The Flint Lord

by Richard Herley

  Tagart checked his shout of warning and allowed Bubeck to be taken unawares. Behind Bubeck, Edrin came at a run from the copse and with a grunt brought down a length of branch on his head. The club struck Bubeck squarely on the back of the skull and he staggered. With the second blow he went down on his knees. Edrin hit him again. He pitched forward and lay still. Edrin dropped to his knees and tore open Bubeck’s pouch.

  Tagart sprinted towards the channel. Edrin rose to his feet and made for the copse. His movements were stiff and slow: he had been waiting all day for the arrival of his adversaries.

  Tagart was three yards from the bank. Not slowing, he planted the tip of Klay’s spear next to the water and hoisted with all his strength. The vaulting motion carried him across the channel, but not quite far enough. He smashed into the ice and slime on the far side and at once felt the disastrous soaking in his boots. Tangling with the spear, he slithered on the snow as he pulled himself clear and tried to stand.

  Edrin had gone. His feet already freezing, Tagart ran after his tracks, past Bubeck’s slumped form and into the alder copse.

  He saw Edrin then, climbing the slope among the trees, struggling in the snow: he looked over his shoulder and redoubled his efforts.

  Tagart caught up with him fifty yards on, by a bramble patch. He seized Edrin’s shoulders, dragged him down and punched him in the face. Edrin gave in.

  Tagart ripped open his pouch: the piece of Mace was not there.

  He turned Edrin on his stomach and forced his arm up against his shoulderblades.

  “Where is it?”

  “I wasn’t … expecting a spear … You’ve cheated …”

  “Where is it?”

  He gasped with pain. “Klay took it!”

  Tagart, already tired, cold and hungry, began to lose his temper. He shoved the arm further and felt something tearing. Edrin screamed.

  “By the waterfall! In the poplar! In the poplar! I hid it in the poplar!”

  “The hollow one?”

  “You’re breaking my arm!” He screamed again. “Yes! The hollow one! The hollow one!”

  Tagart considered this reply before easing the pressure. Although he was disinclined to believe anything Edrin might say, the words had sounded convincing enough. It made sense that Edrin would hide his fragment somewhere.

  Using the strap from Edrin’s pouch, Tagart bound his wrists.

  “What are you doing?” Edrin said, in alarm.

  “I want your boots.”

  Tagart took them off, removed his own and tossed them aside. With his spare linings he dried his feet as best he could before pulling on Edrin’s own, fur-lined hunting boots.

  “I’ll lose my toes!”

  Tagart did not bother to answer. He added his spare boot-linings to those already in Edrin’s pouch. “Put your feet in there.”

  When he had done so, Tagart tied his ankles with twine and tied the bindings at wrists and ankles together. He left Edrin lying in the snow and went back to the alder copse and the channel.

  Bubeck was unconscious. Even his thick skull had been unable to withstand such an onslaught of blows. When Klay eventually found him he would be in no state to defend himself. Edrin too would be helpless.

  That was a matter for Klay’s conscience. Tagart trussed Bubeck and tied him to the bole of a young alder.

  Edrin cried, “Tagart! Tagart! Don’t leave me!”

  Taking Klay’s spear, Tagart set out. By the shortest route, across the hills, the waterfall was at most three miles away; but he would get lost under the trees. If he wanted to travel by night, under cloud, he would have to follow the riverbank and let it guide him along the trail he and Bubeck had already made. At the confluence of the first tributary – the one that came down from the camp – he would branch left and keep with it till he came to the waterfall.

  But he managed to cover only half a mile. At first the remnants of dusk had enabled him to proceed, but soon all trace of daylight had gone. Everything had been reduced to black and greyish white, the snow picking up the faint and general luminescence afforded to the clouds by the stars behind. It was too dark to see the way.

  This was the second night Tagart was going to spend in the open. The prospect worried him. He had not eaten since the previous day, and he badly needed warmth, but with Klay searching for him he could not risk lighting a fire or being found asleep.

  Nearby was an old willow with a spreading fork fifteen feet above the river. Tagart climbed into it, refastened his mittens and made sure that the drawstrings at his wrists, neck, waist and legs were tight. He pushed the edges of his mask deeper into the sides of his hood, which he drew down over his brow, leaving just a slit for his eyes.

  Through it he could barely discern any variation in the quality of the darkness.

  The cold was getting worse.

  Hugging himself more tightly, Tagart prepared to wait out the night.

  * * *

  During the afternoon Klay had followed the trail of Bubeck and Tagart, down from the woods and along the river as far as Yote Wood, where failing light had forced him to stop. He had sheltered for the night inside the Yote Oak; at dawn he woke and emerged from the tree.

  He returned to the river and was perturbed to find a new set of footprints heading towards the camp. They were indistinguishable from those Tagart had left yesterday.

  “He’s passed me in the night,” Klay said aloud.

  He took another piece of jerky from his pouch and chewed it, trying to understand the meaning of the new tracks. Had Tagart been beaten? Had he gone back to the camp? It seemed likely. If he had been seeking Klay, he would surely have followed his tracks to the Yote Oak and surprised him there – unless it had been too dark for Tagart to see tracks when he had passed. Perhaps Tagart had beaten the others. Perhaps he had the fourth fragment and had gone to Phale to accuse Klay of cheating. Or perhaps he was searching for Klay despite everything.

  Klay placed his hand on the three fragments of Mace protruding so reassuringly from his pouch. He needed only one more. Then he would be chief, and not only of the Shoden, but of the whole camp. His first act would be to put Tagart and Edrin on trial, and Berge too, for the murder of his father. All would be disembowelled; he would do it personally.

  Bubeck would be tried and found guilty of conspiring with Tagart in the contest – their tracks had crossed and recrossed; they had been together. Bubeck would be stripped of power and shamed, and the Beavers would become part of the Waterfall tribe. And then, once the spirits had been appeased, Klay would take Segle as his wife. He would be divine, a demigod, almost one of the spirits himself. Did he not already feel greatness? Had he not already shown himself superior? Had he not won three of the four fragments?

  He wanted the fourth. He had to know whether Tagart had it.

  Klay started north, his axe in his belt, his bow across his back. For part of the way along the river, as far as the place where yesterday’s tracks came down from the woods, Klay’s own tracks of the previous evening were visible. They had been ignored – or missed. Beyond that place, Tagart’s trail continued alone, through virgin snow, still keeping by the river.

  Klay forced his pace. He was beginning to feel warmer. He had breakfasted well, on nuts and dried fruit and venison jerky, and now the loneliness and discomfort of the night were receding and he was becoming eager to make an end to the contest.

  At the tributary, Tagart’s tracks turned with it, still heading for the camp. The footprints went on and on, keeping with the river path, through the alders and crack willows, leading Klay between the rising sides of the valley.

  After another mile he stopped to listen. He was getting near the waterfall. A little way off he could hear its roar, churning the grey morning air with subtle variations in pitch and volume.

  He was about to continue when he thought he glimpsed movement among the trees ahead. His heart suddenly pounding, he stared at the spot; trunks and branches of hazel and alder impeded his view.

/>   He unslung his bow, nocked an arrow, and went forward.

  9

  The waterfall was two miles above the confluence. Green water slid over its lip and tumbled in a dense sheet to explode on the pebbles in roils and froths of white which curved in on themselves in standing waves that dragged the river bed. A few yards on, the dazed current recovered itself and continued downstream. Spray from the fall had accrued as icicles on either bank; withered curls of hartstongue had been frozen solid and encased.

  A line of stepping-stones crossed the river just above the waterfall. On the north bank stood an old hollow poplar.

  All sound lost in the din of falling water, Klay drew back his arm and took aim. The dark barbs of the flight quills scraped his cheek as he readied himself for the shot, eyes focused with deadly purpose on the air just ahead of Tagart’s moving profile. His wrist and arm travelled from right to left with Tagart’s progress across the river. Tagart seemed to be knee-deep, walking in the waterfall, but that was just the angle of view.

  The range was about a hundred and ten paces. Still Tagart had not noticed him. Klay’s vision became a lucid tunnel. His whole will and intent merged with the arrow’s flint tip. It would strike Tagart’s head, burst his brain in a flurry of blood and skin and hair.

  Klay waited for Tagart to gain solid ground, one heartbeat, two, three, four, and when the arrow could go nowhere but down the axis of the tunnel the string was no longer in his fingers and the shaft had been released.

  But Klay, contrary to the teaching he had received, had left his bow strung overnight. Away from its protective envelope of leather, the string had become too dry. The tension of the bow had stretched it and impaired its elasticity. And, during the night, he had leaned against the quiver in his sleep, crushing some of the barbs, unhooking the tiny barbules that linked to make a smooth vane for flight.

  These imperfections took expression in the arrow’s path and it flew two inches wide.

  Klay saw Tagart jerk back as the wind from the arrow raked his face. Klay reached over his shoulder for a second arrow.

  Tagart recovered his footing and for the first time seemed to see Klay. He slithered down the slope beside the waterfall, coming straight for Klay. His pouch fell to the ground behind him and with his right hand he took a throwing grip on the javelin.

  Klay aimed again, more rapidly. He tried to concentrate on the shot: this was just an animal running towards him, not Tagart, not Tagart, just a large animal, sixty paces away, fifty: Klay let fly.

  Tagart dodged and with a fluid sweep the spear was in the sky, flickering against the branches, arcing down so rapidly that Klay had time only to turn. Like a hammer the broken tang hit him in the back of his neck. Something heavy exploded inside his head and his mouth was full of snow.

  He was on the ground. A merciless weight was crushing his spine. Tagart’s knee was where the spear had struck. This was a pressure point, a death-place.

  Tagart was shouting. Klay could not understand: his ears were filled with a roaring like the centre of the waterfall, the centre of the world. Through a carmine fog he saw Tagart’s wolfskin mittens gripping either end of a piece of Mace, pulling it upwards across his throat.

  The pain had become a single continuous blare louder than anything he had ever known. His neck was breaking. If he did not give the sign now he knew Tagart would pull with one more ounce and he would die.

  He beat his hand on the snow.

  The pressure relented. Tagart was still shouting.

  “Shode’s death was an accident! Say it!”

  Klay croaked.

  “Say it! Say it!”

  “Accident.”

  “And what will you call me? What will you call me? What’s my name?”

  “T… T…”

  “What’s my name?”

  Then Klay understood. Tagart had the whole Mace. He had all the pieces. He had got them all.

  “Shode, Shode,” he said.

  “Again!”

  “I …”

  “Again, I said! Louder!”

  “Shode! Your name is Shode! Shode!”

  Klay remained for a long time with his face in the snow, listening to the waterfall, before he realized that Tagart had gone away.

  PART TWO

  1

  “What is it, my lady?”

  Altheme shook her head, too sick to speak, and though nothing more would come she leaned over the bowl again and retched. On waking she had felt nauseous, but it had not been until she had sat upright and put her feet on the cold floor that she had lost control. Rian, her body-slave, had come running into the room with an empty wooden basin.

  Rian had borne three children. She knew well enough what was ailing her mistress.

  “Let me help you,” she said, putting her arms round Altheme’s shoulders and easing her backwards against the pillows.

  Rian summoned her under-slaves and quickly the room was fresh again. The floorboards were scrubbed, the bedclothes changed, and the heated rocks renewed. Altheme was washed and, after she had been wrapped in clean marten furs, looked gravely at Rian and spoke in a low voice. “Sit by me, Rian.”

  Cracks in the shutters admitted slits of grey light; the draught toyed with the flames of the rush-lamps burning by the bed.

  “There can be no more doubt,” Altheme said. “I am going to have his child.”

  Over the past few days she had confided her fears to Rian.

  “You should be glad. Perhaps this will change everything.”

  “No. It has come five years too late.”

  There was no bitterness in the her voice, but she could no longer conceal the extent of her misery. To the older woman, Altheme looked like a child, a pale child, ill and overwrought. Rian had been serving her for two years. For some reason that had never been divulged, her predecessor had been dismissed by the Flint Lord himself. Rian was almost twice Altheme’s age. She had been a slave all her life.

  Altheme took her hand and held it. Shadows covered the ceiling and walls. The doorway was in gloom; beyond it, down the stairs, were men’s voices. From outside, from the enclosure where many soldiers’ tents had been erected, from the overcrowded barracks, came ceaseless shouts and the sound of work.

  “How many soldiers are outside, Rian?”

  “Too many for me to count, my lady. I hear the landings are half done. More ships are due when the snow stops.”

  “They say there will be six hundred foreign soldiers here soon.”

  Rian noticed sparkles of light at the corners of Altheme’s eyes. Tears welled and ran down her cheeks.

  “You must tell him, my lady.”

  “I cannot.”

  “You must.”

  “And have him change towards me just because of the child?”

  Rian had already had this conversation with her mistress, but there was a new firmness in Altheme’s voice as she added, “The baby is my only weapon.”

  “He will find out soon enough.”

  “Let him.”

  “I beg you —”

  “I will dress soon,” Altheme said.

  “You are too ill to rise.”

  “There is nothing the matter with me. And I have instructions for you. Tonight I want no slaves near my chamber. Not even you.”

  “As my lady wishes.”

  Altheme squeezed her hand more tightly. She studied the bedclothes, unable to look Rian in the face. “There is a man,” she said presently. “Called Bohod Zein. I must … Your master says …”

  Rian stared at her. She had seen the agent from the homelands, Bohod Zein, a fat, white-haired albino, and she had seen his pink eyes following her mistress, but she could not believe what was being said.

  “Gehan has no more flints,” Altheme went on. “He has promised them all away, and still he wants soldiers. Bohod Zein is rich. In the homelands he has twenty villages. He owns ships and many cattle. And he … he wants …”

  Rian opened her arms as Altheme broke down and wept. Eyes
closed, Altheme crushed her head against Rian’s breast and allowed herself to be comforted. Rian stroked her hair. “You must tell my lord about the baby,” she said. “He will never permit it then.”

  Altheme shook her head and began to sob. Rian tried to calm her with soothing words; but she too was overwhelmed and began to grieve, not only for her mistress, but for her own plight and the plight of every slave. Through her tears she brushed her lips against Altheme’s cheek to give her a child’s kiss, and, as on the vulnerable skin of a child who has been ill in the night and washed by its mother, Rian tasted but did not mind the musty, bittersweet odour she found there.

  * * *

  Envoys to the other winter camps were sent out as soon as Tagart had formally received the Mace and the name of Shode.

  On returning from the waterfall he had given the broken pieces of Mace to the elders, as tradition required. Everyone was summoned to watch Phale as he crudely repaired the Mace and matched it to the tribal emblem.

  Tagart was prepared for the ceremony by the other chiefs: no women were allowed to witness his ritual washing or the slow process of dressing in robes and mask. Dyes and daubs were applied to his skin and hair, in cream, white, pale-blue and green.

  He sat as if numb, elated and exhausted. He was to be the chief and leader of his own blood tribe and the winter camp, first man of the spirit. Upon him had settled the divine choice of the Sun: he was to be Shode.

  Dragonfly and Heron reverently unpacked the striking salmon mask with its glossy eyes and hooked lower jaw, each scale of its skin cut from mother-of-pearl and left the native colour, or stained and finished with crimson and olive green like the skin of a living salmon. In the compound, the sacred foods were nearly ready.

  Meanwhile men had been sent to find the other contestants. Edrin was unhurt but, like Bubeck, badly chilled. Bubeck had been concussed, though not seriously, and he seemed to bear no grudge; indeed, he had trouble in dissembling his admiration of Tagart’s victory. Klay, on Tagart’s instructions, had been brought back to the camp in a hood with his hands tied.