“Yeah.” Tryll badly wanted to scratch behind her right leg. “Or an Anchiceratops.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past these humans,” her mother remarked. “The important thing, as your father says, is to wait for opportunity to present itself.”
“I’d rather be gathering fruit,” Arimat grumbled.
“Hush, now,” Shremaza told him. “So would we all.” “Pay attention,” Hisaulk advised his family, “and perhaps we can make some sense of what they are about. Watch and learn ... and wait.”
VI
their captive animals offering no resistance and proving easily led, the pirates made excellent progress out of the lowlands and into the foothills in search of further wonders. Before long the slopes they were traversing became not only steep, but sheer and unclimbable. Discouraged but far from defeated, they followed the line of cliffs, traveling steadily eastward in ho^es of finding a way up.
Vast mounds of brownish yellow scree had accumulated at the base of the cliffs. Smiggens paused to scoop up a handful. The rock crumbled beneath his fingers.
“See here. For true granite to have decomposed so badly is an indication of great age.” He rubbed his hands together, flicking dust from his palms as he studied the perpendicular wall of stone on their immediate right. It was as unscalable and forbidding as the wall of any fortress. “This land has been here a very long time.”
Blackstrap loomed close. “If you’re going to waste time looking at rocks, Mr. Smiggens, at least keep a weather eye out for signs of silver or gold.”
“Aye,” put in a hardened sailor from Baltimore named Geary, “or diamonds and rubies.”
“Why not wish for sapphires and emeralds as well?” Smiggens groused.
“We’ll do that, Mr. Smiggens.” said Johanssen. He and Samuel exchanged a grin. “You tell us where to start digging.” Philistines, the first mate thought sharply. Your skulls are as dense as stone. Why not try searching for nuggets within?
Fresh water was present in abundance, for innumerable springs gushed forth from the base of the cliffs. Men who not long ago had despaired of ever again drinking their fill now did not even bother to top off their casks, so plentiful was the supply. The water was sweet and pure. In combination with the fruit they found hanging from numerous trees, they were rejuvenated. Soon they were not merely walking but swaggering as they canvassed the cliffs for a suitable route upward.
And if they found no gold or diamonds, no town to loot, they still had their captives, whom the captain and first mate had assured them were worth thousands.
They pushed on, keeping the unscalable escarpment on their right, seeking a trail or at least suitable handholds, until they quite accidentally stumbled across something even better. The entrance to the narrow canyon lay concealed behind a dense cluster of ferns growing from a pile of rock and would have gone unnoticed by most casual passersby. But a life at sea sharpens the senses, and the unusual is quick to be noticed.
“Fortune smiles on us once more, boys.” A gratified Blackstrap stood like a swollen dead tree amid the ferns. “We took all the bad luck she could throw at us and spit in her eye, and now we be repaid for our endurance and courage.”
“Oi, and all along I thought all we were doin’ was tryin’ to stay afloat,” O’Connor whispered to Watford.
“So long as she repay us quickly, Captain.” Mkuse was facing seaward, his expression grim.
From their position among the ferns they could just make out a thin line of blue ocean, with the Condor floating quietly within. But beyond, farther out to sea, was a line of cloud as black and threatening as any they’d ever encountered. It made the squall line they’d ridden out look like a summer breeze. Too distant for its screams to be heard, lightning crackled all along the storm front.
“If that comes ashore,” Samuel commented, “the boys on board will have the devil’s own time keeping the ship afloat.”
“You worry too much, Mr. Samuel,” Blackstrap admonished the man. “The ship’ll be fine in the lagoon. You all saw how wide that reef be. Mr. Leveque will see to things. He’ll set the sea anchors, turn her bow-on into the wind, and ride out whatever the sea throws at him.” Reassured, the men turned away from the plains.
“I no like this.” Chin-lee shoved ferns aside as they started into the slot canyon. “Things going too well.”
“Relax, ya heathen.” Johanssen gestured ahead. “Why, it don’t look like we’re even going to have to climb. What more could you want?” The big, blustery American lengthened his stride, leaving the pessimistic Cantonese behind.
Chin-lee nervously eyed the towering, sheer-sided walls of granite and sandstone that rapidly closed in around them. His gaze flicked uneasily from their seemingly indifferent captives to the winding route ahead. The canyon bent and twisted like a live thing, and a man couldn’t see more than a dozen yards in front of him at any one time.
“Dragons.” He kept his voice to a whisper. He was tired of the others making fun of him.
As soon as she realized what the humans intended, Shre-maza tried to dig in her heels. Insistent pressure on the rope looped around her neck forced her to move on or risk being choked.
“No!” she whistled. “They can’t mean to!”
Hisaulk forced himself to stay calm. “Don’t you see, incubator of my eggs? They are ignorant of the land and have no idea what they are doing.” He examined the water-scoured, banded canyon walls. “I hope this does not go all the way through.”
“If it does, it should have been marked with a warning,” his mate replied.
“You saw how the vegetation obscured the opening. Not all of Dinotopia has been walked, and there are many places here in the north that have not even been properly mapped.”
Tryll edged close, resisting the tugging on her guide ropes as best she could. “Father, I’m scared.”
He wished he could put a reassuring hand on her shoulders, but his own arms were tightly bound. “It will be all right, child. These humans are ignorant, but they are not stupid.”
“That won’t help them, or us,” Shremaza noted, “if they continue on this way and this canyon goes all the way through the Backbones.”
The slot canyon was an extraordinary place. Cut by millennia of running water, its colorful walls polished by innumerable flash floods, it pierced the solid rock like a hot wire dropped on a block of butter. At its widest it was no more than ten feet across. In some places it was so narrow that only one man at a time could fit through, and Shremaza and Hisaulk could advance only with much pulling and shoving.
The sky was a thin ribbon of blue hundreds of feet overhead. Lost in perpetual shade, the canyon was cooler than the plains they had left behind, and nearly devoid of vegetation. The floor was of fine sand alternating with pockets of smooth river stones. In low places water had collected, flat and clear as mirrors dropped from the sky. Fresh water trickled from cracks in the rock walls, feeding would-be streams whose ambition exceeded their volume. Each soon vanished into the thirsty sand.
Occasionally boulders that had tumbled from the canyon’s rim blocked the way, but these were easily surmounted by men used to traversing sodden spars and rigging. Though not used to climbing, the struthie family managed each successive modest ascent. They had no choice, for it was clear that if they failed to attempt the climb, their captors would pull them bodily over the rough rock.
“This is madness.” With hands and feet bound, Shremaza was forced to use her beak to pick gravel from between her toes. “We can’t go on this way. Not in the direction they are heading. We must try to talk to them.”
“What good would it do? They do not understand our tongue, and none of us can write human.”
“But father of my children, if this canyon runs all the way through the Backbone Mountains—”
“They might not go all the way. They may reach the end and decide to turn back. It’s too soon to panic.”
The canyon did indeed run completely through the mountains. It
took several days to complete the transition, but there was no mistaking it when they finally reached the end.
The towering narrows abruptly widened, giving way to crumbling side walls and water-swept talus. Another several hundred yards of receding cliff and they soon found themselves walking through a wonderland of greenery and color.
The strange humans were appropriately astonished. In place of the mangroves and reeds, grassland and lush riverine plains that had greeted them on arrival, there now spread out before them a rain forest as pristine and untouched as any in the world. It was a jungle worthy of deepest Africa or Peru.
The crowns of enormous tropical hardwoods vanished in swirling mist. Smiggens recognized seraya and kempas, teak and amboyna, sepetir and balau. There was dark red, light red, and even yellow meranti. And these were only the Southeast Asian timbers he knew. There were species wholly foreign to him, including several that resembled nothing he’d ever seen or heard of.
Filling in the gaps between the forest giants were a plethora of smaller trees and bushes, exotic flowers and lingering vines. There was a rampage of fungi, and vertical carpets of moss. Within the verdure unseen things cheeped and mewed, sang and chittered. Concealed insects asserted their dominance. Bird shadows flitted in muted green distances that were vital with unseen life.
Blackstrap summed it up in his usual terse manner. “Don’t see no gold.” He spat disgustedly to one side as a small cloud of blue-and-gold macaws emerged from one cloud of mist only to be swallowed up by another. Somewhere a bird of paradise warbled its unique song. Water trickling out of the slot canyon vanished into the greenery, which sucked it up like a sponge.
“We must make them understand, somehow.” Shremaza crowded close to her mate, as did the children.
Eyes wide, Tryll looked up at her parents. “Mother, this is the Rainy Basinl”
“I know, darling, I know.” Shremaza did her best to comfort them all.
O’Connor gestured at the family. “See how they huddle together? Ain’t that cute.”
“Cute!” Blackstrap barked. “Maybe this be their home.” From beneath glowering brows, dark eyes surveyed the overgrown terrain. “If so, we ought to find a few more of ’em wandering about. Keep those nets handy.”
As they entered the edge of the forest, Smiggens cast a curious eye at their captives. “I don’t know, Captain. They don’t act much like this is their home. Fact is, they seem downright skittish.”
“Naw, they’re just interested in the place. What with all the new sights and sounds and smells, Fm more than a bit inquisitive meself, I am.” He kicked at something shiny, but it was only an innocent tree snail. “Still don’t see no gold.” He raised his voice. “Any of you lot see any signs of gold?”
“All I see is green, Captain.” The seaman Thomas called the isle of Jamaica home, and their present surroundings were not unfamiliar to him.
“We won’t lack for fruit,” added another, eyeing the bounty that dangled ripe for the picking from many of the boughs they were passing beneath.
“I’ve had about enough of fruit.” Andreas and Copperhead were both eyeing their captives with other than academic interest. The larger of the pair was fingering the haft of his sword. “Me, I say we chop the head off one of these strange fowl and see what a haunch tastes like after an evening’s turn over a slow fire.”
“Belay that!” Blackstrap whirled to confront the source of the unwanted culinary suggestion. “Have you forgotten what each one of these creatures be worth?”
Andreas was a big man, but he cowered beneath the captain’s glare. “Just one of the small ones, Captain. You can’t expect an honest seaman to live only on fruit, like an ape.”
“Why not?” Blackstrap declared. “You bloody well look enough like one.” As he turned away, the rest of the men enjoyed a chuckle at their companion’s expense.
“Go on, laugh.” Andreas straightened. “But if there’s a man among you who doesn’t hunger to sink his teeth into something that has to be chewed, let him confess it to my face!”
No one took him up on the challenge, a fact Smiggens made note of.
“We may have to post a night watch over our prizes, Captain.”
“Fools!” Blackstrap straight-armed a branch aside, snapping it in half. “Who’d boil a chicken worth a thousand pounds? It not be like any of them is starving.” He yelled back over his shoulder. “First man lays a hand on any of our
pretties, by heaven I’ll serve him up for supper!” The lingering laughter quickly died down.
“Aw, look at ’em. Even if you cooked ’em all day they’d probably still be tough and stringy,” Samuel pointed out.
It was just as well that Hisaulk, Shremaza, and their uneasy brood could not understand English, because they would not have found the conversation to their liking. In any event, there was no more talk among the pirates (at least not openly) of retiring any of their precious captives to the broiler.
A cluster of small, gnarled trees grew from a low spot in the canyon. Anbaya winked at Andreas. “Want something to chew? Here.” Using his knife on a low, curving trunk, he dug a couple of large, fat grubs from beneath the heavily scored bark. Popping one into his mouth, he offered the other to Andreas.
His fellow seaman made a face as he shied away. “Eagh! How can you eat caterpillars?”
“Not cat’pillar,” the Moluccan corrected him. “Plenty good. Taste like nut-flavored butter. Very greasy, very good for you.” Shrugging, he tossed down the second.
“Good for him, maybe,” muttered Guimaraes. The Portuguese, too, hungered for a slab of real meat.
“One among them at least knows how to eat properly.” Shremaza turned from the insect-imbibing sailor to her mate. “If we continue on like this, our luck will soon enough run out. Listen to the noise they make as they walk! We must do something.” Their captors had plunged into the rain forest, though they were careful always to keep the cliff wall in sight to avoid becoming completely lost.
“I know.” Hisaulk’s head was twitching from side to side as he fought to interpret every sound, every movement within the trees. His wide eyes cataloged every bird and bug as he maintained an anxious watch for ... something bigger. He and his family knew how fortunate they had been thus far in not encountering anything larger than themselves.
But such creatures were out there. This was the Rainy Basin, and those who dominated its environs did not sleep all the time.
Coping as best they were able with the heat and humidity, the pirates eventually settled themselves for lunch, making a meal of whatever they could harvest from the surrounding trees and combining it with the limited victuals they had brought with them. Among the latter, salt and pepper were most in demand.
They leaned back against suitable ant-free trees or spoke softly among themselves. A single guard had been set on their captives, and his attention was principally devoted to his food.
It was then that Keelk whispered urgently, “Father, mother—I think I can free myself.”
Hisaulk turned slowly to her and spoke softly so as not to alarm their captors. “Are you sure? How can this be?”
Keelk nodded at her siblings. “My bonds were never as tight as yours, and Arimat and Tryll have been picking at them when these humans were not watching.” Her brother and sister confirmed this with terse head nods.
“It’s true, Father,” whispered Arimat. “I think she’s almost loose.” He punctuated his comment with a sharp, descending whistle. It was a perfectly natural thing to do, but it caused their guard to glance back. The family froze before remembering that this human understood nothing of their language. Indeed, he turned indifferently back to his food and resumed eating, exhibiting the same appalling etiquette as his companions.
“You must take great care, daughter.” Restrained by her ropes, Shremaza tried to lean close. “It’s obvious these ignorant humans do not know how they tempt fate.”
“It would be better to try at night.” Hisaulk spotted a f
at beetle crawling on a nearby branch and promptly snapped it up in his beak, continuing as he swallowed. “We see better in the dark than humans.”
“True,” his mate admitted, “but last night they checked our bindings carefully before they began their evening meal. If they do so again and discover that Keelk’s are loose, they will tie her more securely and be doubly watchful of us.”
Hisaulk considered somberly. “That is so. My daughter, you must combine urgency with caution. Try to keep close to the cliffs until you can find a way out of the basin. That way you will have protection on one side. Do not try to return the way we came. That’s the first place these humans will look for you.”
“What difference does that make, Father? I can outrun any human.”
“Yes, but they carry a number of strange devices, and they may have other capabilities we know nothing about. Also, if you were to trip or hurt yourself, they might still overtake you. Better to seek another way over the Backbones, one they do not already know.
“Bent Root is the nearest town of size. Try to make your way there. You may pass where the masters of the Rainy Basin cannot. They are not climbers, not as agile as we.”
“I will remember, Father.” She blinked.
“Drink deep, seek peace, and go swiftly, sister.” Arimat was able to stretch sufficiently to twine his neck around Keelk’s. Tryll could only warble a soft farewell. It was not as polished as she would have wished, but even the youngest member of the family understood the need not to attract the attention of their captors.
“Go straight to any dinosaur or human in authority,” her mother urged her. “Tell them of our plight, and what is happening here.’
“I will.” Keelk hesitated. “I know these humans are ignorant and uncivilized, but surely they won’t punish you if I manage to escape?”
Hisaulk forced confidence into his voice. “Why should they think we had anything to do with your flight? We are tightly bound; they will assume you succeeded in freeing yourself on your own. They don’t know our language and so they can’t question us. I don’t think they believe that we talk to each other.”