“But you say”—it was Ha-Hang, one of the Elders of the western tribe, who spoke—“there are others in the lairs. You have spoken of Rattons in force, and Demons, at least as a scouting party. If the Demons have indeed returned, it is best to let them have the lairs. Those of our kind saved their lives before by taking to the wilds when the Demons hunted.”
For the first time Foskatt spoke. “Only just, Elder. Remember the tales? It was only because the Demons sickened and died, fought among themselves, that our mother kin and a few mates escaped. It took many seasons thereafter of hiding and bearing litters, in which too many younglings died, before the clans could do more than run and hide.
“These Demons are neither sick nor fighting among themselves. If they come in strength, how long will it be before they hunt us again?”
Furtig did not wait for any to answer that question; he carried on the attack. “Also, Elders, in those days we had no Gammage, ho seekers of Demon secrets, to aid us. Those who were our ancestors had no weapons and little knowledge. Compared to us they were as fangless, as clawless, as a newborn youngling. Perhaps these Demons are scouts, but among us how is the move to a new hunting ground made? We send scouts and if they return with ill news, or do not return, then what is the decision? We go not in that direction but seek another.
“These Demons’ ancestors must have been those who fled the sickness and the fighting of their kind, even as we fled the lairs. Therefore their legends of the place are sinister; they will be ready to believe that evil awaits them here. And if their scouts do not return—“
It was the best argument he could offer, one which fit in with their own beliefs and customs.
“Demons and Rattons,” Fal-Kan said. “And Gammage wishes all, strangers and caves alike, to gather to make war. Perhaps he also speaks of a truce with Barkers?” His voice was a growl, and he was echoed by those about him.
Liliha spoke, and, because she was a Chooser, even Fal-Kan dared not hiss her down. She held out her hand with its strangely long fingers, pointed to where the Elder Chooser of Fal-Kan’s cave sat on a cushion of grass and feathers, holding the newest youngling to her furry breast.
“Do you wish the little one to become Demon meat?”
Now the growl arose sharply, ears flattened, and tails lashed. Some of the youngest warriors rose, their claws ready for battle.
“The Tuskers believed they were safe. Would any of you dare to take a Tusker youngling from his mother’s side?”
That picture startled them into silence. All knew there was no fiercer fighter in the whole wilds than the Tusker female when her young was threatened.
“Yet,” Liliha continued, “a Demon flying through the air did so. Can you now say that you will be safe in the wilds when this Demon can fly at will, attack from above, perhaps kill with such weapons” as these?” She gestured to the display. “In the lairs we have hid-den ways to travel, so small the Demons cannot enter. Our only chance is to turn on them, while they are still so few, the very deaths they used in the old days to destroy our kind.
“You war with the Barkers, but not the Tuskers—why is that so?”
It was not an Elder who answered when she paused but Furtig, hoping to impress at least the younger warriors of that company—those not so set in the ways of doing as always.
“Why do we fight the Barkers? Because we are both eaters of meat and there is a limit to hunting lands. The Tuskers we do not fight because they eat what is of no use to us. But there is food in the lairs, much of it, and no need for hunting. And if you saw before you a Barker and a Demon and had a single chance to kill—which would you choose? That is what Gammage now says—that between Barkers and Demons he chooses the Demons as the greater enemy. As for the Rattons, yes, they are a spreading evil within the lairs, and one must be on constant guard against them.
“But also they promise an even worse fate if they are not put down. For Gammage has proof they seek out the secrets of the Demons also. Do you want Rat-tons perhaps riding sky things and capturing warriors, and Choosers, and younglings with such as these?”
With his foot he edged forward the tangler so that they could understand his meaning. This time the growl of protest was louder. War with the Barkers was open and fierce, yet there was a grudging respect for the enemy on both sides. The Rations were different; the very thought of them brought a disgusting taste to the mouth. There were far off, strange leg-ends of individual Barkers and People living together when they were both Demon slaves in the lairs. But Rations had always been prey.
Ha-Hang spoke first. “You say Barkers are less dangerous than Demons. We have lost warriors to Barkers, none to Demons. And what is a Tusker youngling to us?”
He had a gap on one side of his jaw where he had lost a fighting fang, and both ears were notched with old bite scars. It was plain he was a fighting Elder rather than a planning one.
“Truth spoken!” applauded Fal-Kan.
They were losing, Furtig knew. And perhaps the Elders were right to be cautious. He himself, until he had heard the Tuskers’ story of the flyer, had been of two minds about the matter. But those moments when he had lain on the bridge with the Demon hovering over him had given him such a deepset fear of the flyers that he wished he could make it plain to these here what an attack from the air might mean.
Yes, they could hide in the caves. But what if the Demon took up patrol so they could not come forth again? What if the flyer swept low along the very edge of the cliffs, attacking the cave mouths? Furtig had a hearty respect now for Gammage’s warnings against Demon knowledge. One could expect them to do any-thing!
“This affair concerns not only the caves and their defense,” the Chooser of Fal-Kan’s cave, she who was of the Ancestor’s blood, said throatily. “It also concerns our young. And this matter of the Tuskers’ young whose mothers could not defend—“
“We live in the caves, the Tuskers in the open,” growled Fal-Kan. And his warriors added a rumble of approval.
“Younglings cannot live in caves all their lives,” the Chooser continued. “I would listen to this Chooser from the lairs; let her tell us of the younglings there and how they are cared for. What knowledge have they gained beside that of knowing better how to fight, which is always the first thought in the mind of any warrior?” Fal-Kan dared not protest now, nor interrupt.
So Liliha spoke, not of battles or the need for fighting, but of life within the lairs as the Choosers would see it. She spoke much about the ways of healing which had been discovered, how Choosers about to bear young went to places of healing, and how there-after the young were perfect in form and quick and bright of mind. She spoke of new foods which ensured even in the times of poor hunting that there would be no hunger, and told of the many things a Chooser might do to make her own life of greater ease and interest. Some of what she said Furtig had seen with his own eyes, but much of it was as a Chooser would explain it to a Chooser, and this talk in a mixed assembly was new. At first the Elders stirred, perhaps affronted by the breaking of custom, yet not able to deny it when the Choosers themselves, who were even sterner guardians of custom, accepted it. Then Furtig could see even the males were listening with full interest.
She talked well, did Liliha. Foremost in the line of Those-Who-Would-Come-to-Choose sat Eu-La, her eyes fast on the almost hairless face of the female from the lairs. Furtig looked from his clanswoman to Liliha and back again. Then he caught a glimpse of Foskatt.
Perhaps the other had heard Liliha’s information many times over, for there was an abstraction about him. He was leaning forward a little, staring at—Eu-La! And there was a bemusement on his face which Furtig knew for what it was. Just so had he seen the Unchosen look at Fas-Tan when she passed with a slow swing of her tail, her eyes beyond them as if, as males yet Unchosen, they had no place in her life.
Eu-La—but she was hardly more than a youngling! A season at least before she would stand with the Choosers. Startled, Furtig studied her. She was no longer a youngling. He had seen that when she had met them outside the caves, but it had not really im-pressed him.