The Green Odyssey Part 6

Green had time for one short prayer-- no nonsense about punching a G.o.d in the nose, now-- and then he was hurled against the wall of the nest. There was the loudest noise he'd ever heard-- the loudest because it was the crack of doom for him. Rope split like a giant's whip cracking; spars, suddenly released from the rigging, strummed like monster violins; the masts, falling down, thundered; intermingled with all that were the screams of the people below on the deck and in the holds. Green himself was screaming as he felt the foremast lean over, and he slid from the floor of the nest, which had suddenly threatened to become a wall, and fought to hold himself on the wall, which had now become a floor. His fingers closed upon the musket-support with the desperation of one who clings to the only solid thing in the world.

For a minute, the mast stopped its forward movement, held taut by the tangled ma.s.s of ropes. Green hoped that he was safe, that all the damage had been done.

But no, even as he dared think he might come out alive, the mighty grinding noise began again. The island of rock and trees was continuing its course and was smas.h.i.+ng the hull of the s.h.i.+p beneath it, gobbling up wheels, axles, keel, timber, cargo, cannon and people.

The next he knew, he was flying through the air, torn from his hold, catapulted far away from the 'roller. It seemed as if he actually soared, gained alt.i.tude, though this must have been an illusion. Then the hard return to earth, the impact on his face, his body, his legs. The outstretched arms to soften the blow that must surely splinter his bones and pulp his flesh. The pitiful arms, the last warding-off gesture before annihilation. The series of hard blows, like many fists. The sudden realization that he was among tree branches and that his fall was being broken by them. His trying to grab one to hang on and its slipping away and his continued rapid and punis.h.i.+ng descent.

Then, oblivion.

He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious, but when he sat up he saw through the trunks of the trees the shattered hull of the Bird about a hundred feet away. It was lying on its side on a lower level than he was, so he supposed that he was sitting on the slope of a hill. Only half of the craft was in sight; it must have been broken in two, and most of the middeck and stern ground into rubble beneath the advancing juggernaut of the island.

Dully, be realized that the drizzle had stopped, the clouds had cleared and the big and little moons were up. The seeing was good, too good.

There were people left alive in the wreck, men, women and children who were trying to climb through the tangle of ropes, spars and broken, jagged, projecting planks. Screams, moans, shouts and calls for help made a chaos.

Groaning, he managed to rise to his feet. He had a very painful headache. One eye was so swollen he couldn't see with it. He tasted blood in his mouth and felt several broken teeth with his lacerated tongue. His sides hurt when he breathed. The skin seemed to have been torn off the palms of his hands. His right knee must have been wrenched, and his left heel was a ball of fire. Nevertheless he got up. Amra and Paxi and her other children were in there; that is, unless they'd been caught in the other half. He had to find out. Even if they were beyond his help there were others who weren't.

He started to hobble through the trees. Then he saw a man step out from behind a bush. Thinking that he must be a survivor who had wandered off in a dazed condition, Green opened his mouth to speak to him. But there was something odd about him that imposed silence. He looked closer. Yes, the fellow wore a headdress of feathers and held a long spear in his hand. And the moonlight, where it slipped through the branches and shone upon an exposed shoulder, gleamed red, white, blue-black, yellow and green. The man was painted all over with stripes of different colors!

Green slowly sank down upon his hands and knees behind a bush. It was then that he became aware of others who stood behind trees and watched the wreck. Then these emerged from the darkness under the branches. Presently, at least fifty plumed, painted, armed men were gathered together, all silent, all intently inspecting the wreck and the survivors.

One raised a spear as a signal and gave a loud, whooping war cry. The others echoed him, and when he ran out from beneath the branches they followed him.

Green could watch only for a minute before he had to close his eyes.

"No, no!" he moaned. "The children, too!"

When he forced himself to look again, he saw that he had been mistaken in thinking that everybody had been put to spear. After the first vicious onslaught, in which they'd killed indiscriminately and hysterically, like all undisciplined primitives, they'd spared the younger women and the little girls. Those able to walk were lined up and marched off under the guard of half a dozen spearsmen. The too badly injured were run through on the spot.

Even in the midst of this scene, Green felt some of his intense anguish eased a little. Amra was still alive!

She held Paxi in one arm and with the other pulled Soon, her daughter by the temple sculptor. Though she must have been terribly frightened, she faced her captors with the same proud bearing she'd always had, whether in the presence of peasant or prince. Inzax, her maid, stood behind her.

Green decided that he'd better try to follow her and her captors at a discreet distance. But before he could get away he saw the women and older children of the savages appear, bearing torches. Fortunately none came his way. Some of these mutilated the dead, dancing around the hacked corpses and howling in imitation of the adult men. Then began the work in earnest, the carving up of the flesh. These painted people were cannibals and made no bones about it. Fires were being lit for a midnight snack before the bulk of the meat was brought back to wherever their homes were.

17.

GREEN STAYED FAR enough behind the prisoners and savages to keep out of sight if any man should turn. The path was narrow, winding between crowding trunks and under low branches. The soil underfoot was rich and springy, as if composed of generations of leaves. Green estimated he must have gone at least a mile and a half, not as the crow flies, but more like a drunk trying to find his way home. Then, without warning, the forest stopped and a clearing was before him. In the midst of this stood a village of about ten log houses with thatched roofs. Six were rather small outhouses serving one purpose or another. The four large ones were, he guessed, long houses for community living. They were grouped about a central spot in which were the remains of several large fires beneath big iron pots and spits. Clay tanks were scattered here and there; these held rain water. Before each house was a twenty-foot-high totem pole, brightly painted, and around it many slender poles holding skulls.

The prisoners were led into one of the outhouses and the door barred. A man stationed himself at the front, squatting with his back to the wall and holding a spear in one hand. The others greeted the old women and younger children who had been left behind. Though they spoke in a language Green didn't understand, they were obviously describing what they'd found at the wreck. Some of the old crones then began piling brushwood and small logs under one of the huge iron kettles; presently they had a fire blazing brightly. Others brought out gla.s.ses and cups of precious metals-- loot from wrecks. These they filled with some sort of liquor, probably a native beer, judging from the foam that spilled over the sides. One of the young boys began idly tapping upon a drum and soon was beating out a monotonous simple rhythm. It looked as if they were going to make a night of it.

But after a few drinks the warriors arose, picked up jugs of liquor and walked into the woods, leaving one man to guard the prisoners' hut. All the children over the age of four left with them, trailing along in the dark, though the warriors made no effort to slow their pace so the children could keep up.

Green waited until he was sure the spearsmen were some distance away, then rose. His muscles protested at any movement, and pains shot through his head, knee and ankle. But he ignored them and limped around the edge of the clearing until he came to the back of one of the long houses.

He slipped inside and stood by the side of the doorway. It was more illuminated than he'd thought at first, because of the several large and open windows which admitted moon-beams. Hens sleepily clucked at him, and one of the midget pigs grunted questioningly. Suddenly something soft brushed across his ankles. Startled, he jumped to one side. His heart, which had been beating fast enough before, threatened to hammer a hole in his ribs. He crouched, straining to see what it was. Then a soft meowing nearby told him. He relaxed a little and stretched out a hand, saying, "Here, kitty, kitty, come here."

But the cat walked by, his tail raised and a look of disdain on his face as he disappeared through the door. Seeing the animal reminded Green of something about which he was anxious. That was whether the natives kept dogs or not. He hadn't seen any and thought that surely if there were some he'd have long ago heard the noisy beasts. Undoubtedly, by now, he should have a whole pack of the obnoxious monsters snarling at his heels.

Silently, he walked into the long single room with its high ceiling. From thick rafters hung rolled-up curtains, which he supposed would be let down to make a semi-private room for any families that wished it. From them also hung vegetables, fruit and meat; chickens, rabbits, piglets, squirrels, hoober and venison. There were no human parts, so he guessed that the flesh of man was not so much a staple diet to these people as a food for religious purposes.

All he did know was that he would have to take some meat with him. He gathered strips of dried hoober, rolled them into a ball and stuffed them in a bag. Then he took down an iron-headed spear and a sharp steel knife from their rack on the wall. Knife in belt and spear in hand, he went out the back door.

Outside, he stopped to listen to the far-off beating of drums and the chanting of voices. There must be quite a celebration around the wreck.

"Good," he muttered to himself. "If they get drunk and pa.s.s out I'll have time for what I want to do."

Staying well within the shadows of the trees, he picked his way to the back of the hut in which the prisoners were. From where he stood he could see that there were only six old women-- about all the island's economy could afford, he supposed-- and some ten infants, all toddlers. Most of these, once the excitement caused by the noisy warriors had subsided with their leavetaking, had lain down close to the fire and gone to sleep. The only one who might give real trouble, aside from the guard, was a boy of ten, the one who was now tapping softly on the drum. At first Green could not understand why he hadn't gone with the others of his age to the wreck. But the empty stare and the unblinking way he looked into the fire showed why. Green had no doubt that if he were to come close enough to the lad, he'd see that the eyeb.a.l.l.s were filmed over with white. Blindness was nothing rare on this filthy planet.

Satisfied as to everybody's location, he crept to the back of the hut and examined the walls. They were made of thick poles driven into the ground and bound together with rope taken from a 'roller's rigging. There were plenty of openings for him to look through, but it was so dark that he could see only the vague outlines moving about.

He put his mouth to one of the holes and said softly, "Amra!"

Somebody gasped. A little girl began to cry but was quickly hushed up. Amra answered, faint with joy.

"Alan! It can't be you!"

"I am not thy father's ghost!" he replied, and wondered at the same time how he could manage to inject any levity at all into the midst of this desperate situation. He was always doing it, Perhaps it was not the product of a true humor but more like the giggle of a person who was embarra.s.sed or under some other stress, more the result of hysteria than anything else, his particular type of safety valve.

"Here's what I'm going to do," he said. "Listen carefully, then repeat it after me so I'll know you have it down."

She had to hear it only once to give it back to him letter-perfect. He nodded. "Good girl. I'm going now."

"Alan!"

"Yes?" he replied impatiently.

"If this doesn't work... if anything should happen to you... or me... remember that I love you."

He sighed. Even in the midst of this the eternal feminine emerged.

"I love you, too. But that hasn't got much to do with this situation."

Before she could answer and waste more valuable time he slid away, crawling on all fours around the corner of the hut. When he was where one more pace would have brought him into view of the guard and the old crones, he stopped. All this while he'd been counting the seconds. As soon as he'd clocked five minutes-- which he thought would never pa.s.s-- he rose and stepped swiftly around the corner, spear held in front of him.

The guard was drinking out of his mug with his eyes closed and his throat exposed. He fell over with Green's spear plunged through his windpipe, just above the breastbone. The mug fell onto his lap and gushed its amber and foam over his legs.

Green withdrew the blade and whirled, ready to run upon anybody who started to flee. But the old women were huddled on their knees around a large board on which they were rolling some flour, cackling and talking shrilly. The blind boy continued tapping, his open eyes glaring into the fire. Only one saw Green, a boy of about three. Thumb in mouth, he stared with great round eyes at this stranger. But he was either too horrified to utter a sound or else he did not understand what had happened and was waiting to find out his elders' reactions before he offered his own.

Green lifted one finger to his lips in the universal sign of silence, then turned and lifted up the bar over the door. Amra rushed out and took the guard's spear from her husband. The dead man's knife went to Inzax and his other knife to Aga, a tall, muscular woman who was captain of the female deck hands and who had once killed a sailor while defending her somewhat dubious honor.

At the same time, the chattering of the hags stopped. Green whirled around, and the silence was broken by shrieks. Frantically, the hags tried to scramble up from their stiffened knees and run away. But Green and the women were upon them before they could take more than a few steps. Not one of them reached the forest. It was grim work, one in which the Effenycan woman took fierce joy.

Without wasting a look on the poor old carca.s.ses, Green rounded up the children and the blind boy and put them in the prisoners' hut. He had to hold Aga back from slaughtering them. Amra, he was pleased to see, had made no motion to help them in their intended butchery. She, understanding his brief look, replied, "I could not kill a child, even the sp.a.w.n of these fiends. It would be like stabbing Paxi."

Green saw one of the women holding his daughter. He ran to her, took Paxi out of her arms and kissed the baby. Soon, Amra's ten-year-old child by the sculptor, came shyly and stood by his side, waiting to be noticed. He kissed her, too. "You're getting to be a big girl, Soon," he said. "Do you suppose you could tag along behind your mother and carry Paxi for her? She has to carry her spear."

The girl, a big-eyed, redheaded beauty, nodded and took the baby.

Green eyed the long houses with the idea of setting them afire. He decided not to when it became apparent that the wind would carry sparks to the hut in which the savages' children were. Moreover, though a fire would undoubtedly create consternation among the roisterers at the wreck and keep them busy for some time, it would also cause them to start tracking down the refugees just that much sooner. Besides, there was the possibility of setting fire to the forest, wet though it was. He didn't want to destroy his only hiding-place.

He directed some women to go into the long house and load themselves with as much food and weapons as they could carry. In a few minutes he had the party ready to leave.

"We'll take this path that leads out of the village away from the path that goes to the wreck," he said. "Let's hope it goes to the other edge of the island, where we may find some small 'rollers on which we can escape. I presume these savages have some kind of sailing craft."

This path was as narrow and winding as the other one. It worked in the general direction of the western sh.o.r.e, and the savages were on the eastern sh.o.r.e.

Their way at first led upward, sometimes through pa.s.ses formed by two large rocks. Several times they had to skirt little lakes, catch basins for rain. Once a fish flopped out of the water, scaring them. The island was fairly self-sufficient, what with its fish, rabbits, squirrels, wild fowl, pigs and various vegetables and fruit. He estimated that if the village was in the center of the island, then the ma.s.s should have a surface area of about one and a half square miles. Rough though the land was and thickly covered with gra.s.s, the place should offer cover for one refugee.

For one, yes, but not for six women and eight children.

18.

AFTER MUCH PUFFING and panting, muttered encouragements to each other, and occasional cursing, they finally reached the summit of the tallest hill. Abruptly, they found themselves facing a clearing which ran around its crown. Directly ahead of them was a forest of totem poles, all gleaming palely in the moonlight. Beyond it was the dark yawning of a large cave.

Green walked out from the shadows of the branches to take a closer look. When he came back he said, "There's a little hut by the side of the cave. I looked in the window. An old woman's asleep in it. But her cats are wide-awake and likely to wake her up."

"All these totem poles bear the heads of cats," said Aga. "This place must be their holy of holies. It's probably taboo to all but the old priestess."

"Maybe so," replied Green. "But they must hold religious services of some sort here. There's a big pile of human skulls on the other side of the cave mouth, and also a stake covered with bloodstains.

"We can do two things. Go on down the other side of this hill, jump off onto the plain and take our chances there. Or else hide inside the cave and hope that because it's taboo n.o.body will explore it to look for us."

"It seems to me that's the first place they'd look into," said Aga.

"Not if we don't wake the old woman. Then if the savages come along later and ask her if anybody's come by they'd get no for an answer."

"What about the cats?"

Green shrugged his shoulders. "We'd have to take that chance. Perhaps, if once we get by them and into the cave, they may quiet down."

He was referring to their caterwauling, which was beginning to sound dreadful.

"No," said Aga, "that noise will be a signal to the islanders. They'll know something's up."

"Well," replied Green, "I don't know what you intend doing, but I'm going into that cave. I'm too tired to run any further."

"So are we," affirmed the other women. "We've reached the end of our strength."

There was a silence, and into that silence came a voice, a man's.

It whispered, "Please do not be startled. Be quiet. It is I...."

Miran stepped out of the shadows behind them, holding his finger to his lips, his one eye round and pale in the moonlight. He was a ragged captain, not at all the elegantly uniformed commander of the Bird of Fortune and the wealthy-appearing patriarch of the Clan Effenycan. But he carried in his other hand a canvas bag. Green, seeing it, knew that Miran had managed somehow not only to escape with his skin but had also carried off a treasure in jewels.

"Behold," he announced, waving the bag, "all is not lost."

Green thought that he was referring to the jewels. However, Miran had turned and beckoned to someone in the darkness behind him.

Out of it slipped Grizquetr. Tears shone in his eyes as he ran to his mother and fell into her arms.

Amra began weeping softly. Until now she had repressed her grief over the children she thought forever lost to her. All thought had been directed to saving her own life and the lives of the two girls who had survived with her. Now, seeing her eldest son emerge from the shadows as if from the grave had thawed the frozen well of sorrow.

She sobbed, "I thank the G.o.ds that they have given me back my son."

"If the G.o.ds are so wonderful why did they kill your other two children?" asked Miran sourly. "And why did they kill my Clansmen, and why did they smash my Bird? Why...?"

"Shut up!" said Green. "This is no time to cry about anything. We have to get out with whole hides. The philosophizing and tears can come later."

"Mennirox is an ungrateful G.o.d," muttered Miran. "After all I did for him, too."

Amra dried her tears and said, "How did you escape? I thought all the males who hadn't been killed in the wreck were speared?"

"Almost everybody was," replied Grizquetr. "But I crawled down into the hold and slipped through to a hiding place beneath one of the fish tanks, which had overturned. It was wet there, and there were dead fish nestling beside me. The savages did not find me, though doubtless they would have when they began salvaging. It was thinking about that that decided me to crawl back out on the other side of the 'roller away from the savages. I did so, and I found that I could belly my way through the gra.s.s growing on the edge. I almost died of fright, though, because I crawled head on into Miran. He was hiding there, too."

"I was thrown off the foredeck by the impact," interrupted the captain. "I should have broken every bone in my body, but I landed on a hull sail, which had come down and was lying on the starboard side, supported by the fallen mast. It was like falling into a hammock. From there I dropped into the gra.s.s and snaked along the very edge of the island. Several times I almost fell off, and I would have if I'd been a pound fatter, an inch wider. As it was..."

"Listen," said Grizquetr, breaking in. "This island is the wuru!"

"What do you mean?" said Green.

"While I was clinging to the edge of the island I thought I'd hang down over it and see if there was any place there to hide. There wasn't, because the underside of the island is one smooth sheet. I know, because I could see in the moonlight clear to the other side. It was smooth, smooth, like a slab of iron.

"And that's not all! You know how the gra.s.s on the plains hereabouts has been tall, uncut? Well, the gra.s.s just ahead of the edge was uncut. But the gra.s.s underneath the island was being cut off. Rather, it was vanis.h.i.+ng! The top of the gra.s.s was just disappearing into air! Only a lawn of gra.s.s about an inch high was left!"

"Then this island is one big lawnmower," said Green. "More than just interesting. But we'll have to investigate that later. Right now..."

And he walked toward the little hut by the cave mouth. As he approached it several large house cats streaked out of the doorway. A moment later Green came out. He grinned broadly.

"The priestess has pa.s.sed out. The place smells like a brewery. The cats are in their cups, too. All drinking from bowls set on the ground for them, staggering around, yowling, fighting. If they don't wake her up, nothing can."

"I have heard that these old priestesses are often drunkards," said Amra. "They lead a lonely life because they're taboo, and n.o.body even goes near them except during certain religious customs. They have only their bottle and their cats to keep them company."

"Ah," said Miran, "you are thinking of the Tale of Samdroo, the Tailor Who Turned Sailor. Yes, that is supposed to be a story to entertain children, but I'm beginning to think there is a great deal to it. Remember, the story describes just such a hill and just such a cave. It is said that every roaming island has just such a place. And..."

"You talk too much," broke in Aga harshly. "Let's get on into the cave."