leaping to stand over her, stinking maw dripping saliva mixed with blood into her face. She screamed.
Throughout the night Duwan's dreams had been more vivid. Those he saw were nearer. He dreamed that he was back in the valley in the time of the long light, lounging in the light of Du, Alning by his side, a sweet, summery breeze blowing in his face. Overhead were the lights of the sky, and that puzzled him, for when Du came the dim distant lights disappeared, but they were there and he was filled with a sense of well-being, a wholeness. He could use his left hand. He plucked at Alning's delicately colored fronds teasingly with two thumbs and a finger. Du rose in blessed warmth. He needed to see. He was sleeping, and he couldn't open his eyes, and he needed to see, to praise Du. He felt the strength in his arms, flexed them. His feet were a part of him, but oddly distant. He tried to move and smelled the freshness of good earth as if he were in the young house again. He rested, felt the golden rays of Du on him, feasted, drank, felt himself bursting with nutrition. One eye cracked, and light dazzled him and he saw Alning, but changed, thinner—no, not Alning. There was a dazed, warm contentment in him. He took his time in opening the other eye. His hair was so long, falling in front of his eyes. He lifted his left hand and a surge of joy elated him, for he had fingers to push the hair back from his eyes.
Movement came suddenly. The female—not Alning—on her feet, running, a strange roaring, a feral sound, dark, flashing mass. He heard the female scream and saw her turn to face the thing, a thing unlike anything he'd ever seen, a thing out of legend, one of the great creatures of the past, of the Land of Many Brothers.
His right foot came free with a snapping and cracking and a sucking sound. Then his left. The female was fighting the animal, taking a rather admirable slash at it with a shortsword, and his longsword was at his feet. He jerked his left foot out and the female went down and screamed once more, the sound quickly drowned out by the angry roar of the wounded animal. He felt his tendrils trying to withdraw, but could not give them time, ran on tendril covered feet, longsword in hand. The animal slapped at the fallen female with one paw and great, bloody welts appeared on her bare shoulder. Duwan yelled warning. He had never taken life, but in that moment when there was no time for decision he knew his duty, for the life of a Drinker was more precious than the life of an animal. In this moment requiring action his training took over, training so well drilled into him by Belran the Leader that it was instinctive. He knew nothing about the anatomy of the animal, knew of it only from legend—and this was one more instance where it was being proven to him that the tales of the old ones had not been fabricated. He raised the heavy longsword and, positioned himself slightly behind the huge beast's head, a head that was lowering, mouth wide, teeth dripping, to engulf the head of the female. He struck, felt the blade hit bone, heard a loud snapping sound. The beast fell heavily directly atop the female, its spinal column severed at the neck. Frantic movement, uncoordinated, did some damage to the female underneath, leaving claw marks on her exposed legs.
Glorying in his strength, in his wholeness, glancing in awe at his left arm, complete once again, Duwan had to exert all his strength to push the animal off the female. She was alive, breathing, but she was unconscious. Still a bit dazed, Duwan looked around, remembered the stream at the foot of the slope, lifted the female. She was quite light, all skin and bones. He took only an instant to wonder why she was starving in a land of plenty.
Her clothing had been further damaged by the attack of the animal, and clung to her by shreds. To determine the extent of her injuries, Duwan removed the garment. She lay on moss at the brink of the stream. He cleansed her wounds. They would be painful, but not fatal. The worst claw gashes were on her shoulder. Her skin was pale, not as rich and smooth as his own, or as that of Alning. She was thin. Her bud point was enlarged, and, although he had never seen such—drinker females who had grafted were modest—he knew that she had performed, with someone, that act of which he had dreamed often of performing with Alning.
He had finished cleansing the shallower wounds on her legs when he noticed her left foot. It was discolored, festering, inflamed, quite nasty looking, an old wound. He examined it, saw that it needed lancing, used the point of his knife and narrowly escaped having the accumulated putrescence jet into his face. He squeezed out the rest of the bad juices and saw the black tip of the splinter, cut away dying flesh, exposed the soggy wood, drew it forth and it was followed by bright, fresh, healthy blood. He closed the wound with a pulped mixture of two tissues from fixed brothers growing along the stream, applied the same healing mixture to her other wounds, and sat down to wait. Her swollen, exposed bud point held a certain fascination for him, so he covered it with her torn garment.
She awakened with a start, jerked her head upward, moaned and fell back to be comatose for a few minutes longer. The next time she opened her eyes Duwan said, 'Be at rest.'
Her eyes, he saw, were purple, like an evening sky before a storm. They examined him, wide, searching.
'Master?' she whispered.
'You are not hurt badly,' he said. 'I have treated your wounds.' She raised herself on one elbow, groaned as her injured shoulder pulled, tossed aside her garment casually and examined herself.
'The farl?' she asked.
'Farl? The animal that attacked you? It is dead.'
'Good,' she said. 'Now we will have real food.' Shocked, Duwan was speechless.
'The haunches are best,' she said, trying to sit up. 'There will be so much of it that we won't be able to eat it all before it spoils, but, ah—'
'You would eat flesh?' Duwan asked.
She looked at him. 'Who are you?'
'I am Duwan the Drinker.'
'An odd name.'
