A Gathering of Wings (8 page)

Malora squints at a little blue flower not even her mother gave a name to. “I know the names of the
useful
plants,” she tells Zephele. “But that one has no use so it has no name.”

Honus speaks up: “It is
Triteleia grandiflora
.”

Zephele repeats the flower’s name and asks Honus to spell it so she can copy it down on the small, leather-bound tablet she keeps in the pouch on her belt. No sooner has she written down the name than she points to the herd of striped antelope
leaping clumsily about in the cloud grass just to the west of them. “And what are those?”

“Wildebeest,” Malora says.

“How comical they are,” Zephele says, laughing. “Why do they run in such an antically irregular fashion?”

Neal, having overheard, calls back, “For your ladyship’s amusement!”

Zephele rolls her eyes.

Malora says to Zephele, “No reason I can think of. That’s just the way wildebeest run. Perhaps they run this way to elude predators with their unpredictability.”

“Wildebeest,” says Zephele, rolling the word on her tongue. “The name suits them, doesn’t it?” Her declared goal is to memorize the names of every plant and creature she sees on the expedition.

Shortly following their midday halt to eat nuts and fruit, hard bread, and cheese, Malora spies a lone dark brown antelope lurking behind a bush. Tapping Zephele on the shoulder, she points. “See that brown animal over there? That’s the sable antelope. It was skinned to make that luxurious winter cape of yours.”

“No!” Zephele stares at the cowering creature, aghast. “The poor dear thing! But it’s so shy and sweet!”

“And so warm and soft!” Neal calls back loudly enough to spook the sable and send it bounding off, horns flashing in the sunlight.

Zephele shudders. “That decides it. As soon as I return home, I will donate all my furs to the Flatlanders Fund and have Theon weave me a thick woolen cape. I don’t care how
frumpy I look. From now on, I will foreswear the wearing of animal skins.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Orion calls back. And he and Neal laugh.

“Orion Silvermane, how dare you share laughter at my expense with the Flatlander,” Zephele says imperiously, setting off still more laughter.

Later, when a snake the size of a large tree branch slithers across their path, Zephele screams. Everyone stops. Malora drapes her reins over Lightning’s saddle horn and dismounts. Clamping the rock python’s massive jaws shut with one hand, she hoists the upper half out of the grass to give everyone a good look at it. She strains beneath its weight. It is as big around as an elephant’s leg and as long as three horse-lengths. She is showing off, she knows it, but she can’t help herself. They have shown her their world. Now she wants to show them hers.

“Utterly magnificent!” Honus says. “And a marvel of natural engineering. I imagine knights of yore modeled their segmented armor on the scales of such creatures as these.”

“I seem to remember that you have a pair of cunning boots made from the skin of one of these marvels,” Orion says to Zephele.

“In that case, I will bid farewell to my snakeskin boots, as well as my sable cape,” his sister says.

“And your zebra- and your leopard- and your kid- and your giraffe-skin boots as well?” Neal adds, grinning.

“You seem to be paying rather close attention to my footwear, Flatlander,” Zephele says tartly. Then to Malora: “Oh, take care, Malora. Does it bite?”

“Not exactly,” Malora says. Her strength giving out, she eases the snake back down, releasing it and standing back to give it a wide berth as it slithers off into the grass. “It strikes with the points of its teeth to knock its prey senseless, then it squeezes the life out of it and gobbles it down whole. I’ve lost more than a few colts to these monsters.”

“Snake, dear, do you hear me?” Zephele says, looking off into the grass. “If I promise never to make a pair of boots out of you, do you promise not to hurt me?”

In the lowering rays of the sun, Neal leads them past a massive termite mound where a fully grown female leopard lounges, staring at them with her great, unblinking golden eyes.

Zephele shrinks away, but Malora reassures her. “Don’t worry. She’s already eaten. See?” And she points to the tree from which hangs the carcass of a half-eaten eland. The she-leopard has obviously just sated herself and then dragged the remains of her meal up into the tree, out of reach of hyenas, wild dogs, and other poachers. Zephele shudders. Neal calls back to them in a way calculated to make Zephele shriek yet again. “Now
that’s
a sight to make a Flatlander’s mouth water for dinner. I think it’s time to look for a place to camp.”

“What an excellent idea, Captain Featherhoof!” Zephele calls back to him serenely.

They continue at a slower pace, giving Neal a chance to size up the terrain as they go.

“What’s taking him so long?” Zephele says, her stride flagging.

“We need a place close enough to the river so we will be able to have cooking and bathing water,” Malora explains, “but not so near that we are overrun by the wild animal traffic going to and from it.”

Zephele replies wearily, “Oh. Well, in that case, let him take his time and choose with the greatest possible care.”

Neal settles for a hard, barren swath of earth studded with sparkling pink rocks.

“Here?” Zephele asks. “Isn’t it a bit bleak?”

“It’s hardly that. Rose quartz!” Honus cries. No sooner has Honus slipped off Raven’s back and turned her over to Malora than he hobbles off to fill his arms with glittering mineral specimens.

With Lemon’s help, Malora rigs a roped enclosure for the horses, strung with bells that will jingle should a predator attempt to broach the perimeter. Then she fetches a bow and quiver from the wagon and goes off with Neal to hunt dinner, leaving Orion and Zephele to collect firewood, Dock to guard the camp, and Lemon and Sunshine to erect the tents. There is one tent for the Twani, another for Zephele and Malora, and a third for Orion and Honus. The Peacekeepers will sleep outside and take turns standing watch. When Malora and Neal are out of earshot of the others, Malora says, “I think Zephele did quite well on her first day, don’t you?”

Neal grunts. “We’ll see how she fares tonight. I don’t think she’s quite realized that the bush does not come equipped with a marble convenience.”

“Aren’t you being a little hard on her?”

Neal’s lips twist into a smile. “I’ve been teasing Zephie since she was three years old. She’s used to it.”

“But she’s grown up now. Isn’t it time you stopped?” Malora asks.

“When she acts like a lady, I’ll treat her like one,” Neal says shortly. He takes out the familiar zebra-skinned flask and holds it to his lips, drinking sparingly.

“Is that gaffey?” Malora asks.

He nods and wipes his mouth.

“Orion told me you had none left.”

“This is the dregs,” he says. “I’ve been nursing it for weeks. Care for a sip? It’s quite potent.”

Knowing that visions derived from drinking this beverage, according to Orion, may hold the key to Sky’s whereabouts, she reaches for the flask. Perhaps this will save them a trip to Kahiro. Zephele will be disappointed, but Sky will be located that much sooner. Closing her eyes, she puts out the question silently—where are you, Sky?—then tilts her head back and lets some of the bitter liquid trickle down her throat. She swallows slowly, her eyes still shut.

The air smells freshly scrubbed. Suddenly, she is wrapped in his arms, his mouth pressed to hers, his sweet breath coursing through her body. She gasps and pushes him away, staring up into eyes that are huge and burnished and as silver as his hair. Lume whispers, “Good. You’re alive.”

Malora opens her eyes and says, “Of course I’m alive.”

“I did not expect otherwise,” Neal says, eying her strangely as he snatches the flask from her grip and pounds in the cork with the heel of his hand. “Don’t tell me. You saw elephants
with pink wings dancing on the tops of daisies? Or is it putti frolicking in the clouds?” he says.

“No,” Malora says, laying a hand to the side of her face, which feels hot. “But I did see a man.”

“Did you now? Would this be a fellow human being?” Neal says.

Malora nods.

“Well now. That’s very nearly as fanciful as the elephants and the cherubs. But I suppose you’re entitled to your dreams. I hope he’s everything you want in a mate.”

“He is,” she says faintly. She wonders, not for the first time, where he is, who he is, and when she will meet him.

“Back to reality with you, my pet,” Neal says, pointing to a herd of impala in the high grass. Neal fits an arrow to his bow, raises it, and pulls back the string, sighting his target. Malora holds her breath until Neal releases the arrow. It whistles through the air, and seconds later a small impala falls, the rest of the herd leaping off in all directions.

They retrieve the dead animal, which Neal hoists with a rope, its head hanging down, from the branch of a nearby tree. Then Malora takes out her knife and skins it just enough to carve off the meat from the tenderloin. She is pleased with the way her knife slices through the still-warm flesh. Then she cuts down the carcass and leaves it for the scavengers. By the time her work is finished, the bandage on her hand is soaked in impala blood. She strips it off, and Neal helps her wash it with the water in his canteen.

“Nasty gouge,” he comments.

Malora holds up her hand. “This? I got it in a dream,” she says.

He raises an eyebrow. “If you say so, pet.”

He washes the blood off her knife, too, then hefts it. “You handle the knife well. Do you know how to use it?”

She stares at him blandly. “I believe I just did,” she says.

“I mean to
defend
yourself,” he says.

“Of course I do,” Malora says, taking back the knife and returning it to her boot.

“It’s a fine weapon,” he says.

“If you’ll stop teasing Zephele, I’ll make one for you when we get back to Mount Kheiron,” she says.

“In the marketplace at Kahiro there are endless displays of Bushman’s Friends for sale,” Neal says.

“The only thing I hope to find in the marketplace is the way to my horse,” Malora says grimly.

Neal says, “Why a levelheaded young woman like you would think some old crone in possession of useful information … She’s a gaffey brewer. Gaffey is a stimulant, not a magic potion. And the visions it gives rise to are figments of an overactive imagination and nothing else. I hate to be the one to disappoint you, pet.”

Malora stares at him coolly. “If Shrouk and her gaffey don’t yield up the information we need, maybe you can help me find Sky.”

“I will do what I can,” Neal says, and Malora is glad to see that he has wiped the mocking grin from his face.

While Lemon brews nettle soup in a pot, Malora and Neal spit the impala tenderloin and roast it over the fire.

After everyone has finished eating, the carnivores on one side of the fire, the herbivores on the other, they all sip cups of
red bush tea while darkness lowers and the stars begin to poke through like slivers of diamond through dark velvet. They gather their wraps around themselves and stare at the fire, their thoughts lost in the flames.

A loud, cackling cry rouses everyone. Wide-eyed, Zephele scoots closer to Malora. “What was that?” she asks.

“Hyena,” Neal says, picking his teeth with a twig.

Green lights flash in the darkness.

“And what are those?” Zephele asks.

“Bush bunnies,” Malora says. “Their eyes glow.”

“They look rather sweet,” Zephele says.

“They taste like berries and wild sage,” Neal says.

“Haven’t you already sufficiently gorged yourself?” Zephele says.

Darkness deepens and the air grows chilly, drawing them closer to the fire. A powerful musk fills the air and causes the horses to stop munching their feed and fall still.

Malora lifts her nose and sniffs. “I wonder,” she says slowly, rising to her feet. She lights a stout stick and takes a few steps with the torch away from the fire and into the darkness. “I thought so! Look!” she whispers, as she holds up the torch and illuminates a family of rhinos: a bull, two cows, and a calf, all grazing placidly while peering at the travelers with their tiny curious eyes.

“Oh my! They’re like living rocks!” Zephele says. “Are we in any danger of being gored by those fearsome horns?”

Malora returns to the fire, tossing the torch into the flames. “Not really. They’re just as curious about us,” she says, “as we are about them.”

“Those would be black rhinos, if I’m not mistaken,” Honus says. “As opposed to white.”

“Really?” Malora says. “They all look gray to me.”

“
Diceros bicornis
is the scientific name. I believe the name
white rhino
came about as a result of a misunderstanding of the word
wide
, for the white rhino has a wider head than the black. Ancient safari hunters designated the black rhino to be one of the Big Five, which were held to be the most difficult animals to hunt: lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, black rhino, and—I believe—that spotted creature we saw earlier today, the leopard.”

“The Big Five,” Zephele says musingly. “To think that we’ve been in the bush only one day and already we’ve sighted two of the Big Five. I wonder if we’ll see the other three before we get to Kahiro? We must all pay very close attention.”

“I could do without coming across a Cape buffalo,” says Neal. “The Cape buffalo is, as far as I know, the only animal driven to seek revenge. When they’re wounded, I’ve seen them lay waste to entire camps.”

“Then there’s the Ugly Five,” Honus goes on. “Can you guess what they might be?”

“Hmmm,” says Malora. “Well, the bush pig is
very
ugly.”

“But equally as succulent,” Neal puts in.

“Very good! The bush pig is one of the Ugly Five,” Honus says. “The other four are the wildebeest, the marabou stork, the hyena, and last but by no means least, the hippopotamus.”

A short awkward pause follows the mention of hippos, the beast that savaged Athen Silvermane. Zephele breaks the silence: “I think it’s cruel to say that some animals are ugly. Surely each creature is, in its own way, beautiful. I’m quite
positive that the mother bush pig finds her little bush piglets the most adorable things in the world.”