by Joan Wolf
“Sometimes,” Dai admitted. “It is the taboos that cause the most trouble. So far, though, Ronan has always managed to smooth things over.”
“So far,” Okal said.
Dai got into his sleeping skins. “Aren’t you ready, yet?” he asked Thorn impatiently.
“Sa,” said Thorn. He crawled hurriedly under his buffalo robe and Dai blew out the saucer lamp that had been lighting the tent. Within a short time the breathing of the two older men told Thorn they were asleep, but still he lay awake. His body was tired, but his mind was relentlessly active, going over again and again all of the things that he had heard during the course of the day.
There were so many questions he wanted to ask! Why had the men left this rich, animal-stocked valley to hunt? What terrible deeds had the other men of the tribe done to cause their expulsion from their tribes? Was there discord in the tribe between the followers of Sky God and those of the Goddess? And finally, what was Ronan doing alone up the valley?
The night passed and Thorn was still awake when he heard a sound outside his hut. Very carefully, he got out of his sleeping skins, crawled to the door flap, and peered outside. The moonlit night was bright enough for him to make out the figure of a man leaving the hut area and walking toward the ground-level rock shelter where the tribe’s few dogs slept. Thorn immediately recognized the walk as Ronan’s.
Slowly and silently, Thorn dropped the flap and returned to his sleeping skins. He closed his eyes and, finally, he slept.
* * * *
The following morning Thorn learned that Alos, the female dog brought to the tribe by Yoli and bred by Nigak, had had her puppies. Everyone was delighted with the healthy, active litter. Ronan sent the boys up the valley, giving Mait instructions to show Thorn around. Mait was thrilled at the prospect of a holiday, and he was equally pleased to find himself in the role of leader, a position which, as the youngest member of the tribe save for the babies, he rarely achieved.
Thorn added to his feeling of importance by plying him with questions. The first one was “Where do the men of the tribe go to hunt?”
“This time of year the first herds of reindeer have reached the lower pastures of the Atlas,” Mait said. “That is where the hunters go. You saw how they came back yesterday with three fine kills.”
“I saw,” Thorn agreed. “Then it was reindeer in particular you wanted? It is true that I have not seen reindeer within the valley.”
“We rarely hunt within the valley,” Mait said simply.
Thorn stared in astonishment. “Why not?”
“It is Ronan’s rule.” Mait smiled at the look on Thorn’s face. “Ronan says that we cannot afford to frighten away the animals that dwell here. He says that if we hunt them all the time, they will learn to fear us and will leave. It is better to hunt outside the valley and keep friends with the animals within.”
“You never hunt in the valley?”
The boys had stopped by the river, and Thorn’s eyes were on a mare and her foal drinking peacefully only a few yards from where he and Mait were standing. The mare was almost white; the foal was dark brown.
“We hunt the horses in the autumn,” Mait replied, his eyes also on the mare and foal. “We herd the horses into a corral and kill the ones who do not look likely to withstand the winter. That way we have meat for the winter, and, since we do not bother them again, the rest of the horses soon forget their fright. We do the same with the rest of the animals in the valley; we cull the old and the ill and the injured and leave the sound.”
“What of the horses I saw outside the walls of the cliff?” Thorn asked. “Where do they come from? They cannot winter on the open slopes, surely?”
“Oh, they are the young males that Impero chased from the herd,” Mait explained.
“Impero?”
“Impero is the name Ronan gave to the herd’s stallion. There he is now.”
Thorn looked at the magnificent white stallion that was moving among the main herd of mares, which was grazing not far from the river. Even at this distance, Thorn could see how thick and muscular was his neck. The valley horses were unlike the horses Thorn was accustomed to seeing portrayed on the walls of caves. These horses had long, arched faces and long, flowing manes and tails. And they were mostly gray.
Mait continued: “Impero will let the yearlings stay within the valley, but the two-year-olds he drives out. The batch you saw were the ones he drove out this spring, when the mares began to drop their new foals. They will move lower as the weather worsens, and by winter they will have left the Altas altogether and gone down to the plain.”
“Why doesn’t the Tribe of the Wolf go down to the plain in the winter also?” Thorn asked. “It must be bitter here in the valley.”
“We are too small a tribe to establish our own hunting grounds on the plain,” Mait explained. “There are many tribes dwelling there, and they would not welcome us. We will have to become much larger and more powerful before we can hope to carve out a hunting territory for ourselves on the plain.”
The morning slowly advanced as the boys made their way up the valley. By midday they were hungry, and they climbed up to a rocky ledge to dangle their feet, watch the small herd of sheep below them, and eat the food Fara and Berta had packed.
“Are all of the men of the Wolf outcasts from their own tribes?” Thorn asked after they had finished eating. He had one leg drawn up for support and, absentmindedly, he picked up a small flat stone and began to scratch on it with a sharp pebble.
“Sa,” Mait said. “They are.”
“At the gathering, one of your men said Ronan had called them a tribe of rapists and murderers.” Thorn squinted his eyes to look at the sheep.
“He said that when Heno objected to keeping the twins,” Mait said immediately and grinned in remembrance.
“Heno is the big man, is he not?” Thorn asked. “The one with the pale blue eyes?”
“Sa.”
“What tribe is he from?”
“He is of the Fox tribe, from beside the River of Gold. I know I should like him better,” Mait confessed. “He is married to my sister, and if it were not for him, I would probably have died. He was the one who brought us to the valley. But…I do not like him. He is always complaining—the twins were just one example.”
“Why did the Fox tribe thrust him out?”
“He was blamed for the death of the chief’s son,” Mait said. “The Fox tribe has a very strict taboo against their hunters having sex for three days before a great hunt. Heno lay with his wife the night before the hunt, and the next day the chiefs son was killed by a buffalo. Someone had heard Heno and his wife and accused him of breaking the taboo. The chief expelled him from the tribe.”
“Ah…” said Thorn in understanding. “We also have such a taboo, but the men of the Buffalo are wise enough to obey it.”
“The People of the Dawn do not have such a taboo,” Mait said with a shrug, “and our hunting has never suffered.” He leaned over to look at what Thorn was drawing. Thorn gave the stone to Mait to look at and let his own eyes rove over the scene before him.
The horseherd had left the river and was grazing at the southern end of the valley. Almost directly below Thorn’s feet was a small group of ewes and new lambs. The lambs were lying in the sun, the mothers grazing. As Thorn watched, one lamb was suddenly seized by a desire to nurse. He leaped up and ran toward the ewes, bleating madly. All the rest of the lambs instantly decided that they must nurse too. The peaceful scene was transformed: lambs bleating and seeking mothers, mothers baaing and seeking lambs. As the babies found the right mother, they would fall to their knees and begin to nurse ferociously. Finally, silence fell.
The boys were laughing. “I never knew how amusing animals could be until I came here,” Mait said. “It gives you a different feeling about them, sharing the valley with them the way we do.”
“It is a wonderful chance for an artist,” Thorn said, “to be able to get close to them for so long a time.�
�� And he took his drawing stone back from Mait.
“We did not have artists in my tribe,” Mait said. “I hope you do not mind my watching you?”
Thorn shook his head and began once more to draw.
“Look,” said Mait softly, “there is Ronan.”
Thorn lifted his head and both boys sat in silence watching Ronan as he came down the valley, Nigak at his heels.
“What is he going to do?” Thorn asked.
“He has been watching the horses.”
There was a startled silence. “Watching the horses?” Thorn said. “But why? Ronan is not an artist.”
“He started to do it right after the men came back from the gathering with news of that tribe from the north,” Mait said.
Thorn drew in a long breath. “The tribe that rides on horses?”
“Sa. The tribe that rides on horses.”
“Can he be dreaming…?” Thorn could not even finish the question, so ridiculous did it sound.
“Sa,” said Mait, “I am thinking that he is.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ronan lay on his back in the grass, his knees bent, one arm behind his head, the other flung across his eyes to shade them from the brightness of the sky. Nigak lay beside him, his long white muzzle resting on Ronan’s hip.
“I believe it is possible,” Ronan said softly. “I really do believe it is possible.”
Nigak made no answer.
“The rest of them think I am mad. Perhaps I am.”
Still nothing from Nigak.
“To do it, though, I will need Nel.”
Nigak lifted his muzzle. Ronan craned his neck and looked into the wolf’s bright yellow-brown eyes. “You think so too, I see.”
Nigak pricked his ears.
“You think I should have gone for her sooner. It is not that I forgot my promise,” Ronan explained to Nel’s wolf. “It is just that I have been reluctant to leave the tribe.”
Nigak sat up, ears still pricked, and stared intently at a small, long-legged foal that had wandered away from its mother.
“Na,” said Ronan firmly. Nigak whined. “Na,” said Ronan again. Nigak got up and padded down to the river for a drink. His manner was dignified. Obviously this was not a wolf that would dream of attacking a defenseless foal.
Ronan sighed. He would have to do something soon. He could not continue to send the others out hunting while he lay around in the grass and watched horses. His position as chief gave him certain privileges, but he knew he was reaching the end of his men’s tolerance.
Dhu! When was Bror going to return? So much hinged on that. Bror would have reliable news about this tribe of so-called Horsemasters. And Bror was the only man he would trust to leave in charge of the tribe while he left to fetch Nel.
The first crescent of Antelope Moon had risen over the sunset last night. It was summer. Bror had been gone for two full moons.
Nigak returned from the stream and stood over Ronan, dripping water on his face. Ronan sat up. “Tomorrow,” he promised the wolf as he wiped the wet off his cheek, “I will take you hunting. I can see that young Thorn is scandalized by our laziness.”
He put his hand upon Nigak’s ruff, and the two began to walk together down the valley toward the camp. Ronan wondered resignedly what problem would greet him today. It seemed a day scarcely passed when the belief of one tribe did not come into conflict with the belief of another. This was one of the chief reasons he was loath to absent himself for too long.
He passed the small hut that the women who followed Sky God had erected at a little distance from the camp to serve as their moon hut. In practice, the only woman who ever used it was Eken, as she was the only one who was bleeding. All of the other women of the tribe were either pregnant or nursing.
This custom of isolating a bleeding woman was not something that the Red Deer tribe had ever followed. Nor had the other tribes from the plain that followed the Mother. The men of Sky God, however, had been adamant that a bleeding woman harbored evil powers that could harm their own masculine abilities, and they had insisted on the moon hut. Eken, reared in the Way of Sky God, had been amenable to the isolation, which indeed was what she was accustomed to in her own Tribe of the Buffalo.
Ronan shuddered to think what was going to happen when the moon blood of Berta and Tora once more began to flow. Neither of those strong-minded sisters was likely to want to spend a week sitting alone by herself in the moon hut!
I will think of something, Ronan promised himself. It was a phrase he had comforted himself with often during the past three years.
He looked toward the north wall and saw two slim masculine figures running to meet him. Mait was still at a distance when he cried out his news: “Bror and Lemo are back and they have word of the Horsemasters!”
* * * *
Thorn and Mait joined the rest of the tribe in the flat, open space before the huts, and Ronan gestured that they were all to be seated. Thorn realized that the two scouts were to be allowed to recite their story in front of everyone, and his heart began to pound with excitement. He took a place in the tribal circle beside Mait and directly across from Ronan, Bror, and Lemo. Once everyone was seated, Bror began to speak.
“We went far north, almost to the end of the lands of the Kindred, to a tribe called the Tribe of the Elk.” Bror’s stern, strong-boned face was very somber. “They had a terrible tale to tell.”
“Sa,” Lemo agreed, his own fair-skinned young face almost as grim-looking as Bror’s. “Terrible.” Lemo’s wife, Yoli, looked at him anxiously, then picked up his hand and held it tight in her own.
“What we heard of these Horsemasters at the gathering is true,” Bror went on, turning his head a hide to look at Ronan. “The tribe is originally from the frozen north, but it seems they have turned their backs upon the steppe forever. At the Spring Gathering it was said that they were well north of the River of Gold, but Lemo and I learned that they have actually entered into the hunting territories of the Kindred.”
Questions and exclamations of dismay issued from every mouth. It was Heno who asked the question that Thorn was most eager to have answered, “Is it true that they ride upon the backs of horses?”
“It is true,” Bror said. “There were men in the Tribe of the Elk who have seen them.”
“How do they guide their horses, then?” This was obviously a problem Ronan had been thinking about.
“They put a rope around the horse’s nose, and hold the ends of it in their hands,” Bror returned.
“But you did not see this for yourself?”
Bror shook his head regretfully. “The nirum from the Tribe of the Elk would not show us the way. They were too afraid.”
Ronan looked disappointed.
“These Horsemasters are a terrible people,” Lemo explained. “They descend upon a tribe like a storm sweeping down from the north, leaving only death and destruction in their wake.”
“Death and destruction?” Berta said sharply.
Lemo nodded. His young face was white and set. “The men of the Elk told us that the Horsemasters killed all of the men in the Tribe of the Owl, raped the women, and took them for their own.”
There was a horrified silence.
“I have heard of conflicts over hunting grounds,” Crim said slowly, “but never has there been such a thing as this among the tribes of the Kindred.”
“Nor among the tribes of the plain,” Cree said.
“Have these Horsemasters established themselves on the hunting grounds of the Tribe of the Owl, then?” Ronan asked.
Bror answered, “For the moment. But that is what is so terrible about them, Ronan. They do not stay in one place. They take what they will, and then they move on.” Bror shook his head in bewilderment. “I can understand that to a people of the cold and barren north, the river valleys of the south must seem sweet. But once they have won a good hunting territory for their tribe, why leave it?”
Ronan said slowly, “If they have truly mastered horses,
then it would be easy for them to travel.” His dark eyes swept around the circle of his own tribe. “Imagine how swiftly and comfortably you could travel if you were sitting upon the back of a horse!”
Thorn smiled as he contemplated this possibility. “It would be splendid,” he said softly.
Beki asked, “Where is the Tribe of the Elk located?”
“On the River of Gold, south of where it flows to the sea.”
Silence.
Heno said heavily, “If they follow the River of Gold, it will bring them to our mountains.”
Beki shivered and Kasar reached a comforting arm around her shoulders.
“What plans have the northern tribes made to combat the Horsemasters?” Ronan asked Bror next.
“No plans that I could discover,” Bror replied stolidly, “They are frightened to death, Ronan. All the talk is of fleeing.”
“I cannot believe that the men of the Kindred are so weak!” Ronan’s arched nostrils were flared with scorn.
“They are afraid of the horses, Ronan,” Bror said. “And the Horsemaster tribe is very large, much larger than any single tribe of the Kindred.”
“More reason for the tribes of the Kindred to unite,” Ronan said tersely.
Bror shrugged.
“Even if these foreigners do come as far south as the mountains, our tribe will be safe,” Yeba said stoutly. “Such a large number of people will never attempt the Altas.”
“That is so,” Berta agreed. “The tribes of the plain will also be protected by the Altas. It is the tribes of the Kindred that are in danger.”
All of the braided men nodded their agreement and looked with pity upon the short-haired men who followed a god and not a goddess.
“They may not come down the River of Gold at all,” Kasar said.
Heno nodded. “That is true.”
“Their pattern,” Bror said heavily, “is to come ever south.”
“Well, whichever way they come,” Mait said, “the Tribe of the Wolf will be safe.”
“That is so,” said Tora.
