Cat Karina (26 page)

Bantus grunted in disgust and plodded away. It was too wet for fish, yet it was no day for meat.

Not in the valley.…

But he remembered that food was available outside the valley. He need not be hungry today; not if he climbed the rocky hill towards the brightness. Outside the valley, food was unlimited. He quickened his pace, and soon the wind was cool against his coat as he climbed into the barren ground, leaving the jungle behind.

In Palhoa they bought food, utensils and a llama. They paid the villager well — money was no problem for Tonio — and led the animal away. They soon found that llamas do not necessarily agree with human concepts of ownership, and this particular llama was very much his own animal. He consented to take a small share of their baggage, but any attempt to load him further resulted in a display of sullen temper and spitting, until Astrud said nervously,

“We’ll carry the rest. It’s not too far, is it?”

“About six kilometers.” Tonio shared the remainder of the baggage between them while the llama watched with ill-concealed triumph.

They took a trail into the bush and within minutes were in a different world as the rain forest closed about them. Tonio led, ploughing through the vegetation, Astrud followed, then came Raoul, leading the llama.

That was how the villagers remembered them: squat coastal True Humans walking into the jungle, loaded down with provisions, the boy jerking a reluctant llama behind. They looked completely out of place. There was much speculation. Some said they were spies of the Canton Lord; others, having heard a little of the happenings in Rangua, guessed they were refugees. Later, they learned the truth.

“It doesn’t matter,” one of the village elders said. “We’ll never see them again.
La Bruja
will get them.…”

In some places the abandoned sailway had completely disintegrated into the jungle floor, but the route could still be followed and in places the rail supports still stood. Some rails were even in place, a webwork of vines holding the rotting logs together.

“Why did they abandon it?” asked Raoul as they rested, sharing a moss-covered running rail while the llama ruminated nearby.

“They said something in the village about a
bruja
,” said Astrud.

“Nonsense!” Tonio said loudly. “Typical Specialist superstition.”

His face was red with exertion and he looked unhealthy,
but at least he’s lost some of that beaten look
, thought Astrud.

In fact he seemed to have gained in stature since they’d left civilization. He strode ahead again, balancing on fallen rails and eyeing the forest with new interest as they climbed higher. From time to time he would exclaim as he recognized things: marked rocks at the trackside, or the overgrown clearing which denoted an abandoned stage. Astrud drew something from his new confidence, ceased to shy at every yell of the howler monkeys, and even took in her stride the unearthly rattling roar of a jaguar.

“It’s nature,” Tonio said. “We have to get along with it, if we’re going to survive. In some ways, the kikihuahuas were right. They say you could put a kikihuahua down anywhere and he’d fit in, and he’d have the animals and plants working for him in no time.” Incongruously he slapped at a mosquito, examined the little smear of blood on his palm, and swore.

Fitting into his mood, she quoted:

“They float about the Greataway, their ships are monster bats.

Live hemitrexes cook their food, their clothes are made by rats.”

It was a childish rhyme which her mother had told her, years ago; but somehow it had stuck in her mind.

Before the last words had died away into the wetness of the jungle, Tonio stopped. “What’s that?”

“What?”

He stood tense and staring, watching a part of the forest where the trees thinned out and a rocky ridge could be seen. They had climbed out of the clouds and the ridge baked in the afternoon sun, brilliant beyond the darkness of the jungle. “I saw something … big.”

“They say jaguars don’t attack in daylight.”

“This was not a jaguar.” He was whispering, watching the ridge, while he fumbled blindly with the fastenings of his pack.

“What was it, then?” She was whispering too, and the fear had returned. She watched as he stole quick glances at his pack, drawing out a leather sheath while he continued to keep the jungle under observation.

“It was gray and … enormous. I only caught a glimpse, you know? Its head — it seemed to be all teeth! Agni, what a brute!”

She watched in horrified realization as he began to screw pieces together. The thing was metal. Touched by Agni. He’d carried it all this way.

“Tonio!”

“Shut up!”

“Maquinista gave you that,” said Raoul quietly, flatly.

Tonio didn’t reply to that. His instrument was complete. He hefted it in his hand, fitted a bolt, then sighted at the trees. He was trembling — and suddenly Astrud knew it was excitement, not fear. He was actually enjoying this moment of danger. “This was bigger than any bear — more like a huge cai-man with long thick legs and gray hair. It ran down the ridge, fast, on its hind legs. I’ve never seen an animal run so fast.” Suddenly he brandished the crossbow. “Come on, you bastard! I’m ready for you!”

Raoul said unhappily, his eyes on the bow, “You could have been mistaken. It could have been quite small, really. Or two animals running together. Giant anteaters.”

He uttered a bark of derision. “In the mountains? I don’t think so. Well, we can’t wait for him. We’ll see him again, I’m sure of that. And when we do.…” He waved the crossbow like a banner.

“Have … have you noticed how quiet the forest is? Even the monkeys.” Raoul followed him, jerking at the llama’s rope. The animal’s reluctance had become more marked.

Astrud stood staring after them and, in a moment, followed.

The track steepened as they pushed on — then, before Astrud realized it, they had reached their destination. The ground levelled out. There was an old signal tower which had almost become part of the jungle; just four more creeper-entwined trunks among many, and she had to follow Tonio’s finger carefully before she could make out the rectangular shape of the cabin among the branches.

“They’ll never find us here,” said Tonio.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Raoul asked. “It looked very old.”

Tonio was already climbing the ladder, testing each rung. “I’ll have to replace a few, but they’ll be all right for the time being. Come on up, Raoul. Tie the llama to that post.” His face looked down through a mass of foliage. Raoul ran nimbly up.

“Come on, mother!”

So she climbed, in fear of each rotting step, and stood in the cabin which was to be her home. The roof had fallen in and the floor was slippery with stinking, decayed fruit. It couldn’t have been more than four meters across, and much of that space was taken up with the controls for the lamp: wooden levers and a ladder leading upwards. She knew nothing of signalling. The cabin was incomprehensible, dank and frightening.

“Not bad,” said Tonio, kicking away filth and unrolling his blanket on the floor.

They ate a supper of dried fruit and it seemed to Astrud that the shadows were full of moving things. Afterwards, it took a long time for her to get to sleep although the other two were snoring lightly within a short while of lying down. She lay awake listening to the menacing sounds of the jungle night and watching the sleepy movements of a colony of spider monkeys silhouetted against the stars. When eventually she slept, she was soon awakened by a commotion on the forest floor.

Tonio, opening an eye, said, “Only a jaguar hunting. We’re safe up here.”

It didn’t reassure her at all. She dreamed of jungle cats, and in her sleeping mind they gained a new dimension of menace.

And Tonio ran with them, waving a brand from which flared the Wrath of Agni.

Iolande’s grupo scored the first successes.

The True Humans’ makeshift militia had been strengthened by farmers and others from the foothills and delta regions, and by the time the first attacks came most of the perimeter was covered by lookout emplacements at strategic locations, backed by large reserves within the town itself.

Iolande’s grupo overran one of these emplacements. They’d approached upwind, smelled True Humans from some distance away then, with the utmost caution, crept nearer until they could hear snatches of conversation. The enemy were located in a small thicket, lying down, scanning the foothills. The sun, breaking out for a moment, glinted on something which Iolande guessed to be a hemitrex for use in signalling back. She motioned her grupo to lie still. The others were further away to her left, grupos creeping down the run-off gullies like clawed fingers reaching for the town.

Iolande glanced upwards. Although hidden from the True Humans, they were in full view of the signal tower. She could see the tiny head of a signalman, and wondered whose side he would be on. Then, parting the grasses before her, she surveyed the thicket again.

There were four of them in there; three men and a woman. They were farmers; their scent told her that. They would be accustomed to defending their crops and livestock against marauding animals. They would have weapons, and they would know how to use them. Iolande had her ironwood sword, but this weapon was more traditional than practical. When it came to fighting, she would use fingers and toes. She felt an enormous excitement, and a great pride in her grupo — the best she’d ever mothered. She glanced around at them as they crouched behind her, eyes slitted, nostrils flared, urinating quietly as they wound themselves up for the charge. Iolande chuckled, a small purr of delight. She’d taught them well. Away to the left, she heard a brief scuffle. Another grupo had attacked.

“Now,” she said.

Screeching, she bounded forward like a charging tiger, hitting the first man squarely in the chest as he rose from the ground. He went over backwards and she went with him, her fingers hooked into his shoulders, her knees bent and her toes slashing at his belly. She felt warmth as her toenails bit into flesh and the man groaned, falling back, his body slack, staring incredulously at his own intestines spilled out over the wet ground. His eyes met hers, and there was a cowlike bewilderment in them. He said quietly, “Why …?” and then he died with a small sigh.

Iolande turned in time to knock aside a quick thrust from a short dagger and, as the other woman fell forward, she slashed at her throat and saw blood spurt. “Mordecai!” she swore. “Can’t you protect my back?” One of her grupo grinned sheepishly; she’d missed her spring and the True Human woman had slipped away from her.

The other two men were already dead; one had his neck broken and the other lay face-down in a lake of blood.

“We did it!” said Iolande. Her eyes were shining, her face pale with excitement. “This time it was for real, and we did it!”

“But.…” The felina who’d mistimed her leap looked unhappy. “Didn’t El Tigre say we shouldn’t kill unless we had to?”

“Piss on El Tigre! This is what we were created for, don’t you see? Generations of play-fighting, and now this. Next, we go into town and take them apart!”

“Iolande!” It was a gasp of horror. Iolande, without thinking, had slaked her thirst with a cupped handful of blood.

She looked at her hands in mild surprise, then said, “True Humans created us, and now they have to take the consequences. If you don’t like it, Lastima, you’re not the felina I took you for.”

“
But this
.…” Lastima indicated the carnage.

“Ha!” Iolande picked up the dagger the True Humans woman had used. She turned it over in her band. It was not obsidian, as she’d first supposed. “Look at this,” she said quietly. “See? This blade has been wrought by the Wrath of Agni. Well, now. Isn’t that something? And see — the spear, this tip? And another knife here.… Lastima! You have no stomach for this fight — so here’s what you can do. Take these weapons to El Tigre, say where we found them — and
then
listen to his views on killing. If I know El Tigre as well as I think I do, he’s going to change his mind pretty damned quickly!”

So Lastima left. The remainder of the women advanced to the sailway track and began to move north to link up with the other grupos.

The felinas made swift gains elsewhere, too. Tamaril, another of El Tigre’s erstwhile mates, had a larger army than Iolande. Although her discipline was not so effective and she lost contact with seven grupos early on, she pressed home her raid into the eastern outskirts of Rangua, cleaning out a number of houses and advancing until stopped by solid barricades and massed defenders. A hundred felinas paused, spitting fury, as they faced over two hundred True Humans on the other side of piled furniture and vehicles, in a narrow street. Knives, swords and spears glittered in the hands of the defenders.

“Charge!” yelled a felina who had no right to give orders, and she paid the penalty as she ran forward alone. She reached the top of the barricade in one leap, then died as a spear was thrust into her belly from below.

“Wait!” shouted Tamaril. With some difficulty she achieved a withdrawal and regrouped her forces behind a projecting wall. “This isn’t our kind of fight,” she said. “Right now, the True Humans have all the advantages. But if we hold on here, and wait until dark.…”

The felinas grinned as they visualized the night fighting.

“True Humans don’t see well in the dark,” somebody said, shivering with anticipation.

A single voice was raised in opposition, like Lastima who was at that moment making her way sadly back towards the main force under El Tigre. The felina said, “I.… I think I killed a woman in one of those houses back there. I kind of lost control. El Tigre wouldn’t like it, if he found out. The Examples.…”

“Shut up,” said Tamaril.

“But if we attack in the dark.… There’s no knowing what.…”

Tamaril said, “Most of us have killed back there, you fool. That’s what war is all about. My main concern is, what’s happened to the rest of our grupos? I lost contact when we reached the first houses.” She glanced around the wall. The defenders stood grimly behind their barricades, waiting for the felinas to come to them. Behind them, stilted above the low buildings, was the signalbox. “El Tigre should have made plans for that box,” she said.