He gave her a nod, smiling, and she released him.
Carnelian carried the bowl to his sleeping hollow. Osidian was there.
‘I have brought you some food,’ Carnelian said, in Quya.
‘Leave it on the ground,’ the shadow replied.
Carnelian put the bowl down. ‘Are the hostage children well?’
‘Well enough.’
‘Was that your idea?’
Osidian smiled. ‘Amusingly, the savages thought it up entirely on their own. It seems they have the capacity to learn something from their superiors.’
‘Why are you training the Ochre for war?’
‘Carnelian, you have known my intentions since the day we reached the Earthsky.’
Carnelian became exasperated. ‘You really believe the Ochre can win you back your throne?’
‘They shall be but the first tribe of my host.’
‘Plainsmen against the legions?’
‘My first move in the game that is to come.’
Carnelian felt he was talking to a madman.
Osidian took him by the shoulders. ‘Believe me, Carnelian, we shall return to Osrakum and regain everything we have lost.’
Carnelian took a step back to break the hold Osidian had on him.
‘Even if you were successful, you would be returning to Osrakum alone. I shall remain here with these people.’
‘I will not allow that,’ said Osidian, his voice ice.
‘“You will not allow?” You may control events here, Osidian, but you do not control me. I know you could manipulate me, use force even, but my heart will no longer yield to you.’
Carnelian felt Osidian’s anger in the stillness. ‘In addition, I will play no further part in your schemes. If you continue on your path I will do anything I can to stop you.’
Osidian smiled. ‘Anything?’
Carnelian restrained his lust to punch Osidian’s white face. He thought of again threatening to betray his plans to the Elders, but he feared what Osidian might do to Fern. A murmur was coming from the hearth.
Osidian chuckled. ‘Thinking up threats, Carnelian?’ He grew serious. ‘I will devise a way to change your mind, but take care; what I have set in motion here cannot easily be stopped. Whether or not you decide to oppose me, accept that your precious “Tribe” can never return to the life they had. Either they shall follow the path I have chosen for them or else they will be destroyed. However much I may feel the God working through me, a successful outcome is not assured, but be certain of one thing: I alone can hope to control the forces I have unleashed.’
Carnelian felt he was being possessed by Osidian’s vision.
‘Are you sulking, Carnelian?’
It seemed a different person saying that. Carnelian felt annoyed at being spoken to like a child and then, realizing how childish this was, he smiled.
Osidian glared. ‘Do you mock me, my Lord?’
This made Carnelian burst into laughter, which he took some time suppressing. ‘Not at you … at me,’ he managed to say.
As the tremors of mirth subsided, the horror flooded back.
‘You were going to tell me about this great hunt of yours.’
Osidian frowned. ‘You will play your part?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Knowing you, none at all.’
Carnelian could feel the faraway thunder through his saddle-chair. His aquar was very still as she blinked her enormous eyes at the horizon. Her eye quills twitched at every sound.
‘Make ready,’ he cried.
He was outside the Newditch on one side of the Horngate. Other riders formed a line with him stretching away into the lush fernland. On the other side of the gate under Sil’s command was another line of aquar raked back, each hitched to one of the drag-cradles he had modified according to Osidian’s instructions.
The thunder deepened under the clear sky. The ground was now shaking so that Carnelian, seeing the breeze ruffling the fernheads, could imagine the earth they concealed was undulating with the slow rhythm of deep water.
The riders, all women, coughed their tension. Carnelian joined them in gazing off to where they could see the horizon darkening with a mounding mass. He swallowed past a parched throat.
Closer and closer rolled the flood. The earth’s shaking jostled him in his chair. His aquar’s quills half-flared as she drew back her head and stared veiling her eyes with their inner lids. He rubbed his feet on her back to calm her.
Carnelian began to see details in the flood. Necks reaching up to the sky like tornadoes.
‘Heaveners,’ the cry of shock went up from the women round him.
Carnelian sagged, knowing they were right. Osidian had said nothing about the giants being the victims of his hunt. Carnelian felt he had been tricked. The women were arguing among themselves. Should he sabotage Osidian’s hunt? Gripping his saddle-chair against the tremors, Carnelian looked round at the fernmeadow. He relived the grinding labour of the Bluedancing; the conflicts among the Ochre. Could he dismiss all those sacrifices? Could he deliver the Tribe into famine?
He surveyed the women, all pale indecision. He saw how they were having difficulty controlling their aquar. The heaveners were close enough for him to see the mountainous churning of their legs. It was now or never.
‘Light up now!’ he bellowed.
The women confronted him with stares. It was Sil who spoke for them. ‘Carnie, they’re sacred.’
‘Do you want the Tribe to starve?’
That made up their minds. Craning round he saw more women flinging torches into the drag-cradles. The kindling piled on them ignited with a blast that caused Carnelian’s aquar to take several steps forward. He let her go and saw at the edges of his sight the other riders lurching raggedly into movement. He urged his aquar into a run. Craning round, he saw his drag-cradle shaking and jumping, rolling fire into the ferns. Smoke the colour of old teeth was snaking in among their stems.
Looking forward, he gasped with horror as he saw the heaveners’ tidal wave was almost upon them. The quakes were rattling his bones. The saurian stench struck him so that he could almost not breathe. His left foot trammelled the aquar’s back, insisting she keep her headlong lope towards the onrushing stampede. Still she was veering slowly to the right as Osidian had predicted she would.
The hills of muscle were almost upon them. Their backs eclipsed the sky. Then the saurians were pouring their thunder past him and he heard the thin ululating and the human cries. He saw the tiny Plainsmen scurrying among the giant’s legs, faces distorted in an ecstasy of fear. He glimpsed Osidian among them like a lightning flash and then they were past and for moments he gaped at the road they had crushed across the plain as he felt the thunder recede.
He turned his aquar and saw the heaveners narrowing their herd into the cone he had helped create. On either side of the giants a hedge of smoke was rising, rooted in flame. Clouds billowed and greyed his line of sight. A tiny darting of aquar pulling flames closed the gap.
Then the storm fell silent. The mass of smoke thinned slowly as it rose into the sky. The fire was spreading, rustling, as if it were some creature scratching its back through the ferns. Turning, he saw that the drag-cradle he had been pulling was threatening to become a ball of flames.
More and more of the Tribe were coming down to gape at the captive giants. Among the younger hunters, the excitement of the chase had not yet worn off. Beaming, red-faced, they were telling everyone everything they had seen and felt. The silent reception smothered their ardour until they too were watching the heaveners milling within the imprisoning circuit of the ditch and rampart. Pushing through the crowd searching for Fern, Carnelian and Sil found him standing staring at the heaveners through tears.
‘Husband,’ Sil said, and reached up to touch his face.
Fern turned and saw them. ‘Seeing them there …’ He blinked away his tears. ‘We’ve robbed them of their thunder.’
The three of them looked at each o
ther guiltily.
Sil began to cry. ‘We had no choice. The Tribe …’
Fern looked at them wild-eyed. ‘Galewing said the same to us as we discovered what it was we were to hunt. Many wanted to send word to the Elders, but Galewing said the women would oppose this on religious grounds and so they must not allow the Tribe to die for their beliefs.’
‘Our beliefs,’ said Sil.
His eyes on Fern, Carnelian began worrying if he had erred in setting his friend’s safety above that of the Tribe. This was all part of Osidian’s schemes. Searching, he found him towering among a group of youths. Carnelian began making his way towards them.
Krow was the first to see Carnelian approaching and, clearly troubled, he looked away.
Ravan grinned. ‘Well, the Master’s delivered as he said he would.’
Carnelian talked over the youth in Quya. ‘My Lord, the Ochre loathe what you have made them do.’
Osidian turned, smiling. ‘Have I not given them what they wanted?’
‘These creatures are sacred to them.’
Osidian’s smile broadened and Carnelian realized, sickened, that this was the very reason for the hunt. Carnelian felt people stirring and saw they were turning their backs on the rampart. Following their gaze, he saw the Elder women approaching. The horror in their faces was clear to see. They came close enough for Carnelian to reach out and touch Akaisha but she shook his hand off as she watched the heaveners’ necks crossing and recrossing against the sky.
‘This is unholy,’ Whin cried from their midst, and many of the other Elders joined their voices to hers.
A stunned silence fell.
‘But you sanctioned this,’ said a voice.
‘We did not sanction this,’ cried Whin.
Ravan confronted her. ‘The Master’s brought us more meat in one day’s hunt than our warriors could’ve managed in two whole seasons.’
‘These aren’t meat,’ bellowed Akaisha.
Hand on hips, Ginkga was standing in front of Galewing greyed by the dust of the hunt. ‘You allowed this … this sacrilege?’
When the man said nothing, she grew enraged. ‘Have you forgotten that heaveners are sacred?’
‘So is the survival of the Tribe,’ Galewing said in a high clear voice which found many echoes in the crowd.
‘Would the other Elders have us set them free?’ cried Ravan.
Galewing turned regarding the people. ‘If we do, we’ll starve. Shall we choose life or death?’
The answer seemed to come hissing like a sandstorm. ‘Life.’
‘This is unholy,’ Carnelian heard Akaisha cry, but the rest was drowned out by the rumble of the Tribe stamping on the earth and the chant: ‘Life. Life. Life.’
BETRAYAL
Venerate your aged for in their memories the past finds its only refuge.
(Plainsman proverb)
WHEN POPPY FOUND CARNELIAN, SHE PREVAILED UPON HIM TO LIFT HER up on to his shoulders so she might be able to look over the rampart at the heaveners. Carnelian was hardly aware of her gurgles of childish delight. He had watched the Elder women fleeing back towards the Grove. Fern, Sil, the whole Tribe was being marshalled by Galewing. Osidian stood apart, his face swathed, his eyes lazily following the carnival of preparations. It was Poppy’s cry and shudder that alerted Carnelian to the first volley of javelins. Perched on the rampart, the younger men cast another volley at their trapped victims. As these dropped from their hides without leaving even a wound, there was a swell of consternation among the watchers. Carnelian lifted Poppy from his shoulders and saw how frightened she was. He did not feel he could send her back to the Grove on her own, but neither did he feel he was free to take her. Finding Sil, he was relieved when she agreed to go with her.
‘Look after Fern,’ Sil said. ‘There’s something wrong with him.’
‘The heaveners –’
‘Something else. He won’t tell me … perhaps you …?’
Carnelian nodded solemnly, kissed Poppy, then waved them off and went looking for Fern.
When he found him, Fern was helping some women improvise a billhook: a long horsetail pole with a curved end tipped with flints. To get close to him, Carnelian became embroiled in its construction. When it was finished, many bodies were required to counterbalance it as it swung, swivelling upon the earth rampart. Swarms of children ran about screaming and laughing as if it were a game. The women waited, poised, until one of the heaveners came to eat from one of the magnolias edging the meadow, then swinging the billhook, they slashed a cut into its throat. The screaming head lifted away, seeding the air with blood. As more of the giants fell prey to the billhook, cries of amazement became laughter at how stupid the heaveners were.
Carnelian tried to strike up a conversation with Fern but he was apparently deaf to anything he said. They ended up working together in silent anger making more billhooks.
Under constant attack, the heaveners raged and stamped and backed away, but hungry, they kept coming in to feed. Blood pouring from their countless wounds soaked into the earth and, when the earth could drink no more, blood began trickling into the ditch. The slaughter went on, until, even as the sun shed its own red light over the scene, it was outdone by that gory place where the dying heaveners rolled scarlet in their own blood.
The heaveners’ booming death-cries followed Carnelian and Fern all the way back to the hearth. Seeing them, Sil questioned Carnelian with her eyes. He shook his head. Heads were hanging everywhere around the hearth.
Wearing a deep and seemingly permanent frown, Akaisha welcomed her son back to the hearth and everyone else murmured their welcomes.
‘I don’t suppose your brother’s going to join us?’
Fern shrugged.
Akaisha went back to ladling stew into bowls. Carnelian watched her and saw how haunted she looked.
‘At least we’ll soon have plenty to eat,’ said one of the youngsters, going pale as her mother glared at her.
As they ate the only sound was their slurping. The rest of the Grove was unnaturally silent, as if even the mother trees themselves were listening to the heaveners dying.
Poppy had to shake Carnelian to wake him. The first thing he saw was that she had been crying.
‘Everyone’s going down to butcher the heaveners.’
‘Surely just the women,’ Carnelian said, knowing it was a false hope.
Poppy shook her head. ‘No, Carnie, Mother Whin said the men must help too.’
To give himself a chance to find courage to face the day, he sent her to fetch some water. He had slept badly. The sorry, plaintive heavener cries had haunted his dreams and his half-wakings.
When Poppy returned, he thanked her, drank the water and then rose. Akaisha, Fern and the others were there: men and women, the children too. The women were carrying the scythes the men had made for them the night before. The young were subdued. Fern looked miserable: Akaisha, aged.
‘You didn’t sleep, my mother?’ Carnelian asked her as everyone began moving down the hill.
She looked up at him angrily. ‘Did you?’
Fern put his arm about her shoulders and she leaned into him.
They were walking along the Blooding when the massacre came into sight: mountains of hide beneath swirling scavenger clouds.
‘So much meat,’ Sil said, sadly.
The Bloodwood Tree had been partially pushed over by a heavener that lay against it like a landslide. Its neck formed a dyke running for some distance on the other side of the earthbridge.
‘Can we go over?’ one child begged, her voice shrilly echoed by others.
‘Over to the Killing Field.’
Other children took up the cry. ‘Killing Field, over to the Killing Field.’
Gaping, people were clambering up the rampart to peer at the monsters. Ravan was there with Krow and many other youths. They began throwing stones and no one stopped them. Carnelian watched them bounce here and there off the carcasses, causing ravens to screech and hop int
o the air. He saw a stone roll down the back of a heavener, eventually being swallowed by a brown, blood pool.
‘They must be dead,’ cried Ravan, hurling another stone to prove it.
At last, gingerly, he led others across the narrow earth bridge, holding their scythes in front of them. They tapped the hide wall of the neck then stepped back, anticipating it lifting into the sky, but it might as well have been the trunk of a fallen cedar. Ravan lunged forward, swinging his scythe, tearing a red gash in the wall so deep it exposed white vertebrae. Soon he was joined by others, hacking at the flesh while up to their ankles in blood.
The Bluedancing were evicted from their camp in the Eastgarden. Huge fires were lit and trestles made and set above them. The rituals were to be maintained as best they could. There was not enough red ochre and so Ginkga commanded the Bluedancing to paint their faces with blood. Hunks of meat were carried on bending poles and dumped on any spare piece of ground, then the Bluedancing were made to fall on them; slicing, hacking, tearing the flesh into chunks which were then packed on to the trestles. It was Osidian who had suggested they smoke the meat, declaring that sun-curing would be too slow. Soon, to feed the fires, they were forced to fell some of the magnolias running alongside the Outditch. As well as the Bluedancing, the whole Tribe had joined the race to harvest as much as they could before the heaveners began to rot.
Beneath palls of reeking smoke, taking a rest from the bloody work, Carnelian wandered with Poppy among the fires in a daze. Entrails were draped across the ferns like fishing nets. Expanses of hide were laid out; scarlet rugs dense with flies. In one corner of the ferngarden they were throwing everything they did not want. Much was being put on to that brown hill that usually they kept. With such an abundance of flesh, only the better cuts were being saved.
Telling Poppy to wait for him, Carnelian picked his way across the earthbridge which was slick and treacherous with mud. When he reached the Killing Field, it seemed he was standing on a sunset-reddened strand. Carcasses lay like so many beached ships, half stripped of their hulls of flesh, exposing their white ribbing. The ground was covered by a flotsam of entrails and membranes. Nearby a head as large as a man gave him a macabre grin, its lips pulled back and hanging loose. Carnelian reflected that that head had once woven among the clouds like a bird. The neck that had stretched a link between earth and sky was nailed by its vertebrae to the ground. Ruddy children scurried, laughing and shouting amidst that architecture of death, playing hide-and-seek in the caverns of the ruined heaveners.
The Standing Dead (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon) Page 45