The Days of the Deer

by Liliana Bodoc

  Elek of the Offspring was fighting in memory of his massacred people with the weapon he had won at the Red River. From his position, Thungür saw the Sideresian arrive who was to bring death to his pumpkin-haired brother. But Thungür was unable to go to his aid: all he could do was shout his name. Elek was one of those who died that day, desperately defending themselves. Unable to avoid it, Kume rode over his prone body.

  The Deer’s best warriors had been decimated. Although the great explosions were no use to the Sideresians any more, it seemed as if they had landed the fatal blow. Dulkancellin was bleeding from a wound just below the heart. He knew everything would soon be over for him, and clung to Dusky One’s mane for one last effort. He raised his face to the sun to say goodbye.

  Cucub was also saying his farewells: he could see the Deer was losing the battle. The Zitzahay was still at the post Dulkancellin had allotted him, behind the rearguard with a few others. Hidden in the undergrowth, it was their task to receive the wounded and help the warriors who came back in search of replacements for weapons or shields they had lost on the battlefield. When he was told of his role, Cucub had felt split in two. Cucub the little village musician was relieved. Cucub the man in love with Kuy-Kuyen felt ashamed.

  It was this second Cucub who was keen to join the fray. He was amazed to find himself thinking this way, but his mind was almost made up. There were several others who could do what he was doing. Besides, no wounded were arriving now. At first, many warriors had come to them, but most had bound up their wounds and returned to the combat. The others had died. Molitzmós, who was among the first to be wounded, was in neither position. The Lord of the Sun had a deep wound in his side, and looked like someone whose life was about to end.

  Cucub stared at him, unable to rid himself of the unpleasant feeling that if he stayed where he was, he was behaving like the wounded lord. Finding this idea unbearable, he finally resolved to join the battle. There was a pile of spears and arrows all round him. But, true to his nature, Cucub chose something different.

  ‘I’ll take your knife,’ he said to Molitzmós. ‘It’s a noble weapon that deserves its opportunity.’

  The Lord of the Sun either could not or did not know how to reply.

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Cucub, raising the blade to his nostrils, ‘the blood on this smells like your own.’

  Kuy-Kuyen’s beloved took the knife and ran out to join the fighting. This would be the first time he killed a man, or the last time he died. He could never clearly recall what thoughts were going through his mind as he ran forward. What he did remember was that he suddenly came across the enemy for whom the stars had destined him. It was Illán-che-ñe. As soon as he recognized the Pastor, Cucub felt an ancient, absolute duty that made him invincible. The Pastor stepped forward, brushing his weapon against his thigh and pressing Cucub back. When he was close, he launched himself at the Zitzahay, but the little man was no longer there. Time and again, Illán-che-ñe’s dagger plunged into nothing but air. This trickery had its effect: Illán-che-ñe was so caught up in it that he forgot his enemy. The Pastor only realized his mistake when a stone knife ripped open his stomach. Cucub pulled it out and stared at him. The Zitzahay was neither trembling nor triumphant. He lifted his gaze to find his next adversary, but saw that something had changed in the battle.

  The Sideresians were retreating, wheeling round as if to face a new threat. Cucub did not immediately realize why a shout of victory went up from the Deer, rose to the top of the hillsides, and returned a hundred-fold. He could not see that from the west the Lords of the Sun had arrived, giving the Sideresians no time to turn their big, heavy weapons on them. The division of the Lords of the Sun was greatly reduced: they had lost more than half their men in an ambush. Despite this, the winds of war were changing.

  After the initial surprise, the Sideresians managed to regroup. Firing from the backs of their animals, they succeeded in restoring the balance. By now it was growing dark. Soon night and exhaustion would end the battle for that day. Possibly both armies wished the same, because neither had the strength to go on. But in a last effort, the Sideresians let loose their black dogs ...

  As if vomited straight from Misáianes’ mouth, the pack of hounds surged through the ranks. A hundred slavering jaws. Sniffing at the air, they launched themselves at the warriors of the Fertile Lands. They hurtled along, looking for one man in particular. Their sense of smell led them to their most sought-after prey ... Dulkancellin saw them milling around him, snapping at Dusky One’s feet. The animal resisted as best it could. Wounded and exhausted, the Husihuilke defended his mount as best he could. But in the end, they were both toppled. Before Dulkancellin could get to his feet, they were upon him. He fought for his life, the hot, foul-smelling dogs swarming all over him.

  This would have been his last day on earth, his moment of departure ... It would have been, had it not been for Thungür, Cucub and the other warriors who rushed to defend him. They managed to rescue him from the dogs’ fangs, mauled but still alive. Dulkancellin had been given a few more steps to take in this world.

  Night fell. Both armies needed rest: neither was able to continue, or to pursue their enemy. They were like two wounded animals withdrawing to their lairs to lick their wounds. When they returned to the fight, one of them had to die.

  That night, the healing hands of Magic could be felt in the medicines that repaired wounds and relieved pain that otherwise no man could have borne.

  ‘Go and get some rest, Thungür, I’ll look after him,’ said Cucub.

  It might have been Dulkancellin’s face under the purple swellings, but when Cucub removed the leaves that had soothed his fevers, he found it hard to recognize him.

  ‘Brother,’ he told him, ‘the sun often talks to musicians. Today it spoke to me and said ...’

  The Husihuilke opened his eyes and tried to speak.

  ‘Sleep,’ said Cucub, cooling his brow. ‘Sleep in peace. I have not forgotten my promise.’

  These must have been the words that Dulkancellin was hoping to hear, because at once he fell into a deep sleep. He dreamt of his wedding dance with Shampalwe.

  The night went by too quickly for all those who would have needed ten calm nights of sound sleep. First light brought the men to the bonfires where they could find food. While they ate, they named the dead and identified the living. Many, probably most of them, were wounded. Despite this, very few refused to haul themselves to their feet to face a second day’s fighting.

  Less affected because they had come late to the battle, the Lords of the Sun’s troops had camped apart from the others, and spent the night in silence. They lit no fires and prepared no food. There was nothing to indicate that a small army was resting there, until the first light of dawn, when they joined the main force. Hoh-Quiú came up to Dulkancellin, greeting him respectfully.

  ‘We know of each other thanks to the jaguars ... And, if I had not seen you fight, I might still have thought that the betrayal was your work.’

  Dulkancellin struggled to understand what the young prince was trying to say to him. The words slipped away from him, and he had to search deep in his fevered mind to find them again.

  ‘Betrayal?’

  ‘The last jaguar led us into an ambush. And if we were not all caught in it, that was thanks to an old man who suddenly appeared to warn us of the danger before the trap finally closed on us. The old man was sweaty and covered in mud. After telling us exactly where the battle was to be fought, he disappeared again.’

  ‘The old man is called Kupuka,’ murmured Dulkancellin.

  ‘He did not say his name. All I can tell you is that it is thanks to him that we are here.’

  The Husihuilke felt some strength returning, and was gradually able to see things more clearly.

  ‘Apparently there is much to try to understand,’ he said.

  ‘If we are fortunate, we can do that tomorrow. Today we have to end a battle that will not be easy.’

  The prince s
poke as if he were an old man too.

  ‘One of your people by the name of Molitzmós should as befits his rank be here with us. But he cannot do so: as I understand it, he is gravely wounded.’

  ‘And aren’t you?’ asked Hoh-Quiú, as tenderly as of a son.

  The prince of the Lords of the Sun had said the battle would be no easy matter. For a second day they would have to cross a battlefield facing the enemy fire. The Sideresians would by now have turned all their weapons to face them. And the warriors of the Fertile Lands were wounded and weary.

  Dulkancellin allowed the prince to speak the final words to the warriors.

  ‘We are here to face whatever happens. Because when there is no more hope, there is honour.’

  The sadness of the Sun, who would see its children die. The pain of the Earth, who would receive them before their time. The Father and the Mother saw themselves in them.

  It happened as expected; the same as on the previous day. The first cannon roar ... the first volcano explosion against the advancing warriors of the Fertile Lands, struggling to reach the Sideresian lines. The second roar .. . The second volcano explosion, and torn bodies littered the hillside. The third volley took longer, giving them time to close on their enemy. The fourth explosion never occurred.

  A furious charge engulfed the Sideresian line. The flocks of the jungle, led by a gigantic old man, flung themselves on the Sideresians and their fire. Hundreds of animals that made the earth quake and transformed the air into wind, and the wind into dust: clouds of horseflies and wasps, enormous birds, wild pigs, pumas and jaguars ... all of whom Kupuka drove on with his incantations.

  Caught unawares by this jungle horde, the Sideresians abandoned their front line and ran to seek protection.

  Misáianes’ greatest fear had come true. The Ferocious One, who was also well aware of his weak points, had made it his first order: ‘Keep Magic away from the Creatures. Make them forget each other, so that they cannot recognize one another.’

  The Earth Wizard’s army possessed the only force that Misáianes feared. Rising from the deepest part of Creation, it swept away the arrogance of the Sideresians’ cannon to give the Deer the chance to cross the battlefield. That was enough. The rest was a matter of courage.

  Still the combat continued, and still the dead piled up. But by the end of that morning, after a battle worthy of being sung about, the warriors of the Fertile Lands could contemplate victory. Or what was left of them. The few still alive, next to the mountain of dead. That which could not bring laughter, or love, or merry drinking, was a victory. Merely the first in a war whose beginning was lost in the mists of time. As was its end!

  The Sideresians withdrew from the battlefield, abandoning most of their weapons. Among those who succeeded in escaping was the one who without a doubt was their commander. Dulkancellin had seen him wrapped in a black cloak. The Sideresian general watched the battle from the top of a hill, mounted on an animal harnessed with gold. He looked down on it all, motionless and distant, as if the result of that morning’s combat were of no interest to him. Or as if convinced that this defeat would be short-lived. When Dulkancellin tried to find him, he and his golden animal had vanished. Nor had anyone he spoke to seen Drimus enter the battle.

  ‘He must have been sent with some other purpose,’ said Dulkancellin.

  ‘He probably stayed in the fortress where the remains of his army have taken him the bad news.’

  ‘The fortress,’ said Dulkancellin. ‘Where exactly can it be?’

  ‘I know where it is,’ said Kupuka. ‘Less than a day’s march towards the coast.’

  But even though Kupuka knew where the fortress lay and could lead them there, it was unthinkable for them to set out at once. The men needed to rest. Some of them could not go, even after resting.

  The wounds they had endured so bravely while fighting now returned once they had completed their task. Many who would never have surrendered to the Sideresians now fell to gangrene. Kupuka’s medicine was their best hope. The Earth Wizard made Cucub his assistant, and tried his best to save those who could be saved, or to make death easier for those destined to die.

  Dulkancellin himself tried to show a strength he no longer had. The dog bites were raw swollen lumps. His mouth was cracked, his saliva thick. His fever-racked body was weakening all the time.

  Molitzmós was weakening too. Kupuka could not understand it.

  ‘Look at this man, Cucub. His life signs are threatened. He is growing pale and can hardly speak, and yet his wound does not seem so bad.’

  Molitzmós lay senseless, his skin icy. A feeble breathing was all that made him different from a dead man.

  ‘He will recover,’ said Cucub. ‘You’ll see, I’m not wrong.’

  Kupuka thought the same.

  Dulkancellin and Hoh-Quiú were giving fresh orders when Thungür came up to his father.

  ‘I need to talk to you about Kume,’ he whispered in his ear.

  ‘Speak out loud. This lord here has the right to know.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Thungür, ashamed. ‘Kume is not here. Neither among the living nor the dead.’

  As ever where Kume was concerned, Dulkancellin’s pain was greater than he expected. Death in battle brought honour and gave those left behind a sense of pride. But what did this disappearance mean? Kume’s behaviour had been at fault ever since Cucub had arrived. Now he had disappeared, and Dulkancellin could not forget that a betrayal had been foretold. Kupuka understood what the father was thinking.

  ‘Don’t be too hasty,’ he murmured.

  Some time later, Dulkancellin was sitting drowsily in the shade. Hard at work, Cucub nevertheless paid close attention to his breathing.

  ‘Come here.’ Dulkancellin called him over without opening his eyes.

  With one bound, Cucub was beside his friend.

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I need to tell you I know how you fought.’

  Cucub’s smile was so radiant Dulkancellin could see it with his eyes closed. But Cucub was never one to leave things as they were. Loose-tongued, extravagant in manner, with little sense of judgement, he took a deep breath and said in a rush:

  ‘Brother, it is true I am a minstrel and not a warrior; Zitzahay and not Husihuilke; small even among the smallest. And yet despite all this, I wish to wed Kuy-Kuyen.’

  27

  THE SON

  He was whining with a shrill whimper that stopped when he took a breath, then immediately started up again. Tears were dripping from the tip of his nose, and his hump-back was shaking with his sobs. Drimus the Doctrinator was weeping for the dogs that had died in battle, stroking with his constantly moist hands the animals who had survived and were now sprawled out on the sand floor.

  ‘My little ones! He has not abandoned us. He has not failed. He sent us here knowing full well the one great risk. We were the ones who made mistakes, and are now paying for them with our tears. But I promise you, this grief will soon be a distant memory.’

  A black cap covered his skull, framing his face as Drimus rubbed it against his dogs’ bellies. Picking one of them up, he cradled it in his arms.

  ‘They succeeded in doing what our Misáianes was afraid of. They must now be thinking they have halted the expansion of his Mandate.’ The Doctrinator’s words came from his mouth with the tone and rhythm of a mother crooning to a little baby. ‘But you and I, my little ones, you and I know that is not the case. The Master is intact; his plans have merely been delayed. The scraps from these lands remain, and we can eat our fill of them.’

  Leogrós had come up to the Doctrinator without his noticing it. He listened to him muttering for a while, then cleared his throat to show he was there. The two men blamed each other for what had happened, and so stared defiantly at one another. Leogrós was rock-like, refusing to reveal what was going on inside him. However great the anger or scorn he felt, or however harsh the words he was about to utter, neither his attitude nor his voice betrayed any of it.


  ‘We were expecting more of them,’ he said, pointing to the dogs.

  ‘Oh, Leogrós, Leogrós!’ Drimus said with a sigh.

  The position in which Leogrós had surprised him was hardly worthy of his lofty role, so the Doctrinator left the dog on the floor, and made to stand up. Even though he saw a gloved hand held out to help, he preferred to ignore it and scramble up on his own.

  ‘Oh, Leogrós, Leogrós!’ he kept repeating as he went over to a water barrel.

  He served himself some, and drank it in noisy gulps that were visible down the front of his gullet. Leogrós was always disgusted at the sight of the white, pastry-like skin there. By the time he had finished drinking, Drimus had managed to contain his agitation and was as calm as his companion.

  ‘Oh, Leogrós ...! We were all expecting more from everyone.’ He ran his tongue over his lips, feigning resignation. ‘He expected much more of us. He honoured us with the mission of being his hands. And look how we rewarded him, Leogrós! Will we be able to return to him without the victory with which he entrusted us? Tell me: what will become of us if his will is not behind us?’

  As usual, Drimus felt so much self-pity as he spoke that the tears started to flow once more.

  ‘I just heard you telling your pups: all that is left in this land is scraps. If you know that, why so many tears? This battle has used up all their reserves. I’m surprised at you, Drimus. I thought you were capable of enjoying it when hares believed they were wild beasts, when you are in fact that wild animal licking its paws.’