Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 24

Cooharah could not sleep, though his full belly weighed on him, making his thoughts sluggish. He and Aaw slept in the open, on a small pile of rocks. It was not dangerous to sleep so, this far from the tangle. His only fear in the desert was that thin, translucent glass snakes might crawl from their sandy burrows and slip quietly up to drink some blood as Cooharah slept. The snakes drank little, but Cooharah and Aaw might be days from water. They couldn’t afford the blood loss.

Yet fear of glass snakes is not what kept Cooharah awake, gazing at stars that burned so steadily tonight, blazing in the heavens. No, not glass snakes. It was voices whispering in his head, the reproach of his ancestors. “Blood debt,” they whispered. “You owe the oomas a blood debt.”

Cooharah envisioned a Qualeewooh composed of light, beating its wings among the stars. It stared at Cooharah accusingly.

The voice of his ancestor came clear tonight, of all nights, when it bore a message Cooharah didn’t want to hear. The onus of a blood debt was heavy. If Cooharah had stolen food from another Qualeewooh, he owed food. Twice the amount taken.

With a creature as large as the one they’d killed, Cooharah could not pay the debt with less than six skogs. Probably eight. Of course the skogs could not be killed on the oomas’ territory. They must come from land near Cooharah’s own aerie.

But Cooharah and Aaw had no aerie, no territory to hunt. Their oasis had gone dry. The Qualeewoohs lived only on hope, thin as it was. Rain would come soon. The oases would be watered anew. Rivers would flow-a few months from now. But presently Cooharah and Aaw had no hunting territory.

“Even if we owe the oomas,” Cooharah said to his ancestor, “we cannot pay now. Their oasis is far from others. If I kill a skog, I won’t be able to take it to them. I will die.”

“Blood debt. You owe a blood debt,” the ancestor whispered. “Double payment. Food for food, chick for chick. Turn back.”

“Negative to the third degree,” Cooharah trilled. “I owe no blood debt. I-how do I know it was an animal the oomas owned? It could have been a predator the humans are well rid of!”

The green ancestor flapped its wings. Its eyes blazed like twin suns. “Blood debt,” it whispered. “You owe a debt.”

Cooharah knew he owed a blood debt. He’d never heard of any predators brought by the humans that used projectile weapons. This beast must have been a pet, perhaps a guardian. The humans had given it a weapon.

Cooharah could not bear the accusation in the ancestor’s voice. If he could have removed his spirit mask, he would have. He would have clawed it from his face with his tiny paws; pried it, tearing flesh from bone. Yet to do so was suicide. Cooharah could not deprive Aaw of a mate, someone to hunt for her and her chick in the new land. No, the spirit mask was part of him. His parents had painted it to his face at adulthood, and it would remain a part of him till he died and his own chicks used it to line the walls of some aerie.

Cooharah closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind, trying to deny the voice. commanding him to return to human lands. “Not now,” he screamed silently, prying at his mask with the thin fingers at the apex of his wings, clawing till blood ran down his jaws, soaking his feathers. “Not now. Someday. Someday I will pay!”