Exile's Children

by Angus Wells

  “The new land.” Morrhyn clasped the akaman’s wrist. It was slick with blood. “The Maker opens the way for us. Shall you lead the People through?”

  Yazte frowned. “That’s surely your honor. Or Racharran’s. Save …”

  Lhyn saw his expression and asked, “Where is he?”

  “Holding the line.” Yazte gestured with a hatchet whose blade was all stained dark. “Falling back. Chakthi fights with him.”

  Morrhyn pointed at the gate and the Lakanti shook his head. “Let the defenseless ones go through. I’ll wait here until they’re safe; wait for Racharran.”

  High across the night the gate burned white. Through it the grass shifted, rustling softly as wind rippled the luxuriant growth. Morrhyn groaned—this was unexpected agony, that the Maker open the way and the People prevaricate.

  Then Colun came trotting at the head of his Grannach. He stared at the gate, and then at Morrhyn.

  “Why do you wait?”

  “I must,” Morrhyn said. “And the rest … afraid, I think. None will take the first step.”

  Colun frowned and muttered, “Flatlanders!” Then shouted: “Marjia?”

  His wife came forward. In the gate’s light her yellow hair was silver. Colun said, “Our possessions?” and she turned slightly that he might see the bundle she carried, which was all they had brought out of their hills.

  Colun looked at Morrhyn, a question in his deepset eyes.

  Morrhyn nodded and said, “Do you go through, then?”

  “Is this your wish?” Colun asked.

  “Do you go throught, then perhaps the rest shall follow.” Morrhyn smiled. “And it seems fitting the Stone Folk be the first, no?”

  “First or last.” Colun peered through the gate. “Save someone goes it would seem you flatlanders shall stand gawping until the Breakers come. So …” He hefted his ax. “Grannach, to me! We go to a new land, praise the Maker.”

  He took Marjia’s hand and walked into the gate, his Grannach behind.

  For an instant their shapes wavered, like figures blurred in heat haze. Then they were solid again, walking out onto grass that crushed beneath their feet, staring around with growing smiles, their eyes wide with wonder and delight.

  When all the Grannach were through, Colun looked back and shouted, “Can you hear me?”

  His voice came as if from afar, but nonetheless clear. Morrhyn called back, “Yes. What do you see?”

  “A fine new land.” Colun swept his ax out in a wide gesture. “A land like Ket-Ta-Witko must have been when first the Maker birthed us. There are mountains over there.”

  Morrhyn could not see where he pointed. The arch of the gate allowed only a limited view, as if a lodgeflap were raised on a new morning, on a new world.

  “So?” Colun bellowed. “Do you flatlanders come on? Or shall you deny the Maker’s gift?”

  Morrhyn turned again to Yazte. “Go through. Lead the People to salvation.”

  Yazte hesitated and said, “Racharran?”

  Morrhyn said, “I’ll wait for him. But you—for the Maker’s sake, for his love!—take them through!”

  Yazte puffed out his plump cheeks and shrugged. Then he beckoned Roza to him and raised his hatchet. “Bring up the horses!” His voice was a roar. “We go to find Morrhyn’s promised land! Ware, Colun—the horses come!”

  The Grannach scattered as the Lakanti drove the horses through. The herds were gathered together, and the animals of the Commacht and the Aparhaso and the Naiche and the Tachyn went with those of the Lakanti in a great running mass that spread out across the sunlit prairie, galloping as if glad to be free of the Breakers’ threat, charging with tossing heads and a great thunderous pounding of hooves to where a river curved blue across the green. Yazte raised his eyes to where the Maker’s Mountain shone in the night and made gesture of obeisance, then walked under the white-blazing arch with Roza at his side and Kahteney close behind, and all his warriors and their women and children and dogs following.

  It was as if his safe passing shattered the People’s fear: they surged forward, vying now to pass under the arch of the gate and find salvation.

  For a while all was tumult. Dogs barked joyfully and children, woken from restive sleep, began to howl. Morrhyn watched them go, and gave thanks to the Maker for this great and impossible gift.

  The Meeting Ground emptied. He looked about and saw Lhyn and Arrhyna, only; waiting still. He supposed Hadduth must have gone with the rest.

  He said, “You can do nothing here. Go through.”

  They hesitated, watching his face.

  He said, “The rest will come soon. Rannach and Racharran with them, the Maker willing.”

  Lhyn said, “And if they are not?”

  He smiled tentatively. “I’ll wait for them. But you must go through. What point to delay? Better you go set up the lodges, eh? They’ll be hungry when they come.”

  Still they hesitated, and he said: “The Maker opens us a way, but there’s not so much time. This gate must close, lest the Breakers follow us.”

  Lhyn said, “And does it close before they come? What if Racharran and Rannach are trapped here?”

  He looked into her frightened eyes and said, “Shall you deny the Maker, then? Shall it all be for nothing? All Racharran’s done; and Rannach? Think you they’d want you to wait and risk your lives? I tell you—no! Better you be safe and they not have that concern, eh?”

  She stared at him, unmoving.

  “When they come,” he said, “it shall be swift. I’ll see them through—my word on that. You go, and await them there.”

  He stabbed a finger at the gate, where laughing Matawaye and Grannach raised their faces to a blue and sun-bright sky. Some knelt to kiss the ground; some went to free horses of the travois; others set to capturing the loose animals.

  He said, “Do you love them, go!”

  Arrhyna glanced at Lhyn. The older woman looked past Morrhyn to the hills surrounding the Meeting Ground. Behind the radiance of the Maker’s Mountain and the bright brilliance of the burning gate, the hills were indistinct. But the wind carried the sounds of fighting now. Morrhyn took Lhyn’s arm and turned her away from that: turned her toward the promise. She struggled against his grip and he thought how much he loved her; and took her other arm and pushed her bodily toward the gate.

  He said, “You’ll not die.”

  And shoved her through.

  She cried out, tottering and falling onto her back on soft green grass. For a moment she stared indignantly. Morrhyn turned away and took Arrhyna’s hand and led her to the opening. She looked at him a moment and said, “Send Rannach safe through, eh?” And he ducked his head and loosed her hand and watched as she stepped under the arch into the new land.

  Then he looked away, narrowing his eyes against the brightness, and waited for the rest, praying they come timely.

  The Breakers owned the hills now.

  They came up over the rimrock in a kaleidoscope flood. And out of the deeper hills spreading back around the Meeting Ground, they came with a wave of their beasts driven before them by the beastmasters, the bright-armored warriors behind. The fangs and claws and hides of the beasts were stained with the blood of the defenders, and the swords and pikes and spears the Breakers wielded shone no cleaner under the moon.

  Rannach withdrew: he had no other choice—save to die—and runners had brought word the promised exodus was begun.

  He could see the Maker’s Mountain shining godly against the sky, and the great lance of light it sent down onto the Meeting Ground. It seemed a vast white bonfire burned there, lofting up from where once the Council fires had burned and he been judged and exiled. It seemed the People walked into that fire and did not emerge. Gone to Morrhyn’s promised land, he supposed. And wondered if he should find that place, or die in Ket-Ta-Witko.

  Were he not wed, he thought he would choose that latter: it was a sorry thing to give up the land to the Breakers.

  But he was, and Arrhyna carried
his child, and that imposed on him another duty. So he gave up notions of honorable death and its consequent atonement for his sins and shouted that all fall back on the Meeting Ground, on the light that burned there and the white arch that blazed and swallowed the People into the Maker’s promise.

  “So, brother, we fight together at last.”

  Chakthi wiped a bloodied knife against his breeches and smiled at Racharran.

  The Commacht akaman smiled back. “In defense of Ket-Ta-Witko, brother. Is this not better?”

  The Maker’s burning promise set shadows about Chakthi’s eyes and whitened his smiling teeth like a wolf’s fangs. He nodded, then shouted, “Ware, brother!”

  A Breaker, armor red as fresh-spilled blood, charged from the bushes. Racharran ducked under the sweeping sword and swung his hatchet against the plated belly. The Breaker grunted and bent, and Chakthi darted in to thrust his knife through the divide of helmet and neckguard. The Breaker gasped. Racharran struck again with his hatchet and the red armor darkened as blood spilled out.

  “And we fight well, eh?” Chakthi worked his blade in again and the Breaker stilled.

  Racharran said, “We do. But”— he gestured at the undergrowth—“best we fall back, eh?”

  “As you command,” Chakthi said.

  The bushes swayed as bodies armored, and bodies furred and scaled, pushed through. Down the steep slopes of the hills lay corpses: more of the People than the Breakers. Racharran shouted the order and the defenders withdrew.

  Dohnse spat, thinking that his mouth was surely too dry to form saliva, and wished they might just turn and run for the promise blazing at the center of the Meeting Ground. But he had sworn allegiance to Racharran and could not, now, quit the akaman. Nor, was he honest, would he: not until all the People were gone safe to the new land Morrhyn promised. It seemed only right he be amongst the last, and hoped he might be.

  Nor could he, even now, forget those looks Chakthi had exchanged with Hadduth, or the doubt he had expressed to Racharran. He hoped—prayed, even—he was wrong, but he could not forget; or quite trust Chakthi.

  He clutched his hatchet and the pike he’d taken from a slain Breaker, and moved back toward the tempting light of the Meeting Ground.

  Rannach brought his men onto the trampled grass and ringed them around the gate.

  It was strange, that blazing white archway, that from one side looked onto springtime plains lit by a friendly yellow sun, and from the other was only a white flickering in the noisy night, as if the moon were reflected off water. Through the one side he could see Arrhyna and Lhyn staring hopefully back at him; and Yazte and Colun, and the People already gone through. He smiled at his wife and his mother and waited for his father.

  Morrhyn said, “They come! Look!”

  The wakanisha pointed across the Meeting Ground, and Rannach saw the last of the warriors come spilling down from the foothills. Racharran and Chakthi spurred them on, the last of the last, shouting for the men to group on the gate.

  He gripped his weapons tighter then, for close behind came beasts and Breakers, rushing down the slopes swift as charging buffalo, or avalanches in winter. He shouted encouragement and wished his arrows were not all spent, or that all the horses had not gone through the gate, that he might charge to the attack.

  But he could not—only hold and wait and pray.

  Morrhyn said, “Go through!” and Rannach shook his head.

  “Now!” Morrhyn grasped his shoulder, propelling him toward the gate. “You’ve a wife waiting for you there, and a child to be born. The first in the new land! Go!”

  Rannach said, “My father …”

  “Comes!” Morrhyn thrust a hand to where Racharran ran for the gate. “See? Now go! Call up your men and take them through.”

  Rannach looked into the Dreamer’s blue stare and opened his mouth to argue. Morrhyn set a finger on his lips and said, “The People shall need leaders in the new land, and you shall be one. Now go, for the Maker’s sake!”

  Rannach wiped his mouth, stared toward where his father came, and said, “What of you?”

  “The gate closes after me.” Morrhyn’s face was urgent as his voice. “I’ll see them safely through and none of the Breakers.”

  Rannach nodded and turned toward the gate. Arrhyna stood there, beckoning. He shouted for his men to join him and pointed at the arch.

  “Go through! Now!”

  They went and he clasped Morrhyn’s hand. “Your word my father shall be safe?”

  “The Maker willing.” Morrhyn nodded.

  Rannach looked a last time to the running figures and then flung himself through the gate. Arrhyna came into his arms, careless of the blood that decorated his shirt and breeches, his skin, and she held him close. Lhyn touched his arm and stared back through the opening of reality’s fabric. He put an arm around his mother’s shoulders, and all three watched what they could of Ket-Ta-Witko’s final drama.

  It was flight only now, and what defense they put up desperate and running. Ket-Ta-Witko was lost to them, but the new land waited be youd the gate. It was the promise of the lodgefire’s warmth on a winter night when the wind howled and flung blizzards at the wanderer, save the blizzard was the Breakers and the howling that of their beasts. It was the log a drowning man clutches in the flood, save that log burned white and was a gift to all, and the flood was rainbow-armored and furred and fanged and scaled and clawed. They ran, spurred on by Morrhyn’s shouts to efforts greater than seemed possible, when limbs wearied and ached from the fighting and breath came short. Commacht held up limping Tachyn, and Tachyn with streaming wounds supported injured Commacht. There was but the one shared purpose: to reach the gate.

  None hesitated—only went through as Morrhyn pointed the way and fell thankful into the arms of loved ones and brothers, or simply collapsed onto the grass and wept thanks to the Maker and his Prophet.

  Racharran and Chakthi were the last. Them and Dohnse, so that in the confusion he was the only one to see what happened.

  They all bore wounds. The pike Dohnse had taken he used as a staff: his breeches hung tattered about his left leg, where claws had scored deep lines that filled his boot with blood, and the sword cut across his shoulder and chest burned like fire. Chakthi’s face was blood-masked and he limped on a cut leg. Racharran supported him, for all the Commacht akaman was in no better condition. His shirt was severed crossways over his ribs and flesh flapped loose there, his right arm leaving a trail of droplets, and one eye was swollen shut, blood coursing from the cut to paint his cheek.

  The Commacht akaman glanced around, scanning the slopes as best he could to be sure none were left behind.

  Chakthi said, “Come, brother, we’re the last.”

  Racharran said, “You’re sure?”

  “Yes! There are no more left alive.”

  Racharran turned his damaged face to Dohnse and asked him the same question, and Dohnse nodded and said, “I see no others.”

  Morrhyn shouted that they come and Racharran turned his head one last time to peer all bloody at the hills. “Then best we go, eh?”

  They began to run as best they could toward the light of the promise. Racharran held Chakthi up; Dohnse came after, casting swift glances back over his shoulder.

  He saw the first of the great lionbeasts come snarling down through the trees and bushes that footed the hills and shouted a warning. Racharran grunted and forced his legs to faster pace, holding Chakthi’s left arm across his shoulders, his right supportive around the Tachyn’s waist. Chakthi hobbled beside; Dohnse brought up the rear.

  He saw the weirdling beast come charging over the open ground and shouted, “Go on! I’ll take it!”

  The creature ran slavering and snarling at them, and he marveled at how large it was—big as a horse—and took the pike and grounded the butt, shouting his defiance.

  The beast saw him and its jaws gaped wide, all filled with knifeblade teeth, and he knelt, groaning as his wounded leg blazed pain, and hel
d the pike firm.

  The beast roared and sprang. Dohnse watched stark-eyed as it rose up against the light the moon and the Mountain threw across the Meeting Ground, and saw it fill the sky.

  He rolled aside as it came down on him; down onto the blade of the pike, which pierced its chest and drove through its ribs under the beast’s own weight and came out from its back.

  Wincing, he clambered upright, clutching his hatchet. The beast curled about the pike, snapping at the shaft, legs clawing. Blood stained its hide black under the brilliance of the Maker’s Mountain and the burning moon. Dohnse turned and stumbled after Racharran and Chakthi.

  And thus saw.

  Morrhyn waited by the white arch that rose above the center of the Meeting Ground. Racharran carried Chakthi toward him.

  The Prophet turned as if answering some shout from beyond the gate.

  And Chakthi drew a knife and stabbed Racharran.

  The Commacht akaman jerked upright. His arms let go of Chakthi and he staggered a little way aside. He stared at the Tachyn he had called his brother out of eyes that opened wide in pain and disbelief. Dohnse saw his mouth move but could not hear what he said because the moonlit night was too loud with roaring and the shouts of the Breakers. But he saw Racharran clutch the blade protruding from his ribs and pull it loose, and then fall onto his knees with blood coming out his mouth. And Chakthi laugh and—limping no longer—kick Racharran in the chest. Then resuming his limp, go to the gate and speak a moment with Morrhyn before going through.

  Dohnse went to where Racharran lay.

  He cradled Racharran’s head, staring aghast at eyes that had already lost their light and dulled. Racharran coughed, barking gouts of red and pink-stained bubbles out of a mouth that stretched back from his teeth, which chattered even as his legs kicked and drummed against the ground of Ket-Ta-Witko. His body stiffened in Dohnse’s arms, arching up, spine curved so that only his heels and shoulders touched the soil. Then all his body went limp and he loosed one last shuddering sigh that whistled into Dohnse’s face. And he was dead.

  “Dohnse!” Morrhyn’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Dohnse, come! Hurry!”