Baker, Kage - Company 02 - Sky Coyote by Baker Kage

Author:Baker, Kage
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2004-10-16T14:58:03+00:00

... He should have returned by now, that's all." Sepawit finished and stepped back from the edge. I felt bad for him. He was looking out into a darkness a lot blacker than the night, from the edge of a pit much deeper and filled with nastier stuff.

"I can't answer for your Speaker, Sepawit. You know that bad things happen. You've got my word for it, though: I'll keep you safe, you and everybody here tonight," I told him.

"I believe You," he sighed, rubbing where his ulcer was hurting him.

We went back in, and Sepawit picked his way through the crowd to the fire, where he raised both hands for attention.

"Everybody? We're just about ready to start"—assorted cheers from the multitude, spirits and villagers alike—"so settle down and get comfortable. Before we begin, I'd like to remind all of you to thank the Civic Works Committee for the great job they did on fixing up the hoop field at such short notice. And let's not make their job tomorrow any more difficult by leaving trash around, all right? Wherever you're sitting, be sure to look around you when you leave and pick up any bones or leaf wrappings or whatever you may have discarded in the course of the evening and make sure you throw them in the latrine where they belong. Agreed?" There were grumbles of assent from various quarters. Somebody far to the back yelled:

"We want a SHOW!"

"Yeah!!" shrieked one of our anthropologists gleefully. I turned around with a stern look.

Got to preserve cosmic order, after all. Everybody took the hint and focused attention on the sacred enclosure, except for MacCool, who was solicitously offering Mendoza a bowl of acorn mush. She was declining politely, looking through him.

"All right, all right!" Sepawit looked toward the sacred enclosure for a cue. "Just sit tight, folks, because I think— are we? We are? Here we go!"

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Company%202%20-%20Sky%20Coyote.htm (123 of 244) [10/16/2004 2:58:46 PM]

He stepped back into the shadows as a drumming cadence began and was picked up by a shrill chorus of whistles. From an unseen place the music grew louder, until it was an alert, a warning, like flashing lights. Someone invisible threw something on the fire, and colored flames leaped up. Out of the darkness came a long low growl, a sound to raise the hackles on an old operative who remembered cave bears. Hold on: where was it coming from? Was it drooling out of the shadows behind us? From over here? Over there? Had something come down from the hills? Every member of the audience shivered and crouched down, but nobody could look away from the leaping flames.

There! It was a bear, shambling forward out of the enclosure. It was a grizzly, turning his head this way and that to smell the air. He shrugged his humping shoulders and muscled up on hind legs, weaving from side to side. You could see the costume feathers and Nutku's face, you knew it was only him, but there was another dimension here.

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