Carnivores of Light and Darkness Read Online Free PDF

their weapons. Their leader hastened to calm them.
    “Peace! The man has something to say!”
    Tilting back his head, the lanky herdsman peered up at the slim bodies within the branches. “Nothing is predetermined. I will help you—if I can.”
    His response inaugurated an even greater racket than before among the members of the troop. They leaped joyously from branch to branch, flung handfuls of leaves into the air, and did somersaults on narrow tree limbs without a single spill. When they began to quiet down, Gomo rejoined them, scampering up a trunk and swinging himself effortlessly back into the branches.
    “This way, friend Ehomba.” From his perch he used his spear-stick to point northeastward. “It is not far to the Aurisbub, and we need to hurry. In order to look for help, we had to leave the females and young in the care of juveniles and silverhairs. They will be wishing anxiously for us to return.”
    Ehomba nodded as he followed along below, occasionally glancing up into the branches to check the troop’s direction. “Just don’t expect me to travel through the trees. I am no monkey.”
    “No,” Gomo agreed sadly. “Your kind has lost that ability and that freedom. We feel badly for the tribe of men.”
    Although the vegetation grew steadily denser as they moved inland away from the coast, there were still places where the troop was forced to drop to the ground and walk upright. Out of the trees, they were at their most vulnerable, and their alertness was correspondingly heightened. At such times they tended to shed their monkey bravado and cluster closer to the tall, well-armed human.
    Once, they saw a patrolling leopard. A reversed female, her yellow spots were prominent against her black body. She only glanced in their direction. Of more concern was the herd of hairy elephants that lumbered past close on their southern flank. But despite the presence of young among them, the elephants, hot within their woolly coats, were interested only in reaching the river and assuaging their thirst. A couple of matriarchs bellowed in the troop’s direction, raising both trunk and curving tusks, but did not swerve from their course. The troop paused briefly to let the herd get well ahead. It would not do to stumble into the migrating behemoths in the middle of the night.
    The members of the troop shared their meager rations with the man in their midst, and he accepted the nuts and berries and fruit more out of politeness than necessity. Still, it was good to be able to conserve his own stores. One never knew when the future might prove less accommodating.
    Eventually a line of taller trees appeared ahead, stretching unbroken from south to north. Birds and small dragons and squeaking pipperils flocked above it while rodents mowed the shorter grasses in long, disciplined ranks. Unlike the barren coast, this was clearly a region of abundance.
    “Yonder lies the Aurisbub,” Gomo told him as his troop broke into a gamboling trot. “We are a little south of where we should be. When we strike the river we will turn north, and soon I will be back in the bosom of my family.”
    “I wish I could say the same.” Mirhanja’s warmth was already a too-distant memory.
    “I am no seer, Ehomba, and so cannot prophesy the end of your journey. But by traveling along the Aurisbub to the Kohoboth and then to Kora Keri, I
can
predict that you will achieve it sooner.” He slipped a long, lanky arm around the human’s thighs. “Come now. We are close to friendly faces and places.”
    The explosion of joy that greeted the appearance of the troop was something to see. Females and young came pouring, tumbling out of a clutch of trees that grew close to the river, setting up a din that had to be heard to be believed. The acrobatics the herdsman had witnessed earlier were as nothing compared to the circus that now ensued. The scene of reunion was one of utter and unrestrained monkey mania.
    When families had been reunited and