Children of Tomorrow - Arthur Leo Zagat (have you read this book TXT) š
- Author: Arthur Leo Zagat
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Dikar dug heels to stop himself. Something in the waterāJimlane! Jimlane lay face down in the water, very still, and the water that swirled away from the still, small body was pink and dreadful. Jimlane lay in the water, but on the bank of the stream lay Billthomas, limp as an arrowed deer, his side red and terrible with blood.
Dikar dropped to his knees beside Billthomas, and inside him Dikar was cold, cold as ice. āMy fault,ā he heard himself groan. āI set you to watch Tomball, anā Tomball had the gun hid in the woods, anā he got it anā shot you. My fault, Billthomas.ā
Dikar touched Billthomas, and Billthomas moved under Dikarās hand, Billthomasā eyes opened and stared up into Dikarās face, unseeing. Then they smiled. A faint smile touched Billthomasā gray lips and they moved, but Dikar could not hear what they said.
āWhat?ā Dikarās voice was hoarse, strange to him. āWhat, Billthomas?ā He bent, got his ear near Billthomasā lips.
āWhat are you tryinā to tell me?ā
āTomballāā the faint whisper came. āWentāover DropāTookāMarileeāwith himā¦ā The whisper faded, Billthomasā eyes closed.
āWhat?ā Dikar yelled. āWhat was that about Marilee? Billthomas! Did you say Marilee-?ā But he saw that Billthomas did not hear him.
Shouts, exclamations, above him told Dikar the Boys had meanwhile come up. āJumped over the Drop!ā someone exclaimed. āThey must be smashed on the rocksāā
āNo,ā something shrieked inside Dikarās head. āNot Marilee!ā and he was on his feet, was twisting toward the edge of the Drop.
The stream rushed away from Jimlaneās still body, rushed down to the end of the woods. Not five paces away it leaped outāup from where it leaped slanted a thick rope of plaited vines to the great trunk of the last tree of all and it was wound round and round that trunk, tight-fastened.
Tomball and Marilee had not jumped over the Drop-!
Somehow Dikar was at the edge of the Drop, careless whether from below they saw him or not. Dikar was looking down, his eyes burning.
Down and down fell the white spume of the stream, down and down fell the awful wall of the Drop, gray-shadowed. Far, far below, the stream smashed itself on a great, jagged rock and joined the waters that brawled white and angry among huge rocks that might have been tumbled there by some unimaginable giants at play.
For a wide space from the foot of the Drop the ground was covered by the great rocks, and that space was made somehow fearful by the shadow of the Mountain that lay on it, but beyond it the sun still lay on a green forest that stretched away to the far land.
Dikarās staring eyes found the edge of that forest, found two figures, small as the dolls the Girls used to make out of rags when first the Bunch came to the Mountain. Two figures clambered over the rocks, nearing the edge of the forest, and the one behind was chunky, black-haired, and the one ahead was brown with her mantle of brown hair!
Till now Dikar had clung to a hope that he had not understood Billthomas rightly, that Billthomas had been mistaken, but now that hope was ended. A terrible rage flared up in Dikar, a rage hotter than the heart of the fire on the Fire Stone. He snatched an arrow from the quiver hung on his shoulder, fitted it to his bow.
āThis was why she asked me how I climbed down the Drop,ā ran searing through his mind. āShe planned it this morninā with Tomball. This morninā she stole from our bed to seek Tomball anā warn him Iād set the kids to watch him, anā they planned then to kill the youngsters as soon as theyād found out how to flee from the Mountain, together.ā
He had Tomball on the angle of his arrowhead. The muscles in his arms swelled, the bow grew taut. Careful, now. Careful. The distance was great. He must not miss.
He might miss Tomball and hit Marilee.
What matter? She was as much to blame as he.
Dikar couldnāt! His fingers wouldnāt open on the bowstring, wouldnāt loose the arrow that might bury itself in the flesh of Marilee.
But he must! Not because they fled him. Not even because they had killed Billthomas, and Jimlane. Because even if they didnāt want to, the men in green would make them tell where theyād come from, make them tell about the Bunch. That thought opened Dikarās fingers.
Whang!
Dikarās arrow flew straight and fast and trueāfar out over the rocks it veered, was no longer a live and deadly dart, was a dead stick tumbling aimlessly down, a plaything of the wind.
Another arrow lay ready across Dikarās bow, but he did not loose it. No use. They were too farāMarilee reached the woods, and Tomball. The woods swallowed them. They were making their way through those woods to Themā
Dikar turned to voices behind him, saw Danhall and Henfield, Johnstone and Bengreen, huddled just within the edge of the woods, pale-faced, mouths agape, eyes wide and dark. āJohnstone,ā Dikar snapped, banging his bow over his shoulder. āTake over as Boss. Take care of Billthomas anā Jimlane. Iām goinā down.ā
āYou dare not,ā Danhill gasped. āDikar, you dare not. The Old Ones will strike youāā
āDamn the Old Ones,ā Dikar snarled and was in the stream, had hands on the rope. He was lowering himself over the edge of the Drop. His legs caught around the vine-rope.
The water battered Dikar. The water filled Dikarās mouth and his eyes and his nose, so that he could not see nor breathe nor hear anything but the roar of the waters. The water had a hundred clubs that pounded Dikar, bruised him. Suddenly the water was only a stinging cold spray on Dikarās naked skin, and he was swinging free between the wet-black face of the Drop and the roar of the stream as it fell, and he was climbing down the rope of plaited vines.
This was as it had been that other time Dikar had climbed down this rope of plaited vines, but that time it had been night and once he had gotten through that first rush of waters it had been black-dark. Bad enough it had been to climb down into dizzy dark, but now there was light, and Dikar could see how the Drop came down from nothingness above and went straight down to nothingness below.
He could look down, endlessly down the swinging frail thread of the rope, down to where the jagged points of rock waited for him if he fell, and the stream smashed itself on the rocks as Dikar would smash if he fell.
From the rocks, so far below, there reached up hands that Dikar could not see, and they pulled at him, pulled him down to the rocks, his climbing too slow for them. Dikar wanted to let go of the rope, wild the desire was in him to let go and fall, fast and faster, down to those gray painted rocks.
Dikar was sick, sick with the terror that he would let go and with the wanting to let go. Suddenly his arms and his legs were without strength to move. He clung to the rope, unmoving, knowing that in the next moment, the very next, he would no longer have even the strength to hang on. āDikar!ā His name came through the mists that swirled around him. āGo on, Dikar. Go on.ā Dikar looked up to the voice, and he saw that it came not from far above, as it ought, but from the rope itself, from Danhall, hanging on the rope not far above him.
Down through the seething waters at the top of the rope, Bengreen climbed, the water streaming from him! They were following Dikar down. Danhall and Bengreen were following him where he went, in spite of their fear of the Old Ones, in spite of their fear of what might await them down below the Mountain. He was their leader, and they followed himā
Strength was back in Dikarās legs and his arms and he was climbing down again, but he kept his eyes on the wall of the Drop and did not look down. And at last his feet found rock beneath him and Danhall was beside him, and Bengreen; and then Henfield dropped off the rope.
āWe wouldnāt let Johnstone come,ā Danhall said, squeezing water from his brown beard, ābecause you said he should be Boss. What do we do next, Dikar?ā
Dikar looked across the waste of tumbled rock to where Tomball and Marilee had been swallowed by the woods. āWe go after āem anā bring āem back,ā he said through tight lips, āor we donāt go back ourselves. Come on.ā
They climbed across the stony space, slipping and falling. When they reached the woods, that seemed no different from their own woods, it was easy at first to follow the trail of those they followed, by the small growth they had trodden down, by twigs bent with their passage. Marilee and Tomball had gone carelessly, not knowing they would be followed.
The shadow of the Mountain lengthened with the fast-dropping sun, and it grew dim about the four who hunted a Boy and a Girl. The green faded out of the bushes about them, the brown out of the tree trunks. All color grayed in the dimness, and suddenly there were no marks by which the four could tell which ways Marilee and Tomball had passed.
They cast around, their keen eyes searching each depression in the mossy floor of the woods, the way each tiny leaf hung on the brush, but they could find no sign of where Tomball and Marilee had gone, no sign that theyād ever been farther than where a twig pressed into the last mark of Tomballās foot.
The four Boys from the Mountain came together again, and huddled close, and they became aware that the graying air was chill against their skin, and the forest seemed strangely hushed about them.
āI donāt like it here,ā Henfield said, and it seemed right that he spoke low-toned, as though someone were near to overhear what he said, someone or some thing no one could see. āThereās somethinā wrong about these woods. Theyāre tooātoo quiet.ā He was yellow-haired as Dikar, his chin fuzzed with what would soon be a beard like Dikarās. āThe birds are still, anā the insects, anā Iāve not seen or heard a rabbit or a squirrel, or anythinā livinā.ā
āI donāt get it.ā Bengreen was the shortest of the four, his face sharp, his eyes black and deep as a forest pool at night. āI donāt get it at all. Itās likeālike Tomball anā Marilee got this far anā thenāanā then were not.ā
āThe Old Ones!ā Henfieldās voice was thin and piercing, louder it would be a scream. āThe Old Ones have taken āem anā theyāll take us. Weāre lost! Dikar, weāre dead anā worse than dead!ā
A chill struck deep into Dikar as he heard Henfieldās cry. All his life, all his life that was real to him and not a dream of Long-Ago, Dikar had believed that anyone who broke a Must-Not of the Old Ones would meet with a punishment the more awful because none knew what it was. By climbing down the Drop Marilee and Tomball had broken the most fearful of those Must-Nots.
Dikar recalled that he was the first of the Bunch to have broken that Must-Not, and that he had not been punished. āThe Old Ones sleep under the rocks,ā he snapped, angrily because of the tremble of fear that had not yet left him. āTheyāre not
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