Across The Lake

by Doug Kelly

  There was one thing that Aton did excel at; he could skillfully shoot a bow and arrow. His arrows fell precisely in the center of the target. He hit deer and rabbits effortlessly and even large birds in flight, like turkey and pheasant. Nothing was safe from his arrows. Because of this skill, he had established a reputation.

  The privileged class thought the only weapon worthy of distinguished men was the sword. Projectile weapons, such as the spear and the arrow, were the arms of the common man, or at best, the simple soldier. Archers and spearmen used these types of weapons at a distance from the opponent, which the privileged class considered cowardly. Olar the warlord had completed Aton’s humiliation, when during a tournament at the spring festival where he had mingled with the common crowd, the warlord sent for Aton to shoot at a target and display his skill to the servants. Aton shot the arrow, but did not aim at the center of the target. Although it went wide of the mark, it landed exactly where he had intended. The warlord and his henchmen heckled Aton for what they perceived as a failure. Only with unwavering self-control had he refrained from piercing one of his other arrows into Olar's eye.

  When Briand had taunted him about that failure, Aton asked him to hang up his shirt at the distance of a long bowshot. He did so, and in an instant, Aton sent the shaft through it. The tip skewered the shirt directly were the heart would have been underneath. After that, Briand bit his tongue, and in his heart began to think that the bow was a dangerous weapon, especially in the hands of his cousin.

  “You need to get out of your room,” said Briand, leaning against the windowsill and placing his stout arms on it. “I went by the stream to fish before daybreak, but you were nowhere to be found. I thought you might’ve had a woman with you, locked behind that door.” He smirked at his own comment, finding humor in the fact that it was not true. Aton’s heart was for one woman, Esina Regalyon, the warlord’s daughter. He was not like Briand, whose reputation was for serial conquests.

  The morning sunshine illuminated the papers on the windowsill, and Briand recognized Aton’s handwriting on the sketches. He picked up one of the papers and tried to make sense of it. One diagram was for an improved battering ram. In Aton’s design, he had modified the battering ram with a shield above it, on a wheeled frame, to deflect projectiles and provide safety during an attack.

  “Inventing again last night, I suppose?” he asked, as he turned over the parchment. “Why didn't you go spear fishing with me?”

  “I heard another wagon arrive this morning?” said Aton, ignoring the question. He wanted to change the subject.

  “Yes, it was full of wool. I’m sure we robbed the hill people on the trade. We do every spring. Aton, why don't you get up? Let’s spear a few fish for breakfast. You used to.”

  “I can fish,” said Aton, in a way to imply that since he had mastered that skill, it was no longer a challenge. “Last night, you were as late as you were noisy. I heard you put your wonderful steed into the stable.”

  “You heard me?”

  “Singing.”

  Briand shook his head and smiled. “Too much ale.” Tired of looking at Aton’s drawings, he went across the room to sit on the chair.

  “Yes, my new horse. It was dark, but she galloped without hesitation.”

  “You’re lucky she didn’t break a leg. Having to kill your mare because she’s crippled isn’t stylish and it wouldn’t impress your lady friends.”

  “I could ride a goat and still catch the wandering eye of any beautiful woman that I choose, so don’t worry about me or my horse.” Briand wanted to change the subject and discuss the real reason he had come to Aton’s room. “You don’t want to ask me about the gossip?”

  “What gossip?”

  “There was a fight at the warlord’s estate yesterday afternoon. The tax collector, Trahan Brill, Lanzo’s father, accused a clan leader of treason.”

  “Let me guess, Trahan assumed control of that clan?”

  “No, it was given to his son, Lanzo.”

  “It all makes sense to me. Trahan is a greedy liar and he wants to consolidate power under his son. He’s too old, but his son is young. That snake might even try to kill Father someday.”

  “What about your father’s debt?”

  “To Olar?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about it?”

  “If Trahan is that devious, he might persuade the warlord to confiscate Uncle Davin’s title and the clan, too.”

  Aton nodded. “More power for the son.”

  “I hate speaking in whispers, and you can't trust who you’re talking to. They may turn on you if you say what they perceive to be the wrong thing.”

  “Then I’m through talking about this,” said Aton. “It was your gossip anyway.”

  Even whispers could be dangerous if suspicious ears thought they heard something treasonous. The wrong words could result in a trip to the gallows. Justice was corrupt and the whims of tyrants were the cause. Many who thought that the court might put them on trial had escaped into the woods rather than face a mockery of justice. Out of desperation, some became bandits on the roads. The courts and system of justice, although based presumably on the most illustrious and beneficial principles of humanity, were known to be perverted. Vile motives, political hatreds, private passions, and money all swayed the honorable judges of highest virtue. Although they presented themselves to the public as virtuous, it was no secret that they were scoundrels. Many that had experienced a warlord’s system of greedy justice said that only in the depths of a cold winter do magistrates keep their hands in their own pockets. To complete the disgrace, those dominions or territories that proclaimed themselves the very home of morality were just as corrupt.

  “I’ve heard more rumors, but you don't care,” said Briand, after he turned his head. Since Aton did not want to listen, Briand did not care to speak about it anymore.

  “That’s right. I don’t care,” said Aton.

  Briand quickly snapped his head back around. “Why don't you go and live in the woods all by yourself?” he said, in a challenging tone.

  “I suppose that might be a way to escape from your gossip and rumors.” Aton stood up and stretched, then slapped his cousin on the back. “Go ahead; I can see you want me to know.”

  “Nomads have been attacking the distant clans. Our allies want help. Some think our federation of clans is going to break up. So much for the unity given to us by your father.”

  “Yes. So much for our unity and strength in numbers,” said Aton.

  —— —— ——

  The nomads drifted with the winds. They boasted that their ancestry went back to the greatness of their ancestors, before the Americans vanished. They bragged confidently that they had never lived under permanent roofs, and continued that tradition after the old civilization disappeared. They assertively professed that they had preserved the heritage of their families pure and untainted. Many believed that the nomads’ stories were a delusion of grandeur.

  Over the generations, they had adapted well. Their numbers had greatly increased. If they were not always at war with each other, they could evict the hill people when they grazed their herds and flocks on the plains, or the clansmen near the forests and swamps, but there were too many nomad tribes, each with its own leader, and none was willing to cooperate with the other. Because of divided power and the absence of a united front, their strength dissipated.

  The ruler of a nomad tribe could be a woman or even a young girl. They often exercised supreme authority through divine right, but a leader must be of their sacred blood. The chiefs were absolute autocrats within their tribe, and with a gesture, could order the destruction of those who disrespected them. Although executions were rare, they never questioned the right to order one.

  The places where they dwelled, the wizards among them, and particularly the witches, seemed full of mystery and magic. They lived in tents, and although they constantly moved from one place to the next, one tribe never clashed with or crossed
another as they traveled, because they all had their special routes and no one dared to make an incursion on another band as they migrated. The nomads practiced some agriculture, and they kept flocks and herds of domesticated animals, but women did all of the work. The men were always on horseback or sleeping in their tents.

  Each tribe had its central camp, where they returned at intervals after perhaps wandering for months, with a certain number of loyal persons left there during the absence to defend it. They often situated these camps in inaccessible positions and behind protective barriers. The territory that they acknowledged to belong to such a camp was extremely limited. They considered only its surroundings the actual property of the tribe, and a second tribe could pitch its tents nearby. These barriers were more like storage houses than residences, and each was a mere rendezvous that they consolidated with family ties.

  The nomads, as they roamed, make little secret of their presence, lighting their fires by day and night, always fearlessly. The nomads were everywhere, but they were most numerous in the southern part of the continent. Sometimes going as far as the great open plains, they performed strange ceremonies and incantations during the evenings while they rested after a long day of travel. They attacked almost every traveler, and every caravan or train of wagons which they felt strong enough to conquer, but they did not murder the solitary sleeping hunter or herder from a hill tribe, as the cannibals did. They would steal from them, but did not kill, except when fighting.

  Vengeance was the providence that mandated their actions. If any community had injured or affronted them, they never ceased endeavoring to retaliate, and would wipe it out in fire and blood, generations later. There were towns that had been suddenly hassled after the citizens of that community had already forgotten past transgressions. Vengeance seemed to be their religion and the social law that guided all their actions. It was for that reason that they were continually at war. The nomads looked on the cannibal as a dog, and slaughtered him. In turn, the despised human dogs slinked in the darkness of the night, into the nomads’ tents, and stabbed their daughters or their wives, because that was the cowardice of the cannibals.

  The nomads, instead of massing their forces and throwing their irresistible numbers upon one town or village to vanquish it, shunned the thought of a cooperative coalition, and pursued the venture using a single tribe. That was their strategy. Each tribe invaded what was nearest to it. The result was that they were, although with difficulty, repulsed. No leader of the hill people or clansmen had ventured to follow the nomads to their strongholds, because they had presumed them to be invincible behind their barriers. By infesting the woods and lying in ambush, nomads rendered communication between cities, towns, and villages difficult and dangerous except to bodies of armed men. In some areas, troops of soldiers were necessary to defend a caravan of merchant wagons.

  —— —— ——

  “What are you going to do today?” asked Briand.

  “I am going down to my boat,” replied Aton.

  “Then I’ll go with you and fish some more. I’ll try to fish with hooks this time. Do you have any?”

  “Yes, in the box. Remove the tools and you’ll see them.”

  Briand removed the tools from the open box, all rusty and covered with dust, while Aton finished dressing, put away his sheets of parchment, and placed the lid onto his wooden chest. Briand had found some hooks at the bottom, which Aton had carved from deer bone.

  After breakfast, they walked out together, Briand carrying a fishing rod and a boar spear. Aton also carried a spear, the one with the newly designed tip, in addition to a small reed basket with some metal tools, which he would use to continue building his boat.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After exiting the house, they turned to the right, heading toward the rear gate, but paused midway to observe their blacksmith sharpening an axe beside the orange glow of the forge. While watching the rhythmic motion of metal rubbing against whetstone, the cousins were very surprised to see Briand’s new horse trot past them, unattended. Two servants came sprinting from the stables, chasing after and yelling at the mare, but to no avail. In their haste to catch the beast, the tone of their urgent calls for it to return and the manner in which they chased it spooked the animal into a gallop. It raced away from them to the farthest wall of the enclosure. Aton exchanged a glance with Briand and tilted his head in the direction of the fleeing horse.

  Briand shook his head and said, “It’s their problem now. We need to go.”

  They went past the rear gate, and saw that the massive wooden door was already open. The guards had already thrown the thick bolts back and opened it after the first horn blow at sunrise. To the left side of the gate, in the corner formed by two adjoining walls, a guard shack was just as empty as the observation platform above it, where there was always supposed to be someone on watch, but no one was there. One of the guards had seen the horse escape from the stables and the servants unsuccessfully chasing after it. For fear of the horse escaping through the open gate, the guard had sprinted to intercept it and gain possession of the reins. This had caused the gate to be unattended because the others whom Davin had assigned to guard duty had already gone to assist with some chores.

  During peacetime, when there was no fear of attack, the men on guard were often called away to assist with some routine chores. At that moment, the other guards that had left their post were helping move the clipped wool farther into the warehouse. Although they were still close, the gate was open and unattended. If the day guard on the roof blew his horn, the others would have rushed back to the gate. Aton did not like the easing of discipline, especially after hearing Briand’s rumors of attacks on the distant clans by nomads. His sense of order and discipline was dismayed at the absence of the guards. Although they were working, they had left the gate unattended. He characterized himself as organized and precise, and this kind of uncertainty irritated him. Although aggressors had not attacked the stockade in a great while, with growing disharmony among the clans and since the nomads in the region were becoming increasingly violent, now would be a prudent time to exercise caution. An attack from a variety of enemies could be eminent.

  Aton shook his head at the sight of the open gate. It reminded him of a mortal wound that had not yet started to bleed. “Security is weak. It puts us all at risk. Someone needs to address this,” Aton stiffly remarked.

  Security protocol was a serious matter for the clan and affected everyone inside the stockade. Since Aton’s father, Davin Matin, was the clan leader, security was his responsibility. When speaking of the safety breach, Aton had not directly mentioned his father’s name. He would have considered doing so an affront to his father’s judgment and authority, so he had just implied who should address the abhorrent condition by saying, “someone” and let the matter go. He certainly would not have used his father’s title of clan leader in such a statement.

  Although the open entry was a breach of security, in all probability it was a minor one. Davin Matin deserved to be designated clan leader, but no one had known Aton’s father to address himself using formal titles, least of all now. Informally shunned in the warlord’s court, Davin had long ago renounced the exercise of his rights and privileges. Since then, other men had forgotten the proper style in which they should address him. Although he was the ruler of a clan, he looked and acted like any common laborer behind a stockade, wielding a hoe in the garden instead of a sword on the battlefield or a gavel used by a leader to dispense justice.

  Briand, although a warrior by profession, laughed at Aton's strict view of the guards' duties. Familiarity with danger and natural carelessness had rendered him lax in a time of relative peacefulness.

  “What are you afraid of?” asked Briand. “Maybe a black cat from the swamp will sneak its way in past the guards and scratch out your eyes.” He made a noise like a cat’s meow and laughed at his cousin.

  Aton did not join in the laughter. He crossed his arms and frowned. Briand considere
d cats as mysterious creatures and had no love for them.

  —— —— ——

  Before the impact event, Americans had cherished their pets and they could count their domesticated cat population by the millions. After the impact, the rodent population flourished and the extraordinary proliferation of those creatures was the means of providing food for the formerly domesticated felines, which the ancient ones had abandoned in the cities, and therefore, the cats had to venture into the countryside in hordes looking for food. Feeding on rats and mice, they quickly became feral and their descendants roamed the plains, forests, and marshes, after having adapted to and evolved nicely in, each new environment.

  Some cats remained domesticated, each having a unique appearance not fit for the wild. A cat of this type lived off an occasional mouse or bird that might stray too close to the home of its owner. After most of the domesticated cats became wild, the many varieties of felines disappeared, and the untamed creatures had to evolve camouflaged fur to match their environment and remain on the prowl. Those that inhabited the plains, forests, and marshes, occasionally doing some mischief around houses and enclosures, were almost all a light brown color, like a cougar, although some were faintly striped. A few were solid black, dwelling deep in the forests or marshes, and were as silent as shadows.

  Although the black forest cat retreated from the sight of people as much as possible, it was extremely fierce in defense of its young, and occasionally those cats attacked travelers in the forests or marshes after the innocent explorers unintentionally approached feral cat lairs. Dropping from the branches of a tree, onto the head and neck of an unsuspecting person, the savage cat would claw viciously at the face, inflicting deep scratches and bites, which were exceedingly painful and sometimes dangerous from their tendency for infection; however, such incidents were rare. The more common reason people hated wild cats was that they could so easily prey upon game birds, stalking and pouncing with ease in trees or other places where the birds roosted, but these stealthy prowlers too often chose to raid domesticated fowl, silently dragging young hatchlings into the shadow of night.