Helgvor of the Blue River

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  A long quiver rippled the flesh of the nomad. Far off, thin and ominous, a bluish streamer of smoke rose behind a hillock, spreading wide at the crest. On this calm morning, on the humid plain, that smoke had a single, formidable meaning: the presence of men.

  Worry dropped on Helgvor like the blow of a club. Then he clung to a slim hope, that perhaps the hunters had returned. But was that possible? The warriors had been away ten days, and a great hunt usually lasted half a moon. Doubtless they had encountered large herds of horses. For a long time, in the vicinity of the Red Peninsula, horses had been found only in small numbers. For the winter, captured horses were guarded by the dogs.

  These were fed with grass picked by the women at the end of summer. When the hunting was poor, they were killed to feed the clans. Helgvor had desired to tame them, but because of obscure traditions the old men had opposed him. The horses, soon accustomed to captivity, lived behind barriers erected by men, near the huts.

  “Hiolg, hide yourself!” the warrior addressed his small companion, while he himself sprawled close to the ground. The boy concealed himself behind a rock. Helgvor watched the menacing smoke. He waited a long time. At first, the smoke grew thicker, then lighter. And on both sides of the hillock, bushes spread, which kept all presence secret.

  Helgvor, after scanning the soil, knew that even Hiolg could not approach them without being seen. The plain spread everywhere. Only the river bank afforded shelter, but upstream and downstream the river flowed far from the hillock.

  “Have the men seen Helgvor?” he wondered.

  Perhaps they were watching from behind the bushes as he watched them from the top of his boulder. Then they would not show themselves.

  Suddenly he uttered an exclamation. An erect being had left the bushes to the left, and the keen eye of Helgvor saw at once that the cubical head, the squat body, were not those of a son of the Blue River. He breathed hard, for he felt that the clan and himself were running a fearful risk.

  “Hiolg sees the man?” he asked.

  “Hiolg sees him,” the boy with the hawk’s eyes answered.

  Helgvor pulled up the bear skin over his skull, and Hiolg did the same with the jackal pelt wrapped about his shoulders.

  “Helgvor and Hiolg must reach the river!” the man said.

  They slid from the boulder, opposite the hillock. Then they slipped through the grass and crawled. The dogs and the wolf followed silently.

  They marched a third of a day, making sure that no one followed their tracks. The Red Peninsula was near. Helgvor planned means to defend it. With the three warriors, the women and the dogs, it would be possible to beat back a few enemies, and doubtless the invaders would not attack unless they felt themselves much the stronger.

  The small hillock, the appearance of a single warrior, all indicated a small hunting party. The entrance to the Peninsula, 20 paces wide, was defended by boulders. Helgvor believed that it would take more than a score of men to pass.

  Hiolg interrupted his thoughts. He came up, panting, “Men are walking toward the river.”

  Helgvor again ascended the bank. At a distance, a troop of men, spread out, advanced prudently. All had massive heads and squat bodies. The warrior thought he recognized the man he had seen near the hillock. He counted seven silhouettes. If a surprise was to be avoided, there must be haste; but the child, although agile, delayed progress.

  “Helgvor will run!” the warrior said. “Hiolg knows how to make himself invisible as a mole. He will follow.”

  The child was not afraid. If needed, he would enter the river, for he swam and dove like an otter. And on the opposite shore there were many hiding places among the rocks and in the forest.

  “Hiolg will not be seen!” he answered briefly.

  Helgvor ran. His speed was that of the roebuck; he soon neared the spot where the Peninsula opened at right angles to the shore. First, he heard a confused murmur, then shouts, fierce yells, long moans, cries of terror.

  Helgvor stopped. The shiver of disaster shook him. The Red Peninsula was invaded. The Tzohs were cleaving skulls, piercing bellies, crushing limbs. The old men, the women and a surviving warrior were in flight before a howling horde. At every step a club fell, a spear sank into a chest, and once the victim was down, a Tzoh pounced upon the body to smash the head or tear at the heart.

  Weak from his wounds, the last warrior faced his foes. It was to die. Chest drenched with blood, eyes blinded and legs quivering, he muttered insults and predicted the vengeance of the Ougmars. He lifted his hatchet with an effort, struck out at random. Ten clubs fell; the warrior tumbled to the grass, where the spears dug into his palpitating flesh.

  Then, gripped by holy fury, trembling with the courage of his breed, Helgvor cried, “The Ougmars will crush the Tzohs!”

  Startled, the invaders turned. And they saw nothing. Helgvor, understanding the uselessness of a struggle and the need to survive, had concealed himself in the thick bushes covering the Peninsula. Several Tzohs explored the space in vain; Helgvor, the wolf and the dogs remained invisible.

  Helgvor already seemed out of reach. He was advancing under cover when the wolf bristled and the dogs growled. Two Tzoh warriors appeared from behind a boulder, which, at the same time as the breeze, had attenuated their scent. It was a stark scene, shaded by tall rocks and thick with bushes. Helgvor and his enemies watched each other, motionless. It was a merciless minute: life for the victor, death for the vanquished.

  The Man of the Blue River gave the signal to the wolf and the dogs. Those cunning beasts slid through the vegetation and reappeared behind the Tzohs. Helgvor shot two arrows one after the other. The first creased the skull of a Tzoh, the second knocked out one eye, and as he uttered a howl of pain the wolf attacked him from the rear.

  Hatchet brandished, Helgvor leaped forward.

  The second Tzoh met his onslaught, while the first fought the wolf and the dogs. A spear gashed Helgvor’s shoulder, then the two were face to face. The Tzoh was squat, with mighty shoulders and muscular hands. “The Tzohs have taken your women and killed your children! They shall massacre your warriors and there will be no more Ougmars on the Earth,” he cried.

  Helgvor did not understand the words, but knew them to be insulting. He retorted, “The Ougmars will wipe out the filthy race of the Tzohs!”

  His hatchet whirled, the other lifted his club. Because they were both agile and keen of eye, handling their weapons well, neither was struck at first. Leaping like leopards, they struck and dodged at the same time.

  Helgvor, fearing the arrival of other enemies, resolved to end it quickly. He lowered his weapon, allowed the club to fall. The heavy mace almost hit him, but he avoided its sweep with a light leap, and split the skull of his opponent who had been carried forward by his lunge. The beaten man dropped in a heap and lay dying upon the grass.

  Aside, the victorious wolf and dogs were devouring the other warrior. Hiolg, who had contributed to the victory by clutching the Tzoh warrior’s legs, threw himself toward Helgvor who shouted, “Thus will perish all the Tzohs, race of jackals and stinking hyenas.”

  But the Tzohs, who had not seen the combat, did not learn the fate of the two warriors until later. As they could not find Helgvor, they finished their task. They drove aside the adult women, methodically massacred the old people and the children. At times, when an old man or a woman knelt at their feet, the warriors would laugh and torture them longer. At last the killing ended. The chief, kneeling, with hands extended, called out, “Hidden Lives, the Tzohs have spilled blood for your drinking. You will lead back to the land of the Rocks the warriors and the captive women.”

  For a while longer, the Tzohs explored the Red Peninsula. When they discovered a trembling old fellow or a frightened child, the clubs or the spears were used, and ended matters.

  III. The Pursuit Begins

  The Sun blazed like a red furnace when Helgvor reached the Peninsula. The dogs and the wolf smelled the corpses, black birds swooped with hoarse
cries, jackals were coming at their slinking gait, drawn by the odor of blood.

  The Ougmars did not bury the dead, as did the Tzohs, and they had no definite rites. They knew, nevertheless, that the Ougmars were the children of the Giant Eagle and of the Blue River. The Giant Eagle came from an egg floating on the river. At that time, the water flowed over the forest and the rocks; the Eagle was larger than the tiger and the Ougmars respected the life of the Eagle.

  The old men also knew that when starting for the hunt, a spear should be thrown toward the clouds, accompanied by words passed down from their ancestors, to propitiate luck.

  “The Sons of the Eagle and of the River will slay the Tzohs!” Helgvor growled.

  He did not chase away the crows, the hyenas and the jackals, for it was their task to purify the forest and the plain of dead bodies. From time to time he glanced at the corpses sprawled on the ground. The blood of his own people had not been spilled, for his mother had died ten years before; he had no sisters, and his father and brothers were away with the warriors.

  But Hiolg had returned quickly enough to witness the kidnaping of his mother and the slaying of a grandfather. Adult hatred swelled his puny breast.

  For a while it appeared that the Tzohs had massacred all save those they had taken captive. Then an old man appeared, his chest bloody, followed by a grown woman who had sheltered herself in the thicket. Then came a few children, and as the moments passed, a few others, women or old men.

  The warrior addressed them, “Helgvor will follow the trail of the Tzohs. He will leave behind coals and smoke-blackened stones, sometimes he will stick twigs into the earth. Thus, when the warriors return here, they shall be able to follow him.”

  The old men had lost much blood; they listened as in a daze. But a woman understood and answered, “Malgwa will repeat Helgvor’s words to the warriors.”

  Twilight spread upon the clouds a world of illusion, brighter, vaster than the real world. A depressing vapor steamed up from the river; the crows, the vultures, the jackals and hyenas enjoyed this hour.

  Helgvor called the dogs and the wolf away from the human flesh. As he left the Peninsula, Hiolg came running after him. The boy had discovered the bodies of his little brothers among the dead, and moaned like a wolf cub. The son of Shtra said to him, “Hiolg is not swift enough. If the Tzohs find him, they will catch and kill him. Hiolg shall remain here to await the warriors.”

  Having spoken thus, Helgvor threw a spear toward the sky, uttered the words, and vanished, followed by the wolf and the dogs. Other dogs had reappeared, having escaped the general slaughter, and were joining the jackals and hyenas on the field of combat.

  Helgvor had no trouble following the trail of the kidnapers, for the wolf and the dogs had understood what he expected of them, and their sensitive nostrils could discern a scent far better than the keenest human eye could discern a silhouette.

  Because the Tzohs were slowed down by their captives, the Ougmar warrior felt no great haste. He could count on the dogs not to lose the trail and his own agility to catch up with his foes, and escape from them if they turned to pursue him.

  The last ashen streak in the sky melted into the sunset, and nothing remained save the intense darkness of the night and the trembling glow of the stars.

  Lights bloomed on the plain, indicating camp fires, the formidable, ominous signs of the erect beast, man. Helgvor had taken his station downwind, and crouched in a hollow of the soil. He counted five fires, saw the black silhouettes of warriors and women, at times their bodies glowing red in the flames’ glare. Rage made his jaws lock savagely when he identified the youngest of the women. He was swept at once with anger at the outrage, and a glowing, primitive tenderness.

  “The Tzohs are jackals,” he muttered in a low, thick voice. “The Men of the River will break their bones and recapture their women!”

  He tried to count his enemies. There were about twice as many as the Ougmars could gather. Despairing, dazed, the women seemed resigned, the majority already appeared on good terms with the victors. Helgvor felt an immense jealousy, a collective jealousy, but was not otherwise surprised. Women tremble like does, and do not wish to die!

  He spied upon the camp a long time, growing used to the gestures, to the smells of the Tzohs. His attention was drawn to the leader, and all his hatred condensed upon that compact stature, on that enormous face, red as fresh blood. In the darkness, Helgvor lifted his club, aimed his spear; the madness of combat contracted his fists, dilated his heart.

  At length he decided to rest. He found a safe haven in a depression of the plain, lit a small fire and roasted a piece of deer which he shared with the animals. Then he slept, but his ears and his nose continued to perceive the subtle emanations, the rumors of the night. About him, the wolf and the dogs watched also, seeming part of his being.

  He could not be surprised.

  Ten days passed, and Helgvor still trailed the Tzohs.

  Because of his skill, his scent, his prudence, perhaps also because his foes had no dogs, nothing had betrayed his presence. At night he kept even further away than during the day.

  The march of the Tzohs was made very slow by the women and by the need to carry the canoes, almost useless to them as they were progressing upstream. On occasions, when the river widened to form a sort of lake, the canoes were launched, and Helgvor feared he would be left behind. But soon the stream became narrow and rapid again, and the Tzohs resumed their march upon the plain.

  On the morning of the 11th day the Men of the Rocks divided into two smaller bands. While the bulk of the party went on, the others scattered as if to surround a herd of animals. Helgvor recognized their chief, the man seen near the hillock on the morning of the massacre.

  Dogs and wolf, eyes glowing, panting and bristling, remained silent. They had followed the trail of the Tzohs so many days, without being sent in to attack, and knew them as enemies to be feared.

  Undetected, Helgvor drew back, and as he no longer feared to lose the trail, retreated a considerable distance. He reached a line of rocks which formed a crenelated wall along the bank, and concealed himself. His line of retreat was secure; through the high grass, he could reach a clump of sycamore-trees.

  The halt lasted a long time. The river flowed by, very wide, and islands could be distinguished upstream; a canoe emerged between two of them. Helgvor was startled to see that it was handled by women.

  Nearer to the right bank than to the left, they paddled desperately. Soon, another canoe appeared, filled with warriors, gaining on the first one rapidly, obviously seeking to slide between the fugitives and the bank. The women swerved to the right at the precise moment that a third canoe appeared around the tip of an island.

  Then Helgvor’s flesh quivered with the hunting passion. And while he crawled, panting, a shadow appeared among the rocks. The warrior turned his head and recognized the boy, Hiolg.

  IV. The Fugitives

  Glava and Amhao had traveled downstream consistently. Amhao, skilled in the finding of plants and fruits which feed human beings, lit and kept alive the fire with more ability than her sister.

  Glava showed a surer skill of the hunt, a sharper knowledge of animals. During her childhood she had learned to throw the sharpened stones and the spear; her hand was deft, her glance quick and sure. Each day she brought back meat for the night’s fire.

  As they spent almost the entire day in the canoe, they avoided lions, leopards and bears. At night, they sought a tall boulder or a cave, and their fire kept away the flesh-eaters. Often, also, they camped on an island in the river.

  When there chanced to be game on the island, they remained two or three days, although they still had to beware of the large hydrosaurians. They had manufactured spears, two clubs, two darts, which although not as solid as those made by the warriors, were efficient nevertheless. Glava had roughed them out, and Amhao, more patient, had polished them with tireless persistence. And thus, day by day, they had become better adapted to comba
t. The energy and audacity of Glava bolstered the spirits of her elder, who practiced the throwing of stones and spears with docility.

  Now they scarcely feared the panther, the leopard or the hyena, but when they heard the thunderous roar, the menacing yelp of the tiger, or the growling of the gray bear, lords of the plain and the forest, they were aware of their weakness. At the time when the caves were their refuge, the strength of the warriors had protected them: the whole tribe could scorn the flesh-eaters.

  Memories of the cave dwellings were strongest when the shadows flooded the world, when dimly distinguished shapes prowled around their fire, even when the stars seemed threatening. Then Amhao sighed, thinking of Tsaouhm, her master, the father of her child.

  “Tsaouhm is strong!” she chanted.

  At the sound of this complaint, which seeped into her self-confidence in a subtle manner, audacity and anger would stir in Glava’s chest.

  “Amhao forgets she was to die!” she would grumble. “Long since her blood would have dried upon the rocks! The Tzohs are worse than the tiger or the lion!”

  One night a hungry gray bear stopped by the bank of the river. Since the preceding day, wary beasts had caught his heavy scent and had avoided him. In vain he had hidden among the boulders, squatted in the brush, lurked in the high grasses. The saiga antelope, the elaph deer, the doe, the wild sheep, all discerned his effluvia above that of the leaves, of the grass, of the smelly sod.

  His fury grew, stirred by hunger, and his opaque, dull soul was filled with indignation against the ruses or the agility of his prey.

  Before the flames of the women’s fire he opened his growling jaws wide, and when he shook his paws their enormous claws clattered together. The eyes, ferocious and alert, gleamed covetously at the two human beings. He was swathed in his pelt which hung in thick pleats on his chest; each of his movements revealed a supple strength; the habit of winning gave him an undefinable, formidable prestige.