The first thing she saw, out of her good eye, was Dhowifa. He was nestled under her cowl. From his closed eyes, and the way his beak and arms twitched, she thought he was dreaming.
“You’re so cute when you’re asleep,” she whispered softly.
His eyes popped open, glaring at her balefully.
“I am not asleep. I’m thinking.”
She began a retort to the effect that, the last time she remembered, he was as mindless as a snail. But the look of love in the curl of his arms, and the green hues which rippled across his mantle, stopped the words in her sac.
“Where are we?” she asked. Then, feeling a strange motion, she looked around.
She could only see to one side, but she saw that she and Dhowifa were being carried on a litter held by two of the hunnakaku. They seemed to be part of a caravan of demons and hunnakaku, climbing a trail on the side of a mountain. On the slopes above, she could see three demons stick-pedding alongside.
Those strange peds are very effective in rough terrain, she thought. Then, seeing the shades of brown in their skins: But why are they so miserable?
Her attention was drawn by another demon, who was stick-pedding alongside the litter. The demon was very large. Not as tall as the demonlord, but heavier. Nukurren was mostly struck by its color. The demon’s skin was almost pure white, under the strange yellow armor which covered the top of its head and the rear of its upper torso.
That armor looks too soft to be much good. And this seems a strange time and place to be consumed by passion.
She voiced the last thought aloud. Hearing the sound, the demon looked down at her. The bright blue color of its eyes made her instinctively tighten her muscles. Only pure fury could turn a gukuy’s eyes that color. But the creature did not seem enraged, and the tension brought pain to her ravaged body. She slowly relaxed.
“I don’t think their emotions show on their mantles,” said Dhowifa softly. “I have been watching them for days. They all looked the same to me, at first, except the big one. The terrible one who hurt you so badly. But now I can tell them apart, and their colors never change. Most of them are brown-colored, of one shade or another. But there is this big one”—he whistled amusement— “who looks like it’s in perpetual heat. Some of the others are like that, although none is as white as this one. And there is the other big demon, who is always pure black. Nobody can be that implacable. Not even that monster.”
“The demonlord.”
Dhowifa glowed ochre.
“I am not sure they are demons, Nukurren.”
Nukurren started to whistle amusement, but the rippling in her sac caused a wave of pain.
“And what do you know about demons?”
Exquisite turquoise—irritation, leavened by affection—rippled across Dhowifa.
“Would demons be friends with hunnakaku?” he demanded.
Nukurren pondered the question.
“It does seem unlikely,” she admitted.
“And there’s more, Nukurren. The—demons, whatever they are—you won’t believe this, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They eat the hunnakaku ogoto. In fact, as far as I can tell, that’s all they ever eat.”
Nukurren was stunned into silence. “Ogoto” was the Anshaku word. The Kiktu called it “putoru.” The hunnakaku themselves, in their own language, called it “childfood.”
Gukuy spawn only lived on ogoto when they were newly born. Within a few eightdays, they were able to feed on soft meat. But the tough plants which were the exclusive diet of hunnakaku were much too difficult for the young sub-gukuy to chew and digest. So they lived on childfood—the regurgitated contents of the adults’ stomachs—for years. Until they were half-grown.
“Are you saying these monsters are children?”
“I’m not sure, Nukurren. It would seem so—but if there’s one thing I’ve decided, these past two days, it’s that there are too many peculiar things about these—demons—to jump to any conclusions. But I’m sure I’m right about the ogoto. For one thing, there are seven hunnakaku in this party. They freed the four who were in the cages, but where did the other three come from? They must have brought the hunnakaku with them. Why would they do that if not for the ogoto? Hunnakaku can’t fight.”