Paul Cook: Children of the Plains

He angled for a likely looking elm. The beasts saw his change of direction and closed in rapidly. Up he went, clawing at the rough bark. He heard the snap of empty jaws as he swung his legs up and over a low branch. Having failed to catch him, the beasts immediately fell to slamming their broad, ugly heads against the truck. The blows were powerful. As Amero clung to the tree for his life, he realized little Menni could never have held out against such an onslaught.

There were eleven of the gray beasts below him, circling and yelping. In a strikingly uniform movement, they all dropped on their bellies and lay still, gazing up at him.

Now what? Having failed to catch him on the ground, were they planning to wait until hunger and thirst loosened his grip?

He crept up, a finger at a time, putting the maximum distance between him and the pack. In his mind he named the animals yevi, “laughing dogs.” All predators were smart, but the yevi exhibited intelligence beyond that of wolves, panthers, or bears. Were they spirits of some kind? They bled and died like other beasts. Were they people — people of a beastly sort? He’d seen centaurs, and he’d heard the story of Grandfather Jovic’s meeting the bull-headed men of the east, so it seemed possible the pack were a strange race of people.

The treetop bowed under his weight, and he lost his grip for an instant. Frantically, he hugged the slender trunk as it bobbed from side to side. The tough green elm hadn’t cracked yet, but he doubted he could spend the night up here. Other, stouter, trees were too far away.

The springy treetop reminded him of one of his father’s old tricks. Oto was widely skilled in trailcraft, and once he had shown Amero and Nianki how to make a snare from a live, bent-over sapling. Game as large as wild pigs could be snared, and the force of the unbending tree was often enough to fling the catch in a complete arc and dash it to death against the ground. If only Amero could use the power of the elm to toss him to another, bigger tree. He tried deliberately bending the treetop down, gauging the force required to hold it in place. However, he had to abandon the notion. There was not enough strength in the tree to throw him to safety, but more than enough to throw him to the waiting yevi pack.

He retied his rawhide lacings around the trunk and settled down to wait out his foes. As the sun mounted higher in the sky, he noted with grim satisfaction the yevi were panting in the heat. He resolved to die in the treetop if need be, but he would not fall. He could not allow the pack to claim his entire family. Better that his dry flesh should feed the crows.

At sunset, half the yevi pack rose and departed silently into the bush. Their sudden movement, after so many hours of stillness, roused Amero from his lethargy. His heart leaped at the sight of the departing beasts, but when he recognized only half the pack was leaving, he knew they were simply going for food and water. The remaining yevi stayed behind to keep their eyes on their treebound prey.

He was finished. If they could go for sustenance and he couldn’t, Amero was doomed. He couldn’t outlast them. As night arrived, Amero sank into despair. He was so weak from hunger and thirst. Even signs of approaching storm clouds didn’t bolster his failing spirits. The yevi would never give up. Their single-minded devotion to his destruction went far beyond the normal needs of predators. A herd of elk, passing by in mid-afternoon, garnered no special attention from the pack. Why did they so earnestly seek his life?

Clouds boiled in from the east. Blue-white flashes of lightning illuminated the thunderheads from within, sometimes breaking into the open and crashing to earth. The sound of thunder rolled across the wide savanna, and the elm grove tossed in the wind. The first raindrops to fall were fat, heavy, and startlingly cold. Amero licked his lips gratefully each time he caught one.

The yevi remained in their vigilant positions, never flinching at the thunder or lightning, never seeking shelter. They reminded Amero of the stone fetishes he’d seen in the Kharland, carved by men of the southern plains to appease the spirits of the hunt. Wind and rain came in gusts, enough to appease the worst of Amero’s thirst, but still the yevi waited.

A close flash of lightning lit up the entire sky. By the dazzling light Amero glimpsed an extraordinary sight — a vast dark shape high in the sky, silhouetted against the purple clouds. It was long and sinuous, with a pair of immense, narrow wings flapping slowly. It was certainly the biggest bird Amero had ever seen, but before another blast of lightning could bring him a clearer glimpse, the thing nosed up into the clouds and was gone.

“Stormbird,” he marveled aloud. Oto had spoken of these. Like the star-pattern in the sky for which they were named, stormbirds were enormous, rare creatures.

“They fly in the edge of every storm, carrying lightning in their claws and thunder in every stroke of their wings,” Oto had said. “They never touch earth and can swallow an entire flock of geese as one meal.”

Amero could hardly believe he was seeing a stormbird with his own eyes.

Just then, fiery fingers of lightning struck the ground less than a hundred paces away. The tree trembled, and bits of scorched wood and dirt pelted him. He ducked his head to avoid the debris and saw the yevi were on their feet, milling around and whining. Amero cinched the lacings tighter and wished for another, closer strike. Perhaps that would send them away for good.

Thunder boomed in the grove, and still the yevi didn’t leave. They did break their circle around Amero’s perch, collecting in a tight knot on one side of the tree. Amero devoutly wished they would skulk into the bush, driven away by the crackling lightning and booming thunder. Instead, they remained, huddled together and evidently quaking with fear. Common predators would have abandoned Amero to his fate. Why did the yevi remain?

The storm blew itself out at last, rolling westward across the plain toward the great forest. Before long Amero saw stars through rents in the clouds, and the incessant flashes of lightning galloped away. The night was left dark once again.

Refreshed by the rain, Amero resolved to escape the yevi on the morrow. He slept a second night in the treetop. One way or another, it would be his last night there.

Dawn arrived, fresh and bright. The short, sharp rain had brought green shoots out of the ground overnight, and the air was filled with buzzing insects. The abundant bugs attracted swarms of birds, so the morning was astir with noisy, colorful life. Amero stretched his aching arms and legs and wondered if his neck was developing a permanent bend.

Ten members of the yevi pack were still on watch beneath Amero’s tree. Drying mud matted their fur, and they looked generally bedraggled, but their menace was unchanged. Amero felt the cold clutch of helplessness again as he tried and failed to come up with a plan to escape.

Four more yevi appeared from the bush, looking quite clean and rested. Without a sound the pack spread out in a circle around Amero’s perch. Strangely, the beasts aligned themselves facing outward, not inward, as though they were defending the tree instead of besieging it.

“Get out of here!” Amero shouted in exasperation. “Go! Go now!”

There was no answer from the yevi. Could he have imagined hearing their voices the other day?

A flock of birds whirled in and filled the branches of Amero’s elm. There must have been a hundred tiny black-and-tan birds, all chirping at once, making a tremendous din. They were highly agitated — some hopping back and forth from one limb to another, fluffing their wings, some even daring to land on Amero’s head or shoulders. The shrill peeping reached a crescendo, then in a body the noisy flock took to the air. They circled the grove once and flew away.