The Limping Man Read online

  In the morning she took her belongings and crept away. Light showed over the eastern hills. Hawk would soon be on the wing, hunting his prey. She was nervous that if she was not clear of Stone Creek by mid-morning he would abandon her and fly away south. It had taken all her days of travelling to secure his trust. She had it now, and would not risk damaging it by mixing with Dwellers. By the time he looked for her she would be high on a hill, where he could scan the countryside before dropping down.

  Hana went along the beach, past fishing boats lying tilted at low tide. No one was stirring. The sky was red. She ran south, keeping a steady pace. This was the way she had come the previous day, and found Blossom and Tealeaf waiting for her. Hawk had made his cry and peeled away inland. He did not like her going there. Now she whispered, Sorry, Hawk. I had to take a message for Danatok. And, something in her added, for Mam.

  How had Blossom known she was coming? Hana stopped to chew some smoked meat from her pack. She shivered. The woman knew everything. She had probably woken and watched Hana creep away.

  It rained that morning. Gusts of wind blew warm showers in her face. She enjoyed it, but wondered how Hawk managed, in the sky. Was he above the rain? Did it make his hunting difficult?

  She turned inland at a little stream – again the way she had come – and broke clear of the forest and climbed a bare hill. The rain stopped; and there, in her head, was a picture of herself, tiny on the summit, looking up. It vanished and she knew Hawk received, for a moment, her picture of him, a small circling dot against a sky suddenly blue.

  She had not felt so happy since before Mam died.

  Hana and Hawk travelled south for several days. Neither decided which way to go, it seemed her steps and his soarings fitted on a string. But the direction was south, even though they struck inland when the coast was too broken for her to pass, and back to the sea when the hills were too steep. Hawk needed space for his hunting, he could not follow prey into the trees. He also took food from the sea, snatching with his hooked feet as he skimmed along the surface. Several times he brought her a fish.

  She made a shelter and stayed for two nights, but headed south again when she sensed he was restless. And she too wanted to go south. Something beckoned her and she could not understand. Was it love for Mam or hatred of the Limping Man?

  Just before dusk Hawk dropped down. He sat on a rock and folded his wings. He had never come so close. She approached until she could have touched him, and offered him a piece of the fish she had baked – his own fish. He did not want it. She ate, not watching him, leaning against the rock. After a moment she hoisted herself and sat beside him. His beady eyes watched her. She turned her head away, pretending indifference. Everything must be easy and natural, only then would they be true friends.

  A movement at the base of the rock drew her attention. She had dropped fishbones between her feet as she ate and ants living under the rock were pulling scraps of flesh from them. Small red ants, busy ants, hundreds of them. Suddenly a door opened in the packed earth at the base of the rock and a dozen larger insects erupted into sight. These were scaly creatures, half the length of Hana’s finger. She drew up her feet. They had claws like pond lobsters and tails with stings that curved over their backs. She watched, fascinated, as they attacked the ants, snipping them in half with their claws, scattering them with sweeps of their tails. They seemed to be infested with mites that ran across their backs as they worked and fitted into cracks in their armour and seemed to suck. Hana shivered. Everything seemed to feed on something else. The red ants were defeated, but some message had gone back into the nest, for suddenly warrior ants streamed out. They were larger, although not a tenth the size of the attackers. They moved so fast Hana could barely follow them, and could not work out what they were doing, how they were driving the attackers away. Then she saw. They were not biting the large creatures but picking off the mites infesting them, crushing them in their jaws, dropping their bodies on the ground. Once the mites were dead the creatures they rode became helpless. They did not know where to turn or where to find the trapdoor of their nest. The warrior ants butchered them. Only one, ridden by a mite between its eyes, made it to the hole. It dived inside and pulled the door shut with a flick of its tail.

  Hana shivered again. How savage and bloody everything was. How dangerous. There were many things about Country, and probably Sea, she would never know. But then she reflected that her world, the burrows, was dangerous too, and just as cruel. It suddenly seemed to her that she belonged nowhere.

  Hawk broke into her thoughts with an impatient cry. His eyes were still fixed on her. ‘Sorry, Hawk,’ she whispered. ‘We all kill other things, don’t we?’

  He spoke to her in their way of speaking; and as though looking into a pond she saw her face, anxious and fearful, looking back at her.

  ‘Is that what I’m like, Hawk? Not very friendly.’ She blinked to get rid of the image. ‘This is you.’ Looking at him, into his eyes, she sent him his own picture, so clear it seemed to startle him, for he shuffled his feet on the rock and made his half cry.

  ‘There, Hawk. We know each other now. Can I touch you?’ She reached out and put her finger on the back of his neck and ran it down the silky feathers to the place where his folded wings met. He allowed the touch, although it made him shuffle again. After a moment she took her hand away. It was enough. It made their friendship secure. She would never need to touch him again.

  In a moment he leapt into the air and flapped away. She made a place to sleep, well away from the rock where the insects had fought their battle.

  Three more days they travelled south, keeping by the coast then moving inland. Hawk sat with Hana each evening before flying away. There was nothing she could give him in exchange for the fish or rabbit or plump bird he brought, but she always chose a rock well warmed by the afternoon sun.

  The snowy mountains reared over them. They angled back towards the coast. Danatok lived south of the hills where the mountains fell away. Hana realised that this was where she was going. The further south they travelled the stronger the memory of the Limping Man became.

  Hawk flew over the sea, so far away she lost sight of him. She climbed down stony hills deep into a valley packed with bush. A stream ran on a bed of pebbles. Her easiest way to the coast was to follow it. She doubted Hawk would come to her. He did not like places enclosed by trees, but she found a flat boulder in the middle of the stream and waited there, eating a haunch of rabbit she had saved from the night before. He would find her easily enough, and perhaps fly low. She lay resting on the warm rock, and saw the wide sea in her mind – Hawk’s view – with a small sailboat foaming southwards in the wind. He swooped down until she had a picture of the person at the tiller. Blossom. She waved at Hawk.

  He turned away. Hana was pleased. She did not want to see Blossom, and did not want Blossom seeing her. She found a seat lower down the boulder and rested her feet in the water. Hawk knew where she was. She felt safe.

  Suddenly another picture pushed into her mind, making her jump and scattering her thoughts. Hawk was close, for she saw part of the stream she had followed, then bony hills above the trees enclosing it, the hills that had forced her to descend; and there, crossing them, two men. Hana looked for somewhere to hide. She wished she could question Hawk. What sort of men? Where are they going?

  Hawk circled, keeping watch. The men found narrow strips of shade among boulders and sat to eat. One lay down and gazed at the sky. She saw with Hawk’s sharp eyes: he was a boy. She shuddered as he stretched out his arms – one was chopped off at the wrist. His colour was reddish-brown, like her own. That was all she could see. Hawk was too high. The other man – was he a man? He was not a Dweller. His beard hung down to his waist. He wore a knotted cloth about his loins. She could not see a weapon; but saw with a shock of fear that he limped as he moved to a wider strip of shade. A limping man. But he was unlike her limping man – the Limping Man. No robes, no coloured headdress, no carved stick, no pink
face. He was browner than the boy, no red in his skin. Although he dipped as he walked on his twisted leg, he moved easily. He lay down in the shade and seemed to sleep.

  Hawk, she whispered. He went lower. And suddenly Hana felt watched. The man’s eyes had opened – clear blue – and although he could not see her she felt he was looking through Hawk and finding her. She shifted quickly; splashed off the boulder into the stream; and suddenly Hawk’s cry, far away, rang in her head – a cry she had not heard before but understood instantly: danger. A new picture sprang into her mind: herself, tiny, in the stream, and two men on the banks in front of her, and a third, thigh-deep, coming behind.

  Hana slid down the silver rope that bound her to Hawk. She saw with her own eyes, which brought the men close as though they had jumped at her. A black man, a white man, dressed in leather jerkins with the Limping Man’s emblem scratched on the front. One had the two lines tattooed on his forehead. Burrows men – she knew it from their grunting at each other, and from their smell as they came close. Behind her, the third man was city – he was smoother, white-skinned and used to command. Yet he held an iron knife, balanced in a way that showed he knew how to throw. Hana was used to running and hiding. But there was nowhere to go, upstream or down. The men on the banks carried crossbows. They grinned at her, waiting for her to move. The water slowed her legs and stones rolled under her feet. If she could get into the trees it would spoil their aim. She dived sideways, clawing at the bank.

  ‘Shoot her. Shoot,’ cried the man with the knife. She wriggled sideways and heard a bolt thud into the bank. She clawed her way past it, almost to the top. Then she heard Hawk scream and she flung herself round in time to see him swoop at the second bowman and rake his face open with his claws. The man sprayed blood but kept his hold on his bow and swung it upwards. Hawk hovered for a second dive. The man released his shot. Hana felt the pain. The bolt took Hawk in the wing, puffing out feathers and making him lurch towards the stream. Somehow he kept himself in the air, losing height, gliding between the enclosing banks down the narrow gorge. His feet touched the water where it heaped over a rock. He tried to flap. She heard his scream of pain. Then he settled in the water and floated out of sight round the bend. Feathers drifted in the air. One fell on Hana’s throat. She raised her face and made a long bitter cry of loss.

  The knifeman grabbed her ankle and hauled her into the stream. He put his foot on her and held her under, then jerked her up by the hair, let her suck in air and pushed her under again. The next time he pulled her up he forced her head back.

  ‘Now, tell me your name.’

  ‘Hana,’ she gasped.

  ‘Where do you come from? Quick.’

  ‘The city. The burrows.’

  ‘A runaway.’

  ‘Kill her,’ groaned the man Hawk had attacked. He was sitting up to his waist in the stream, trying to stop the flow of blood from his torn face.

  ‘Where are your people?’ the knifeman asked.

  ‘No people,’ she said. ‘I’m alone.’

  ‘She’s lying. Kill her,’ sobbed the wounded man.

  ‘I ran away. I’m by myself.’

  ‘We hunt runaways. All who don’t worship the Man die. Say you worship him. Say you love the Limping Man.’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Kill her.’

  The third man was crossing the stream. ‘Let’s have some fun with her first,’ he said.

  ‘Shut your traps,’ the knifeman said. He was enjoying himself. ‘Now, say after me, the Limping Man is Lord. He is Master.’

  ‘I – I can’t,’ Hana said.

  ‘And then I might kill you quick. Do you know who we are, girl? We’re bounty hunters. See here.’ He flipped open the cover of a pouch he wore at his waist. ‘Do you know what they are? Thumbs, girl, each one worth a piece of silver when we get home. Runaway thumbs. Dweller thumbs. Seventeen in there. You’re eighteen. But if you say “The Limping Man is Lord”, then I’ll cut off your thumb and let you go.’

  ‘Ha,’ scoffed the second bowman.

  ‘Shut up, you. Now girl, you know what to say.’

  ‘He . . .’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘He burned my mother.’

  ‘Witch-spawn,’ growled the wounded man. ‘Kill her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the knifeman. ‘Enough talk.’

  He drew his knife, took a handful of Hana’s hair and forced her head back. The blade began a swoop, back-handed, at her stretched throat. She opened her mouth to cry Hawk’s name. A thudding sound came, like the closing of a door. The man grunted with shock. He let her hair go and dropped his knife. Slowly he sank to his knees and fell face down in the water. Threads of blood drifted away from the blade embedded in his back.

  FIVE

  Ben threw without thinking. There was no time. As his knife flew the man’s blade flashed in a crossways slash. The girl’s face vanished behind his arm. Then the knife fell from his hand. He knelt as though his knees had been struck from behind and fell face down in the water. The handle of Ben’s knife stood above the surface like a snapped twig.

  The girl blinked. She opened her mouth, gulping air – gulping life into herself. Then she moved: jumped in the water up to her thighs, pulled the knife from the dead man’s back with a savage jerk, scrambled up the bank, screaming a name – her own or someone else’s? – to where the man with the bloody face had retreated. He was frantically arming his crossbow and he swung it up as the girl leaped like a fangcat, pointing the knife double-handed. She went over the weapon, making a spear of herself, and plunged the knife deep into his throat. Then she stood and raised her face to the sky. ‘Hawk,’ she screamed.

  Ben looked for the third man. Lo held him in midstream. At some command Ben could not hear, he dropped his crossbow in the water. The girl, turning, saw him. She hurled herself from the bank, holding the bloody knife spear-like again.

  Stop, girl, Lo said.

  Ben heard the command. It held him still as though it was for him. The girl kept on until she was a dozen steps from the helpless man.

  Stop, Lo said in a stronger voice.

  She strained as though against ropes. ‘They killed Hawk,’ she managed to say.

  ‘Give the knife to Ben,’ Lo said aloud.

  Ben saw how he strained too, holding both the man and the girl. He came up behind her and slid the knife out of her hand. Quickly he washed it clean of blood.

  ‘Go to the bank. Sit down,’ Lo said.

  She obeyed, murmuring brokenly.

  Lo looked at the bowman. He held him only lightly.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Steyn.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Blood Burrow.’

  ‘The dead men too?’

  ‘One’s from the city.’

  ‘Why do you come here?’

  ‘We hunt runaways and Dwellers.’

  ‘To kill them?’

  ‘Yes. And take their thumbs.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘Our master. The Limping Man.’ He raised his hands in front of his chest, thrust out his index fingers and drew one down straight, then the other, crookedly.

  ‘That’s his sign?’ Lo said.

  ‘The sign of the Man. We serve the Man.’

  Ben felt the sadness in his father. He held himself ready to throw if Steyn broke free. But Lo felt the danger and increased his hold.

  He has a knife. Take it, he said to Ben.

  Ben felt in the man’s clothing and found a hidden knife. He looked at the blade, used for cutting off thumbs, and threw it as hard as he could into the trees.

  ‘Now go,’ Lo said to Steyn. ‘And don’t come back.’

  ‘Can I . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I take the thumbs? The agent pays . . .’

  ‘Go.’

  ‘I am a poor man. I must buy food for my sons.’

  ‘Start running now. Go home. Never leave the burrows again,’ Lo said. He repeated the com
mand silently, digging it deep. Steyn’s eyes went blank. He turned, climbed into the trees and vanished from sight. Lo washed his face in the stream, washing Steyn away.

  Look after the girl, he said to Ben.

  She sat near the bowman’s body but took no notice of it. Her hands were red with his blood. Ben approached cautiously.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  ‘They killed Hawk,’ she whispered.

  ‘Tell me your name.’ She was ugly, he thought. Black ragged hair, face stained with blood and tears, eyes wet and blurred. They were green, with golden flecks. He had never seen eyes like them.

  ‘Killed him,’ she said. Her voice had the same edges as Hari’s – did that mean she came from the place, Blood Burrow, Ben had heard him talk about?

  ‘Wash your face,’ he said.

  He turned away from her and threw the dead man’s weapons into the trees.

  Lo approached the girl. His beard dripped water. He looked as if he’d risen from the bottom of a pool. She looked at him with no interest.

  ‘Her name is Hana,’ Ben said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She took the message to Tealeaf. She talks with a hawk.’

  ‘You use the bird’s eyes?’ Lo asked. ‘He watches from the sky?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ the girl said. ‘It’s all dark now.’

  Lo turned away from her and looked down the stream.

  ‘Wash yourself, Hana,’ Ben said. She stank of blood.

  She took no notice, but closed her eyes and rocked back and forth. Again tears ran down her cheeks.

  Lo turned to her slowly. ‘Say what you say to him. Say his name.’

  ‘His name is Hawk.’

  ‘He’s still alive.’