Time to think about that later. And as later became now he continued to push the problem back. The days grew noticeably shorter and the first rains of the wet season began without a single clue emerging from their search. At night they camped on the relative safety of the savannah, by day they flew down the newly swollen tributaries of the river. It was a search strategy dictated as much by necessity as planning. Far Hunter’s theory was that, if the fugitives had survived, they would have followed the river downstream. That theory meshed conveniently with the fact that the river banks were the only part of the jungle floor they could actually see. There were cool, clear pools in the smaller tributaries, inviting in the heat of the day, but Far Hunter warned them against entering still water.
They found nothing, and continued to find nothing. One day after another fruitless search it occurred to Tskombe that he’d lost track of time. It had been what, a month? Two months? They returned to their camp on the savannah to eat a zianya that Far Hunter had caught. Trina and Tskombe roasted their portion on the same cook fire that Ayla had set, a season or more ago. It made him feel connected to her, as though she were alive. And she is alive, I have to believe that. The jungle was large, the search could take years. Patience was the key.
And still the next day, in his heart he believed that today might be the day they found her. It was not, nor was the next. The Hunter’s Moon made its way through its phases, chased around the sky by the smaller, faster Traveler’s Moon. The wet season was well upon them. Every day brought larger storms, and the languid river began to run faster, hastened by its myriad overflowing tributaries. The danger of standing water was replaced by the hazard of its powerful current, but there was less drive to swim. The constant rainfall was cooling the parched jungle, and the desiccated vegetation began to swell and blossom. Tskombe found himself changing too, adapting to the environment. He could recognize hidden threats, in the fangthorn and the trapvine, he knew the tracks of the alyyzya and, though he’d never seen one, the fearsome grlor. His dark complexion was burnt almost black by the relentless sun. Trina had changed too. He had already seen the little girl behind the abused adolescent emerge in her time on Tiamat, and now the little girl was growing, maturing into a confident young woman. Unlike him she wasn’t adapting to the jungle, her luck forbade it. If she needed to drink there was a clean stream nearby, if she wandered too close to a trapvine it turned out to have already caught its dinner. Her confidence was the misplaced confidence of youth, that nothing bad could happen to her. Except her case it turned out to be correct.
Her luck was failing though, in the search for Ayla. But good luck for her is not good luck for me. Perhaps her fates have arranged for her to have this interlude, to heal away from the humans who have done her the most harm, kept safe by good fortune alone in this lethal environment. Certainly Far Hunter was good for her. The kzin had taken an almost paternal interest in her, as a human might in a lost raccoon baby. He teased her gently and taught her little hunting tricks. She teased him back and learned to groom his pelt, a fair exchange. It reminded Tskombe of the earlier relationship she had forged with Curvy. And where is Curvy now? Earth, human space, Muro Ravalla and the threat of war, all these things seemed impossibly distant, completely unconnected with the daily round of their life. Even Ayla seemed distant, despite being the focus of his quest. Only in his dreams did she seem real, calling out to him, urging him not to give up on her. By day there was only the jungle, vast and alive, taunting him with its impenetrable secrets.
On their sixtieth or six hundredth flight Trina was flying under Far Hunter’s tutelage, another round of the life lessons he insisted on teaching her. Tskombe kept his attention focused down, swept his eyes up and down the wide river, as the triple canopy unrolled beneath them, looking for something, anything.
And there was something. He gestured down, and Trina slid the gravcar down into the burned-over valley he’d spotted and landed on a thin layer of grass growing over still-charred ground. The jungle air was thick and humid, full of the scent of life. The morning had seen marching thunderstorms flood rain from the sky while fist sized hailstones rang off the gravcar’s canopy like strakkaker fire, but now 61 Ursae Majoris burned down mercilessly from a clear blue sky, and the soaked ground steamed tendrils of water vapor up to join the next storm cycle. Tskombe climbed out, already drenched in sweat, and looked around at the sparse forest of burnt trunks.
Far Hunter leapt out. “What have you seen?”
“Just that this area is burnt over.”
“You suspect more laser fire?”
“Or a cook fire. What else do we have to go on?”
Far Hunter knelt to examine the soil. “This fire is too old, it happened several years ago at least.” He pointed. “See how the shoots have pushed through the charred layer and grown? The tree trunks have faded to gray.”
Tskombe nodded, sighing heavily. “Another false alarm. Where do we go from here?”
The kzin fanned his ears up as he surveyed the landscape. “Not so fast. It is still likely they would be following the river. Jungle navigation is hard. This tributary branch would have been their easiest choice. This burned area is easy going too. They may have come through here and left sign that has lasted in the char.”
“That way.” Trina pointed downslope from the cockpit. “I think that way.” Tskombe nodded and they got back in. Far Hunter took over the controls, flying slowly a few meters up, looking for clues. Tskombe had them fly through the center of the burned area, hoping to find stones arranged to hold a cook fire, or better yet another inukshuk, but there was nothing. A rushing stream ran through the center of the valley, running brisk with the morning’s rain. Tskombe felt a mounting despair, for the first time since they had started the jungle hunt.
“We’re searching for a needle in a haystack.”
Haystack translated as grass pile in the Hero’s Tongue, and Far Hunter looked puzzled. “Why would you expect to find a needle there?”
“Well, you wouldn’t expect to, that’s the point.”
“Then why look?”
“Well, because you need to find the needle.”
“Needles are trivial possessions. Why not just get another one?”
“Well, you would normally.” Tskombe laughed, his mood improving slightly. “What I mean is, we’re wasting our time here.”
Far Hunter put a paw to his nose, where four parallel lines of white fur marked the scars from the blood oath he had sworn. “Hrrr. I am pledged to take vengeance on the Tzaatz for my father’s death, and my fealty belongs to the Rrit. I have no time in my life which is not bent to this task.” He took his paw away and unfurled his ears as he contemplated Tskombe. “Have you some priority higher than your search for your mate?”
And when you put it like that…Tskombe shook his head. “No. No I don’t.”
Far Hunter growled in deep satisfaction. “Then it is settled. We will search on.” He spun the gravcar for another pass up the valley from the river.
“Look over there.” Trina pointed. “Something’s different.”
They followed her finger. The valley fell into the river bed, cutting through a steep bluff that the river itself had etched eons earlier. Along the river bank the area between the water and the bluff was burnt over as well, the blackened and denuded spire trees reaching for the sky like the twisted pillars of some dark cathedral, but the burn was darker, the edges sharper, unrelieved by the sprigs of green that softened the harshness of the fire ravaged valley.
“Yes.” Far Hunter slid the gravcar down to the ground at the border between the two areas and got out again, crouching to examine the ground cover, standing again to inspect a tree. “This was another fire. It burned between the bluff and the river, and stopped when it reached the old burn.” He moved to examine a spire trunk as Tskombe and Trina got out to follow him. “The trunks are still sooty, the ground crust is intact. This fire happened at the start of this dry season.”
“Lasers?”
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“Hrrr. We must search to know. Perhaps…”
They got back in the gravcar and patrolled up the river in silence, Far Hunter zigzagging the car slowly. The fire had burned hot, and even the stones were carbonized funereal black. The area was probably safer than the rest of the jungle, but Tskombe still kept a careful eye out for danger. Days earlier they had seen the footprints of a grlor pack, but big herbivores could find no food here, and so they and the big carnivores that preyed on them would avoid the area. Still the blackened, dead landscape felt dangerous. That’s a good thing, it will keep us alert in our search. Tskombe leaned forward in his seat, straining to pick up some shape that didn’t belong, but there was nothing but the unending blackness. As the day wore on the ground stopped steaming as the unrelenting sun baked the moisture from it and heat waves began to ripple the stagnant air instead. By midafternoon they were powerful enough to make the more distant of the burned trunks appear to twist and warp. The strip between the bluff and the river was a kilometer wide and seemed to go on forever. Tskombe counted himself lucky. If they had just ten or twenty square kilometers to search a meter at a time, their haystack had gotten a lot smaller. If they were in the right place. If not I no longer have anything of value except time.
They came to a rockslide where the whole face of the bluff had given way, chunks of rock as big as houses torn from the cliff in a slide that stretched two hundred meters. The rocks were fire blackened too, but still sharp edged. The fall had happened before the fire, but it was recent. It might even have occurred during it, perhaps triggered by the heat.
Trina pointed. “Look there.”
He looked. It was a bone, sticking out from beneath a massive boulder, bleached white by rain and sun in stark contrast with the blackened landscape. They set down and got out to examine it.
Up close they could see it was a tibia. The foot was gone, along with the fibula. Far Hunter examined it closely, sniffed at it.
“It is kzinti.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. A male.”
“Is it Pouncer?” Tskombe felt a sudden dread. If it were Pouncer then the odds were high Ayla was under the slide as well. His throat tightened as he pushed the thought away.
“We cannot know.” Far Hunter looked up. “This area is important. We must search it thoroughly.”
They did, on foot, clambering over the semi-stable slide. Tskombe thought they would get filthy with soot, but what remained on the rocks after the heavy rains was baked onto their surfaces and didn’t come off that easily. They found nothing else on the slide, but Tskombe did find what looked like a steep trail leading up the face of the bluff. They followed it and found a cave mouth on a ledge. It would have been invisible from below. Inside was a large, sand-floored cavern and signs of a large bonfire. Other signs of inhabitation were plentiful.
“This is a czrav den.” For the first time ever Far Hunter sounded apprehensive. “We must not stay here.”
“Why not?”
“The czrav…Few have ever seen one, fewer still live to tell of it.”
“Pouncer thought he would find sanctuary with them.”
“If he has, he is lucky. They are ferocious warriors, unwelcoming of strangers. We are transgressing on their territory. We must leave and make a proper border gift at the edge of their territory.”
“It looks like they have already left.”
“They are migratory, but they will return.”
“Where do they migrate to?”
“No one knows.”
“When will they be back?”
“I cannot say.”
“So we’re supposed to wait at the edge of their territory for some indefinite period of time.”
“This is the tradition. It is important that we follow it.”
Tskombe nodded. “We might as well look around while we’re here, to see if we can find any proof that Pouncer did arrive here.”
Far Hunter hesitated, the war between courage and fear plain in his expression. “Yes. We must be fast.”
Trina had been exploring deeper in the cavern. “I found an inukshuk,” she said.
Near the round fire place was a large rock, its surface worn smooth. Beside it, neatly piled, was another manlike stone sculpture. Tskombe breathed out. Ayla had been here, literally in the lion’s den. Its presence showed she had stayed some time, which in turn meant Pouncer must have been with her, to extend his protection to her, and T’suuz, to make whatever connection she had to these frightening alien primitives. She made it this far. Now where did she go from here?
So in war the way is to avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak.
—Sun Tzu
Ayla Cherenkova stood in the den mouth, watching the setting sun paint the sky in rich tones of red and orange, its last rays turning the towering cumulus cloud to the west into jagged spires, like predatory fangs set to devour heavens. Below the sandstone dome of the den four tuskvor turned south at their mazourk’s urging, another deep patrol heading over the mountains to raid the Tzaatz. It was frustrating to watch them go and have to stay behind. She was, after all, a warrior, and the czrav were her tribe now, her pride. Her instinct was to hunt with them, raid with them, to build the bonds of trust and respect that warriors built together. Pouncer had denied it of her and, though that was frustrating, his word was law. There was no question that Pouncer was leading the pride now, Patriarch in all but name. He was close to becoming Great Patriarch of the czrav. Dziit Pride followed him, and Fvaar Pride, and others were lending support, if not yet fealty. That would come soon, as czrav victories gained momentum. The slaughter of Mrrsel Pride by the Tzaatz had galvanized the czrav prides and turned them against eons of self-imposed isolation. Ztrak Pride had made the decision to send only its nursing mothers and kits back to the jungle on the countermigration, not to their own jungle den, compromised as it was by the Tzaatz, but to that of Mrrsel Pride, along with the few straggling Mrrsel survivors who’d been away when the Tzaatz had come to kill them. For them it was simply logical, but many other czrav prides had made the decision to stay in the high forest over the next migration as well, laying in provisions to last over the barren season, simply because they could better launch raids against the Tzaatz from there. Several hundred balky tuskvor had been held back from the countermigration to carry the raiders from their high forest bases into the mountains, to descend on Tzaatz positions in the foothills at the northern edge of the Plain of Stgrat. They were a force to be reckoned with.
Ayla picked up a rock and idly threw it over the cliff, watching it vanish. The czrav were ferocious warriors. Even though raids were forbidden to her she was still part of the struggle. She was a commander, trained in the organizational skills and tactical finesse the czrav needed to turn their embryonic rebellion into a victory. The plan of attack Pouncer was now leading was Ayla’s, a strategy crafted from ten thousand human years of human conflict. The czrav lacked the strength to stand in a face-to-face fight against Tzaatz rapsari, but they didn’t need to. Instead they had moved fast and deep into enemy territory, struck hard and vanished again like ghosts. The Tzaatz had responded at first with large-scale sweeps, but they lacked the czrav standard of fieldcraft, and their unwieldy formations were too big to move fast enough to catch the night raiders. With the failure of that strategy they had begun garrisoning themselves, staying in larger groups and sticking to their fortifications, and that had the effect of isolating them from the Lesser Prides they purported to rule. Tzaatz authority in the northern plains was thoroughly undermined. A czrav raiding party pressed hard by Tzaatz gravcars could find shelter with any smallholder now, and the Lesser Prides were beginning to lend food, shelter and weapons, and most importantly information. All of Ztrak Pride carried variable swords now, and Pouncer drilled them relentlessly in the group combat form. It was guerrilla war, nothing less. They fought dirty, and they fought to win, and it was working, at least locally. The future was less certain. To be more than an annoyanc
e to the Tzaatz, Pouncer would have to take the Citadel of the Patriarch. That would require facing the Tzaatz head on, there was no other way.
She had become closer to the young leader through the process, but there was more to their relationship than that. Pouncer still relied heavily on the advice of V’rli, on Kdtronai, on Kr-Pathfinder, but she was different. She still wore the Sigil of the Patriarch around her neck, the magical talisman that let her live in the lion’s den in perfect safety. If Pouncer were to die, his protection would die with him, and so her loyalty was absolute in a way that theirs was not, despite the bonds of blood and honor. Ayla herself had total faith in the commitment of the czrav warriors to him. She saw how they reacted to his presence, how even Pride-Patriarchs tried to emulate him in every way. Pouncer never expressed anything less than complete trust in them himself, but he had been betrayed by his own brother, and she knew that faith was a jealously guarded commodity for him.
She watched the tuskvor grow small on the horizon, vanishing as 61 Ursae Majoris slipped beneath the horizon and the velvet night enveloped the forest. They moved according to her plan, but she wanted a position on the raids herself. Pouncer was right to deny that of me. It was an uncomfortable reality to accept. She was small and weak next to the kzinti, her reflexes slow, her senses dull. She would be nothing but a liability in an engagement restricted to muscle-powered weapons. She could, perhaps, claim that she was not bound by the rules of skalazaal, that the weapons she could carry would make her invaluable in combat, but she did not push the point. She was accepted now in the tribe, if not as a kzin, then as a worthy ally and a member of an unconquered species. To suggest anything that might put that status into question, much less something that smacked of questionable honor, was unthinkable. To be recognized as equal to even the smallest and weakest kzin was important. Ayla had no desire to be seen as a member of a slave species. Or as prey. The thought rose unbidden, and her hand went to the sigil around her neck.