The First Riders

by David Ferguson

  Eln-Tika answered: ‘To the south. Lots of them.’

  ‘Right,’ Wath-Moll said cheerfully, ‘Let's hunt.’

  The octet, moving slowly over the plain, saw the distant flatheads. There were more bushes than usual so they were able to approach quite closely. The grazing animals had still not seen them.

  ‘Danger!’ Eln-Tika called.

  ‘Where?’ Wath-Moll asked when she did not say.

  ‘I'm not sure it's danger now,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I think there are slashers nearby, but I'm not sure they are a danger.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Slashers!’ Ya-to cried. ‘By the herd!’

  They looked towards the flatheads and saw a slasher leap at a young animal and slash its huge hind claw into the flathead's belly. Another and then another did the same and the animal was dead.

  They watched as more slashers appeared round the animal.

  ‘However many of them are there?’ Stu-Bel asked wonderingly.

  ‘Danger!’ Eln-Tika called again. ‘All around!’

  ‘I can't see anything with these bushes,’ Ya-To grumbled.

  ‘There are slashers all around us!’

  ‘Go north fast - now!’ Wath-Moll roared.

  The eight blenjis raced away. Eln-Tika saw nothing but rushing bushes as her blenji strode away from danger. But there was danger behind; she could sense the slashers attacking her friends. She slowed her blenji and swung round and saw a slasher leaping from the bushes at Stu-Bel's blenji. It struck at its belly with its vicious hind claw and the animal fell to the ground trapping Stu-Bel beneath it. Before Eln-Tika could take aim, more slashers arrived and, ignoring the writhing blenji, leapt at Stu-Bel. Eln-Tika, slowing up, shot one of the slashers dead. Two more appeared and she shot those dead too. But it was too late to save Stu-Bel. She could see that he was dead, a limp form under the now dead blenji. Wath-Moll appeared at her side, but where were the others? They were entirely alone.

  ‘We must go back,’ Wath-Moll said.

  ‘Yes, we must.’

  They turned round, bows at the ready.

  ‘There's a blenji,’ Wath-Moll said urgently. ‘It's Se-Pen's, but where is he?’

  ‘Over here,’ Eln-Tika said sadly.

  The mutilated body of their friend lay nearby.

  ‘Is there danger?’ Wath-Moll asked.

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘What? They've all gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They continued their search. They found the bodies of Palui-Ka, Risha-Ne, and Vella-Mok. Only Ya-To was missing. They removed the pouches with their store of dried meat, but left everything else as it was. They felt intense sorrow at the destruction of the octet, and anger at the senselessness of the attack which seemed to them to be without motive. They were gazing in silence at the body of Vella-Mok when Eln-Tika suddenly spoke.

  ‘Ya-To's still alive,’ she said urgently. ‘To the south-east. Not far.’

  They found him lying by his blenji with a slash along the side of his abdomen. A dead slasher with an arrow in its eye lay nearby.

  ‘I'm nearly gone,’ Ya-To croaked. ‘You'd better leave me.’

  ‘We'll bind you,’ Wath-Moll said with a reassurance he did not feel. ‘You'll be fine.’

  Eln-Tika cut a strip from Ya-To's tent cover and wrapped it tightly round him. They then removed the saddle from his blenji and fastened it to the back of Eln-Tika's animal using ropes and other improvisations.

  ‘It should work,’ she said, eyeing the construction.

  They lifted him carefully into the saddle then rode slowly to the north.

  Ya-To told them in tired snatches of what had happened. They were following Stu-bel when a group of slashers suddenly appeared in front of them, but behind Stu-Bel. They slowed to fire at them when more attacked from the side. His blenji had been wounded and fell under him. A slasher had attacked him and wounded him, but had then been killed by an arrow in its eye. He didn't know who had fired it. He had lain motionless listening to the fight but unable to help. He was almost unconscious when they had found him.

  ‘Why do they do it?’ Wath-Moll shouted in anger. ‘What is the point?’

  ‘I don't know,’ Eln-Tika said sadly. ‘I can't see into their minds.’

  On the fourth day Ya-To died. They had known he would not survive; his wounds were too serious. They had comforted him and tried to feed him, but he had eaten little. They had travelled very slowly, so as not to hurt him. They had seen no more slashers, indeed very few animals at all. They had eaten the dried meat they carried and a few berries, and once they shot a small animal that ran across their path and had cooked and eaten it. They were eating fairly well but Ya-To was growing progressively weaker.

  On the evening of the third day, Ya-To could barely speak.

  Barely audible, he said ‘You'll have to find a town now. Two chanits can't survive. You need eight.’

  ‘Three,’ Wath-Moll said softly.

  ‘Two or three, it doesn't matter, you need to find a town.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Eln-Tika said.

  The following morning they found him dead, peacefully lying in his tent. Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika left him where he was. Hunters were fatalists. Death came to them all in the end, and often violently. The world they lived in produced such fatalism. They killed to eat and others killed them. Eln-Tika and Wath-Moll knew that in the end they would probably die in a similar manner, when they were too old to defend themselves. It did not concern them too much. But they regretted the loss of their friends. Ya-To would become carrion for the many small predators. He would become food for animals, then part of the animals themselves. He would live again, changed but once again alive. Eln-Tika and Wath-Moll believed in this eternal cycle of life, but nevertheless they regretted the loss of their friends. They were part of a good time, now gone.

  Chapter 3

  They took turns at the night watch. Eln-Tika spent her time looking at the stars and listening to the sounds and watching the sleeping form of Wath-Moll and the outlines of the two blenjis tied to their trees. They had their tents but they had not erected them. It seemed safer not to for some reason.

  Eln-Tika was worried, but not overmuch. She was a fatalist yet she had the will to survive, as had Wath-Moll who was the strongest and best of the octet, although he did not have Eln-Tika's gift of telepathy. Between them they ought to be able to survive.

  But tomorrow they had to hunt, for they were nearly out of meat. A baby flathead would suffice. In the distance she could hear the piping of two male flatheads in combat, so food was there to be hunted.

  They had a plan of sorts. Eln-Tika felt there was a town far to the north. It was a vague feeling she had, a faint sense of far distant minds. They knew that the most used ways between towns were well defined tracks and they thought that if they kept travelling north they would meet one. Then it was merely a matter of travelling along the track until they came to the town at the end of it.

  But first they had to eat.

  Just after daybreak they rode quietly in the direction of the flathead herd. They waited just outside the sight range of the flatheads for a longer time than usual. They had to choose a baby and they were harder to see than the huge adults. And they wanted to be sure there were no slashers.

  ‘There's danger,’ Eln-Tika said finally. ‘To the west.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Not slashers. A speed-dragon.’

  Wath-Moll was quite surprised. He had not seen a speed-dragon for ages. He looked to the west. hoping to see it, and there it was, its huge head and neck towering above the bushes and ferns. He looked towards the flatheads and saw that they too had seen the enemy. The nearer animals were looking in the direction of the speed-dragon.

  ‘This could be interesting,’ Wath-Moll said. ‘They've seen it but they haven't seen us. I think we should move in slowly.’

  ‘Do you think the speed-dragon has seen us?’ Eln-Tika asked.

  ‘I doubt it. It's focuss
ed on the flatheads.’

  They moved slowly towards their prey; they could see the speed-dragon doing the same. Still the flatheads had not moved.

  Wath-Moll was smiling as he rode slowly on. Eln-Tika could see and sense that he had completely forgotten the perils of their situation in his enjoyment of the hunt.

  ‘It's off!’ he shouted. ‘Let's go!’

  The speed-dragon had suddenly begun running. It raced across their line of sight at a tremendous pace, bounding through the ferns with a great crashing. The flatheads were fleeing for their lives, but a flathead was no match for a speed-dragon. The animal was bearing rapidly down on its prey while Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika were doing the same from a different direction.

  ‘There's a baby!’ Wath-Moll cried and, seconds later, he had fired an arrow into its side. Eln-Tika did the same and it was dead. The other flatheads, terrified by the speed-dragon, had not even seen them.

  The two chanits watched the speed-dragon make its kill some distance away, then Eln-Tika dismounted to rope and tie the baby. The speed-dragon, even if it knew they were there - which was unlikely - would not bother them now that it had made its own kill.

  They dragged the little flathead to a safer spot and started a fire using Wath-Moll's curved glass, one of the octet's most valuable tools. It had been given to them when the octet had been formed. If the octet had survived and laid eggs, it would have had to find another for the new octet that would have been created. The glass could focus the sun's light to such an extent that it could set fire to dry wood. It only worked when the sun was shining, of course. When it was not they had to resort to the tedious practice of spinning wood against wood with a piece of twine.

  They dismembered the carcass and roasted it. They ate what they wanted and cut the remainder into slices which they rubbed with the salt they always carried. They now had food for two more days.

  During this time they rode slowly north. Chanits had tiny fragments of a magnetic material buried in their skulls. This gave them an in-built compass so that they instinctively knew the direction of magnetic north. They also knew the time. On rare occasions, when this in-built compass did not work, they would use the time and the position of the sun to find the compass points.

  On their ride they occasionally found berry trees and they picked the fruits to give variety to their diet. They were once again in a land with rather few animals. They were feeling the loss of the octet. Nomadic chanits lived in eights not twos, and Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika were becoming depressed. They liked and admired each other, but the company of one other chanit was not enough. They needed six others, give or take one or two. They could not imagine what it would be like in a town where presumably there would be hundreds.

  Their minds were full of questions. How big would a town be? Could it be seen from afar? What was it? There were stories, of course, but Eln-Tika did not believe all she had heard. The legends were for children, or for the entertainment of adults, not to be taken seriously. Towns consisted of buildings, but what exactly was a building? The stories were vague on the point. Some said they were made of trees fitted together to an unimaginable extent, some said they were made of stones, the stones shaped to fit into one another to form huge walls. Perhaps both stories were true - or neither. Would the buildings be tall, so that they could be seen from afar? The stories said they were huge, but stories were for children.

  They continued north, sometimes walking beside their blenjis to rest them. They wandered through the hills in an unfamiliar peace, enjoying each others companionship until, one evening, they climbed to a gap between two low hills. Below them stretched a plain which was ringed by other low hills. Far to the north, hard to see in blue haze, were great mountains. It seemed a peaceful place so here they made a proper camp by erecting their tents. While Eln-Tika was knocking in the stabilising pegs she automatically gazed at the plain below, subconsciously noting the features. Her brain took a little while to bubble the salient feature to the surface of her mind, but when it did she stopped working. At first she thought she was imagining it, then she was sure it was real.

  ‘Look over there,’ she said, pointing to the north-west. ‘Can you see the lights?’ It was dusk and before long it would be night. Through the gloom they could see, very far way, tiny points of light.

  ‘What is it?’ Wath-Moll asked.

  ‘A town.’

  ‘A town? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I can sense it. Hundreds and hundreds of thoughts, but far away. They are busy thoughts, hurrying thoughts. I felt the same just after the attack when we were deciding where to go.’

  ‘But not since?’

  ‘No. I've been too tired, I think. But up here, it's easy.’

  ‘Are the thoughts friendly?’

  ‘Neither friendly nor unfriendly. Just busy. Busy with their own actions.’

  Wath-Moll looked towards the lights and tried to judge the distance.

  ‘We could be there in a day,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Yes.’

  Wath-Moll turned to her and said, ‘Are you frightened?’

  ‘No. Excited.’

  Wath-Moll smiled at her. ‘I'm glad it was you that was saved. And not just because of the telepathy. You're marvellous company.’

  Eln-Tika smiled back. ‘I do not think I could have survived without you. And that's not because you're a good hunter.’

  That night they slept together in Wath-Moll's tent. It was less comfortable than if they had had a tent each, but it was companionable. Out on the plain the faint lights of the town grew fewer until they disappeared altogether.

  Chapter 4

  The morning was clear, but try as they might, they could not see the town.

  ‘I can feel it, though,’ Eln-Tika said positively. ‘The thoughts are busier than ever.’

  ‘Not unfriendly?’

  ‘No.’

  They ate some of their meat and drank some of their water. They packed away their tents into the saddle-bags, mounted their blenjis and rode down the slope to the plain below.

  Very soon they met a road.

  It was a straight, narrow clearing through the vegetation, roughly levelled. It stretched as far as they could see. One direction pointed to where they thought the town was.

  ‘A passage-way,’ Eln-Tika exclaimed. ‘It enables them to travel more easily.’

  ‘But only in one direction, between the northwest and the southeast, in this case. It's no good if you want to go north, say.’

  ‘They use them to travel between towns.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I would think that if we went in a southeasterly direction we would come to another town. This passage-way connects the two towns. If we ride along it we'll meet other travellers.’

  ‘Octets, you mean?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Eln-Tika said. ‘I don’t think the towns have octets.’

  Wath-Moll stared at her. ‘They must have. Everybody works in octets. It will be very strange if they do not’

  ‘I think it will be very strange. We need to be prepared for surprises.’

  Wath-Moll stared at her again but said nothing. Eln-Tika smiled at him, but also said nothing. They rode towards the northwest.

  At mid-day they had their first encounter.

  Eln-Tika sensed them first, then they saw them, a dot on the horizon, at the far end of the long straight road.

  ‘Are they friendly?’ Wath-Moll asked anxiously.

  ‘They haven’t seen us yet. For some reason they are easier to see than we are.’

  ‘Let me know as soon as they see us,’ he said anxiously.

  They rode on in silence a little longer.

  ‘They've seen us!’

  ‘Are they friendly?’

  ‘Curious. There's no danger - as yet.’

  ‘We won’t unhitch the bows as yet. We won’t attack.’

  Eln-Tika stared at him. ‘Attack? There are more than two of them. We can’t attack.’

  ‘Really? I c
an only see one dot, although it's a big dot.’

  ‘I know. I do not understand it, but there are six thoughts ahead of us.’

  ‘Six?’

  ‘Definitely six.’

  They rode towards the dot, which became slowly larger - and squarer. Eln-Tika and Wath-Moll still did not know what it was. Even when they could make out the four blenjis pulling the contraption they still did not know. It was only when it was almost upon them that they saw that the blenjis were pulling a large box on wheels. Two chanits were sitting at the front apparently guiding the blenjis. When they reached each other, all stopped. The dust from the travellers slowly settled.

  ‘Where are you from?’ one of the chanits called.

  Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika were astonished. The words were familiar, but not the way they were said. They had never heard speech like it. But they answered civilly enough.

  ‘We were an octet, but we were attacked by slashers. We are on our way to the town.’

  ‘River Fork, huh? You should be there long before sundown with those beasts you've got.’

  A hand appeared out of the hole in the side of the box, then a head. With this, Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika realised that there were chanits inside, and then they realised that the whole contraption was designed to carry chanits from place to place without the necessity of riding.

  ‘Are you hunters?’ the new face asked. The voice was high-pitched and seemed young.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you hunt?’

  ‘Flatheads, mostly. Sometimes point-tops.’

  ‘Have you seen a speed-dragon?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wath-Moll answered in surprise. ‘I killed one once. I shot it through the eye.’

  The head popped back inside and they heard its owner crying, ‘Mum, he's killed a speed-dragon!’

  Another head appeared - older and female. ‘Do not tell my boy stories, young fellow. Nobody can kill a speed-dragon.’

  ‘I can,’ Wath-Moll said calmly. ‘Especially when it's about to kill me.’

  The drivers looked at Wath-Moll with interest. ‘You used those bows and arrows, did you?’ one asked.

  ‘Of course. With black poison, just to be sure.’

  ‘Those are the ones with the black feathers?’ the driver asked, indicating the quills in Wath-Moll's scabbard. ‘I've heard about those. They sound downright lethal to me.’