Seeing that Carnelian wanted to talk to him alone, Fern rose. Both men made an apology to Sil, who looked concerned.
They moved up the slope a little to where the branches of the cedar forced Carnelian to bow his head.
‘I won’t be returning to the Bloodwood Tree,’ Carnelian said.
Fern frowned. ‘You’ve decided to stay with the hunt?’
As Carnelian nodded, he could see Fern was waiting for some explanation, but how could Carnelian tell him what Osidian had threatened to do; how could he tell Fern that he had made Osidian swear on his blood that, if Carnelian went with him, Osidian would not deliberately harm any of the Tribe?
‘Well, you’ve told me,’ Fern said at last and returned, still frowning, to his wife.
*
That day Crowrane’s hunt was warding so Carnelian, Osidian, Ravan and several others accompanied Akaisha and her women down into the ferngardens. Akaisha had watched Fern go off to work alone and Carnelian had to endure the pressure of her scrutiny. She was clearly unhappy not only with his decision but with the way in which he had made it without giving her an explanation.
In the perfumed shadow of a magnolia, he spent that day, wretched, watching the women harvesting termites from mud towers and trying to ignore Ravan and Osidian. In the evening, he made himself blind to Sil’s enquiring looks and, studiously, tried to behave towards Fern as if nothing had happened.
The following day, he helped keep watch over Akaisha and her women as they dug fernroot. He would have helped if Ravan had not insisted that it was tradition that men should rest on their warding days.
Next morning the women had to return to the earthworking. By coincidence, Crowrane’s hunt were working in the ditches too, so that Carnelian went with Akaisha and was able to work with Poppy by his side all day.
Three days he laboured thus under the resentful gaze of Crowrane and Loskai. Carnelian saw the deference with which the other members of the hunt were treating Osidian. It was the youngsters, Krow among them, who were most in awe of him. Some dared to ask him questions through Ravan, but the Master remained aloof and worked as if he were alone, carrying the baskets filled with earth up the ladders to the ramparts, his strength fully returned. The women who worked alongside them outnumbered the men almost three to one. The men had to work hard to match them. The older people oversaw the repair of the ditch, or did the lighter work. Carnelian took turns at digging, carrying the dislodged earth up the ladders, or beating it into the ramparts with paddles. The sun was merciless. Carnelian was sheathed in the slime his sweat made of the red earth on his skin. During the hottest part of the day they hid in the depths of the ditch where its high walls, or one of the trees fringing it, cast delicious shadow. They ate, sipped water, napped. At the end of each day they returned to wash under their mother tree and slumped exhausted around the hearth, almost too tired to speak.
The way it worked out, the hunt and Akaisha’s women completed their stint in the ditches on the same afternoon. In the morning, Carnelian had to leave Poppy in Akaisha’s care when she took her hearth down to the Bloodwood Tree. For the next six days, it would be Crowrane’s hunt in company with that of Ginkga’s husband who would make the journey each day to fetch water for the Tribe.
It was a relief to ride out from the Koppie to the vast spreading lagoon. At first, Carnelian maintained a careful watch on Loskai and his father. In full view of both hunts, Crowrane made a point of telling the Master that more heroics would not be tolerated. The Elder might as well have directed his tirade against a statue. Osidian’s impassivity drove Crowrane and Loskai into an anger which only served to reveal how powerless they were.
That first day, water was brought back to the Koppie without mishap. The aquar pulled the drag-cradles right up to the Homeditch. From there it was unloaded and everyone made at least two journeys up the Lagooning rootstair with a waterskin to pour the precious contents into the cistern that lay in a cleft in the Crag.
The second day they saw riders moving on the other side of the lagoon. Ravan claimed they were from a neighbouring tribe, the Woading.
It was on the fifth day that Carnelian learned why it was the Plainsmen considered fetching water perilous. They were returning from the lagoon when they found themselves in the path of a stampede. Burdened with their fully laden drag-cradles, the hunt could not evade the charge. The bleating earthers thundered through their line. Many of the monsters managed to swerve around the obstacles; others were skilfully deflected with bull-roarers, but one gored a man and another crashed headlong into a cradle, exploding its waterskins everywhere. The hitched aquar was hurled over on to its side. Screaming, it flailed its clawed feet. The earther, tossing its head to free its horns from the ruins of the dragcradle, ripped open the belly of the aquar and was, in turn, gashed by the aquar’s claws. One of the Plainsmen leapt in to end the aquar’s agony, others dared to approach the earther to hack it loose. Erupting free, the monster trampled a man. It was clear nothing could be done for him. Crowrane put an end to the man’s agony by slitting his throat. They carried the body back on a drag-cradle, for fear of raveners, using earth to cover the trail of blood they were painting across the plain.
That night the Tribe mourned their loss. Akaisha took Carnelian with her to watch the blackened body being carried up to the summit of the Crag. Osidian came too, with Ravan. At one point, Carnelian overheard them discussing the next day, which was to be his first hunt. He forced the anxiety from his mind by trying to pick meaning from the song of lamentation rising up with smoke into the sky. The dead man’s soul would soon be carried up into that blueness by the birds that fed on him.
Akaisha and Poppy came down to the Southgate to see them off. In the predawn twilight many other women had gathered to bid their men farewell. Everyone spoke quietly.
Carnelian was holding his shoulder where Fern had touched it when he had wished him a safe hunt.
‘You’ll be careful, Carnie, promise me you’ll be careful?’
Crouching, Carnelian looked into Poppy’s dark eyes and nodded solemnly. Kissing her, he rose and saw Osidian standing apart from them, aloof and remote as he examined a huge spear he was hefting in his hand.
‘I’m not a child any more,’ said Ravan, looking aggrieved, as he confronted his mother. ‘Fern had no right to it. It came to me from my father. It is mine to give away.’
Carnelian looked back at the spear in Osidian’s hand and realized it had been fitted with Stormrane’s iron blade.
As Akaisha watched her son join the Master, she had the look of someone who had just been slapped. Carnelian looked away so she would not become embarrassed. Harth, who had come down to see her son and husband off, was regarding Osidian with baleful eyes. Krow stood behind them, forgotten, sullen.
A hand on his arm made Carnelian look round into Akaisha’s face. She made a point of glancing at Harth, who was hugging Loskai while her husband, Crowrane, stood by. Akaisha looked at Carnelian and raised her eyebrows to see if he understood her warning.
‘I’ll be careful, my mother.’
As her gaze moved to Ravan, she seemed suddenly old and frail.
‘I’ll keep an eye on him too,’ he whispered and was rewarded by a squeeze of thanks.
‘Come, child,’ she said, offering her hand to Poppy. ‘Today’s our last day in the ditches for quite a while. The sooner we start, the sooner the day’s work will be done.’
‘And tomorrow we’ll weave, my mother?’
Akaisha shook her head. ‘The day after.’
As Akaisha led her off chattering along the Homewalk, Carnelian waited for Poppy to sneak a glance back at him. He grinned when she did, waved and then he turned grimly to the business of the day.
Once the hunt crossed the Newditch, they rode south-west with the morning breeze streaming their shadows like pennants. At first curious, Carnelian looked around him at the land they were riding through, but he soon grew weary of the infinite fernland where only the acacias showed t
hey were making steady progress. They had brought drag-cradles with them piled high with fernwood. He whiled away some time trying to imagine what they were going to do with it. He played with the javelins Ravan had given him. Though crude, they were nicely made. The tops of the horsetail shafts had been split to take a blade of sharpened flint. Many windings of gut held the blade in place. Though sharp enough, he was sure the blade would prove brittle and he was envious of Osidian’s iron spear.
It had grown torrid when the first glimmer appeared on the horizon. He knew it must be water and for a moment wondered if they had been riding in an arc towards the bellower lagoon. A glance at his shadow was enough to convince him otherwise. Squinting, he saw that to the east of this lagoon there lay another smaller one he had never seen before.
When he spotted the specks of a saurian herd, his heart began hammering. No doubt the hunt would soon be upon him. A thousand fears took possession of him; chief among these that his inexperience was going to make a fool of him. To quell these anxieties, he busied himself moving his grip up and down a javelin to find its balance. When he found it, he realized it was marked with notches. All his weapons were.
Eventually, there was nothing left to do but watch the steady approach of the herds, motes barely visible against the quivering dazzle of the lagoon. Soon they would be close enough to hunt. He wondered how it would be done. Who would choose their victim? What part would he be expected to play? Most likely, he and Osidian would be assigned positions of danger. There was nothing he could do about it. He would have to see the business through to the end.
Crowrane veered their march towards a stately acacia. As each rider entered its shade, he dismounted. Relief at the reprieve flooded through Carnelian, but was soon replaced by an ache anticipating the coming ordeal.
As he rode in, the shade slipped its cool delight over him. He dismounted, taking care to keep his hand on his aquar’s neck so that he would not lose her. He was puzzled to see that people were unhitching waterskins, food bags and all manner of other baggage from their saddle-chairs. He found Krow.
‘Are we stopping here long?’
The youth looked startled. ‘All night, Master.’
‘All night?’
‘We must make many preparations.’
‘Preparations,’ said Carnelian.
Krow smiled and reached up to pat Carnelian’s aquar. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where to put her.’
The Plainsmen cleared ferns from ground that lay just beyond the roof of branches and in the direction of the lagoon. They scraped a shallow crescent in the red earth and filled it with some of the fernwood they had brought. Hobbled, the aquar were near the trunk of the acacia. The hunters settled between the aquar and the fernwood crescent which they lit, taking care to keep the fire from spreading from the centre into either horn of the arc. Cooking pots were produced, bundles of fernroot, fernbread, some fresh meat wrapped in fronds. Ravan, Krow and the other young men began to prepare a meal while the older men busied themselves checking what appeared to be brooms whose twigs were matted with yellow fat. Leaning on his spear, Osidian stood gazing off towards the lagoon, now only a smoulder in the dying afternoon. Carnelian sat quietly, seeking release from the general tension by watching the men cooking
Dusk creeping over the land was curdled by a screaming roar. Carnelian huddled closer to the fire with everyone else. The heat of the day had not lingered long and he clasped his hands to his bowl of broth to warm them. They ate in silence. When they were done, Crowrane sent Loskai to one of the drag-cradles that had been propped up against the tree. He returned, carrying a piece of an earther’s horn which might have been a carving of the moon and which he laid, reverently, in his father’s hands. The old man muttered something before plunging the fragment deep into the embers.
A sequence of ravener bellows set everyone trembling. They tried to drown it out with their talk. Mostly they lingered on the glories of the next day’s hunt. Solemnly, Crowrane put a choice piece of meat in the flames and, as they watched the smoke it made spiral up into the sky, they mumbled prayers to the Skyfather.
‘Success and coming home safe,’ said Crowrane and the Plainsmen echoed him.
The talk then turned to their wives, their children, to their sweet mothers. It was as if they already half believed they would never see them again. The gloom soaked into Carnelian, until the Koppie seemed faraway in another, brighter world.
Crowrane began telling them a story. Not following the old man’s mutter, Carnelian watched the light catching the faces round him. The Plainsmen seemed so like children, blind to the world as the tale played out before their mind’s eye. There stirred in him a love for these people. A cry rent the night, breaking the spell; causing eyes to search the blackness fearfully. Only Osidian seemed unconcerned, his attention rooted in the flames. Crowrane gathered them back into the story with the warm rumbling of his voice. Carnelian could feel how much the courage of the hunters was anchored in the old man and was glad, for he needed it too.
In his dreams, Carnelian was being hunted by a ravener who saw him through Osidian’s emerald eyes. He awoke and saw above him glowing, gilded rafters and, for a moment, he was back in his room in the Hold. The rafters resolved into branches. He sat up. Crowrane was sitting hunched before the fire. Beyond, a winter world stretched moonlit all the way to the camphor-white lagoon. Malice was stalking the land. Carnelian jerked his gaze back to the fire. The old man leaned forward and stirred life into the embers. Seeing that he was keeping watch over them, Carnelian lay back, comforted.
At first light, the horror of the night began to lose its hold. Carnelian rose with the others, groaning as he stretched the stiffness from his back. The fire, burning merrily, drew him. Crowrane was making breakfast. He looked so weary Carnelian felt concern the old man might have kept guard all night. Excitement in the youngsters soon had Carnelian as eager for the hunt to begin as they.
After eating, he helped as much as he could packing up, among other things, returning the unburned fernwood from the two ends of the fireditch to a drag-cradle. Carnelian fed djada to his aquar by hand as he saw the others doing and gave it water to drink. Krow helped him knap his javelin blades to a finer sharpness, whistling over them as a charm.
When everything was ready for them to leave, he saw the Plainsmen gathering at the fire and went to see what was going on. Crouched, Crowrane was poking among the embers with a stick. He uncovered something which he drew out gingerly. It seemed nothing more than a piece of charcoal until Carnelian recognized, from its curve, that it was the piece of horn Crowrane had inserted into the fire the night before. A bowl was brought and the charred horn crumbled into it. Several of the older men took turns in pounding it with a mortar. Fat was added and the grinding resumed. At last the bowl was handed to Crowrane who, sampling it, pronounced himself satisfied.
The bowl was passed round. When it came to him, Carnelian took a little of the paste on to the ends of his fingers as he had seen the others do. He saw Osidian frowning but then sitting on the ground to allow Ravan to reach and apply the black stuff to his face. Carnelian was distracted from this strange spectacle by Krow appearing before him.
‘Would you like me to do you?’ he asked.
Carnelian gave the youth a nod. As the warm stuff was smeared upon his skin, Carnelian wrinkled his nose against its acidic tang. When his face was done, Carnelian painted Krow’s. The hunt were eerily transformed, each with his black face. More unsettling was Osidian, who Carnelian felt bore too close a resemblance to the monster in his dream.
As Crowrane led them into the herd, the earthers lifted the horned boulders of their heads. Carnelian held the lazy stare of an ancient bull, smelling his earthy musk, measuring the dangerous curves of his horns with nervous glances. Carnelian had been warned that any sudden sound or movement might alarm the earthers. He felt the tremor as the monster slid forward to reach his beak into a nest of ferns. The sinews holding his battering-ram head ran like hawsers
under his scaly hide. Carnelian could not believe flint blades would dent such armour.
At last, Crowrane chose an old cow, wise from many years, rich with folds and creases. One of her horns had broken close to the slope of the crest that flared behind her head. Carnelian could see the bulge in her neck where the muscles had swelled to take the unbalancing strain of her other major horn. His companions gave the Elder their agreement with nods as slow as the saurians’ as they lumbered across the plain.
They fixed their gazes on the cow as they kept pace with her. With somnolent signals, Crowrane divided them into groups. Carnelian found himself with two youths and an older man. The man gave Carnelian a nod and motioned for him to follow, smiling with relief when Carnelian did so.
They rode away. The further they were from the saurians, the faster they went until they had left them behind and were moving parallel to the lagoons into the path of the sun. Squinting against the glare, Carnelian saw, far off, other groups keeping up with them.
‘Aren’t we going to hunt?’ Carnelian asked.
The leader craned round in his chair. ‘The hunt’ll be brought to us.’
Carnelian did not understand, but said nothing more. A while later, they came to a halt facing north. Carnelian was thankful of the eastern breeze: it cooled him and kept down the flies. The herd of earthers crept slowly towards them. Sweat was trickling down his back, his chest. A groaning was adding to the lowing wafting on the breeze. Squinting, Carnelian saw parties of the hunters sweeping down on the herd, whirling bull-roarers as they came in, scattering the earthers like a storm. Their horned wave rolled its rumble across the plain. Carnelian stared as he felt the thunder swell, the dark front getting ever closer. Looking round, he saw fear in the faces of his companions, but also grim determination. He set his teeth. He would trust in their knowledge. Come what may, he would not flee unless they did.
As the front came on, he saw its stampede was being led by one creature more massive than the rest. This maintained their flight, narrow. Carnelian’s aquar began shifting nervously with the rest, her hands clasping and unclasping, her fan-plumes trembling on the verge of being fully open.
The Standing Dead (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon) Page 29
