snide sidelongs to know what they were thinking. And them thinking made me think. When I get introspective I can become broody and unfit company for man or beast. And when I know I am being watched a natural shyness or reluctance sets in and I do not do anything, no matter how auspicious the omens.
So I sat around on my hands, getting depressed because I feared something important might be slipping away and I was constitutionally incapable of doing anything about it.
Life sure was less complicated in the old days.
My temper improved after we scaled a last excessively vegetated and overly bug-infested mountain range and broke out of the jungle onto high plateau savannah.
From there one of the more interesting aspects of D’loc-Aloc seemed to be the fact that we had not attracted a single volunteer soldier. It said something about the peace the people had with their environment. And something about One-Eye and his long-gone brother.
What the hell had they donet I noticed he made a point of avoiding any talk about his past, his age, or his earlier identity while in the jungle with Baldo and Wheezer. Like anybody would remember something a couple of teenagers had done that long ago.
Baldo and Wheezer planted us as soon as they had us outside the country of their own people. They claimed they had reached the limit of territory they knew. [They promised to round up a couple of trustworthy natives who could take us on.] Baldo announced that he was going to turn back despite his earlier contract. [He claimed Wheezer would do us just fine as intermediary interpreter.]
Something had happened to disenchant Baldo. I did not argue with him. His mind was made up. I just did not pay him the full fee he had been promised.
I was thrilled that Wheezer was going to stay. That guy was a second-rate soul son of One-Eye, full of ridiculous mischief. Maybe there is something in the water in the jungle of D’loc-Aloc. Except that Baldo and everyone else we met was almost normal.
I guess my magnetic personality draws the One-Eye/Wheezer types.
For sure there was fun in the offing. One-Eye had been taking it from Goblin for two months with never a spark in response. When the blowup came it was sure to be a beauty.
“The whole thing is backwards,” I said as Lady and I mulled things over. “One-Eye is supposed to pick at scabs while Goblin lays in the weeds waiting like a snake.”
“Maybe it’s because we’ve crossed the equator. The seasons are reversed.”
I did not understand that remark until I had given it hours of thought. Then I realized that it had no meaning. It was one of her droll, deadpan jokes.
Chapter Fifteen
The savannah
We waited six days at the edge of the savannah. Twice bands of dark-skinned warriors came to look us over. The first time, Wheezer told us, “Don’t let them lure you off the road.”
He said it to One-Eye, not knowing that I had picked up enough of the chatter to follow what they said. I have a fair gift for tongues.
Most of us old hands do. We have to learn so many.
“What road?” One-Eye demanded. “That cow path?” He indicated a track that meandered into the distance.
“Whatever is between the white stones is the road. The road is holy. As long as you stay on it you’ll be safe.”
On first pitching camp we were warned not to leave a circle circumscribed by white stones. I guessed the significance of the lines of white stones running southward. Trade would demand sheltered routes. Though little trade seemed to be moving these days. Seldom had we encountered any sizable caravan heading north since leaving the empire. We saw no one headed south. Except perhaps a walking stump.
Wheezer continued, “Beware the plains peoples anyway. They are treacherous. They will employ every blandishment and deceit imaginable to draw you outside. Their women are especially notorious. Remember: They are always watching. To leave the road is death.”
Lady was intensely interested in the discussion. She understood, too. And Goblin cracked, “You’re dead, Maggot Lips.”
“What?” One-Eye squeaked.
“The first set of sweet hips that shakes your way will lead you right off to the cannibals’ cookpots.”
“They aren’t cannibals...” Sudden panic tautened One-Eye’s face.
It took him that long to realize that Goblin had understood him while he was talking with Wheezer. He looked at the rest of us. Some of us gave ourselves away.
He looked that much more distraught. He whispered to Wheezer with great animation.
Wheezer cackled. His laugh seemed half chicken cluck, half peacock call. It cost him a coughing fit.
It was a bad one. One-Eye beckoned me. “You’re sure you can’t dp something for this guy, Croaker? He busts a lung and dies, we’re hurting.”
“Nothing. He shouldn’t be traipsing around to begin with...” No point singing that song. Wheezer refused to hear it. “You or Goblin ought to be able to do him more good than I can.”
“You can’t help a guy who won’t let you.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “How long before we get us some guides?”
“All I hear is ’soon’ when I ask.”
Soon indeed. A pair of tall black men came up the road at a steady, hardy trot. They were the sleakest, healthiest specimens I had seen in a long time. Each carried a sheaf of javelins across his back; a short-hafted, long-bladed spear in his right hand; and a shield of some white and black striped hide upon his left arm. Their limbs moved in perfect cadence, as though each man was half of some marvelous, rhythmic machine.
I glanced at Lady. No thoughts were evident on her face. “They would make grand soldiers,” she said.
The two trotted straight to Wheezer, feigning a vast indifference to the rest of us. But I felt them studying us
sidelong. White people had to be rare this side of the jungle. They barked at Wheezer in an arrogant tongue filled with clicks and stops.
Wheezer did some heavy kowtowing. He responded in the same language, whining like a slave addressing an ill-tempered master.
“Trouble,” Lady prophesied.
“Right-o.” This contempt for the outsider was not a new experience. I had to get busy and establish who said “Jump!” and who asked “How high?”
I talked to Goblin using the finger speech of the deaf. One-Eye caught it. He cackled. That stirred our new guides’ indignation.
It would be touchy. They had to give me what they themselves knew was provocation. Only then would they accept being put in their place.
One-Eye was getting big ideas. I signed him to restrain himself, to prepare some impressive illusion. Aloud, I demanded, “What’s all the babble? Get into the middle of that.”
He started nagging Wheezer.
Wheezer carried on like a man caught between a rock and a hard place. He told One-Eye that the K’Hlata did not bargain. He said they would go through our things and pick out what they thought was worth their trouble.
“They try that and they’ll get their fingers bitten off at the elbow. Tell them that. Politely.”
It was too late for polite. Those guys understood the language. But One-Eye’s growling threw them. They did not know what to do next.
“Croaker!” Murgen called. “Company.”
Company indeed. Some of the boys who had given us the fish-eye earlier.
They were just the specific for the bruised egos of our new friends. The boys jumped up and down and howled and banged their spears against their shields. They hurled taunts. They pranced along the stone-marked
