by Angus Watson
He nodded at the sky.
“Looks like we’re in for a bit more rain,” she said.
“It looks like the end of the world to me.” Could she not see the awesome weight of those clouds? Could she not feel the suffocating danger pressing down like an uncaring, unseeing foot driving down on a team of ants?
“It’ll be good for the flowers,” she assured him.
Sassa Lipchewer and Thyri Treelegs crouched between two trees, at the top of a wall of rock overlooking the village. The woods around them sang with the cheeps and chirrs of myriad tubby woodland birds, all unafraid or unaware of the hawks gliding above. Bright, tiny frogs hopped about on leaves.
The village was maybe fifty conical hide huts spread sparsely along a flat clearing at the confluence of two shallow rivers. Both sides of the valley were steep, wooded in places and vertical, bare rock in others. Dotted about the huts were large animal sculptures made of struts that looked like bones but were too large to be the bones of any animal Sassa knew. All was lit by a bright sun, despite the ominously dark clouds to the south.
The people were dressed in the usual Scrayling kit—men in breechcloths and shirts, women in bead- and quill-embroidered dresses, children varying degrees of naked. Several of the adults carried the sticks that looked like giant bones, and many of the men, women and children had bones in their hair. Off to the right, next to a slab-sided outcrop of rock in the middle of the valley, a group of older children were rolling a wooden hoop and trying to spear it with a hurled pole.
Nearer, a proud-chested man strutted along wafting a martial air, one of the great bone-like things over his shoulder. He stopped and looked up, directly at their hiding place. Both women held their breath. The man was maybe Erik’s age, with small eyes and fat lips the same colour as his face. His hair was shoulder-length at the back, but was shaped on top into a towering, centre-parted bouffant. He smiled—directly at them, it seemed to Sassa—then he walked away.
“Those kids are crap at hoop and pole,” said Thyri when the man had gone. Not one of them had managed to spear the hoop while they’d been watching.
“Yes,” Sassa agreed.
“And how did they build those walls of rock?” She pointed to a grey rock face on the other side of the valley. It was comprised of horizontal slabs, as if it had been laid down by giants.
“They’re called cliffs. They’re natural, not built.” Sassa had heard about cliffs in the stories from the old world and was surprised Thyri hadn’t, but then again Thyri had spent a great deal more time learning to fight than she had listening to the elders. And who was Sassa to blame her? Excellent fighting skills were more useful to the group right then than an ability to put a name to topography.
“I’d like to climb it,” Thyri grinned.
Sassa couldn’t think of anything worse. “Maybe you’ll get a chance.”
“What do we do?”
The track that they’d been following led into the village, bridged the river then disappeared into the trees on the southern side of the valley.
“Come on, let’s head back and tell Wulf.”
Sassa and Thyri found the rest of them walking along, marvelling at how weird the sky to the south was becoming. They told them about the village.
“Do they look friendly?”
Sassa looked at Thyri. “I suppose.”
Thyri nodded. “They don’t look unfriendly.”
“We should skirt around,” announced Garth. “They’ll have the same instructions as the Lakchans and we won’t be so lucky a second time.”
Ottar yelped and pulled at Wulf’s hand.
“Ottar says we should go through the village,” said Freydis.
Wulf ruffled her hair. “Let’s go then.”
“For the love of Tor!” said Garth, throwing his arms in the air and storming off.
If they’d wanted to pass by unnoticed, they were in trouble. What looked like an entire tribe had gathered to block the path through the village. Foremost of the Scrayling welcoming party were three people, standing in a row.
Leftmost was the high-haired man who’d looked at Sassa and Thyri. He nodded and smiled at Sassa as if to say, “yes, I did spot you hiding in the trees.” Close up, his long club looked even more like a bone.
On the right was a tall, overweight, convivial looking fellow with a shining mane of hair who managed to be both handsome and toad-like. Between them was an elderly lady—she might have been sixty years old. She looked from Hardworker to Hardworker, blinking nervously. In contrast to the brightly dressed women behind her, she was all in black, apart from a colourful and heavy-looking loop of what looked like painted back bones draped over her shoulders.
“Hi there,” said Wulf.
“Oh, hello, hello,” said the woman, blinking as if she was in a competition to see how many times she could blink in an allotted timespan. “Sorry.”
“What for?”
“Oh, you know. Just sorry!” She waggled her hands and looked up at the sky as if the answer lay there.
“We are the Big Bone tribe and this is Heartberry Canyon,” said the portly man. “I’m Big Hinto, the Food Chief, this is Balinda, the Home Chief, and the serious looking fellow with the hair is Chucknor, the War Chief. Who are you, please, where have you come from and where are you going?”
“We are the remainder of the Wootah tribe,” said Wulf. Sassa gave him a look but he carried right on. “We come from the banks of the Lake of the Retrieving Sturgeon, where most of our tribe were recently massacred by the Calnians. We are currently fleeing the Calnian Owsla, who should catch up with us any moment.”
At the mention of the Calnian Owsla the three chiefs looked at each other, and there was murmuring from the gathered villagers.
“We are headed,” Wulf continued, “across the Water Mother and beyond, where we will found a new homeland in a place called The Meadows.”
“How do you know of this homeland?” asked Chucknor.
“This boy told us about it.” Wulf indicated Ottar, who was off to the side with a pensive look on his face, touching his chin repeatedly with alternate thumbs as if to find which he preferred. “He is a great seer. He warned our tribe that the Calnians were coming to kill us but no heed was taken. His guidance has saved us a few times since.”
“Did he say we’d give you safe passage?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“I see. Would you mind waiting while we discuss whether he was right?”
“Sure.”
“Do sit,” said Big Hinto, indicating a swathe of grass. “There’s some weather on the way but right now it’s nicer to be out in the open. And you can tell your friend and his big bear to come out from under the trees. We don’t fear that type of bear here.” He turned to his own villagers: “You, you and you, fetch heartberry drinks and … let me see … some of my smoked rabbit, wild rice and berries that we had last night.”
“Shall I heat the rabbit?” one of them asked.
“No, for the love of the Great Fox, no! Have you learnt nothing? Never reheat my rabbit and berry dish, and, besides, cold food is more palatable on a hot day.”
The Hardworkers sat and waited, while the three chiefs stood at a distance, conversing and looking over at them every now and then.
“So,” asked Garth, “Wootah tribe?”
“I think it’s time we left the past,” said Wulf, “and I reckon Wootah is as good a name as any.”
“Have you no respect for the ancestors?”
“Recent ancestors? Not much. Olaf the Worldfinder and his cronies were the last lot who did anything worth respecting.”
“Olaf named Hardwork. You’re disrespecting him.”
“I think the Worldfinder would appreciate the need for a break from the immediate past. But listen, I’m not set on it. We’ll discuss it later. Maybe even take a vote.”
“If we have a later. This lot might kill us. This food,” he pointed to the three Big Bone tribeswomen who were returning with lade
n trays, “is probably poisoned. I can’t believe we followed idiot boy again.”
“He’s a long way from being an idiot, Garth,” said Sassa.
“He can’t speak.”
“And yet he warned us all about the Calnians. You can speak and you didn’t. Who’s the idiot?”
“Woooo-tah!” said Wulf.
The heartberry drinks and the cold stew were the most delicious thing that Finnbogi had ever eaten, even if he had one eye out for the Owsla bursting into the valley behind them, one eye on Garth and Thyri, another eye on the dark clouds to the south, and yet another eye on the Big Bone tribe’s chiefs, wondering what they’d decide.
After what seemed like an age, they finished their deliberations and moseyed over. The Hardworkers—or the Wootah tribe, Finnbogi quite liked the new name—stood.
“I’m really sorry,” said Balinda, “but we do know all about you. We know that you are the Mushroom Men and why the Calnians want you dead. We also know what they’ve promised to do to tribes that don’t kill you. Sorry.” She shifted from foot to foot and wrung her hands like a good girl reporting a breakage to her parents.
“I see,” said Wulf.
“Yes, I am sorry, but a Calnian runner came here.”
“Right.”
“Right. But the thing is we don’t like being ordered about, and we’re not part of the Calnian empire. And we never eat anybody. Or at least I don’t think we do … Big Hinto?”
“We don’t.”
“Oh good. So, the Calnians have no right to tell us what to do, even though they try to sometimes. You could say we have a duty not to do what they tell us.”
“That sounds like a great thing to say.”
“On the other hand, we also know about their Owsla. We would have to be crazy as toad bugs to take them on. Do you know how far they are behind you?”
Wulf looked at Erik. He looked up at the sun. “I thought they’d be here already.”
“I see.”
“You could let us pass through, then hide in the woods?” suggested Erik. “You shouldn’t take them on and they’ll be too busy following us to go out of their way to trouble you,” suggested Erik.
“Nice idea, nice idea, but do remember we don’t like being told want to do.” Balinda suddenly looked a lot less nervy. She even looked a little threatening. “We are not without resources ourselves, and it wouldn’t be the first time that we’d been as crazy as toad bugs.”
“What did she say?” Bodil Gooseface whispered to Finnbogi the Boggy.
“They have resources and they’ve been crazy as toad bugs in the past.”
“Oh. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet. I have no idea how crazy toad bugs are.”
“I see,” said Bodil, nodding wisely.
The Wootahs (Bjarni Chickenhead loved the name, Woooooo- tah!) passed through the ranks of the Big Bone tribe.
Keef the Berserker, Erik the Angry and his bear Astrid were staying behind, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Big Boners (tee hee, thought Bjarni). He wasn’t sure why they felt they should but both had been adamant. Bjarni considered standing with them for a moment, but he had something else on his mind.
He’d spotted the guy straight away. For Bjarni he stood out like a buffalo painted orange standing on its hind legs and blowing a trumpet. While most of the Big Boners (tee hee) had clean, intricately managed coiffures, scraped into place and set with wax, this man had unruly long hair and a centre parting that had just happened without the agency of a comb. That wasn’t what gave him away, though. It was his contrary eyes, weary but wary, and his paradoxical body language, relaxed but furtive.
Bjarni slipped away from his tribe and approached him.
“Hi, I’m Bjarni Chickenhead.”
“Hello there, friend,” the man said, his voice a little slurred, “I’m Libbacap but everyone calls me Pipes Libbacap, on account of the large variety of smoking pipes which I own, most of which I made myself.”
Bjarni smiled. “I’d like very much to see your pipe collection.”
“That, my large woolly headed friend, is very easily arranged.”
Finnbogi felt a bit shitty that Keef the Berserker had stayed with the Big Bone tribe and even more shitty for leaving his dad behind, but Erik had insisted. This tribe were risking their lives so that they might escape, so it was only right that one of them should stay to help. Since he’d already lived many fine years, and because he had a giant bear watching his back, Erik had said it might as well be him.
Wulf had tried to change Keef’s mind, but the Berserker hadn’t wavered. Finnbogi knew he was desperate to make up for being felled by Sadzi Wolf. Had Finnbogi been in Keef’s boots, he’d have seen his failure against Sadzi Wolf as a reason for buggering off sharpish—there were at least six more Owsla coming at them, and these were dressed, armed and hadn’t been savaged by sharks moments before like Sadzi Wolf had. But Finnbogi was not Keef.
He turned to look back at the waiting warriors, but the towering rock of the valley sides already blocked his view. He’d never seen anything like these rock walls, bright white in the sun. He wondered if the scenery might get even more impressive as they travelled west. Surely not? The cliff on the edge of the Big Bone village must have been ten times the height of a man.
Something weighty struck his cheek and he thought one of the hawks circling high above had shat on him, but he touched his face and discovered it was the first fat raindrop of the coming storm. Another struck him on the forehead. It was more like being hit with a rotten grape than a normal raindrop.
Erik, Astrid and Keef stood next to the three chiefs of the Big Bone tribe. Astrid was sniffing the air and moaning. She’d been behaving very oddly since they’d come into the valley. Erik guessed there were other bears nearby. That’s what freaked her out the most, although she’d never been quite this weird before. He hoped she wasn’t going to bugger off before the Calnians got there. He tried to ask her about it but she was being obtuse.
Behind them were about twenty warriors, all armed with clubs that looked like bones but were too long and heavy to be bones. The rest of the tribe had retreated to caves in the cliff on the south side of the Heartberry River. He was grateful for their help but, scanning the warriors and the three chiefs, he didn’t see how they were going to have a hope against the Calnian Owsla. It was possible though—likely?—that they wouldn’t need to fight. The Calnians were few and far from home. Their leader would be reluctant to lose another Owsla member, so surely they’d retreat rather than take on this number of people? That’s what he told himself, anyway, but he was far from convinced. The Calnian Owsla lived to fight. The idea that they’d back down from this because one of them might get hurt was like thinking a glutton would pooh-pooh a feast because it might give him indigestion.
“What wood is your club made of?” Erik asked Chucknor.
“It’s bone.”
“It’s a very big bone.”
“Twenty thousand years ago on this very ground, a tribe of monsters called kraklaws came from the endless forests to the north and enslaved our ancestors. For twenty generations our people toiled under the monsters’ yoke, until a young man named Stonefinger came along and turned the beast to stone, freeing our tribe. This is one of those beasts’ bones.”
“The thigh bone?”
“No, one of the wrist bones. I can’t lift the thigh bones.”
“Must have been huge, these monsters?”
“They are. They’re maybe three times your height on their hind legs. They make your short-faced bear look small.”
“Short-faced?” asked Erik, noting that either Chucknor didn’t speak the universal Scrayling language very well, or he wasn’t good at differentiating past from present.
“That’s what we call that type of bear.”
“You’ve seen more?”
“Oh yes. They’re not common, but I’ve seen a few.”
“I thought Astrid was the only one.”
/>
“There’s always more than one of every animal. That’s how it has to be.”
A huge raindrop splashed off Erik’s own war club. Oh great, he thought. They were probably about to be torn apart by unstoppable Valkyrie warriors and he was going to get wet again.
Chapter 4
Weather
Sofi Tornado strode in front and Yoki Choppa jogged along at the rear, poking about in his smoking alchemical bowl with his bone. Sitsi Kestrel thought the warlock looked even more furrow-brow and pouty-lip worried than usual, but she wasn’t sure. He never looked exactly carefree, that one.
Sofi Tornado wasn’t worried. You could see her excitement with every prancing step and each flick of her hair. Sitsi had noticed that the promise of killing always made the captain more girlish. She was spinning her hand axe around on one palm and her knives were bouncing off her thighs; her obsidian dagger on one side, and her newly carved dagger-tooth cat tusk on the other.
They were finally going to catch up with these slippery Mushroom Men, finish them off and head home—hopefully. Usually Sitsi would be be as excited as Sofi to be heading into battle, but she had a gnawing nervousness in the pit of her stomach about this one.
The Big Bone tribe was not part of the Calnian empire. The official line was that they had nothing Calnia wanted, so Calnia hadn’t bothered to conquer them. Time was, she believed everything she’d learned, but she’d seen enough to know that sometimes political expedience had more influence than truth on history and even the reporting of current events. Calnia had conquered plenty of tribes who were further away than the Big Bone tribe and had no obvious benefit to the empire, so there had to be another reason why this lot hadn’t been conquered. She had a horrible feeling that they were about to find out what it was.
She closed her eyes and asked Innowak to watch over them. They’d lost two of their number on this mission already. That was two too many.
They reached the edge of the clearing as rain began to splat down in drops the size of bumble-bees. The base of the valley was broader and flatter than she’d thought it would be given the steepness of the approach, and held a sizeable village. Much of the valley side was made up of white cliffs and there was a weighty outcrop of rock in the centre of the valley floor. Overlooking all of this from the south was a towering black cloud.