Gods of Green Mountain by V. C. Andrews

another of the unimportant things he thought mattered.
    Angry at everything and everyone, Baka jumped to his feet, then stalked to where he could stare out of a small window covered with the thin and transparent skin of puka underbellies. The second sun was downing, blazing the sky with myriad beautiful colors. Rainbows everywhere he looked. Colors...Why did Far-Awn think them important?
    In his mud hut covered by hides, Baka drove a strong fist straight through the window!
    His wife gave him a long, long look. Was he too losing his mind? She went to him nevertheless and put her thin arms around him. "I love you, Baka. I've never said that before, and you've never said it to me. If you were to die tonight. I would go on living feeling half a person."
    He was embarrassed. Love was not a thing to be spoken about. The Gods envied those who lived and loved. Yet he whispered daringly, "I think I may love you too, Lee-La."

All Hope Gone
    F ar-Awn was flat on his stomach, stretched out on a rock shelf gazing at the brilliant multicolored sky and admiring the shifting, ever-changing variety of hues sometimes streaked with black. The black in the red heralded the coming of yet another storm. He didn't know that his father was thinking of that storm, and trying to send him thought messages of warning. "Far-Awn, if you be alive, wherever you are, hide yourself well, and keep those puhlets alive!"
    Far-Awn wakened to a new day and a blazing hot sun. His throat was dry and raspy with thirst, and he knew the puhlets suffered the same thirst as he. He didn't take the time to nibble on the food that was left in his bag, but set out immediately to dig for water in the spot he had located the night before. Patiently his animals crowded about and waited.
    Once the thick hard top crust was removed from the ground, like a pastry from a soft fruit pie, the rest was easy. From his pack of supplies, Far-Awn removed a bundle of long, tough hollow reeds. One he drove into the soft muck, connecting others as he drove the reeds in deeper and deeper, forming a pipe. When the resistance against this improvised pipeline gave way, he knew he had struck water. It was then he siphoned up first the mud and then pure and clean water, ice cold from an underground pool. He filled his collapsed water bags and found a rock basin, and emptied two bags full, so the puhlets could drink. He went back for more water, and then drank himself. With quenched thirst, he could think now about food.
    Without food, some of the weaker females wouldn't make the journey to Bay Gar, and he didn't want to lose even one of them. Giant Musha was the only male left alive, so least of all could he afford to lose him--and it took three times as much food to fill Musha's belly than a much smaller female. It took him half the morning to come upon a deep ravine, overhung by a huge slab of rock, underneath which a slimy moss grew. It repelled Far-Awn to just look at it. But the animals in his starving flock weren't in the least finicky today. While he stood there, pityingly watching his animals eat the sickening mess, he sensed something move in the shadows behind him. Quickly Far-Awn spun about to catch a glimpse of sleek black fur that ducked furtively into the rock shadows. The warfars had managed to follow them here, despite all he had done to cover their trail. Not on the rocks could they have left scent--it must have been the wind that betrayed them to their enemies. This complicated an already overwhelming situation. The weakest of his female flock were going to straggle behind the main flock, easy prey.
    Musha came to him, woefully rilling. Far-Awn understood the rilling as talk of still unsatisfied hunger. Reproachfully the animal looked at his master. "Well, I'm doing the best I can," apologized Far-Awn. "I can't find what isn't there, now can I? And I'm hungry too."
    Again Musha rilled, this time from nervousness and not reproach. Far-Awn glanced backward. Just as he thought. Six