on his side and contemplated the bird-headed ghost crouched in the darkness, visible like an after-image against the sooty background. “I see you, ghost.”

The spiky head bowed.

“Be patient, old ghost. I need you. I'll be back.”

The eye smudges flickered.

“You'll wait here for me?”

The head bowed again.

“Yes, you'll wait.” Manoreh winced, aware of the danger of this splitting. As time passed the ghost would begin to fade. When there was nothing left, that part of him would be gone. He would grow cold, stiff, would end as a man, even though his body continued walking around. But Haribu Hare-master was too strong. The ghost would have to stay until the Holdings were warned. And Kiwanji. He wondered vaguely if Faiseh had seen the march and was warning his own people. He drifted into an uneasy sleep.