“I have many here, young ones growing here. Where are the sammads?”
“North, on the beach with the mastodons, waiting. Half of the hunters stay to guard them, the other half are here waiting in the forest. I came alone. It was my feeling you would kill me and I did not want them to see this happen.”
“You were right in that. But I give you no death-sticks for hunting on the plains.”
“You what?” Herilak shook his spear in anger. “You will refuse me, refuse the sammads? You could have had my life if you wished it. I gave you that—for the sammads—and now you refuse me?”
Without realizing it he half-raised the spear and Kerrick pointed to it, smiling coldly.
“Tanu does not kill Tanu—yet you raise your spear.” He waited until Herilak had conquered his anger, lowered his spear, before he spoke again. “I said there would be no death-sticks for hunting in the plains. There is danger in this city and hunters are needed to defend it. The Sasku are here. As they once aided the Tanu I now ask you to aid them in turn. Stay and help them here. There are death-sticks for all.”
“That is not for me to decide. There are other sammadars, and all in the sammads as well.”
“Bring them here. A decision must be made.”
Herilak scowled darkly with anger, yet had no choice. In the end he turned on his heel and stamped away, brushing past Sanone without even a sideward glance.
“There is trouble?” Sanone asked.
Trouble? Armun dead. Kerrick still could not accept this reality. It took an effort to speak to Sanone.
“The sammadars of the Tanu are coming here. I have told them if they want death-sticks they must stay in the city. They must bring the sammads here. We will band together to defend each other—there is no other way.”
Nor was there. The sammadars talked, long and angrily, sucked smoke from the pipe and passed it on. They would decide to stay; they had no other choice. Kerrick did not take part in the discussion, ignored the angry looks from them when Herilak told of his ultimatum. How they felt was of no importance to him. Tanu and Sasku would stay here, would leave only if they were driven out. Through the haze of his troubled and angry thoughts he became aware that a hunter stood before him. It took him a moment to realize that it was Ortnar. When he saw this he waved the hunter forward.
“Here, sit in the shade beside me and tell me about Armun.”
“You have spoken of this to Herilak already?”
“He told me that he ordered her to stay in the encampment, ordered that she not be helped. Yet you went to her aid. What happened?”
Ortnar was not happy. He spoke in a low whisper, his head lowered, his long hair hanging over his face. “This has pulled me in two directions at the same time, Kerrick, still pulls me. Herilak was my sammadar, we two are the only two still alive from the sammad killed by the murgu. That is a bond that is hard to break. When Herilak ordered none to help Armun I obeyed for it was a good decision. The path was long and dangerous. Yet when she asked me to help her I felt that she was right too. This pulled me apart and in my stupidity I gave her only half the help she needed. I should have given her all, gone with her, I know that now. I told her the path and gave her my death-stick. Half help.”
“The others gave her none, Ortnar. You were her only friend.”
“I told Herilak what I had done. He struck me down and I lay as one dead for two days, this I have been told. Here is where he struck in his anger.” Ortnar’s fingers crept to the crown of his head, fingered the scar there on his scalp. “I am no longer of his sammad; he has not spoken to me since.”
He raised his face and interrupted before Kerrick could speak. “I had to tell you this first, so you would know what happened. Since then I have looked for traces of her, scouting as we came east. I could find nothing—no bones or skeletons of any of them. There were three of them who left together, Armun and your son, and a boy who she took with them. There should have been some trace. I asked all the hunters we met but none had seen them. But there was one, a hunter who traded stone knives for furs, who traded with the Paramutan to the north. He understands some of their talk. He was told that a woman with hair like ours was with them in their place, a woman with children.”
Kerrick seized him by the arms, pulled him to his feet and shook him wildly.
“What are you saying—do you know what you are saying?”
Ortnar smiled and nodded his head. “I know. I came south to tell you this. Now I go north while it is still summer to find the Paramutan, to find Armun if I can. I will bring her to you . . .”
“No, no need for that.”
In an instant everything had changed for Kerrick. He straightened up as though an invisible weight had slipped from his shoulders. The future was suddenly as clear as a path, stretching sharply marked out ahead of him, like Kadair’s footsteps stamped into stone that Sanone always talked about. He looked past Ortnar, to the city street that led to the north.
“There is no need for you to go—I will do that myself. The sammads will stay here; the city will be defended. Herilak knows how to kill the murgu—he won’t need any instructions from me for that. I will go north and find her.”
“Not alone, Kerrick. I have no sammad except yours now. Lead and I will follow. We will do this together for two spears are stronger than one.”
“You are right—I will not stop you.” Kerrick smiled. “And you are the better hunter by far. We would go hungry if we depended upon the skill of my bow.”
“We will go fast with little time for hunting. If there is the gray murgu meat we will take that to eat.”
“Yes, there is still a good supply. Fresh meat is much preferred by the Sasku.”
Kerrick had found a large stock of bladders of preserved meat, had been bringing it to the hanalè for the males. And what would become of them? Certain death if he left them, that was clear. They deserved better than that. He must think about that as well. Much had to be decided.
“We will leave in the morning,” he said. “We will meet here when it is light. By that time the sammadars will have come to an agreement since they have little choice.”
Kerrick went to the hanalè, closed the heavy door behind him and called out his name. Nadaskè hurried down the corridor toward him, claws clattering on the wood, making motions of greeting and happiness.
“Days without number have passed, loneliness and starvation batter at us.”
“I will not ask which comes first, hunger or companionship. Now where is Imehei? There is important talking to be done before I leave the city.”
“Leave!” Nadaskè wailed with agony and signed death-by-despair. Imehei heard the sounds and came hurrying up.
“I’ll not leave you to die,” Kerrick said, “so stop your bad imitation of a mindless fargi and listen closely. We are going for a walk around the city now. The Sasku will take no notice, they have seen us walking before and have been ordered not to harm you. They obey their mandukto far better than you obey me. We will walk to the edge of the city and beyond. Then you will go south by yourselves until you see the island I have told you about, and the place of death. You will find Yilanè and uruketo there and you will be safe away from ustuzou forever.”
Nadaskè and Imehei looked at each other, signed agreement and firmness of purpose. It was Nadaskè who spoke, indicating that what he said was spoken for both of them.
“We have talked. In the many hours alone we have talked. We have seen the city and the ustuzou here and walked about it and have talked. I will tell you what we have talked about. How strange it has been to be away from females and to walk with Kerrick-ustuzou-male-female. Very strange. We have marveled at what we have seen, eyes as wide as fargi fresh from the sea, for we have seen ustuzou living as Yilanè in this city. Strangest of all we have seen the ustuzou males with hèsotsan and the females with the young. We have talked and talked about this . . .”
“And you talk too much,” Imehei interrupted. “Not only did we talk, we de
cided. Decided that we did not want to go to the beaches ever again. Decided that we never wanted to see a female-grasping-painly-deadly Yilanè ever again. We will not walk south.”
They signalled firmness-of-decision together and Kerrick marveled. “You have a braveness I have never seen—for males.”
“How can it be seen when our lives are in the hanalè,” Nadaskè said. “We are as much Yilanè as the females.”
“But what will you do?”
“We will stay with you. We will not go south.”
“But I am leaving here in the morning. Going north.”
“Then we go north as well. It will be better than the hanalè, better than the beaches.”
“There is cold, certain death to the north.”
“There is warm, certain death on the beaches. And this way we will at least have seen something more than the hanalè before we die.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kerrick slept little that night; there was too much to think about. The sammads would come south, that had been decided; the hunters with their new hèsotsan were leaving in the morning to bring them back. With the hunters here the city was safe—or as safe as it might possibly ever be. Kerrick must turn his back on it now and think of his own sammad. He had left Armun behind with the sammads, and she had tried to join him. He would not even think of the possibility that she was dead; she was alive in the north, she had to be. He would find her, with Ortnar’s aid they would seek out the Paramutan. They would find her, and the baby too—which left only a single thing to be concerned about. The two male Yilanè.
But why should he bother about them? They were nothing to him. But that was wrong. They were important. They had been imprisoned as he had been imprisoned. He had been tied by the neck—his fingers touched the iron ring about his neck at the thought—and they had been locked in the hanalè. It was the same thing. And they had a courage that he did not have, wanting to go bravely forth into a world they knew nothing about. Ready to follow him—because they had faith in him. They wanted to be part of his sammad. At this thought he laughed into the darkness. A strange sammad it would be! A sammadar who could rarely shoot an arrow straight, a hunter with a hole in his skull put there by his former sammadar, a woman, a baby—and two frightened murgu! A sammad indeed to strike fear into the hearts of others—if not into that of the sammadar himself.
What else could he do with the poor, helpless creatures? To leave them here would mean certain death; better to kill them himself than abandon them to that. And they would not return to the female Yilanè, which was very understandable. Yet if they went north with him they would surely die in the snow. Then what could he do? Take them out of here—then what?
An idea began to form and the more he thought about it the more possible it became. It was clear by morning and he slept on it.
Ortnar was waiting for him in the ambesed, with all of his weapons, his pack upon his back.
“We go later today,” Kerrick said. “Leave your things here and come with me for I want to study our track north.” They went to the still-intact model that the Yilanè had built, of the land on all sides of the city, and Kerrick looked at it closely.
“There is no need,” Ortnar said. “I know the track well, have been over it many times.”
“We will go a different way, at least at the beginning. Tell me, Ortnar, will you obey my orders, even if they do not suit you, or will you go to another sammad?”
“It may be that one day I will, since a hunter only obeys a sammadar who is right in what he says. But not now, not until we have gone north to find Armun and your son. For I feel I did wrong in not helping her when she first asked for aid. Because of that I will follow wherever you lead until we have done that thing.”
“Those are hard words to say and I believe every one of them. Then you will go north with me—even though the two murgu males come with us?”
“They mean nothing to me. They will die in the snow in any case.”
“Good. We will go after midday, when the hunters have gone, since I feel that the Tanu who leave now would enjoy using their new death-sticks on the males.”
“I would enjoy doing that myself—were you not my sammadar.”
“I can believe that. Now let us get a large supply of murgu meat from the store. If anyone asks you why we are taking the murgu north with us, it is because they will carry much meat for us so we can go faster and not stop to hunt. Tell them that we will kill the males when the meat is used up and we no longer need them.”
“Now I understand, sammadar. It is a good plan and I will let you kill them yourself when the time comes.”
They went to the hanalè then, and when they entered the two Yilanè eyed the newcomer with great fright.
“Act like males,” Kerrick ordered. “We all travel together and you must get used to one another. This is Ortnar who follows me.”
“He smells of death-smoke, horrible,” Imehei said, shuddering delicately.
“And he thinks that your breath is foul from eating raw meat. Now be still while I fit these on you.”
Ortnar had made leather packs to hold the meat and the two Yilanè were already wailing over the weight of their loads.
“Silence!” Kerrick ordered, “or I will give you more to carry. You are like still-wet fargi and have never worked in your lives. Outside the hanalè there is much work to be done and you will have to share it. Or do you wish to go south—to the birth-beaches?”
They were silent after that, though Imehei made a movement of extreme hatred when he thought Kerrick had looked away. Good. A little anger would be of big help to them. Nadaskè turned and reached up to the niche in the wall and took down the metal sculpture of a nenitesk that long-dead Alipol had made.
“Where we go this goes,” Nadaskè said firmly. Kerrick signed agreement.
“Wrap it well and put it in the pack. Then remain here with the ustuzou until I return,” he said, then turned to Ortnar and spoke in Marbak. “I am going for my pack and weapons. Remain with these murgu until I return.”
“With these?” Ortnar said, worried, grasping his spear. “They have teeth and claws—and are two to one.”
“They are more afraid of you than you are of them. You will all have to be together without me at some time. Now is that time.”
“We die, death is upon us,” Nadaskè moaned. “When you go through the door the ustuzou will spear us. I sing my death song . . .”
“Silence!” Kerrick ordered, speaking as mightiest on high to lowest below. “I tell you this now, and will tell him the same words. We will stay together. You will all obey me. You will be my fargi. He will be my fargi. You will be efenselè to each other. This is our efenburu.”
When he had told Ortnar the same thing he turned on his heel and left. Sanone was waiting for him when he came out of the hanalè.
“You leave us,” Sanone said.
“I will come back—with Armun.”
“We all follow the footsteps of Kadair. Do you go alone?”
“Ortnar goes with me. He is a good hunter and knows the path. And we take the murgu to carry food.”
“That is well, for I could not promise their safety once you were gone. We will be here when you return.”
There was little enough to take for Kerrick had few possessions. The unbreakable ring was always around his neck, the little knife and the big one hung from it. He would need all the furs he had for the north and he rolled these carefully and tied them to his pack and pulled it on.
Back in the hanalè he was relieved to discover that his small sammad was still intact—although Ortnar stood against one wall, the two Yilanè against the other. They all moved with relief when he entered.
The word had spread, and it seemed that every Sasku was there to watch the strange procession when they emerged. Kerrick went first, looking neither to right nor left, while the two males stumbled after him, bent under the weight of their packs, fear in every movement of their bodies. Ortnar came last l
ooking as though he wished he were somewhere else. He carried two of the hèsotsan, as did Kerrick—the extra weapons in case the first died, Kerrick had explained. Through the city they went, to the northernmost exit among the fields, where the nenitesk turned placid eyes upon them as they passed. Only when they had marched for some time, were well clear of the city, did Kerrick order a stop. Ortnar merely stood and waited but the males fell to the ground, writhing with expressions of fatigue and despair.
“Death is better—the birth-beaches are better!”
“The hanalè is our home, we belong there.”
“Useless males be still,” Kerrick ordered. “Rest while you can, then we go on.”
“Why do they moan and shake like that?” Ortnar asked.
“They are like children. They have never been out of the city before—nor have they ever done any work like carrying those packs.”
“That is not work,” he said scornfully. “They are big and ugly and strong. We’ll make them work before we kill them.”
“They are my friends—and we will not kill them.”
“Then the winter will. It is the same to me.”
“That will not happen either. When we looked at the plan of the land—did you notice the large lake north of here?”
“We call it Round Lake. I have been there.”
“Good. We go there first—if you will lead the way.”
Because of the complaints of Nadaskè and Imehei, and their slow gait, it was not until the third day that they reached the lake. There was swamp to the south of it, but Ortnar knew the path that took them around it to the lakeshore.
“Good fishing here,” Ortnar said. “Hunting as well.”
“All for the best,” Kerrick said. “Because we are leaving the murgu here with a supply of meat. We go on alone. We will go faster that way.”
“We do not kill them? I cannot understand this.”
“I won’t kill them—because they are my friends. And they are of my sammad. They do not ask me to kill you.”
Winter in Eden Page 12
