An hour later, the scout returned. Phylomon spotted him two hundred yards off to his left. He was a big man, grunting and sweating as he carried the gun. By that Phylomon expected that he was the simpleton that Tull had spoken of, for he had a simple man's strength. He wasn't an imbecile, but he was none too bright, either.

He circled Phylomon on stealthy feet, staying out of sight, then carefully crept in close to set the unwieldy gun down in the brush, taking long careful aim.

Phylomon watched the scout in his mirror, careful to pretend to be looking down in the valley. The scout kept ducking behind the ferns.

The swivel gun was made of crude iron and had a three-foot barrel. Pirates sometimes mounted such guns on boarding vessels. It held a single cartridge that fired a four-inch bullet. It was a clumsy weapon, meant for shooting on a ship at point-blank range.

Phylomon considered what to do. If he attacked the scout, he could surely kill him, but more slavers were out there, and Phylomon feared that some might escape. Phylomon did not believe the scout would try to shoot him with that clumsy old gun just yet. No, he'd wait until the other slavers gathered.

Although Phylomon felt the presence of the symbiote, could speak to it, he could not explain the exact nature of his enemies, nor could he communicate the concept of gun to the animal. Instead, he let his fear course through him and felt the skin harden like bands of steel.

Men began walking up through the woods along the trail, five of them pacing slowly. Their heads swiveled back and forth stealthily, as if they were hunting. They offered a simple diversion for the real threat behind. Phylomon watched the men, nocked an arrow as if he'd taken the bait, and then he scrambled ten feet to the left. He imagined the gunner scurrying to correct his aim, and then he whirled and fired his arrow.

The gunner had been kneeling and rose as Phylomon fired. An arrow that should have taken him in the chest lodged in the simpleton's hip. He jerked the barrel of the gun, pointing it vaguely in Phylomon's direction, and dropped the hammer. Smoke boiled from the barrel.

Phylomon dodged, but the ball slammed into his ribs, and the blue man was flung backward. He spun several times and dropped.

"On him, boys!" the gunman shouted. "He's down!" Phylomon grabbed his side, felt a bloody mess. It was numb. He could see nothing, for he was blinded by pain.

He coughed, and tasted blood running from his throat, swallowed it. He heard the men charging toward him in the brush, and he pulled a long ragged piece of flesh from the gaping wound.

He had never been hurt so badly. His ribs were split and pulped, though the symbiote anesthetized him. He heard ribs cracking as the symbiote manipulated them back into position, felt hot burning as muscles regenerating. Phylomon pulled the knife that he kept strapped to his right leg, and cried out at the pain.

Fear. I taste fear, the symbiote said.

He heard the gunman limping toward him, and several men drew around him in a circle.

"He's wounded," one man said. "Look at the hole! It's closing! Quick, shoot him again!"

Fear. I taste fear.

The gunman popped the chamber of the swivel gun open, grunted and swore as he pulled the red hot shell from the chamber. One fellow rushed forward and swung an ax down on Phylomon's neck. It connected with a dull thud, and the man swore. "I can't cut through!"

Why do you fear?

The gunman dropped another heavy shell into the chamber, and Phylomon's vision cleared so that he could see a second fellow move toward the gunman. The two men grunted as they lifted the barrel, taking aim.

"Kill them," Phylomon told his symbiote.

The evening air crackled and filled with ozone and white lightning as the symbiote earned its keep.

Before dinner, Scandal took Ayuvah downhill to pick blackberries, leaving only Little Chaa to watch the mastodon. Yet Little Chaa had called a crow to his hand and stood feeding it and talking softly while the mastodon foraged.

Tull stayed with the wagon and kept staring into the forest, listening for the wratcheting call of jays, the snap of a twig. He got into the wagon and pulled out his battle armor—a leather band for his head, an iguanadon-hide shield painted in forest green and brown, leather leggings and wrist guards. He pulled out his kutow. For a long time, he watched Ayuvah and Scandal pick berries down by the pond.

The orange-haired Neanderthal was a premier woodsman who hunted by scent, as some Blade Kin were said to do. Ayuvah's presence made Tull feel safe. He wondered if he should tell Ayuvah what Phylomon was up to. But who knew what Phylomon would find? Perhaps the men would not be out there. Even if they were, would they really harm anyone in the party? Hardy Goodman the simpleton?

Wisteria saw Tull looking at his kutow and asked "Is something wrong?"

"No," Tull said, taking her hand. He considered. No, he'd worked for Hardy many times. Hardy would never hurt him. Tull dropped his war gear, then led Wisteria to the wagon and hid within its shelter. Tull held her delicately, as if she were a bouquet of roses that he did not want to crush.

He'd seen the way Chaa and Zhopila treated one another, and he'd often admired their tenderness toward one another. They were not only affectionate, they'd found countless and often ingenious ways to serve one another: Chaa would hunt in the mountains in winter for merganser ducks to make pillows so Zhopila could have something soft to sit on while she ground her grain for dinner. Zhopila grew a patch of mint, which she then dried and brought into the house to make it smell sweet in Chaa's meditation lodge.

Now as Tull stared at Wisteria, he wondered how he could show her the type of love he held for her. For the last two days he'd tried. He'd watched Ayuvah clear rocks and pine cones from Little Chaa's bed, saw the way he kept his brother's water jug filled, and Tull followed Ayuvah's example, hoping that by emulating myriad small acts he could learn to love.

Yet, he sensed something odd in his relationship with Wisteria. She seemed cool toward him at times, cooler than newlyweds should feel. Oh, he felt something. The caress of her fingers as she teased the hairs at the nape of his neck gave him delicious chills and filled his loins with fire. The smell of her breath pleased him more than Scandal's finest banquet. To lay his hand on her hip and know that Wisteria was his wife filled him with joy. Yet he could tell that she did not reciprocate, and this scared Tull, for he wondered if he was losing her because he did not know how to love.

He kissed her slowly. They were hidden here in the darkness of the great barrel, so he let his hand ease along her blouse till it cupped her breast. She pushed him away.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm not in the mood."

"I'm the one who should be sorry," Tull said. "My timing is bad. I should not be thinking of you now. Yesterday, we saw the mayor's Dryad, and she said that men from town are following us, and they have the swivel gun. Phylomon went to hunt them, yet the men from town may well be hunting us tonight. I should go and warn the others."

Wisteria smiled up at him. "Make love to me quickly then," she said. She pulled him to the bottom of the barrel and her kisses grew passionate, insistent.

The sun was setting. Tull heard a squirrel bark pahaa, pahaa, and sat up. The squirrel barked from the woods on the west side of the clearing.

Wisteria pulled him down, kissed him, and said, "These last few days with you have been the best of my life. I've never felt such peace and joy as I feel in your arms."

Tull gazed into her brown eyes. Her pupils were dilated, and her lips and cheeks were ruddy from kissing. Her breath was warm on his throat. He kissed her softly again, as a deep boom filled the woods to the east, echoing and re-echoing off the hills.

"The swivel gun!" Tull said. He grabbed his war shield, pulled his kutow, leapt from the back of the wagon and ran downhill to camp.

Little Chaa stood with the mammoth beside the brush, peering into the heart of the woods. He shouted, "I heard someone yell!"

Tull stood, not knowing what to do. Little Chaa raced back to the wagon, tore through the weapons, and picked a long narrow spear. Down near the pond, Scandal and Ayuvah waded cautiously through deep ferns toward the forest's edge.

Tull heard a definite shout, someone barking the word "No!" But the voice did not seem to come from the woods; instead it seemed to come from a small hill on the other side of the valley. Tull realized that it was only a trick of acoustics, the voice echoing off the hill, but Scandal and Ayuvah scrambled off toward the apparent source of the sound.

Tull took a few hesitant steps into the forest and shouted back to Little Chaa, "Stay with the wagon."

Wisteria ran up behind Tull. He peered into the growing shadows of the redwoods, and he could hear jays and squirrels shrieking their warnings, too many warnings. Something nearby had them stirred up. He would have raced forward, but he knew that if their enemies had set an ambush, it would be set right in front of him. He studied the shadows behind the trees, tuning his senses to that area.

Just behind him, Little Chaa cried, "Oh, no!"

Tull heard a single slap, and the sound of a body sliding in the grass. He whirled, thinking that men from town had come up behind them, but in the shadows not twenty feet back stood a giant with a long sloping forehead and massive jaws. It had a pale brown body lightly covered with coarse fur. Tull stared into the chest of the beast and watched its rib cage expand and shrink as it breathed.

The beast stood nine feet tall and was at least four feet broad at the shoulders.

Kwea struck Tull—an old terror more powerful than anything he'd ever experienced. He felt as if he'd been climbing a hill and the ground suddenly broke beneath him. He was slipping, falling.

His heart leapt in panic. His legs collapsed, and it seemed to take forever to drop to the ground. He could not breathe, dared not breathe.

The beast bent forward, its arms so long that its knuckles swept the ground. It picked up what was left Little Chaa, and Tull could see that the boy had nearly been ripped in half at the stomach by a blow from this creature's fist.

Tull's lungs clogged with the smell of sour sweat and carrion.

Wisteria cried, "Mastodon Men!" and took off running, and someplace in the back of his mind, Tull realized that their mammoth was trumpeting and stampeding away.

The sound of Wisteria's voice seemed to startle the Mastodon Man, and it turned toward her and roared, flashing yellow fangs, shaking the corpse of Little Chaa in the air with one mighty fist.

Tull couldn't move. In his mind's eye, he was a toddler again, cowering in his bedroom. Instead of a Mastodon Man, Jenks stood before him. And instead of rattling the corpse of Little Chaa in the air, Jenks rattled shackles.