Part 47 (1/2)
36.
Pursuit SUGAR FOUND THE monster to be one of the easiest things she'd ever tracked. A stupid beast that could not navigate well enough in the darkness to avoid the branches. But when there was light enough to see, she realized that the branches being broken were not those that someone would accidentally step on and break, nor were they ones that would break easily as someone brushed past. No, they had been broken on purpose. She concluded River knew someone was following and had done this to leave a trail.
But Sugar now looked down at the spot where an immense rotted log had recently lain and was not so sure. Worms and grubs wriggled in the soil of the impression. This log had obviously been moved aside, but it was too large for River to do such a thing. Sugar attempted to push it, but could not move it an inch. How could River have moved it as she was carried along by that beast?
To Sugar's left rose a steep hill. On her right the ground descended to a cl.u.s.ter of hundred-foot bald cypress, their ma.s.sive knees rising out of the dark tea-water. A muskrat swam through a layer of duckweed farther out in the swamp.
She wondered if the creature had taken River into that mess.
Lilies, bog bean, and goat willow choked the far side. The place breathed with the croaking of frogs and stank of things rotting in the water. But she knew that it was full of far more than frogs and stink and sc.u.m. She'd find snakes, leeches, and snapping turtle there in abundance.
A chip of something small and dark fell from the cypress trees above. Sugar looked up and saw a handful of grayfans, large game fowl that fanned their tail feathers when threatened. They stood in the branches above, pecking for the cypress seeds. More dark chips fell and she realized it wasn't bark, but grayfan droppings.
She stepped aside in disgust and walked toward the swamp to see if perhaps the mud at the edges would show any footprints, but as she did so a crack sounded up the hill.
The creature had gone up the hill, not into the swamp, so she turned and followed the noise, glad to leave the stink and the rising mosquitoes.
A few paces later the tree cover gave way and a trail of footprints led through the dew-soaked undergrowth, clear as you please up the hill.
Sugar followed the trail back into the trees, always going up, finding scuffled leaves here and there or matted gra.s.s, until she came to a small stream. She stopped and looked about, then saw a footprint in the stream itself. She followed the stream uphill to a slight ridge of rock, crossed over, and found herself standing in front of the mouth of a cave, a cool breeze blowing out of the darkness and into her face. She immediately crouched and moved to one side so she did not darken the entrance with her silhouette.
She wondered if this was a natural cave or one made by the stone-wights. If it was one of the ancient ruins, did that mean this creature was connected with them? Many had been lost in the stone-wight ruins. All of Sugar's life she had been warned to stay clear of them, for who knew what dark thing waited within? But this is where the creature had taken Mother, and so this is where she would have to go. She looked down the hill. You'd have to be standing right where she was to even see this opening.
She now wished the monster had taken River to the swamp. At least there you could at least see what you were about. Here the creature might be only a dozen paces away, watching her from the darkness. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
Sugar listened. She could hear nothing but the trickling water. She waited for a long time, but nothing stirred. The breeze meant this would be a long cave. It was quite possible that the monster's lair was hidden deep within.
She would have to go in, if only a small distance. Whoever she brought back here would want to know what lay just inside this entrance so they might avoid a pit or slope. Any information she could give them would keep them from charging in completely blind.
She edged toward the darkness and then crab-walked in and waited for her vision to adjust.
The ceiling of the cave trailed up and was lost in the darkness. The walls were narrow and tilted to one side, water oozing down their face.
Sugar moved farther in, away from the sound of the water outside and listened. She thought she heard voices, but then decided it was only the breeze or water. Rocks fell in the distance, the sound echoing along the cave walls. Moments later something splashed through the water. And then she realized it was moving, not away from her, but back toward her and the mouth of the cave.
She could not judge the distance well, but it sounded close.
Fear rose in her. She turned and scrabbled back, trying to keep a low profile. When she reached the mouth of the cave, whatever it was began to run.
Sugar ran out of the cave into the light and considered running back downhill to escape whatever it was coming at her from the inky darkness, but because running downhill was her first choice, she rejected it. It would expect her to run downhill; it would expect her to hide somewhere away from the cave, perhaps in the waters of the swamp. Moreover, the sound of her very footfalls would make her an easy mark.
No, she wouldn't run. She looked around for a place to hide close by and spotted one above the mouth of the cave behind an outcropping of rock. She didn't know if it was big enough to hide her, but it would have to do.
Quickly, carefully, she moved away from the mouth and climbed up the small ridge that ran along the brow of the cave.
Below her, just inside the mouth of the cave, something splashed through water.
She took one more careful step and slid behind the rock. But she didn't have time to lie down, for the beast burst into view below her. It took a number of steps then stopped, surveying the slope below.
The creature stood like a man of freakish proportions. Heavy-limbed, wide, maybe seven feet tall, with a small odd-shaped head. It was immense. She thought she saw an ear on the side of its head, but it was too ragged to tell exactly what it was. s.h.a.ggy gra.s.s grew in patches over the whole of its body. One patch along its back appeared to be green gra.s.s mixed with the small yellow flowers of creeping wood sorrel.
If the beast turned around and looked up, it would see her. But she didn't dare crouch, didn't dare make adjustments for fear of making even the smallest of sounds.
The creature moved slightly and made a hideous sound that froze her spine.
It moved again. Again came the awful sound, and Sugar realized it was the intake of breath. A loud horrid gasp like a man suffering from the black lung.
Was it trying to scent her?
The air about her was still, no morning updrafts or crosswinds. No down drafts. The breeze in the cave blew outward, and so the thing would not have smelled her in there. But that also meant the breeze might, at this very moment, be carrying the scent that pooled about her right to it.
A crack sounded from the woods below.
The creature turned to it.
Heartbeats pounded in her ears.
Then the thing moved, loping downhill in the direction of the sound, the gra.s.s about its body jolting with every stride.
Sugar realized she'd been holding her breath and gasped for air.
The creature bounded into the air, clearing a large tangle, and landed heavily on the other side. Two more strides, and then it was nothing but a flash through the trunks of the trees.
She gauged the distance it had covered in the few breaths since it had first moved. Never in her life could she have outrun it.
The rustling of a tree sounded from below, and she knew when it found nothing below, when it smelled her trail growing stale, it would come back.
Her legs shouted out for her to run, but she fought it. Sugar turned and carefully-oh, so carefully-began to ascend the hill. She would find her escape on the other side, or not at all.
Hunger backtracked for about a quarter of a mile along the trail he'd taken earlier and then stopped under a cl.u.s.ter of tall pines. He had seen nothing. Heard nothing but a bunch of noisy grayfans. He would find nothing along this trail. The scent had been stronger back at the cave. He turned and began to walk back, looking, listening for anything at all.
He came to the tree in which the grayfans sat. He searched the ground and then looked up. It didn't take long before he found it: one rotted branch hanging at a broken angle. Noisy birds cracking branches-that's what he'd chased after. Or maybe some deer. It could have been anything that had made the noise earlier, but it was not the person who had followed him.
He cursed himself, crouched down on all fours, and began to follow the scent more closely. It was a female that had followed him; he could smell that.
Back up the slope he went, making sure to check for trails of scent leading away from this one. But he found none. He stood at the mouth of the cave, and could smell her in there. Could he have run by her in his haste? He followed her trail in, but found it ended not far inside.
If he'd run by, then she had come back out, but she hadn't run downhill. No, Hunger examined the area around the mouth of the cave and found her scent clinging to the rock. He followed it up to a ridge just above the mouth of the cave and found a pool of her scent. She had stopped here. She could have been squatting right there when he'd run like a fool down the hill.
But it didn't matter. He had her scent and her trail. He would catch the wily thing and bring her back. He was the Mother's now; his family depended on it.
He felt good to have such a clear purpose. He felt as if a burden had been lifted. Serving the Mother wasn't such a bad thing after all.