The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02

by Ricardo Pinto

  '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 southwest with the morning breeze, their shadows streaming 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 they 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. Scouring-rush 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 begin. 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 quiedy, 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 hom 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. Mosdy 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 femwood 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 onto 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, wh
o 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.

  'She comes!' bellowed his leader.

  The cry woke Carnelian rudely into action as he felt the aquar round him lurching into motion. Soon he was coursing with the others, riding parallel to the charging herd. Bull-roarers were singing above the tumult. Leaning towards the piston of one of his aquar's legs, he craned round the back of his saddle-chair and saw the cow with the broken horn close behind him. Separated from her herd, she was being swarmed by hunters screaming battle-cries, spinning bull-roarers, striking at her with the flat of their spears. Maddened, in terror, she lumbered on, bucking like a ship in a swell. Then she was abreast of him and Carnelian added his shouts to the clamour and, clumsily at first, but then with fierce strokes, added his attacks to theirs. He could feel her exhaustion and saw how heavily she lumbered on and how her heavy head was hanging lower and lower, until, at last, she stumbled and fell, rolling into golden ruin and they closed on her and, baying, started feasting their spears on her blood.

  The Plainsmen's fury ended when they knew she was dead. A sadness spreading from them cooled Carnelian's bloodlust. Through its pulsating heat, he watched them dismounting, approaching the hill of hide now all striped with blood. He descended too and, stepping out from his saddle-chair, found it strange to walk among the ferns. He stared with wonder at the creature he had helped to kill and felt no joy, so that, when the Plainsmen began to sing her a lament, his heart joined his voice to theirs even though he did not know the words. When they fell silent, they grew wary again, scanning the plain as if they feared some thief might come to steal her. Carnelian helped them unbale the ropes and lash them to her horns, her neck, around the collapsed pillars of her legs. When she was hitched up to the crossbeams of their saddle-chairs, he did as he saw them do, leading his aquar until she had pulled her crossbeam ropes taut, then, at a cry from Crowrane, all the aquar were made to lean into the ropes. With a shudder, the mass of the saurian began slowly to crush a bloody road across the fernland.

  They towed the earther to the nearest acacia and drew her into its shade. They dug a crescent ditch as they had done the night before. The aquar were unsaddled and some of the younger men went to protect them as they grazed. Some leaf-wrapped bundles were produced which, when opened, gave off an odour of cedar that made Carnelian homesick for his hearth. Under Crowrane's supervision, they scooped some of the cedar-impregnated fat and began to rub it into the hide of the saurian corpse. Carnelian asked Krow about it.

  'It helps disguise the rot which otherwise might draw raveners here.'

  When they were done, they laid their fire but did not light it and then they sat down to await the night.

  The blackness suddenly came at them, causing them to leap to their feet. Clutching a javelin, Carnelian backed away with the rest of the hunt as tall shapes emerged into the flicker of their fire. Riders, their aquar coming on at a slow walk. A sound of laughter.

  'Look how afraid they are,' one of them said, his accent so strange Carnelian could barely understand him.

  Plainsmen from another tribe. Swathed in their ubas, only their eyes caught the fire. Carnelian drew himself further back into the shadows where, to his relief, he found Osidian. He sensed it would be a disaster should they be discovered.

  'You're on our land, Ochre,' one of the strangers said, a touch of laughter still lingering in his voice.

  Crowrane stood forward to confront them. The earth belongs to no man, besides, here we are nearer our koppie than yours, Bluedancing.'

  Their leader made his aquar take a step towards the Elder. 'Perhaps, but even so, we're the great Bluedancing and we go where we want. Do you wish to fight us, old man?' The tone of mockery stung even Carnelian.

  Crowrane stared fiercely up at the invader. 'We've no quarrel with you.'

  His eyes followed the riders that were moving around the camp. The gaze of their leader fell upon the slope of hide rising behind them.

  'Perhaps we should take your earther from you.'

  Carnelian saw the way the men of his hunt moved to shield the saurian with their bodies. He felt possessive of her too. He set his teeth. If it came to a fight, he would stand with the Tribe.

  'At least we should take the best cuts,' drawled another of the riders.

  A mutter of amusement passed among the Bluedancing. Their leader made a gesture of contempt. 'Let's leave her to them. Look how scrawny she is. I doubt they had the strength even to take such a clapped out old cow themselves. Probably found her collapsed from age. Look,' he pointed, 'she doesn't even have both her great horns.'

  This was greeted by a chorus of snorts and derisive laughter. Their leader caused his mount to spin round and then leap forward, kicking through the fire, scattering its embers into the darkness then, whooping, the riders rushed headlong back into the night.

  As Carnelian helped the hunt gather up the burning fernwood, he was as angry as they were.

  'Why don't we mount up and pay them a return visit?' cried Ravan.

  'Riding across the plain in the middle of the night?' said Crowrane. 'Are you possessed, child? Have you forgotten there are raveners out there?'

  'If they can do it why can't we?'

  'You know perfectly well, son of Stormrane,' said Crowrane. The Bluedancing have at least twice our numbers. Do you want to bring a war down upon the Tribe we couldn't hope to win?'

  They grow mor
e arrogant with each passing year,' Ravan gave back.

  They've always been arrogant,' said Crowrane.

  Ravan confronted the Elder with a stare.

  'Do you doubt, child, that I can remember further back than you?'

  It took a while before the fire went out of Ravan's eyes. 'No, my father.'

  For some moments the old man glared at him, but then he too swallowed his anger.

  'Consider yourselves lucky they didn't spot the Standing Dead.' Face sweaty with anxiety, he looked round at Osidian and Carnelian.

  Gloving his hand with fern fronds, the old man stooped to scoop some embers. 'Come on, let's get this mess sorted out before we find ourselves having to fend off a ravener without a proper fire.'

  Crowrane woke them before dawn and made them breakfast as they sat ready with their javelins and spears. Raveners were still abroad. Crouching by the fire, Carnelian flinched at their every cry. He savoured his meal as if it were his last. Then they waited until the edge of the world began to show. His heart lifted as the aquar sang their welcome to the dawn.

  The raveners fear our fire too much to attack,' said Krow.

  'We're not home yet, child,' said Crowrane severely and set them to hitch their aquar up to the earther.

  When it had grown bright enough for them to see the Koppie tiny on the horizon, they set off towards it. When the sun rose, it found them moving laboriously northwards. It was slow work and they had to stop often to allow the aquar to rest. At midday, they stopped within the flickering shade of a copse of ginkgos. Carnelian, who had hoped they would soon be home, saw through the trembling air that the Koppie seemed as far away as when they had set off. Gloomily, he realized they would be spending another night out on the plain. The sickly odour of death was already penetrating the saurian's cedar aura and floating away on the air.

  Dusk robbed them of the guiding hope of the Koppie. Crowrane set them to rubbing more of the cedar balm on the earther, but this did not stop a mist of decay hanging around their camp. When a breeze picked up, they built a barrier of ferns on the saurian's windward side, hoping thus to stop the wind from carrying her odour out across the plain. Having done what they could, they huddled around their fire, eating, talking, while all the time sneaking glances out into the night.