'Let's attack them now,' Ravan declared, causing everyone to look at him.
Crowrane fixed him with baleful eyes. 'You don't know what you're talking about. If we come at them across the open plain they'll have all the time they need to receive our charge. For any chance at victory, we need surprise.'
'This is madness,' cried Kyte. Carnelian could see the way his gaze shifted here and there among the warband as if he were already counting casualties.
'I have to agree with Father Kyte,' said Galewing. 'We don't have the numbers nor the training. We have nothing. We must forget this and return to our people while we still can.'
Ravan rode forward, regarding the Elders with a contemptuous gaze. 'All my life you've claimed to be soldiers, but now I can see you never did anything more than catch thieves in the marketplace or stand guard upon a gate.'
The voices of the Elders rose in protest but Ravan's young voice could still be heard above them. 'We're no less brave, nor less skilled with weapons than the Bluedancing and don't you remember this morning, Father Crowrane, when you declared their raid the work of a few hotheads? If they could do it, so can we.'
'Ravan's right,' a man cried. 'I say we get the bastards. They took my son. How could I face my wife if I don't bring him back?'
Many agreed.
'Could any of us live with the shame of returning without even having tried?' someone said.
'Is this how you all feel?' cried Galewing and was answered by a swell of affirmation. As the hubbub died away, the Elders looked at each other grimly.
'If we go in, it must be at night,' said Crowrane. To hide how few we are.'
'How will I find my son in the darkness?'
'We can't hope to find him or any of the captives whether we attack by day or by night. We snatch some of their children and then make a trade,' said Crowrane.
There was a lot of nodding. Carnelian felt a wash of relief that at least they had postponed the terrible moment.
For the rest of that day they rode parallel to the march of the Bluedancing. With each step their aquar took, Carnelian saw their spirits fail a little more. Despair was growing in his stomach. Their proud demeanour had faded. Bedraggled, their warpaint now made them look like the jugglers Carnelian had seen in the marketplace before the gates of Osrakum.
When next they stopped Carnelian approached Fern. This delay has turned into a fatal error.'
His friend turned bloodshot eyes on him, grimaced, but said nothing.
Crowrane looked resolute, but his son betrayed him with every doubtful glance he gave him.
The rain continued to lash them. Carnelian felt more than saw the approach of night. As it closed about them it seemed to be their dread. He saw the queasy looks everyone was trying to hide. He yearned then for Osidian's certainty as he tried to dismiss the fear that he and many others might well not live to see another morning.
Carnelian was thankful of the darkness that hid his fear. The night was filled with furtive whispering. The old were remembering their hunts, the good, long years of their lives: the young their sweethearts, their mothers, their dreams for the future. When a voice spoke, it seemed very loud. Carnelian felt everyone turning to listen with desperate hope.
'We'd better go now .. . while we still dare.' It was Fern.
This is a mistake,' said Galewing. 'We go,' rumbled Crowrane.
'Perhaps we should listen to Father Galewing,' said Ravan.
'We must go or return to the Tribe as cowards,' said Fern.
Affecting strength, voices added their agreement and the Elders tried as best they could to marshal the war-band. They rode out under a black sky dead of moon or stars. Carnelian let his aquar follow the others as they crept towards where they thought the camp of the Bluedancing lay. Stone spearheads clinked against each other. Leather sighed against aquar hide. The tiny sparks of their enemy's fires came alive in the night and drew them on. Moths to a flame, thought Carnelian.
When they had come close enough to hear the voices of their enemy, it was Fern who stopped them turning back. He gave a battle-cry and sent his aquar careering in a charge. As his voice rode away from them, fear was swept away by shame. They would not allow one of their own to die alone. Carnelian sat startled as he heard their shrieks sweep by on either side. With his heels, he held his aquar where it was and heard their voices thin as they sped away. He was almost unmanned imagining the mayhem lying there waiting for him. Fern's battle-cry sounded again and, cursing, Carnelian coaxed his beast to furious speed desperate to catch him up.
They huddled in the black heart of the night. A gash ached in Carnelian's forearm. A whimpering, wounded boy was trembling against his thigh. The darkness was filled with shaky breathing and moaning. Many must have been wounded. Some had been lost. Voices were whispering names insistently. Someone pushed in beside him. 'Carnie?'
'Fern,' he replied, dazed, glad to his core to have him near.
'Are you bleeding?'
Carnelian fumbled and grabbed his friend's trembling arm. The solid feel of it opened a way for his voice. The whirling.'
'It was my first battle too.'
'It's like the darkest dream. I felt the soft give of flesh, the screaming ... Oh, dear mother, the screaming.'
They crushed into each other. A shadow loomed beside them.
'It will pass,' said Galewing in a strange remote voice. 'It's always hard to kill a man, even if he's your enemy.'
'Were we victorious?' a childish voice asked suddenly.
It was Galewing who answered: 'We were routed. They were ready for us. They were too many.'
'Even the Skyfather fought against us,' someone said, his tone incredulous, recalling the rain that had flung its needles at their faces.
'Are we safe now?' pleaded a boy.
Over Fern's shoulder Carnelian scanned the darkness for their enemy.
They'll begin their hunt for us with the morning light,' said Galewing.
'We must flee,' said Loskai.
'We can't.' It was Ravan. Too many of us are wounded. We've lost too many aquar. Even if some of us escaped, do you think they'd be enough to defend the Tribe against the revenge of the Bluedancing? We must wait here until dawn.'
Groans were the only answer.
'No, it's best we wait,' said Ravan, insistently. 'If we can get some sleep then at least we might be able to sell our lives dearly.'
They might spare us,' said Crowrane.
'Would you beg them for mercy? Would we have given any if our situations were reversed?'
Fern disengaged himself gently from Carnelian. They'll show mercy, Ravan. We're all Plainsmen. No tribe has ever destroyed another.'
'Go and tell that to the hearthkin of those we killed and maimed,' said Ravan. They'll show no mercy. We must make an end of it here. At least the sons and daughters of the Tribe might live. The Bluedancing might adopt them to swell their strength. The most we can do is to make sure our people don't remember us with shame.'
Sobbing broke out here and there. Carnelian despaired for Poppy. She had lost so much already. At that moment something like the moon came out from the clouds and, drifting towards them, resolved into a ghostly face.
The Master,' gasped several voices.
Carnelian saw it was Osidian who stood before them, personifying the darkness. He spoke.
'In my right hand I hold defeat: in my left, victory. Which will you have me open?'
As Ravan translated Osidian's words, even through his relief, Carnelian was overwhelmed by a sickening foreboding, for the Wise taught that the left was the hand of darkness.
THE BLUEDANCING
The most elegant system of domination is one in which the dominated are unaware of their state: they believe the world has always been and always will be as they know it; that the order under which they toil is as immutable, as unassailable as the sky.
War is a clumsy means of enforcing such dominion. Not only is it costly and wasteful of resources, but it is difficult to control
and subject to catastrophic and unforeseeable changes of fortune.
Famine is a surer tool of statecraft, with the crucial proviso that it must be seen to arise naturally from the land. Hunger will keep not only the body, but the mind in chains.
(from a treatise on statecraft compiled in beadcord by the Wise of the Domain Lands)
At first light, Osidian led them to the edge of a lagoon. He spent time surveying the ground and eventually settled them on a ridge on the shore. After a brief conference with Carnelian, he rode out across the dried-up bed with the better half of the warband: he had chosen only the unwounded and, of those, predominantly the young. Ravan went as interpreter. Galewing had volunteered to go to represent the Elders. Krow had chosen to stay behind. That Osidian had not objected to this made Carnelian suspicious that the youth had been left as a spy. Standing on the shore with the rain flying in his face,
Carnelian watched the riders fade into the grey south among gentle hills that would soon become islands. He had been left with clear instructions, delivered by Osidian as if they were strangers. By using Quya, Osidian had ensured that only Carnelian could be aware of his plan. Carnelian had had to obey him. If he had refused to command the men left behind, Osidian had said he would abandon them all to the revenge of the Bluedancing.
Carnelian could feel his men staring at his back. He leaned close to Fern. 'Will you be my second?'
Fern grimaced. The Elders will like taking orders from me even less than from you.'
Carnelian yearned to rid himself of the burden of command. He forced himself to look round. The Ochre remaining were massed on the ridge, sunk into their saddle-chairs, miserable in the downpour, many wounded, all disheartened, every one of them older than him. Their eyes accused him.
Carnelian turned back. 'If that's how they feel, then they shouldn't have agreed to follow the Master in the first place.'
'What options did we have?' said Fern.
'Do you believe I'm less trapped than you?'
'Have you more experience of war than the veterans?'
'You know perfectly well I don't, though I'd question how much experience they have of fighting on foot.'
Fern had no answer to that. He smiled winningly. Things are as they are, Carnie, but you know you can count on me.'
Carnelian had them all dismount. The kneeling aquar were hobbled to ensure they could not wander away. He oversaw the removal of their saddle-chairs. The Plainsmen looked at him as if he were mad when he asked them to pile the chairs in a heap. Discontent turned to outrage when he told them to set the heap alight.
'Do you want to bring the Bluedancing down on us?' said Crowrane.
That's exactly what I want.'
Carnelian's answer produced incredulous consternation.
'All of them?' said Loskai, scowling.
'If we're on foot, they'll ride us down,' said Crowrane.
That's what the Master hopes they'll think. You saw how carefully he chose this site? He knows what he's doing.'
Krow was nodding.
'How do you imagine we're going to be able to ride home without our saddle-chairs?' demanded Kyte.
'Let's worry about that when we're victorious,' said Carnelian.
The Plainsmen fell silent as the desperate reality of the situation soaked into them.
The moment they see us, the Bluedancing will know only half of us are here,' said Fern.
Carnelian was relieved that they were beginning to move along the path of argument Osidian had predicted. 'Knowing that, what do you think the Bluedancing will imagine is the reason we're making all this smoke?'
He was answered with many frowns.
Understanding came over Fern's face. 'A signal. They can't know how many of us attacked them last night. They'll assume we're signaling the Tribe to send the rest of our men.'
Fern looked out across the lagoon bed in the direction Osidian had ridden. The Master will come at them from an unexpected direction.'
As Carnelian gave a nod, he saw a tinge of confidence dawning in the faces around him.
Loskai, alone, retained his scowl. 'How can we hope to stand for long enough against four times our strength?'
Carnelian had been primed to answer that too. 'How do the earthers fend off raveners?'
* * *
Carnelian formed them up in ranks along the ridge in a dense formation they all understood was an imitation of an earther hornwall. He distributed the veterans along the front and put himself at the extreme right with Fern at his side. Each man was armed with a spear and a shield improvised from the wicker backs of the saddle-chairs. Looking down the line, Carnelian almost winced at how flimsy their hornwall looked. He caught one of the men looking at him, eyes red from fear and lack of sleep, and forced fierce resolve into his face.
He squatted down on his haunches, calling out, 'We might as well relax while we wait.' The movement rippled all the way down the line.
'Does anyone know a good song?' Carnelian asked. It was Krow who began a ballad which told of the love between the Earth and Sky. Raggedly others began joining in. The smoke from the saddle-chair pyre was being driven back over the aquar that lay like a field of boulders protecting their backs. Carnelian felt the flanks of the hornwall were too exposed and curved them back a little. He went over and over in his mind how Osidian had said the battle would go. His wounded forearm itched. He gazed out over the lagoon, squinting through another volley of rain, his heart racing every time he thought he saw the Bluedancing.
Carnelian was the first to spot them marching across the lagoon bed. He rose onto shaky legs and the rest of his men followed his lead. The Bluedancing were advancing towards them in a rabble.
They can't have seen us yet,' Fern said in a low voice, as if he feared they might hear him.
Carnelian nodded, wishing the rain was not slanting into his eyes. He turned to survey his men and his heart faltered, seeing how few they were. He forced a grin.
The Tribe will sing with pride of this day.'
Some answered him with watery smiles, others stared unblinking at the approaching enemy.
Faint cries confirmed the Bluedancing had seen them. Their front widened, then broke into a charge.
'Make ready!' Carnelian cried.
They locked their makeshift shields together as best they could and thrust their spears over the top, holding them in their fists, leaning their hafts on their shoulders as Carnelian had shown them. The spear points made their front a hedge of thorns, but Carnelian still felt desperately exposed on his unshielded right.
As the Bluedancing crashed towards them, Carnelian scoured the vast grey spaces of the plain but Osidian was nowhere to be seen. Fear of abandonment and death rose up into his throat. He slowed his breath, focused his mind on the play of rain on his skin. His was the command; his the heart that must strengthen them. He denied his fear its hold on him, then reached round to take Fern's shoulder.
The Master will not fail us,' he said. 'Pass it on.'
Fern smiled grimly and sent the message along the hornwall. Carnelian saw how they gripped their spears more tightly. He locked eyes with Fern and they smiled fiercely at each other. When Carnelian looked out across the lagoon bed he saw rolling towards them a storm of threshing mud that far out-flanked their hornwall on either side. The blackened faces of the Bluedancing were holed by the red of their screaming mouths. Their hair flickered black haloes round their heads. Their ululating warcries were swelling louder. The percussion of clawed aquar feet set the ground trembling, flinging earth up in all directions.
Around Carnelian the spear hedge bristled. The odour of their attackers washed over him. He felt more than saw the hornwall around him softening. He felt the Ochre on the verge of running from the screaming tidal wave rushing at them.
'Steady,' cried Carnelian in a long-drawn-out tone. Then, almost as if he had commanded it, the charge broke before them. Osidian had seen that marshy ground had formed a trough along that part of the shore. Aquar screamed
as their legs buckled and they tumbled forward. The whole front shivered and broke and his vision was filled with the twisting necks of aquar, eye-quills flaring like hands to stop their fall, the looks of dismay as their riders were sucked down into the collapse. In front of Carnelian, an aquar twisted, falling before the feet of another who tried to leap it, failed, and the two became entangled, rolling in a turmoil of thrashing legs, saurian screeching and then the death cries of their riders as they were folded into the mangling, threshing mass.
Some of the riders made it through the soft ground to crash their aquar into the Ochre's wavering front. The spears of the hornwall impaled one beast: others waded in, snake necks writhing with splayed plumes. The air was filled with a splintering of spears. In a nest of these a blue-painted man fallen from his saddle-chair was thrashing around him with a stone axe, but was quickly cut down by a dozen, fevered blows. Another man was hurled forward as his aquar fell. He struck the shieldwall like a boulder, rolling right through their ranks where he was set upon and butchered.
Carnelian bellowed at his men that they must heal the breaches in the hornwall. In the comer of his eye he was aware of Bluedancing rising from the wreckage of their charge. They threw back their hair and snarled. Still they far out-numbered the Ochre. Avoiding the death-kicks of the aquar, they came on at a lope in twos and threes. Some who had lost their weapons tore shards of splintered wood from the saddle-chairs that were sinking into the soft mud. Those who had to clamber over the debris to get at the Ochre hissed curdling promises of what they would do when they reached them. They fell upon the hornwall clawing, shrieking, tearing at the wicker with bladed stone, with their hands. One man came at Carnelian from his exposed side so that he was forced to abandon his spear. The man swung a blade that Carnelian heard singing through the air. Though he ducked, it still scraped along his skull. He swung his own axe up and buried it beneath the man's ribs. Frantic, he worked it free, aware more Bluedancing were pushing into the hedge, heaving against the wicker shieldwall seemingly oblivious to the spears snapping off in their flesh. Blood arced through the air. Enraged Bluedancing chopped at them like demons.
The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 Page 40