Free Maeve by Jo Clayton Page A

Neither one bothered to examine the forest above eye level.
    Without warning, the net dropped.
    Tough, sticky strands wound around arms and legs as the guards struck out against the billowing folds of the net. Greenish-brown shadows dropped immediately after, leathery palms glistening with cuyen oil, applied to keep the sticky substance on the net off their hands. One of the energy rifles flared briefly. A cludair grunted and clutched at his side where the edge of the beam had sheared away his harness and bitten into muscle. Before the gun could fire again, another hunter kicked it from the guard’s hand.
    The four cludair still standing caught the net and tugged at it. In minutes, the armored figures were wound in its sticky strands like flies in a spider’s web. As soon as the leader worked a polished pole through the web, three of the hunters shouldered the pole and trotted their burden deeper into the forest. The fourth helped the wounded cludair hobble toward the village.
    Gwynnor watched both groups disappear. “What are they going to do with the guards?”
    â€œCome see.” With a ghost of a laugh, Ghastay ran after the burdened hunters.
    Five minutes later they watched the hunters drop the hardening lump on the ground with a careless thump that jarred the helpless guards till their teeth ached. Grimly, the leader rubbed the aromatic oil on his knife. Ignoring the frantic twitches that were the only movements the imprisoned men could make, he cut their heads free from the net, pulling the knife across the face-plates with a shrill nerverasping screech until they were clean. Then the knife poked and prodded at the plates until the point suddenly tripped the latch. The guards drank in gulps of the hot, humid air, then glared at the mottled face of the native bending over them.
    He stepped back, gestured briefly. A second hunter brought a green glass phial from the pouch at his belt and pulled the rolled leather stopper out. He thrust a finger deep into the phial and brought it out covered with a viscous amber liquid. Carelessly, with brisk economy of motion, he wisped his finger across a guard’s face, leaving behind a trail of sticky sweetness. He repeated the action with the second.
    In the brush, Ghastay clapped a hand over his mouth, smothering a slight fizzing of laughter.
    â€œWhy’d they do that?” Gwynnor whispered.
    Ghastay pulled his hand down. “That dead tree the Company men are up against. You see?”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œIt’s an ant tree. Get it?”
    Gwynnor stifled a gasp, shoving his fist against his mouth. “Cwech arteith!” he muttered as soon as he had control of his speech. “The hatchlings have just cracked shell if they’re the same as ours.”
    Ghastay nodded, his young face turned grim. “The Company men want to eat the forest; well, turn and turn is fair. Let the forest eat them.”
    A second pair of guards dangled, turning and twisting as hundreds of needlebirds darted at them in swooping dives. Only small crimson and blue bundles of feathers, their darting rushes sent the mecho-bodies at the end of the nooses swinging in erratic, sickening circles. The birds couldn’t get at them but the faces inside the helmets had a greenish tinge that owed nothing to the verdant light filtering down through the canopy of leaves.
    Ghastay and Gwynnor crept very carefully past the tree with the strange fruit. Very carefully, to avoid attracting the attention of the glittering swarm.
    Safely past the danger, Gwynnor peered through bush leaves, his movement crushing the delicate fuzz on the leaves, loosing a stiffling cloud of oil droplets around his head. Ghastay jerked him away impatiently. “If you call out a swarm of needlebirds. I’m going somewhere else.”
    He ripped a handful of purple leaves from a small vine crawling along the ground at ankle height. “Take this. Wipe the oil off your head.” He glanced