"That's right," he replied with a grin, "but not the way you think it will."
Word was passed down the river, the call going out for the bravest of Brul mahouting only the strongest of mounts. Meanwhile the carpenters of the village of Taranau, which was the last sizable town near the narrowing of the Barshajagad, set about under Etienne's and Lyra's instructions building a platform to hold the hydrofoil. It was to be light and strong, with double‑wheeled axles fore and aft. These could be bound to the platform which in turn could be attached to the two hydrofoils. Not only would the skeleton frame provide a maximum of support with a minimum of weight, the open woodwork also would not block the downward exhausts of the repellers.
Though they talked as rapidly as their brethren, the Brul turned out to be less loquacious and argumentative than their urbanized relatives. They formed a tightly knit society with rules all their own and wore their pride on their faces. It was not quite group arrogance.
Lyra learned from Homat that most of the Brul lived outside the villages in isolated clusters or in single dwellings with only the immediate family for company. Their lives were devoted to the care and handling of their vroqupii.
As it turned out the Redowls did not have to exhaust their store of trade goods. Once the nature of the enterprise became widely known, Brul arrived from distant locations not to serve for pay but simply to pit the strength and endurance of their animals against those of their competitors.
Still, the expedition was fortunate in engaging forty of the massive animals and their owners. After some discussion among the Brul the vroqupii were yoked to the boat in ten ranks of four abreast. They walked on pile‑driver legs and their bellies scraped the earth. The vroqupii was all traction and muscle, its short square head set on a bull neck. A line of horny plates ran along the upper jaw and swept back to form a low ridge above each eye, downcurving to shield the throat.
It was a startling assembly, not the least because with a few faintly yellow exceptions, the vroqupii were clad in short, bristly, rose‑hued fur. They grunted and heaved against their harnesses, anxious to get moving. The Brul sat on the soft saddle behind the neck frill, alternately joking with and taunting his fellow drovers.
With the rushing roar of the Skar for counterpoint, the expedition finally got under way. At first there was nothing but good‑natured jostling for position as each Brul strove to prove that his animal was the strongest. Eventually the drovers settled down to work, conversation fading as each concentrated on the task at hand.
The vroqupii plodded onward in comparative silence, even when they reached the branch canyon and the way turned steep and difficult. They were used to pulling against the constant pressure of the river, and the incline did not seem to cause them any unusual problems. Etienne knew the real test would come during the final thousand meters, when the air turned cold and thin.
Days passed and their speed slowed only slightly. What did drop off considerably was the amount of joking among the Brul, as the difficulty of what they were attempting began to sink in. Etienne had Homat weaving in and out among the Mai every night, listening for talk of discouragement or dissent.
The tension was hard on everyone, and when they finally passed the four‑thousand‑meter mark, four‑fifths of the way to the top, humans, Tsla, and Mai were as tired as the patient vroqupf. It had been days since any joking had passed among the Brul, and the increasingly cold air was beginning to bother them if not their animals.
A few quit under the strain. One was killed when, shivering from the chill, he fell from his mount and was crushed under the heavy feet of the team behind him before it could be halted. But even those Brul who gave up left their animals in the care of friends, admonished them‑ to return the precious creatures in good condition when the final goal was achieved‑if it ever was. Forlorn and disappointed, they straggled back down the trail by ones and twos.
It was the cold that discouraged them more than anything else. By the time the temperature had fallen to sixty degrees the Brut were so wrapped up in heavy clothing it was all they could do to cling to their saddles. A steady breeze tumbled from the flanks of nearby Aracunga, and soon even Etienne and Lyra had to bundle up.
"Do you think we'll make it?" Lyra asked her husband one day as she finished the latest count of the remaining Brul. "It looks like we just might, if we don't lose too many more drovers."
"Don't you go getting confident on me just when I'm starting to have doubts," he told her. He blew into his hands. If the temperature fell much further they would have to dig jackets out of the hydrofoil's storage lockers. The Tsla also looked uncomfortable. It was chillier than it had been during their climb to the Topapasirut.
As Tyl had explained, Jakaie lay at the uppermost limit of Tsla habitation. Above that level even the hardiest Tsla crops withered and died, though one could survive by foraging and hunting. Or so it was said.
Forty‑five hundred meters, forty‑six, and as Etienne's nervousness increased, Lyra's spirits rose.
"We're going to make it, Etienne. You were right all the time. We're going to make it."
"I'll believe it when the boat's sitting in Jakaie's central square," he told her. "I wish I knew why you get more enthusiastic the closer we come to a crisis point, while I get more and more worried."
"We complement each other, remember? When I'm down, you're up, and vice versa."
"I thought all you wanted was to get back to Turput."
"I never thought we'd get this far. Now that we have, I'm dying to see how the Tsla of Jakaie have adapted to their harsh environment. There should be different architecture, methods of farming, cooking, everything. Society as a function of altitude. There's a whole paper in that."
"Must be a very close‑knit population."
"I agree, but what makes you think so? You usually don't speculate in my field."
"They have to be close. It may be the only way to keep warm."
"Anytime you think it's getting a little chilly, Etienne, just consider the poor Mai." She gestured toward the long team of vroqupii and Brul as she and Etienne marched alongside the hydrofoil. "I wonder how low the temperature has to fall before they become susceptible to frostbite?"
"To freezing, I'd expect, but you'd never know it to look at them now. Half of them are so cold they can't shiver anymore. Too numb."
Not one Brut had quit for several days now, however. For those who remained the climb had turned into a grim contest. None would give up so close to the goal for fear of being derided by those who stayed on.
As for the vroqupii, they could not voice any complaints, but they seemed to adjust to the colder weather much better than their masters. Their pace was slower now, more measured, but none had fallen by the wayside. Undoubtedly their short brightly colored fur afforded some protection against the changing climate. It also helped that when a particularly steep spot was reached, they were unhitched while one of the humans lifted the boat and its wheels to the next level on repellers. The Brut looked forward to such respites with relief.
Forty‑eight hundred meters. Forty‑nine.
"Tomorrow morning." Etienne spoke as he crouched across from the portable heater they recharged every couple of days from the boat's batteries. He longed for the comfort of their heated cabin. They slept outside at Homat's insistence. If they did not, he warned them, they risked losing the respect of the Brut. "We'll reach the top of the canyon tomorrow morning."
He put down his self‑heating cup of tea and slid beneath the thermosensitive blanket. The covering was warm but the ground beneath the sleeping pad very hard. A glance showed the temperature to be fifty‑three.
Tomorrow, vindication, he mused. After that, two days of steady travel overland to Jakaie. There they would find friends, shelter, and fires large enough to warm even the Brut.
Lyra still sat in front of the heater, stating at her husband. "You never would know when to say no, would you, Etienne? A bad habit, one that'll be the death
of both of us one of these days." She smiled. "You dragged me all this way when I'd just as soon have quit and turned back toward home."
"Home?" His eyebrows lifted.
"Well, back toward Turput. I've come to think of that as kind of a home away from home."
"In spite of the inhabitants' unpleasant burial rituals?"
"I didn't spend much time consorting with the dead. I get to do that on the boat every night."
"Very funny." But she was still smiling. Tyl sat nearby, leading his fellow Tsla in their nighttime chant. Etienne watched her as she listened to them without reaching for her recorder. Light from the porters' fare lit her profile, burning away the years.
Ten years together. She'd been very beautiful a decade ago. Now she was hardened, toughened by fieldwork, by adversity, by too many hours spent away from the comforts of civilization‑and still beautiful. All the poison in her spirit, all the acid in her voice could not change that.
She grew conscious of his stare and turned back to him. "I owe you an apology for wanting to turn back."
"How about a kiss instead? I haven't had a kiss in a long time. Apologies I can live without."
She eyed him uncertainly for a moment, then walked around the heater to bend next to him, touching her lips to his. They were warm against the night.
Then she pulled away, sooner than he wished. Too brief, too considered, not spontaneous enough, he thought. But something, it was something. It had been a long time since they'd lead even that.
He turned over beneath the blanket, feeling much warmed inside‑and not by the heater‑anxious for morning to come.
Chapter Twelve
Screams, shouts of panic, and the hoarse trilling cries of the vroqupii woke him, the latter a sound he hadn't heard since the start of the long climb up from the Skar. Gesticulating silhouettes rushed past his sleep‑filled eyes like the shadows of ghosts. Only the heater was alive, a steady glow in the darkness.
Trying to force himself awake he sat up, hunting for the source of all the disturbance. Suddenly he found himself rising from the ground. Something had placed tight steel bands around his shoulders and the back of his neck. He screwed his head around so he could look overhead, thinking how strange it was to meet a denizen of hell five thousand meters away from the center of the planet.
Four long wings beat at the air, protruding from a thick, flattened body. Wind and a fetid, corrupt odor assailed his face. Not far from his eyes, altogether too near, was a mouth full of sharp hooks. A pair of saucer‑sized bright blue eyes glared down at him. The pupils were huge and yellow.
The odor of carrion was overpowered by a sudden sharp smell of ozone. The monstrosity shivered. Lyra fired again and Etienne found himself falling. He landed heavily on his blanket and sleeping pad instead of the naked rock. With two holes burned through one wing, the creature had had enough. It lifted skyward, emitting a cry very like the sound the devil must make when gargling.
Etienne rolled over and clutched his right elbow, which had absorbed the brunt of his fall. It throbbed painfully. He was fully awake now.
Lyra jostled him as she slid on her knees next to him. Her eyes were still on the night sky. "Here," she said, handing him his pistol. "Others are still around." She gave him a hand up.
Guarding each other's backs they stumbled through the confusion and screaming, Etienne handling the asynapt with his left hand. The most immediate danger came not from the nocturnal carnivores but from the bellowing, stampeding vroqupii.
Etienne fired and fired. Though there was no recoil, his fingers grew numb simply from gripping the pistol. Eventually the night was scoured clean, however, and he let the weapon fall to his side. The stars returned, except off to the north where the air was filled with vast dark shapes, rapidly receding.
The Redowls returned to their campsite, set the heater back on its base, and sat down. All around them panic was giving way to muttered curses and exclamations in excited Mai.
Homat joined them, almost invisible in his cold‑weather gear.
"What were they?" Lyra asked him. Etienne massaged his elbow, still looking to the north where a last straggler fled after its companions on ten‑meter‑wide wings.
"Monsters." Homat was shivering despite his bulky attire. "Very rarely do they come down to the river. They must be more common up here, where the land is better suited to monsters and Tsla!"
Other eyes joined the conference. If Tyl had overheard Homat's last words, he chose not to comment. "Strepanong," he declared, gesturing heavenward with his flexible proboscis. "Scavengers and killers." He paused. "They took two of the Brui. They rarely bother us in the fields, and never in the towns. Never have I seen so many in one place at the same time. The presence of so much meat must have drawn them."
"A bad omen, bad omen," Homat was muttering. "Perhaps we should turn back, de‑Etienne."
A small invisible needle pricked his elbow and he winced. "Not after making it this far, Homat. I'm not turning back now."
"The Brul may grumble once they restore calm among their animals," Homat warned him. "They do not come this far to fight with monsters."
"Tyl, repeat what you said about never having seen so many in one place before. The chances of this happening again before we reach Jakaie are insignificant, aren't they? Tyl ,y„
The Tsla spoke mournfully. "I can guarantee nothing, Learned Etienne, though it would be most unlikely."
"One strepanong is too many," Homat argued.
"We drove them off," Lyra reminded him, gesturing with her pistol. "We injured several of them, maybe fatally, threw a real scare into the entire flock. I don't imagine they'll come after us again. You tell the Bzul that. And from now on Etienne and I will alternate standing guard at night so we're not surprised anymore. If there is a next time they'll feast on strepanong, not the other way around."
"That is no consolation to the families of the two who were taken." Homat shuddered at the thought.
"Their families will be compensated," she promised. "Tell the Brul that if they turn back now because of a bunch of carrion eaters they're no better than children, crying for their mothers. We're only a couple of days, maybe less, from our goal, where there'll be warm shelter and safety for all."
Tyl assumed an uncharacteristically haughty air. "That much can be assured. Tsla hospitality refuses no one."
"You can also tell them," Lyra continued with a sudden burst of inspiration, "that if they insist on turning back now, we'll have to find Tsla help to take us the rest of the way."
Homat smiled at this slyness. Truly de‑Lyra was becoming knowledgeable of Mai ways. "Ail your assurances would not convince them, but an insult to their reputations!‑‑yes, I will tell them that. I do not think we will have any trouble." He turned and disappeared in the direction of the vroqupii corral.
The Redowls were left alone. Lyra indicated her husband's right arm. "What's with your elbow?"
He forced a wry grin. "It thought it was a foot. I landed on it, but I don't imagine it's broken. Just feels like it. Couldn't you have managed to shoot the damned thing before it got me off the ground?"
"Sorry," she said dryly. "Be thankful we're camped on a relatively wide section of trail. You might've been dumped over a precipice."
"Wouldn't that have made for an interesting dive? Time enough for forty‑eight twists with a couple dozen triple gainers thrown in. Unfortunately, I don't think I would have survived long enough to enjoy the judging."
"I'll try and come to the rescue a little sooner next time."
He was suddenly solemn as he eyed the sky. "I hope there won't be a next time. Insult to their professionalism or not, I don't imagine the Brul will stay if we're attacked again. Did you get a good enough look at our visitors to classify them? I wasn't much interested in their taxonomy myself, and I didn't have the best view."
"It wasn't a bird. I'm not even sure it was mammalian. Looked like a cross between a condor and a centipede."
"Swee
t critter. I think we'll forgo any opportunities for up‑close study." He grimaced as he tried to straighten his arm. "I saw enough to know it spends most if not all of its time in the air."
"I've never seen a quadruple wing arrangment like that before," she added, "except on insects, and the strepanong's no insect despite its appearance. It had feathers, and plenty of 'em."
"I know. I had to smell them." He looked toward the circle of Tsla. Tyl was watching them, the fire bright in his wide, sad eyes. "You're positive we're not more than a day or two march from this town?"
Tyl performed an elaborate gesture with his nose. "I am positive, Etienne. A passing of the sun once or twice across the sky will see us in Jakaie. I look forward to it myself, for I am curious to see how my brethren have adapted to so isolated a home. Life must be harder than in Turput."
"But not so hard they won't be able to aid us?"
"Learned Etienne, the more difficult a Tsla's circumstances, the more generous he is with his hospitality."
Lyra confirmed this declaration, as Etienne knew she would.
There was much grumbling and many more complaints than usual among the Brul the next morning as they mounted their vroqupii. That was only to be expected. Etienne thought he saw several expressions of hatred directed at himself or his wife, but Homat assured him it didn't matter whether the drovers disliked them or not. Only that they respected them.
Several of the vroqupii displayed new scars, evidence of attempts by the marauding strepanong to carry them off. At least the weather had decided to cooperate, and the grumbling rapidly died down. It was almost warm as they set out up the trail.
They reached the top of the canyon and paused for a brief celebration, which helped to raise the drovers' spirits considerably. That night they slept easy, reassured by the sight of one of the Redowls patrolling alertly with asynaptic pistol in hand.
By the following day nearly all dissension had faded away. The trail now crossed level ground and the Brul paused in their shivering long enough to study a land they'd never visited before. They realized they were pioneers of a sort and a few found they were enjoying the journey.