Cuckoo's Egg by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online

cliffside, dropping to a slant where Duun's feet would skid, where Duun's leg might fail—
    The wind, O fool, the wind is at your face; Duun had checked the wind this morning. There was no corner Duun-hatani did not see around before his quarry even saw the turn—
    The pebble in the tea—
    Upland or downland? Do what Duun said and surprise him with obedience? Or do the opposite?
    Run and run: he was quicker than Duun, that was all he was. He had grown up in these hills; and so had Duun. Thorn was more agile. He could take the high slope on his bare feet at greater speed than Duun—
    —but Duun knew that.
    Wild choice, then. Logic-less. He darted downslope.
    Wind in his face, wind carrying his scent; and he had to get around that bend first, around the mountain shoulder.
    Duun was at his back. It was not the pain Thorn dreaded, though pain there would be. It was Duun. Duun himself.

    * * *
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    Cuckoo's Egg

    The wind carried scent and Duun breathed it— fool, Duun thought, at the edge of the rocks; but twice a fool is a hunter too secure. There was the easy temptation— to win at once, to take the rash chance, the wide chance.
    But it was hatani he hunted. No more minnow, but fish in dark water.
    He smelled the wind and knew Thorn's direction and his distance; he knew the branch of the trail that gave access to the cliff and knew the way Thorn could take that he could not— he knew every track in the hills.
    Thorn knew he knew. That was the conundrum: how well he had taught the fish.
    And what kind it was, how native-adept, what skill was bred into its bone and blood… what intelligence, what instincts.
    Five-fingered hands; a surer grip; a talent at climbing: these it had. It had youth: strong legs, that felt no pain.
    It knew— if it used its wits— how a once-maimed shonun had to compensate for these things.
    And it would, being hatani, try to predict; try then to seize events and turn them.
    It smelled of fear and sweat, even when the wind had cleaned the scent. It stank of something else, a bitter, acrid taint.

    * * *
Run and run: it was speed Thorn had first for advantage. It was agility—
    Duun's was greatest, hand to hand. But Thorn's was more in distance, in the rocks, in the quick scaling of a tilted tree across a crack—
    (Fool! he'll know—)
    (But it will cost him time.)

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    And Thorn had gotten the mountain between him and Duun, gotten stone between them, to confuse the scent.
    But Duun could smell where a hand had been, if he got his nose down to it. So Duun claimed.
    (Run, minnow. I'm coming, little fish….)
    Downland. The opposite of what Duun had said he ought to do: should he confound the choice? What was there to do that he had never done?
    (Gods, his gut, his bowels ached. Fear? The chase? The jolts from rock to rock?)
    (Something in the food?)

    * * *
Duun tripped the support. The log rolled down the gravel slope. Hastily done. Rife with scent. He spotted the second trap too, the limb drawn back, and drew back his hand in time.
    Double-snared.
    (Good, fish. Well done, that. But not good enough.) Thorn knelt on hands and knees. He had reached the road and crossed it, leaving tracks; he paused to set a rock up on a twig, on a slope where haste might set a foot, then hurled himself downslope, leaving further tracks, leaving a bit of skin on the stones below.
    He miscalculated further, sprawled. His face stung with shame. He gathered himself up again, doubled over a little farther on sweating and resisting the easy support of a tree.
    (Touch nothing, leave no trace—)

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    Cuckoo's Egg

    Duun would hurt him. That was nothing. It was the look in Duun's gray eyes. The stare. The scorn.
    Thorn bent and caught his breath; and wits began to work. He looked up at the slope he had left.
    (Take me now, face to face.)
    (The walls are down, minnow. What will you do?)
    (Did Duun sleep? Could Duun sleep more than he did these last nights in the house?)
    Was Duun-hatani lying awake