by Angus Wells
It was agreed and set aside: this feast was not the place for such debate as Morrhyn sought. But still he could not help finding Kahteney’s ear to ask if the Lakanti had seen the owl.
“I did,” he answered, “I believe it was a sign that Racharran was wise to seek peace with Chakthi.”
Or, Morrhyn thought even as he shrugged and ducked his head, that death shall soon visit us.
That night—what little was left when the guests finally departed—he elected to pass in his sweat lodge. Less, were he honest, in search of enlightenment than from the desire to sweat out the tiswin, that his head be entirely clear for the talks to come.
Even so, he dreamed: of a heron that fought uselessly with harrying crows that fell like black thunderbolts from a stormy sky where fires seemed to burn behind the louring clouds. An owl spun circles above the combatants, its white wings painted red as blood, and when the heron was driven down, the owl swooped after, driving off the crows; but still the heron fell and lay broken-winged upon the ground. The owl flew off, toward the snow-white pinnacle of the Maker’s Mountain, where the sky became all red, as if the heavens bled. There was thunder then, like an uncountable herd of horses running wild across the grass, and a shouting.
Morrhyn woke. Wind beat a tattoo on the hide of the lodge and the fire was burned down to glowing coals, the stones dulled and vaporless. His head throbbed somewhat, but nonetheless felt cleared of the tiswin’s effects. He found the water bucket and drank deep, then realized the shouting continued: swiftly, he drew on his buckskins and unlaced the lodge flap.
Racharran stood outside, his braids whipped by the wind, his blanket drawn tight across his chest. His chin was lowered against the draft, and when he raised his head Morrhyn saw trouble in his eyes.
“The Grannach are come.” The akaman spoke without preamble, the absence of greetings a further mark of his concern.
Morrhyn reached back to fetch out his bearskin. “Where are they?”
“Lhyn feeds Colun; the rest are settled about the camp.”
This was not untoward: usually the Stone Folk would come first to the Commacht lodges. Their leader, Colun, was long a friend of Racharran, and it was to the akaman’s tent he customarily paid his first visit. Now, however, Morrhyn sensed all was not well. “What’s amiss?” he asked.
“I’ve but a little piece of it.” Racharran shook his head as if that little piece were more than he could properly comprehend, and not at all to his liking. “I’d have you hear the entirety with me, then we must take it to the rest.”
Morrhyn nodded, pausing a moment to glance in the direction of the Maker’s Mountain. The sun was not yet fully over the horizon and the sky pierced by the peak was tinged with pink. It brought back the images of the dream and the wakanisha shivered inside his fur. The wind was chill—not unusual in the Moon of New Grass—but he knew the cold he felt came from another source. He fell into step beside Racharran, matching the akaman’s long stride, neither man speaking.
The lodge was warm, Lhyn piling wood on the central fire so that tongues of flame rose crackling toward the smoke hole. There was the savory smell of pan bread and hot tea, the spitting of roasting meat. Morrhyn shed his bearskin as Racharran closed the tent flap and laced it tight. Then he frowned as he saw Colun.
The Grannach chief was small, like all his people: standing, his head would reach no higher than Morrhyn’s chest. His hair was gray but no indication of his age, for the Stone Folk all resembled the rock they tunneled, as if they were carved from the same material. But Morrhyn had never seen a rock look so miserable.
“Greetings, Morrhyn.” Colun spoke from where he sat, like a stumpy child ensconced in furs. His teeth flashed briefly from the density of his beard. “You are hale?”
“I am.” Morrhyn stared at the little man with a mixture of sympathy and frank curiosity. It was a reflex to add: “And greetings to you. What has happened?” There was no need to inquire after Colun’s health: it was written in his wounds.
Lhyn had already wound a bandage about his craggy head, and now knelt to bathe the long cut scoring his cheek. His right hand wore a filthy wrapping, and Morrhyn saw a red-stained gash in the thigh of his leather breeches. His belt lay close to hand, as if he’d not be parted from the weapons sheathed there: a wide-bladed sword and a curve-headed ax. He winced as Lhyn sluiced off dried blood and set a potion of curative herbs down the length of the cut.
“A long story,” Colun said, “and one that troubles me to tell it. A cup of tiswin would lubricate the tale.”
Racharran brought out a pitcher. Morrhyn was vaguely surprised that any of the spirit was left. He shook his head in refusal of the cup Racharran offered and waited impatiently as Colun drank.
“That’s good.” The Grannach smacked his lips and raised his brows in anticipation of more.
The Stone Folk, Morrhyn thought as the cup was refilled, downed tiswin even faster than Yazte, but it seemed to them no more than water. His own head still ached somewhat, and he wished Colun would tell his tale without protraction. A useless wish, he knew: the Grannach spoke as they lived, at their own pace and to their own rhythms.
Racharran settled himself on the furs, placing the pitcher in Colun’s short reach. Lhyn glanced at it and frowned, but made no comment as she dressed the Grannach’s wounds.
“There was a battle.” Colun extended his bandaged hand in evidence. Lhyn took it and began to unwind the dirty cloth. She made a disapproving sound at the sight of the damage, and Colun said, as if apologizing to her, “I deemed it best we come immediately to the Meeting Ground with the news. These are only scratches.”
“Who fought?” Morrhyn knew that sometimes the Grannach contested amongst themselves for ownership of the tunnels, the lodes of metal they worked, but such internecine struggles were not of such import that Colun would hurry wounded to the Meeting Ground.
“All the tribes.” Colun grimaced as hot water was splashed across his hand. “In the western passes.”
“Against the Whaztaye?” Morrhyn frowned in disbelief: he had it from Colun himself that the People Beyond the Hills were peaceful, friends to the Grannach as were his own Matawaye.
“No.” Colun shook his head, his face become as mournful as anything so stonelike could look. “I think there are no Whaztaye any longer. I think they are all slain—or worse.”
Morrhyn heard Racharran’s sharp intake of breath; even calm Lhyn paused in her ministrations. He stared in perturbed wonder at the rugged little manling.
The People knew of the Whaztaye, for all they had no contact with any who dwelt beyond the mountainous boundaries of Ket-Ta-Witko. The Maker had set down all humankind in their appointed places when the world was made, and to venture beyond those limits was to go against the Will, the Ahsa-tye-Patiko that holds all things in their rightful place. Nor was there reason: Ket-Ta-Witko was spacious and bountiful, and fed all the People’s needs. Thus it had been since first the sun rose over the world; the Maker had given the Matawaye their place, and the Whaztaye theirs, and ringed both lands with such peaks as defeated trespass. Only the Grannach moved through those rocky barriers, and only through those—never out of sight of their home-hills. What news passed between the peoples of the world, they carried along their secret ways, and denied passage to all others. Sometimes they were named the Stone Guardians, for they were fierce in defense of the Maker’s boundaries.
Morrhyn heard himself ask, “How? Do the Whaztaye defy the Will?”
Colun refilled his cup before he spoke again. “Not the Whaztaye. Some other folk.”
He drank, impervious to his listeners’ impatience as the rock he resembled. Morrhyn stifled a sigh, knowing he must wait on Colun. That the Grannach had come hasty with this news did not mean he would tell it swift.
“We saw them—the Whaztaye—first in what you name the Moon of Cherries Ripening.” Colun glanced at the clean bandage Lhyn wound about his hand and murmured, “Thank you. So, yes—it was in the Moon of Cherries Rip
ening that they came in numbers to the east of their land, hard against our mountains. They were refugees and they were more than the land there could feed, but still the clans gave them shelter. They were a sorry lot—the Whaztaye are not like you Matawaye, but farmers and hunters, without much skill in battle—and their sole baggage was sad stories. They sent some of their chieftains and holy men into the hills, to bring the tale to us, and I tell you, in the name of the Maker, the tale was doleful.” He broke off abruptly as Lhyn touched his thigh.
“I must clean this,” she said. “Take off your breeches.”
Colun swallowed. “A pinprick, nothing worse.” Morrhyn thought he blushed, though it was hard to tell on a face so flinty.
Lhyn said, “Made by a very large pin. Now, shall you remove these leathers, or must I ask my husband and Morrhyn hold you down and I do it?”
Colun studied her defiantly awhile and found no retreat in her gaze. Had Morrhyn time for laughter, he would have chuckled at the Grannach’s expression.
“Well?” Lhyn asked.
“In the Maker’s name!” Colun fumbled, awkward with his bandaged hand, at his belt buckle, grumbling all the while. “I had not thought the women of the Matawaye so forward. Were you my wife …”
“You’d likely obey swifter,” Lhyn said, and knelt to remove the Grannach’s boots. “Ach, think you you’re the first man I’ve seen without his breeches? Or the first I’ve tended? Now …”
She frowned as the wound was exposed. It seemed a lance had pierced Colun’s thigh. The cut was deep and lipped with swollen purple flesh, crusted with old blood. Lhyn muttered something too low for the men to hear and filled a bowl with steaming water into which she sprinkled herbs. “This,” she murmured, “will likely hurt somewhat.”
“In which case …” Colun downed a cup of tiswin and readied another. Then, as if to hide his embarrassment: “Where was I?”
“The Whaztaye sent a delegation,” Racharran prompted.
Morrhyn saw the akaman shared his own impatience—and the same resignation.
“Yes. Ach!” Colun stiffened as Lhyn began to wash the ugly wound. “So, they sent a delegation of their chiefs and holy men to the hills. Like you, they’ve a gate-place where the Maker brought them to their land, and where, like you, they meet with us. This, however, was not the time, and they said they waited there full half a passing of the moon before my people noticed them. They were very hungry when we came, but even more intent on telling their tale than eating. Which reminds me of my own hunger.”
His bushy brows rose in question, like two caterpillars arching their hairy backs on a stone.
Lhyn said, “Soon. Let me first finish this, and then I’ll see your belly filled.”
Colun mumbled something that sounded like “Women!” then promptly smiled an apology as Lhyn glanced up, saying, “Forgive me, but your culinary skills are legend, and the scent of that meat whets my appetite so keen.”
Lhyn snorted and set to plastering the wound with salve. The Grannach looked disappointed, and then, almost reluctantly, resumed his tale.
“Yes, they told their story, which was most disturbing.… They spoke of their people—those who lived—fleeing in great numbers out of the west, driven in panic and disarray before a dreadful army. All their land, they said, was riven by this horde, which none of their seers or holy men had foretold. They spoke of awful slaughter and asked our help. They asked that we should take their defenseless ones into our tunnels and send our warriors to join in battle against the horde.” He paused, frowning as if even now he marveled at the request. “In all our history, none have asked this of us; it was a thing that seemed defiance of the Will. It was a thing we debated amongst ourselves.”
He shook his head, his frown deepening. Morrhyn wondered how long that debate had lasted, how many of the Whaztaye had died meanwhile.
“Finally, it was decided that we could not accede to all they asked.” Colun sighed noisily. “The Maker set us down where we belong and charged we Grannach with the securing of the hills. Besides, we had not enough food to satisfy them all, nor are you folk who live under the sky happy in our caves and tunnels, and we could not know how long this war might last.”
Morrhyn wondered if the shadow that flitted across the craggy features then was doubt at the charity of that decision. Even so, he thought, Colun does no more than speak the Will correctly.
“It was not a decision we reached easily.” Colun drank tiswin, as if to cleanse the memory. “But it was reached, and by all my people. We told them nay, and that we would instead send our strongest warriors out into the foothills and fight this stranger horde did it come there.”
“Lift your leg,” commanded Lhyn, “so I can bandage it.”
Morrhyn marveled that she could remain so practical as Colun unwound his tale. His own attention was focused entirely on the Grannach’s words. He should likely have let Colun bleed to death telling this story.
Colun raised his leg and then, with obvious relief, tugged up his breeches. “Ach, I do grow somewhat faint. Perhaps I might eat now, that I not lose my strength?”
Lhyn turned to the cookfire, filling a platter with bread and meat that she passed to the beaming Grannach. When she raised the kettle, he shook his head and patted the pitcher of tiswin. Morrhyn and Racharran each took a platter, absently transferring food to their mouths as they waited on Colun.
He emptied his dish and asked for more before resuming. “Where was I? Yes, we made our decision known—which saddened the Whaztaye—and sent our strongest down with them to the foothills. Ach, but they were truly a sorry lot we found there. It seemed as if all the folk were gathered like animals driven from their grazing by a fire, come up into the hills in hope the flames not reach so far.
“But they did … The Maker knows, they did! We spoke with them there, to learn what manner of foe we faced, and what we heard was strange.”
His second platter cleaned, he set it aside and drank tiswin. Then: “They spoke of such creatures as I’d not ever heard of; of terrible warriors whose only love seemed slaughter, who rode aback strangeling beasts of no better humor than their masters. They came, the Whaztaye told us, out of the western hills, out of the Maker’s gate.”
“That cannot be!” Racharran’s patience dissolved at this announcement. “The gates are closed by the Maker’s own hand. What you describe surely could not be.”
He looked to Morrhyn for support, and in his eyes the wakanisha saw both stark rejection of Colun’s statement and a measure of dread. Morrhyn was abruptly reminded of his dream—of all his recent dreams—and felt a terrible fear. Was this their inspiration? Did they portend this horde? He heard a clatter, and turned from Racharran’s agitated gaze to see Lhyn retrieve a fallen dish. Her eyes were wide, darting from him to her husband to Colun. He said carefully, “Do we hear all of this tale before we declare ‘yea’ or ‘nay,’ ” and looked to the Grannach.
Colun shrugged. “I did not believe it at first either, but I saw the Whaztaye gathered there like frightened beasts, by the Maker! They had what sheep they’d not eaten with them, though they did not last long, and I knew some terror was abroad. Whether it came through the gate or was some thing of the Whaztaye’s own making I did not at first know, but then I saw them …”
His skin, as much as was visible under his beard, was the color of old stone, but Morrhyn thought it paled. And when he drank this time it was as though he needed the tiswin to fortify his tongue against the telling.
“They came like a storm, like a grass fire. Swift as that, and as heedless.” He paused and drained his cup, shaking his head. “By night, it was. I think they prefer the night: they fight fiercest then, as if they are creatures of darkness and abhor the sun. It was in what you name the Moon of the Turning Year: the time before your New Grass Moon rises, when snow still covers the high hills and the rivers run strong with melt. We saw them from our heights, like a black wave lit by the moon, rolling across the grass to where the Whaztaye ha
d set their lodges. They came so swift! Nor was there halt or hesitation—they only attacked, like rabid wolves, and just as senseless. They seemed uncaring of hurt, almost—Almost, it seemed they welcomed death, as eager as they slew.
“It was a terrible slaughter. The Whaztaye are not fighters, and they fell before these … creatures … like … like their sheep to wolves! The children and the women, the old folk—the defenseless ones were slaughtered as thoughtless as you’d crush a bug. I confess that I wished then we had granted them leave to enter our tunnels! I’d sooner we had done that and asked the Maker forgive us after, for I wept at what I saw done there.”
He broke off, reaching for the pitcher. Morrhyn wondered, as his head lowered, if he hid a tear.
“The men died too. Some fled and were cut down; others stood their ground and died. We Grannach are of sterner stuff, however, and rallied to defy the horde. It was like …” He frowned, staring awhile into the flames of the cookfire as if he saw the battle refought there. “It was like defying an avalanche, like damming a flood with no more than your bare hands. Remember, we fought on our own ground, those hills as familiar to us as your plains to you—we’d that advantage. But even so we were driven back, steady as snow under the springtime sun. We retreated, so ferocious were our enemies, and had we not our caves and tunnels, I think we should have died there, like the Whaztaye.
“Ach!” He chopped air as if he held his battle-ax still. “It shames me to say it, but retreat we did. Though”—he smiled wickedly—“we left not a few of them slain. I believe we taught them not all the world’s folk are such easy prey as the poor Whaztaye.”
“What are they?” Racharran’s voice was soft, his expression troubled. “What cause do they follow?”
“I did not,” Colun said somewhat tartly, “engage them in conversation. What they are, where they came from, why they engage in such slaughter—these are things I do not understand. I know only that they are savage beyond belief, and now command all the land of the Whaztaye. For all I know, they hold the lands beyond too.”