Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

Eventually, it dawned on her that they were heading north, not east. North- ward, she thought-for the actual route they were following seemed to twist and turn in a bewildering manner. Had she and her flankers not been guided by a swamp-dweller, they would have soon become hopelessly lost. But, over time, even to her weary mind, it was clear that they were moving farther and farther away from the battlefield to the south.

Around her, unseen because of the constant screen of cycads, giant ferns, and other vegetation whose name she did not know, she could hear the movement of other files of warriors. Kopporu, she realized, had broken the flank into small groups which, guided by swamp dwellers, could make reasonably rapid progress through the narrow passageways in the swamp. Much more rapid, certainly, than the rigidly organized Utuku-who would not, in any event, soon enter the swamp. Not after the terrible slaughter which Kopporu had inflicted on their left flank.

Occasionally, on the path behind her, Guo saw swamp-dwellers dragging vegetation across the trail. Confusing their trail, so that by the time the Utuku did enter the swamp in pursuit, it would be difficult to determine the exact direction in which the Kiktu survivors – had fled.

She knew, then. Understanding came to her in a flash. Everything fell into place. Kopporu's strange maneuvers; the words and actions of the Great Mother's attendant; and of the Great Mother herself.

Kopporu has betrayed the tribe.

That thought had no sooner came to her, however, that the simultaneous memory of the Great Mother's actions drove it out of her mind.

One of my-husbands-is hurt. I forgot all about them.

She stopped abruptly. A sharp pang of guilt.

"One of you is hurt. I'm sorry-I was so tired. I-forgot."

A soft voice came down from the cowl above. By its timbre, Guo recognized it as the voice of the eumale.

"No. None of us is hurt. Move on. We don't have time to stop now."

After a moment's hesitation, she stopped and laid down her maces. Then she reached up and grasped her cowl with her palps.

"There are dangerous things in this swamp. Many of them are poisonous, and even the smaller snails are almost as big as you. Come down, and-inside me."

A moment later, she felt the small bodies of the males rapidly moving down her tentacles. The last were the eumale and one of the truemales. Between them, they were bearing the body of another member of the bond.

"You said none of you were hurt!"

"He is not hurt," came the reply from the truemale. An exquisitely subtle weave of green love and brown misery rippled across his mantle. "Abka is dead. For long now-he was killed in the battle in the clearing."

"Move on," repeated the eumale. "There is nothing we can do for him now. And we cannot hold up the tribe."

Mention of the tribe brought the thought of Kopporu's treason back, in a rush. Guo set her huge body underway again, consumed with a kaleidoscopic welter of thoughts and emotions. Vaguely, she was aware of the fleeting ripples of color in her mantle. Every color: blue, red, ochre, yellow-yes, and green. She had no doubt as to Kopporu's motives. But treason was still treason. She was now-or would become, at the future ceremony-the Great Mother of what was left of the Kiktu. The tribe would want to hear her voice at Kopporu's-trial.

What would she say? What course of action propose?

Or even-the thought came to her unbidden-command?

She heard faint whispers among the males huddled within her mantle cavity, but paid no attention. Until, moments later, she felt the stroking of a multitude of small arms along the great muscles of her rearhead.

The strokes brought sudden relaxation. And then, almost simultaneously, embarrassment and anxiety.

No male had ever entered her cavity before, much less stroked her. True, their arms were far away from the- organs -at the very rear of her cavity, but still "Stop that!"

The strokes ceased. Instantly, the eumale spoke sharply and the stroking resumed. A moment later, the small figure of the eumale and the truemale who had assisted him in carrying Abka's body appeared alongside her huge right eye. (Julius had noted, and been amazed by, the capacity of owoc and gukuy to focus their eyes at incredibly short ranges. Guo was staring at her preconsorts at a distance which a human would have measured in centimeters.)

"You are now the Great Mother of the tribe," said the eumale firmly. "And you are obviously confused and distraught. Over the state of the tribe, of course, but also over what to do about Kopporu. The tribe cannot afford your thoughts to be a mess. It will be part of our duty as your consorts to relieve your tension, so that you can think clearly. Don't be a silly spawn."

Guo couldn't prevent a hoot of surprise. At the impudence of the eumale, to some degree. But more at his uncanny perception of her thoughts.

"How did-"

The eumale whistled. "What else would you be confused about?"

Guo fell silent. The stroking continued, and, after a while, she admitted that it was quite relaxing. Very pleasureable, in fact. But from that train of thought her mind fled quickly.

The eumale and the other male did not leave their perch on her mantlerim. Guo kept her eyes on the path ahead, for the most part. But, now and then, her great right eye would swivel and examine her two new companions. They ignored these peeks, in the excessively dignified manner of youth. They were, Guo realized, no older than she. Still some time away from reaching sexual maturity.

(The thought was, simultaneously, the source of relief, anxiety, regret and vast curiosity.)

"What are your names?" she asked suddenly. "I am Guo, of the clan of-"

The eumale whistled. "We know who you are! Everyone does. I am Woddulakotat. This is Yurra. He is probably going to be our alpha." A quick, incredibly subtle network of green and brown. "Almost certainly. We hadn't decided yet, because Abka was also being considered. But now that Abka is dead-"

He fell silent. The green and brown shimmer on his mantle and Yurra's deepened and glowed. They were lost in grief for their bondmale.

Guo knew little of the complex workings of male society, beyond the simple basics which every gukuy in the tribe knew. Less, probably, than any infanta her age, for she had bent all her thoughts to the ways of the warriors. Males, she knew, bonded together in small groups when they were new-born spawn-the only way they could fend off the predatory attentions of the much larger female spawn.

Once made, those bonds were lifelong and deep. The males of a bond would marry a mother as a cluster. Males had few rights, in Kiktu society; but those which they had, they guarded jealously. The most precious of those rights was the cluster's control over which male would copulate at any given time with the mother. Mothers, it was said, usually had their preferences in sexual partners-but the mothers, normally dominant in their relationship with their husbands, had to accept whichever male had been selected for the moment by the bond. The alpha male would, as a rule, obtain more than his share of couplings-but not too much more, lest he be deposed by his co-husbands.

The malebond's rights in this matter were never challenged. The rights held true even when-as was the custom among the Kiktu and most of the tribes of the plains-visiting mothers exchanged a sexual partner with each other for a night. The choice of the partner to be sent into the mantle of the visiting mother was entirely the prerogative of the mothers' respective husband-clusters. From what Guo had heard (in whispers among infanta), it was a common punishment which males of a bond visited on those of its members who had fallen afoul of the bond's good will-to be dispatched into the mantle of an especially disliked visiting mother; there to labor through the night to satisfy an old, nasty, demanding mother.