creature–yes, creature!–stopped and half-turned.
The thing was naked, he saw now: what he had mistaken for thick, fleecy leggings and jacket were instead its heavy fur, merging, tangled across its shoulders with the dark strands of hair on its head. Hair too dark to be Amber’s chestnut tresses, even in the spreading shade of the forest trail.
Its face was simian, thrusting jaws and flattened nose bare and pink, its human lineage only really evident in its eyes.
“Stop!”
But it did not. The thing was no mutt, or at least it was no longer a domestic variety–it either had no understanding of language, or it had lost the deep-seated obedience that was in all mutts.
It parted its lips and gave a little snarl, cat-like, and then it darted into the trees, vanishing instantly from his sight.
The fleshfruit, he realised: they had not fallen, they had been harvested, taken neatly in pairs as they came ripe. There was intelligence, then, in this creature, or in its kind. He thought of the seed patches some of the mutts kept in Trecosann when their owners allowed it. Perhaps horticulture was instinctive for some mutts, giving them a special intimacy with the earth and its produce.
He turned, fearful.
A face peered at him from the shadows, barely spitting distance away from him.
And then it was gone.
The same dark hair as the female, but this one was broader of face, squarer, and Flint guessed it to be male.
He felt for Jemmie’s machete and let his hand rest on its well-worn grip. To draw it would be an act of aggression, but it would also prepare him better for any hostility on their part. He already felt himself to be surrounded, imagining untold hordes of the creatures waiting in the trees all about, drooling over the flesh of the True, over the various forms of torment they could put him through before he expired at their hands.
He turned slowly on the spot but saw no more faces, no sudden movements in the shade. Perhaps they had fled. Perhaps they watched him still, waiting their moment or unable to attack him because of ingrained respect for the True.
“Me master out of Trecosann,” he said. “You speak? You been know me words?”
No response. Was he just talking to trees? Talking to illusions?
“Me been look for mistress outta Trecosann. Her got red in hair, yellow in eye, she high like this.” He held his hand level with his chest, struggling not to laugh aloud from panic, from the ludicrousness of him describing his sister to the jungle. “If an’ you see her you treat her plenty good. You been know me words? Her find me Greenwater.” He gestured along the trail.
He turned slowly again. No sign of them, but he felt sure he was being observed.
He set off towards Greenwater, holding himself tall, keeping his pace slow, fighting the urge to keep looking, searching, all around.
You treat she good, he thought. Treat she good.
Some time later, he was alone. He just knew it. He stopped, turned a full circle, felt sudden sweat prickling his forehead.
And then he fell to his knees and vomited into the dirt, retching over and over, as panic belatedly overtook him.
Later, sitting on the trail, knees up to his chin, he rocked back and forth. Eventually, he made himself climb to his feet, and resume his trek.
He recognised this bit of the trail, he suddenly realised: a crook in the path where one last screen of tree ferns shielded the view from a traveller’s eyes.
A few more paces and then a panorama unfolded before him. The trail here wound lazily down a steep scarp slope to the flood basin of the river Transom. The waters of the river were still high from the wet season, still extending out across the forest floor, making it more like a lake with scattered trees emerging.
There, spreading out below, was the town of Greenwater, very much living up to its name, with as much as half of the land within the town’s stockades submerged in placid, leaf-green water.
The stockade itself formed a gently
The thing was naked, he saw now: what he had mistaken for thick, fleecy leggings and jacket were instead its heavy fur, merging, tangled across its shoulders with the dark strands of hair on its head. Hair too dark to be Amber’s chestnut tresses, even in the spreading shade of the forest trail.
Its face was simian, thrusting jaws and flattened nose bare and pink, its human lineage only really evident in its eyes.
“Stop!”
But it did not. The thing was no mutt, or at least it was no longer a domestic variety–it either had no understanding of language, or it had lost the deep-seated obedience that was in all mutts.
It parted its lips and gave a little snarl, cat-like, and then it darted into the trees, vanishing instantly from his sight.
The fleshfruit, he realised: they had not fallen, they had been harvested, taken neatly in pairs as they came ripe. There was intelligence, then, in this creature, or in its kind. He thought of the seed patches some of the mutts kept in Trecosann when their owners allowed it. Perhaps horticulture was instinctive for some mutts, giving them a special intimacy with the earth and its produce.
He turned, fearful.
A face peered at him from the shadows, barely spitting distance away from him.
And then it was gone.
The same dark hair as the female, but this one was broader of face, squarer, and Flint guessed it to be male.
He felt for Jemmie’s machete and let his hand rest on its well-worn grip. To draw it would be an act of aggression, but it would also prepare him better for any hostility on their part. He already felt himself to be surrounded, imagining untold hordes of the creatures waiting in the trees all about, drooling over the flesh of the True, over the various forms of torment they could put him through before he expired at their hands.
He turned slowly on the spot but saw no more faces, no sudden movements in the shade. Perhaps they had fled. Perhaps they watched him still, waiting their moment or unable to attack him because of ingrained respect for the True.
“Me master out of Trecosann,” he said. “You speak? You been know me words?”
No response. Was he just talking to trees? Talking to illusions?
“Me been look for mistress outta Trecosann. Her got red in hair, yellow in eye, she high like this.” He held his hand level with his chest, struggling not to laugh aloud from panic, from the ludicrousness of him describing his sister to the jungle. “If an’ you see her you treat her plenty good. You been know me words? Her find me Greenwater.” He gestured along the trail.
He turned slowly again. No sign of them, but he felt sure he was being observed.
He set off towards Greenwater, holding himself tall, keeping his pace slow, fighting the urge to keep looking, searching, all around.
You treat she good, he thought. Treat she good.
Some time later, he was alone. He just knew it. He stopped, turned a full circle, felt sudden sweat prickling his forehead.
And then he fell to his knees and vomited into the dirt, retching over and over, as panic belatedly overtook him.
Later, sitting on the trail, knees up to his chin, he rocked back and forth. Eventually, he made himself climb to his feet, and resume his trek.
He recognised this bit of the trail, he suddenly realised: a crook in the path where one last screen of tree ferns shielded the view from a traveller’s eyes.
A few more paces and then a panorama unfolded before him. The trail here wound lazily down a steep scarp slope to the flood basin of the river Transom. The waters of the river were still high from the wet season, still extending out across the forest floor, making it more like a lake with scattered trees emerging.
There, spreading out below, was the town of Greenwater, very much living up to its name, with as much as half of the land within the town’s stockades submerged in placid, leaf-green water.
The stockade itself formed a gently
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