by Brian Aldiss
After this rapid fire of orders, he shouted them into action, himself pacing about furiously. Then he turned to Vry, ‘All right, woman, I want to see the lie of the land for myself. Yours is the northernmost tower – I’ll look from there. Move, everyone, and let’s hope this is a false alarm.’
He set off rapidly down to the door, his great hound bursting past him. With a last glance at the stuffed geese, Vry followed. Soon, shouts resounded among the leprous old buildings. The rain was tapering off. Yellow flowers, abloom in the lanes, unbent their heads and stood erect again.
Oyie ran after Aoz Roon and fell in by his side, smiling despite his growled dismissal. She sprang along in her dark blue and light blue hoxney with something like glee.
‘It’s not often I see you unprepared, Father.’
He shot her one of his black looks. She thought merely, he has grown older of late.
At Vry’s tower, he gestured to his daughter to stay, and entered the pile at a run. As he climbed the crumbling steps, Shay Tal emerged on her landing. He spared her only a nod and continued upwards. She followed him to the top, catching his scent.
He stood by the parapet, scrutinising the darkening land. He set his hands in a platform across his eyebrows, elbows out, legs apart. Freyr was low, its light spilling through rifts of western cloud. The cowbird was still circling, and not far distant. No movement could be observed in the bushes beneath its wings.
Shay Tal said from behind his broad back, ‘There’s only the one bird.’
He gave no answer.
‘And so perhaps no phagors.’
Without turning or changing his attitude, he said, ‘How the place is altered since we were children.’
‘Yes. Sometimes I miss all the whiteness.’
When he did turn, it was with an expression of bitterness on his face, which he seemed to remove with an effort.
‘Well, there’s evidently little danger. Come and see, if you wish.’
He then went down without hesitation, as if regretting his invitation. Curd stayed close as ever. She followed to where the others waited.
Laintal Ay came up, spear in hand, summoned by the shouting.
He and Aoz Roon glared at each other. Neither spoke. Then Aoz Roon drew out his sword and marched down the path in the direction of the cowbird.
The vegetation was thick. It scattered water over them. The women got the worst of it as the men pressed back boughs which showered in the faces of those who followed.
They turned a bend where young damson trees were growing, trunks thinner than a man’s arm. There was a ruined tower, reduced to two floors and swamped by vegetation. Beside it, under the leprous stone, in a tunnel of sullen green gloom, a phagor sat astride a kaidaw.
The cowbird could be seen through branches overhead, croaking a warning.
The humans halted, the women instinctively drawing together. Curd crouched, snarling.
Horny hands resting together on the pommel of its saddle, the phagor sat its tall mount. Its spears trailed behind it in an unprepared way. It widened its cerise eyes and twitched an ear. Otherwise, it made no move.
The rain had soaked the phagor’s fur, which clung about it in heavy grey clumps. A bead of water hung and twinkled at the tip of one forward-curving horn. The kaidaw was also immobile, its head outstretched, its furled horns twisting below its jaws and then up. Its ribs showed, and it was spattered with mud and gashes on which its yellow blood had caked.
The unreal tableau was broken, unexpectedly, by Shay Tal. She pushed past Aoz Roon and Laintal Ay, to stand alone on the path in front of them. She raised her right hand above her head in a commanding gesture. No response came from the phagor; it certainly did not turn to ice.
‘Come back, ma’am,’ called Vry, knowing the magic would not work.
As if under compulsion, Shay Tal moved forward, bringing all her attention to bear on the hostile figure of mount and rider. Twilight was encroaching, light dying: that would be to the advantage of the adversary, whose eyes saw in the dark.
Taking pace after pace forward, she had to raise her eyes to watch the phagor for any unexpected movement. The stillness of the creature was uncanny. Drawing nearer, she saw that this was a female. Heavy brownish dugs showed beneath the soaked fur.
‘Shay Tal, get back!’ As he spoke, Aoz Roon ran forward, passing her, his sword ready.
The gillot moved at last. She raised a weapon with a curved blade and spurred her mount.
The kaidaw came on with extraordinary speed. At one moment it was still, at the next charging towards the humans down the narrow path, horns first. Screaming, the women dived into the dripping undergrowth. Curd, without being told, raced in, dodging under the kaidaw’s prognathous jaw to nip it in the fetlock.
Baring her gums and incisors, the gillot leaned from her saddle and struck at Aoz Roon. Ducking backwards, he felt the crescent slice by his nose. Farther back down the path, Laintal Ay stuck the butt of his spear in the ground, fell on one knee, and pointed the weapon at the chest of the kaidaw. He crouched before its charge.
But Aoz Roon reached out for the leather girth that was strapped around the animal’s body, clasping it as the brute thundered by. Before the phagor could get in a second swipe, he worked with the momentum of the charge and swung himself up on the kaidaw’s back, behind its mount.
For a second it seemed that he would fall over on the far side. But he hooked his left arm about the gillot’s throat and stayed in place, head well out of reach of the deadly sharp horns.
She swung her head about. Her skull was as heavy as a club. One blow would have knocked the man senseless, but he ducked under her shoulder and tightened his stranglehold on her neck.
The kaidaw halted as suddenly as it had started into action, missing Laintal Ay’s point by inches. Beset by Curd, it sheered about, furiously trying to toss the great hound with its horns. As it plunged, Aoz Roon brought up his sword with all the force he could muster, and thrust it between the ribs of the gillot, into her knotted intestines.
She stood up in her leather stirrups and screamed, a harsh, rending noise. She threw up her arms and her curved sword went flying into the nearest branches. Terrified, the kaidaw pranced on its hind legs. The phagor fell free, and Aoz Roon with her. He twisted as they fell, so that she bore the brunt of the tumble. Her left shoulder struck the ground jarringly.
From the dusky sky, the cowbird came swooping in, screeching, to defend its mistress. It dived at Aoz Roon’s face. Curd leapt high and caught it by a leg. It slashed at him with curved beak, it battered his head with furious wings, but he tightened his grip and dragged it to the ground. A quick change of grip and he had its throat. In no time, the great white bird was dead, its pinions sprawled without motion across the muddy path.
The gillot also was dead. Aoz Roon stood over it, panting.
‘By the boulder, I’m too fat for this kind of activity,’ he gasped. Shay Tal stood apart and wept. Vry and Oyre inspected the dead brute, regarding its open mouth, from which a yellow ichor seeped.
They heard Tanth Ein shouting in the distance, and answering shouts coming nearer. Aoz Roon kicked the gillot’s corpse so that it rolled on to its back, causing a heavy white milt to flop from the jaws. The face was severely wrinkled, the grey skin wormlike where it stretched over bone. The body hair was moulting; patches of bare skin showed.
‘It has some filthy disease perhaps,’ Oyre said. ‘That’s why it was so feeble. Let’s get away from it, Laintal Ay. Slaves will bury its corpse.’
But Laintal Ay had dropped to his knees and was uncoiling a rope from the corpse’s waist. He looked up to say grimly, ‘You wanted me to perform some great deed. Perhaps I can.’
The rope was fine and silken, finer than any rope woven from stungebag fibre in Oldorando. He coiled it about his arm.
Curd was holding the kaidaw at bay. The mount, taller at the shoulder than an average man, stood a-tremble, head high, eyes rolling, making no attempt to escape. Laintal Ay
tied a noose in the rope and flung it over the animal’s neck. He drew it tight and approached the trembling creature step by step, until he could pat its flank.
Aoz Roon had recovered his composure. He wiped his sword on his leg and sheathed it as Tanth Ein arrived on the scene.
‘We’ll keep watch, but this was a solitary brute – a renegade near death. We have reason for continuing our celebrations, Tanth Ein.’
As they clapped each other’s shoulders, Aoz Roon looked about him. Ignoring Laintal Ay, he concentrated his regard on Shay Tal and Vry.
‘We have no quarrel, whatever you imagine to the contrary,’ he told the women. ‘You did well to sound the alarm. Come with Oyre and me and join the festivities – my lieutenants will welcome you.’
Shay Tal shook her head. ‘Vry and I have other things to do.’
But Vry remembered the stuffed geese. She could still smell them. It would be worth enduring even that hated room for a taste of that superb flesh. She looked in torment at Shay Tal, but her stomach won. She yielded to temptation.
‘I’ll come,’ she told Aoz Roon, flushing.
Laintal Ay had his hand on the kaidaw’s trembling flank. Oyre stood with him. She turned to her father and said coldly, ‘I shall not come. I’m happier with Laintal Ay.’
‘You please yourself – as usual,’ he said, and marched off along the dripping lane with Tanth Ein, leaving the humiliated Vry to follow behind as best she could.
The kaidaw stood tossing its great bracketed head up and down, looking sideways at Laintal Ay.
‘I’m going to make a pet of you,’ he said. ‘We shall ride you, Oyre and I, ride you over the plains and mountains.’
They made their way through a gathering crowd, all pressing to see the body of the vanquished enemy. Together, they went back to Embruddock, whose towers stood like decaying teeth against the last rays of Freyr. They walked hand in hand, differences submerged in this decisive moment, pulling the quivering animal after them.
X
Laintal Ay’s Achievement
The veldt was banded with upstart flowers as far as eye could see, and farther, farther than any man on two legs could investigate. White, yellow, orange, blue, viridian, cerise, a storm of petals blew across the unmapped miles to wash against the walls of Oldorando and incorporate the hamlet into its blast of colour.
The rain had brought the flowers and the rain had gone. The flowers remained, stretching to the horizon where they shimmered in hot bands, as if distance itself were stained for spring.
A section of this panorama had been fenced off.
Laintal Ay and Dathka had finished work. They and their friends were inspecting what they had achieved.
With saplings and thorn trees, they had built a fence. They had chopped down new growth till the sap ran from their blades over their wrists. The saplings had been trimmed and secured horizontally to serve as the bars of the fence. The uprights and horizontals were packed branches and whole thorn trees. The result was almost impenetrable, and as high as a man. It enclosed about a hectare of ground.
In the middle of this new enclosure stood the kaidaw, defying all attempts to ride it.
The kaidaw’s mistress, the gillot, had been left to rot where she fell, as the custom was. Only after three days were Myk and two other slaves sent to bury the body, which had begun to stink.
Blossom hung neglected like spittle from the kaidaw’s lips. It had taken a mouthful of pink flowers. Eaten in captivity, they seemed not to its taste, for the great gaunt animal stood with its head high, staring out over the top of the stockade, forgetting to munch. Occasionally, it moved a few yards, with its high step, and then came back to its original vantage point, eyes showing white.
When one of its downward-sweeping horns became entangled in the thorns, it freed itself with an impatient shake of the head. It was strong enough to break through the fence and gallop to freedom, but the will was lacking. It merely gazed towards freedom, blowing out sighs from distended nostrils.
‘If the phagors can ride it, so can we. I rode a stungebag,’ Laintal Ay said. He brought up a bucket of beethel and set it by the animal. The kaidaw took a sniff and backed away, bridling.
‘I’m going to sleep,’ Dathka said. It was his only comment after many hours. He crawled through the fence, sprawled on the ground, stuck his knees in the air, clasped his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. Insects buzzed about him. Far from taming the animal, he and Laintal Ay had earned themselves only bruises and scratches.
Laintal Ay wiped his forehead and made another approach to the captive.
It brought its long head down so as to look him levelly in the eye. It was blowing softly. He was aware of the horns pointing at him, and made coaxing noises, poised to jump aside. The great beast shook its ears against the base of its horns and turned away.
Laintal Ay controlled his breathing and moved forward again. Ever since he and Oyre had made love by the pool, her beauty had sung in his eddre. The promise of more loving hung above him like an unreachable bough. He must prove himself by that imaginary great deed she required. He woke every morning to feel himself smothered in dreams of her flesh, as if buried under dogthrush blossom. If he could ride and tame the kaidaw, she would be his.
But the kaidaw continued to resist all human advances. It stood waiting as he approached. Its hamstrings twitched. At the last possible moment, it bucked away from his outstretched hand, to prance off, showing him its horns over one shoulder.
He had slept in the stockade with it on the previous night – or dozed fitfully, afraid of being trampled under its hoofs. Still the beast would not accept food or drink from him, and shied away from every approach. The performance had been repeated a hundred times.
Finally, Laintal Ay gave up. Leaving Dathka to slumber, he returned to Oldorando to try a new approach.
Three hours later, as the Hour-Whistler sounded, a curiously deformed phagor approached the enclosure. It dragged itself through the fence with awkward movements, so that gouts of wet yellow fur were torn out by the thorns, to remain hanging among the twigs like dead birds.
With a dragging gait, the oddity approached the kaidaw.
It was hot inside the skin, and it stank. Laintal Ay had a cloth tied round his face, with a sprig of raige against his nostrils. He had made two Borlienian slaves dig up the three-day-old corpse and skin it. Raynil Layan had soaked the skin in brine to remove some of its unpleasant associations. Oyre accompanied him back to the enclosure and stood with Dathka, waiting to see what happened next.
The kaidaw put its head low and breathed a soft question. Its dead mistress’s saddle, complete with flamboyant stirrups, was still strapped about its girth. As soon as Laintal Ay reached the puzzled beast he set one foot high in the near stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. He was mounted at last, positioned in front of the animal’s single low hump.
Phagors rode without reins, crouching over the necks of their mounts or holding the harsh frizzled hair growing along the ridge of their necks. Laintal Ay clutched the hair tightly, awaiting the next move. From the corner of his eye, he could see other villagers, strolling across the Voral bridge, coming to join Oyre and Dathka and watch the proceedings.
The kaidaw stood in silence, head still low, as if weighing its new burden. Then, slowly, it began an absurd movement, arching its neck inward, bringing its head round until its eyes, from an upside-down position, could look up and regard the rider. Its gaze met Laintal Ay’s.
The animal remained in its extraordinary position but began to tremble.
The trembling was an intense vibration, seemingly originating at its heart and working outwards, much like an earthquake on a small planet. Yet still its eyeballs glared fixedly at the being on its back, and it was bereft of voluntary movement. Laintal Ay also stayed motionless, vibrating with the kaidaw. He remained looking down into its twisted face, on which – so he afterwards reflected – he read a look of intense pain.
When it did
finally move, the kaidaw shot upwards like a released spring. In one continuous movement, it came erect and jumped high in the air, arching its spine like a cat’s and curling its clumsy legs beneath its belly. This was the legendary spring jump of the kaidaw, experienced at first hand. The jump took it clear over the stockade fence. It did not even brush the uppermost sprigs of thorn.
As it fell, it snapped its skull down between its forelegs and thrust its horns upwards, so that it struck the ground neck first. One of the horns was immediately driven through its heart. It fell heavily on its side and kicked twice. Laintal Ay flung himself free and sprawled among the clover.
Even before he climbed shakily to his feet, he knew that the kaidaw was dead.
He pulled the stinking phagor skin from his body. He whirled it round his head and flung it away. It fell into a sapling’s branches and dangled there. He cursed in frustration, feeling a terrible heat inside his head. Never had the enmity between man and phagor been more clearly demonstrated than in the self-destruction of this kaidaw.
He took a pace towards Oyre, who was running to him. He saw the villagers behind, and bands of colour. The colours rose, took wing, became the sky. He floated towards them.
For six days, Laintal Ay lay in a fever. His body was lapped in a flamelike rash. Old Rol Sakil came and applied goosegrease to his skin. Oyre sat by him. Aoz Roon came and looked down at him without speaking. Aoz Roon had Dol with him, made heavy with child, and would not let her stay. He departed stroking his beard, as if remembering something.
On the seventh day, Laintal Ay put on his hoxneys again and returned to the veldt, full of new plans.
The fence they had built already looked more natural, dappled all over with green shoots. Beyond the enclosure, herds of hoxneys grazed among the bright-coloured pastures.