‘Come on,’ said one. ‘We should be getting back.’
‘Just a bit further,’ said another.
‘We got a good haul,’ said the first. ‘Why risk it?’
‘See this?’ One of the hooded figures pointed to something on the floor and Sa-at leaned out from his hiding place for a better view. Branches shifted under his stomach to support his weight, the leaves stretching to form a veil between him and the group below. Sa-at had made many pacts with the nearby trees. He fed them whispers and little pieces of his kills, and in return they sheltered him.
Not every part of the forest was his ally, in fact many of the trees hated him, but even they tended to leave him alone.
Sa-at did not know why.
From his new position, he could see a little better but the thing the group were looking at still eluded him.
‘It’s a creeper,’ continued the speaker. ‘If we follow it, it’ll take us right to the mother plant and we can bleed it for Tack.’
There was a brief debate which Sa-at observed with interest. Because of its rarity, Tack was extremely valuable. Usually, the hunters were the only ones that dared go deep enough to find it.
‘Think of it!’ said the one leading the argument. ‘One haul would keep us all for a year. We could repair the fences, or we could buy a tame Dogkin to pull our barrow. Or …’
The opposition’s point was simple. They could get lost if they went deeper. They could die, or worse.
One of the group had a habit of waving a hand as she talked, making little circular motions like a whirling leaf when it fell to the ground. Another clasped their hands in front of them, as if they had just caught a baby Flykin and wanted to shake it to death. They spoke too fast for him to follow all of the words, but he could see that some were worried and some were greedy, and that the majority wanted to press on. He also enjoyed copying their gestures.
When the Gatherers had moved away, Sa-at sprung from the branches, flinging out his arms so that his coat of feathers flew out behind him. For the few seconds it took to land, his face was split by a joyous grin, then he rolled across the floor to come to a stop where the group had chewed up the ground with their heavy boots.
The creeper vine sat there like a bulbous tongue stretching from the dark of the trees. He stayed in a crouch, folding his arms behind his back as he inspected it. The skin of the creeper was pale, suggesting it had not yet fed. It had not inflated either, laying flat and lumpy where it should be firm and round.
As he pondered this, a Birdkin flew down to join him. At least, it looked like a Birdkin. Its body was only slightly smaller than his head, and covered in feathers of the same black as those that made Sa-at’s coat. He knew it was also a demon, and that this made people afraid.
Sa-at did not know why.
‘Crowflies!’ he said.
‘Sa-aat!’ it screeched back.
He pointed at the creeper with his nose. ‘Wrong?’ he asked.
The Birdkin hopped closer and turned its head, regarding the creeper with one of its glistening compound eyes. It twitched one way, then the other, then opened its ivory beak.
Sa-at reached out a hand. His little finger was missing, and sometimes the old wound became itchy. When that happened, or when he wanted to be close to Crowflies, he pressed the scarred knuckle into the Birdkin’s beak.
Crowflies’ neck jerked, as if it were about to vomit, and then he felt the proboscis stir from inside, peeking out to prick his skin.
A flurry of images brushed Sa-at’s mind – a vision of the world as Crowflies saw it, a fractured mosaic. The colours he saw were strange, the reds brighter, the greens darker, and shadows no longer matched the things that made them.
The Gatherers’ footprints stood stark amid the dirt, and among the human ones Sa-at was now shown others that had been there recently, a succession of small round holes, as if someone had poked their fingertips into the dirt again and again.
Spiderkin? wondered Sa-at.
Crowflies gave a twitchy nod. They had dragged the creeper here as a lure. No doubt there was more than just the plant waiting for the Gatherers.
Sa-at made a cage with his fingers. A trap?
Another nod from the Birdkin.
The people with the funny hands will be eaten?
And another.
Sa-at pulled a face. He didn’t like the idea of the people being eaten. He saw Spiderkin all the time but he rarely got to see people. He wanted to see more of them. Maybe there was a way to stop the Spiderkin’s trap …
As soon as he’d had the thought, Crowflies stiffened, unhappy.
‘But,’ protested Sa-at, ‘they’ll die.’
Crowflies gave a shrug of its wings.
He pulled his hand free, sucking the end of it as he stood up.
‘Sa-aat!’
He was being warned not to go.
‘I’m going.’
‘Sa-aat!’
He paused for a moment. Crowflies was his friend, his only real friend in the Wild. The Birdkin had brought him food and drink until he was old enough to hunt. It nursed his injuries, watched his back, taught him. Everywhere Sa-at went, Crowflies was there like a winged shadow. Deep down, he knew it was trying to protect him.
But then he thought of the Spiderkin wrapping the Gatherers in bladesilk. In a week or so he would come by this part of the forest again, and find eight skeletons stripped of everything save the hands and feet.
If he waited another week, the hands and feet would be gone.
The maimed skeletons would hang for a few more after that, and then vanish. Sometimes, much later, he’d see a fragment of bone attached to one of the trees like a trophy, and be certain that he’d seen it before.
His stomach turned a few times and then he started running.
Behind him he heard several squawks and felt the feelings behind them.
‘Sa-aat!’ (Annoyed.)
‘Sa-aat!’ (Go if you want, I’m staying here.)
‘Sa-aat!’ (Exasperated.)
A little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he skipped between a tangly mass of bushes. Despite it all, Crowflies would come. It always comes.
The trees gathered closer in this part of the Wild, shutting out the day. Great strands of web ran taught between them. Where it rubbed against the branches, deep grooves were made, red fungus sprouting from it like raw skin. Fat shapes sat within the canopy, their legs bunched together to conceal their true size. Sa-at knew the signs and quickly guessed at their number.
The Gatherers did not.
A couple of them made a token effort to keep watch, though they had no light to penetrate the gloom, and were of little use. The others were clustered around a green trunk, as wide as a broad-shouldered man, with pale yellow veins running like marble across its surface. Several creeper vines were coiled at its base.
As he got closer, a nervousness began to grow within Sa-at. He felt something he did not have a name for – a desire to impress. He skidded to a stop and paused. He had very rarely seen people and had never spoken to one before.
One had spoken to him however, when he was tiny, a man called Devdan. Sa-at learned many words from him. He had been kind for a time, and then he had stopped being kind. Sa-at remembered the man’s hands on his throat, and