Cochta got to her knees and looked back at Sopharndi, just as a fallen fighter, regaining consciousness after a blow to the head, sat up behind the First and plunged his knife into her thigh. Sopharndi hissed at the pain and instantly clasped the wrist of the hand on the knife’s hilt. As the Chosen fighter’s eyes widened, Sopharndi’s superior strength allowed her to force the knife back out, and twist his hand so that the blade was facing his gut. Too late, he tried to roll away, but Sopharndi used her weight to fall on him, the knife slicing easily through his flesh. She put her other hand on the hilt and drew the blade across and back, before rolling him onto his front, his guts spilling out around the knife and his bloody hand.
Sopharndi sat up and groaned. The wound on her leg was deep. She pressed a hand on it, staunching the flow of blood. The sounds of the battle were muted as the remaining enemy fighters were engaged, their only exits on fire. Only a few fights were yet to reach their inevitable conclusions. All three trees now blazed above the water. She knew the Chosen raiding party would already have gone, cutting their losses. Such attacks had once been commonplace, but, since the People had settled by the river and established their defenses, other tribes had seemed content to let them be, either because they wished for peace or certainly—in the case of the Chosen—because they could not see a way to guarantee victory. The Chosen were not known for their mercy. Had their raid succeeded, they would have put the village to the torch, sparing only the lives of children, that they might be used as slaves.
Sopharndi got to her feet, wincing, still keeping pressure on the wound. It was over. Bodies littered the ground. In death, it was hard to know which were People, and which Chosen. If this was part of the Singer’s song, it was ugly and tuneless.
The near-silence that always accompanied the aftermath of battle now descended. Sopharndi limped around the field of battle, looking for survivors. Katela joined her, stopping her First for a few moments so she could wrap a thin strip of hide tightly around her injury. Sopharndi leaned on her Second’s shoulder as they walked, relieved to see the younger woman had come through with only a few cuts and bruises.
“Fifteen dead at least. Maybe more,” said Katela in answer to Sopharndi’s unspoken question. “Injuries, too. Where is Cley?”
Even those who harbored doubts about Cley’s authenticity had no doubt about his gift for healing.
Sopharndi looked around her, beginning to feel the first stirrings of disquiet.
Yes, where was Cley?
A shout from one of her fighters brought her and Katela hurrying across to a spot near the water by the westernmost tree. She was standing over someone with terrible injuries, a Chosen spear pinning her to the ground.
“She’s alive,” said the fighter as they drew close, “but—”
When she crouched down, noting the shallow breaths and the quantity of blood, Sopharndi released the grief wail known by all the People.
The blank eyes looking up at her, seeing nothing, belonged to Laak.
Their Leader was dying.
33
As soon as the sounds of fighting started in the settlement below, four of Cley’s followers had gone to find him while the rest headed back to their friends and families.
The four headed up the hillside. They found Cley unconscious at the foot of one of the few blacktrees to flourish outside of the Parched Lands. He had hit his head when he had fallen, and the right side of his skull was discolored and slightly swollen.
Easing him into a sitting position, one of his supporters gave him water. They had seen his injury and were shocked by it. Why had he not healed himself?
“Your head,” one of them ventured. “You’re hurt.”
Cley put a hand up to the side of his head and winced when he felt the lump there.
“I—,” he began, but stopped when he heard a distant wail. It sounded like Sopharndi. He struggled to his feet, nearly fell, and grabbed the shoulder of one of his young supporters. He took a few breaths, until the rhythmic thumping in his head settled into a more manageable ache.
“What’s happening?”
“We think it’s an attack. We heard the sounds of fighting. There will be many injuries. You must come.”
Cley allowed himself to be led back down the hillside, breaking into a run, despite the flashes of pain each step sent through his skull.
As they entered the outskirts of the settlement, three fighters running in their direction intercepted them. Cley recognized his mother’s Second.
“Katela, what’s happening?”
“It was the Chosen.”
“My mother?”
“Injured, but not badly. We need you. Follow me.”
Cley struggled to match the pace Katela set, and was relieved when they stopped at the Elders’ dwelling by the Meeting Circle. Katela pulled back the skin at the doorway, but stepped to one side, letting Cley enter.
“Just him,” she hissed at the others who tried to follow. One look at Katela’s grim expression and they were disinclined to argue.
Inside, two of the Elders stood on one side, Cochta and Sopharndi on the other. Cley saw the way Sopharndi’s leg had been bandaged, blood seeping through the wrapped material and running down her leg.
“Mother.” He stepped toward her, but she shook her head and motioned toward the pile of animal skins between her and the Elders.
As Cley got closer, he finally registered the smell which had been masked by sweat and blood when he first entered. Everyone in the tribe could identify the scent given off by one close to death. It was as distinctive a smell as that of a hungry infant, an aroused male, or a female giving in to bloodlust. It had a bittersweet quality, a kind of burned sweetness with an underlying note of decay.
He moved closer to the pile of animal skins, finally seeing the frail body they held. Laak’s skin had paled and lost its shine as her body began to shut down. Her breathing was so shallow that Cley could see no movement in her chest at all. Her eyes, when he looked into them, held no hint of the patience, humor, and intelligence that had served her so well in her long tenure as Leader. It was as if she was already looking far beyond the gloomy dwelling to the Beyond, where she would join others waiting to be sung back into existence as a tree, a lekstrall, a shuk, or even one of the People once again. Eventually all creation would join in the same song; disease, pain, and death would end, and the Beyond would merge with the Land.
Cochta bent her head toward Cley as he looked at the dying Leader.
“Heal her.”
Cley looked at the Leader’s daughter. Her ambition, her schemes and her absolute lack of concern for others had fallen away as she faced the prospect of her mother’s death. She wanted power, she had maneuvered herself into a position where the Elders had agreed to her assumption of the leadership, but she had wanted Laak to live on, to see her daughter’s strength as she guided the People into their future. Cochta may have allowed personal ambition to trump ethical and moral considerations, but, right now, she was just a daughter terrified of losing her mother.
Cley felt beside the skins, leaned closer to Laak and put his hand gently on her shoulder. He knew the enormity of the opportunity before him. He would heal anyone brought before him, naturally, but winning favor with Cochta in the process would mean she would be forced to acknowledge the validity of his message. Too many witnesses had seen him come here. If Laak lived, Cochta would have to find a way of accommodating the new spiritual direction Cley was teaching. The People would learn to listen. A spiritual revolution would be set in motion.
There was just one problem. Cley couldn’t remember how to heal.
He quieted his mind. That much was instinctive now. His inner practice was so deeply ingrained, he need hardly think about it. He watched himself watching his thoughts, and, as he became aware of moments when he was clinging to them, he let them go, living more and more in the gaps between the thoughts. His breath deepened naturally, and soon it was him, Laak and the others, the sounds, the smells, t
he feel of the Leader’s cooling skin. He reached out…
Cochta broke the silence. “What are you doing? Heal her. Now.”
He held up his other hand for quiet, the insect bite red and angry-looking. He felt as if he had forgotten something as obvious as his own name. The next step, the dissolving of barriers between himself and the rest of the world, the exposure of the illusion of separateness…it wasn’t happening. It was gone. He continued reaching out, the absence of his power still impossible to acknowledge. Just as fighters who had lost an arm often reached for their spear with the missing limb, he kept flexing muscles that weren’t there any longer, sent messages to nerve endings that had disappeared.
After a minute that seemed like an hour, Laak made a sound in her throat that seemed to come from miles away, a harsh, distant scraping. Then the final dim spark of life in her eyes died for ever.
Cley squatted back on his heels, shaking his head, his whole body feeling cold.
“I tried,” he began, then stopped, looking up at Cochta. “She’s gone.”
After a second of absolute silence, Cochta slapped him aside, deliberately allowing her claws to unsheath as she did so. Three wounds opened up on Cley’s cheek as he fell backward. Sopharndi grunted in shock and anger, taking half a step toward Cochta, before stopping herself and going to her son, helping him up.
Cochta shouted at Hesta and Gron - the two Elders frozen in shock and disbelief at the death of their Leader.
“Get the traitors out of here, get them out!”
Hesta joined Sopharndi as she squatted beside Cley, who was shaking his head at her.
“I’m all right, Mother.”
Hesta put her hand on Sopharndi’s shoulder.
“Go. Take him away. She has lost her mother, she does not know what she is saying. We will counsel her tomorrow. We shall speak then.”
She walked Sopharndi and Cley to the doorway and watched them limp into the darkness.
That night, the fire pit was cold and black until dawn, when the People gathered silently to burn the dead. Laak’s body was last to be placed upon the pyre. She had been wrapped in the finest skins, and the song of the Beyond was sung for hours. It was a call and response song that induced an almost trancelike state in the singers. The calls were sung by Davvi, the responses by all the People. Each call by the bard offered advice to the dead on how to find the Beyond, to find the place the Singer has made ready, each response encouraged the dead to make their way back to the People after their time in the Beyond.
In the early afternoon, when the fire was burned to ashes, and the bodies reduced to bones, the carers of the dead scraped any remaining flesh from the bones, wrapping them carefully, before carrying them to the burial grounds south of the forest. There, they would be polished before being buried. Laak’s bones would be buried last, and nearest to the tree line, where the recently dead would find it easiest to find her, when they came back from the Beyond to guide their fellows to their next destination.
The dead would be remembered. Their names would be added to the song of remembrance, until such time as no one living remained who remembered them.
The meeting was called for that night.
Their new Leader would address them.
It quickly became common knowledge that Cley was back in the Settlement, that he was injured, and that Cochta had ordered his and Sopharndi’s dwellings to be guarded before that night’s meeting.
There would be no listening session led by Cley that evening.
The fire would be lit at dusk, and all were to attend.
34
The anointment of Cochta as the new Leader of the People took place while there was still light from the sun, the ceremony concluding just before it sank behind the mountains.
The entire tribe was present other than those still recovering from serious injuries after the attack of the previous night. Infants were cradled in their fathers’ arms, the very old were allowed to sit on soft skins rather than the hard ground.
Normally, the anointment of a new Leader would be an occasion for joy and celebration. Leaders handed over the responsibility of guiding the People to their successors at a time of their own choosing, traditionally when they had entered their fifth decade. It was rare indeed for anyone to live past their sixtieth year, so this allowed the departing Leader an old age relieved of responsibility, that they might prepare for their journey to the Beyond.
An anointment following the death of a Leader, particularly a violent death, lent a more somber note to the proceedings. The fact that the new Leader was the daughter of the previous Leader might have caused some controversy, even—particularly given Cochta’s arrogance and reputation for intractability—leading to a challenge. But coming, as it did, immediately after the first attack on the tribe for nearly a generation, any potentially dissenting voices were persuaded to remain silent, for the moment. Strong leadership was needed at a time like this, and no one doubted Cochta’s resolve. By now, they had all heard how Cochta saved the tribe with her idea to burn the trees.
Cley watched the proceedings in a numb haze of confusion. His mother, sitting next to him, was silent and tense. They had spent the day under guard, with no official word as to what they were accused of, or what might happen to them. Cochta had a sense for the dramatic. Her moment had come, and Cley suspected this night would not be a good one for him or Sopharndi.
He was still fighting an extreme sense of disorientation. It was as if he had mislaid the most important thing in his life, but, not only could he not remember where he had left it, he couldn’t even remember what it was. He had sat in contemplation for hours, listening but, for the first time since his Journey, hearing nothing. His practice, normally a return to reality, the ground of all experience, today had seemed more like an escape, an attempt to avoid the facts about his life. His failure.
I have failed.
This was the feeling that underpinned all other thoughts flickering through his disturbed mind.
I have failed.
Cley put a hand up to the side of his head. Still tender.
When Cochta addressed the People for the first time as Leader, she began by reinforcing the need for strong leadership at such a dangerous time. She played on the fears of the tribe, emphasizing the differences between the People and other tribes. The People were superior in every way, and such superiority had led others to covet what they had. Weaker voices had sometimes suggested sharing their good fortune, allowing other tribes to settle nearby, in this verdant area that they, the People, had discovered. But last night had proved that they were right never to trust the other tribes. They were savages, murderers, heretics. They must never prevail. The People would build up their defenses, increase the patrols around the outer limits of their borders, add to the number of fighters.
It was an effective speech, rousing passions, playing on fears. Cley acknowledged Cochta’s skill at manipulating mass emotions. Around him, the majority of the tribe were drumming the backs of their hands on the hard earth in support of Cochta’s impassioned references to the greatness of the People, their favored status with the Singer, the relative savagery and ignorance of other tribes. The threat they posed. The way she, Cochta, promised to protect them to her last breath.
She could work a crowd.
Then her voice changed, becoming quieter. There was a regretful tone now, a sadness. Great Leaders had to make hard decisions. Threats to the People did not always come from outside the tribe. The greatest threats of all sometimes came from within. And if these threats were allowed to grow, to flourish unchecked, the rot would spread like a terrible disease, eventually infecting everyone and heralding the end of the People.
Cley’s mind cleared a little. He thought he knew where this was heading.
Cochta had the crowd in the palm of her hand now.
“When Cley returned from his Journey transformed, I wept for joy.”
Sopharndi’s snort of derision was ignored.
“Who
else but the Singer could perform such a miracle? Who else could take a Blank, a mistake, an aberration, and give it a voice, intelligence, even the ability to mend broken bones, to work magic and produce water from nowhere? Who but the Singer could do this?”
She paced around the fire, every eye on her. She allowed enough of a pause for those present to find their own answer to her rhetorical question. A few heads turned toward Davvi, sitting with the Elders. He was struggling to look dignified, rather than smug. Cochta pointed at him.
“Our bard warned us. The bards have acted as messengers from the Singer since Aleiteh, the first bard. When Cley returned, many of us strayed from the path, many of us forgot whom the Singer chose to give her a voice among her people. She chose the bards.”
She knelt at the edge of the circled crowd, in front of Davvi.
“As Leader, I take this crime against the Singer upon myself, and I swear that it will never happen again. On behalf of the People, I swear our renewed allegiance to the Singer. We will not stray again.”
Davvi nodded gravely. He had obviously been told his to play his role, and it had been made very clear to him that his was not a speaking part. Cochta rose from her knees and walked as she addressed the People.
“It was Davvi who first saw through the facade. When he recognized Cley for what he was, we did not want to hear it. But now misfortune has fallen on our tribe, we can doubt it any longer. Our Leader is dead. We turned our back on the Singer, choosing instead to listen to a Blank. And we suffered the consequences.”
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 114
