Killbird

she said, shrugging. «All die,» I said. «I go.» She burst into tears. «Please, please,» she begged. «There is warning, and to ignore it is slow death by the sores and fever.» «No. There is no sickness. Not since the cold of winter.» «I go.» «Take me with you.» «I travel fast and alone.» «You are strong. I am weak. I have no one since the death of my mate.» «You will find another of your kind.» She looked at me in puzzlement. «Of my kind? Are you not of my kind?» I shuddered. «No.» I turned. She stood there, weeping. She was slim, as I was, and in spite of her personal filth and the dirty, tattered skins she wore, she was woman, a pretty picture when I was not close enough to see the dirt under her fingernails and the scaling of unwashed skin. For a moment I considered taking her. I would not be alone. But my path led eastward. I had no right to add another's life to my foolish risk. To put distance between myself and temptation, I broke into a ground-eating trot, aiming for a distant line of low hills where there were trees. Twice I had to detour, once around an immense area of God's chaos where the warning was strong and again past a smaller area. By nightfall I was climbing the long slope to the hills and found there a stream. I had eaten nothing all day. I tested the water, and it was silty but clean. I drank deeply, removed my skins, washed them, spread them on a bush to dry, sank myself into the water, snorting, washing my hair and my skin, rubbing it until it glowed with the sand from the stream's bottom. Refreshed I built a fire and listened to the night noises. Hunger came to me. I heard rustlings in the undergrowth and, with little effort, captured an ugly small furred animal with a long tail. Skinned, he was fat. I cut away most of the fat and cooked a haunch over the fire and was settling down to a not very satisfactory meal when I heard noises. First the unskilled walking sounds of a man unused to being in the forest at night, then the unmistakable sound of a woman weeping. I knew immediately who it was, but I sat quietly. The sounds approached. She saw the fire and came running. «I have no one,» she said, sobbing. I handed her meat. She ate, heedless of the dripping onto her already filthy skin skirt. She saw the fat which I had put aside to oil my hardax and, finished with the cooked meat, speared fat with a stick and held it over the fire. It sizzled and dripped, the droppings making splashes of fire on the coals, and then she ate it. «I am Mar,» she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. «I will be your———» «I forbid you ever to use that word,» I said sternly. «It's a love word.» «It's a filth word.» «I obey,» she said. «I will warm your back as you sleep.» «No,» I said. She stank. Not since skinning the dead lion had I smelled such rot. «I will sleep now and tomorrow you will return to your village,» I said. Not giving her a chance to answer, I rolled into my bed of leaves and grass. She sat for a long time and then curled up on the ground near the fire. During the night she came and slept by my feet, her hand touching my tough and blackened sole. Several times I pulled my foot away, but each time she returned, the touch light and, somehow, comforting. At dawn there was a chill in the air, and I left her there sleeping while I hunted and shot a climber. He was tough and stringy, but the meat, unlike the fatty repast of the evening, was good. She ate more than her share. I set out at a fast pace. She kept stride with me, which was more than any of my people could do. Her legs were long and supple, like mine. Seeing that I did not want to talk, she was silent. Beyond the low hill there was a valley which stretched onward, with areas of God's chaos strewn everywhere. I picked a likely route. It was not, by any means, a straight line, since I felt the warnings each time I neared an area of God's chaos, and she questioned my wandering. «You do not feel the warning?» «What warning?» «There,» I said, pointing toward a rubbled area, stark and forbidding. «There we find things,» she said. «Building materials for our houses. Pretty things.» «There is death,» I repeated. She looked at me strangely. At midday we saw, coming to meet us, a small group. I considered moving to one side, but remembering the ease with which I'd handled two of the inbreeders, and knowing more curiosity than fear, I waited. The group consisted of a haired man, three small children and a woman far along toward giving life. «Thank the gods,» the man said, hurrying the last small distance to meet us. «A woman. My mate—» «Is it time?» Mar asked. «She has been feeling the pains since morning,» he said. Mar arranged the family's sleepskins in the meager shade of a runted tree, and the woman lay moaning as the convulsions came. I sat and watched. The man squatted on his heels. The children went off to explore the nearby countryside. «There,» I said, «to the east. Can you tell me of the country?» The man shrugged. «What's to tell? The same.» «Have you been far?» «Five days,» he said. «We go to the coolness of the low hills.» «Are there dragons?» «The dragon of the grass plain,» he said. «Two days march, then go north past a range of wooded slopes to avoid his path.» «Tell me of him.» «A dragon is a dragon,» he said. «He is old and has no teeth, but his eyes live, as he does.» Our talk was halted by a scream from the woman in labor, and I looked to see Mar lift a wet and repulsive bundle which, as she wiped it with grass, was a kicking and bawling baby, and then there was another. Eagerly, when Mar gave the signal that it was over, the man ran to the shade of the tree. I saw him halt in midstride. His wail was hoarse and painful. Curious, I went to look past him. One of the newly born was unlike anything human I'd ever seen. The skull had flowed down into what should have been the face, displacing one eye completely and moving the other low, where it glared out from beside a maw which replaced the nose, leaving only a gaping, raw, red hole. The mouth was small and lipless, and inside I could see tiny pointed teeth. The arms were flippers, as of a hardshell of the lakes, and the legs were shortened, with no feet at the end of rounded stubs. With a hoarse cry, the father seized the thing and, holding it by its footless legs, dashed its horrible head against the tree. He tossed it aside and then raised the other baby to examine it. It was female, and it was active and well shaped. «One out of one,» the man said. «The gods are kind.» He turned to me proudly. I was still sickened and shocked by his cruelty to the malformed young one. «She will be called after your mate, who delivered her,» he said. «And should it be your desire, she is yours as a gift, for, as you see, we have three already.» «Thank you,» I said. «I have no time for a child.» «So be it,» he said. «Perhaps you would like the oldest girl, there.» He pointed. His oldest daughter was, perhaps, six summers. She was naked, save for a loincloth. «Of course,» he said, «since she has survived the dangerous years, and is already good———» he used the word which seemed to come to these people so easily—'I would have to have something. Say, that hardax you carry.» «Have you people no shame?» I exploded. I could stand the sight of him no longer. I turned and ran from the scene, heading east. I heard Mar running behind me. After a while I walked and she came to my side. «You are different,» she said. «Are you a holy man from the distant mountains?» «I am of the mountains,» I said. «I should have known. God forgive me,» she said. «Don't strike me dead because I tried to tempt you with my unworthy body, holy man.» I marched long and fast, and she stayed beside me uncomplainingly. When I found a suitable campsite I quickly built a couch of leaves and grass and, feeling sorry for her in her seeming helplessness, built one for her. Then, with a fire going, I found large fish in the stream, which were easily speared with my arrows. Mar watched with fascination. «You are so wise.» «Children take fish in this fashion,» I said. «Let me try,» she begged. I handed her the longbow. She fumbled with it. I put my arms around her to show her how to hold it, and the stench of her assaulted my nostrils. «Gah,» I said. «You smell long dead.» «If I were rich,» she said, «I would have scents to make me smell sweet.» «There is a better and simpler way,» I said. «There is the stream. It is bottomed with clean, white sand. Wash yourself.» «I obey,» she said. She walked to the stream, cupped her hands, splashed water into her face and came, her face dripping, to smile at me. «Is that better?» I could not believe that the inbreeders did not know the clean joy of a bath. «It would be better,» I said, «if you removed your clothing, pounded it and rubbed it with stones to remove the stench and the biting insects, and rubbed yourself all over with sand.» She recoiled, shocked. «Holy father,» she said, «are you mad?» Well, it was her body, and as long as I didn't have to smell it, so be it. I fed the two of us with roasted fish, which made a pleasant change of diet, and slept. I awoke with the stench of the dead lion in my nostrils and felt warmth at my back. She was cupped around me, making a pleasant little buzzing sound as she breathed. I pushed her away, and she groaned and came back to put one arm over me. It was overwhelming, the stench. I shook her awake. «Get on the other side of the fire,» I said, «in your own bed.» She went, weeping. «What kind of man are you to deny a woman the pleasure of the warmth of your body on a chill night?» she protested. «When you cease to smell like a dead lion I will warm you,» I said. «You are cruel and horrible and totally uncivilized,» she said, turning her back and burrowing down into her couch. I? Uncivilized? I leaped to my feet. I dragged her by the arm from her couch. «I will show you civilization,» I said, pulling her toward the stream. She seemed to realize my intentions and began to scream and fight. I found myself with an armful of woman and had to use all my strength to subdue her without hurting her. When I had her bundled into my arms she was still kicking and wailing, and then I was at the stream. I threw her bodily into it. She landed with a great splash and came to the surface, spitting water. There was a full moon, and I could see the beams of it reflecting, shattered by her splash. She screamed and started flailing the water and went under. The fool was going to drown in water which came only to her waist. I waded in, pulled her by the hair to her feet and got a few scratches as she tried to climb my body as if I were a tree. When at last I had her calmed, she stood there, my arms around her, shivering and weeping. «You will kill me,» she said. «I am only going to wash you,» I said. And, so saying, I began to take the clothing off her. She seemed resigned at first, letting me denude her. I had a shock when her breasts were bared, for, slim as she was, she had beautiful, large, full woman's breasts. «Now,» I said, «kneel, bring sand from the bottom, rub it over your skin. I will wash your clothing.» «You are going to kill me,» she said. «Oh, gods,»