Valour and Victory (42 page)

Nothing was
sighted, not even a body.

When dusk fell
and searching no longer possible, the Lai reported back to Brion
and Hansei about what they called their ‘non-findings’.

“He must have
flown away somewhere,” said Brion. Hansei disagreed, pointing out
that all the evidence pointed to the fact that the Dglai could not
fly except in short spurts although generations ago they could have
flown as well as did the Lai.

“You mean like
us Lind and the Larg?” queried Quindya. “The Lai tell that once
there was no difference between us.”

“You are
essentially correct young Quindya of Vadath,” said Aniku, the Lai
who, with Velu, had done the reporting. “But in our case it has
gone much further. The Lind and the Larg continued to live their
lives on the same planet, so differences are not so very great. The
Dglai spent the generations apart in outer space, which has speeded
up the change process. The Lind and the Larg can assimilate with
ease and there have been many instances of interbreeding. If the
Dglai and we Lai had been able to meet in peace it might have been
possible to re-assimilate but of course that will never be known
now.”

“So where do
you think the missing Dglai is?” asked Brion of Velu.

“I have no
idea. I guess he must be dead, otherwise we would have found at
least some trace.”

Brion, Quindya
and Hansei agreed with Velu.

They were
wrong.

* * * * *

The Lai and the
Dglai

The missing
Dglai was not a he but a she.

She had
departed the Quorko moments after it had belly-flopped on to the
reed bed, its power indicators at zero.

The other four
crewmembers had decided to suicide but Quia would not, could not.
She was egg-heavy and the instinct of self-preservation and the
subsequent survival of her young would not permit her to consider
that option.

She had
struggled through the cloying water of the swamp and had emerged,
exhausted but triumphant as the summer season had changed to winter
into a high sided, tree-filled and narrow valley whose river water
fed the marsh.

Quia had been
lucky. This was an area to which the Larg rarely ventured. It was
also filled with a plenitude of game, forests being the natural
habitat of the tree-rudtka, the covet and a small breed of animal
related to the kura.

The only
possible dangers to her were the gtran, the catlike carnivores that
also inhabited the mountains of the northern continent but they did
not bother her. Why take on Quia with her flaming breath when there
was plenty of other prey, prey that did not fight back?

Once inside the
valley, Quia had looked around for a safe place to lay her eggs and
had found it; a dry cave, dark and deep enough for her purposes
with fresh water nearby.

She had hunted
then, dragging back enough meat to the cave to sustain her once the
eggs were laid for when that happened she could not leave them.
They would need to be kept warm so that the shells could harden so
the embryos inside could incubate. Warmth was the key. There were
no artificial hatcheries here as there had been on the
Ammokko
.

During the last
dying days of summer, Quia laid her eggs, six of them, soft pearly
white ovoids, which she arranged to her satisfaction before
settling down on top.

Now the nesting
was almost at an end. The eggs were hard as rocks and she could
feel her babies moving around inside. Quia believed all six would
hatch.

Quia was
getting hungry, the meat she had gathered was finished but she
wasn’t overly troubled. Once the hatching was over she would be
able to go hunting. Her babies would wait in the cave until she
returned, bringing with her the meat to feed them and her. They
wouldn’t venture out from the nest site for at least seven suns and
moons. She also knew that she wouldn’t need to go far from the cave
to find meat. If she listened she could hear the sounds of the
forest ruminants browsing around outside. The forest kura did not
have long memories and had forgotten all about the large green
predator hidden within the cave.

All six baby
Dglai hatched, each clawing his or her way out of their shells and
staggering towards their doting mother, mewling for food.

Quia waited
until dusk was beginning to fall and ventured out of the cave. She
felled a lone forest kura almost at once and dragged it the short
distance back to the cave. Her babies’ noses twitched as they
smelled the blood and they mewled louder, little green eyes
glinting as they moved on unsteady legs towards their first
meal.

With her
talon-thumb Quia opened up the stomach of the kura and the entrails
spilled out. With mewls of greed the babies descended on the
glistening innards and began to eat.

Quia ate the
rest.

Sleepy now, the
six little Dglai nestled into their mother and fell asleep. Quia
placed her stubby wing over them and laid her head down on the cave
floor. She was tired and her meal, after the long abstinence made
her less alert than she would normally have been. The meat from the
buck had not completely assuaged her hunger either. It would take
more than one of the little forest kuras to fill her belly and
replenish the weight loss caused by the months of egg sitting.

What Quia did
not know was that during her short excursion she had been spotted.
So intent had she been on her hunt for meat that she hadn’t noticed
the circling shape in the skies above.

* * * * *

Quia raised a
wary head.

What was
that?

She could hear
cracking noises coming from outside the cave.

Something was
approaching the cave mouth.

Quia began to
think about her second stomach.

She had never
had to emit flame before but she was quite prepared to do so now in
defence of her young. Her stomach began to rumble as the juices
inside metamorphosed into the liquid that would ignite when it met
up with the oxygen in the air.

Her babies woke
up. They didn’t like the sensations emanating from their mother’s
belly. They began to voice their displeasure.

Outside, Haru
paused, recognising the sound for what it was, the babbling mewl of
the newborn. The very young of the Lai spoke in identical squeaky
voices and Haru stopped to ponder about what he should do.

His first
thought when he had spied the Dglai had been to dive down and sear
the creature into oblivion but something about it had stopped him
just as he had been about to shut in his wings and tilt.

Instead, he had
circled, watching. There was something different about this Dglai
and it had taken him a while to work out what that was -
realisation hadn’t come until Quia had killed the kura and dragged
the carcass back to the cave.

This was a
female, her shape was different from that of the males he had seen
and more importantly, the scaly ridges down her upper back were
missing. The hide and shape of a female Lai was likewise different
from the male with smoother skin and no ridges.

Haru had
considered the problem and decided to land to confirm his
suspicions before he called in his fellow Lai.

He landed as
quiet as he could and stood outside the cave. He could smell the
young.

This changed
everything.

Back under the
trees and out of sight and smell of the female Dglai he settled
down to ponder his next move.

He could not
kill her. Somehow, contact must be made. A long time ago the Lai,
the Dglai and the other rtaths on Diaglon had co-existed, had lived
together in peace and relative harmony. Could this not be so
again?

He didn’t think
that many of the inhabitants of the other countries would
understand why Haru was about to do what he was about to do except
perhaps the Lind, most of whom were beginning to accept the concept
that one day they and the Larg would be as one again. This
forgiveness of the Lind for the Larg wasn’t shared by the humans
although those vadeln paired understood though they might not yet
condone.

Haru decided on
his next move.

The female
Dglai must be made to understand that she and her young were free
from all retribution, that they were safe here. He had to find some
way to gain her trust. But how?

As Haru planned
how he was going to accomplish this, Quia slept on, having decided
that the sounds from outside the cave had been made by one of the
forest animals.

Haru made his
way out from under the trees. He took to the air, his sharp eyes
looking for traces of the herd of forest kura he had spotted
earlier. It did not take him long to locate them, the herd was
browsing at the edge of the tree line at the top end of the
valley.

The Lai were
consummate hunters and he brought down two of the creatures in
rapid succession and long before the rest of the herd, bleating
with fright, galloped back under the trees as fast as their short
legs could carry them.

Haru ate one of
them. The other he gathered in his forearms and sprang aloft.

He made his way
back to the cave and hovering above the entrance, let go of the
carcass. It fell to the ground with a loud thump and a tangle of
spindly legs.

Inside the
cave, Quia nearly expired with shock. Her babies woke again and
began their mewling chant. They were hungry. She would have to go
hunting.

She glanced
over to the cave mouth and sniffed. Meat! Fresh meat! She could
smell the blood. The babies smelt it too. The largest and most
adventurous one began to crawl towards the entrance. Absently Quia
placed her foreleg on top of him, crooning with gentle sharpness,
trying to make him understand that the situation was dangerous and
that he should stay with his clutch mates.

The baby
growled but obeyed her, for perhaps a nano-second before squirming
out from her restraint.

Quia stood up
and rushed to the cave entrance. Despite her entreaties the six
little fledglings staggered after her, too hungry to think about
heeding her warnings.

Outside, Haru
waited, some lai-lengths away. He was lying down, wings tucked in,
his head low, trying to make himself look as unthreatening as he
could.

Quia’s green
head emerged out of the gloom of the cave. She saw the carcass, she
also saw Haru. Her nostrils flared.

With squeals of
delight the six little ones pushed past their mother and ran
towards the carcass, short tails wagging, eyes bright with
greed.

Haru did not
move. He made eye contact with Quia and held it, willing her to
believe that he was not a threat to either her or her young.

As the babies
ate, their hardening fore talons making easy work of the
underbelly, Haru and Quia continued to stare at each other.

Only when the
babies were finished and stomachs bulging with food began to play
on the level patch of ground outside the cave, butting at each
other and flapping their stubby wings, did Haru speak.

It took Haru a
long time to make Quia understand but Haru was patient. He repeated
himself again and again until at last he saw acceptance in Quia’s
eyes, acceptance and gratitude.

“I will stay
here and guard you this moon time. At sun up I will hunt for you
again then I will go and tell Velku that you are here.”

Quia was
apprehensive.

“Fear not,”
said Haru, “neither you nor your ltsctas will come to any harm. You
will stay here for a while and when your ltsctas are able to travel
we will take you to the mountains of our home. You will be
welcome.”

“Why should you
welcome us?” she asked.

“Because that
is how it is,” was Haru’s enigmatic reply. “Why should your ltsctas
be punished for the evil of their forefathers and foremothers? They
are innocent of blame.”

“And me?”

“You are their
mother,” he answered, as if this explained everything.

“I am to
live?”

“You will
live,” Haru confirmed, rising to his back legs. The six little ones
stopped their play and gazed at him out of their wide green eyes.
“You will live and bring up your young among us. We are not so very
different, not really, the Dglai and the Lai, not where it matters.
Will you come?”

“I will.”

Haru began to
wonder what the offspring of Dglai-Lai parents would be like once
the fledglings had been integrated into the Lai culture, green,
gold or a mixture of the two. He rather thought the latter.

The six little
babies began to play again, watched over by a relieved mother and
an indulgent Haru.

He was very
careful to keep his tail as still as possible, remembering the days
when his own young had been born. They had thought of their
father’s tail as the most wonderful plaything imaginable. He still
had the scars to prove it.

All was well in
Haru’s world.

* * * * *

Danal

“Do you think
Tala and Chizu knew before they died? asked Grainne of Danal.

“That the Larg
were fighting against the Dglai, that they no longer wished to
fight the Lind?”

“Yes.”

“I think they
did. They must have seen what was happening as they flew
south.”

One day he
would talk about it, but not yet, let the pain of loss heal
first.

“We’ll never
forget them, will we?”

He smiled, his
eyes gazing into the distance, past the distant trees and the hills
and into the sky.

“Live, live in
peace and joy and harmony. I wish you happiness. Do not fail me.”
These were the words that Chizu had said to Danal before he and
Tala had left for the
Ammokko
.