They were like Duun. Like him, in grayer, paler coats. With Duun-like ears, eyes, faces— with all that made up Duun.
"Aiiii!"
one screamed. The other yelled. They hugged each other and yelled— to frighten him, he thought; he stood his ground, trembling at the sight. More of Duun's kind came out.
But children were like Duun. Children were not born hairless; he was not a child gone wrong, failed in growing—
—He was—
(Duun!)
He drew back. A man had run out onto the step. "Get in! Get inside!"
Thorn thought it meant him, and delayed. "Ili!
Ili!
Get the gun!"
(O gods! Guns! Duun!)
He spun on his heel and ran. He heard doors slam, more than once. Heard running come toward the fence, heard voices at his back. "Gods, it's
him!
"
one yelled, and others took it up. "It's that thing—
that thing!
"
It was a trap. Duun had made it. Duun had snared all his paths, all the world: there was no way, nothing, anywhere, that Duun had not seen and set up to trap him—
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(Got you, minnow, got you again—)
Thorn snatched breath and left the road, darted into the undergrowth, hearing the howl of animals at his back, hearing shouts raised—
"The
thing on the mountain!
— It's him, it's come!"
(O
gods
, Duun— gods—) Breath split his side. Branches tore at him. He ran and something in him had broken, ached, swelled in his throat—
They hunted him. They all did. There was no help.
No quarter.
Leaves burst into flames near him. Beamer. He heard the whine of projectiles.
Splinters burst into his face. He flung his hands up, hit a tree or some such thing: impact numbed his arm and spun him. The ground came up. He felt twigs stab his hand, earth and leaves abrade the heel of it. He scrambled to turn over and get his knees, his legs under him, eyes pouring tears; the numbed arm flopped at his side. He heard more shots whine.
"There he is!"
He dived and dodged and stumbled to his knees again, aware of shock.
Once he had fallen from the rocks and been like this, numb from head to foot, and scared and breathless— had risen and walked and run again and known only later where he was, to find Duun gazing down at him from the high rocks.
To find Duun coming down to him, game abandoned, to take his face in his maimed hand, jaw pinched between thumb and forefinger, and look into his eyes—
"You hear me, little fish? You hear me?
Duun!
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Cuckoo's Egg
Thorn slipped to one knee and got up again, turned, his shoulder to rough bark. There were lights, the howl of beasts, there were shapes behind the lights, people shining lights wildly this way and that into the brush, over him.
"Get it! There it goes!"
He put the tree between them and him and ran again, left arm swinging like a dead thing at his side. (I was hit. It was a shot that knocked me down. They shot me. Am I allowed to use my knife?) He ran and ran, sliding on the slopes, tearing himself on brambles. (Is this real? Is it game?
Duun— Did you set this up? Am I supposed to kill? Duun. I'm
scared!
) He came down the slope, skidded at the bottom, spun on one foot and ran left along the streamcourse.
A shadow rose up in his path. He flung himself aside to escape it, but it was
there,
shonun-smelling, blocking the strike of his right arm, and a voice said: "Thorn!" before a two-fingered grip came up at his throat and spun him off-balance and crushed him in a choking hold. Thorn bent, caught one-handed at the arm and tried a throw. Sickness jolted through him to the roots of his teeth. He was pulled back and back stumbling in the leaves, and a grip twisted his wounded arm. "Get out of here!" Duun hissed into his ear. "Thorn, Thorn— it's me! Run for it! Get home!"
Duun's hand let go and shoved hard in the middle of his back. Thorn ran.
He ran and slipped on leaves and ran again; his side ached. Fire shot through it. His arm ached and the pain jolted through each step.
(Get home!)
(Do I believe you, Duun— do I do what you say? Is it a trap. Duun?) A gun cracked. Several. He heard the echo off the hills. There were shouts— there were voices, the howl of beasts.
(But Duun's back there.) Thorn stumbled to a stop, hit a tree in his blindness and leaned his back on it. His sight hazed. The pain was one vast 54
Cuckoo's Egg
throbbing now, beyond pain, or it had gotten to his heart. He blinked the night as clear as it would come. There were lights. There were more voices raised— shouts and cries and howls; again the discharge of a gun.
(Duun!")
Thorn began to run downslope, holding the loose arm still as he could.
Branches jabbed into his face and he ducked his head aside, ran blindly, trusting the slope of the land to tell him downhill from up— fended brush finally with the right hand and let the left drag on the brambles in cold, vast shocks. He heard his breathing, felt the tearing of his chest— there was no more night, no more world: it had shrunk to body-size, all sound diminished to the sound of his breath and his heart.
(They'll kill him like the cattle! Duun!)
A branch thrust into his way, wrapped living round him, locked and held.
"Thorn! Dammit— fool!"
Thorn hung there, on Duun's arm. Duun's strong grip spun him, seized him by both arms and shook him, snapping his head back.
"Fool! Where were you going?"
He could not answer. The pain came on in waves. Duun shook at him again. It was Duun. It smelled of Duun. (Scent-blind. Scent-blind fool.)
"I had to hurt someone," Duun said. It was anger. Duun shook at him.
"You hear me, fool! I had to hurt someone for your sake."
"I think— I think—" Shock came on him. His jaws passed his control, locked and chattered. And Duun took him to the ground. ("How many times did they get you? Gods. Gods. I see it….") He stretched him out there on the forest slope and probed the arm, while here and elsewhere came and went for him.
"Why?" he asked Duun. "Why did they do it?" While his jaws spasmed and chattered and the pain came and went. "Duun, were they supposed to do that?"
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Cuckoo's Egg
"Shut up," Duun said. And hurt him, whether by intent or accident. Thorn went out a moment, came back with Duun slapping gently at his face.
"Can you move the fingers? I've got a gel on it. Move the fingers. Hear?"
Thorn tried. He thought they moved. He clenched his jaws, because Duun hauled him up against his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. The world went upside down as Duun's shoulder came into his groin and heaved.
Pain. The arm swung. Jolting pain as Duun moved. The world went black and red, phosphenes darting in his eyes, in the dark. Branches raked his back. There was instability as Duun climbed, so that he dared not move.
But the pain, the pain….
There was a darkness. Duun swung him down and let him to his knees on the slope, holding onto him. Duun's breath was in his face.
"You've got to walk," Duun said. "Hear me? Hear me, Thorn? You've got to walk now." Duun got an arm about him and pulled up on him. "Walk.
Hear me?"
Thorn heard. He tried. He heard Duun's gasping breaths, leaned on him, struggling for purchase on stone and earth and mold. "Climb," Duun said.
"Dammit, climb!"
Howls rose behind them in the woods. They lent Thorn strength. Duun's curses did. Duun carried him a time, and flung him down in the leaves with a jolt that knocked the breath from him. And slapped him after.
"Breathe, dammit, breathe."
He tried. He gasped. And Duun lay down on him and panted. Their hearts jolted one against the other and the pain kept time with it.
Another climb. Duun had gotten him on his feet again. Thorn had no memory how. "The road's not far," Duun said. "They won't come above it.
Come on."
And sitting then, sitting on a flat roadside stone where Duun set him, Duun holding him with one hand about his arms and the other against his chest. There was color in the world. It was dawn.
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Cuckoo's Egg
"Breathe. You've got to walk again."
"Yes," he said. He questioned nothing. Duun was Duun, source and force.
Like the sun, the wind. He sat a moment and got up again, his heart hammering, his body swaying in the height of the world, with the treetops like black water whispering below them.
They walked. He and Duun. Duun's hand in his belt; Duun dragged his sound arm about his ribs and held it by the wrist. Going was easier on the road. Thorn's feet discovered pain, lacerations that small stones wore at.
His mouth was dry as the silken dust. The wind was cold on his bare skin and Duun was warm.
Another rest. "Sit down," Duun said. "Sit down." And drew him against him and held him in his arms.
"Why did they shoot?" Thorn asked, because that answer eluded him.
"Duun, why?"
"You scared them," Duun said. "They thought you'd harm them."
Scared them. Scared them. Thorn recalled the children. He shivered.
Duun's arms clenched him hard.
"Fool," Duun said. He deserved it. He was ashamed.
He slept. He opened his eyes on the ceiling of the big room in the house with no memory how he had gotten from the road. He heard Duun coming and going. (Guard your sleep, minnow. Dared he sleep?)
"Drink," Duun ordered him, lifting his head, setting a cup to his lips. He turned his head away, not wanting to be twice victim. (Fool. Won't you learn?) "
Drink,
damn you, Thorn."
He blinked, all hazy. "Livhl—"
"Dammit, no. I'm telling you drink, this time."
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Cuckoo's Egg
He drank. It was sweetened tea. It hit his stomach and lay there inert and he was glad to have his head down at level again before it should come up.
"I lost," he said. "You beat me, Duun."
"Be still." Duun's maimed hand brushed at his hair. (Duun holding him, Duun playing games, Duun touching him that way long, long ago.) "Meds are on their way. I called them. Hear?"
"Don't want meds." (Ellud standing in the room. An old friend, Duun said.
Be polite.) "Duun, tell them don't."
"Hush. Be still." The touch came at his hair again. At his face. "Rest.
Sleep. It's all right. Hear?"
(Duun in the bedroom door at night. Go to sleep, little fish. There were no black threads in the doorway. No games. Go to sleep now, minnow.) 58
Cuckoo's Egg
V
"They'll pay for it," Ellud said. Ellud had come with the meds. The house stank of disinfectants, of bandage and gel and blood. And Thorn's distress.
Duun folded his arms and gazed at the hearthstones. At dead ash. "They have to," Ellud said. "Don't they?"
There was criticism implied. Duun looked around at Ellud and stared.
Ellud flinched as Ellud had done sixteen years ago. But it took longer.
There was wrath in Ellud now. There was offended justice. "Anything,"
Duun reminded him hoarsely. "But no. Don't charge them."
"You've left me with no choice. They fired on you."
"Did they? I don't remember that."
"They called the magistrate. They confessed. They know what they did."
"So." Duun walked away toward the closed door. The medicinal smells offended his nostrils. His ears lay down. He limped. Every muscle he owned was strained. Ellud wore his city clothes, immaculate. Duun wore nothing but a small-kilt. And let the scars show. He might have worn the hatani cloak. He had left it hanging. "I'll talk to them, Ellud. No charges."
"They can't do a thing like that and get away with it—"
"Because I'm sacrosanct?" Duun turned back to him, ears flat. "You promised me anything, Ellud. I'm asking you. No charges. Deed Sheon back to them."
"They tried to kill you!"
"They damn near did. Good for them. They're not bad, for farmers. Do I have to take this on my shoulders too?"
Ellud was silent a moment. His mouth drew down.
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Cuckoo's Egg
"So you get what ought to make you happy," Duun said. "I'm coming in. I trust you'll find a place."
More long silence. "It's about time. It's about time, Duun. I'll have a copter up here. Lift you out."
"He'll walk down," Duun said. "Day after tomorrow. He'll be fit."
"Past
them?
Gods, hasn't there been enough trouble?"
"He's hatani, Ellud." Duun met the darkness in Ellud's stare and matched it. "Understand that. He'll walk out on his own."
* * *
Left most you owned down in that valley. Come sit down."
Thorn came. Duun was polishing his weapons. Thorn sank down on the riser on his knees and sat down carefully, one leg off. There was sweat on his hairless brow. His hair clung to it.
"We're going," Duun said, "to the city. We'll live there now."
"Leave here—"
Duun looked up at him. Sheon was lost. Twice now. There was darkness in his stare; and Thorn stared back at him with alien, clouded eyes, with thoughts going on, and dread. (Why did they shoot, Duun? Is this revenge? Is this against me? Was I wrong, Duun? What did I do, down there?)
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Cuckoo's Egg
"I don't want to go, Duun."
"They'll come later and gather up the things we'll want. These—" Duun polished the blade. "These we take."
"I don't want to go."
"I know that." Duun looked at him. Tears shimmered in Thorn's eyes.
"The countryfolk get the land. It'll belong to them now. It'll pay, maybe, for what I had to do. Do you understand me, Thorn? Haras? Do you hear?"