Chapter 23: Infiltration

Bachi sensed the Iktaka village the same day they reached firm ground. As happened every year after a few weeks’ worth of driving rains, the downpour had gentled into a warmer, less driving patter, though it was still constant. The trio of humans pulled their canoe well clear of the water line, propped its ends up on flat rocks, and left it stored upside down. Tarek hoped if anyone ever happened on the abandoned craft, it might at least provide a night’s refuge from the still-falling rains.

It felt strange to walk after so long sitting and paddling. The ground was soft and muddy, and Bachi’s leather shoes were soon uselessly sodden, though he refused to take them off. Tarek and Tavi trudged on, barefoot and loincloth-clad as always, and Pahtl complained bitterly than slick-skins had such long legs. Three days’ walk got them to the village. Bachi was able to point the way unerringly, and as they got close, he was able to give more detail.

“This is a bigger tribe,” he informed them. “Three hundred sixty-four people.”

“How can you tell?” Tavi asked, forever curious.

Bachi shrugged. “If I stop to think about it logically, I lose the thread of the Song. But if I just float with it I can tell all sorts of things. Three of the women are pregnant, for instance.”

“Too many slick-skins,” Pahtl said. “If that many water people stayed in the same den we would be swimming in our own dung – and your kind make larger piles than we do.”

“How do that many people live together without stripping the forests bare of hunting?” Tarek wondered.

“Three hundred isn’t so very many,” Bachi said. “The Wobanu count more than five hundred. Most likely they farm, like we do.”

“Farm,” Tarek said blankly, looking at Tavi. His brother only shrugged.

“Yes, farm. Growing food. Do…” Bachi gaped at them. “Do you really not know what that is? Are you joking?”

“Close your mouth before you swallow flies,” Tavi said irritably. “Just tell us.”

“You Catori,” Bachi said, shaking his head. “You never fail to surprise me. Look, don’t you ever gather the seeds of useful plants and put them in the ground? Pick a good spot?”

“Our healer does with some of her herbs,” Tarek said. “Only the ones that are hard to find, though.”

“Right. Now imagine doing that with, say, tubers or sweetgrass, but you plant lots of it. A patch of ground big enough to throw a rock across.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Tarek asked. “There’s plenty of food to be found within a handspan’s walk into the jungle.”

“Not for long when you have to hunt and forage for five hundred people. So instead you grow crops. Er, plants that will yield a lot of food. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this.”

“But,” Tavi objected, “where are you going to find a bare patch of ground that big? You’d have to cut down the trees.”

“That’s exactly what we do,” Bachi said. “At least in some spots. When you have lots of people in a tribe, there are always plenty of hands for whatever needs doing. Some people spend all their days farming, others make clothes, while still others—” he flourished a hand— “become artists or Singers.”

“I could do all of these things,” Pahtl said.

“Spending all day doing the same thing sounds awful,” Tavi said. “Our way is better.”

“Which is why you live in simple huts instead of a place like this,” Bachi said, pulling back a branch at the top of the rise they were climbing.

The edge of the Iktaka settlement was a short arrow’s flight away down a gentle slope. It was large and sprawling, a flat expanse of tree-cleared land dominated by wooden homes and low buildings. The craftsmanship was superior to that of the Catori village, with large, brightly painted houses that looked to be kept in good repair. Even stranger than the riot of colors was seeing all the homes sitting on squat little stilts no higher than three hand-widths. Apparently, the floods weren’t nearly so troublesome here on the Iktaka’s higher ground, and the worst had already passed despite the continuing rains. The houses were arranged in lines, leaving clear lanes of space in which people – many people – moved with a sense of purpose and industry. The most telling workmanship of the village was the double wall of sharpened stakes that ringed the entire space from one end to the other. The inner line pointed skyward and the outer one angled outward to skewer anyone who came close. This tribe was well-defended.

“That’s hard to argue with,” Tavi admitted.

Bachi frowned. “I was actually thinking this wasn’t nearly as impressive as I’d hoped. You should see my tribe’s lands. It’s beautiful.”

“We will, soon enough,” Tarek said. “Let’s get low so we’re not so easy to see. We’ve got a chief to find.”

* * *

“You are all being very stupid,” Pahtl said a good while later. “I will go in and bite this man. No one can stop me.”

“A spear would stop you,” Tarek said. “Permanently.”

“I would bite the spear.”

“There’s just no safe way in,” Tavi said, just as he had several times already. “These are not friendly folk.”

Pahtl sighed, rolled onto his back, and closed his eyes, unable to suffer slick-skin foolishness any farther.

“We don’t know that they’re unfriendly,” Tarek insisted. “You heard Bachi just as well as I did: not all the tribes are as hostile as ours. Right?” He turned to where the Wobanu boy was lounging against a tree, but Bachi also had his eyes closed and was humming the atonal rhythms of the Song. Pahtl wasn’t the only one who’d grown bored of the circular conversation.

“Look at that wall!” Tavi said, pointing out of the thicket where they hid down toward the village. “It’s an elaborate and labor-intensive way of saying go away, and those men with spears standing in the gateway punctuate the statement nicely.”

“I’ll have to sneak past them,” Tarek said. “In the middle of the night when they’re tired. They might even fall asleep.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Tavi replied. “And we’re going. You’re not touching the blood this time.”

“I could walk right past those guards,” Bachi said casually, stopping his Song. “They’d never know I was there.”

Tarek and Tavi exchanged a skeptical look. “It’d probably be better if you stayed outside,” Tarek said.

“You’re fat, slow, and loud, is what he means,” Tavi added.

Bachi looked confused. “But I’m a Singer.”

“We’re not gathering eggs,” Tavi said. “You walk up to those brutes humming the Song and they’ll stick you whether you’re dancing on top of water or not.”

“You don’t understand,” Bachi said. “I’m a Singer. I can go deeper into the Song than anyone you’ve ever met. If there’s anything green nearby I can very nearly become invisible.”

Tavi scoffed. “You were humming at us for a good long while and you never once disappeared.”

Bachi tugged his long shirt straight, red-faced. “You don’t believe me!”

Tavi shrugged and shook his head, and Bachi looked to Tarek.

Tarek spread his hands helplessly. “What do I know about it?”

The lad’s round cheeks quivered as he thrust out his jaw. “You just watch,” he said hotly. Then he closed his eyes again and began to hum.

Tarek looked to Tavi, who rolled his eyes. “It’s all right, Bachi, he didn’t mean it.”

When he looked back, the Wobanu boy was gone.

“Uh,” Tarek said, confused. He couldn’t seem to make his eyes focus on the area where Bachi had been, but there was certainly no one there. “Tavi…?”

“Wow,” Tavi said quietly.

Tarek reached out a hand, patting it in the dirt all around where their friend had been. There was a strange resistance to the feeling, almost as if his hand were sliding aside from something at the last moment, but he didn’t think he’d even notice it if he weren’t concentrating. There was a blurry spot there in the middle, but when he tried to make himself look at it directly, his head started to hurt. “Incredible. Can you see him?”

“I… sort of,” Tavi said slowly, tilting his head from one side to the other. “The trees are so loud suddenly that it’s hard… I catch little hints, a foot or a hand, but it keeps slipping away. He’s still there, but if I didn’t already know it, I’d never see him.”

Pahtl perked up from where he had fallen into a doze. “Why do I still smell the soft one if he is gone? He is sneaky, to leave without me hearing.”

“Why can’t I touch him?” Tarek wondered.

“I think maybe you are, and you just can’t tell,” Tavi said, sounding unsure.

“But I don’t have the Song!”

“It doesn’t go away just because you can’t hear it. It does what it does outside of you… I think.”

Tarek then found himself with his fingers tangled in the hair of the suddenly-visible Bachi. The boy had stopped humming. Tarek jerked back in surprise at the sudden feel of wet Bachi under his hand. The Wobanu lad looked smug.

“I believe I am owed an apology,” he said, stroking his mustache.

Pahtl sat bolt upright. “That is a good trick!”

“All right, great Singer. I’m sorry I doubted you,” Tavi said, sounding as if he meant it not at all. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

“It’s an art,” Bachi replied. “Few can learn.”

“I could do it,” Pahtl declared.

“I don’t think otters can sing the Song. Even talking ones,” Bachi said carefully. He was still a little leery of the creature.

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“I could. If I wanted.”

“You really could sneak past those men,” Tarek said.

“I could steal their front teeth and they wouldn’t notice,” Bachi boasted.

“We don’t need teeth, we need blood,” Tavi said, “and not theirs. Could you keep yourself invisible long enough to find the chief and cut him?”

Bachi paled. “Wait, you want me to go into the middle of the village?”

Tavi’s jaw clenched. “That’s what we’ve been discussing, isn’t it?”

Bachi shook his head violently. “No. I couldn’t… that, that’s… no.”

Tarek put a calming hand on his shoulder. “They’d never see you.”

He barked a short, panicked laugh. “Is that so? I need some green for the Song to hide me, Tarek. That wall of stakes has enough leftover life in it, but houses? Thatch? They don’t even remember being green. They’d barely even smudge me.”

“Are you sure?” Tarek pressed.

“I’m a little less willing to throw myself onto a spear than you Catori boys are,” Bachi said.

“So much for that idea,” Tavi muttered.

“Could we distract the men somehow?” Tarek said. “Pull them away from the opening long enough to sneak through?”

“I will bite them,” Pahtl offered.

“No,” Tarek said, thinking hard, “but if you made a lot of noise nearby, they might go looking.”

“And then I hide!” Pahtl said. “That would be fun.”

“We could wait in the brush just outside the stakes,” Tavi said, nodding thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t take more than ten heartbeats to slip through so long as they’re not right there. The rain will mask our sound.”

“I think it’s our best chance,” Tarek said. “Once we’re in we can take our time searching for the chief’s house. Everyone will be asleep.”

Bachi looked crestfallen. “Isn’t there something I can do? Something that doesn’t involve me tromping through the center of the village?”

“You watch our backs as we go in,” Tarek said. “Sing your Song and keep yourself unseen, and if one of the guards spots us, you can bash him on the head with a big stick. Once we’re through, you sit tight and wait for us to come back.”

Bachi’s jowls quivered, but he nodded. “I can do that.”

“Let’s do it now!” Pahtl growled, surging to his feet and shaking the rain from his coat.

“We have to wait,” Tarek said, rubbing one of his blunt ears. “We’ll go when it’s darkest.”

“Bah. Waiting is a bad game.”

“I know. Another handspan and the sun will fall. Three or four hands after that, everyone will be sound asleep, and we can go.”

Pahtl cocked his head. “Your hands can make it dark?”

“No,” Tarek laughed. “The sun moves in the sky. If I hold out my hand, it takes time for the sun to move from one side of my hand to the other. We call it a handspan.”

“We cannot see the sun. It is raining.”

“I know, but we can still get a rough sense of it.”

Pahtl rolled on his back, ducked his head, and thrust one stubby leg out, paw directly in front of his face. “My hand is huge. A handspan is a long time.”

“I think it only works for slick-skins, my friend. My arms are long, so I can hold them far away from my face. A handspan is a long time, but not very long.”

“How long?” Pahtl insisted.

Tarek scratched his head and tried to think of a way to define the passage of time that would make sense to an otter. “Tavi, how many heartbeats in a handspan?”

Tavi’s eyes flickered back and forth rapidly as he worked through the calculations faster than Tarek could imagine. “Four thousand. Roughly.”

“Yes, I see,” the otter mused. He stroked at his whiskers thoughtfully, suddenly reminding Tarek of how Bachi preened with his ridiculous little mustache. “What is a thousand?”

Tarek despaired. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to go.”

“Now. Later. These are the only times needed.” Pahtl rubbed his face with his paws. “Are you sure I shouldn’t bite someone?”

* * *

The rain hissed down onto the fern fronds that covered Tarek and Tavi’s heads. Plenty of water dripped through onto their heads, but they were so used to being soaked through at this point that they didn’t even notice. Tarek’s muscles were tight with tension as he peered through the rain at the barely-visible shapes of the guards only a few man-lengths away. The two men had started their watch just past nightfall, and with only a few handspans left until dawn, they were tired, wet, and miserable, slumped on either side of the opening in the stake wall with only their spears holding them up. Tarek’s hope that they’d fall asleep had been vain, but they certainly weren’t on a keen lookout.

Tarek leaned close to his brother. “Wait for ten heartbeats after I go. If they spot me, we don’t want to be bunched together where they can get us both.”

Tavi nodded tersely. He was chewing on a thumbnail. It’s not fair to make him do this. He ought to be playing with friends and learning from the numerator.

A terrible clatter of wood on wood made Tarek jerk nervously, but it was what they’d been waiting for. Bachi had eventually offered to use two stout sticks to make noise along with Pahtl, and then stay close enough to help if Tarek and Tavi needed it. With his incredible Song-gift, he’d be in no danger whatsoever.

Shrieks and gabbling noises joined the racket, and the startled guards surged forward into the night, gripping their spears and staring hard into the rain-shrouded darkness. They moved together and conferred quietly, their eyes continually drifting back toward the noise as they tried to decide what to do.

The one closer to Tarek and Tavi clapped the other on the shoulder and trotted out into jungle away from the two brothers, his spear held at the ready. The other followed after him but stopped a few steps later, watching his comrade seek out the unexpected threat.

Go with him! Tarek silently willed, but it was no use. The heavy-shouldered man stayed close to his post. He wandered out away from the opening another step, and then two, but no farther.

Tarek gritted his teeth and gathered his legs beneath himself. The guard was at least two man-lengths beyond the opening into the wall, and he was looking intently out into the jungle underbrush with his head turned away from their fern hiding place. This is as good as it’s going to get.

He darted forward, trusting the sound of the rain and ever-present murmur of the jungle to hide his steps. Tarek skirted the sharpened stakes, his eyes fixed on the guard’s back, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. His toes squelched in the mud and the tip of an outward-angled stake grazed his shoulder, and then he was through the opening. He looked ahead to find the likeliest spot to hide.

He never got the chance. “Hey!” the guard shouted behind him.

Tarek whirled, his eyes wide. Somehow, the man had turned at just the wrong moment and caught sight of him. It’s too dark for that. He must have been humming the Song. Of all the terrible luck…! Looking past the opening, Tarek could just barely see Tavi’s face peering out from their fern. Tarek shook his head, and Tavi shrank back.

“Who are you? Where do you think you’re going?” The man had a funny accent, his words burred with hard r sounds. His sharpened spear was leveled at Tarek’s chest, and he came forward cautiously. “Speak up!”

“I’m just passing through and wanted a dry spot to sleep,” Tarek said, raising his hands in a gesture of harmlessness. “I didn’t see you there or I’d have stopped.”

“Your name, stranger, or I’ll kill you.”

“I’m Tarek son of Tenoch, from the Catori tribe. I mean no harm.” I just have to keep him calm until Bachi comes. A few moments, that’s all it will take.

“Catori,” the man grunted. His wide, blunt face was set in a cold mask of distrust. “You don’t belong here.”

“I’m a long way from home,” he agreed. “I came from the other side of the Ix River.” Tarek kept his eyes on the man’s feet. That’s where he’d first see a strike coming. I need to get closer and touch him. Calm him down. Make him trust me. He didn’t dare make any threatening moves.

“You’re a raider, come to steal our food. The Yura do it all the time.”

“I’m no Yura,” Tarek protested. “I won’t steal. I just want to rest for the night.”

“Sneaking around in the rain? Three turns until dawn? Not a chance. Skepet!” the man shouted over his shoulder. “Come back! Caught a man here!”

Tarek panicked. Bachi, where are you? Shouting would wake others, and then all was lost. He had to put hands on the man. It had worked with the Yura chief; it would work again.

Unfortunately, there was a spear between them, and Tarek really didn’t want it planted in his ribs. He feinted to the right, and when the man stabbed toward him, threw himself instead to the left, his hands reaching forward to grip the spear’s haft. He landed both hands on the weapon and shoved. The fire-hardened wood tip scored his belly, making him gasp, but the point slipped to the side, and the force of the thrust passed harmlessly between his ribs and elbow. The guard was still yelling for his comrade Skepet.

Releasing the spear, Tarek clapped his hands to the man’s face, pulling their faces close. “It’s okay!” he hissed. “I’m harmless. Don’t shout, sshhh!”

The man was wide-eyed and panting, but he fell still. It worked. Thank the Ones Beneath. I was two heartbeats from death just now.

Then over the rain he heard running steps in the mud, and something hit the back of his head very hard.

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