The Horsemasters

by Joan Wolf

  An hour later, he was approaching the pass over the summit. A heavy white fog hung over the splashes of snow underfoot, and the wind lashed Thorn’s face, chilling him to the bone. It was not until he was through the pass and had begun his descent of the southern side of the mountain that the mist burned off. When he felt the heat of the sun, Thorn halted, lifted his head, and there, spread before him in all its majestic beauty, lay the glorious alpine world that would one day be known as Andorra.

  All around Thorn towered the black and somber peaks of the Altas, with snow lying in vast fields within their folds. The river dropped swiftly through a rich green valley toward the trees that Thorn could see growing at a lower altitude. The mountains on either side of the valley were sunlit, all blue and purple, with snow lying in shining patches upon their steep sides. The sky, dotted with small puffy clouds, shone clear and cobalt blue above the serene and majestic landscape.

  Lower down the mountain, in the heart of the valley, there browsed a herd of ibex, interspersed here and there with some ewes and their newborn lambs. The sloping pasture blazed with flowers: narcissus and hyacinth, kingcups, buttercups, gentians of the deepest blue, pansies, anemones, and some flowers Thorn had never seen before.

  It was so beautiful that Thorn felt lightheaded.

  I must find the Valley of the Wolf, he thought dazedly, and repeated to himself the only directions he knew: Follow the valley from the pass until you come to the Lake of the Eagle.

  It was not until late the following day that a weary and hungry Thorn found the lake he was seeking. It lay at the foot of a sheer cliff, its water as clear and calm and blue as the sky reflected in its crystalline depths. There were small scrubby pines growing around three-quarters of the rim of the lake, but it was the colossal limestone cliff that caught Thorn’s eye. A pair of golden eagles lazily circled overhead, and Thorn walked toward the place where the cliff extended beyond the water.

  From close up, Thorn saw that the high cliff face was actually filled with cracks and ridges, where hardy plants had managed to find a foothold, and where birds had made their nests. Near the base of the cliff the sheer rock gave way to scree. Thorn looked up; there were sufficient footholds for him to climb the cliff, he thought. He would camp now, and tomorrow he would see what lay beyond this wall of rock. He was certain it must be the Valley of the Wolf.

  There were fish in the lake, and Thorn was cooking one for his supper when a small herd of gray horses came single-file through the trees, passed close by his fire without seeming to notice it, and went to quench their thirst at the lake. Thorn stared in amazement at the seven horses drinking peacefully such a short distance away. They were young horses, he saw, all grays and all males. They finished drinking, turned, and made their way along the shore. Thorn watched them until they were out of sight.

  They had to have seen him, he thought. They had to have smelled him. They had to have smelled his fire. Yet they had shown no fear.

  Astonishing.

  Thorn slept late the following morning, his body still adjusting to the thinner air. When he awoke the sun was bright in the sky, the birds were calling, the squirrels chattering, and coming slowly around the rim of the lake were two men with spears balanced on their shoulders. Thorn swallowed hard and crawled out of his sleeping skins. They did not notice him until he had moved out of the shadow of the trees onto the very edge of the lake. Then they stopped. Heart pounding, Thorn moved to meet them.

  Chapter Eleven

  When the men were close enough for Thorn to see their faces, he recognized them as part of the group he had met from the Tribe of the Wolf at the gathering this spring. His spirits soared and his eyes sparkled. He had found Ronan!

  The men did not appear to be as pleased to see him as he was to see them. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” the blond asked abruptly, giving Thorn a stare in which there was no hint of recognition.

  Thorn, a modest boy, was not dismayed. “My name is Thorn,” he replied obligingly, “son of Rilik of the Tribe of the Buffalo. I am seeking the Valley of the Wolf and the man called Ronan.”

  The blond’s slate-colored eyes were hard as stones. “And for what reason was a cub like you cast out of the Tribe of the Buffalo?”

  “I was not cast out,” Thorn said hastily, anxious to reassure the men that he was not a criminal. “I left of my own will.”

  The blond laughed.

  Thorn’s temper flared at the mocking sound of that laughter. “It is true!” he said hotly. “I left because I wished to join with Ronan.”

  The redhead had not shared in his friend’s laughter. He said now, “Ronan is very particular about whom he will accept in the Tribe of the Wolf. They have to have a talent.” The look he gave Thorn was insulting. “What is your talent, youngster?”

  Thorn said furiously, “I draw.”

  The redhead’s eyes narrowed, and the recognition that had been missing earlier slowly dawned upon his face. “Now I know where I have seen you before,” he said. “You are the boy who caused all that trouble at the Spring Gathering by drawing the face of the shaman’s son.”

  “Sa,” said Thorn defiantly. “I am.”

  “You asked us about Ronan.”

  “Sa,” said Thorn. “I did.”

  Silence fell as the two young men, both of them half a head taller than Thorn, regarded him.

  Finally the blond said, “I am thinking Ronan will want to see him, Okal.”

  The redhead grunted in reply. “We’ll have to bring him back with us, Dai. We can’t leave him here to watch while we use the passage.”

  “That is so,” the blond replied.

  Okal turned to Thorn. “Get your things,” he commanded, and Thorn trotted off hastily to collect his belongings. When he returned, the men draped his extra shirt over his head, secured it around his neck with its leather neck tie so that he could not see, and led him forward.

  “When we are within the passage, we’ll remove the blindfold,” they assured him.

  It seemed to Thorn a terribly long time that he was walking blindfolded in the dark, trusting his feet to the guidance of these strange men. He strained his eyes in vain; he could see nothing through the buckskin blinder. The air under the shirt was hot and stuffy, and Thorn was profoundly thankful when they halted and be felt fingers fumbling at the thong around his neck. The blindfold was lifted, Thorn blinked, and looked around.

  He was in a narrow, stone-enclosed passage, and he realized that they must have entered into the very cliff wall he had been planning to climb. So, he thought triumphantly, the valley did lie behind that cliff.

  “The path descends just ahead,” Dai said. “Watch your feet.” With Dai before him and the redhead behind him, Thorn shortly afterward began to scramble down what was a very steep path indeed.

  Dhu, Thorn thought. The cliff in the valley must be much higher than it was on the lakeside. Still they went downward, the path zigzagging now even as it descended. On they went, until at last the sides of the cliff began to open outward and above their head the slit of blue sky turned into a wedge. Dai scrambled down a last rocky slide, Thorn behind him, and then the two of them stepped out from between the passage walls into a bowl of brilliant sunlight.

  Thorn stared in wonder at the scene before him. There was a lake on this side of the cliff too, with water as blue as the cobalt sky above. Beyond the lake there stretched a valley, a rich and beautiful valley, brilliantly dyed with the green grass of mountain pasture and dotted everywhere with the rioting colors of thousands of flowers.

  Slowly Thorn raised his eyes to survey the enclosing mountain walls. The cliff that rimmed the valley on its northern and eastern side was immense! The level of the valley floor was indeed far below the level of the lake that lay on the other side of the cliff. Thorn scanned the sheer polished stone of the upper cliff. He might have been able to climb to the top of the cliff on the outer side, he thought, but no one would be able to descend into the valley by way of the inner cliff.
That climb was simply impossible.

  He turned back to look at the valley floor. The faintest of breezes was rustling the deep grass, and butterflies fluttered around the flowers. On the far side of the lake a herd of mostly gray horses was grazing quietly, some of the mares and foals lying down in the warmth of the sun. Antelope grazed along the western wall, and sheep and ibex leaped agilely among the rocks of the western cliff, nibbling idly at the plants that grew in the ridges there.

  A golden eagle rose in the sky, wheeling in great graceful arcs above the sunlit valley.

  Surely, Thorn thought in awe, this is a land blessed by the gods.

  “This is the valley you were seeking,” the redhead said to Thorn. “Ronan named it for that wolf of his.” For the first time he smiled, “Though there are plenty who think that the wolf is Ronan himself.”

  “Okal,” Dai said to his companion in a low voice, and he gestured to his left.

  Thorn swung around, and for the first time he saw the huts that had been built between the lake and the valley’s north wall. He had a brief impression of women sitting before one of the huts, but it was the single man walking toward him who immediately absorbed all his attention.

  His shoulder-length black hair was bound with a leather headband, not worn in the braid that Thorn remembered. The injury had left the slightest suggestion of a hesitation in his gait, but still he managed to move like a great cat stalking in the high grass.

  Ronan.

  Thorn began to smile a greeting, but then he saw that Ronan was not looking at him. His dark stare was trained instead on the blond, and his look was not friendly.

  “You know you are not supposed to bring anyone in here without my permission,” he said.

  “We thought you would want to see this one,” Dai answered hurriedly, “We found him camping at the Lake of the Eagle when we were on our way to hunt for ibex. We were careful to cover his eyes, Ronan. He did not see where the passage begins.” He gestured toward Thorn. “This is the boy who was asking after you at the gathering.”

  Ronan raised his brows in a gesture that was suddenly very familiar to Thorn. “Beki’s brother?” he asked his men.

  “Na. This is the boy who drew his face.”

  There was silence. Both Okal and Dai stood at attention, looking faintly apprehensive. Finally, to the men’s obvious relief, Ronan turned his attention to Thorn. As he looked into the hard, hawklike face of the chief of the Wolf tribe, Thorn began to realize that Ronan had changed.

  “Don’t you remember me, Ronan?” Thorn forced out the words from between suddenly stiff lips. He was no longer smiling. “When you were wounded and staying with the Tribe of the Buffalo, I would sit with you and keep you company. We played Hunt the Buffalo together…” Thorn’s voice died away. Ronan’s dark face had not changed expression.

  “And you drew a picture of my face,” Ronan said. “Sa. I remember you, Thorn, son of Rilik.” Silence fell as Ronan looked Thorn up and down. The Wolf chief did not appear to be impressed by what he saw. Finally he asked, “Why have you left the Buffalo tribe, and what are you doing here?”

  Thorn had felt marginally better when Ronan remembered his name, but that cold stare was unnerving. “I am in disgrace with my tribe,” he answered honestly, “It is as you have been told. At the Spring Gathering I drew a picture of the Leopard shaman’s son, and Haras had to pay a big fine. So he said that since I could not be trusted, I could no longer be an artist, that I must learn to knapp flint instead.”

  “And knapping flint is not to your liking?” Ronan’s voice was pleasant, but there was something in it that made Thorn flush.

  “There is nothing wrong with flint knapping if that is your calling,” he said defensively. “It is not my calling, however. I am an artist.” He flung up his head and a thick shock of brown hair fell on his forehead. “I came to you because I thought you would let me be what I was born to be.”

  Ronan said, “Whatever made you think that?”

  Bravely, Thorn held that dark stare. “You let me draw your face once,” he said.

  Ronan’s lips curled in a sardonic smile. He has changed, Thorn thought again, his artist’s eye taking in the new hardness in Ronan’s face. Once Thorn had thought the finely cut mouth was beautiful. It looked thinner now than it had three years before, all of its sensuous softness had gone. There was nothing at all of boyhood left in that face.

  “I am thinking I did not much care what happened to me at the time I let you draw my face,” Ronan said. “Things are not the same with me now.”

  Thorn said, “You let Fara keep her twins.”

  The dark eyes opened wide in a surprise that was genuine. Then Ronan lowered his lashes. “I remember now,” he said. “You were asking after Fara and the twins.”

  Thorn nodded and watched him silently, his brown eyes huge.

  “What use can you be to me?” Ronan asked the boy.

  “I am a good flint knapper,” Thorn replied promptly. “I can make tools for you.” He cast around in his mind for any other talents. “I can hunt,” he added, “and skin my kill, and butcher it. I will do all of these things for the Tribe of the Wolf, if you will allow me the freedom to draw.”

  “Not faces!” Dai said quickly, looking at Ronan.

  “There is no power in the drawing of a face,” Thorn assured the blond young man earnestly. “The shaman’s son was always safe. It was not necessary for Haras to pay a fine.”

  “In my tribe it is taboo to draw pictures of a man,” Okal said. “It is taboo in all the tribes of the Kindred who follow Sky God.” He glanced at Ronan. “And so should it be in the Tribe of the Wolf.”

  Ronan said, in a deceptively pleasant voice, “I am the chief of the Tribe of the Wolf, and I am the one to make the rules.”

  Both Okal and Dai stared at their feet and did not reply. Ronan turned to Thorn. “How do you know there is no power in a picture?” he asked.

  “I kept the pictures I made of you, and when I went to look at them recently I found that one of them had shattered,” Thorn replied honestly. “And another one had broken in two. I think it happened a long time ago, when I put them away with my childhood toys. Yet here you are”—Thorn gestured—”healthy and strong. That is why I know that the pictures have no power—or at least not the kind of power men have feared.”

  “Luckily for me,” Ronan said drily. He glanced at his two followers. “As you say, I am still perfectly healthy.”

  Dai said, “I do not want him to draw me!”

  “Or me,” Okal agreed.

  Ronan nodded. “It is your right to make that choice.” He stared at Thorn. “Do you hear me, son of Rilik? You are not to draw a picture of any person without permission.”

  “Sa,” Thorn replied. “I hear you, Ronan.” Then he asked breathlessly, “Does this mean that I may join the Tribe of the Wolf?”

  “I am thinking we have need of a flint knapper.” Thorn’s brown eyes were watching him anxiously. “And of an artist,” Ronan said.

  * * * *

  Ronan told Dai and Okal to bring Thorn to Fara, and the two young men led the boy in the direction of the huts that were clustered along the shore of the lake. The women Thorn had glimpsed earlier had disappeared, and he looked with eager curiosity at the substantial-looking series of buts reposing in the morning shade cast by the cliff. He commented about how well-built they looked.

  “They have to be to withstand the winter weather,” Okal replied.

  “Do you actually spend the winter in this valley?” Thorn asked in amazement.

  The two young men nodded.

  “But the snow must be very deep here. And the cold… Dhu, even the animals don’t stay in the Altas for more than six moons out of the year!”

  “It is cold,” Okal agreed, “but the huts stay warm. The low angle of the winter sun warms them. There is actually little or no snow on the south-facing cliff, so there is grazing for the animals all winter long.”

  “This valley is better p
rotected than any place I have ever seen,” Dai put in. He pointed to the surrounding cliffs. “We are even protected from the winds.”

  “But that side”—Thorn pointed to the cliff that ran along the whole western side of the valley—”is very low. It may protect you from the wind, but I do not see how it can keep intruders out.”

  Dai grinned. “Climb it, and look down the other side,” he recommended.

  “What is on the other side?”

  “The mountains here drop down in shelves,” Dai explained. “You have seen how much lower this valley is than the land on the other side of the eastern wall?” Thorn nodded. “Well, it is the same on the far side of the western wall. The cliff is a sheer drop. Unclimbable.”

  Thorn gazed at the deceptively low cliff. Beyond it, all he could see were the distant mountains of the Altas, lifting their lonely peaks to the sun and the clouds and the god of the Sky.

  He let his eyes drift slowly southward. “And that way?” he asked, pointing to where the river had cut a passage through the cliffs on its exit from the southern end of the valley.

  “A waterfall,” Okal said. “Tremendous. Unpassable.” He grinned with satisfaction. “The only way into this valley, youngster, is the passageway through which you just came.”

  Thorn confessed, “I have been thinking that this is a land where even the gods might dwell.”

  “No god,” Okal said drily. “Only Ronan.”

  Dai laughed.

  They stopped before one of the huts, and Dai called into the open door, “Fara! Eken! I have a visitor for you.”

  “What visitor?” a woman’s voice called back.

  “It is Thorn, Fara,” Thorn said loudly. “Rilik’s son.”

  “Thorn!” A woman carrying a baby came to the door, and Thorn recognized Fara’s sister, Eken, the girl who was to have married his cousin. “It is!” Eken called back into the hut.