The spoor was growing stronger, scent and temperature and the freshness of broken twigs telling them the wurpa could not be far ahead, when Chilaili became aware of at least one reason for her uneasiness. She began to taste changes in the air which spoke of bad weather on its way, but she could not yet tell how severe the storm would become. When they heard the first distant rumble of thunder, Chilaili came to a complete halt, pupils dilating as her sense of dread turned into full-blown fright. The ominous sound rolling across the dense forest canopy was no ordinary thunder. It was a continuous, booming roar, without even a moment’s pause between the individual crashes of sound. The distant, flickering strobe of lightning was a solid glare, a wild haze of killing light that turned night into hellish day.
Storms like this could take down hundred-foot trees as easily as a hatchling snapped a twig in his claws. They needed shelter—and they needed it now. Without a word spoken, she forged ahead to lead the way, despite the fact that this was supposed to be Sooleawa’s night for choosing. Sooleawa followed, visibly frightened now, while Chilaili hunched forward slightly, partly in dread and partly in anger that such weather should stalk them on this most critical night in her only daughter’s life. Chilaili glowered at the rumbling, grumbling threat sweeping across the sky and moved as fast as she dared, blessing whatever guardian spirit had prompted Sooleawa to head into the least treacherous part of their hunting range.
Chilaili tipped her head sideways from time to time to glance up through the forest canopy, where clouds blotted out the stars and those moons which had already risen. Already the leafy crowns high above were shaking and rattling with a hissing sound like angry hatchlings as the wind picked up. Sooleawa glanced upward as well, but said nothing, concentrating instead on not putting her feet wrong as they jogged through the darkness. Chilaili was heading for a particular valley where she had taken shelter from bad weather many times before. They had nearly reached it when lightning split the night sky in a blinding display.
Thunder cracked directly overhead—
—and the sound split the sky wide open.
Rain smashed down into the treetops, pelting them with woody debris and shredded leaves an instant before the water struck. In seconds, sight and scent were obliterated, washed out by the deluge. Sooleawa shouted above the roar, “Mother, shouldn’t we go that way?” and pointed ahead and slightly to their right. She was pointing directly at the valley Chilaili had been heading toward, where it opened out from a narrow fissure to a broad, deep gouge bounded by cliffs that overhung a deep lake.
“Yes! Go!”
They ran, Chilaili now following her daughter’s lead, pleased that Sooleawa’s younger eyes had spotted the cooler colors where temperature changes marked abrupt drops into valleys. The girl had seen the way to safe shelter before Chilaili had, even knowing where to look. Sooleawa would do well as a huntress—if they survived this storm. Heads bent against the deluge, Chilaili and Sooleawa cautiously approached the edge of the deep gorge. Sooleawa moved her head back and forth to judge the depth of the drop, scanning the lip of the ravine for a safe way down, then followed as Chilaili moved parallel to the edge, heading for the spot where a path of sorts led downward through a side fissure that opened out into the larger valley. Far below, water glinted in the flares of lightning. Forest giants overhung the deep lake, leaning out over the edge of the bluff, their crowns seeking the sunlight which fell in stronger concentration where the deep gorge had cut a gap through the forest.
In the rain-slashed darkness, they slipped and slithered and tripped over great gnarls of tree roots and thick undergrowth. They had nearly reached the side fissure and the path down when lightning crackled and slammed into the tree just ahead of them. Blue-white light glared, actinic, blinding. The tree burst into flame, split along its entire length by the lightning bolt. Thunder crushed them flat against the mud as the immense tree broke in half and crashed down. Chilaili screamed. . . .
The ground shook under the smashing weight of the tree, shook and broke under them. An undercut ledge of rock hanging out over empty space crumbled into pieces beneath the weight of the falling tree. They all went plunging over the edge as the jutting overhang of rock cracked and gave way. Chilaili fell. Sooleawa spun away from her, dropping into the blackness just beyond the reach of her clawtips. The world windmilled as she thrashed, trying to grasp the wildly flailing branches of the fallen tree. Rough wood and long, whippy leaves slashed through her hands, slowing her fall, but didn’t give her enough purchase to halt the sickening plunge. She struck water with a smashing shock, the impact driving the breath from her lungs. She went deep into the dark water, thrashing frantically. Chilaili struggled toward the surface, chest on fire from the need to breathe, and finally broke her head above water. She sucked down air—
—and screamed for her daughter.
“Sooleawa!”
Chilaili scanned the roiled surface of the lake. Rain and lightning blinded her. Half of the tree lay jammed across the broken edge and the far wall of the ravine, spanning the narrow, deep lake. The tree’s bulk loomed ominously, a black bar high above her head. Then she realized that thick, black shape was shifting, its base dropping as more of the rocky lip crumbled away beneath it. She saw it falling, saw the immense shadow plunging down at the very same instant she spotted Sooleawa. Her daughter was closer to the edge of the lake than Chilaili was, treading water directly beneath the smashing weight of that huge tree.
“Sooleawa!”
Rock and wood fell in a rain of death.
Her daughter folded up and dove for the bottom in a hopeless attempt to avoid being crushed. Chilaili, stricken motionless by horror, could only watch the slow-motion fall of that killer tree, oblivious to her own danger. Then something heavy grazed her shoulder, sent her spinning into the black depths. She held her breath by instinct, stunned and unable to thrash her way back toward the surface. Long, dizzy moments passed, while the world tried to right itself inside her brain. When the fog cleared enough to realize she was deep underwater, Chilaili moved sluggish limbs, found rough wood under her clawtips, pulled herself hand over hand toward the surface. Her head broke water again and she gulped down lungfuls of air, then searched frantically for signs of her child.
The tree was completely down now, its shattered crown leaning drunkenly against the far wall of the ravine, its broken base disappearing underwater. Chilaili fought her way toward the trunk, screaming her daughter’s name. “Sooleawa!” In the non-stop flares of lightning, she saw the glimmer of pale fur far below, down in the black water. She dove, fighting and clawing her way down. With shaking hands, she tugged at her daughter’s arm, trying to tow the girl to the surface.
She might as well have tried to tug the tree up out of the water. She explored frantically with shaking hands and found a thick, jagged splinter of wood, thicker than Chilaili’s own body. It held her daughter trapped more than a body length beneath the surface. Sooleawa was unconscious, her pulse fluttering, her lungs filling with water. Chilaili wrenched at the huge splinter with her claws, frantic. It was too thick, too massive to break—and even if she’d had her knife, she couldn’t have hacked through all that wood in time. She was still wrenching at it, despairing, when a pale glimmer appeared right at the edge of Chilaili’s vision.
She jerked her head around in the dark water—and her pupils dilated with shock. A wraithlike shape hovered in the water beside her. Chilaili had never seen a creature like it, not in all in her life. It was slender, fragile-looking. Its long, thin limbs were completely hairless, its face round and strange. Long, dark fur floated in a wild tangle around its head. The creature was holding something, and whatever it was, it glowed. The thing was long and narrow, like a thick stick, out of which light blazed. It held something else, too, some kind of knife blade. When the creature drove that flimsy-looking blade through the body-thick splinter pinning Sooleawa, the wood parted like fog before the wind. An instant was all it took and Sooleawa was free. Chilaili grasped her daughter’s arm, pulling desperately toward the surface. The creature fumbled its knife into a carrier on its clothing and clamped the glowing thing in its teeth, then took Sooleawa’s other arm and swam strongly upward. Between them, they towed the unconscious girl to the surface.