by Doug Kelly
Near his window, a road divided the enclosure into two sections. The house was on one side and the granaries and storehouses on the other. Outside, only a short distance to the left of his room, a strong gate in the enclosing wall opened to that road. The clan had named it Arrow Gate years ago, because of the countless arrows that it had stopped, and for the metal arrowheads that remained imbedded in it. The wall, which surrounded the entire estate at a distance of at least twenty paces away from the nearest building, was made of wood logs, brick, stone, and mortar. It was twice the height of a large man and surrounded by a ditch impaled with sharp sticks. The builders and designers of the barricade had positioned the pointed sticks away from the wall to deter the unwanted.
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If the most serious threat to an enclosure was from rival clans, the least menacing, but most annoying because of unpredictability, was from the stealthy vandalism of cannibals. The cannibals lived mainly in the swamps, and clansmen considered them the lowest breed of human. It was hard to believe that any swamp person could be the descendent of an American. The current populations looked in awe at the remains of the ancient cities, at what they once must have been, with the same intense curiosity as any community looked at the swamp cannibals, not in awe of their greatness as a group of people or any specific accomplishment, but because the cannibals had none. The cannibal could sow only hatred and reap only violence. All other classes of society looked with disgust upon that feral progeny of humankind. Because they could not read or write and had no oral traditions of passing down their history from one generation to the next, even the cannibals themselves, those savage men of the swamps, could not speculate as to their own origins.
The cannibal was the enduring spawn of a great welfare state, who had survived on the charity of others and had refused to avail themselves of the benefits of civilization, but that had been before the impact. After the impact event, the charity of the American civilization had vanished. Those who survived went to the neglected fields, formed families, camps, and tribes as they aimlessly wandered, barely subsisting upon roots and trapped game as they scavenged the swamps. They retained their ancestral predisposition for sloth, because that was how they currently lived, a day-by-day existence of hunting every species of wild animal and using crude tools to dig for grubs and roots to eat. The swamp people were scavengers. They even ate human flesh, believing that it allowed them to steal someone’s soul. They sometimes hunted with poisons, a danger to both man and animal.
Like ravenous dogs, the people of the swamps, often in fits of savage frenzy, killed many times more than they needed, trapping deer or boar in pitfalls and cutting the miserable animals to pieces in a mere thirst for blood. Those human beasts, sometimes for amusement and sometimes for vengeance, occasionally and in the same manner, mutilated herd animals in enclosures. Cannibals had no homes, grew none of their own food, kept no animals, not even dogs, and at their best could only construct a canoe in order to hunt in the swamps or circumnavigate the shallow edges of the lake.
Roaming without any apparent purpose or any particular route, they would camp for a few days wherever and whenever, and then they moved on. Their impulsive movements made them dangerous because their presence was so unpredictable. On any given day, there might not be any indication of cannibals within a great distance of a clan’s enclosure. A group might pass in the night, slaughtering the animals of a herd, or killing the unfortunate clansman who had not gotten inside the walls of an enclosure. Then before the morning came, they would vanish, disappearing like creatures of the night. Face to face, no one had great fear of the cannibals; an entire tribal family would scatter if a traveler stumbled upon them. It was from behind a tree or under cover of night that they were most dangerous.
A cannibal’s encampment might consist of ten or twenty individuals of various ages, and the eldest, who was also a parent, ruled it. The tribe had no uniform laws and the tribal leader created justice at his whim. The chief was the absolute master of his tribe, but his tribe alone. He was simply the oldest or the founder of the family. When he became feeble, they just left him to die. They showed no compassion, even for their own family members.
They were wicked and without shame, dressed in animal skins or in clothes they had stolen, if dressed at all. They had few ceremonies, mostly celebrations of bloodlust. The number of these tribes must have been considerable, but few people saw the cannibals, and fewer people witnessed their pillaging. The morning sun revealed the results of their vandalism only after it had lifted the dark veil of nighttime. The vast expanse of land they wandered through accounted for the infrequency of these intermittent sightings. It was in the winter months, although the cold season was relatively mild near the southern coast, that the primary danger occurred. During the winters of the northern regions, they suffered from hunger and cold that pushed them southward into the neighborhoods of the clansmen enclosures, to steal from those humble abodes. They were so agile when slipping through the bushes that they could pass close by without revealing their presence, and only the experienced hunter could detect the signs of their passage, with the aid and safety of daylight.
The people of the marsh never lit a fire during the day, due to smoke, because they could not conceal it, and it would reveal their location. They lit their fires at night, well surrounded with thickets, and so that no one glimpsed the flames, they built screens of tree branches. When they had obtained a good supply of hot wood coals, they threw no more wood upon the fire, to restrict its size. They ate much of their meat raw, and therefore they did not need a fire as often or as large as those which nomads, clansmen, or even the hill people, used.
Whatever damage the cannibals inflicted, they never set fire to bundled hay or wooden buildings; the reason was that their nature was to sneak away from the scene of attack, and fire or smoke would instantly attract attention. Although their tribes were usually solitary, the occurrence of a remarkably severe winter, in the North Country, had sometimes caused tribes of cannibals to integrate, and they had occasionally cooperated in attacking enclosures along the Gulf Coast and around the lake. During the depths of a cold winter in the north, the cannibals from that region, who were even more savage and brutal than their southern counterparts, came down to escape the cold weather of winter by following the great river to its delta, and were repulsed with difficulty from the walled cities of the southern clans. In ordinary times, clansmen rarely saw them. They were the eternal thieves, the human pests of the glades.
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Aton’s clan had tightly compacted a berm of dirt around the inside perimeter of the enclosing walls so that guards could throw spears or shoot arrows through the small, elevated openings in the wall and quickly step down out of sight to gather more weaponry. At each corner, there was a large platform where a group of men could stand and command the defensive perimeter. On the roof of the main house, a similar platform had been prepared, protected by a parapet that was high enough to allow soldiers to overlook the entire enclosure. Another platform, lower than the first, was on the roof of the servants' quarters, built specifically to command the other gate. Entering by the Arrow Gate, Aton’s home was on the right side, and the granaries and general storehouses on the left. Past the storehouses were the stables, and near them were the forge and workshops.
Their clan was fortunate enough to have a blacksmith with considerable skill. The blacksmith’s only limitation was his supply of metal, which rummagers usually obtained from scavenging the relics of ancient machines. They knew that the suspensions and frames of ancient vehicles were the best metal for making swords and daggers, but the scavengers had no understanding of their original purpose. To them, they were nothing more than skeletons of some unknown beast from an ancient fable. Beyond the forge were the servant’s quarters, which were near the back gate and the rear road that led to the stockyards and farms in a southerly direction.
On the right side, after the house, but connected with it
, was the repository for their metal tools. The house faced in the opposite direction of the road. There was a narrow green lawn between it and the wall, and before the main storehouse was a courtyard, covered with small river stones. A fence separated the pebbled courtyard from the grass lawn, so that the occupants of the house enjoyed privacy, and yet were close to their servants.
Aton's window was almost exactly opposite the entrance to the storehouses, so that the wagon, after passing it, had to go only a little distance, and then, after turning to the left, stopped in front of the doors of the warehouse. This wagon was low, built with rough lumber, and the wheels were solid wood, cut from the trunk of an oak tree. Unless continually greased, the squeaking of these wheels was awful, and the haulers frequently forgot to lubricate them.
Sleds accomplished much of the work of the farm, such as the hauling of hay and corn during the harvest. They reserved the wagons for longer journeys on the rough roads. This wagon, loaded with wool, had traveled for most of the morning from an encampment of hill people. They had traded metal tools for the wool. Since the hill people had no source of metal nor any way to process it, metal tools were highly sought after by the tribes. Therefore, the clansmen had obtained the wool at a considerable discount to its fair market value, which was something that would not have happened if they had tried to obtain the wool from a large village of clansmen with savvy merchants. In the buildings around the granary yard, they stored not only the corn and wheat, but also the most valuable of their inventory. This included the wool bartered from the hill tribes, tanned leather, tobacco, cotton, and a great quantity of bacon and salt-cured beef.
Builders had put these structures together with wooden dowels due to the scarcity of metal, and they roofed all the buildings with red tile made from the abundant red clay found near the rivers. Slave shacks, servant’s cottages, and sheds, which were at a good distance from the wall, had thatched roofs, but in an enclosure near the palisades, tiles were necessary because, in case of an attack, adversaries could use fire as a weapon against the enclosed estate.
Suddenly, the guard blew his ox horn as loudly as possible, indicating the start of the day, the hollow sound echoing off the stockade walls. The guard had observed the time by the sundial, and could do so because it was a spring morning, unencumbered with clouds. During winter, the positions of the early morning stars indicated the start of the day, and occasionally, when clouds had obscured the sun or stars, he had to guess. Armed with spears and only occasionally relieved from the task, the guards patrolled the enclosure all night long. By day, one guard was present and his post was usually on the highest part of the roof.
The sound of the ox horn inspired Aton to rise, so he arose from bed, threw open the oak shutters, and the sunlight and fresh breeze of the spring morning came spontaneously into the room. There was the buzz of voices outside: men unloading the wool, men at the workshops and in the granaries, and others waiting at the door of the repository for the tools to be provided for that day’s work. Since good metal was so scarce, tools were an invitation to theft, and so were carefully locked up each night and given out again in the morning. Because of its value and growing rarity, they did not make all of the tools from metal if they had a reasonable substitute available. For example, a slave could fasten the shoulder blade of a cow or horse to the end of a stout pole and use it as a garden hoe. By doing so, it diverted some of the supply of metal to the implements of warfare that a clan would use to increase its size and influence, or simply better defend itself from the occasional raids by nomads.
Aton admired the fresh breeze and morning sunshine as he looked toward the open window. Before he had completely wakened, there was a knock and then a frustrated kick at the door. He threw the locking bolt, opened the door, and Briand entered. Although Briand was his cousin, Aton’s father had raised them as brothers and they shared the same family name, Matin. When the cousins were very young, their fathers were warriors, fighting side by side in battles during intermittent skirmishes with rival clans. During a brawl with another clan, a band of nomads had taken advantage of the battle and tried to flank both clans during the height of the clans’ frontal assaults against each other. Aton’s father, Davin Matin, ran to his brother’s aid when he saw a crazed nomad on horseback preparing to skewer his brother through the back with a sword, but it was too late. The nomad’s slim blade, designed for use on horseback with one arm, had gone through his brother’s back. The nomad quickly dismounted to retrieve the impaled sword, but before he could pull the blade out, Davin Matin, his clan’s bravest and proudest warrior, decapitated the nomad where he stood.
Always wanting the easy battle, the nomads quickly fled. Near the edge of combat, Davin pulled his brother behind a bush, and while concealed from the waning onslaught, he promised his dying brother that he would raise his nephew Briand like a son. After watching his brother die, he blamed himself for his brother’s death and took his rage back to the battlefield. With his two strong hands, he raised his broadsword and slashed through the enemy like a warm knife cuts through butter. He hacked his way to the enemy’s rear position and, at that moment, he heard his enemy’s signal to retreat, but it had come too late because not only had Davin lost his brother, the enemy had also killed his clan’s leader. After the battle, the warriors chose Davin as the new clan leader, and from that battle onward, under his leadership, they victoriously campaigned against rival clans and conquered them all. This caught the attention of the old ruling warlord, Olar Regalyon’s father, who had not been able to bring civility to the clans under his control, and he appreciated what Davin had done, albeit through violence and bloodshed; nonetheless, Davin was instrumental in consolidating most of the surrounding clans under his power. Davin, after his clan had elevated him to the position of clan leader, and his appointment to a favorable position in the warlord’s court, was still a warrior at heart, and not a shrewd merchant or clever politician. He possessed many admirable qualities, but two praiseworthy characteristics, honesty and morality, left him vulnerable in his new position with the warlord. The warlord’s associates had taken advantage of him, and his political naiveté had allowed it to happen.
On the battlefield, fellow warriors fought as one. They would die for each other and their clan. In the warlord’s court, those closest to you would smile to your face and smile just as widely as they stabbed you in the back. That was the same den of thieves Davin had taken council from, and that had contributed to his downfall. He belonged on the battlefield, but as the years passed, that too became no place for him, an older man. His position in the warlord’s court became mostly symbolic.
Briand, a young man now, had grown into a warrior just as formidable and deadly as his uncle and late father had been when they were his age. He excelled in all athletic and physical activity, whereas Aton excelled intellectually. War had not yet tested Aton’s manhood. Not ever having served in combat, Aton wondered if his untested nerves could survive the horrors of war. He secretly wished to experience the camaraderie of battle.
Briand’s room was across the hall from his cousin’s. Like Aton’s room, he had strewn it with tools and weapons, but there were a far greater number of tools. He was an expert and artistic woodworker, and he had stylishly carved his table and chair, unlike the crude furniture in Aton's room. He even had a couch built by his own hands. Stout branches held tightly with twisted rope formed the framework of the couch, and the cushions were sheets of wool cloth that he had stuffed with cotton and sewn closed with a bone needle and string made from plant fiber. His bed was of similar construction. His father’s sword hung prominently on the wall; that weapon was his most valued possession. It was the sword his father had used in battle and which had lain by his side as he died. Tradition had bequeathed the sword to Briand when the nomad killed his father. Broad, long, straight, and balanced, it appeared capable of cutting through the thickest bone when brandished by Briand's robust arms. He would never have sold such a sword for any price. In vain,
other warriors had offered money for it, but he planned to keep it in his family for many generations, so it was priceless. At all contests and in combat, he had it and he meant to keep it. In a corner stood a spear, long and sharp, for use on horseback, and beside it, his saddle and accessories.
Briand's passion was to exercise and play sports. The boldest rider, the best swimmer, his whole life was spent with horse, sword, and spear. He was younger than Aton, but he appeared physically older. He measured larger around the chest and had massive shoulders, huge arms, thick neck, and square jaw.
Between the cousins, there was the oddest combination of affection and loathing. The elder smiled at the excitement and energy of the younger; the younger openly despised the studious habits and solitary life of the elder. In time of real trouble and difficulty, they would have come together in mutual assistance, but otherwise there was little unity; one went his way, and the other usually went in the opposite direction. They lived under the same roof, so socially they should have been closer, but in reality, living together gave social cohesiveness maximum opportunity with least desire. There was perhaps a predisposition to detract from each other's achievements rather than to praise them. They were good friends, but still kept apart.
Briand made friends of nearly all, and beat his enemies into a respectful silence. Aton made friends of none; friends and enemies equally despised him. Briand was open and jovial. Aton was reserved and contemptuous, or rather sarcastic and facetious. His slim frame, too tall and skinny, was a liability in his peer group and he could not compare physically to Briand. It was easy to see that Aton, although the eldest, had not yet reached his full physical development. A light complexion, fair hair and eyes, were also against him, giving him a frail, even sickly, appearance. Where Briand made social conquests, people ignored Aton. He would laugh, but secretly, his pride was hurt. That hidden pain had fueled his quick temper.