Helgvor of the Blue River

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  At times he would prowl nervously before the flames, then stop short, oscillating, gaping, furious. A concave boulder sheltered the women; the fire seemed to form the string of a stone bow. The wild beast could have cleared it at a single leap, but the mysterious palpitation of the flames filled him with distrust. When he crept nearer he was dazzled, and the heat hurt his nostrils.

  Glava, having closed the gap with care, kept the fire high with branches. Each time the monster closed in she would wave a blazing torch. Then, astonished, he would growl deeply and show his teeth. New stars appeared, others waned. The stubborn brute was still near, and the woman saw the heap of twigs and branches dwindle. Although they had gathered much wood at twilight and fed the fire stingily, it was probable the flames would die out before the red star fell beneath the horizon.

  Then, their flesh would bleed between the jaws of the bear.

  At intervals Glava brandished her spear, but she knew that the weapon could not penetrate to the heart of the huge animal and that a wound would but stir him to savage fury, to blind rage. She did not launch the weapon.

  Then there was no more wood; the last flames fluttered, the crimson coals darkened, and the teeth of Amhao clashed together with fear. Glava made ready for her last combat.

  A colossal mass in the shadow, the bear came forward. For a few moments, to the right and behind the rocks, yelps and cries had been heard. The murmur swelled into a roar. A very tall animal appeared, trotting with a perceptible limp, and the bear, through wide-open nostrils, identified a horse. Wounds in the legs were slowing the fugitive, and he had not covered 100 strides when five wolves appeared, then a horde of jackals.

  With a joyous grunt the bear started forward. In the grip of immense terror, the horse halted then turned his head. He saw the five wolves across the path to the east, while the bear and the rocks barred the path to the west.

  The horse spun on his hoofs and fled southward, pursued by the bear with oscillating, heavy leaps, and the wolves, now frightened by their new rival but kept in action by lingering hope. The hunted beast, reddening the trail with his blood, constantly lost ground. His wounded leg seemed dead, stiff, and hampered his strides. All about, avid lives sought to swallow this terrified life.

  Soon, with the bear so near that the wolves howled with disappointment, the grass-eater saw nothing but greedy maws. A few seconds before there had remained a lane of escape, the open plain upon which, for so long, through his scent and speed, he had fled from the meat-eaters. Now, space was filled with famished beasts, and the horse, heavy as a rock, still as a tree, waited for death with a sinister moan. The bear split his throat, blood drenched the red hair; a wolf, bolder than the others, attacked him from behind.

  That terrible night made the women even more prudent. When the haven was not sure, they upset their canoe, and this shelter disconcerted the crude intelligence of the wild beasts. Between the ground and the rim of the craft there was space left through which to prick the nostrils that came scenting, or the groping paws. Mysteriously wounded by an invisible foe, the beasts beat a rapid retreat. Glava and Amhao took care not to wield their spears too violently, so as not to exasperate the larger meat-eaters.

  Almost always the prowlers were only wolves, hyenas and jackals. Once a tiger came, and twice a lion. They did not linger, perhaps because they were puzzled, perhaps because they found easier game. Often, also, the fugitives avoided animals by taking shelter in the thickets. As they went further and further from the tribe they halted for longer periods. They made pointed stakes, as they had seen the Tzohs do, and used them to make a bristling barrier around their shelter.

  On the river islands security was almost complete. Sometimes they would slide into crevices too narrow for the large meat-eaters, and when they chanced to discover an empty cave, easily defended, they would sojourn there for several days.

  A moon after their flight from the clan, the women decided that they had come far enough to settle for a long period. They needed a section filled with game; a haven safe from beasts and storms, and in the proximity of the river. This they sought for many days. One morning, in a granite boulder, they saw a cleft wide enough to allow passage for a man, a large wolf or a leopard. This opening was four arms’ lengths from the soil; the surface of the stone was smooth, slippery. It could not be reached by many animals lacking wings; even a panther would find the leap difficult to achieve.

  Glava climbed on her sister’s shoulders. Before sliding into the cleft, she looked in, sniffed, smelled nothing save the large bats. Then, crouching, she advanced. A dim light dropped from the vault, the cleft widened to form a cave in which several human beings could find shelter. The light penetrated through a vertical split that cleaved the rock from bottom to top.

  Glava, supplied with a handful of dried twigs, lit a fire which rapidly flamed high. She then noted that the top was five or six arms’ lengths above her head; the refuge was good. The daughter of the Rocks turned to her companion.

  “Amhao and Glava shall rest here!” she said. “The entrance to the cave is too high for wolves, too narrow for the tiger, the lion or the gray bear. Stakes and stones shall defend it against the panther.”

  For the space of a half moon their life was as secure as if they had been living under the protection of the warriors, for they went forth only by day after inspecting the surroundings. The great felines were asleep. They found no tracks of the gray bear, no tracks of men.

  There were beasts and plants in plenty. By lighting the fire beneath the opening of the roof, no smoke befouled the cave. The ruses and skill of the women grew day by day. Glava in particular could sense danger in advance, gifted as she was with the slyness of the jackal. When she pressed her ear against the ground, she heard the slightest sound; her glance pierced very far to espy beings which she identified by their gait, their movements.

  Each day she made her traps more perfect, while Amhao shaped better and better weapons and tools. Provided with sharp spears, with a knotty club, with a harpoon, Glava lived with quiet audacity and her courage made Amhao feel secure.

  Nevertheless, Amhao missed Tsaouhm, her man, who had been rough but not ferocious. He had shown her unexpected tenderness at times.

  She remembered scenes that added to her homesickness. Although the women fed badly on what the warriors left, Amhao thought with uneasy longing of the immense fires on which roasted antelopes, deer or wild oxen, sheep, bustards and teals; of the endless gossip of the women; even of the hard work which followed the great hunting trip.

  Glava thought less of her former existence, for the future rose before her. She brought the instinct of the race, still undetermined, to the new soil, and the thrill of new discoveries extinguished memory of the Rocks. Yet, on certain days, she felt a retrospective gentleness, saw in her mind’s eye the native caves. But it was brief; hatred against Old Urm, the horror of human sacrifices, the thought of having her canine teeth broken as a symbol of her union to Kzahm, who smelled like a jackal, filled her breast with anger.

  One morning Glava was inspecting the canoe, concealed in the bushes 100 arms’ lengths from the river. With the help of Amhao she had repaired the cracks of the hull and had hewn new paddles. They used the craft to visit other islands or to reach the shores.

  It was a long boat and split the stream easily. Glava granted it an undefined, unexplainable affection. Perhaps because the canoe bore the fugitives, skimmed over the river lightly, saving them much fatigue and many dangers; perhaps also because it had often been their sole refuge, she attributed life and understanding to it. So, almost every day, she came to see if the canoe was intact.

  Before leaving the bushes, Glava paused, wishing to make sure that no prowler was near. She inhaled the scents, explored the surroundings with her keen glance, then pressed her ear against an ash-tree.

  Steps were quivering in the tree; at once she knew they were not those of four-footed animals or of birds.

  The heavy rhythm indicated a vertical be
ing loaded with a burden, and Glava, thinking at first that it was Amhao and her child, was reassured. Then worry grew. Why was Amhao so near the river? Had she not agreed to await Glava’s return from the hunt?

  The woman slipped silently out of the bushes. The wood ended on her left, where the steps had been heard and Amhao was in sight. She walked a short distance from the fringe of the thicket so as to survey the plain without being seen. She did not notice her sister until she was very near.

  “Why did Amhao leave the cave?”

  “Amhao sought Glava.” The older woman was ashen, her lips were bloodless. “Amhao has seen Tzohs!”

  “Tzohs!” Glava repeated, frightened.

  Amhao lifted the five fingers of her right hand and one finger of her left.

  “Amhao recognized them?”

  “There were Kamr, son of the Hyena, Ouaro, Tohr—”

  “Did they see Amhao?”

  “They were far, walking toward the rock. The marsh halted them and they disappeared into the woods. Then I came down, circled the rock and came through the bushes.”

  “Amhao hid the fire?”

  “Yes.”

  Glava shook her head and scanned the scene again.

  “We must reach the island and hide.”

  She turned back to the canoe, followed by Amhao. They bore the craft to the bank. The grass was high, the shore deserted and the rock invisible. The two women could be seen only by men following the beach or standing across the stream from them. When they were in the canoe they drew some distance away from land. The current bore the boat away, slowly, then more rapidly.

  Glava wondered if the Tzohs had stopped at the rock. Even then they were unlikely to suspect that the cleft admitted people into an inhabited cave, and, as it was morning, they were in no need of seeking shelter therein.

  Seeking to guess the motive of their presence, she rejected the thought that they were pursuing them or that a hunting trip had taken them such a long distance from home. It could not be a migration of the whole tribe, either, for the Tzohs sought to live only on rocky soil.

  Recollections leaped into her mind like locusts through grass: Glava and Amhao were the daughters of an alien woman. Finding the caves fallen in, the majority of their women killed, the Tzohs had gone to seek new mates near the Green Lakes or the Blue River.

  V. Flight

  The canoe slid on the smooth surface of the stream which was so wide that the far shore could not be discerned. Then the island appeared, narrow and long, thickly covered with vegetation. Centuries had reared there the trunks of the black poplar-trees and sycamores. The willows were everywhere on the shore.

  Before heading for the island Glava glanced long upon the plain. As no vertical shape appeared, they plied the paddles and crossed the stream to a small cove sheltered by a barren jutting headland. They alighted quickly, then hid in the bushes to wait.

  Nothing revealed the presence of man. The hideous snout of a hippopotamus, the scales of a crocodile, the shell of a tortoise, the flight of a heron across the sky, then the appearance upon the beach of an elaph deer, of a rhinoceros, of an antelope, drew the women’s attention momentarily.

  Suddenly Glava started. Erect beings had appeared! Dim at first, they became more precise, and the fugitives recognized the men of their clan, among them Kazhm’s well known bull-like head.

  “Women!” Amhao exclaimed.

  The women followed the first detachment of warriors. Of an alien breed, their faces lighter than those of the Tzohs, their hair in some cases the hue of leaves in the autumn, they resembled Glava.

  “They come from the Green Lakes or the Blue River!” said the daughter of Wokr, “and are to replace those whom the Mountain has killed.”

  Obscure jealousy palpitated in Amhao’s flesh while, because they looked like her, Glava felt pity for the captives, especially for those who belonged to the chief who smelled like a jackal. Amhao’s face grew pale again for she saw with the rear guard the warriors who had frightened her: Ouaro, Tohr and the others. They closed in on the main body.

  The chief called a halt, and questioned them. At intervals they scanned the river and their glances lingered on the island. At length Kzahm, son of the Black Boar, gave orders, and those who bore the canoes went to the shore and launched them. Two craft came toward the island.

  “The Tzohs are on our trail!” Amhao moaned.

  “No! They want to explore the island, perhaps camp.”

  “We must flee!”

  The servile soul of the woman quivered within Amhao as she recalled convulsively the Law of the Rock and the vengeance of the Hidden Lives.

  Glava hesitated. The island was vast, there were numerous hiding places, but the scent of the Tzohs was to be feared. The slightest indication would betray the fugitives. In particular, the canoe moored in the cove would at once reveal not only the presence of human beings but the identity of the two who had defied the might of the Hidden Lives.

  “Amhao and Glava will flee!” she said.

  The cove, behind the headland, was invisible to the new arrivals. Followed by her elder Glava crept to the canoe, cast off quickly, and slid alongside the shore of the island under the tall white willows. Had the Tzohs landed on the southern end they would have seen the fugitives. But they reached the central part where the island was considerably wider and where vision was screened by thick vegetation.

  When the two women reached the northern end the river spread before them, immense, swarming with voracious lives; it was the place where the canoe would be in sight, and the women stopped paddling, thinking of the ruthless tribe, of the mysterious tortures, of the flames into which their quivering bodies would be thrown.

  Glava slipped the canoe close to shore, within the veil of overhanging plants in which swarmed cold-blooded beasts: crocodiles, tortoises, snakes, gigantic spiders, enormous insects; a young, frightened, pink hippopotamus-dove; a crocodile lifted his long, scaly snout; a toad hopped away heavily while tiny birds with azure and coral wings fluttered in the leafage.

  She listened, peered between the lianas at the canoes sliding toward the island, and heard the voices of the men already ashore. There was no Tzoh rearguard already on the plain. She decided that by striking off toward the far shore they would remain undiscovered some time longer.

  “Amhao and Glava will continue to flee!” she addressed her companion.

  They started out again on the vast river, toward the left bank, where the stream turned a bend, 10,000 arms’ lengths away. Should they succeed in reaching that turn and remain unseen, they would be saved.

  Digging the paddles deep at each stroke, they strove desperately, and when they turned they saw no one on the dangerous zone of the island they had left. The turn! Already the canoe skirted the left shore, and they were under the overhanging bushes.

  Kamr, son of the Hyena, had reached the opposite shore of the island. As he scanned the surface of the water his keen eyes espied the monstrous head of a hippopotamus emerging among floating branches, and, far off, something elongated skirting the left bank. He soon made out a canoe and two human beings aboard and the gave the alarm, although he did not suspect them to be women.

  Several of his companions ran up to his side, among them Kzahm, the Black Boar, and they all saw the craft vanish at the turn of the stream. Because it was always preferable to investigate, Kzahm ordered a pursuit, forbidding, however, that it be kept up longer than a fourth of one day, ordering his men to retreat in case the strange canoe was joined by others.

  Twelve strong and agile warriors, known to be excellent paddlers, leaped into two canoes. Kzahm counted that they would gain rapidly on the mysterious boat ahead, and suggested that its occupants should be brought back alive, if possible. After the craft had left, the chief became worried. Were the strangers warriors from the Green Lakes or the Blue River, or merely stragglers? A dim dread arose in his thick brain, but he put it aside with scorn. Did he not command 100 fighting men, while the Blue River clan c
ould not muster over 60?

  As for those of the Green Lakes, they were known to be hunting far away, in scattered groups. To have them mass their forces, they would need open warfare. And no war, for two generations, had clashed the Men of the Rocks with those of the Green Lakes. Nevertheless, because a leader must at one and the same time be very brave and very wise, the Black Boar sent out scouts on both shores of the stream.

  Glava uttered a muffled cry, Amhao groaned, and hope shrunk as their distress increased like the shadows of the black poplar-trees, for a canoe had rounded the bend.

  Then the women knew themselves to be as weak, as helpless, as the mosquitoes humming near the shore, and Amhao, discouraged, relaxed her grip on the paddle. Her spirit yielded to despair. She was ready to surrender to evil destiny, ready to acknowledge the might of the Tzohs and the power of the Hidden Lives.

  “We cannot escape them,” she moaned. “Amhao must die.”

  For a brief instant, bitter grief lowered Glava’s head, but energy reawakened in her with the need to exhaust the resources of her being before surrendering to men and fate.

  “Amhao and Glava will die if taken” she said bitterly, “but they are not yet caught.”

  “Look!” cried Amhao.

  The second canoe had come in sight.

  “Did we not escape Urm, the leopard and the bear?” Glava spoke roughly. And as she looked at Amhao with tender resolution, the older woman, dominated by a stronger will, picked up the paddle.

  It became a hard and miserable struggle; the canoes of the pursuers, better constructed, shot forward by the might of muscular arms, devouring space. Glava saw her chances dwindle at each sweep of the flashing paddles. Before very long the Tzohs saw the fugitives clearly and lifted a clamor, a raucous, furious, insulting, vindictive clamor.