Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [107]
‘How far can I trust this catchy-carry-kind, friend?’ he asked.
The mouth writhed slowly, as if from an agony of which it had long grown bored. It dropped words thick as matter.
It said: ‘No good… I no good… break, fall, die filth… see, I finish… one more climb… Ye of all sins – Ye you carry… you strong back… you carry Ye… he know… I filth finish…’
Something splashed on to Gren’s hand as he fell back; whether it was tears or saliva he could not tell.
‘Thanks, friend, we’ll see about all that,’ he said. Moving over to where Yattmur was cleaning Laren, he told her, ‘I felt in my bones this talkative fish was not to be trusted. He has a plan to use me as his beast of burden when this carrying man dies – or so the man says, and he should know the ways of the catchy-carry-kind by now.’
Before Yattmur could answer, the sodal let out a roar.
‘Something’s coming!’ he said. ‘Women, get me mounted at once. Yattmur, smother that fire. Gren, come up here and see what you can see.’
Scrambling on to the top of the bank, Gren peered about while the women pulled Sodal Ye into position on the carrying man’s back. Even above the noise of their panting, Gren heard the other sounds that the sodal must have heard: a distant and insistent yowling and howling that rose or fell in angry rhythm. It sent the blood draining from his face.
He saw with ill ease a group of about ten lights spread out not far away on the plain, but it was from another quarter that the eerie sound came. Then moving figures caught his eye; he strained to observe them more closely, his heart thudding.
‘I can see them,’ he reported. ‘They – they glow in the dark.’
‘They are howlers then, for sure – the man-animal species I told you of. Are they coming this way?’
‘It looks like it. What can we do?’
‘Get down with Yattmur and stay quiet. Howlers are like sharp-furs; they can be nasty if they are upset. I’ll send my woman spanning to see what is happening soon.’
The pantomime of grunting and gesture was undergone, both before the woman vanished and after she reappeared. All the while the eerie howling grew in volume.
‘The woman spanned and saw us climbing up the slope ahead, so we evidently shall not be harmed. Just wait quietly until the Howlers have gone by; then we will move on. Yattmur, keep that baby child of yours quiet.’
Somewhat reassured by what the sodal said, they stood by the bank.
Presently the Howlers sped past, travelling in a single file not more than a stone’s throw away. Their yipping cry, designed to intimidate, rose and fell as they went. It was impossible to say whether they ran or leaped or hopped over the ground. So fast and recklessly they travelled, they were like visions from a maniac’s dream.
Though they glowed with a dim white light, their shapes were ill-defined. Were their outlines mockeries of human figures? It was clear at least how tall they were, and as thin as wraiths, before they went bounding away across the plain, trailing their awful cry behind them.
Gren found he was clutching Yattmur and Laren and trembling.
‘What were those things?’ Yattmur asked.
‘I told you, woman, they were the Howlers,’ said the sodal, ‘the race about which I was telling you, that was driven into the lands of Night Eternal. That party was probably on a hunting expedition and is now returning home. We too must be on the move. The sooner we get over this next mountain, the better pleased I shall be.’
So they moved on again, Gren and Yattmur without the ease of mind they had previously enjoyed.
Because Gren developed the habit of glancing back, he was the one to see that the lights on their left flank which they took to be torches of sharp-furs were coming nearer. Occasionally a bark floated to him on the stillness like a twig drifting across water.
‘Those sharp-furs are closing in on us,’ he told the sodal. ‘They’ve followed us almost the whole journey, and if we aren’t careful they’ll catch us on this hill.’
‘It’s unlike them to follow so consistently. They generally forget a course of action almost as soon