Sil looked distraught. ‘What did you want me to tell Fern?’
Carnelian thought. ‘Tell him he must wait until he returns here with the Master.’
He kissed her lips to stop questions. She frowned, then turned to allow him to kiss Leaf. Akaisha took her bag back from him. He leaned in to kiss her but she turned her face away.
Krow had found him and together they watched the Tribe march away. Carnelian saw riders and was sure one of them was Fern. Dust rose in clouds to hide them but still he stood watching the dark shapes trembling behind the veils. Soon the plain had claimed them all. The few men who had come to watch began to slog back to the cedar shade. It was Krow’s discomfort from the heat that made Carnelian leave. As they walked back, he glanced over to where he knew the Bluedancing were slaving in the sun. He was not feeling brave enough just then to go among them. At that moment, what he most wanted was to go and sit against his mother tree.
THE ORACLE
It is too late to avoid a scorpion once you have felt his sting.
(A Chosen proverb)
SMOKE FROM THE BURNING PLAIN TURNED THE DAYS TO DUSK; AT NIGHT it stole the stars, leaving the blackness to come alive with furtive smoulderings. It was hard not to believe they were witnessing the end of the world.
Then the sun began to peer through the haze. The moon rose full and flooded the cold dead plain. Through numberless molten-glass days, Carnelian craved the shade of his mother tree but he chose instead to stay with the Bluedancing. He spared the warriors exposure to the terrible gaze of the sun and left them cowering in the shade of the cedars. Krow chose to join him. With his help, Carnelian tried to arrange the labour of the Bluedancing so that as many as possible should work in the shade of the ditch wall. Still, many women were forced out into the torrid air; on to earth so hot they had to wrap cloth around their feet or else be blistered. Even in the ditch, the sun threatened to sear tongue and eyes. Drinking, each gulp had to be held in the mouth to cool it a little before swallowing. The more unbearable it became, the more Carnelian refused to abandon the women. He could give them no promises, no reassurances. He hoped it was enough they knew their children were safe in the mountains and that each day they saw him suffering at their side.
On a day like any other, a warrior not of the Ochre came to find Carnelian at the diggings. Carnelian ignored the man’s stare. Skin slimy with sweat and dust; mouth and throat choked dry, Carnelian’s eyelashes gummed together every time he blinked. He closed his mouth and allowed it to fill with spittle. When his tongue came loose, he used it to scour his mouth. He gathered it all and spat it out, licked his lips, spat again, swallowed.
‘What is it?’ he croaked.
The man’s eyes widened. ‘Smoke.’
Carnelian peered at the man waiting for more. Krow appeared.
‘What’s happening?’
The man pointed back the way he had come. ‘Smoke rising. In the direction of our … my koppie. The koppie of the Darkcloud.’
Carnelian stood for a while unsure what the man wanted of him. ‘You want me to see it?’
The man answered with a vigorous nod.
Carnelian and Krow covered themselves with their robes and the youth led them up out of the ditch. They surfaced into blinding incandescence. Beneath a flat, colourless sky, the land smouldered, wisped with dust. Carnelian concentrated on drawing scorched air slowly into his lungs. Sweat trickled down his neck, his back, his inner thighs. He realized the man was waiting for him, impatient. He pointed up at the Crag.
Carnelian measured the burning distance lying between him and the Newditch and began walking. Staggering, swooning, he cursed himself that he had not drunk for a while.
At last they crossed a bridge into the delicious shade under a magnolia. Running from one shadow to the next, Carnelian led them to the first cistern. Reluctantly, the man helped him wrestle its cover aside. Carnelian lowered a leather bucket to the water, swaying, ribboned with light. He drew the bucket up and let Krow drink first before he took a long, cool draught.
‘Nectar,’ Carnelian said and saw by the others’ puzzled expressions that he must have spoken in Quya. The man refused a drink. He and Krow slid the cover back. A little more himself, Carnelian saw how desperate the man was that they should hurry. They jogged all the way to the Homeditch and were soon under the cedar canopy.
They took a route up the hill that was wholly in shadow. Other men, evidently all Darkcloud, were waiting anxiously by the Crag steps. As his guide ran up to them, he half turned. ‘The stone will burn you if you touch it.’
Reaching the summit, Carnelian could feel heat radiating off the rock. They would shrivel up if they stayed too long.
‘Show me,’ Carnelian said.
The man led him across the summit and then pointed west over the simmering plain.
Carnelian peered and for a while could see nothing. Then he saw a dull haze smudging the horizon.
‘That’s in the direction of your koppie?’ Carnelian asked.
The man nodded, staring.
‘It really is fire,’ said Krow.
‘Let’s talk down there,’ Carnelian said moving back towards the steps.
In the clearing bathed in the deep shadow of the Crag Darkcloud men collected around Carnelian. He looked into their anxious faces. ‘You’re worried it might be your mother trees?’
‘There’s nothing else left to burn, Master,’ said one.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Let us ride home,’ said the man who had fetched him there.
Carnelian asked them to give him a little time to think. He leaned against the coolness of the Crag steps, wondering how Osidian might react to him letting them go. He imagined the Hold on its island several worlds away. He remembered how he had felt about his home. He had been unable to stop it being destroyed but the Darkcloud might still save theirs.
‘I’ll lead them, Master, if you want,’ said Krow.
Carnelian looked round at the fretting Darkcloud.
‘Gather every man you can find. We will all go together.’
While they filled waterskins and saddled aquar, Carnelian returned to the diggings. Locating some of the Bluedancing Elders, he told them he was leaving the Koppie in their care. While he was gone, they could rest from their labours. Though it had never been his intention, he realized that their children being in the hands of the Ochre would ensure their good behaviour.
He led the warriors out of the Koppie along the Southing and then turned west. He suppressed panic as he saw the green of the mother trees recede. They were adrift in a desert spined with a few charred acacias. The rest was dust and ashes. As the sun poured down its fire, Carnelian could not believe the earth would survive until the Rains. He drew his uba down over his eyes and rode blind, trusting to the Darkcloud to find their way home.
At last they came within sight of the dusty bed of a lagoon. At its narrowest point, a ring was incised into the earth.
‘The Master’s earthwork,’ said Krow.
Curious to see one of Osidian’s camps, Carnelian rode closer and was surprised how small it was.
‘Rather cramped,’ he said to Krow, then noticed the youth was staring off across the lagoon to where smoke was rising in two columns from a koppie on the horizon. As Carnelian’s eyes met Krow’s, understanding passed between them. The fires seemed man-made. But who? Carnelian watched Krow’s face grow pale as his lips formed the word: Marula.
Others had seen the smoke. Several Darkcloud rode up to Carnelian clamouring. He explained what he and Krow suspected.
‘We must go and kill them,’ said one, his face dark with fury.
Glancing at Krow, fearing his reaction, imagining Poppy’s, Carnelian shook his head. ‘They’re likely to outnumber us.’
Cries of protest rose from the Darkcloud. Carnelian regarded them, agonized. ‘We must wait for the Master and then hit them with our combined forces.’
‘They might escape us,’ said Krow.
<
br /> ‘We risk heavy casualties, perhaps annihilation.’
‘You fear them because they massacred my tribe,’ said Krow through gritted teeth. ‘Even with surprise on their side, they still took a mauling. This time surprise is ours.’
Carnelian paused to watch the smoke again. It must be rising from among the Darkcloud’s mother trees. He glanced round and saw their anguish. It was not hard to imagine their women’s grief should they return to find their trees harmed in any way.
‘I’ll ask the others,’ Carnelian said to Krow.
Krow’s eyes flamed. ‘Why ask when you can command?’
‘I’ll risk my blood but not that of others against their will.’
Krow rode his aquar in among the other men crying: ‘Though we be of different tribes, we’re all Plainsmen. Can we allow such defilement to go unpunished?’
Grimly, all there gave their assent.
‘Very well,’ said Carnelian. ‘But if we are to approach unseen, we must wait for dusk.’
They found what shade they could within the earthwork and sheltered beneath blankets. Carnelian found if he sat very still, the heat rising from his body would lift his uba from his skin. As sweat trickled down his back, he carefully sipped sun-heated water from a waterskin. His slitted gaze lost hold of the white world. In a stupor he sat, tortured, imagining the disasters that might overcome their expedition.
The night was as cold as the day had been hot. Shadows in the starlight, they streamed across the lagoon bed and then began the long ride across the plain to the koppie of the Darkcloud.
A sliver moon rose as they neared the outer ditch. The Darkcloud led them across a bridge into a ferngarden. The ride to the next ditch was shorter than it would have been at the Koppie. Once across, Carnelian saw that the inner ferngardens were much wider than he was used to. To approach as silently as they could, they made their aquar walk. Carnelian had plenty of time to search the hill with its cedars and the irregular crags rising above them. All was in blackness and there was no sign of life except for the cedars shifting in a breeze that carried on it a hint of smoke.
At last they reached a bridge leading over the innermost ditch. Carnelian and Krow dismounted with the Darkcloud and watched them cross the bridge and disappear into shadow.
As he waited Carnelian listened to the sighing of their mother trees. Watching a canopy round to the north, he was sure that every so often it opened a chink through which he glimpsed what might have been a flicker of light on branches.
A single shape returning over the bridge made him jump. The Darkcloud came close enough for Carnelian to smell him.
‘The huskman’s still in his place, Master,’ said the Darkcloud. ‘Some of us have gone in to scout around.’
‘You should’ve waited for instructions,’ said Krow, his voice seeming loud after the man’s whisper.
Carnelian reached out and gripped Krow’s shoulder, wanting to calm him. ‘We need to know where they are.’
They crept back to where the others were still mounted and waited, listening, watching.
At last the Darkcloud returned. Even though they were nothing but shadows, Carnelian could sense their rage. Their voices rose as they all began to speak at once.
‘Choose one of you to speak,’ Carnelian hissed.
One of them was pushed forward.
‘The filthy bastards have cut down two mother trees.’ They could hear that the man was close to tears.
‘Marula?’ asked Krow.
‘A plague of them.’
‘How many?’ Carnelian asked.
‘Hundreds.’
Carnelian grimaced. It was what he had most feared. ‘Are they camped?’
The man’s snort was echoed by the others. ‘They’re sprawled out over the rootearths of Magnolia, Erth, Ceda –’
‘How many hearths? How densely?’ Carnelian interrupted.
‘Six.’ He shrugged. ‘Less than a hundred at each. All in a tight cluster in the north of the grove.’
Carnelian nodded. ‘In the shade of the crags.’ The Marula out-numbered his men at least four to one. ‘There might be too many of them.’
The Darkcloud began protesting and Carnelian hissed them to silence.
‘I’m with them,’ said Krow, coldly.
Carnelian leaned close to the spokesman. ‘Anything else?’
‘The western edge of the grove where they came in is crowded with aquar.’
‘They’re covered in sores,’ someone said from behind him.
The spokesman nodded. ‘By the looks of them, the bastards haven’t unhitched their drag-cradles or unsaddled them for days.’
‘Probably don’t know how to,’ said Carnelian.
‘Drag-cradles?’ said Krow.
‘Loaded with djada, water.’
Carnelian did not need to be able to see Krow’s face to know they shared the same thought. Stolen from another massacred tribe.
That made Carnelian’s mind up. ‘Are they sleeping?’
The spokesman nodded. ‘Fires dowsed, they lie around them.’
‘Well, let’s make sure most of them never wake again.’
They fell on them with mattocks as if they were beating undergrowth to drive game. A quarter of the Marula had their heads staved in as they slept. The rest woke to mayhem. Carnelian swung against another skull, memories of the Twostone massacre, of Poppy orphaned, driving away his instinct that this was dishonourable. Still, he was relieved when a number of the Marula found their spears. Butchery became battle and the Marula still outnumbered them. Carnelian cast away his bloodied mattock, took his spear in both hands and leapt to the attack, baying. Though dwarfed by the black men, the Darkcloud crashed into them and pushed them back. Some of the invaders fell, their ankles catching on the cedar roots. Others rolled, lost their spears, stumbled to their knees and were up trying to run down the slope. Their ranks were dissolving as Carnelian impaled one in the chest. The man fell clasping the spear haft, his teeth set in a grimace of surprise. Carnelian put his foot on the man and pulled. The spear came free, spurting hot blood on to his legs. He paused, reeling, watching the Marula fleeing, falling, rolling while Krow led the Plainsmen down the rootsteps after them, screaming with battle-lust.
Carnelian turned slowly, seeing the hillside in the light of the smouldering fires. He approached one, seeing the great bough in its midst from which the flames had taken a wide charcoal-edged bite. The soft bark showed it was cedar wood, the amputated limb of a mother tree. He wandered emotionless up towards the mutilated trees. He touched one, her proud head fallen into the earth, her branches broken, her waist splintered. He glanced down the hill and saw the Marula had fled out into the ferngardens where he had set Plainsmen to hunt them on aquar.
Something pale caught the corner of his eye. He whisked round and saw a house of bones nestling up among the crags. Smoke was leaking from it. He remembered the charred floor of the Twostone Ancestor House. Hefting his spear, he strode towards it. He found steps cut into the rock and climbed them. When he set his foot upon the porch the smoke was thick enough to sting his eyes. A leather door was set into the wall. He crept to it and listened and heard nothing. Tearing the door back, he entered.
Three Marula were lit by a blaze set into a pelvis in the floor. Two lay as if asleep. The third sat against a frieze of skulls, regarding him with disdain. Even under their powdery covering of ash, Carnelian could see this Maruli was much younger than the other two.
‘Are you what you seem?’ the Maruli asked in smooth Vulgate.
Carnelian stared. ‘You speak …?’
The man grinned his sharpened teeth and displayed a pale palm upon which there were some service glyphs. ‘I served long in the service of the Masters.’
Carnelian saw that the man was identical to the Marula who had escorted him from the sea to Osrakum. When he indicated the other Marula, the man shook his head. ‘They never served the Masters.’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes, I am a Master,’
Carnelian said in response to the man’s earlier question. He put a finality in the tone that told the Maruli he would answer no more. The man showed his feral teeth again.
‘And I am Morunasa,’ he jabbed an arm in the direction of his older companions, ‘with these others, Oracle and slave of the Darkness-under-the-Trees.’
‘What are you doing here?’
Before the Maruli had a chance to answer, Carnelian was aware of someone coming in behind him. Turning, he saw it was Krow, staring in horror at the fire smouldering on the bony floor. His gaze jumped to the two Marula and settled on Morunasa. Carnelian moved to intercept him as the youth, teeth bared, raised his spear. He caught hold of Krow, who struggled.
‘His filthy feet.’
Carnelian held him fast. ‘Don’t you want to know why your tribe was massacred?’
Krow searched Carnelian’s eyes. As he felt the youth relax, he let him go. Krow threw his head back to indicate the world outside.
‘The Darkcloud will be here any moment. Do you imagine you’ll be able to stop them killing,’ his lips curled in disgust as he looked at Morunasa, ‘that ravening bastard!’
Carnelian addressed the Maruli. ‘If the others find you here in their holy place, they’ll kill you.’ He pointed at the other two Marula. ‘Wake them.’
Morunasa shook his head. ‘They will not wake.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’ cried Krow.
Morunasa regarded him with yellow eyes. ‘They commune with our Lord.’
Carnelian could see Krow was unsettled by this. ‘We can carry them.’
Too late. Men pushed into the room past Krow, Darkcloud, their bloodied faces becoming childlike in their dismay. One fell to his knees sobbing. Another advanced, a spear shaking in his hand, tears drawing channels through his mask of gore.
The Standing Dead (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon) Page 50
