The Orphaned Worlds (12 page)

Catriona
feels a startled anxiety reverberate across Segrana’s awareness before the news reaches her – The Brolturans have veered north, up a gully and heading for a rocky, hilly ridge where the undergrowth is sparser and pit traps could not be dug – Catriona divides her attention between glimpses of the intruders, seen by passing forest creatures, and the dialogue between Malir and Josu while messengers race across the branchway …

Listener Malir
orders his ambush teams to shift north and prepare to attack the offworlders on their new course – His ground forces are told to fall back parallel with the invaders – Catriona approves this adaptation yet Josu disagrees – She emphasises her support for these tactics, then Malir advises Josu to have his force shadow the Brolturan rearguard but to stay their hand for now – But instead …

Listener Josu
sends his fastest branch-runners with orders to attack, then emerges from his vudron and with his personal escort races after them – Josu’s thoughts become tenuous away from the forest’s psionic aura and his justifications seem to drift in his wake – Listener Malir is aghast and begs him to reconsider but Catriona senses something else in Josu’s excuses, a haughty arrogance, a hate of the Brolturans, certainly, but also a contempt for Humans, specifically Catriona and Theo, for their interfering ways …

Catriona
fears the worst – Her perceptions fly on through the forest – Her pleas to Josu go unheeded – As the details from that part of the forest gather, the branch-runners arrive and deliver Josu’s commands – Exultant, the Uvovo ready their darts and spears and dive down through the greenery, leaping and swooping towards the enemy – Below, the Brolturan rearguard creeps along, the last to climb onto the rocky ridge – Catriona’s mind processes visual information from several sources and she sees them, tall Sendrukans every one, clad in camouflage battledress with odd baggy folds of material covering their backs – She sees Josu’s Uvovo swarming down branches, down trunks, needle-tipped darts finger-gripped, spears held lightly, stone-loaded slings spinning, making a quiet, ominous whir …

The order
is given and missiles rain down – A few dart throwers get their rounds off first and those initial impacts warn the Brolturans – A command is bellowed and less than a second later every camouflaged back is protected by a curved armoured shell – A few stones and darts find targets, even a spear or two, but the rest rebound and ricochet away …

Catriona
watches, her dread becoming the anticipation of inevitable calamity – She can feel the exhilaration of the Uvovo as they swing and clamber downwards for a second wave of attacks at closer range – But amid the straggle undergrowth and sparse bushes, the Brolturans turn about in unison, raising weapons – Different groups aim at different sectors of the canopy above, a practised manoeuvre – Cat lets her fear pour out as a warning, a fearful shout ringing across Segrana’s weave which focuses it but it is too late …

They open fire
, and streams of needle and flechette scythe up through the greenery, along with pulsed energy beams – Clouds of splinters explode from trunks and limbs, leaves, vines and blooms are shredded – Animals shriek in terror – Some evade the continuous salvoes, some are caught and bloodily burst apart, carcasses falling with the cascades of leaf and wood fragments – The salvoes continue and Uvovo bodies tumble out of the trees – Catriona can feel the wounds and the maiming, the torment and ghastly iciness of mortal wounds, the sudden severing of life – She wants to shut it off, shut it out, but Segrana’s unflinching, enduring resolve maintains the flow of pain, resolve and a vast, slow anger …

For Catriona
, the events of the next few hours merge into a fragmentary blur – After the slaughter of Josu’s Uvovo, the Brolturan force splits in two – Malir orders some of his ambushers to offload their burdens on the northernmost group of invaders – Bulging sacks are slashed open in unison and sheets of water pour down, some carrying a plethora of tiny creatures and parasites, other laced with toxins intended to sting the eyes and irritate the skin, while a few drench those below in a dreadful stench – Other sacks contains rotting forest floor mulch infested with all kinds of insects, burrowing klavigs, hiver mirsyls, predator igiths or wriggling, snakelike pokars, all of whom nip or bite, some poisonously – This is enough to panic some of the Brolturans while a contingent of Malir’s ground scouts dash in for a swift hit-and-run that draws several north into a pit-riddled gully …

While Listener Malir
strives to harry the Brolturans and contain them, Catriona tries to work with some of the Listeners in towns further afield who want to send healers and supplies – At some point she learns that Theo has left his high branch sanctuary, refused his escorts’ advice and climbed down a step-rope to the forest floor – Later, she hears that the reserve force, which was Theo’s idea, is moving to intercept the southern Brolturan force which is heading straight for Cascadeshade, a water-carrier hamlet located by a river bank – Looking through the many senses of Segrana, Catriona sees the Uvovo reserve, sees the huge mass of creatures they are herding, sees Theo working with the herders, and understands – These are baro, the northern variety, which are larger, heavier, less docile and armed with horns and tusks …

The stampeding baro
crash into the Brolturans, who are moving in a loose, spread-out formation – At the same time, rocks, spears, slingshot and lumps of baro droppings begin to rain down – There is sporadic flechette fire and some of the baro die in a screeching welter of gore only to be swiftly replaced by others maddened by the rush, the noise and the stink of blood – After several minutes of this some of the invaders break ranks and flee east and south while the rest struggle to hold their positions – Then branches, severed a foot or two from the main trunk, start to fall out of the canopy and keep falling, along with broken-off vines and thorny creeper – Half-buried by foliage and gored by berserk forest baro, the Brolturans fall back towards the rocky ridge with haste –

There is pain
, the agony of wounded and dying on both sides – As the Brolturan retreat turns into a rout, healers and apothecaries converge from the townships close by – Later, in the weary hours of the aftermath, it is the memory of all that pain that lingers in Catriona’s thoughts, haunted also by a few terrible images – One is the sight of a badly wounded Brolturan soldier carrying another over his shoulder, running along a trail leading back to the coast, when the ground gives way and he plunges into one of the pit traps – A scrawny Uvovo armed with a cudgel and a cluster of short spears emerges from the dense undergrowth, face expressionless for a moment, then takes out one spear, aims it and throws, then disappears back into the forest – Another image is that of Listener Josu staring in horror at the bloody remains of his Uvovo high in the trees, bodies torn and lacerated and attracting the attention of insects, some draped over branches, some still holding fast with a death grip to shattered stumps weeping sap …

Segrana whispers
, Rest, Catriona, Rest, Renew Yourself. The Listeners And The Healers Know Their Work.

The weariness
lies heavy on her limbs, and slows her thoughts, but there is so much to do, too much to do …

Rest, Segrana insists
, Rest, Regain, Renew.

So Catriona concedes
, surrenders to the weight of her exhaustion, and the song of Segrana fades …

… And when she opened her eyes, it was to the sight of Theo Karlsson glancing over from where he was perched on a knot jutting from the prodigious tree limb.

‘How long have you been sitting there?’ she muttered, bringing up a hand to massage the tension in her neck.

Theo shrugged. ‘Perhaps half an hour, perhaps less. Did you know that you grind your teeth while you sleep?’

From where she lay in the leafy Speaking Place, Cat gave him a look that was half bemusement, half irritation. Then she sat up and groaned at the ache that surged in her temples.

‘Ah, that’ll be the dehydration,’ Theo said. ‘And this could be your medication.’

One of the Listener sisters, a hooded Uvovo female whose fur was speckled with silver strands, climbed up next to the cavity and handed her a beaker of emel juice. It was cool and unbelievably delicious. She finished it off, then a second, after which the smiling Uvovo ducked out of sight.

‘So how did we do?’ said Theo.

‘I was about tae ask you the same,’ Cat said. When Theo stayed silent, she sighed. ‘Malir’s last reckoning was fifty-two dead, sixty-eight wounded.’

Theo gave a grim nod. ‘They are all brave, good fighters. Could have been a lot worse. And the Brolturans?’

‘More wounded than us, eighty or more, but less than half our number of dead.’

‘Better armour.’

‘And what about they flechette guns?’ Cat said. ‘They were new.’

‘Yes, devastating against clear targets up to medium range,’ he said. ‘But in close combat in heavy undergrowth? Chance of friendly fire is greater. We were still lucky, however.’

‘Aye, I expect so.’

He gave her a considering look. ‘I know that you’ve told me a little about this linkage you have with the forest sentience … But what was it like with a battle going on?’

Suddenly wishing for a third beaker of juice, Cat gave a wan smile. ‘Honestly, Theo, yer talking to someone with a mind that feels like a soggy sponge. I really don’t know if I’m capable of describing it right now.’

‘
Ja
, I’m sorry, I was just curious about how Segrana would react to the fighting and killing, if she does …’

‘Oh, she does!’ She ground her teeth as the memory came back. ‘She feels the pain and so do I, and she feels anger, immense, looming anger …’ Then she remembered something else, something from those moments when her perceptions were at their greatest stretch. It was the impression of great, latent reserves of power, vast and bound up with the foundations of the forest and the land and the sea, ancient and waiting …

‘My questions can wait,’ Theo said. ‘For now, I go to see Malachi and tell him how well my baro reserve fought! Why not come along?’

Cat shook her head. ‘Not yet, Theo. I know you’ve told me how well he’s doing, but … after today, I just cannot face him. D’ye understand?’

Theo nodded. ‘Give it time. He’s a good lad, you’ll see.’ Then he gripped the bark, turned and slid off to land on walkway planks jutting from the huge branch.

‘Careful,’ she murmured.

‘Catlike reflexes,’ he said, grinning. ‘Well, an old cat with grey fur and a chewed ear, eh? Anyway, my Uvovo bodyguards Mlor and Etril will watch over me. So, till later.’

After he was gone, Catriona shifted up to sit on the edge of the recess. She brushed away the shrivelled remnants of rootlets that had curled about her neck and hands, then just sat there a moment, eyes closed, not thinking, trying to empty her mind. But echoes and whispers of Segrana’s endless song were still reverberating through the trees, like an omnipresent mist of being. Suddenly she longed for cold, clear air and stood to gaze up the main trunk of the ancient pillar tree, eyeing the main ascent, recalling the junctions of the high branchways in this part of the forest.

‘Would you like food to eat, Pathmistress?’ said one of the Listener sisters, leaning out of a clump of foliage above.

‘Thank you, but no. Later perhaps.’

The female Listener inclined her head and withdrew into the greenery. Catriona looked upward again then approached the trunk and began to climb.

I need to get up high, she thought. I need to see the sky, to see Darien.

THEO

All around, the forest was darkening as evening encroached. Theo held on to the harness handles with a white-knuckle grip as the trictra climbed a steeply sloping branch. In front, Etril sat behind the creature’s head, languidly prodding its frontal joints from time to time.

Four weeks on Nivyesta
, he thought.
Dozens of journeys on these spider-beasts and still I get the fear!

Otherwise, he reckoned he had adapted quite well to forest life. Adapt and survive was the basic axiom when you were trapped in the wild. But when he thought about Catriona – well, it was a hard thing to grasp, this notion of the entire forest having a mind which was thousands of years old and which could speak with those it thought useful. How, he wondered, had Cat adapted to that role? What had she given up? The forest undoubtedly wanted to survive but Theo knew that this stage of the conflict could not go on. Sooner or later the Brolturans would attack with overwhelming force.

And then the entire moon will burn
, he thought darkly.

‘We are very near to Ipolb, Karlsson,’ Etril said over his shoulder. ‘Do you wish me to watch over this steed for the evening or will you be able to manage?’

‘Ah, Etril, I have as much experience in the care of trictra as I have in leaf-jumping.’

The Uvovo laughed. ‘I see your meaning, friend Karlsson. I shall remain this evening and look after this beastie … I have heard the Pathmistress use this word. Is it correct?’

‘I believe it is, Etril.’

Minutes later, Ipolb came into view, a cluster of platforms, lean-tos and small huts lashed to the intertwined branches of two close-growing trees. Gantries and ropeways wound among the little community, now lit by glowing lamps in the fading light. Theo’s eyes were drawn to a platform further up one of Ipolb’s main trunks – yellow light shone from the narrow windows of a large lopsided shack, which sat there with a trictra shelter slung beneath.

Etril let Theo off at the platform then took the trictra below for tethering and feeding. Theo could see that a pale blue curtain now hung over the door, and he pushed it aside as he entered. A small conical oil lamp shed soft golden light from a triangular recess above the bed alcove. Malachi sat at a table, a candle at his elbow, writing in his journal, a hardbound notebook that Theo had begged from one of the Human researchers at the hidden enclave. The table and chair were Uvovo-scale and Malachi was hunched over as he scribbled. When Theo stepped inside he glanced up for a moment then back and kept writing.