Eln-Tika suddenly felt uncomfortable. She was now the centre of attention and she did not like it. And why the interest? They must all be telepaths.
‘I usually feel emotions, but sometimes when the thoughts are nearby I can sense actual thoughts if they are very intense. That isn’t often though.’
‘How far away can you sense others?’ Dalu-Mai asked.
‘Quite a long way away. I can sense slashers from a very long way. I think I must be specially developed in that respect to counteract their danger.’
Eln-Tika could sense the excitement round her. Surely they could all do this? She wanted to ask them, but first she asked the question that had been on her mind ever since she had entered the town.
‘How do you keep out the thoughts?’
There was a puzzled silence.
‘I don’t understand,’ Dalu-Mai said.
‘There are thoughts all around me because there are so many here. Out in the hills there is nobody, so all I sense is silence, but here it is noise all the time. I don’t know how you can think in such a pure, concentrated way with so many distractions. How do you do it?’ She ended with her voice high and her distress obvious to all.
Dalu-Mai placed a hand on Eln-Tika's shoulder in a gesture of comfort.
‘We don’t need to, Eln-Tika,’ she said quietly. ‘We aren’t telepaths. We have heard of them, but you are the first we have met. We can teach you to concentrate the mind, to lose yourself to the inner world, but we can’t teach you to control your telepathy.’
‘Perhaps only hunters are telepathic,’ one of the silents said. ‘In a town telepathy may be intolerable, so any born telepathic may die soon. Out in the hills, where there is a mental silence the conditions may be more favourable. Telepaths may be more common among the hunters. Did you know any other telepaths, Eln-Tika?’
‘There was one in the octet I was born into. There is always one telepath in an octet. But within our octet there was only me. I was the guard. I can tell when there is danger.’
The silents absorbed this without comment, then Dalu-Mai asked, ‘What do you plan to do in the town?’
It was Wath-Moll who answered. He had been silent during the interrogation of Eln-Tika, for he had been as surprised as her about the silents' lack of telepathy.
‘The sheriff has suggested we work on a farm ridding it of slashers. It's something we can do - probably better than anybody.’
‘Stay here,’ Sil-Jeve suggested. There was a murmur of assent.
‘Doing what?’ Wath-Moll asked. His abruptness was a result of surprise.
‘The same task - guarding us against slashers, but also teaching us about telepathy. Helping in the fields.’
‘But mainly you want to learn about telepathy,’ Wath-Moll said. ‘Only Eln-Tika can do that. I can’t.’
‘Yes, that true. But you are most welcome.’
‘No.’ Eln-Tika said the word with abrupt finality. ‘Wath-Moll and I are equals. We do everything together. We will go to the farm in the morning.’
Sil-Jeve, Dalu-Mai and the other silents smiled at her. The brief outburst had been passionate, a rare emotion in their rarefied world.
‘Very well, but see us as often as you can. You are always welcome at any time, although evening is best - for you too, I imagine.’
‘Thinking time,’ Eln-Tika said happily.
‘Yes, thinking time.’
Chapter 6
Ma-Sek came for them the following morning. The two hunters were waiting for him in the yard, with their blenjis. Sil-Jeve was there to see them off and to tell the sheriff that they would be visiting them soon.
Ma-Sek led them out of the town, and after an hour's ride along a rough track they came to a group of low buildings, not old, but not new either. Not far away, in the scrubby countryside, a herd of flatheads grazed. As they rode up to the buildings several chanits appeared.
Bro-Bak, emerging from the main building, watched the approach of the three riders with interest. The two hunters were smaller than was normal and rode their mounts with an unusual lightness. An imposing array of arrow quills emerged from behind their backs and the bows looked business-like. The saddle-bags too looked as if they had travelled far, seen much, and survived it all without difficulty. He was prepared to be impressed by these two strangers.
They dismounted and he greeted them with the traditional touch on the shoulder. The first shrank back from the unexpected contact but the other said, ‘It's only a greeting, Wath-Moll. There's no danger.’ This hunter then laughed and Bro-Bak was mildly surprised to discover this slight stranger was a female.
‘Ma-Sek tells me you are looking for work,’ he said.
‘Yes, we have come to kill your slashers,’ Wath-Moll said.
Bro-Bak smiled at the directness. He could very easily come to like these two.
‘You can do that?’
‘Oh yes. We hate them, so we have learnt how to kill them. We will gladly kill them for you.’
‘This is very commendable, but why do you hate them so?’
‘They're mean and nasty. They seem to enjoy killing for the sake of killing. We kill, but only to eat. When our bellies are full we don’t kill.’
Ma-Sek intervened. He needed to get back to the town and it was time for him to go.
‘I assume you will be taking them on, Bro-Bak? If you are, I'll be leaving. I have lots of sheets of paper to write on so that the governor stays happy.’
‘Not yet, Ma-Sek. I need to find out if these hunters can fire straight. You should stay to watch.’
Ma-Sek hesitated. He would like to see how good these hunters were. Curiosity won, and he dismounted. He tied his blenji to the hitching rail and joined Bro-Bak.
‘How are you going to test them, Bro-Bak?’ he asked.
By way of answer, Bro-Bak said to Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika, ‘Get on your mounts again and fire an arrow each at that post.’ He indicated a post at the edge of the yard which served no obvious purpose. The two hunters remounted, then Wath-Moll took the bow off his back, inserted an arrow and fired all in one blurred movement. The arrow quivered slightly as its point buried into the post. A moment later Eln-Tika did the same. Bro-Bak and Ma-Sek blinked.
After a short pause Bro-Bak asked, ‘Can you do that when you're moving?’
‘Of course. How else would we do it?’ Wath-Moll replied.
‘All right, let's see you do it. Ride past the post at the distance you'd want to be from a slasher and try to hit it.’
‘It's not the same,’ Wath-Moll protested. ‘A slasher would be moving.’
‘Hit the post,’ Bro-Bak said patiently.
‘They'll hit it,’ Ma-Sek whispered to Bro-Bak.
‘I know that, but I want to see it anyway. There's nothing like watching somebody who knows what he's doing.’
Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika rode at full speed past the post and struck it with four arrows. Bro-Bak blinked again.
‘You're hired,’ he said eventually.
The two hunters dismounted, walked to the post and carefully removed the arrows. They could be reused. Bro-Bak and Ma-Sek watched this with amusement, then Ma-Sek mounted his blenji and rode back to the town, thinking that a major problem may have been solved. Bro-Bak directed the two hunters to the blenji stables, then led them to the sleeping-house, a large wooden room with windows inset into the shorter walls. The two longer walls were lined with bunks. Apparently all those who worked on the farm slept here. It was empty apart from one young chanit who was sweeping the floor.
‘We eat together in the cook-house - I'll show you that later. We eat at sundown. During the day we take food with us. A few slices of meat and a drink is enough. This place is empty because everybody apart from young Dro-Shord here is out tending the flatheads. We check that the ditch is in good condition, that there is enough water for the flatheads, that nothing is disturbing the nests. We're kept busy, believe me.’
Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika said nothing. They were too busy digestin
g the strangeness of their new way of life. Looking after the well-being of flatheads instead of killing them was a novelty, as was the communal sleeping quarters. Luckily it was lighter and airier than their room in the silencehouse and much more congenial.
Eln-Tika asked the question that had been puzzling her for some time. ‘If you have a ditch around your farm how do the slashers get in? If the ditch is wide enough and deep enough you should be able to keep them out.’
Bro-Bak looked at her with interest. ‘Well, you're right, of course. They shouldn’t be able to get in. But they do, so one of your tasks will be to discover how they do it. It's a long ditch because this is a big farm. We stretch beyond the perimeter of the town so three sides border on open country. Out there, of course, there are plenty of slashers.’
‘Are there more of them these days?’ Wath-Moll asked.
‘It's funny you should say that. Yes, I believe there are more. Whether that's because there actually are more or that they've discovered we're an easy target, I don’t know. Now I think I'll show you round the farm. We won’t be able to cover all of it today - that would probably take five or six days. Sometimes, when we visit the more remote areas, we have to stay out overnight. We take tents and food with us then.’ Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika brightened up at this. It would be nice to live in their tents once in a while. ‘Today we'll ride over to the nearest part of the ditch so you can see if there are any flaws in its design, and we'll join up with Tenni-Vill and her gang - she's my next in command - to see how they're coping. We'll be back by sundown.’
They rode through a gently rolling countryside lightly covered with ferns and occasional quite large trees. The morning was alive with the sound of birds and the buzzing of insects. It was a familiar country to the two hunters and they began to feel happier.
Flathead herds were quite common, and occasionally in the distance they would see a few chanits on blenjis which Bro-Bak waved to. Once they saw a herd of blenjis, the first they had seen for some time.
‘Oh yes,’ Bro-Bak replied to Eln-Tika's question. ‘We herd blenjis too. We need them as much as you, and it's much more convenient if they are inside the ditch. They're easy to breed.’
The two hunters digested this information in silence. They were beginning to see the advantages of farming.
After a while they came to a group of chanits who were dragging a dead flathead out of a shallow pond.
‘They're always falling into ponds,’ Bro-Bak commented. ‘I'll introduce you to Tenni-Vill and the rest. They know all about you.’ Well, not all, he thought to himself. They don’t know how good they are as marksmen. I'll keep that little surprise to myself.
Tenni-Vill, who was supervising the removal of the flathead, was a tough-looking customer used to authority. She was giving her instructions in a succinct decisive manner. The three visitors waited until the flathead had been removed to a suitable place.
‘Good for vultures,’ Tenni-Vill commented. Indeed, overhead the birds were already gathering into a circling flock. When the chanits had left they would be down to tear the carcass apart. In the outside country they would have had to compete with slashers and claw-lizards, and other predators, but here, inside the ditch, they would have the flathead to themselves.
Tenni-Vill grunted a greeting, but did not seem too friendly. ‘Presumably you can use those weapons?’ she asked, somewhat rudely to Eln-Tika's ears.
‘Oh yes,’ Wath-Moll answered quietly. Bro-Bak grinned and Tenni-Vill bridled.
‘Well, we'll have to see for ourselves,’ she said.
‘There's no need,’ Bro-Bak said peaceably. ‘I've already had a demonstration. They hit the post in the yard four times out of four while riding at full-speed. You need not worry.’
‘A post is not a slasher,’ Tenni-Vill said scornfully. ‘Slashers appear without warning from any direction, and they don’t stand still like a post. That test doesn’t prove much.’
‘I agree,’ Eln-Tika said, ‘except that we do have warnings when slashers are near. I can sense them.’
‘Really? How?’
‘I'm a telepath.’
There was a short silence. When nobody seemed about to speak, Eln-Tika continued. ‘I can tell slashers are near even when I can’t see them. I can tell where they are, roughly how many there are, and what sort of mood they are in - for instance, if they are about to attack, which is their usual state of mind. So we have a little time to prepare ourselves.’
‘Can you do that?’ Tenni-Vill asked Wath-Moll.
‘No. Each octet nearly always has one telepath, it seems to be some sort of rule, but it's rarely more than one. We've all tried to learn from Eln-Tika, but without much success. She can’t understand why we can’t do it.’
Bro-Bak and Tenni-Vill were awed. There was no doubt that the two hunters were telling the truth; they had a natural honesty. Tenni-Vill, who saw no need for these interlopers, was beginning to change her mind. She watched them thoughtfully as they rode off towards the nearest section of ditch. She would catch up with them again in the evening when they all had their meal. She had many questions.
Bro-Bak led the two hunters to the ditch. To Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika it seemed wide enough and deep enough. They could envisage a slasher climbing down the far side but it would never get out again. The walls were too high and too steep.
‘The ditch is like this everywhere?’ Wath-Moll asked.
‘Yes. There are a few crossing places, but we believe they are slasher proof, too.’
‘I think we should see one of those crossing places,’ Wath-Moll said. ‘Slashers are intelligent. They may have thought of a way to go through or round them.’
It was some time before they came to the nearest crossing place. They were used as short cuts to the outer world. Sometimes the herdsmen gathered berries, and some of the best berry places were beyond the ditch. Then there was salt. A large pan of this most valuable substance lay a half day's ride beyond the ditch, and it would have been intolerable to have gone the circuitous route through the town. The hunters appreciated the usefulness of the crossing places, but wondered if they were not the weakness.
The one they saw seemed safe enough. Four planks placed side by side stretched across the ditch. At the far side a high fence protected the bridge from the outside. It was much taller than a chanit riding on a blenji and it stretched in a curve behind the bridge to the edge of the ditch. It was heavily built and looked completely impregnable. Wath-Moll tried to imagine a slasher jumping from the edge of the ditch that was beyond the fence onto the bridge, but decided that the distance was too great for them. He voiced his thoughts.
Eln-Tika agreed, but with reservations.
‘They must get in somehow, but the how is not obvious. It must be via the ditch, though - the crossing place seems impregnable.’
‘All right. You've just been given the job of finding out the problem as well as the task of slaughtering all those that get inside. Are you happy with that?’
‘Oh yes,’ Eln-Tika said cheerfully.
Chapter 7
Evening was suppertime. All the chanits working on the farm gathered in the cook-house to eat and talk. To Eln-Tika and Wath-Moll it was a very familiar ritual. Only the surroundings were different.
The cook-house was square with a fire burning in the middle whose smoke was ingeniously removed via a cowl and a chimney suspended over the fireplace. Sometimes a gust of wind blew down the chimney and blew smoke into their eyes, but mostly it was effective.
The fire served to cook the food and warm the interior of the building. In the town, Bro-Bak said, things were better because they had separate rooms for cooking, eating, and sleeping, but here they only separated sleeping from the other two activities. Wath-Moll and Eln-Tika did not mind. It was better than they were used to.
There were tables and chairs scattered around the room. They seemed to have a rougher quality to those in the silent-house. Eln-Tika and Wath-Moll were becoming used to sitting at a table to
eat, but they still did not consider it an improvement over sitting on the ground.
There were ten of them in the room. The two hunters were subjected to a rain of questions.
‘How many slashers have you killed?’
‘How often do you need to kill?’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Have you seen a speed-dragon?’
The last question again surprised them. It transpired that none of the others had seen the fiercest enemy of all.
‘That's one thing wrong with the ditch,’ Eln-Tika said suddenly. ‘It won’t keep out a speed-dragon. One could jump over it easily.’
‘But there aren’t any speed-dragons round here,’ Bro-Bak said. ‘We've heard of them, but you're the first we've met who has actually seen them. Up until now I wasn’t sure they weren’t a myth, something to frighten the youngsters with.’
Wath-Moll answered slowly, considering his words. ‘Speed-dragons are very fast and very powerful, but they are not really a danger to us. They prefer to hunt flatheads because they're easy. They hardly ever attack us, and even if they do our blenjis can out-run them. The problem is - a speed-dragon which finds your herds of flatheads could have itself an easy meal and decide to stay. Then it would become a real nuisance. We would have to kill it.’
‘Kill a speed-dragon?’ Tenni-Vill said scornfully. ‘You'd be over the horizon before its dust had settled.’
Eln-Tika gave her a hard look. ‘You don’t know us, do you? We don’t talk for effect. If Wath-Moll says we would have to kill a speed-dragon then that's what we'd have to do. He does know what he's talking about, you know. He killed one once. I should know. I was there.’
‘Really?’ Tenni-Vill said sharply.
‘Yes, really. Anyway it is not speed-dragons that’s your problem, it’s slashers. Getting rid of them will be hard work because they are nasty and clever and there are lots of them. Speed-dragons are easier because they are alone and they are not very clever. Out-thinking a speed-dragon isn’t hard.’
Tenni-Vill felt a growing admiration. She reckoned to know the difference between talking for the sake of effect and the real thing. Wath-Moll and his intuitive partner with the short terse words were impressive.
The First Riders Page 5