The Forlorn(52)

"You don't sound very happy about it. Won't you at least be seeing your wife and son?"

Beywulf sighed again. "I don't have a wife, Cay. We don't breed too well so . . . um, we tend to try and spread the chances around that two reproductively viables will meet. It's not much good for home life, but with children so few, the whole community spoils 'em. But, aye, it's my boy: He'll be fifteen . . . old enough to join the army Cap'll raise."

"But, why should he? I mean, it sounds like there are so few of your kin anyway you shouldn't be joining anybody's army."

"But we will. We owe a debt. And we always honor our debts. You see, Cap's been our people's physician ever since we had to run from the marines' quarters up in crew territory. He's all that has stood between us and extinction. Every one of the Gene-spliced who can walk will fight at his call."

Keilin kept silent at this. From what he'd heard from S'kith the whole idea of attacking FirstHive was ludicrous. As near ridiculous as the "military exercises" Cap kept putting them through. He had nothing against learning something about the weapons he didn't know, but it did seem rather futile in some ways: He couldn't lift Beywulf's sword—and could barely pull Leyla's bow. His own hunter's bow was a small and weak thing, relying on the poison arrows to make its kill. Cap regarded it with scorn. "All very well for hunting, but no earthly use in combat. The toxin load won't kill quickly enough." Keilin kept quiet about the fact that the poison glazing the arrows' tips killed Morkth quickly all right. He'd learned by now to keep quiet about what he could do. "Like that spear of yours," Cap went on. "Once it's thrown, what have you got? It's all very well for defense, and keeping an unskilled enemy out of swordrange, but no good as an offensive weapon. Well, Bey? What can little lord muck here use from your armory? He hasn't the strength for an axe or a longsword. Saber perhaps?"

Beywulf was rummaging through one of the packhorse's saddlebags. "I've just the thing. He's used to a spear, so this is not a big change." He came up a with canvas-wrapped parcel. Out came three short, broad-bladed spears. The blades were fully two-foot-six long, and sharp enough to cut hair.

"Nice, eh? Ndebele assegais. Picked them up down Estend way. You can throw them . . . but they're essentially a stabbing weapon. Ironwood handle. Beautiful pieces of work." He held out one.

Keilin took the proffered weapon warily. As the heavy silky-smooth wooden shaft slid into his hands that feeling of rightness slipped over him again. The weapon felt as if it were simply part of him.

"He holds it right, anyway," said Bey with a satisfied nod. "Hey, you. The girl with the broad beam and the big mouth. Come and try this saber. It's the lightest thing I've got."

* * *

They rode eastward and down off the high plateaus. From the dry, hot, dusty grassland plains into the muggy heat and vicious storms of the lowlands. The ridges they followed downward were covered in coarse blade-edged grasses, with occasional straggly palmettos and ragged tufts of bamboo forest. The valley bottoms, on the other hand, were thick with jungle, and so hung with lianas that they were virtually impassable. Keilin found it unnerving country. He kept feeling they were being followed, but despite carefully studying the hazy distances, he never saw anyone. Yet . . . he was sure there was someone behind them. It was all that kept him from rebelling against Cap's constant order barking. He also found that Beywulf, the friendly chef, and Beywulf, the acerbic ex-mercenary sergeant-major and weapons drill instructor, were vastly different people.

Day after day they rode further into the lowlands, the air becoming stickier and thicker. To pass through to the north they had to go down to the coastal plain and thread their way between the swamps. You could ride for a week across the plains of Amphir and see nothing but the occasional betraying dust of a cattle herd. Here in the lowlands, people settled where the landscape forced the trails to go. Settlements popped up at every river fork and jungle crossing. There was virtually no easy way of avoiding the villages and their little terraced pocket-handkerchief fields.

Only Beywulf rejoiced in the villages. He purchased stems of green bananas and pawpaws, m'dumbi bulbs, ground nuts, fresh eggs and smoked monkey flesh: an assemblage with which he experimented to produce exotic dishes. S'kith was unhappy because the women wore very little clothing. The little Princess bemoaned the lack of baths in the villages, and Leyla, still in a militant mood after revisiting her birthplace, muttered about the women working in the fields while the men idled in the shade, smoking long pipes and drinking corn beer. Keilin, for once, found himself in agreement with Cap's reasons for discomfort. The villagers saw them, and could say where they went.