Worlds That Weren't

“What’s that?” King asked, waving a hand to indicate the loud tock-tock-tock sound that echoed through the open forest of oak and hickory.

Robre’s brows rose; the Imperial was astonishingly ignorant of common things, for a man who was a better-than-good woodsman and tracker.

“That’s a peckerwood, Jefe,” he said. “A bird, sort of ’bout the size of a crow, with a red head ’n’ white under the wings. Makes that sound by knocking holes in trees, looking for bugs to eat. The call’s something like-”

The hard tocsin of the woodpecker’s beak stopped and gave way to a sharp, raucous keek-keek-keek.

“-like that.”

The fact that he’d fallen into the habit of calling the Imperial Jefe — technically the word for a clan chief, but often used informally for any important man-rather surprised him. Everyone else in the hunting party did, too, even Sonjuh, whose new gift-name of Head-on-Fire had stuck for good reason.

The men-at-arms from the coast obeyed like well-trained hunting dogs, of course, but they didn’t count; although they’d fought hard in recent wars against his people and the Mehk, legend said they were descendants of those who’d been slaves to the Seven Tribes in the olden times.

No, it was something in the man himself that did it. Thinking back, Robre appreciated how shrewd it had been to let Ranjit Singh be the one who tested the hand-to-hand skills of the men. Singh had beaten them all easily-Robre suspected he would have lost himself, and had been picking up tips on his wrasslin’ style since. That had let King’s follower start out with the prestige of one who was a hard man for certain-sure. Then he’d shown himself to be fair, as well, good-humored, a dab hand at anything to do with horses, as ready to pitch in to help with a difficult job as he was to thump a man who back-talked him.

Which in turn made his unservile deference to King’s leadership easy to copy.

Fact of the matter is, King’s unnatural good at getting people to do what he wants, Robre mused.

Most of all, the Imperial officer simply assumed that he was a lord wherever he went, one of the lords of humankind. Not with blows and curses and arrogance, which would only have aroused furious-murderous-resentment among proud clansmen, but with a quietly unshakable certainty that went right down to the bone. It set Robre’s teeth a little on edge, though he couldn’t put his finger on anything specific.

King stopped and looked around, his double-barreled hunting rifle in the crook of his left arm; Robre had his bow in hand, and a short broad-bladed spear with a bar across the shaft below the head slung over his back.

“Pretty country,” the Imperial said. “Not many farms these past two days, though. Not since that…what’s your word for it?”

“Station,” Robre said; that was the term for several families living close for defense, surrounded by a palisade. “No, not this far east. Too close to the Black River, ’n’ the swamp-devils.”

“Are there many of them?”

“Thicker ’n lice, down in the Big Thicket swamps. They hunt each other mostly, every little band against its neighbors, but every now ’n’ then some try crossing the river for man’s-flesh and plunder. More lately, what with more of our folk settling in the woods ’n’ making ax-claims.”

They’d been on the trail for a week and a half, counting from the morning they took the ferry across the Three Forks at Dannulsford, traveling without any particular hurry. Once past the bottomland swamps, too prone to flooding to have much permanent population, they’d traveled for two days through country where as much as a quarter of the land was cleared. Those new-won farms had petered out to an occasional outpost, then to land visited only for hunting and seasonal grazing, claimed by no clan. It rolled gently, rising now and then to something you might call a low hill, or sinking more and more often into swamp and marsh.

This particular stretch was dry and sandy, sun-dappled between tall wide-spaced trees, oak and hickory and tall sweet-scented pines; the lower ground was patched with a layer of sassafras-bright scarlet now-dogwood, and hophornbeam. The leaves of the oaks had turned a soft yellow brown where they weren’t flaming red, and the hickories had a mellower golden tint; the leaf-litter was already heavy, rustling about their feet. To the east and south the woods grew denser, with water-loving types like tupelo and persimmon and live oak; that was laced together with wild grapevines and kudzu.

It was thick with birds now, as well, parakeets eating acorns off the trees, grouse and wild turkey on the ground, and squirrels rustling through the undergrowth after the nuts. And not only birds…

“Ah!” King exclaimed softly, going down on one knee.

A wetter patch of ground showed where he parted the spicebush. In it was the mark of a narrow cloven hoof, driven deep. The tips of each mark were too rounded and the impression too square overall for a deer…

“Wild boar?” the Imperial asked softly.