Her eyes shifted down to V's hand as if she were measuring a weapon.
V deliberately made a fist with the thing. " 'Twould be a shame should you say a thing, would it not."
She paled and scurried off, dropping the shovel as she ran.#p#分页标题#e#
News of what had happened between him and the other pretrans had been all around the camp, and if it made them fear him, that was all to the good. To protect his only book he wasn't above threatening anyone, even females, and he was unashamed by this. His father's law held that no one was safe in the camp: V was quite confident that female would use what she'd seen to her own benefit if she could. That was the way.
Vishous left the cave through one of the tunnels that had been bored out of the mountain, and emerged in a thicket of brambles. The winter was coming upon them all fast, the cold making the air dense as bone. Up ahead he heard the stream rushing and wanted a drink, but he stayed hidden as he scrambled up the pine covered incline. He always kept away from the water for a distance after he came out, not just because it was what he'd been taught to do upon penalty of punishment, but because in his pretrans state he was no match for what might come at him, be it vampire, human, or animal.
At the beginning of every night, the pretrans tried to fill their empty bellies at the stream, and his ears picked up the sounds of the other pretrans who were fishing. The boys had longregated at the wide section of the stream, where the water formed a still pool off to one side. He avoided them, choosing a spot farther upriver.
From out of a leather pouch he took a length of finespun thread that had a crude hook and a flashing weight of silver tied on the end. He cast his meager tackle into the rushing water and felt the string go tight. As he sat down on a rock, he wound the string around a shaft of wood and held the thing between his palms.
The waiting was neither here nor there, neither burden nor pleasure, and when he heard an argument downriver, he had no interest. Skirmishes were also the way of the camp, and he knew what the fight amongst the other pretrans was about. Just because you pulled a fish from the water did not mean you could keep it.
He was staring into the rushing current when the oddest sensation touched the back of his neck—as if he'd been tapped upon the nape.
He leaped up, dropping his line on the ground, but there was no one behind him. He sniffed the air, probed the trees with his eyes. Nothing.
As he bent down to retrieve his line, the stick flipped out of his reach and off the bank, a fish having taken the bait. V lunged for it, but could only watch the crude handle skip into the stream. With a lunge, he ran after it, jumping from rock to rock, tracking it farther and farther downstream.
Whereupon he met up with another.
The pretrans he'd beaten with his book was coming up the stream with a trout in his hand, one that, given his rapacious satisfaction, had no doubt been stolen from another. As he saw V, the bobbing stick with V's catch on it went by him and he stopped. With a shout of triumph, he shoved the kicking fish in his pocket and went after what was V's—even though it took him in the direction of his pursers.
Perhaps because of V's reputation, the other boys got out of the way as he went after the pretrans, the group abandoning the chase and becoming cantering spectators.
The pretrans was faster than V, moving recklessly from stone to stone, whereas V was more careful. The leather soles on his coarse boots were wet, and the moss growing on the backs of the rocks was slick as pig fat. Even though his prey was pulling ahead, he held back to ensure his footing.
Just as the stream widened into the pool the others had been fishing in, the pretrans leaped onto the flat face of a stone and got within reach of V's hooked fish. Except as he stretched out to grab the stick, his balance shifted… and his foot popped out from under him.
With the slow, graceful tumble of a feather, he fell headfirst into the rushing stream. The crack of his temple on a rock inches below the surface was loud as an ax striking hardwood, and as his body went limp, the stick and the line spirited along.#p#分页标题#e#
As V came up to the boy, he remembered the vision he'd had. Clearly it had been wrong. The pretrans did not die on top of the mountain with the sun upon his face and the wind in his hair. He died here and now in the arms of the river.
It was a bit of a relief.
Vishous watched as the body was pulled into the dark, still pool by the current. Just before sinking below the surface, it rolled over so it was faceup.
As bubbles breached unmoving lips and rose to the surface to catch the moonlight, V marveled at death. All was so calm after it came. Whatever screaming or yelling or action that caused the soul its release unto the Fade, what followed was like the dense quiet of falling snow.