The Children of the Sky

They were pushing on as fast as they could go. It had been light when they escaped, but now twilight was deepening into night and the wagons’ progress had slowed. For that matter, how do you do first aid when you can’t see the injuries? The stolen lamps were somewhere on the wagons, but they couldn’t stop and dig them out. When there had still been light, she had seen the general size of the problem. Everyone was cut up to some extent. Over the last ten years, Ravna had done her best to learn about first aid. Jefri’s forearm needed a pressure bandage. She had managed that, and he understood how to maintain it. Amdi had looked ghastly, blood oozing now from three of his heads—and yet he seemed to be thinking as clearly as ever. Okay, maybe they were just scalp wounds, not near his tympana. She had wrapped his heads in strips torn from their cloaks. That made it harder for Amdi to hear himself think, but the bleeding stopped. “I’m fine,” he said, “I just gotta pay more attention to where I’m at. Please. Check on Screwfloss.”

Now it was really dark. One of Screwfloss was aboard the rear wagon, driving it along. The rest of him was sprawled in an exhausted jumble atop the second wagon with Ravna.

“We should stop, get you properly bandaged up,” said Ravna.

“Naeh,” said Screwfloss. “We gotta keep moving. How is Amdijefri?”

Ravna looked around. Jefri was walking by the lead kherhog, guiding it along. All eight of Amdi was trotting beside the middle wagon and its kherhog, keeping them on the road. “I’m good,” said Amdi, but he was looking up at Screwfloss anxiously. “Are you all right?”

Screwfloss replied, “You did great tonight, Little Ones.”

Ravna brushed her hand across the nearest of Screwfloss. “But are you okay, Screwfloss?”

“Am I okay? Am I okay? What kind of an idiot are you? I still have the broken leg you gave me; it hurts like hell. Then tonight you screwed us into trying to rescue Jorkenrud. He was more of a dirtbag than either of the wagoneers, you know that?”

Ravna was taken aback, remembering the moment when all she could think of was saving Gannon. She’d never thought of herself as a racist. That was a Straumer vice. She bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Screwfloss. It’s just that I knew Gannon, I knew all the kids, when they were younger. I felt responsible.”

Screwfloss emitted a soft laugh. “Would you have done the same if you’d known he was the one who smashed your face into the side of the fodder wagon? Never mind, I’m afraid you would have. You and Woodcarver are both so soft-hearted.”

Woodcarver soft-hearted? Compared to what?

Screwfloss shifted uneasily under her hands, but let her touch and probe. She could see so little now, but there was blood all over, like Amdi. Keep him talking. “You were on our side from the beginning, Screwfloss. But you were part of Nevil’s conspiracy, too.”

“Of course I was! Didn’t Flenser tell you he had tunneled into the conspiracy? You can’t do that without being pretty damn credible.”

“You had me fooled about the trees, right up to when the arrows didn’t start flying.”

“Heh, I had a good time with that. There really are arrow trees, you know. Just not anywhere near here. The crusherbushes are much rarer, a transient stage in the way these forests sometimes regrow. I couldn’t believe our luck the other night when I saw that crusher grab you. My lies practically told themselves, though Chitiratifor was the perfect ignoramus. I don’t know why Vendacious put up with him all these years. Remasritlfeer wouldn’t have been fooled. But then he wanted you for Tycoon. We should be glad that’s not gonna happen. We have a chance. We just gotta avoid Vendacious and Tycoon, and wiggle our asses back to the Domain.”

It suddenly occurred to Ravna that she was in the middle of someone who could explain most of the deadly mysteries, and who surely must be a friend.

Twilight was past, but now the moon stood low in the south, its light chopping the forest floor into silver and shadow.

She used an open stretch of road to peer down between Screwfloss’ huddled members. He wasn’t talking so much now, though the one on the other wagon was peering alertly into the gloom, taking advantage of the moonlight just as she was. Then she realized that except for the outlier driving the rear wagon, Screwfloss was huddling, the dazed reaction of a pack that doesn’t consciously understand how badly it is injured.

“Talk to me, Screwfloss.”

The pack gave its human chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. I bet you have a million questions. And I have lots of answers, though if we knew exactly what was going on we’d never have wound up in this mess.” He mumbled to himself for a moment. “We didn’t realize how important Vendacious was. We didn’t realize he might double-cross Tycoon. We didn’t realize they would grab so much and all at once.”

The words weren’t slurred. The actual sounds were coming from all the pack. But there was a singsong cadence to the delivery; some member was not pulling its mental weight. Ravna slipped her hands gently between him, trying to encourage the pack to get out of its huddle. Here and there a jaw snapped at her distractedly, but the four slid apart. There was so much blood.

The one protected by the huddle was in a pool of it. The critter was humming to itself, not really in pain. In the reflected moonlight she could see it turn its head toward her, the faint glitter in its open eyes. She ran her hand up its shoulder, felt a faintly pulsing gash just short of its neck, the blood flowing past her fingers.

“Jefri!” she shouted.

•  •  •

Ravna and Jefri and Amdi did what they could, but it wasn’t nearly enough. She’d stopped the bleeding. They’d found a clearing, coaxed Screwfloss down to lie in the moonlight, where they could find all his injuries. By then the one member was silent and unconscious, and it was too late to save it. The death was a peaceful, painless ending. It might not have happened if there had been pain and whistling screams. Instead, the member had quietly bled and bled, its pack just dazed enough to miss the mortal peril.…

Chapter 22

After that one stop, they rolled on through the night and into the next day, till fatigue stopped humans and packs and kherhogs.

Ravna took another look at everyone’s wounds. Jefri and Amdi were keeping a nervous lookout all around, but mainly back along the way they had come. “I don’t think any of the surviving fragments could have chased us this far,” said Jefri.

“So what does Screwfloss think of this theory?” asked Ravna.

What remained of Screwfloss looked more lively than Jef and Amdi. After they stopped the wagons, it had slid off into the woods, a self-appointed scouting party. Yet now the remnant hissed when she tried to tend its wounds. The four were snouting around in the front wagon. After a moment, it pulled emergency rations out of the depths of a cabinet and began eating. It chewed grumpily, looking speculatively at the surrounding trees.

Amdi said, “I’m afraid he can’t talk anymore.” Amdi detoured around Screwfloss and brought both human and pack rations to where Ravna and Jefri had settled. She ate as much as she could. She was so tired. Everything was a bit of a blur. Today was actually warm. There was a faint, keening whine all around, gnats rising from every pond and river stillness.

Finally what Amdi had said percolated through her muzziness. “I’ve seen many packs of four,” she said. “They can talk well enough.”

“If that’s how they’ve made themselves,” said Jefri. He was sitting at the edge of Amdi, still a couple of meters from Ravna. She noticed that he still avoided her eyes, but there was an occasional flickering glance, challenging as often as not. He continued, “It should be obvious: the one that died was a principal speech center. So no more Samnorsk. It looks like his Interpack speech has gone, too.”

“We should keep trying,” said Amdi. “What’s left has some speech capacity, I know it.” Amdi was shaking his heads this way and that, but not as fierce negation; he was just trying to wave the gnats away.

Jefri brushed helpfully at Amdi’s nearest faces. “Could be. It’ll be a while before we know what’s left of his mind.”