“Why? It would only be grown again. While here the vines are closer to the valley floor every day. It must be said. The murgu have learned how to defeat us at last. Not in battle — but with the slow and ceaseless growth of their poison plants. They will win in the end. We cannot stop it any more than we can stop the tide.”
“Yet each day the tide retreats again.”
“The murgu do not.” Herilak dropped to the ground, feeling defeat, feeling as old and tired as the mandukto. “They will win, Sanone, they will win.”
“I have never heard you speak like that before, strong Herilak. There is still a battle to be fought. You have led us before, you have won.”
“Now we have lost.”
“We will cross the desert to the west.”
“They will follow.”
Sanone looked at the bowed shoulders of the big hunter and felt the other’s despair, shared it despite himself. Was it Kadair’s will that the Sasku be wiped from the face of the land? Had they followed the tracks of the mastodon only to find extinction waiting at trail’s end? He could not believe it. Yet what else could he believe?
The excited shouts cut through the darkness of his thoughts and he turned to see what was happening. Hunters were running toward them, pointing, shouting. Herilak seized up his death-stick, leapt to his feet. There was a splashing roar as a wave of water rushed down the dry riverbed toward them, yellow with mud, quickly filling the banks. The terrified Sasku and Tanu scrambled to safety as the wall of water thundered by.
“The dam has been broken!” Herilak said. “Are all safe?” Sanone watched the muddy water rush through the valley, saw no bodies — only tumbling shrubs and other debris. “I think they are, the river is staying inside its old banks. And, look, the level has dropped already. It is just as it always has been.”
“Until they rebuild the dam, regrow it. This means nothing.”
Even this welcome sight could not touch Herilak’s despair.
He had gone beyond hope, was ready for his life to end. He did not even lift his head when others called out, only looked up, blinking, when Sanone pounded on his arm.
“Something is happening,” the mandukto cried, hope in his voice for the first time. “The vines, look at the vines! Kadair has not deserted us, we follow still in his tracks.”
High above them a mass of vine tore loose from the cliff, tumbled and fell to the valley floor. Dust rose about it and when it had settled they saw that the thick stems that had supported it were gray and crumbled. Even as they watched the waxy green leaves drooped and lost their shine. In the distance another great tangle of vines broke free and slid down into the valley.
“Something is happening out there, something that we don’t know about,” Herilak said, released from the dark prison of despair by the incredible events about him. “I must go see.”
His death-stick ready he ran the length of the valley, clambered up the barricade. Across from him, on the other side of the river, were the cliffs of the opposite bank, a close arrow-shot away. There was sudden movement there and he crouched, weapon pointed. A murgu appeared to stand at the cliff’s edge, then another and another. Their repulsive two-thumbed hands were empty. They stood motionless, wide-eyed and staring.
Herilak lowered his weapon. It was inaccurate at this distance — and he needed to understand what was happening. They looked at him, as he looked at them, in silence, capable of communicating only their presence to each other. The width of the river lay between them, the width of their difference wider than any river or sea. Herilak hated them and knew that the stare from their slitted eyes radiated the same hate in return. Then what was happening? Why had they undamned the river, slain the vines?
The large one, closest to him, turned about and moved its limbs in sudden spasms as another appeared and passed over some object. The first one turned and cradled it in both hands, looking down at it — then looked up at Herilak. Its mouth opened in a spasm of unreadable emotion. Then it spun about and hurled the thing across the narrow valley. He watched it rise up in a slow arc, descend to strike the barrier and roll down to catch among the rocks.
When he looked back the murgu were gone. Herilak waited but they did not return. Only then did he slide down the barrier and stop beside the thing they had thrown over to him. There was the sound of hoarse panting as Sanone climbed up to join him.
“I saw… that,” he said. “They stood and looked at you, did nothing. Just threw this thing — then left. What is it?”
It was a melon-shaped bladder of some kind, gray and smooth. Featureless. Herilak pushed at it with his foot. “It could be dangerous,” Sanone warned. “Be careful.”
“It could be anything.” Herilak knelt and prodded it with his thumb. “There is only one way to find out.”
He lay the death-stick aside and pulled out his stone knife, tested the edge with his thumb. Sanone gasped with alarm and moved back as Herilak bent and cut into the bladder.
The outer skin was tough. He pressed and sawed — and it suddenly broke. Collapsing as orange liquid oozed from it. There was a dark shape inside. Herilak used the tip of his knife to push it free. Sanone was standing beside him now, looking down as well.
Looking at Kerrick’s silver blade that had been concealed inside. The knife of sky-stone that he had always worn about his neck.
“It is Kerrick’s,” Sanone said. “He is dead. They have killed him and cut this from him and sent it to us as a message that he is dead.”
Herilak seized up the blade, held it high so that it glinted in the sun.
“You are right in that it is a message — but the message is that Kerrick lives! He has done this thing — I don’t know how — but he has done it. He did not die in the north but lives now. And has conquered the murgu.” Herilak swept his arm out in a gesture that encompassed the valley.
“This is all his doing. He has defeated them. They have broken the dam and have killed their vines — and they are gone. That is what the knife says. We can stay here. The valley is ours again.”
He held the knife high in the sunlight, turned it so that it gleamed and sparkled, and roared his words aloud.
“Won! We have won — we have won!”
“You have lost, Vainte,” Lanefenuu said, one eye on the erect figure at her side, the other looking with distaste at the filthy, fur encrusted ustuzou that stood on the other side of the valley staring back at her. Then she signed Akotolp to join them. “Is the destruction done?”
The scientist framed her limbs into completion-as-ordered. “The virus has been released. It is harmless to other plants, animals. But certain death for all of the newly mutated cells. They will die. The virus remains in the ground so any seeds that mature will die as well.”
Vainte was scarcely aware of Akotolp and pushed her rudely aside to get close to the Eistaa, in a frenzy to deny what the Eistaa had last said.
“We cannot lose. They must be destroyed.”
So fierce were her emotions that her meaning was muffled as conflicting feelings tore at the muscles of her body. In a final spasm she faced Lanefenuu, menace in her every motion.
“The battle must not stop. You must not stop it.”
So strong were her expressions that Akotolp fell away with a cry of pain and the watching Yilane raised their weapons, fearful for Lanefenuu’s safety. She waved them back, then turned on Vainte with distaste curving her limbs.
“The ustuzou-Kerrick knows you well, Vainte. It said you would disobey me, would ignore my orders if I did not deliver them myself. It was right in that. You disobey me, Vainte, who swore to be my fargi for life.”
“You cannot do this—”
“It is done!” Lanefenuu roared with anger, all patience vanished. The watchers fled. “You wish to disobey me? Then you will have death as my last order — an order you cannot disobey. Die, outcast, die!”
Vainte turned and stumbled away, Lanefenuu a step behind her, crest livid and shaking with rage.
“What is this? You do not die! You who hated them have become one of them. You are a Daughter of Destruction. A deathless one, an outcast. You have joined the ranks of those you once loathed. I will have you killed. Attention to orders all present.”
The fleeing Yilane stopped, turned, fingered their weapons. Cold reason cut through Vainte’s anger; she
