A Gathering of Wings (10 page)

“Your Settlement was most likely the last of its kind. And you are the last of the Settlement.” There is a look of pity in his eyes. “It isn’t healthy for you to entertain hopes to the contrary.”

Malora, stung, deflects the conversation back to Honus. “And what about you?” she asks. “Is there no faun mate for you?”

“When Medon first bought me, I was the only faun anyone had ever seen. Since then, my hibe has begun to stream
down from the frozen wastes of the north, and now we fauns are far less exotic. Still, for me, going without a mate is a choice. Some of us,” Honus says, “are destined to be alone.”

But Malora scarcely hears him. She has lifted her head into the breeze, nostrils twitching. “I smell lion,” she announces in a loud voice.

Neal gives the air a sniff. “Good nose, pet.”

The pace of the group immediately picks up, as if lions had begun to stalk them, although Malora continually reassures both Honus and Zephele that this is probably not the case. “If lions were following us, Dock would tell us.” And, in fact, the afternoon proceeds without incident.

That evening after dinner, Neal drills them all on what to do in the event they cross paths with a lion.

“I don’t see that we have anything to worry about!” Zephele says blithely. “We have Malora the lion-killer in our midst.”

“That lion was
old
,” Orion reminds his sister, not for the first time. “And Malora didn’t kill it. She simply scared it off.”

“That’s true,” Malora says.

“We might not be as lucky next time,” Neal says. “The next lion might be young and fit and hungry, which is why I am taking the trouble to instruct you all accordingly.”

Zephele, who is embroidering by the firelight, speaks without looking up from the figure of an impala whose head and forelegs she has completed. “Tell us, wise Captain, what must we do to preserve ourselves.”

“The first rule is,” says Neal, “if you see a lion, do
not
run.”

“Which is harder to do than it sounds,” Malora says.
“Your first impulse will be to scream and run. But you have to resist running with everything you have.”

“Your running is the lion’s signal to attack,” Neal says.

“Run like an impala,” Malora adds, “get eaten like an impala.”

Zephele’s needle hand has frozen. “So what must we do if not run?” she asks.

“Turn around,” Neal says, “and very calmly walk—do not run—in the opposite direction. Then follow Dock and do whatever he tells you. I’ll stay behind and deal with the lion.”

Later, Zephele whispers to Malora as they make their way to the tent. “Do you think Neal is competent to defend us?”

Malora shrugs. “He and Dock are both good hunters. They’ve got quick reflexes. Neal won that lion’s claw in a fair fight. And if they should fail, I’ll do my best to protect you.”

“I am so glad that I am sharing my tent with you. Not only does Honus snore, but he would be very little help defending me from a lion. He’d probably smack it on the head with a book. And Orion would want to sprinkle it with scent.”

“A lion-taming scent,” Malora says thoughtfully. “I’ll have to suggest that to him.”

The next morning, they wade through grass so high, it brushes the withers of horse and centaur alike. It is eerily quiet, except for the steady
swish-swish-swish
of the grasses parting and the occasional horse nervously flushing its nostrils. When a flock of guinea hens explodes in their path, the horses all spook. The Beltanians rear and take off with the wagon, Lightning throws a buck, and Raven goes into a frantic little tailspin that flings Honus off into the grass.

Malora leaps from Lightning’s back and runs to Honus.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

After a dazed moment, Honus laughs. He appears more embarrassed than hurt as he staggers to his feet and dusts off his trousers. “You know? I think I might have dozed off,” he confesses.

“That probably saved you from a broken bone,” Malora says. “You were asleep when you fell. A relaxed fall hurts less because the body isn’t braced for impact.” She pauses for a moment and realizes she has just uttered the words of Jayke, her father, the master horseman. She has a sudden longing for him so sharp that for a few moments she cannot move.

Raven has stopped a short distance away, munching grass. Malora inhales, then lets it out. She goes over to gather up the trailing reins and stroke Raven’s neck. “Silly filly. Those were just birds. Nothing to work yourself into a state over.” Gently, she leads Raven back to Honus. She tightens Raven’s girth and then says to Honus, “Up you go, Honus. Try and stay awake this time.”

After she has placed the reins back in Honus’s hands and murmured a few more calming words to Raven, she says to Neal, “From now on, I think we should let the horses graze when they like. It will have a calming effect on them.”

“You’re the horse expert, pet,” Neal says.

“Horses eat grass to calm themselves,” Orion says ominously, “but what are we to do?”

“Pay attention,” Neal says. “We’re entering lion country. The horses smell it.”

The air is suddenly rank with the musk of big cats. Any one of the clumps of bushes they file past might conceal the
den of a lion. And in grass this tall, they may not be able to see a lion until it is upon them. Every muscle in Malora’s body is tensed. If a lion showed itself now, she would be forced to defend herself with the knife. But in the end, there is no need. By midday, the air has cleared. A brisk breeze has washed all trace of lions away. They all breathe a little easier when they break out of the high grass into open savanna. No one is interested in stopping for the midday meal, so they eat while they move.

As if celebrating, wildebeest buck and caper, tagging along in their wake. Giraffes, with their fluid lope, crisscross their path. Herds of zebra, impala, and baboon convince Malora that, even if the lions were to return, there is more than enough meat on the hoof for a hungry lion to choose from without having to resort to a repast of centaur, horse, or human.

Honus speaks up. “The sheer number and variety of these beasts continue to astound me. To think that there was once a time when human interference brought their numbers so low, many were even threatened with extinction.”

“How did that happen?” Malora asks.

“Hunting and poaching and disease. Some of it was simply a matter of displacement. Once upon a time, the People occupied large Settlements. Impossibly large cities. The bigger the cities grew, the more they encroached on the animal habitats. As their grazing lands were turned to farm and homelands, the animal population began to dwindle. There is a theory that the reason the Scienticians created hibes in the first place was to encourage empathy in human beings for the
dwindling beasts of the earth. What better way to bind humans to animals than to link them, genetically, to the species they were destroying. Ironically, today the humans are extinct—but for you, my dear—and the animals have rebounded.”

They soon come upon a series of dried mud beds overwritten by a scribbling of animal tracks, which Malora reads like the print on the page of a book.

“Hippo wallows,” Malora says. “See here? That is the track of the bird that lives on the hippo’s back and eats the insects that infest its body.”

“Ugh!” Zephele says, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Hippos aren’t so bad. They kill only if they feel their calves are being threatened,” Malora reminds her friend, although she knows where Zephele’s fear comes from. Had Malora lost a brother to a hippo, she might fear them equally.

Just above the wallows they come upon a small grove of trees surrounded by a flat grassy landing. Neal declares this to be a perfect campground. The Twani erect the tents, while Honus sorts through the day’s treasures and Zephele arranges the wildflowers she has picked into a wreath for sketching. Orion and Dock travel to and from the river, returning with buckets of water for the horses and for washing and cooking. Malora runs the rope strung with bells around the trunks of the outermost trees to form a makeshift paddock in the shelter of the grove. Once the tents are set up, Sunshine gathers stones for a fire pit and Lemon goes off in search of firewood. Malora is beneath the trees, currying the horses with her new hairbrush, when Lemon comes racing back to the camp.

“Come!” he says breathlessly. “You must all come see.”

Neal tells Sunshine to stay behind to watch the camp while the rest follow Lemon. The Twan leads them to a stand of bushes and points to a large wallow on the other side. Peering through the bushes, they all watch the scene: two young male lions, with shaggy golden manes, are draped across the back of a large hippo bull. The hippo, still alive, stands in the mud while both lions dig their claws into his hide and, with their teeth, tear big pieces of flesh from his lower back.

His voice low and grim, Neal says, “Well, Zephele, there’s your deadly centaur-eating hippo for you. It just goes to show you that in nature everyone has an enemy.”

Zephele, gnawing at the base of her thumbnail, seems transfixed by the gruesome sight.

Honus says in a soft voice, “A brave man is always frightened three times by a lion: when he first sees his track, when he first hears him roar, and when he first confronts him.”

“Who said that?” Orion asks.

“It’s an old proverb cited by the ancient known as Hemingway.”

“Why doesn’t the hippo run away from those brutes?” Zephele asks.

Malora feels a keen sense of pity for the hippo. His great mouth opens in a wide, gummy yawn of silent agony, and yet he simply stands there, patiently allowing the lions to help themselves to his flesh. “He knows this is the end for him. He’s outnumbered,” she says.

Orion staggers off a short distance and, gagging, empties the contents of his stomach.

The others continue to look on. Finally, Malora can stand
it no longer. “Enough!” she explodes in a harsh whisper, and begins to herd them back to camp. To Lemon, she says, “Did you actually think we’d find this amusing?”

Lemon sulks.

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Neal says. “Perhaps it is just as well that we all see what there is to fear from lions.”

Zephele comes striding up alongside Malora. “I want you to teach me,” she says in a fierce undertone.

“Teach you what?” Malora asks.

“Teach me how to kill,” she says.

Malora turns and stares at her friend. “What are you talking about?”

Zephele’s eyes are wide and pleading. “I’m not talking about murder, you needn’t worry about that. I’m talking about self-defense. Malora, I don’t
ever
want to be like that hippo. I don’t ever want to stand by and let myself be savaged by some wild beast. I won’t hunt them. But neither will I let them hunt me. I want to be able to defend myself without having to depend upon you or Neal or Dock or anyone else. I want you to teach me how to kill so I can protect myself.”

Malora searches Zephele’s face and sees that her friend has never been more serious. “What about the Edicts?” Malora says.

“I’ll follow the Edicts in Mount Kheiron, but out here in the bush I can’t afford to. Will you help me? I’d ask Neal, but he’s too fearful of my father.”

“Very well,” Malora says at last. “But please don’t ever tell the Apex. Neal isn’t the only one who fears him. I know he’d never forgive me. He might even turn me out.” As she says this, she realizes that in spite of the fact that she knows how
to make her way in the bush, she fears being turned out as much as any centaur—that’s how powerful the claim civilization has made on her.

That day, and every day after that, Malora gives Zephele lessons in archery. After they have made camp, Malora leaves Dock and Neal to hunt while she stays behind and sets up a shooting range for Zephele. All the while Malora is doing this, she finds herself thinking of her mother, who taught her how to use a bow. As she instructs Zephele, she hears her mother’s voice in her ear: “Feet shoulder-width apart, weight equally distributed on your feet. When you pull the string back, you want to use your bones, not your muscle.…”

The first time she does this, Malora takes a stub of charcoal and makes a target on the wide smooth trunk of a baobab tree. Zephele misses the target the first few times but keeps trying with a determination Malora finds impressive. When the arrow flies wide of the target, Malora tells Zephele, “Remember always to look at what you are aiming at, never at the arrow. Burn a hole with your eye into the target and the arrow will seek it.”

Just as this advice made a difference for Malora, so does it now serve Zephele. As the days pass and the practice sessions pile up, the centaur maiden starts hitting the target more often than missing it. On the eve before their arrival in Kahiro, Neal returns early from hunting and watches as Zephele hits the direct center of the target at twenty-five paces. Malora notices a new expression in Neal’s eyes when he looks at Zephele.

“What you lack in the strength of your arm you more than make up for in the acuity of your aim,” he says to
Zephele. “All that time spent in the stitchery has sharpened your eye and steadied your hand.”

Zephele lowers her bow. “Thank you, Master Featherhoof,” she says primly. “And I intend to strengthen my arm.”

Neal merely nods as if he didn’t doubt her.

That night, they camp in fine white sand near a stand of towering date palms. Monkeys chatter in the treetops, and Malora hears the cries of birds she doesn’t recognize. The next morning, when she emerges from her tent, she spots big, bright-red-and-green-plumed birds flapping in the treetops.

“Parrots,” Honus says, eyeing them through his opera glasses. “They look comical, but don’t be fooled. They can snap your finger with those hooked bills.”

For the first time, Malora is wearing the disguise, the horns and the saruchi, but Honus seems more interested in the parrots than in her transformation.

The centaur bucks are equally sanguine as they stand around the morning cook fire.

Zephele, returning from the river where she has washed her hair, claps a hand to her chest. “Remarkable! No one looking at you will ever be able to tell you’re human!” she says.