With a hesitant look back over his shoulder (which the tall basket made difficult), Foxbrush followed the ginger-haired girl down the hill from the Eldest’s House to the jungle.
Three days had passed since Foxbrush had made his wild escape attempt. Three days during which he had learned how to tie on a pair of trousers made from animal hide, how to wrap his feet in hide to protect his tender soles, how to eat by pulling meat from the bone with his teeth, and how to sleep with nameless creatures eating, breeding, birthing, and dying in the thatched ceiling above his head.
Three days of nightmare. Then this morning dawned, and Redman (who’d spent the previous two days repairing the wall Foxbrush damaged) announced that the time had come for Foxbrush to earn his keep.
Lark led him by the hand as the green of the jungle canopy closed over their heads. Daylight rendered the shadows no less ominous than they had seemed three nights ago. The path was narrow and roots trailed over it in treacherous twists, ready to trip up the unwary. Great fronds reached out to caress Foxbrush’s cheek, and these dripped with wetness from the rain fallen the night before.
Eyes watched their every move.
Foxbrush fixed his gaze on the little girl before him, the least threatening sight in his field of vision. Her red hair was shiny with grease, but he had already ceased to smell the body odor of her or any other member of the village. The senses can only stand so much, after all. Besides, he knew he would very soon smell as ripe as any of them.
Light of Lumé! He needed to get out of this place!
He closed his eyes for a few paces and let the coos and caws and shrieks of life surrounding him swallow up that thought. He couldn’t leave. Not without Daylily.
When he opened his eyes, Lark was looking up at him with an oddly solemn expression.
“We are nearing the first totem,” she said.
Foxbrush blinked with surprise. Her accent was strong, the cadence a little strange. Nevertheless, it was unmistakably a variation on the Southlander Foxbrush knew. He frowned at her. “Did I just . . . I understood you just now, didn’t I.”
Lark grinned back, pleased by his reaction. “I speak Northerner as well as my da, better than my ma. My sisters are still learning, so Da and Ma speak in Da’s tongue when they do not want the little ones to know what they say. But I am the oldest. I know.” The gleam in her eye vanished suddenly, and she dropped her gaze, softly repeating, “I know.” She put a finger to her lips then. “We approach the first totem. You must be quiet.”
“But how do you—”
“Hush!”
Her reprimand was enough to freeze Foxbrush’s tongue in his mouth. At a sign from her, he stayed put, watching as she continued up the path, pushing overhanging branches from her way. Soon he could see only the top of her bright head.
Then he heard her small voice calling (though he did not understand the words): “Crookjaw, restless one, little nimble fingers!”
Foxbrush ran to catch up with Lark, nearly stumbling over her in his haste. She turned a furious glare up at him and again put a finger to her lips. Then she took a hard, flat cake from the pouch at her side and stepped toward a low stone Foxbrush had not seen before. It was black and nearly hidden in foliage, but Lark uncovered it to reveal the image of an ugly old man’s face, rendered crudely with deep crevices around its mouth and almost no nose. Someone had painted it long ago in garish pigments now mostly flaked away by the elements. Red and blue circles still ringed the closed, heavy-lidded eyes, however, and the cruel lips were orange stained. The top of its head formed a flat surface covered in bits of dead leaves and bird droppings that gave the appearance of hair.
Lark set the flat cake on the stone. Then she clapped her hands and called again, “Crookjaw! Crookjaw, I bring you tribute! Does it please you?”
Lark spoke in a singsong, her childish voice sweet. An odd little superstition, Foxbrush supposed. He’d read about such things in his studies, the crude beliefs and practices of older times. Funny, he’d never thought to see—
A screech erupted overhead.
The trees began to shake as though blown by a tremendous storm. Had it not been strapped to his back, Foxbrush would have dropped the basket as he hunched and craned his neck. Some dark shadow hidden by thick greenery swung through the branches above, then dropped onto the stone head.
It was a monkey. A large, smelly, evil-eyed monkey, brown and bearded, picking bugs from its ears with long, many-jointed fingers. It inspected each bug with the eye of a connoisseur. Some it tossed aside. Others it popped into its mouth and ate with great smacking and apparent enjoyment. It did not look at Foxbrush, Lark, or the cake but seemed absorbed in this nasty pursuit.