People of the Sky by Clare Bell Page B

to her feet. She felt a small strong hand at her elbow. Imiya. “Hotopa Wuwuchpi,” she said, holding out the paho .
    In the semicircle before the wuwuchpi the child-warriors turned their heads to her.
    “Come to the head,” the youth offered. “It is easier to reach.” Kesbe hobbled to the creature’s head with its grotesque mouth-parts and five sagging eye-mushrooms. Overcoming the pain andsickness that weighted her tongue, she said, “I who hooked you with a barb and dragged you from the river lay this pabo upon you so your spirit is not angered.”
    “Now turn your head and spit over your shoulder to cleanse yourself of evils,” said Imiya, demonstrating. She did.
    “Hai, it is done. Now we leave Hotopa Wuwuchpi to the spirits for the night before we take its meat.” The boy licked his lips. “Dried, it will make good jerky.”
    Kesbe’s uncertain stomach gave another lurch at the thought of that. “I have to sit down,” she said dizzily. The children caught her and carried her to a resting place that was, thankfully, upwind of the carcass.
    After a while, she felt better. She raised herself on her elbows to find the boy crouching beside her. “Imiya, why did you say we hadn’t asked permission to slay the creature? It was trying to kill you and Haewi Namij.”
    Imiya shook his head. “It does not matter. The taking of life is something that disturbs the balance of things. Even when it must be done, the one who slays has responsibilities to the one who is slain. Were you not taught that, Kesbe-Rohoni?”
    “Well, yes, I was, though perhaps in a different way,” Kesbe answered softly. Her abused knee gave another sharp stab, making her gasp and flinch. “Imiya…how far is your village?”
    “We are close,” he answered. “I will take you there now. You are too badly hurt to keep vigil with us on the riverbank.” He leaped up, calling to the girl who had helped carry Kesbe. “Pesquit, bring your aronan! We make a sling. Hurry before night falls.”
    With his hand across his breast, he groped in a drawstring pocket of his shoulder-cape and brought out a piece of fleshy cactus. “Hunters carry this against the pain of wounds. Chew,” he said, putting it to Kesbe’s lips. It had a bitter alkaloid taste and a numbing effect on her tongue. In a few moments the shooting fire in her knee distanced itself from her awareness. The only side effect seemed to be a slight rippling in her vision and a floating feeling. Even so, the cactus seemed to be a powerful drug for a youth to be carrying.
    She watched as the child warriors spread out a close-meshed net and wove the slender fronds of waterplant into it to make a comfortable hammock. At her request, they added several safety straps and lashed her securely into the sling before they harnessed it to the aronan pair. It was rigged fore-to-aft between the creatures with Pesquit’s mount in front and Haewi behind. Kesbe lay facing backward, her knee immobilized by a splint.
    With both riders aboard and Kesbe secure in the sling between the two aronans, the caravan rose off the beach. Below, she could see the other Pai Yinaye child-warriors kneeling before the slain wuwuchpi . It was as though they marked the passing of some great and worthy opponent rather than the extermination of a monster.
    She lay back and watched the walls of the Hellshatter’s gorge drop past her as the aronans made a steady vertical ascent. Then they cleared the lip of the canyon and flew over twisted ridges, spires and strange wind-sculpted shapes until one mesa appeared and drew close. The flight seemed more than ever like a dream to her, for she was so enraptured by the formations passing beneath, beside and even above her that she had no fear of falling. The aronans glided beneath a natural sandstone bridge that seemed to sweep from one side of the horizon to the other.
    And then they were above the Pai Yinaye Mesa itself, spiraling down to a dusty plateau dotted with stands of