The Mantooth Part 4

We have many hard choices in morning.'

She did not answer, but looked into his eyes as if searching for something. Then she turned, lowered her head, and moved past him into the shelter. Finding a place where fewer stones piqued the floor, she crouched and looked back at him, unsure. Kalus remained motionless, returning her gaze. Finally she lay back and turned away, her eyes misting.

'Kalus?'

'Yes.'

'Thank you. . .for saving my life.'

'You forget that you fed me, and cared for my wounds.'

'Still.....' She let her voice trail off.

Without further speech Kalus seated himself just inside the entrance, watching her wistfully as she drifted off into sleep, protected from outside danger by his own life, and by the pervasive and all-encompa.s.sing presence of the Mantis.

Chapter 6

Akar entered soundlessly just before dawn, the rabbit clenched securely in his teeth. Purposely avoiding the man-child, he moved instead to the place where his mistress lay sleeping. He placed the kill in front of her, gently nudging her with his snout.

Startled from an uneasy sleep the girl bolted stiffly upright, choking back a scream. Seeing her friend she subsided, but too late to prevent a confrontation. Alerted by the sound Kalus had woken, and was in no mood for the treatment he was about to receive from the wolf.

'He's brought us a meal,' he said contentedly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The girl still hadn't seen the carca.s.s. He pointed.

'Oh, take it away,' she said in disgust, repulsed by its sunken eyes and contorted expression. 'Take it away.' Coming closer Kalus started to reach for it, but was halted by the bared teeth and fierce snarling of the wolf.

'It seems he wants you to have it.' He paused a moment, thinking.

'Your friend has a short memory,' he said coldly, pretending to lose interest. 'When he was hungry I shared my meat with him.'

In the split second it took for Akar to look up at him, Kalus reached in and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the carca.s.s. The wolf started to go after him, but found the jagged point of Kalus' knife held threateningly between himself and the kill. As he backed away the two squared off, Kalus on one knee and the wolf standing. Akar began to circle, looking for an opening. But the man-child turned with him, keeping the point of the knife between himself and danger. The girl cried out in desperation.

'Stop it! Please, stop it!'

She had tried to understand the reasons for violence in the harsh world she now encountered, but to see her only two companions ready to tear each other apart over a blood-stained carca.s.s, was more than she could bear. Bowing her head between clutching arms like a frightened child, she wept bitterly. But the tears brought no relief, only deeper anguish and despair.

Seeing her distress the two stopped circling. Akar went to try and comfort her, while Kalus moved indifferently to a protected corner to gut and skin the carca.s.s. He would undoubtedly have been more sympathetic had he not been hurt several times already by giving in to similar emotions. He was far too angry now to think of anything but his own survival. Akar no longer tried to comfort his friend, who only kept pus.h.i.+ng him away. Regaining her composure, she glared bitterly at both of them.

'Why do you have to BE like this? Why can't you just leave each other alone?'

Akar had not understood the words, but their meaning was clear enough.

Putting away his pride, he stepped slowly and deliberately toward the man-child's unmoving form. Coming closer he drew a line in the dirt just in front of him, signaling his desire for a truce. If Kalus crossed the line with one of his own it would mean that the truce had been accepted, if only for the moment.

But Kalus did not answer with words and gestures of humbled acceptance.

Moving his hands in simple patterns he knew the wolf would understand, he told him instead that he was angered to the point of violence by his ingrat.i.tude, reminding him that if it had not been for his own, selfless actions, neither he nor the girl would be alive at all. He then drew another line in the dirt, not across the mark Akar had made, but parallel to his own body instead, signifying dominance, and made it clear that the wolf could either accept the truce under these terms, or fight him to the death then and there.

Akar was curiously gratified by the man-child's response. In truth he had not forgotten his compa.s.sion, but wanted to be sure that he was worthy of trust. Goodness and compa.s.sion were one thing, courage in the face of danger quite another. To say that he had wholly staged the conflict as a test of the other's spirit would be incorrect; but once it developed into such he did not try to stop it. Akar had lived too long to give his allegiance easily or in haste. Crossing Kalus' line solemnly, he rolled over on top of his own, blurring it into obscurity.

Realizing what this meant Kalus relaxed, nodding gratefully. Though he knew the wolf had no intention of being dominated, he accepted the gesture nonetheless. His body weak from adrenalin's flow, he could not have backed up the threat if he wanted to. He did not. The truce was accepted. He reached out an open hand, letting his new-found ally learn its scent beyond the point of any doubt. The wolf then went back to the girl while Kalus returned to the task of skinning the rabbit, trying to keep his hands from shaking as he did so.

'You see,' he said, speaking as much to himself as to the girl.

'Things are not always as they first appear. Your friend was only testing me. Now we are brothers, as we could not have been before.'

She nodded halfheartedly, not at all sure she believed him.

'You won't fight anymore, will you? Please promise me you won't.'

'We will not fight.' He continued his work.

There was a pause in which neither spoke. Finally Kalus broke the deadlock with a question. He truly wished to know its answer, but also disliked the awkwardness that silence had placed between them.

'Sylviana. You speak as one who comes from far away. Are you then from the Island?'

'What island?'

'The Island of Ruins across the water.'

'No..... No, I don't think so.' She struggled now, trying to find the words to tell him that she came not only from a different place, but from a different time as well. It didn't matter. She wasn't going to have the chance. In their preoccupation with themselves the three had forgotten the Mantis. Awakened by the noise of their scuffle, it climbed toward the inadequate shelter even as they spoke.

It was Akar who sensed his presence first. Though he could not be certain of the scent, the wind being in the opposite quarter, the low, scratching sound of hooked claws searching for footholds was unmistakable. He did not try to run, nor even to alert the others, but went without hesitation to wait for the monarch at the entrance of the niche. He only hoped the Mantis would remember him.

'What is he doing?' asked the girl. At the same moment Kalus heard a loosened stone sent plummeting to the bottom of the canyon. Its dry echo sounded sharp and clear below.

'Sylviana, listen to me carefully.' He spoke firmly, moving closer. 'The mantis is coming toward us. Do not cry out---he probably won't hurt us. But you must do everything I say without questions.'

'Go on,' she whispered intently, surprised by her own courage.

'When the Mantis appears at the entrance you must act helpless and afraid, but afraid of him and not of me. Also, do not try to speak.

Akar will speak for us. Here, he draws closer. When you first see him, hold on to me tightly, as if shocked and startled. We must make him think you have never seen him, and had no knowledge this mountain was his. Now. Prepare yourself!'

When the Mantis' head finally did appear, leering in at them ominously, she found doing exactly as he told her infinitely easier than not doing it. She clung to him as if possessed, and the Mantis'

first glimpse of them was exactly as Kalus had wanted it. Akar stood submissively to one side, allowing the Monarch an un.o.bstructed view.

After studying the three closely, he gestured for the wolf to follow him to the broad ledge outside the larger cave. Akar obeyed unquestioningly, snaking his way carefully down the sharp incline.

'What will he do now?' asked the girl, moving with Kalus to watch from the stone lip that ran like a low parapet just beyond the entrance of the niche.