by Bjorn Kurten
“You fool and coward!” she said.
Stag smiled, not a very convincing smile, and shrugged his shoulders. “The poor old woman is raving,” he said.
“Very natural,” interposed Skua sympathetically. “The poor bereaved one. She has been deprived of her reason by this terrible loss.”
Hobby took no notice of him. “Carry the dead into the house,” she commanded.
It was done in silence. The sun set behind Summer Island, but nobody paid any heed.
“Take down the Sun Pillar!” Hobby said. “Yes, you!” She looked at Stag. He glanced at his followers, then shrugged his shoulders once more. They all helped to tip down the pillar, and Hobby ordered that too to be put into the house. It was so long that the base stuck out of the doorway.
“And now,” she said, when all was done, “my last words to you. You are all either fools or scoundrels, but I forgive the fools. You will never catch the boys. And you, Stag, will live to rue this day. Now go away, all of you! All but Fox.”
Silently, and somewhat sheepishly, the people withdrew in the gathering dusk. At last only Fox remained, and Hobby stroked his cheek.
“You and the twins are all I have left now. I shan’t stay with you; there is only one thing for me to do now, and you must help me. Then you must go and seek out the twins. You know where to find them, but beware that nobody tracks you there. You are big enough to fend for yourselves now, the three of you, and I think I know what you are going to do. My blessing will be with you. Embrace me, Fox!”
In the twilight of Midsummer Night, Fox helped Hobby carry out her final preparations. When all was ready, she told him too to go. Once on the beach, he turned his head. The house was dark and silent, and the beach looked strangely empty with the Sun Pillar gone. Later, from afar, he saw the blaze of the pyre, rising higher and more resplendent even than the Sun Pillar itself. For a long time he looked at it, towering in the still air of the night, until it spread in a burst as the roof fell in, and dwindled to a flickering glow. Then he turned away for the last time.
“And I mean to stay with you two, if you will have me,” he finished.
“We will, but not yet,” said Right Hand, who was now on his feet, striding impatiently back and forth on the river bank. “You must go back to the village. We need you there, as a spy. There is much to be avenged. I have grieved, but I’m finished with that. The murderers will pay dearly for their deed.”
Left Hand nodded. “The murderers were four,” he said. “Skua, Stag, and two of Stag’s henchmen. You must be our eyes and ears in the village, Fox. Stag will boast of what he’s going to do, and you must come here to Watersmeet to tell us.”
So Fox made his home with the motherly woman who had taken pity on him, and nobody suspected that he was in league with the fugitives, for he renounced them, as they had told him to do, and made everybody believe that he trusted Stag and Skua’s story. “Besides”—he grinned—“nobody bothers about what I think. I haven’t reached man’s estate yet, as you have done this Midsummer, and they don’t think twice about a boy like me.”
Stag made no secret of his plans. He meant to make a good show of his efforts to bring the murderers to justice, although he was secretly convinced that they had fled for good and that he would not be bothered by them in future. Skua thought so too, and Fox overheard him saying as much in a secret confabulation with his Chief.
“All you have to do is to spread your net wide for a few days,” he said. “Send the men out in twos to track the Troll imps. A moon from now, everybody will have forgotten the whole thing, and we’ll be quite safe.”
Fox brought this piece of news to his foster-brothers at Watersmeet, and they smiled grimly.
“He has no idea what he’s up against,” commented Right Hand. “Yes, it’s more or less what I thought he’d do, and it suits us perfectly.”
“The Sun will lend us his light to strike down Stag,” said Left Hand. “You’re going to help us, Fox. Here’s what you have to do.” And he started to detail their plan.
That night Fox returned to Sun Village in an exalted mood. He had always admired his foster-brothers. Now his feelings were those of hero-worship, and the part they entrusted to him filled him with pride.
Right Hand felt that a rehearsal was necessary, and when Fox came to them next morning with the news that Stag had issued orders for a general search, the three boys went through the motions. Then Left Hand disappeared into the woods.
So it happened that Stag, together with one of his men, ran straight upon a trail that seemed almost too good to be true. Crossing a small stream, hardly more than a ditch, he was thrilled to see a series of freshly made footprints along its muddy bank. Both men examined the prints carefully and nodded to each other. It could only be one of the Troll imps.
“What a dunderheaded fool,” said Stag contemptuously. “He’s still hanging about here, and on top of it all he leaves a clear track.”
“Well, it’s the best way to get through there,” remarked the other man, nodding toward the dense wood.
“Yes, but to leave footprints like a mammoth! Come along. He’ll lead us straight to their hiding-place, and we can take care of both of them.”
They hurried along the little stream, which wound through dense forest where it did indeed serve as a useful lane. The track was amusingly easy to follow. It was clear that the Troll imp had been striding along at a leisurely pace, apparently without a care in the world. The two pursuers kept shooting sharp glances right and left, but there was no sign of human life apart from the footprints.
Presently they came to a place where the wood receded on both sides of the stream. They stepped into a clearing with moss-covered bedrock and stopped for a moment to look around warily. There might be danger here. But what did happen to them was utterly unexpected and so frightening and amazing that they stood still as if rooted to the ground.
A blinding light stabbed them in the eyes. It was as if the sun had suddenly winked at them from straight ahead. But that was impossible, for the sun was shining all the time to their right. Once more that powerful beam of light flashed into their eyes. It seemed to come from the tree-tops in front of them. Then suddenly the man at Stag’s side sank to the ground, a javelin between his ribs. He died without a sound.
Stag snapped into action. Roaring like a wounded bull, he charged into the wood in the direction from which the missile had come. But before he had time to go very far, a voice called out from behind him, “The Sun is striking you down, Stag!”
He recognized the voice of one of his quarries, and spun around to run back to the glade. But as he did so, the same words, in the same voice, echoed from behind him. Realizing his dangerous position, Stag was now shouting at the top of his voice, and finally he was answered by another party from the village. They found him beside the body of his companion. Rattled and incoherent, Stag tried to tell his story, pointing excitedly in the direction from which he thought the sun had winked at him. The hunters listened with amazement. One of them, kneeling by the body, cast a curious glance at Stag. “It’s your own javelin,” he said. “Look, here’s your mark on it.”
“But it was the Troll imp who killed him!” roared Stag.
“Are you quite sure you didn’t—” began one of the newcomers. But he fell silent when he read the fury in Stag’s face. “We’d better carry him home,” he said. “It will be a sad day at Sun Village.”
“But the Troll! The murderer!” cried Stag.
“Well, he seems to be gone,” said the man almost apologetically. “We’d better go back. Don’t you think so?”
Still arguing in a loud voice, Stag followed the men who carried their slain comrade into the forest.
Shortly afterward, Left Hand, Right Hand, and Fox met at Watersmeet. Right Hand was exultant.
“Good work, Fox,” he said. “You handled the sun-pool perfectly. I knew it would stop them. That thug by Stag’s side was like a sitting bird.”
Fox handed over th
e great mica crystal with which he had dazzled Stag, and smiled a little wanly. “You know, I was shaky all over,” he admitted. “I wasn’t sure I had it right, even after we tried it out and you signaled to me.”
Fox had indeed had some difficulty learning to handle the cat’s-gold mirror. When they first told him to throw a beam of light at a target, he had made as if to throw a javelin with the atlatl. They had to spend the better part of the day coaching him.
The twins had kept the mica crystal as a secret and sacred thing ever since Left Hand found it the summer before and took it out of the rock. He had always been fascinated by the pinpoint flashes of light given out by crystals in the veins that coursed across the rock surfaces like frozen streams. He used to think that the sun was hidden in the living rock, peeping out at him. Then the discovery of a loose feldspar crystal taught him that he could hold this miraculous light-generator in his hands and direct the beam of light where he wanted it to go. The twins soon had a hoard of such crystals at one of their hiding-places. They called them sun-pools, for they gave back the sunlight just like a rockpool.
The great piece of mica, as large as Left Hand’s palm, was vastly superior to anything he had found before. From painful experience he knew the brittleness of the stuff. It took him days of patient work to prise it out, undamaged, from its place in the rock. Pointing the beam at the shadow side of a cliff where the spot of light was clearly visible, he learned to handle the crystal with precision. It was an object to be revered; somehow, it was related in his mind not only with the Sun but with his unknown White father. The two sometimes mingled in his dreams. He shared his treasure with no one but his twin brother.
Now it was different. For their plan to work, the crystal had to be entrusted to Fox. Fortunately, practice made him ready. Then Left Hand, the decoy, located Stag and left the trail which led the ill-starred Chief straight into Right Hand’s ambush.
“We’re indebted to you, Fox,” said Right Hand. “You did a good job sneaking that javelin out of Stag’s store. He’s going to find that very hard to explain to the tribe, even though he gave us the idea when he took our javelins.”
“I don’t think he ever thought that out himself,” said Left Hand. “That was Skua.”
“Yes, it does have the Skua smell,” agreed Right Hand. “Well, we’ll deal with him too, all in its own time.”
“What beats me is why you didn’t kill Stag,” said Fox.
“We have other plans for him,” answered Right Hand. “The man I killed was one of the murderers. Now, for the next strike, we really ought to have another of Stag’s javelins.”
“I can get one for you,” offered Fox promptly.
“Impossible, I’m afraid. Stag’s going to check his spears every day. He’s not a complete fool.”
“Not far from it, though,” remarked Left Hand, gingerly touching his neck. “To let me get away was a thundering mistake.”
“Even so, we mustn’t underestimate him, nor that moon-prophet of his. We’ll just have to make another javelin ourselves, and put his mark on it. What are you doing, Fox?”
Fox, looking slightly uncomfortable, handed over the piece of bark with which he had been occupied. “We killed a man,” he said hesitantly. “Don’t you think we ought to—?”
Right Hand raised his eyebrows. On the smooth piece of pine-bark, Fox had engraved the crude likeness of a man. “That’s for giving him an afterlife, Fox,” he said, “but the man was a murderer, evil, and it was right to kill him. It isn’t like killing an innocent animal.”
“Still,” Fox persisted, “I’d feel better.”
With a kind glance at Fox, Left Hand took the piece of bark, and with his finger traced the outlines of the picture. “You’re right, Fox,” he said, while Right Hand looked on and frowned. “But you’re not much of a draftsman, are you?”
At this, Right Hand laughed. “Neither are we. Well, I suppose the fellow only did what he was told to do. Give me the picture.”
Before they parted, Fox was given new instructions. No doubt the story of Stag’s hapless manhunt was already being told all over Sun Village, and the trust of the people in their new Chief would be seriously shaken. Fox could help by starting a rumor or two. Above all, he must try to listen again to Stag’s talks with Skua.
These talks were held in the night, when Sun Village was asleep, which was a great help to Fox. He found it easy to hide by the wall of Stag’s house and overhear the discussion. Skua was obviously puzzled by Stag’s story. The mystery of the javelin was simple, he said. One of the Troll imps must have stolen into the village at night and taken it. “There’s no danger of that now, with Badger sleeping in the store.” Skua pointed out.
The sun shining from two places, though, was something Skua could not explain, and it made him uneasy. “Whatever happens, you’ve got to catch the Trolls as soon as possible,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll have no peace.”
“I’d like to lay my hands on them,” said Stag reluctantly, “but I don’t want to fall foul of the Sun, if that’s the consequence.”
Skua drew an exasperated breath. “Never mind the Sun. I’ll take care of that. I’m your shaman, see? It wasn’t the Sun you saw, it was a trick. I just can’t think how it was played. You go out tomorrow, and don’t walk into a trap again.”
“Hm,” mumbled Stag. “I don’t much like that.”
“And you call yourself a chief!” Skua chided. “Take four or five men with you. That should be enough to handle those Troll imps. You’re not afraid of them, are you?”
“Of the imps? Never!” Stag fumed. “But the Sun sorcery…If they have some kind of power…”
“The man was killed by a javelin, not by the Sun,” stormed Skua. “You have to put a stop to all this nonsense, Stag.”
The rumors started by Fox soon took effect. Many people were reminding each other of Hobby’s words to Stag, and the mystery of the javelin remained a matter of curiosity and suspicion in spite of Skua’s explanations. Above all, the story of the flame of the Sun, which foreboded the death of Stag’s companion, loomed ever larger in everybody’s mind. What had they done to incur the wrath of the Sun? Was it possible that there had been a different kind of foul play from what they had been told, when Greylag, their beloved Shaman, and Falcon, their Chief-elect, had died?
These developments were faithfully reported by Fox. Right Hand listened. Then he said, “The thing works so well I think we’d better go on in the same way. As long as the weather stays fair, the Sun is on our side.” So they laid their plans.
The weather held, and the next morning Fox was perched in a tree high up on a hillside, eagerly scanning the landscape in front of him. He knew that the twins were tracking Stag’s party, but he did not know where. Then, somewhere in the land of forest and glades in front of him, he saw the minute spark of reflected sunlight from Left Hand’s crystal. He knew now where they were, and from time to time another flash told him of their progress. At last he saw a group of men step out into an open field, where a forest fire had raged two summers ago. He carefully aimed the powerful beam of his sunpool straight at them.
They were too far away for him to see their faces, but he saw them stop for a moment; then a ripple seemed to pass through the line. He gave them another flash, and to his amazement he saw them throw down their weapons and run, vanishing into the wood. Fox looked respectfully at the miraculous object in his hand. Then he climbed down and set out for Watersmeet.
Later, in the village, he heard of the party’s undignified return. The hubbub brought Skua out of Stag’s house. “What’s happened?” he asked.
“We’re doomed,” panted one of the men. “We’re doomed! The Sun struck at us, just as Stag described it!”
Scornfully, Skua said, “So? You’re hale and hearty as far as I can see. What do you mean, doomed?”
The men looked sheepish, and Skua went on, elaborating his point: “you’re like a woman, frightened by your own shadow. Where’s your atlatl? Here you ar
e, scared out of your wits by a couple of impudent Troll imps, and the only scratches on you are from the rose-bushes you tore through in your panic.”
In his anger, Skua had forgotten that this description applied equally to Stag. The people of Sun Village, gathering around, observed their Chief’s confusion and started whispering among themselves.
“Then where is Badger?” someone asked.
It was true Badger was missing. He had been standing at Stag’s side when the light struck. For a moment Skua was speechless. Then he collected himself. “He probably fell and hurt himself trying to run away,” he said. “Is no one man enough to go back and find him?”
Stag’s men looked at their Chief and at one another. “Why don’t you go yourself, Skua?” asked one of them.
“Me?” Skua was shocked. “I’m your Shaman. I have better things to do than look for a panic-stricken coward. Watch your tongue!”
A young hunter stepped forth. He had been one of Falcon’s men, and his level gaze swept the agitated crowd. “I’ll go,” he said. “I have no reason to fear the Sun, as some others seem to do. I’ll go alone and unarmed.”
Fox was back in the village by the time the hunter returned, carrying Badger. He was dead, and the javelin between his ribs bore Stag’s mark.
After this, events developed quickly. At midnight Fox was back at Watersmeet with his report. “Badger’s dead,” he began. “He was brought back by Stoat.”
“I know,” said Right Hand. “I got him with a slingshot. I had my eye on him the whole time. He was one of the murderers.”
“But he had Stag’s javelin between his ribs,” said Fox, perplexed.
Right Hand grinned. “I put it there. Stag dropped his arms, like the others, when the light struck him. I bet that javelin made a sensation.”
“And how!” said Fox. “A council was called immediately. Everybody was there—men, women, and children—everybody but Stag and Skua. They started by deposing Stag from chiefdom and electing Stoat in his place.”