Now the calf was obviously in agony from dozens of the burning bites.
“Come on, lover, quick,” Ryan warned, snatching at Krysty’s right arm.
“It’s down.”
The young animal fell, its legs kicking out wildly. It was as if it had fallen into a fast-flowing river of lava. The moment it went down, the ants swarmed all over it, covering its body inches thick, biting and stinging it on the mouth, in the ears and on the eyes, blinding it.
Krysty gasped in horror. “Just like that,” she said.
“Down and done in half a minute. About as quick as those mutie piranhas we once saw.”
They ran from the ridge together, planting their feet hard in the long grass, crushing dozens of the bright red insects beneath their boots, heading toward the village.
They moved at a steady pace, alternating between a slow run and a fast walk, crossing the strange deep bowl of bare rock, continuing west. The trees grew thick about them as they rolled back the long miles.
The sun was well past its zenith when they finally caught sight of the flat-topped pyramid that stood just beyond the outskirts of the village.
“Can we just stop for a couple of minutes?” Krysty panted. “Think I’m getting too old for all this running around. Sweating like a pig.”
“Me too. Didn’t Doc say that only horses sweated?”
Krysty grinned, wiping her face on her sleeve. “Right. And men perspire. But ladies simply glow.”
They both laughed at the saying, so typically peculiar and old-fashioned and Doclike.
Ryan squatted on his haunches. “Notice now some of the noises of the jungle kind of returned as we came closer to the village?”
“Yeah. Seems normal here at the moment. Right. Think I can go on and arrive without looking like a mobile puddle of greasy candle fat.”
A SHRILL BLAST on one of the war trumpets greeted their arrival at the main gates of the village. Speaking Eagle was the first person of any authority to see them. He realized from their appearance that something had happened. “Jaguar people?”
“No,” Ryan replied, shaking his head.
“Men with whips?”
“Not them, neither. Look, we don’t want to have to tell this story a dozen different times. Just the once. It’s triple important.” Ryan spoke slowly, as he’d already found that the native didn’t have the best grasp of the American language, “Call Itzcoatl and all your main men. I’ll get J.B. and the rest of my friends. Meet in the main hut in five minutes from now.”
The man nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on Krysty’s sweat-sodden shirt. “I tell,” he said. “The story you will speak to us is a bad one?”
“Yeah. It’s a bad one.”
THEY SAT TOGETHER on the bed in their hut, the others gathered around.
The attack of dysentery had vanished as swiftly as it had struck, and everyone was feeling fine.
“What is it, Dad?”
“Slavers?” the Armorer asked.
“Stickies?” Jak queried. “Haven’t seen bad mu ties here. That it?”
“Perhaps some mythical beast from beyond the blasphemous deeps of time and space?” Doc offered.
All the voices overlapped with their questions, and Ryan held up a hand for silence.
“Quiet,” he said. “Going out for a council of war with the natives in a couple of minutes. Give you all the details there. But I can tell you quickly what it was. No interruptions. Questions and stuff can come later.”
He glanced across at Krysty, who gave them the answer in a single word. “Ants,” she said.
Ryan gave them a brief outline. “Not big mutie ants. Ferocious scarlet little boogers.” He pulled up his shirt to show the half-dozen scattered bites, now turned into yellow-peaked lumps, each about the size of an old quarter.
“Want me to try and get something for those?” Mildred said. “Probably got herb poultices that’d help.”
“No. Let it be for a bit. They sting and burn and itch all at once.” Ryan tucked in his shirt again. “Main thing is, there’s a whole army of them. Must cover more than a mile, and they’re eating their way toward us.”
“Eating everything in their way.” Krysty told the others about the way the jungle had emptied of life. And of the water buffalo calf and its lonely, agonizing death.