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.She didn t dare stop moving, not even to cling to one of the treesand rest a while, fearing that if she did stop, she d never get her achingbody moving again.She passed one of the garden patches.It was deserted butthe women didn t always leave guards to chase away intrusive nuggar.She beganto smell smoke.At first she was only aware of a rough tang in the air blowingpast her face, then slowly and fearfully she stopped and sniffed.Smoke.Hanging in the air like mist in the mistlands.She almost turned away, afraidto face what she knew she had to see when she stepped into the villageclearing.She took one step, then another and another.The houses were piles of ash and blackened poles rising at steep angles orlying flat on the ground.Charred bodies lay scattered about, bones here andthere glinting white in the Web-light. Rum Fieyl, she whispered.She movedslowly toward the Ghost House, her feet stirring the gray ash until she walkedin a cloud.She stopped a moment when she saw other prints, scrapes and spraysin the ash. Churr, she breathed then coughed as ash got into her nose andthroat. And the warriors.Oh Bright Twin, if only they d come in time.Itmight might might have made a difference. In the center of the village the Ghost House had three headless bodies tumbledin its ash.One was female. Serk, she murmured.A scarred and battered male. Niong. She touched his body with her toe. You were right, we should haveattacked the Fieyl.I. She moved on to stand over a slight gnarled figure. Wan. She dropped to her knees beside him, touched his burned and torn flesh,Page 95 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmltears gathering in her eyes.Numbed by weariness and too many shocks, shecouldn t feel this loss deeply now; in her mind she knew the pain would comebut her body refused it.She stood and brushed the ash off her legs, vaguelytroubled when she saw the gray powder falling on the Wan s body.Turning in aslow circle, she took a last look at the village then walked away from it.When she reached the garden plot, she pulled open the gate and walked into theenclosure.Behind her she could hear the drone and snort of nuggar hidden inthe darkness.When she stepped aside, the nuggar noises grew louder and moredisturbed.She knelt, wrapped shaking fingers around the thick tough vine thatwebbed the earth; closing her eyes she concentrated on keeping her fingershooked, trying to work the tuber loose.Three nuggar pattered through theopening and started clawing and rooting at the earth, their six clawed feetcreating rapid destruction in the plot.With a sound almost like a sigh, thetuber Roha was pulling at came from the earth.She broke it from the stem,glanced at the growing numbers of nuggar digging, squealing, nipping at eachother as they scrambled for the food they craved.She stood, clutching thedirt-crusted tuber, watching the writhing backs of the nuggar among thewhipping leaves.I should open all the gates for them, she thought.Better thenuggar should have the work of the women than that the Fieyl should.Shebrushed absently at the hairy tuber.Tomorrow.There s no hurry now.Tomorrow.Avoiding the nuggar, she sidled through the gate, then moved slowly along thefamiliar path.She stopped at the stream to wash the dirt from the tuber and to drink, thecrisp coolness of the water shocking her awake.Not bothering to remove herragged kilt, she slid her body into the water and sat in the rapid flow,breaking and eating the tuber; her knife was gone, left behind to be trampledinto the earth by the Kinya-kin-kin, but she didn t need it, ripping the toughrind away with her claws, chewing the stringy, tart orange-yellow flesh into apaste, washing the paste down with gulps of cold water.When she was finished, she washed her hands and mouth, then pulled herselfreluctantly from the stream.There was little to see.The scatter of stars and the rags of Mambila providedjust enough light through the vault of leaves to make trunks visible as darkerblacks against the grayed-black of the night air.As the first flush of newenergy from the food and water began to fade, she stood on the path, wonderingwhere to go, what to do, finally understanding there was only one refuge leftto her her womb tree.When she reached the mat-akuat, she hadn t the strength to climb into thelower branches.She pushed through the tangle of aerial roots and nestled onthe thick leaf-mold next to the trunk
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