The Iron Breed

by Andre Norton

  Though his people's sight adjusted well to partial darkness, there was light in the cave, a dull glow from a small box which was another of Gammage's gifts. It did not need any tending. When the first daylight struck into the mouth of the cave it vanished, coming alive again in the dusk of evening.

  Gammage's bounty, too, were the squares of woven stuff that padded the sleeping ledges along the walls. In summer these were stowed away, and the females brought in sweet-scented grasses in their places. But in the cold, when one curled up on them, a gentle heat was generated to keep one warm through the worst of winter storms.

  “Fal-Kan has hunted well.” Furtig squatted several paces away from his mother's eldest brother, now sitting on his own sleep ledge. Thus Furtig was the prescribed respectful distance below him.

  “A fat cow,” Fal-Kan replied as one who brings home such riches each morning before the full heat of the sun. “But you come in haste, wearing trail destroyer—” He sniffed heavily. “So what danger have your eyes fastened on?”

  Furtig spoke—first of the Barkers and then of the strange boundary sign. With a gesture Fal-Kan dismissed the Barkers. They were what one could expect from time to time, and scouts would be sent to make sure the Barkers were not pack forerunners. But at the story of the slash marks Fal-Kan set aside his claws and listened intently. When Furtig told of his counter-marking, the Elder nodded.

  “That was well done. And you say that these slashes were not deep. Perhaps no more deeply set than these could do?” He held out his hand, extending his natural claws.

  “So it looked.” Furtig had long ago learned that caution was the best tone to take with Elders. They were apt to consider the opinions of the young as misled and misleading.

  “Then this one did not know Gammage.”

  Furtig's open astonishment brought him to the discourtesy of actually interrupting an Elder.

  “Know Gammage! But he is a stranger—not of the Five Caves—or of the western People. Gammage would not know him.”

  Fal-Kan growled softly, and Furtig, in confusion, recognized his error. But his surprise remained.

  “It is time,” Fal-Kan said in the throat-rumbling voice used for pronouncements against offenders of cave custom, “that one speak clearly about the Ancestor. Have you not wondered why we have not been favored by his attention lately, during this time of your growing—though it would seem by your actions that you have not in truth progressed far beyond a youngling?”

  Fal-Kan waited for no answer but continued without a pause.

  “The fact is that our Ancestor”—and he did not say Honored Ancestor or use any title of respect—“is so engrossed by this fear of returning Demons which has settled in his head that he raises voice to unite all People—as if they were of one family or clan! All People brought together!” Fal-Kan's whiskers bristled.

  “All warriors know that the Demons are gone. That they slew each other, and that they could not make their kind anymore, so they became fewer and fewer and finally there were none. Whence then would any come? Do old bones put on flesh and fur and come alive again? But the Ancestor has this fear, and it leads him in ways no prudent one would travel. It was learned the last time his messenger came that he was giving other People the same things he had sent here to the caves.

  “And—with greater folly—he even spoke of trying to make truce with the Barkers for a plan of common defense, lest when the Demons returned we be too scattered and weak to stand against them. When this was known, the Elders refused the gifts of Gammage and told his messenger not to come again, for we no longer held them clan brothers.”

  Furtig swallowed. That Gammage would do this! There must be some other part of the story not known. For none of the People would be so sunk in folly as to share with enemies the weapons they had. Yet neither would Fal-Kan say this if he did not believe it the truth.

  “And Gammage must have heard our words and understood.” Fal-Kan's tail twitched. “We have not seen his messengers since. But we have heard from our truce mates in the west that there were truce flags set before the lairs in the north and strangers gathered there. Though we do not know who those were,” Fal-Kan was fair enough to add. “But it may well be that, having turned his face from his own kin when they would not support his madness, Gammage now gives to others the fruits of his hunting. And this is a shameful thing, so we do not speak of it, even among ourselves, unless there is great need.

  “But of the hunting sign on the tree, that we must speak of—all warriors together. For we are not so rich in game that we can allow others to take our country for their own. And we shall also tell this to the western kin. They come soon for the Trials. Go and eat, warrior. I shall take your words to the other cave Elders.”

  2

  The visitors had been in sight of the cave scouts since midafternoon, but their party did not file into their usual campsite until after nightfall. This was the alternate season when the western clans came to the caves. Next season Furtig's people would cross country for the Trials.

  All the young unmated warriors who were to take part in the coming contests scattered along the in-road (unless their Elders managed to restrain them with other duties). Though it was ill mannered to stare openly at their guests, there was naught to prevent their watching the travelers from cover, making comparisons between their champions and those marching in the protect circle about the females and younglings, or, better still, catching glimpses of their Choosers.

  But to Furtig none of those were as attractive as Fas-Tan of the cave of Formor. And his interest was more for probable rivals than for the prizes of battle the other tribe could display. Not, he reflected ruefully, that he had much chance of aspiring to Fas-Tan.

  Through some trick of heredity which ran in her family, she had odd fur coloring which was esteemed, along with the length of that fur, as beauty. The soft fur about her head and shoulders was nearly three times the length of that sprouting from Furtig's own tougher hide, and it was of two colors—not spotted or patched as was often the case but a dark brown shading evenly to cream. Her tail, always groomed to a silken flow, was also dark. Many were the fish-bone combs patiently wrought and laid at the message rock to the fore of Formor's cave, intended by the hopeful to catch the eye of Fas-Tan. And to know that she used the work of one's clumsy hands was enough to make a warrior strut for a day.

  Fas-Tan would certainly have first choice, and with her pride, her selection of mate would be he who proved himself best. Furtig had not the least chance of catching her golden eyes. But a warrior could dream, and he had dreamed.

  Now another thought plagued him. Fal-Kan's revelations concerning the folly, almost the treachery of Gammage, hung in his mind. He found himself looking not at the females of the westerners, but at the fringe of warriors. Most had hunting claws swinging at their belts. However, Furtig's eyes marked at least three who did not wear those emblems of manhood, yet marched with the defenders. A warrior could gain his claws in two ways, since they no longer came from Gammage. He could put on those which had been his father's if his sire had gone into the Last Dark, or he could challenge a claw wearer and strive for a victory that would make them his.

  Furtig's claws had been his father's. He had had to work patiently and long to hammer their fastenings to fit his own hands. If he were challenged tomorrow by one of the clawless and lost—He dropped his hand protectingly over the weapons at his belt. To lose those—

  However, when he thought of Fas-Tan there was a heat in him, a need to yowl a challenge straight into the whiskered face of the nearest warrior. And he knew that no male could resist the Trials when the Choosers walked provocatively, tails switching, seeming to see no one, yet well aware of all who watched.

  And he was the only contender from the cave of Gammage this year. Also, since his brother Fughan had brought home no mate, he was doubly held to challenge. He wriggled back into the brush and headed for the caves.

  As he pulled up into his own place, he gave a small sigh
. Trials were never to the death; the People were too few to risk the loss of even one warrior. But a contender could be badly mauled, even maimed, if the Ancestors turned their power from him.

  Only Gammage, Furtig's most notable Ancestor, was not here, even in spirit. And it seemed, after he had listened to Fal-Kan, that Gammage had fallen from favor with his own kind. Furtig squatted by the lamp box and lapped a mouthful or two of water from his bowl as he thought about Gammage.

  Why did the Ancestor fear the return of the Demons? It had been so long since the last one had been seen. Unless—Furtig's spine hair raised at the thought—deep in the lairs they still existed. And Gammage, creeping secret ways there, had learned more of their devilish evil than he had shared. But if that were true—no, he was certain Gammage would have sent a plain message, one which might even have won some of the People to join in his wild plans.

  Elders sometimes took to living in the past. They spoke to those who had gone into the Last Dark as if such still stood at their sides. It came to them, this other sight, when they were very old. Though few lived so long, for when a warrior grew less swift of thought, less supple of body, he often died suddenly and bloodily by the horns and hoofs of hunted prey, from the coughing sickness which came with the cold, of a hundred other perils which always ringed the caves.

  Only such perils might not haunt the lairs. And Gammage, very old, saw Demons stalking him in the shadows of their own stronghold. Yes, that could be the answer. But you could not argue with one who saw those gone before. And Gammage, moved by such shadows and master of the lair wonders—why, he could even be a menace to his own People if he continued in his folly of spreading his discoveries among strangers! And even—as Fal-Kan had said—among his enemies! Someone ought to go to Gammage in truth, not just in the sayings of young warriors, and discover what he was doing now. For the good of the People that should be done.

  Going to Gammage—it had been four trials ago that the last one who said that had gone, never to return. Foskatt of Fava's cave. He had been bested in the contests. Furtig tried to recall Foskatt and then wished he had not. For the image in his mind was too like the one he had seen of himself the last time he had looked down at the other-Furtig in the smooth water of the Pool of Trees.

  Foskatt, too, had been thin, narrow of shoulder and loin. And his fur was the same deep gray, almost blue in the sun. He also had been fond of roving on his own and had once shown Furtig something he had found in a small lair, one of those apart from the great ones in which Gammage lived. It was a strange thing, like a square box of metal, and in its top was a square of other material, very smooth. When Foskatt pressed a place on the side of the box, there appeared a picture on the top square. It was Demon-made, and when the cave Elders saw it they took it from Foskatt and smashed it with rocks.

  Foskatt had been very quiet after that. And when he was beaten at the Trials, he had gone to Gammage. What had he found in the lairs?

  Furtig fingered his fighting claws and thought about what might happen tomorrow; he must forget Gammage and consider rather his own future. The closer it came to the hour when he would have to front an opponent chosen by lot, the less good that seemed. Though he knew that once a challenge was uttered, he would be caught up in a frenzy of battle he would neither want to avoid nor be able to control. The very life force of their kind would spur him on.

  Since it was not the custom that one tribe should stare at another in their home place, those of the caves went to their own shelters as the van of the visitors settled in the campgrounds, so Furtig was not alone for long. In the cave the life of his family bubbled about him.

  “There is no proper way of influencing the drawing of lots.” Fal-Kan and two of the lesser Elders drew Furtig aside to give him council, though he would far rather have them leave him alone. Or would he? Which was worse, foreseeing in his own mind what might happen to him, or listening to advice delivered with an undercurrent of dubious belief in their champion? Fal-Kan sounded now as if he did wish there was some way to control the selection of warrior against warrior.

  “True.” Fujor licked absentmindedly at his hand, his tongue rasping ever against the place where one finger was missing, as if by his gesture he could regrow that lacking member. Fujor was hairier of body than most of the cave and ran four-footed more often.

  “There are three without claws,” Fal-Kan continued. “Your weapons, warrior, will be an added inducement for any struggle with those. Some will fight sooner for good weapons than a mate.”

  Furtig wished he could pull those jingling treasures from his belt and hide them. But custom forbade it. There was no escape from laying them on the challenge rock when he was summoned. However, he dared speak up out of a kind of desperation. After all, Fal-Kan and Fujor had been successful in their own Trials. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could give him some manner of advice.

  “Do you think, Elders, that I am already defeated, that you see the claws of my father on the hands of a stranger? For if this is so, can you not then tell me how the worst is to be avoided?”

  Fal-Kan eyed him critically. “It is the will of the Ancestors who will win. But you are quick, Furtig. You know all we can teach you. We have done our best. See that you do also.”

  Furtig was silenced. There was no more to be gotten out of these two. They were both Elders (though Fujor only by right of years, not by any wisdom). Fe-San, the other Elder, was noted for never raising his voice in Fal-Kan's presence.

  The other males were younglings, too young to do more than tread the teaching trails by day. Lately they had had more females than males within the cave of Gammage. And after every Trial the females went to the victors' caves. The family was dwindling. Perhaps it would be with them as it had been with the cave of Rantla on the lower level, a clan finally reduced only to Elders and to Choosers too old to give birth. Yet Gammage had founded a proud line!

  Now Furtig ate sparingly of the meat in his bowl, scrambled onto his own ledge, and curled up to sleep. He wished that the morning was already passed and the outcome of his uncertain championship decided. Through the dark he could hear the purring whispers of two of his sisters. Tomorrow would be a day of pride for them, with no doubts to cloud their excitement. They would be among the Choosers, not among the fighters.

  Furtig tried to picture Fas-Tan, but his thoughts kept sliding in more dismal directions—he pictured a belt with no claws and an inglorious return to his cave. It was then he made up his mind. If he was a loser he was not going to take the solitary trail his brother had followed, or remain here to be an object of scorn for the Elders. No, he was going to Gammage!

  The morning cry woke Furtig from dreams he could not remember. Thus they had not been sent by any Ancestor to warn him. And Furtig, as he dropped from his sleep place, felt no greater strength. The thought of the coming day weighed heavily on him, so much so that he had to struggle to preserve the proper impassive manner of a warrior on this day of days.

  When they gathered on the pounded-earth flooring of the Trial place, Furtig had to join the line of Challengers as confidently as if he were San-Lo himself, there at the other end. San-Lo was easily counted the best the caves could produce. His yellow fur with its darker brown striping was sleek and well ordered, seeming to catch the morning sun in a blaze, foretelling the glory which would soon rest on him in the sight of both caves and westerners.

  Furtig had no illusions; of that company he was certainly the least likely to succeed. There were ten of them this year, with a range of different fur coloring making a bright pattern. Two brothers of the gray-with-black-striping, which was the commonest; a night black, a contrast to his two black-and-white brothers, a formidable trio who liked to hunt together and shared more companionship than others of their age group. Then came a stocky white with only ears and tail of gray; two more yellows, younger and lighter editions of San-Lo; a brown-striped with a white belly; and last Furtig in solid gray.

  Their opponents were more uniform, having originall
y come from only two families, according to tradition. They were either all black, or black-and-white in various markings.

  The Choosers were lying at languid ease on top of the sun-warmed rocks to the east of the combat field, while the Elders and the mated gathered north and south. Now and then one of the Choosers would wantonly utter a small yowling call, promising delights for him she would accept. But Fas-Tan did not have to attract attention so. Her superb beauty already had registered with them all.

  Ha-Ja, who was the Eldest of the Westerners, and Kuygen, who held the same status at the caves, advanced to the center of the field. At a gesture each brought forward the first warrior in each line, holding a bowl well above the eye level of the contestants. Those raised their hands and drew, keeping their choices as concealed as they could. So it went, two by two, until Furtig had his chance. He groped in the bowl, felt the two remaining slips of wood, and pulled out one.

  Once they had all drawn, each contestant smoothed a small patch of earth and dropped his choose-stick on it. Ha-Ja called first:

  “One notch end.”

  San-Lo showed his fangs and gave a low snarl of assent.

  Kuygen gestured to the westerners. The duplicate lay at the feet of a powerfully built all-black, whose tail was already twitching. At least, by the look of him, San-Lo would be fairly matched.

  Both advanced to the center rock, tossed their hunting claws with a jangle of metal on the stone. At least in this battle there would be no forfeiture of weapons.

  Together Ha-Ja and Kuygen made signal. The warriors went to full ground-crouch, their tails alash, ears flattened, eyes slitted. And from their throats came the howls of battle. They circled in one of the customary challenge moves, and then the black sprang.