Hunters Unlucky Page 6

  Storm turned away.

  Much later, after his eyes had begun to sting with the force of the wind, the group struggled over the lip of the crag. They rested for a moment, looking down out over the island. Storm could see all the way across the plain to Chelby Lake, sparkling like the blue eye of a flower. Beyond the plain to his left, he saw Groth—a denser line of green—and the Great Mountain rising behind it like the head of a snake. To his right, he saw the thick foliage of the southern forests—creasia territory—and beyond that, more fields like those of his birth, racing away toward the mountain ranges in the south.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Leep.

  “It makes me wish I were a bird,” said Storm.

  “Wait until you see the ocean,” grinned Tracer.

  Storm turned to follow the others away from the Red Cliffs. “There’s a strip of wood here,” said Tracer. “It isn’t wide. Listen...”

  “What is it?” asked Storm after a pause.

  “The sea. It never stands still.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Tracer just shook his head. He led Storm through the wood toward the Sea Cliffs. “Have a look,” he said, “and then we can forage.”

  As they emerged from the shadow of the trees, Storm froze. He blinked hard and stared.

  Tracer laughed. “See! What did I tell you? Look at it! Smell it! Listen to it!”

  Storm didn’t answer for a moment. Water as blue as a summer sky stretched as far as his eyes could see. The restless waves ran up to the sand far below and away again in an endless dance that filled the air with strange music. The salt smell made his nostrils twitch.

  “Well?” Tracer prodded.

  “There’s so much of it,” whispered Storm. “It’s nothing at all like Chelby Lake.” He smiled. “It’s like something in my dreams.”

  Tracer kicked him playfully. “If you dream of something besides food, you’re doing better than most of us.”

  They went back into the trees where they found Leep stripping needles from an evergreen. The needles had a harsh, unpleasant taste, but they filled one’s belly. Unfortunately, the sheep had already gleaned most of the material that Storm could reach. However, Leep and Tracer occasionally dropped greens onto the ground and pretended not to notice when Storm picked them up. When Storm caught a squirrel later in the day, he shared it with them.

  The group browsed until evening, then went to the Sea Cliffs and watched the sun sink into a haze of brilliant pink. Everyone had found enough food to feel satisfied, and they lay companionably close, sharing each other’s warmth as the last hints of evening faded and a full moon rose over the trees. The cliffs were too dangerous to navigate in the dark. They would go back to the plain in the morning. It was the sort of expedition Storm would never have attempted without a clique, and he basked in this new sense of freedom.

  “Why don’t we tell stories?” suggested Leep. “Storm, you’re new. We’ve never heard any of your stories, so you can go first.”

  “I don’t know any stories,” he protested, suddenly shy.

  “Make it scary,” murmured Leep. “I know! Tell us about the telshees, Tracer.”

  Ally startled Storm with an enthusiastic squeak. “Yes, Tracer! Tell us about the telshees!”

  Tracer grinned. “Have you heard any telshee stories, Storm?”

  “No,” said Storm. “I haven’t heard much about telshees at all.”

  Tracer’s eyes glinted in the moonlight. “We’ll fix that.”

  Chapter 13. Tales in the Dark

  “Telshees,” whispered Tracer, “live in the sea. They look like snakes with fur, and they’re bigger than any other creature alive.”

  “Bigger than the creasia?” asked Storm.

  “Bigger than the creasia! They have white fur and a face like a seal.”

  “What’s a seal?” interrupted Storm.

  “They’re animals that live in the ocean and on the beach,” said Tracer impatiently. “You’ll see them when we forage down there. They’re a little like…big otters. You’ve seen otters by the lake, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alright, like an otter. Telshees have big, green eyes, and they can hypnotize you.”

  “What is hypnotize?” asked Storm. From the way Tracer said it, he knew it must be something terrible.

  “Hypnosis is when they control your mind,” breathed Tracer. “They sing at night on the beach, and if they find you, they eat you! Their singing makes your legs stiff and your brain fuzzy, so that they can catch you in their crushing coils. You know what’s happening, but you can’t move.”

  A chill ran down Storm’s spine—a sensation somewhere between fright and pleasure. He watched the others, and from their rapt attention, half smiles, and shining eyes, he knew they felt it too. Tracer is making this up, thought Storm, and he sighed with relief.

  Tracer’s eyes narrowed to gleaming slits as he continued. “I’ve even heard that some telshees are poisonous, so that one bite will kill you in the count of three breaths. They have slanted eyes that glow in the dark, and they can see at night. They can see you. But you can’t see them. They live mainly in the rocks along the beach, and they only come out at night. Most of them stay in the Garu Vell.”

  “Where is that?” asked Storm.

  “The Vell is the only place on the island where a rift cuts all the way through the cliffs to the beach. Actually, it borders on creasia territory, but there’s no need to worry about cats in the Garu Vell. They don’t like to go there anymore than we do. Some say that telshees keep their young in vast caverns under the Vell. Some say that they come out at night and wage wars with the creasia. Sometimes they wander into our territory, and if they find you sleeping...” Snap! Tracer brought his jaws together.

  Ally jumped. “Tracer,” growled Ishy, “either tell your story or let somebody else go before you give us all nightmares.”

  Tracer laughed. “I was just trying to explain telshees to Storm. Now, there once lived a foal named Nithl. He had heard stories about telshees all his life, but he didn’t believe them. His clique argued about it all the time. Finally, Nithl thought of a plan to prove his point. He would take a group of his friends all the way through the Garu Vell at night. The Vell is no wider than the cliff top, so it can be crossed in a short time. ‘We will come out on the other side, and you will see that nothing has harmed us,’ Nithl said.

  “His friends begged him not to do it, but he wouldn’t listen. The next night, he and four friends set out across the Garu Vell. The rest of the clique waited on the other side. They had agreed that if Nithl and company got safely through the Vell, the others would accept their opinion that telshees did not exist.

  “Time passed, but Nithl’s group did not emerge. ‘Maybe they’re hiding,’ said one of the waiting foals, ‘trying to frighten us.’ Others predicted a cry for help from the Vell, but the night remained quiet. Hours passed, and finally the foals dozed.

  “They woke at dawn and looked at each other, knowing that something terrible must have happened. The clique called for their friends, but no one answered.

  “Finally, they decided to go back over the cliffs and follow Nithl’s path into the Vell. Perhaps a tide pool had trapped their friends. Perhaps they had gotten lost. ‘Telshees don’t come out in daylight,’ they reasoned.

  “The clique did not have to go far into the Vell. The trail stopped thirty paces into the rocks in a clearing of white sand. What they saw in the center made them shake with fear!”

  Tracer paused and looked around at his audience. “What, Tracer?” exclaimed Ally at last. “What did they see?”

  “They saw Nithl. He stood with his back to them, staring straight ahead. They called to him, but he neither turned nor spoke. When they moved in front of him, they saw that his eyes were fixed and glassy.

  “They also saw four long brownish objects lying around him on the ground. They were ferryshaft tails—all that remained of Nithl’s companions. The sand was perfectly
smooth, with no trace of blood or a struggle.

  “One of the bravest foals ventured to approach Nithl and touch noses with him, but he was dead, stone cold, standing on his feet. Eventually, they all stole away with their tails between their legs. And that is why whenever a telshee kills a ferryshaft, he leaves behind the tail as a warning to those who doubt his existence!”

  A dramatic hush followed, and several foals shivered. Tracer opened his mouth again, but Mylo interrupted. “Who wants to go next?”

  The foals shifted their hooves. They cleared their throats and shook their heads. Finally, Leep spoke, “Something funny happened to me last spring when—”

  “I have a scary story.” Everyone looked at Tollee. It was the first time Storm had heard her speak since the day he arrived.

  “Oh, well—” began Leep.

  “You wanted a scary story, right?” Tollee was glaring at Tracer, who sunk down a little against Storm. “Once upon a time, there was a foal who lived with her mother and father by Chelby Lake, but then the winter came. During the first blizzard of the season, her father slipped on the ice while trying to get to a cave for shelter. He broke his leg, so he couldn’t forage properly, but his mate and his daughter kept trying to feed him.

  “Then one day, while they were foraging on the edge of the plains, a pack of curbs found them, and they attacked her father, because he was weak and injured. Her mother tried to defend him, and the curbs pulled them both down. They started eating before her mother was even dead. The foal crawled into a crevice in the rocks where the curbs couldn’t reach her. She was trapped there for two days because they kept returning to the bodies to feed.”

  “That’s enough!” snarled Ishy. Ally had buried his face in his brother’s fur. He was moaning softly.

  Tollee looked around at them with disdain. “I thought you all wanted a scary story—”

  “Not a true story,” barked Leep. He actually looked angry.

  “My stories are true,” said Tracer, but without much conviction.

  Storm heard himself say, “I’ll tell you a true story.” He was on his feet without quite knowing how he got there, standing between Tollee and Leep. Please don’t fight. We all know too many scary stories. “I’ll tell you a true story that’s only a little scary. It involves Kelsy and a dead rabbit. Does anyone want to hear it?”

  He was extremely relieved when they did.

  Chapter 14. Various Kinds of Traps

  The foals rose at dawn and spent the morning foraging, intending to start down the cliffs in the afternoon. Storm had more than a few questions from the night before, but he waited until he and Tracer and Leep had wandered a little away from the others. Finally, he said, “If Tollee’s parents died near the beginning of winter, what has she been doing between then and joining your clique?”

  “Same thing you’ve been doing, I expect,” said Leep without turning from the tree he was stripping.

  “But, I’ve never…” Storm thought about it. “I’ve never seen a female without a clique.”

  Tracer snorted. “She didn’t want a rogan, but they wore her down.”

  “A what?”

  “A promised mate,” said Leep. He looked around at Storm. “You really have been living on the outside, haven’t you?”

  Storm thought, I know all about intelligent species, and I’ve been to Groth! But he kept quiet. Pathar had obviously neglected some aspects of his education.

  “Females can always find a clique,” said Tracer, “but if they’re young, it comes at a price. The dominant male, or sometimes another high-ranking male, becomes her rogan—her promised mate. She becomes his ru. In exchange, he protects her from other males and shares food.”

  “If she’s an adult,” put in Leep, “she may be able to join an all-female clique. The others will help her fight off unwanted males, and they’ll choose their own mates. But, if she’s orphaned young, well…you know how hard it is to survive without a clique.”

  Storm frowned. “So Mylo is Tollee’s rogan?”

  “Yes,” said Tracer in a low voice. “We all witnessed the agreement, although she didn’t like it much. The younger a female is when she’s orphaned, the lower-ranking her rogan is likely to be. A foal less than a year old is a big risk. It’ll be three or four years before she reaches breeding age. A male could expend a lot of energy on her, only to have her die at some point during that time.”

  “Then why did Mylo take her?” asked Storm.

  Tracer guffawed. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty low in the herd hierarchy. Where else is Mylo likely to find a mate? He could wait and hope that one of the adult females chooses him, but he’s not exactly a beautiful specimen. Sometimes, the females will agree to mate with the winner of a fight, but those fights get nasty. This way is more certain if he can keep her alive. He could end up with three or four mates this way.”

  “What if Tollee doesn’t want to mate with him in three or four years?” asked Storm.

  Tracer looked uneasy. “Well…he’d be within his rights to kill her. He wouldn’t necessarily, but it does happen. The herd wouldn’t punish him, not if he was her rogan.”

  Storm didn’t like the sound of that. “Why don’t the orphaned females form cliques like the males?”

  Leep sighed. “They try, sometimes, but all it takes is two or three big males attacking them and taking their food until they agree to make the attackers their rogans or find other males to protect them. The harassing males are often adults or four-year-olds. The orphan females are young. They give up.”

  “I heard of one female clique of orphaned foals who made it all the way to adulthood without rogans,” said Tracer. “Maybe it’s just a story, or maybe it really happened. It’s a good story, though. I’ll tell it some evening.”

  Storm thought of his mother joining the female clique that winter.

  Leep grinned and nudged him. “Nobody fights over us males. We may never breed, but at least we’re free to die wherever we like.”

  “’We may never breed,’” scoffed Tracer. “If Leep isn’t very careful, one of those female cliques will make him their ru.”

  Leep looked almost embarrassed. He opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped. “What’s that?” His voice sounded so taut that Storm looked around in alarm.

  “What’s what?”

  Leep bent down and nosed at something on the ground. Storm thought at first that it was snow or ice, but then saw that it was white fur. There was more—wispy hanks scattered along the ground.

  Leep started backing away as though from a snake.

  “Leep, it isn’t—” began Tracer. “It can’t be; we’re on the cliffs.”

  “How do you know?” hissed Leep. “Do we really know anything about them?”

  Storm wasn’t sure what they were talking about. He saw another clump of fur drifting down and retraced its path upwards. He squinted. “Is that a sheep?”

  Leep and Tracer stopped arguing. They followed Storm’s gaze upwards.

  “Oh,” said Leep. He sounded relieved.

  “See,” said Tracer, “just a curb trap.”

  “So, we’ll be killed by curbs and not telshees,” said Leep. “That’s a relief.”

  “It’s a sheep!” said Storm stubbornly. “Are you blind? That’s a sheep hanging from a—a—”

  “A curb trap,” finished Leep. “Come on, let’s get the others.”

  Within moments, the entire clique was standing beneath the body of a young sheep, hanging several lengths from the ground by what appeared to be a tangle of vines around its neck. “Do you think the curb pack is nearby?” muttered Ishy.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Callaris. “There’s enough of us to drive them off.”

  “A big pack might not find us intimidating.”

  “Chief?” asked Callaris.

  Mylo was examining the sheep from all angles. The meat would make their trip up the cliffs more than worth the effort. “We take it,” he said at last.

/>   “What’s a curb trap?” whispered Storm to Tracer.

  Tracer tried to explain. “Curbs make traps for sheep and young deer. Adult ferryshaft are usually too big, but foals get caught sometimes. You choke if someone isn’t around to chew you lose. Sometimes, the curbs use poison on the vines. It’s dangerous to rob the traps, even if the pack isn’t nearby.”

  “But how does it work?” persisted Storm.

  Tracer just shook his head.

  Mylo and Callaris had jumped up and each grabbed a leg of the dead sheep. Their combined weight brought the animal low enough for them to touch the ground with their back hooves, but the vines holding the sheep did not break. Ishy and Leep each grabbed a leg as well, and they worried the animal this way and that, trying to break the trap.

  Storm was suddenly aware of Tollee sitting beside him. “Cowards,” she muttered. Then, more loudly, “I’ll get it.”

  “No—!” said Tracer, but she’d already run forward.

  Tollee leapt into the air and, with a tremendous chomp, severed the viney trap. The four males who had hold of the sheep stumbled back in all directions.

  Mylo rose, sputtering, and turned on Tollee, but she faced him levelly, ears flat, tail bristling. “I won’t eat my portion until you’re sure I’m not poisoned. That way, the meat won’t be wasted if I die. Happy?”

  Mylo deflated a little. He inclined his head.

  Storm had gone over to sniff at the vines that had been used in the construction of the trap. He thought he recognized them and their faintly sweet aroma. He’d seen vines like that before among woody bowls of clear, sweet-smelling fluid, standing with Pathar on the edge of Groth. Storm did not think Tollee would be poisoned, but he wondered what she would dream that night. Behind him, the foals began to divide the meat. He heard Tracer say, “Don’t leave Storm out; he’s the one who spotted it” and smiled.

  He stood up and turned, but almost tripped when he took a step. Looking down, Storm saw a tendril of vine wound around his foot. He shook it loose as though stung and then stood staring at it. He tried to convince himself that he’d snagged it with his own clumsiness, but he knew that wasn’t true. The fur on his neck prickled, and Storm looked up to see Tollee some distance away, watching him.