Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

“Yes, my son?”

“Did they ever find out what killed that scouting party?”

“Not exactly. Their bodies looked as if all of them had, at one and the same time, been struck by lightning. We know, though, that this is highly unlikely, and that in any case there was no storm through there when they died. It was decided that, for whatever reason, the powers of the air do not wish us to enter the valley anymore, and we have changed our routing accordingly.”

“Father? Why do we not ever go as far as the great ocean? I saw it, I think, looking almost like sky in the distance, and it looked grand. It is something that I would like to see, if only to see that much water in one place. But we never go there.”

Father Alex considered his answer. “It is—forbidden to go to the coast. Not for the same reason as the valley or the stone mound are now forbidden, but for very real reasons. There is not a lot of cover near the coast, and roaming bands who follow neither God nor the rules of Families are there as well, like Hunters setting upon any who come and, like them, eating flesh, even human flesh. Many are said to be the children of Hunters gone wild, or escapees from the demon city who know nothing of what is true. We can take on small bands of Hunters because we are a group, organized together, scouting carefully, tight, close. They can get one or two of us, but they do so at the cost of their own lives in some cases. We make the risk too great. But out there, near the coast there those types would outnumber us.”

“And what of the pretty giant flowers I saw in the middle of the plain, covering it? I have been born and lived my life wandering here, yet I knew of it only by rumor and story.”

“Those are demon flowers! They could suck the blood and soul from anyone coming into their groves, and are tended by minor demons and demon slaves. For whatever evil reason they might have, they are what the demons do here. They plant and raise those huge flowers, and they tend them and they protect them. So long as we stay away from that area, they let us mostly alone.”

Littlefeet should have known a lot of this, but his mind was curiously divided, both clearer than he could ever remember it being and yet curiously empty, with snatches here and snatches there but not a complete picture of what he’d taken for granted growing up.

“How are you doing now?” Father Alex asked him. “I mean, what is healed and what is not?”

“Oh, I am better, much better, and I think clearly,” Littlefeet assured him. “But it is as if I see everything except Spotty for the first time. Like everything is new, and some of it does not come. All of the training I had growing up, which I know I had and can see being given to the others, it is not there. I do not seem to know how to do things. I go into the grass and I take scents and I cannot tell Family from others. Without the sun I cannot tell direction, and only from it when I see where it comes up or goes down. Everything looks and smells and tastes kinda the same. It makes me useless. The only one I can tell is Spotty. I can smell her, taste her, know where she is at any time. This is nice, but it does not let me give any work to the Family.”

“I make sure he knows where he is,” Spotty commented with a grin. “If he can always know where I am, then I can make sure he is where he should be!”

The old priest smiled. “Never in my lifetime has God so clearly made two for each other as the two of you. You are a mated pair. I know the others are calling names and making all sorts of jokes, but I tell you that they are the mistaken ones. You two are meant to be together. I shall try as hard as I can to keep you that way.”

“Mother Paulista has said I must return to her for the birth of the baby,” Spotty told him, sounding upset: “And that she believes Feetie is just pretending to still be sick to keep me here.”

Father Alex cocked an eyebrow and looked straight into Littlefeet’s eyes. “Is that so, my son? Do you have sins to confess to me, perhaps?”

He could see the turmoil in the young man’s mind as truth and confession to God warred against Spotty’s continued nursing. “I—I am still not right, Father. You know that. I have said it.”

“That’s not an answer. What about you, Spotty? Do you think he’s faking it?”

She didn’t sense any of the humor in his query that Littlefeet suspected was there. “I—I do not know, Father.” “And what is it that you want?”

She was taken aback by the question; she’d never been asked such a thing before nor expected to be asked. “I—I want to be with Feetie, and I want to bear the child with him here,” she answered truthfully, if hesitantly. “But I must bear many babies in my life. It is the— function —of the women, just as protecting is the function of the men. I—I don’t know what to think, Father. Honestly.”

Poor kids. He sighed and got to his feet. “I can promise nothing,” he told them, “but I will see what I can do. And Littlefeet—if your dreams come closer, if you feel them winning, you tell me immediately. A tiny part of you can now feel a tiny part of them. If they sense this, they may react to it. We do not want any demons visiting us with vines of lightning.”

It was night once more, and once more the thunderstorms built up in the sky, rolling in from the southeast as the breeze shifted to coming off the sea, then rising in the no longer sunlit air and also pushing up against the mountains. It was a regular occurrence; it would have been more unusual if it hadn’t happened, although it wasn’t a clockwork thing.

This time, however, as they spread, out and waited for the deluge and covered their ears against the monstrous thunderclaps, there was something else there, something not immediately seen by anyone in the Family.

Shapes—small, stealthy shapes, moving through the tall grass under the cover of the storm, freezing still when the lightning flashed near, then proceeding on in toward the Family group.

They struck an outlying sentry as he waited for the storm to lift, and he was dead before he even realized that he’d failed in his mission.

The Hunters worked quickly, methodically, timing themselves perfectly by the storm, going after those most dangerous to them first, opening up a path body by body into the heart of where the night’s kraals were established.

Suddenly, a more alert and capable sentry deflected a leaping, slashing attack and screamed a mixed scream of warning and terror that those closest could easily hear. It was instantly understood by others, who took up the cry and thus passed it along through the camp.

Littlefeet heard the scream as well, perhaps twenty or so meters over his left shoulder. Far too close.

He had no weapons; they had taken his away and he could not get them back until he was restored to full duty. He hugged Spotty, warned her to stay low and maintain courage, and moved out into the brush along with the older men from the camp.

They fanned out in the pouring rain, each perhaps two outstretched arm’s lengths from the other, until they came upon the first of the bodies. Now they linked more closely together and the outer portions of the line continued to advance and swing in at the same time. Confident that no Hunter had gotten in back of them, they kept a steady mental beat that governed their movements, a practiced sense of timing gleaned from a lifetime of training.

Realizing that their presence was no longer a secret, but unwilling to back off, the Hunters also went into a practiced mode. They were far outnumbered, but they had a natural ferocity in them that their enemies had to create. A Family man, even a tough old sentry, needed some provocation to kill; Hunters loved to do it for its own sake.