Noman

by William Nicholson

  Seeker saw the streams of dazzling light and was overwhelmed with awe. The crag was glowing as if it were alive. Only a trick of the setting sun, but all at once the whole world was charged with light. At any moment now, it seemed to him, the very earth on which he stood might shiver and crack and send forth from its secret depths rays of glory, as if it were a second sun.

  What is this place? I must come back.

  Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the dazzling display was over. The sun sank below the mountain horizon, and darkness flowed over the valley like sleep.

  Seeker set off again, moving more rapidly now to make up for lost time. The wagon was out of sight over the crest of the hill. Beyond the line of hills lay the plains; beyond the plains, the great forest. Somewhere between here and there he would meet the savanters for one last time.

  Then it would be over.

  2 A Kiss at Last

  MORNING STAR LAY ON HER BACK ON THE WARM EARTH and gazed up at the sky. Not a cloud broke the blazing blue of the summer morning. The branch of a tree overhead shielded her from the burn of the sun; its leaves stunted and already beginning to wither. No rain had fallen for six months. Even the grass was dying.

  I must tell him, she thought to herself.

  She heard shouts from the river below and, turning her head, looked down the bank to the cluster of men and boys gathered there. Two were standing ankle deep in the brown water, one with his head bowed, the other wielding a razor. As she watched she saw the razor slick neatly over the bowed head, and the last thick hank of hair plop into the water.

  "Now get your stripes," said the man with the razor.

  The shaved man looked up, grinning, uncertain, and felt his bare scalp with both hands. Morning Star was struck by a deep sadness. Now this youth would have his head and face and neck painted with black-and-yellow stripes, and the Tigers would be one man stronger. Already they formed the biggest single band in the spiker army.

  I must tell him today.

  He wouldn't believe her, but still she must tell him. He was in danger. But when she told him, what would he do? What could he do? The Wildman's sudden rages had grown more frequent in recent months, and he could be murderous when roused. Only she could restrain him. Only she had some degree of influence over him, and even that was waning.

  No time to lose. Go to him now.

  Morning Star rose to her feet and turned towards the great camp. Every day it grew bigger. New bands of spikers came from far and wide, drawn by the Wildman's ever-growing prestige, and pitched their tents and threw up makeshift shanties. They dug fire pits and latrines, tethered their bullocks, and set their children loose to run about the alleyways. No one knew any more how large the spiker army had become; but it covered the land all the way from Spikertown to the swamps.

  She walked back down the packed earth of the camp's main street, passing a platoon of armed men loping out to one of the training grounds. As they went by, red-faced and sweating, a gaggle of small boys punched the air and cried, "Wildman! Wildman! Wildman!"

  So much training. So much cheering. What else could an army do when there was no enemy left to fight?

  Turn in on itself, thought Morning Star. Fight itself.

  A scarfed woman came out of a tent and ran to overtake her. She tugged at her sleeve.

  "Little mother, help me. My husband's a good man, but he beats me. When he's drunk, he beats me."

  She drew back the scarf and showed the bruises on her face.

  "One day he'll kill me, little mother," she whispered. "But he's a good man."

  Morning Star touched the woman's wounded cheek.

  "Tell him I'm watching," she said. "Tell him I see everything he does."

  "Oh, I will, little mother!" The woman was filled with joy. "He won't hurt me while you're watching! Oh, thank you, thank you!"

  Morning Star continued on her way. She no longer tried to tell the people that she was no different from them. It had begun with the Wildman, who called her "the spirit of the spikers." From there the rumors had multiplied. Now she was looked on with reverence, as something between a lucky charm and a god.

  A band of Tigers was approaching. They walked with an easy roll of the hips, filling the roadway from side to side, so that she had to step out of the way to let them pass. They looked about them with bold, insolent stares, inviting challenge. Their colors were easy to read. They wanted action.

  Ahead she saw the high canopies of the command tent; not so much a tent as a long open-sided space formed by rows of poles, over which were stretched sailcloth awnings. In this shade, on benches or on cushions among tables and water vats, gathered the chiefs of the spiker army. Here she would find the Wildman, each day quieter than the last, moving more slowly, speaking more softly, his gaze taking in everything and nothing. He was still wild, still beautiful, still unpredictable in his anger; but these days he felt so far away.

  Now, she promised herself. Tell him now.

  Snakey was prowling up and down, his eyes bright in his striped black-and-yellow face, stabbing the air with his hands.

  "March on Radiance! What's to stop us?"

  "What do we want with Radiance?"

  The Wildman lay stretched out on the ground, his back supported by a mound of cushions. He was eating nuts from a bowl by his side, cracking them with his teeth, dropping the shells into a growing pile on the dry earth floor.

  "Spiker rule!" exclaimed Snakey. "Spiker power!"

  A growl of assent sounded from the Tigers gathered behind him.

  "You want to rule Radiance, Snakey?"

  Snakey stopped prowling and turned on his friend.

  "You got an army here, Chick. Lot of itchy blades. Lot of hungry mouths. How long do we sit here and cook in the sun?"

  "Till I say we go."

  "Used to be you were the one in front and the rest of us running to keep up."

  "No call for running till you know where you want to go."

  The Wildman's slow speech frustrated Snakey. He squatted down before him and boxed his friend's arms with light jabs of his fists. He was only playing. He wanted true attention.

  "Don't matter where we go," he said. "Let's go! Let's move!" He stabbed one hand at the bright light of the street. "Look out there! The women are planting corn between the tents. We're turning into farmers!"

  The Tigers laughed at that. Farmers were soft, peaceable, helpless. Their only purpose was to grow food for spikers to rob.

  "We go when I say we go," said the Wildman.

  Snakey sprang up at that, offended, and strode off. His men followed. The Wildman didn't seem to notice that they'd gone.

  Morning Star met Snakey on his way out as she entered the command tent.

  "Heya, Star," said Snakey.

  "Heya, Snakey."

  "Wake him up for me." Snakey nodded back towards the Wildman. "Too hot to be doing nothing."

  Morning Star dipped herself a cup of water from one of the vats. The Wildman lay on his cushions and cracked nuts and gazed at nothing.

  Now, said Morning Star to herself. Now.

  "I was down by the river," she said.

  The Wildman went on cracking nuts.

  "Watched the boys shaving heads, painting faces."

  Still he didn't turn to look at her. But he was listening.

  "Someone has to say it," she said.

  "What?"

  "Too many Tigers, Wildman. Can't go on like this."

  "Don't see why not."

  "Yes, you do."

  He put another nut in his mouth and cracked it and spat out the shell. He did it all slowly, as if in a dream. So Morning Star found the courage to say what she knew, so that he would wake up.

  "He means to kill you," she said.

  He turned to her with empty eyes.

  "Who?"

  "Snakey."

  "Snakey?" he said. "No. You're wrong there, Star."

  "I can see his colors," she said, speaking low. "I'm not wrong. He's going to kill you."r />
  "No," said the Wildman, shaking his head. "Snakey won't kill me. Snakey loves me."

  Suddenly he woke from his dream and his eyes flashed with anger.

  "Why do you say that? What's Snakey ever done to you? Are you jealous?"

  "No, no—"

  "You want me to have no friends but you?"

  "No—"

  "You want to have no one love me but you?"

  This was far worse than anything she had prepared herself to face. His words wounded her and shamed her. She turned away, unable to speak.

  "Snakey watched over me when I was five years old!" Now he was shouting, out of control. "Snakey was father and mother to me! Snakey saved my life every single day! What have you ever done for me?"

  There was nothing she could say. All she wanted to do now was to get away without crying in front of him.

  "You say you love me. Well, I don't want your kind of love!"

  She kept her head averted and waved one hand to say, Yes, I understand; no more. She left him there, forcing herself not to run, feeling a stinging in her eyes.

  Outside the command tent the sudden brightness of the sunlight dazzled her. She shielded her eyes with one hand and faced the ground. As she did so, the ground turned dark. Frightened, she looked up and saw the same darkness everywhere, as if night had descended. The tents lining the street were black masses, past which walked gray people, casting black shadows. Beyond the great camp the hills were gray, beneath a leaden sky. All color had been drained from the world.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against a tent pole, breathing rapidly.

  I'm losing control of the colors. I'm going mad.

  When she opened her eyes again the world had returned to its proper hues. Morning Star gave herself a shake and walked away rapidly across the camp. When she was sure she was far enough away not to be seen, she let the tears come.

  "This can't go on," she told herself.

  ***

  Once Morning Star had left, the Wildman's mood changed. His anger faded, and he found himself consumed with restlessness. He stamped up and down the shaded length of the command tent, and kicked away the pile of cushions on which he had been sitting, and trod with one bare foot on the little heap of nutshells, and shouted out loud at the stab of pain.

  Then he strode away down the main street towards the river.

  As he walked, buried doubts began to surface. All round him was the great army he had called into being. Not just the fighting men: the women, the children, the cart oxen and the milk cows, the huts and the wagons, the cats and the dogs and the rats, an entire seething city sprung out of nowhere. For what? He had dreamed of becoming a warlord like Noman, the only living man to come face-to-face with the All and Only. But the god he had believed in was dead. The Nomana were dispersed. And he was left alone, powerful but purposeless, a warlord without a war. Snakey urged him to march on Radiance, but there was no army in Radiance. The axers had melted away after the disappearance of their priest-king. Radiance was given over to bandits and looters. There was no glory to be won there; only the messy business of imposing order and policing the streets. The Wildman was a bandit, not a policeman.

  Snakey said, Let's go! Let's move! But where?

  On the high bank above the river, the Wildman came to a stop and looked down at the scene below. A group of men were painting black-and-yellow stripes over newly shaved heads. More recruits for Snakey's Tigers.

  He watched the upraised faces as the paint transformed the young men into some other kind of creature, something pitiless and frightening. The stripes created a powerful bond. The Tigers were the finest fighters in his army. But were they his, or Snakey's?

  Snakey loves me.

  Suppose Snakey were to make a challenge to his leadership. Would the bands loyal to him be strong enough to defeat the Tigers?

  He shook his head angrily. This was the work of Morning Star. She had infected his mind with doubt. But he was proud of the Tigers. He had always looked on them as his surest line of defense.

  Now, watching the new recruits swagger in their striking new markings, he saw the Tigers for the first time as an army within his army, and he knew that their power must not be allowed to grow any stronger. Morning Star was wrong about Snakey, he was sure of that. Snakey would never turn on him. But there might rise up other chiefs within the Tigers with ambitions that were harder to control.

  What should he do?

  The answer lay before him. It was the shaved heads and the painted stripes that made the Tigers. Scrub off the paint. Let the hair grow back. No more private army. He, the Wildman, united all spikers under his leadership. That alone must be the source of their pride and their strength.

  The decision made, he felt a wave of new resolve flow through him. For weeks—he could admit it now—he had been becalmed, like a sailing ship at sea when the wind has died. Nothing had interested him. Nothing had given him pleasure. Even now he had no idea where he should go, or what he should do with his great army. But he had an immediate challenge before him, one that he was sure would meet resistance, and the Wildman liked opposition.

  "No," said Snakey.

  "I'm the chief, Snakey." The Wildman stood before him, his eyes glittering. "I give the order. You have to obey."

  "It's a bad order, Chick. Nobody obeys a bad order."

  "Then you answer to me."

  Snakey held his painted head high with defiance. On either side the chiefs of the bands looked on in utter silence. All understood that suddenly, out of nowhere, a battle for supremacy had exploded into the open.

  "Our stripes are our pride," said Snakey. "You don't take our pride."

  "There's only one chief."

  "You're the chief. When did I say different?"

  "Then, you obey."

  "Not this time, Chick."

  Morning Star, standing unnoticed at the back, could see from Snakey's colors that he had come to the meeting ready to fight. Even now he was working himself up for the conflict. His colors pulsed a deep fierce red, and he rose up and down on the balls of his feet, tensing every muscle in his body, for action. He was a bigger man than the Wildman, and hardened by long years of bandit fighting; but he had no chance. The Wildman had been trained as a Noble Warrior.

  "You mean to fight me, Snakey?"

  "Man-to-man. No tricks."

  "Any way you want."

  "Call it."

  "Now."

  So quickly it had begun. Neither man moved for a moment. They stood some five paces apart, watching each other, sensing each other's intentions. Morning Star, looking from one to the other, realized that the Wildman still did not believe that this was a fight to the death. He was not afraid enough, and so not angry enough.

  Snakey turned and walked away. His back was to the Wildman, presenting an easy target. The Wildman made no move to attack.

  "You breaking?"

  "No break," replied Snakey. "The fight's on."

  He walked out into the blazing brightness of the street, and down the bronzed earth road to the far end, where he came to a stand. The more public the encounter, the more pride was at stake. On the street, you fought to the end. No mercy, no surrender.

  The Wildman followed more slowly. He made his stand facing Snakey. A hundred paces between them, and their shadows sharp on the dirt.

  "You don't want to do this, Snakey."

  "I'm doing it, Chick."

  Spikers came crowding from all sides to line the long street, the Tigers massing on the south side, armed and ready. When the Wildman saw this, he understood that everything that was happening had been planned. But still he could not believe that Snakey wanted to kill him.

  "Don't do this, Wildman," shouted Morning Star.

  "You started it," replied the Wildman. "Now I'm going to finish it."

  Morning Star knew what would happen now. She didn't want to see it, but couldn't leave. So she stood still and silent in the sun, like everyone else in the ever-growing crowd, and waited for
the storm to break.

  The Wildman was the first to move. He set off at a slow deliberate pace down the street towards Snakey. His lean golden arms swung by his sides, his silver bracelets jangling and glinting in the sunlight. He carried no weapons. His eyes shone.

  "Chuck-chuck-chicken," he murmured as he walked. "Here comes the Wildman."

  Snakey drew his spike and moved it from hand to hand. He could throw with his left as well as his right. One spike, one throw. Then it would be bare hands.

  The Wildman kept on walking, twenty paces away now, closing in. Snakey crouched, bouncing on his long wiry legs, still passing his spike from hand to hand.

  "No tricks, Chick," he said.

  "Just you and me, Snakey."

  On he came. No way of knowing what strike he was planning. The way he was walking he looked as if he had in mind to walk on by.

  "Heya!" he called softly. "Do you lo-ove me?"

  Snakey sprang. With one bound, he halved the distance between them, and as he sprang, he hurled his spike. Not at the Wildman, but up, spinning over his head, forcing him to look up—and as he looked up, Snakey struck, hands in a double fist, punch powering deep into the Wildman's belly. And the Wildman was down.

  The spike fell to the ground, impaled itself in the dirt, and Snakey seized it. The Wildman lay buckled on the road, winded, struggling for breath, seeing only the patch of earth before his eyes. But onto that patch of earth fell the shadow of the spike as it descended, and with a violent convulsion of his body he twisted aside, and the spike smashed into the ground. Snakey had struck with so much force that he couldn't pull the spike out again. The Wildman rolled and looked up, saw Snakey black against the glare of the sky, and knew the blow had been intended to kill.