The Valley of Thunder Read online

  "But you'd do well to think about what Annabelle had to say. Even if we do escape this Dungeon, who's to sayin what time we would find ourselves? If the world has changed as much as Annabelle has told us it has, then we'd do well to learn to adapt to changes now."

  "It irks me," Clive said.

  "As no doubt your own reactions irked Annabelle. There's a good deal of the Folliot in her—I doubt you'd deny that."

  Clive smiled. "She certainly speaks her mind."

  "Headstrong—like every Folliot I've ever known."

  "And not without her own charm—though. Lord knows. I don't claim that for myself."

  "I wouldn't be so quick to deny it." Smythe said. "I've seen the ladies' eyes on you. Sah, and it wasn't simply your uniform they were admiring."

  "Yes, well..."

  For the second time that day Clive felt his cheeks and neck burn. He cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject.

  "Did we do the right thing, do you suppose—splitting the company in two as we have?"

  "I worry for Annabelle, as well." Smythe replied, "but she seems a most capable young woman, and Sidi and Shriek will look after her, even if the Portuguese is of no help. Besides, I doubt we had much choice. To bring her with us would have required our binding and gagging her. I'll wager."

  Clive nodded. "And as Finnbogg has pointed out, in this place there is no turning back, only faring onward. So I'll look to meet her again in the days to come. And if she promises to ease the sharpness of her longue— why, then, I'll promise to keep a more open mind."

  "No harm in practicing that now," Smythe murmured.

  Clive gave him a sharp glance, then sighed. 'If it's not the one of you, then it's the other."

  "We're both looking out for you, sah. One can be an Englishman and still keep an open mind. It's never harmed me."

  Clive smiled. "Why, then, here's my hand on it, | Horace, and if you find me failing to uphold my side of this bargain, I give you permission to shape me quickly back into line—howsoever you see fit."

  Smythe clasped Clive's hand and grinned back at him. "Watch what you promise, gov'nor." he said, "as there's some as'll take you at your word."

  As he spoke, Smythe's features and stance shifted into that of a quick-stepping London cockney to match his thick accent, and for a moment, Clive was transported away from this bizarre world that familial loyalty had forced him into, back to the cobblestoned streets of home. A pang of loss touched him, but he kept his smile.

  "I expect no less from you, Horace," he said.

  Come the late afternoon, there was a new mystery for them to unravel. The grassland suddenly broke off, and they were confronted with a vast plain, pitted and scored with round indentations that measured some ten feet across. They were scattered everywhere, overlapping often. There were also indications of huge logs or something similar having been dragged about the area. The grass was reduced to stubble; the nearest copse of trees stood out like an island, and had not a leaf upon any of its branches.

  "Now, this is curious," Clive said. "What are we to make of this?"

  The cyborg had paused at the edge of the grassline, waiting for them to catch up to him.

  "Could it have been caused by a shower of meteorites?" Smythe asked. "The heat from their descent would be enough to set fire to the grasslands—wouldn't it?"

  "Unlikely," Guafe said. "The indentations left by meteorites would be explosive—these are compressive."

  "Then what caused these holes?" Clive asked.

  The cyborg shrugged—a very human gesture that he'd undoubtedly picked up from associating with them. "In the Dungeon? It could be anything."

  Smythe was investigating one of the indentations. It was some two feet deep, and the earth was crumbly about its edges.

  "Chang's right." he said as he straightened up. "If these had been caused by meteorites, then we should be able to see some part of them at the bottom of these holes. There's no trace of them." Shading his eyes, he studied the surrounding terrain and added, "But I do see supper."

  They all looked in the direction he was pointing. Near the huge trees of the nearest copse, a small group of creatures was feeding on the short, grassy stubble. They had the heads and ears of hare, elongated necks like giraffes, and the body of deer. Their coloring was dun, touched with the same mauve of the grass, clotted with white spots. Their underbellies were white. In size, they were no taller than a good-sized hound.

  "What are they?" Clive asked.

  "Mammals of some sort," Guafe replied.

  Smythe nodded. "They appear to be a cross between a hare and a deer."

  "Dares?" Clive offered with a smile.

  "A dare does sound more appetizing than a heer." Smythe said. As Guafe began to move in their direction, he added quickly, "Don't frighten them."

  Sitting at the edge of the indentation he'd been investigating, he took off his boots and removed the laces from one of them. Me tied a stone to either end of the lace, then rose to his feet.

  "A Spanish trick," he said with a smile as he whirled the bola experimentally over his head.

  While the others watched, he crept forward, moving at a snail's pace, freezing every time one of the longeared heads lifted. The wind made it easier for him, blowing toward him from his quarry, but from the prickling alertness of their ears, he was sure that they depended mostly on their sense of hearing to alert them to danger.

  When he judged that he was finally close enough, he started the bola whirling again. Heads lifted among the herd at the whistling sound of the weapon, one after the other. Then one creature broke of and began to run. Smythe loosed the bola as the rest of the herd bolted, moving in a curious gait that combined a hop with a run.

  They were as quick as an English hare or deer, but Smythe had been prepared for that. He gave his quarry plenty of lead before loosing his weapon. As the bulk of the herd raced away, the leather thong of the bola struck his target's neck, and the stones wrapped around it with such force that it broke.

  "As I've provided supper," he said as he drew his knife and ran lightly to where his prey still kicked its feet, "I'll let someone else see to building a fire."

  They had the dare meat for supper, and again for breakfast, and yet once more for supper the following night. It had a coarse texture and a slightly gamy flavor, but. considering their circumstances, they all pronounced it a rousing success.

  They left the meteor field behind late on that following day, and pushed through the tall grasses of the veldt for the remainder of the afternoon before they finally made camp. The evening passed uneventfully, with Finnbogg regaling them with more improbable stories of the Dungeon and its curiosities. Smythe particularly enjoyed the dwarfs tales, matching them with ones just as preposterous from his own store whenever Finnbogg grew tired. The cyborg seemed to pay attention to neither of them—it was as though he simply shut himself off when they weren't moving or it wasn't his turn to take watch.

  Clive listened with half an ear. Sometimes he sketched with bits of charcoal on the blank pages in his brother's journal, in the poor light thrown from their fire. Mostly, he worried about the other half of their company, following the river, worrying especially about Annabelle.

  He had the dawn watch that morning. He was sitting with his back against a tree, the fire nothing more than dead ash, when he heard the grumble of thunder. The salmon-colored sun was already rising in the east, so the sky was clear enough that he could see it was cloudless.

  Thunder without clouds? he thought.

  Then the ground shook underfoot—a tremor at first, that grew until it was impossible to stand. By now, the rest of the company was awake as well.

  "Earthquake!" Clive cried.

  A strange expression touched Finnbogg's features. He crawled to the nearest tree and slowly hoisted himself up its trunk, clinging like a limpet to its rough bark. He scouted the horizon, then pointed off toward the north, losing his balance as he did so. He half fell, half slid down me trun
k, landing on the ground hard enough to knock the air from him.

  "What was it?" Clive demanded. "Speak up."

  "Give him a moment to catch his breath." Smythe said as he knell by the dwarf and helped him sit up.

  The ground shook constantly now.

  Finnbogg sat up weakly. "Now... Finnbogg remember." he said.

  "Remember what?" Clive asked.

  The danger on this veldt—the Walking Mountains."

  "The walking—?"

  Guafe called to them then from where he stood holding on to the trunk of the tree. He pointed north as Finnbogg had. The thunder was all around them, the ground reverberating so that it was difficult to merely sit on it.

  "That was no meteor field we crossed earlier," the cyborg said. "It was the feeding ground of brontosaurs."

  Clive and Smythe joined him where he stood, hanging on to the tree for support. The cyborg kept his balance now without need of similar support, riding the shock waves. In the far distance, the two Englishmen could spy an enormous herd approaching them.

  "What do you mean it was a feeding ground?" Clive asked.

  "Their distance makes their size deceptive," Guafe replied. "Those indentations we discovered were not made by meteorites—they were the footprints of those monsters."

  "Footprints?" Smythe asked.

  The disbelief in his voice was obvious to Clive. He found it difficult to believe himself, but the shaking ground and the thunder of the creatures' monstrous tread brought the truth home with a harsh resonance. He clung to the tree trunk and stared at the distant herd.

  The cyborg was nodding. "They reach lengths of up to twenty-five meters and weights ranging between forty and eighty ton. It will be most interesting to observe them at close hand."

  "Walking Mountains." Finnbogg muttered.

  "They're coming our way?" Clive asked.

  "There's no need for alarm," Guafe told him. "They are herbivores. We need only keep out from underfoot."

  "What if they think we are plants?" Smythe asked.

  "Unlikely. Of more concern to us will be the scavengers accompanying the herd—coelurosaurs and the ike."

  Clive regarded the cyborg. "And how... how big are they?"

  "Not large—perhaps the size of an ostrich."

  Clive studied the approaching herd once more, then turned his attention to their surroundings. The nearest branches above them were some seventy feet from the ground. There was no other cover. The most they could hope for was to hug the side of the tree and hope the monsters didn't notice them. But then he remembered the feeding ground they had traveled through, how all the vegetation—from grasses to the topmost leaves— had been razed.

  The ground tremors were so severe now that it took all their strength to hold on to the rough bark of the trees. Of the four, only the cyborg remained standing, still riding the tremors. The rest of them knelt beside the tree, hanging on as best they could.

  "What I wouldn't give for a cannon." Smythe said.

  "Or a few good horses to take us out of here," Clive added.

  The sky was darkening now, but there were still no clouds. It was the vast bulks of the brontosaurs, shadowing the sun.

  "At least Annabelle is safe," Clive said.

  Eight

  The thing you forget. Annabelle thought, when you're watching all those old Johnny Weissmuller flicks, is that it's hot in a jungle. Hot and sticky.

  She wore her jacket tied around her waist as she trudged along behind Shriek and Tomàs. her T-shirt sticking to her back. Her red leather jeans were uncomfortably heavy and chafed her legs. Her short hair hung limply against her scalp, and one hand was in constant motion, brushing mosquitoes and other bugs away from her face. The heat and humidity was draining her vitality with each drop of perspiration it sucked from her. She couldn't even spare the energy her Baalbec A-9 would need to vaporize the ever-attacking insects.

  She wasn't sure how the trek was affecting Shriek, but directly ahead of her. Tomàs walked with his head bent, the heat sucking away his energy, too. His dirty shirt had sweat stains under its arms and all down its back, and his greasy hair hung even more limply than her own. Only Sidi appeared to be unaffected. He walked cheerfully at her side, not even breaking a sweat. By now, Annabelle was too hot and tired to try to imagine any more ways she could wipe that grin from his face.

  What she wouldn't give for an ice-cold can of beer.

  The game trail they were on continued to follow the contour of the river, under low-hanging boughs heavy with strange fruit, choked with blue and purple leaves and blossoming vines. Insects clouded around them, offering little respite. Beyond their vision, the jungle rang with odd animal cries. The few creatures they spied were uniformly bizarre.

  Twice they'd seen troops of flying monkeys in the trees overhead—little wizen-faced creatures with pointed ears and white beards. They leapt from bough to bough, crossing wider expanses by utilizing the outstretched webs of skin between their fore and rear limbs. There was also a shrewlike creature, about the size of her hand, with a long, tusked snout and tiny red eyes, that she caught glimpses of in among the leaves.

  They disturbed small herds of tapirlike beasts, striped like zebras, only the striping was reversed—white on black. In the river they saw swimming monkeys, with webbed feet and streamlined bodies, and a creature like a hippo that had flippers and a tail in place of limbs. It reminded Annabelle of a manatee, but was far larger. Once, they spotted what looked like a cross between a leopard and a monkey—an obviously feline creature that swung between tree boughs, its body slender to the point of anorexia. There were lizards and snakes, possumlike creatures with lupine features, and a hopping kind of rodent that appeared to be a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel.

  The only things that appeared at least vaguely familiar to her were the birds. Though there was still something alien about them, they at least resembled the birds she knew from her own world, ranging from flocks of brightly colored parrots to long-legged wading birds, skimming kingfishers that fed on insects on the river's surface, and busy little hummingbirds the size of Annabelle's thumb. But they were still none of them quite right. The hummingbirds flew in flocks. The kingfishers had wide bills and a peaked fan of head feathers. The wading birds were like blue flamingos crossed with storks. The parrots cluttered and scolded each other like monkeys.

  "Can you believe this place?" she said, glancing at Sidi.

  The Indian grinned. "We're here, aren't we? Hard not to believe what the eyes see."

  "Cute. You know what I mean."

  "Yes. Very strange, yet very familiar. Do you find the heat bothering you?"

  "Every frigging thing is bothering me. I can't believe we've got a week of this to go through before we reach the village. Maybe we should Huck Finn it. you know? Build a raft and pole our way down the river?"

  Sidi shook his head regretfully. "We've nothing to cut the trees down with, Annabelle. Nothing to lash the logs together with."

  "I know. I'm just whining—don't pay any attention to me."

  "Hard not to—you're the boss now."

  The boss. Right. Well, the boss was beginning to regret taking the low road through the jungle. At least, out on the veldt, there'd probably be a breeze.

  "Stop fighting the heat. Sidi said. "Accept it and let it flow through you—you'll feel much better."

  "Easy for you to say."

  "Keli." He made a single, sharp clicking noise at the back of his throat that Annabelle was beginning to recognize as an indication of amusement. "Most discomforts are in the mind," he added. "Defeat them with your stronger will."

  "Right now my mind's kinda turned to mush—like somebody's making a brain stew inside my head and they've got the heat turned way up."

  "It will pass. Annabelle. You'll adapt."

  She managed to find him a grin. "Sure. Just don't hold your breath waiting for it."

  They made camp that night under a sheltering net of tree boughs that overhung the river, le
aving a hut-sized space inside. When a troop of the flying monkeys passed by, high overhead. Shriek pulled loose one of her hair spikes and threw into the chattering cluster. One of the creatures came tumbling down; the rest fled.

  As Shriek set about gutting and skinning the monkey, Annabelle turned away, feeling sick to her stomach. Tomàs smacked his lips.

  "Did you never eat monkey?" he asked.

  He added something in Portuguese that Annabelle found incomprehensible. He shrugged when she asked him to clarify.

  "Muito gosio, sim?" he said.

  "Not for me. pal." she said. "It's too much like eating a relative."

  While the other three feasted on the roast monkey, she settled for a vegetarian meal of tubers and cress, supplementing their blandness with a handful of greenish fruit that looked like grapes, but tasted like a blend of pear and lime, with a texture like a peach.

  She planned to take the first watch—she doubted she could sleep anyway, with this heat—but before anyone turned in. a sudden silence from the jungle all around them stilled their own conversation. The hairs at the nape of Annabelle's neck prickled as she got the sudden sense that something was watching them from beyond the light cast by their small fire. Something sentient.

  Chica-chic.

  The sound came from their backtrail, as though someone had given a maraca a single shake. Not one of their small party even seemed to breathe. The only movement was Shriek's hand edging toward one of her hair spikes.

  Chica-chic.

  Now it came from the direction they'd be taking in the morning.

  'What is it?" Annabelle breathed. "Some kinda animal?"

  "It sounds to me," Sidi whispered back, "like the sound of a gourd rattle, filled with dry seeds."

  Annabelle nodded. "Me. too. Do you think it's a person?"

  The Indian shrugged, but he sat warily, his gaze roving restlessly as he studied the darkness beyond the campfire's glow.

  Chica....

  The noise was farther away now. Muffled and incomplete. They sat in absolute silence, waiting, but it wasn't repeated. Instead, the normal sounds of the jungle arose once more. Insects. The cough of a cat-monkey. The distant cries of night birds.