Rogan laid the High Druid's judgment before the Belinkuns. Orbin, the leader of the party who had gone to the High Druid, recited his threats of supernatural punishment for the Belinkuns if they disobeyed his edict.
They laughed.
Worse, they mocked the High Druid and jeered at the notion that he had any authority to judge them. Worst of all, they mocked Rogan. Angered, he struck Enoch-the Belinkun leader-slapped him across both cheeks, then turned on his heel and strode away.
A ratcheting sounded behind, the noise of flintlocks being cocked, and many of the Farlands glanced backward dubiously, lifting their own rifles-but Rogan strode angrily onward, never glancing back, and his people turned to follow him, each expecting at any moment to feel a rifle ball in their backs. Enoch bade his people not to fire, though, for he would not have it said that he was so cowardly as to attack his enemy from behind.
It was the last time such honor was observed between the clans.
Outraged at the Belinkuns' impiety and even more at their insolence, the Farlands attacked in force and stole their bull back-leaving half a dozen Belinkuns dead and carrying home two corpses of their own. Each clan hated the other as murderers, and the stolen bull's price had been increasing for centuries, paid in the blood and life of clansfolk.
When the song was done, Gar and Alea sat stunned while the clansfolk cheered around them.
"Well sung," Grandma Em judged, nodding with satisfaction. "He's a rare fine singer, our Tull."
"It always feels good, being reminded why we're fighting." Martha drank off the last of her ale and stood up. "But the morning doesn't start any later just because we have guests. May I help you to your bedroom, Aunt?"
"Yes, thank you, Martha." Grandma Em stood without assistance, though both Isaac and Martha sprang close to catch her if they were needed. "I've managed," she told them with an impish smile, then turned to nod graciously to her guests. "Thank you for your song."
"It was our pleasure," Gar said.
"The least we could do to repay such excellent hospitality," Alea added.
"Isaac will show you to your rooms." Grandma Em turned away, leaning heavily on Martha's arm and on her cane. "Sleep well."
"Sleep well," Gar and Alea replied, "and thanks."
They watched the old lady hobble away, then turned to Isaac who said, "Come. I'll show you where to sleep."
They lay awake in small whitewashed rooms surrounded by darkness, but their thoughts sounded in each other's minds.
How much of that story was fact, Alea wondered, and how much fiction?
Legends do turn into better stories as the years pass, and they're told and retold, Gar admitted, but there's always a core of fact. One thing we know is true-that when the PEST party came to power on Terra, it did indeed cut off commerce and aid to the colony planets.
Alea nodded, though she knew he could not see. And I think it's not too unlikely that whatever kind of central government this colony had, just withered up and died without Terran money and equipment to keep it going.
Certainly it would have lost communication with the towns and villages, Gar agreed, when the road-repairing equipment ran out of gas and spare parts, and the radios and computers broke down and couldn't be fixed.
The dwarves of Midgard learned how to make their own. Alea couldn't hide a bit of gloating when she found something to be said in favor of her home planet.
Gar took it as a good sign. Not all colonies were lucky enough to have people who learned electronics so quickly-and you must admit the dwarves weren't big on road-building.
Well, no, but the giants were. I take your point, though-there aren't any giants here, either.
They do seem to be excellent farmers, if the crops and orchards we've seen are anything to go by, Gar pointed out, and skilled fighters, from what we saw in the satellite photos. Maybe that's why the central government had a system for resolving disputes between clans.
Yes, a system headed by Druids. Alea frowned. That's the only evidence of religion I've noticed around here.
At least when the central government died, there was some form of law left, Gar said, even if it was only religious law.
The Druids were supposed to have been skilled as judges according to their own legal code. Alea had read the books more recently than Gar. It only works as long as the people believe in the religion, though.
Yes, and if Enoch Belinkun's reaction to the High Druid is any indication, these people had lost their faith pretty thoroughly, Gar said. I find it in me to wonder how deeply their ancestors believed it.
Just introduced it as a kind of play-acting, you mean? I think that's a little unjust, Alea said. After all, every generation finds some belief of their own to prove their independence. Children and grandchildren could have drifted farther and farther away from the Druids' teachings.
Away from Druidism-but toward what? Gar wondered. What replaced it? What do they believe in now?
The blood feud, Alea thought darkly. The vendetta.
Yes. Gar's thoughts had somber overtones. When there's no law, people band together into clans and tribes for security. Their only protection against strangers' mayhem is knowing their own clan will take revenge if they're hurt.
So someone from clan A kills someone from clan B, Alea said, and clan B kills a clan A member in revenge.
Then clan B goes out to kill as many clan A prople as it can, Gar said. Vengeance begets vengeance, and pretty soon clansfolk from A are killing clansfolk from B in revenge for the last death, and clansfolk B are killing clansfolk A in revenge for the revenge ...
...And revenge for the revenge for the revenge, Alea said, and so on and so on and so on.
Before long; A clansfolk are killing B clansfolk whenever they can, simply because they were born to, Gar finished, and no one even remembers how it started.
Or if they do, they don't care, Alea said. Neither do I. Never mind how they started the feud-how do we stop it?
By introducing law, Gar answered.
Brilliant, Professor, Alea thought with withering sarcasm. How do you intend to do that?
I haven't quite worked out- that part yet, Gar admitted.
He would, though-Alea was sure of that. She felt a cold chill. Gar's plans always worked, but they sometimes had disastrous side effects.
The clansfolk were up bright and early very bright, and far too early. They were out feeding the barnyard animals in the false dawn. When Gar and Alea were on the road, though, that was when they usually woke up, so they sat down with the family and pitched in to a very hearty breakfast.
They were at the head table again, and the talk was of the crops and the stock, the weather and the work to be done that day. Gar and Alea listened, soaking it all in but unable to join the conversation, since they knew nothing of the topics-not here, at least.
After a while, the family realized it, and an uneasy silence settled as everyone thought frantically of a topic that would include the guests, but Alea found one first, one that had been piquing her curiosity for some time. "We met some ... people on the road such as we've never seen before glowing creatures with wings who claimed to be older than any human folk. Could they have been real?"
Isaac and Martha shrank back in their chairs, making signs against evil. So did Grandma Em, but she gave them a look that was quite severe and demanded, "Had you gone into the deep woods, then? Tell me you didn't meet them in the fields!"
"No, we didn't," Alea stammered. "We lost our way..."
"In the woods." Gar took up the tale with easy grace. "The road led into a woodlot, then ended. We cast about, trying to find our way back to the fields, but the trees grew larger and larger until..."
"Grandma Em!" A young man hurried up to the table, rifle still in one hand as he snatched off his hat with the other. "Ephraim has sent word, from the fence out past the north forty. He saw the glitter off a gun barrel coming down the hillside a mile off. Then a flock of grackles burst into the air, making a racket that sound
ed an alarm for all the birds in the forest!"
4
"An alarm for us, too!" Isaac shoved back his chair as he rose. "There's Belinkuns coming through them woods!" Then he remembered the courtesies and turned to Grandma Em. "Shall we go against them?"
"Do," Grandma said, "but only send twenty rifles. Leave a dozen here and have the other ten scout the rest of the boundaries. It's not like the Belinkuns to let themselves be seen so easy."
"Diversion!" Martha snapped. "They're trying to draw us away while their main body attacks somewhere else! You take the twenty, Isaac, and I'll go scout with the ten!"
"Sound the alarm," Isaac told the young man, who nodded and hurried away.
Word had run by itself through the keeping room, though. All the clansfolk were up and running for their weapons except for a few Grandma Em's age, who sat and swore because they were too old to do more than hug the little ones who stared, wide-eyed and frightened, as their parents and big brothers and big sisters rushed about, snatching up weapons and hats and bolting for the door. In minutes they were gone, leaving only the old and the young. Even the bigger children exclaimed in anger and pleaded with their seniors to be allowed to go out and join the fight.
"Don't even speak of it, Allie," one old woman told a tenyear-old. "You know you're not big enough to tote more than a carbine."
"But I'm a dead shot with it!" The little girl thrust her jaw out pugnaciously. "I can bring down a squirrel at a hundred yards!"
"So you can, and that'll suit us right fine when you're fourteen," said the old man sitting next to her. "Wait till you're old enough to carry a rifle, though."
"That'll be forever!"
Alea stared at them, shaken.
"What ails you, friend?" Grandma Em asked. "Never seen one so keen?"
"Not that young, no." Alea pushed back her chair and rose. "If you don't mind, Miz Farland, I'll go out and join the rifles."
"Yes, I think we should." Gar rose, too. "After all, you've given us hospitality."
Grandma Em frowned. "Can you shoot?"
"Of course." Alea didn't mention that she'd never used a gun that fired bullets, only raw bursts of energy.
The old woman considered the issue, frowning, then pronounced her judgment. " 'Tain't fitten for guests to take sides, and poor hospitality if we let you go into danger."
"We can't just sit here idle while people may be dying!" Gar objected.
Grandma Em smiled. "You sound like that eager little one there."
"I'm a bit older than ten," Alea said tartly.
Grandma Em relented. "Well, that's so. Go and watch, then, and maybe help with the wounded if the shooting moves past them. But don't let yourself get into the line of fire, you hear?"
"We hear," Alea said, "and we promise. Come on, Gar."
She rushed for the doorway; he was only a step behind her.
Grandma Em smiled after them, nodding her head slowly, and if the gleam in her eye was shrewd, who was there to notice?
As soon as they were out in the yard with people rushing past too quickly to listen, Alea said, "I'll scan the other boundaries. You sound out the main force of Belinkuns."
Gar nodded, his eyes losing focus. Alea turned away with a shudder; it seemed as though the man became a mindless body. Of course, she went into the same sort of trance herself, listening for the Belinkuns' thoughts, but that didn't matter-she didn't have to watch it.
There they were, a score of Belinkuns slipping through the northern field, bowing low so that the ears of maize above their heads would hide them. But Alea listened for other thoughts, other minds. She sensed the sharp wordless impulses of hungry creatures, the unvoiced delight of those who had found some food, but strongest and most clearly of all, the feelings of excitement and zeal from the humans who stole through the northwest woods, following the gully of the stream that made the land unfarmable, their thoughts keen with the hunter's delight, exultant with the anticipation of victory. She counted the different thought signatures, personalities as clearly different as their faces, then said to Gar, low voiced, "They're in the northwest woods."
Gar's eyes refocused; he nodded. "What do we do about them, though?"
With distress, Alea realized that she had already felt the impulse to call to Martha and tell her where her enemy lay. "Competition comes naturally to our species," Gar told her. "Yes, but do I so quickly identify with one clan?"
Gar shrugged. "We've spent a few hours with them. They're real to us now, but we don't know the others at all."
"We're here to make peace," Alea said grimly, "not to help one clan wipe out the other."
Gar nodded. "Besides, they'd just pick a fight with the clan across the Belinkuns' boundary, and you'd have another feud going. Better if you go with the reserves and I go with Isaac's party, and we both try to scare off the others with as little bloodshed as possible."
Alea felt her back go up. "Why do I get the reserves?"
"Good question," Gar said. "You go with Isaac's party and I'll go with Martha's. Good hunting."
He strode away, leaving Alea looking after him, wondering if she had won a point or been manipulated.
Then she sighed, shrugged, and went off to join Isaac's force.
The Farlands were grinning and boastful as they set out. "'Bout time we got some action again!"
"You said it, Rilla! I been getting so rusty I can fairly hear my joints creak!"
"Ain't had nothing to shoot at that stood a chance of shooting back in way too long," one of the young men averred. "My aim's likely off by most of an inch now!"
"An inch!" a young woman hooted. "Ezra, if you can shoot within a foot of your mark today, I'll call it spring fever!"
But the farther they went from the house, the fewer the boasts became, until they crossed the fence into the pasture before the woods, and the whole force fell silent. Alea glanced from side to side and saw tense and glowering faces, jaw muscles bunched, eyes narrowing with remembered injuries.
Then they were in among the trees. Even in their thick-soled boots, the Farlands made almost no noise as they faded out of sight to either side with little more sound than the wind.
Alea swallowed hard and tried to imitate them, slipping from bush to bush, keeping a sharp eye open for twigs that might snap and give her away, but Isaac suddenly appeared beside her, whispering, "Best you stay here, ma'am. Anybody can tell where you are just from the noise."
Alea stared at him, then whispered back, "What noise?"
"Cloth against leaves, for one," Isaac answered, "and a dozen others too small to single out. just wait for us here. We'll tell you when there's need of you."
Then he was gone and Alea sat on her heels, simmering. To vindicate herself, she opened her mind, tracing Isaac's progress from stump to trunk to bush-but she had to admit she would never have heard him with her ears.
Then she opened her mind forward and sensed the Belink uns waiting in ambush.
Gar stayed well to the rear, but his height allowed him to keep Martha's white-flecked red hair, peeking from below the brown brim of her hat, in sight. As they neared the northeastern boundary, a low fieldstone wall, he could feel the Belinkuns tensing as they saw her, feel the keenness of their anticipation, knew that one or two were already leveling barrels and centering her in their sights-but he couldn't for the life of him see them, or even guess where they were hiding. The field had been mowed a few days before and was a long rise of stubble. True, a stream bed meandered through it and there were ditches to either side, but surely Martha and her troop were quick to see that.
Then a bird warbled and Martha sank to her knees, suddenly disappearing from view. So did her dozen clansfolk.
Gar blinked, astounded. If he hadn't been able to follow them by their thoughts, he wouldn't have known how they did it, but with telepathy, he realized that Martha had made the birdcry herself, that it had been the signal, and that hearing it, everyone had found a hiding place, be it so little as a fold in the ground or a
clump of weeds. Looking down from his seven-foot height, he could see them but only because he was behind them and knew where to look.
Then he realized that the only person left visible was himself--and that he was very visible indeed.
He threw himself to the ground as a rifle cracked in front of him. He heard the ball cut the air where he had been standing. A Farland rifle answered it, then two more, then three. The Belinkuns answered with a whole fusillade, but the bullets whizzed overhead, hurting no one, for everyone was down. That wouldn't last. Gar could already hear both clans thinking that the only way they would be able to stop the others was by taking the risk of rising up long enough to spot an enemy and squeeze off a shot, then drop down again-but they also knew the risk, and knew that they might die. Memories reeled by at the association and Gar saw that every one of them had seen relatives killed in just such a fashion.
Nonetheless, their resolve hardened, each and every one, to take exactly that risk. To them, it was worth their lives to protect their loved ones from their villainous neighbors.
It wasn't worth it to Gar. He could see that the Belinkuns were just as good as the Farlands--no better, perhaps, struggling against their own human load of vices and weaknesses, but no worse, either. Gar couldn't see letting them die because of a centuries-old crime-but how could he stop them?
Distract them, of course.
They were all lying on the earth. What would they think if it began to move? Or if the sticks and leaves around them began to burn?
Too showy and too slow. So much for earth and fire. Gar decided on air and wood. He stared at the trunks, picking out the dead trees that were still standing, or fallen but caught by the branches of their neighbors. The smallest was a foot and a half thick, but they blurred as his attention focused on the air high above. He set up waves, like a cook stirring soup with a spoon, but stirring faster and faster.
One or two of the clansfolk looked up, startled, as the wind began to moan through the branches above. The sky had been clear when they came into the forest, and was still clear when leaves blew aside enough to show a patch of blue. Where was the breeze coming from?
A Wizard In a Feud Page 4