Finally there was Panalan of the Kosh, another eleven-year-old. He was lean and dark, with an intense unblinking gaze, and the only one of the children who had joined in the fighting against their captors. He’d been at the back of the column where the Uglies had attacked and Grondin told her how he’d piled in to support them, tangling the legs of one of the rearguard and helping to bring him down.
To each Ria gave command over eight other children. ‘You’re my generals,’ she told them. ‘If you can keep this rabble in some sort of order we might get out of here alive.’
* * *
The morning air was fresh following the rain, but by high sun the heat had become intense. The younger children, no matter how chivvied they were by Darza, Entu, Birsing and Panalan, or how amused by Jergat’s continuing antics, were slowing down. Some looked on the verge of collapse again. When they reached the waterfall they’d passed yesterday, which threw up a cooling spray, Ria ordered a halt and they found shade under trees for a short rest. There was no alternative if half her new protégés were not to die of exhaustion.
Stops were needed with increasing frequency after that, and although it was downhill all the way, retracing the route of the day before, progress was slow. Ria sent Ligar and Jergat to scout ahead for dangers and in the mid-afternoon she fell in beside the Kosh boy Panalan. ‘Tell me about mammoths,’ she said.
He wrinkled his face: ‘They are very large, they move in herds, their meat tastes good. What else is there to say?’
‘What happens when a mammoth fights a man?’
‘The man dies.’
‘But how does he die? How does the mammoth kill him?’
‘Have you truly never seen a mammoth?’ asked Panalan. He sounded amazed.
‘No, never.’ The almost mythical creatures had not ranged as far west as the Clan hunting grounds for as long as anyone could remember.
‘They’re as tall as two men and as heavy as twenty,’ Panalan explained. ‘So when they want to kill someone they can just stamp on them, or sit on them, or spear them with their tusks …’
‘Tusks? That’s what ivory comes from, right?’
‘They’re the mammoth’s teeth but grown extremely long’ – he spread his arms wide – ‘longer than this. They stick out of the front of his mouth, one on either side, and he uses them for digging and fighting.’
‘But you of the Kosh, you hunt these creatures, yes? And trade their skins and meat and … tusks?’
‘We’ve learnt their ways. We know how to kill them …’
‘Could you catch one for me, if I asked you to? Without killing it?’
‘We could trap one in a pit. But what use would it be to you alive?’
Ria didn’t answer.
In the distance she saw Ligar and Jergat returning at a run.
Chapter Eighty-One
A pungent burst of hot thick fluid drenched Leoni’s face and hair as they fell, and kept on pumping as Bannerman slumped on top of her. Blood! It had to be blood!
Leoni screamed and turned her head, spitting and gagging as her mouth and eyes filled with stinking glop. She fought to free herself, was dimly aware of the sounds of gunfire, which seemed to be all around her, heard footsteps charging down on her, thought she must die.
It was Matt. Silent, moving fast, he hauled Bannerman off her, thrust him aside, wrapped his left arm around Leoni and lifted her to her feet. The AK-47 was in his right hand, firing short rapid bursts back towards the creek. The muzzle flashes lit up the night and in the horrible yellowish on-off strobe effect, like riding a ghost train, she caught a glimpse of Bannerman’s slumped body and saw the jagged splinters of white bone and gouts of blood and brain matter where half his head had been blown away.
As the horror of the scene consumed her, two shadowy figures burst out of the trees and charged towards them. A burst from the AK-47 sent one of them tumbling but then the gun snicked and seemed to jam and the second man was on top of them. Matt had let go of Leoni to grapple with him and there was a bellow followed by an agonised scream – Not Matt, please let it not be Matt. The attacker fell, there was a rush behind them and Matt whirled, the long blade of a hunting knife gleaming in his hand, to face the new threat.
But it was Leoncio, not an enemy. ‘Quick,’ hissed the shaman and he turned, gesturing for them to follow. When Leoni tried to drop to her knees beside Bannerman, Matt jerked her upright and growled: ‘Nothing to be done for him.’ Then they were running deeper into the jungle, snaking through the trees, the darkness thickening.
There were insects crawling over Leoni’s body, in her hair too, some biting her, and the soup of Bannerman’s blood was congealing in a sticky mass on her face and throat, dribbling between her breasts and down onto her belly under her clothes. But she hardly registered the discomfort now, her heart thumping, her breath coming in ragged gasps, all her senses alert to the sounds of the pursuit.
A lot of men – How many? Twenty, thirty? – were still crashing through the undergrowth behind them, flashlight beams stabbing the night, rough, excited voices calling back and forth to one another, and Leoni felt the oppression of the jungle hemming her in all around. More gunfire came in a long burst, followed by sporadic individual shots and distant muzzle flashes. A few bullets whipped by very close but all the rest went wide.
Leoncio kept up a steady, loping pace, Leoni behind him. Once more she couldn’t see a trail – creepers and thorns grabbed at her legs and she felt Matt’s hand on her arm, steadying her. ‘Down,’ hissed Leoncio, dropping flat to the jungle floor and worming his way forward. Matt and Leoni followed. ‘In here,’ the shaman whispered. He squeezed through a gap between low-lying branches and tangled vines, and led them to a narrow sloping muddy watercourse into which they all slithered downwards, helter-skelter in the darkness.
At the bottom of the gully, after a bruising, soaking, jarring slide, Leoni and Leoncio landed in a heap right at Mary’s feet where she was waiting in the shadows with Esteban and Emmanuel. Matt was behind them, still clutching the AK-47.
There could be no talking but as Leoni staggered upright she wrapped her arms around Mary and whispered the awful news quietly into her ear: ‘I’m sorry. John’s dead. They shot him. He was trying to save me. It’s all my fault.’
With a raw stifled moan the other woman shoved her away.
Had they escaped their pursuers at the watercourse?
The sounds of the chase were growing faint and distant, turning at a tangent from them, but Leoncio wasn’t satisfied. ‘If they have a good tracker they could be back on our trail in minutes,’ he hissed. ‘We have to move fast – no talking, just follow me.’
‘Where are we going?’ Leoni asked.
‘A long way,’ Leoncio whispered. ‘A village I know. We’ll be safe there. You’ll be able to drink Ayahuasca. Good Ayahuasca. We’ll get you back to your Ria again …’
They walked in single file, about five feet apart. Leoncio was once again in the lead, setting a fast pace, followed by Mary, Esteban, Emmanuel and Leoni, with Matt taking up the rear. He had unjammed and reloaded the AK-47, and both the handguns that he’d stolen from Apolinar’s boat were stuffed into his belt.
Somewhere during their headlong escape Leoni had lost her Rolex, and with it all track of time, but soon enough she saw daylight filling the sky from the east. Troops of red howler monkeys were already swinging through the canopy overhead, welcoming the dawn with grating roars and groans, and the high-pitched rrrk, rrrrk, rrrrk, rrk calls of huge-billed toucans reverberated from the treetops.
Down on the jungle floor, although it was still quite dark, Leoni could now see enough to avoid the major hazards, which was good, but she also saw the thick matted bloodstains that hadn’t been washed out of her jeans and shirt in the watercourse. Up till now there’d been so much else going on it had been easy to avoid thinking of poor dead John Bannerman, but recognising his blood all over her brought back the whole horror of what had happened.
Leoni braced
herself as memories of their encounters during the past week flashed through her mind. He’d saved her life twice. Once in the emergency room, and once again right here tonight – except this time he’d taken bullets that otherwise would certainly have killed her.
Leoncio pushed ahead and the light brightened into full morning.
How much time had passed without them taking a stop? An hour? Two? Three? It was hard to be sure, but suddenly the sun was above the trees and even though the dense green canopy diffused its rays into a soft emerald glow, the heat and humidity of the day soon became almost unbearable.
Leoni had been taking frequent sips from one of her big water bottles but was now horrified to find she had only a few ounces left. What was she going to do when the other one was empty as well? Drink from the Amazon, presumably, and get amoebas in her guts.
She turned her attention to her feet, which hurt, and her legs, which felt weak and wobbly. She had a beating headache and her whole body was covered with scratches and cuts inflicted by the jungle. In contrast Don Emmanuel in his eighties, Don Esteban in his seventies and Don Leoncio in his fifties seemed to float along the almost invisible trail, expending no effort, somehow avoiding all contact with the vines, thorns and random debris that lined their path.
Gritting her teeth, Leoni forced herself to keep up with them, trying to imitate their easy, fluid gait, when she heard a sound from back along their trail that did not belong to the jungle.
Don Leoncio held up a hand, a finger to his lips for silence, and everyone stopped.
There it was again.
Hunting dogs, baying.
Chapter Eighty-Two
The news brought by Ligar and Jergat was good. There were people ahead on their path. A lot of people. But they weren’t Illimani. They were Merell and they were led by Sebittu and Tari, the couple whose lives they’d saved the day before. ‘They’re talking about a prophecy,’ said Ligar.
Ria grimaced. ‘One of the kids mentioned something like that as well. Any idea what it’s about?’
‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Ligar in out-loud speech. He leaned close and whispered: ‘To be honest, it looks like they’ve all gone mad.’
Late in the afternoon, with the setting sun shining almost directly into their eyes, they came over a ridge. A few bowshots downslope lay the great forest into which Martu and Sakkan had disappeared yesterday with their five hundred Illimani. Now an even larger number of Merell – perhaps a thousand of them – began to swarm out of it. As the distance shortened, Ria saw that many were armed and that a disciplined body of archers stood to the front of the huge crowd. They came to a halt twenty paces from her and Sebittu made his way through the archers until he stood at their forefront. Ria stepped forward also – it seemed the right thing to do – and they faced each other across a few paces of open ground.
There was silence for a heartbeat. Then all the rescued Merell children, including Birsing whom Ria had put in charge, bolted for the Merell ranks where they were scooped up and embraced by sobbing, delighted relatives. Birsing, Ria noticed, found nobody waiting for her and wandered, looking from face to face, until Sebittu’s wife Tari came to her.
‘I’ve gathered the survivors of four bands,’ Sebittu told Ria. ‘There wasn’t another Speaker amongst them so I have command. Yesterday you offered me a place of safety for the Merell. Is that offer still open now you see our numbers?’
‘Of course it’s still open. Just follow us. We’ll take you there.’
‘There is another matter we must settle first,’ said Sebittu. He signalled to Tari who brought Birsing forward: ‘Speak, girl. Tell us your story.’
Birsing’s fierce green eyes glared up at the adults: ‘When the savages destroyed our camp my mother and I sought sanctuary in the Gate of Horn. My brother Jengo was with us.’
Her tone was cold and flat.
‘We found others there fleeing the same savages, but more savages had followed. They killed all the grown-ups – Jengo too, though he wasn’t fourteen summers. The rest of us they took prisoner. They made us march at night but we were too much trouble so they decided to kill us.’
Her face lit up and she turned her green gaze directly on Ria: ‘Then Ria of the Clan came out of the sky with six brave warriors.’ She waved in the direction of Bont, Ligar, Driff, Grondin, Oplimar and Jergat. ‘Ha! You should have seen them fight. They killed all the savages and saved our lives.’
Birsing stepped forward two more paces and stood right in front of Ria, looking up at her with burning eyes: ‘You’re the girl from the prophecy,’ she said. ‘I knew it when you saved us. When you came from the sky. I saw the way you killed that guard. So fast it was beautiful. I want to learn to do that.’ She reached out, took Ria’s hand and kissed it – an action that evoked a sigh from the crowd. Then she returned to Tari’s side.
‘The girl from what prophecy?’ Ria asked.
‘Birsing voices what we all believe,’ said Sebittu.
Ria gave him a blank, uncomprehending look.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘You speak our language so well it’s easy to forget you don’t know our traditions. There is a prophecy of Our Lady of the Forest – passed down to us from the long-ago …’
Our Lady of the Forest. The name by which the blue woman was known amongst the Uglies! Were the Merell too part of the web she was spinning backwards and forwards in time?
‘At first I couldn’t be sure the prophecy spoke of you,’ Sebittu continued. ‘But there’s no longer any doubt.’ His voice ringing, he began to recite:
‘In the time of darkness will appear the harbinger of the light. She will fight against the evil one for the future of the world. By these signs you shall recognise her …’
Starting as a whisper of a few isolated voices, quickly taken up by others, and soon intoned by hundreds, the rest of the Merell joined in the recitation, the words growing louder and stronger with each new revelation until they reached a crescendo:
‘She will come from the east, out of the Gate of Horn, a protector of children. Great courage will be hers, and great cunning in battle. All the tongues of the world will be at her command. She is the one who will unite the tribes …’
How or when the blue woman had planted this prophecy in the Merell’s past Ria didn’t know or care. All that mattered was to use it to her advantage.
Things were moving fast.
Sebittu dropped to one knee before her: ‘The evil one has come into our valleys,’ he said, ‘and his name is Sulpa. His forces have destroyed our camps, raped our women, stolen our children, so it cannot be an accident you appear now, out of the east, a protector of children …’
Ria looked around. All the rest of the Merell were down on their knees as well.
‘There can be no doubting the prophecy,’ said Sebittu. ‘Our Lady of the Forest has chosen you to fight the evil one. You have already offered a place of safety for my people, and I have accepted. Now I offer you in return my Merell archers at your command until Sulpa is destroyed. What do you say?’
‘I say yes.’
What other answer could there be?
Chapter Eighty-Three
Don Leoncio and the others had been moving too fast for Leoni even before they heard the dogs. Now they doubled their pace to a run. She couldn’t sustain it and after only a few moments she was bent over by the side of the trail, gasping for breath, sweat drenching her filthy clothes.
Matt stooped, put his shoulder into her waist and the next thing she knew he had picked her up in a fireman’s lift and was jogging through the jungle with her to where Leoncio and the others waited just up ahead. Then they were all off again at a run: ‘I’ll carry you as long as I can,’ Matt panted. ‘Get your breath back – you’ll need it.’
Being shouldered like a sack of potatoes and bumped up and down with every footstep was uncomfortable but beat running for a while. It gave Leoni a chance to listen to the dogs. She thought there were four of them. Two were still quite far back, tw
o others were closer and moving fast.
Five minutes passed, Matt set her down, and Leoni put everything she had into keeping going and not being a burden. But it was no good. Her body was soft and weak, she was still reeling from the effects of last night’s Ayahuasca trip, and the sound of those dogs was turning her bowels to jelly.
Mary looked done in, too. Don Emmanuel’s normally nut-brown skin was grey and slick with sweat. Even Matt was showing signs of strain. The heat and humidity were unbelievable – it was like running in a sauna bath – and Leoni’s heart was kicking. ‘I have to stop,’ she gasped, doubling forward. ‘Can’t … can’t … I can’t …’
Without a word, hardly breaking his stride, Matt swept her up again.
He ran with her for what seemed a long time. Strong as an ox, she thought, but the dogs were still gaining on them. Finally, with a grunt of exhaustion, he swung her down to her feet, stepped to one side and cocked the AK-47, pointing it back along the trail.
Gasping for breath, everyone else stopped and turned. But when Leoncio saw what was happening he hurried to Matt and laid his hand on the gun. ‘This is just dogs,’ he hissed. ‘Let’s not tell the hunters our position before we need to.’ He drew a machete from his belt, and in the same instant a brown muscular streak, some sort of pit bull/mastiff cocktail, snarling and spraying saliva, launched itself at him from the undergrowth and clamped its teeth onto his arm, bearing him to the ground.
Matt dived after the animal, thrust his knife right up its anus and twisted the blade. The brute yelped and let go of Leoncio who smashed his machete into its neck just as the second dog burst from the jungle. Still crouched low, Matt shouldered aside its leap for his throat and plunged his knife to the hilt between its ribs. It dropped to the ground, all the life gone out of it.