by Caleb Carr
“Don’t test us,” the second soldier says. “The only members of the tribe still returning to Okot are foragers—you’re the last of them, I expect. And while you’ve been running home, we’ve been tending to the welfare of the tribe.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Heldo-Bah replies, smiling. “Burning down homes, a most imaginative method.” He nods toward the huts. “What’s become of those who lived here?”
“Why do you ask?” answers the second soldier, who, though young, is meaty enough to think that he might give this forager a good thrashing—even though he has apparently seen the filed teeth in the newcomer’s mouth. “I know who you are, Heldo-Bah, and you’ve certainly never lived here.”
Heldo-Bah nods, and even laughs once. “Which only shows what an infant warrior you are, for all your scaly skin. Answer my question.”
“Most are dead,” says the first soldier evenly. “Those who have survived are in the Lenthess-steyn, being cared for by the healers.”
“Have you kept some kind of record of who has died?” Heldo-Bah asks. “Or would that be too inglorious an activity for young heroes?”
A third voice joins the fray, coming from the direction of the men felling trees; a booming, commanding voice, full of a self-assurance that, unlike the younger men’s, bespeaks hard years of experience:
“There was no time for lists, Heldo-Bah,” the voice says. “The plague kills too quickly—and it spreads even faster …”
Approaching the forager is a formidable Bane. Clearly older than Heldo-Bah, his muscles are yet ponderous and tough: not chiseled like an athlete’s, but built thick by the vigorous demands of battle. His black beard is inseparable from his bushy, unkempt hair, yet, unlike the younger soldiers, he wears a fine suit of genuine chain mail, and a knee-length tunic bearing the device of a panther charging through the horns of a crescent Moon. In his right hand, he holds a thick leather whip; and at the sight of both man and whip, Heldo-Bah smiles, but not wickedly. Indeed, a hint of genuine affection makes its way into the forager’s voice:
“Ashkatar,” he says, nodding. “I’d have thought to find you at the Den of Stone,” he continues, mentioning the cave at the center of Okot that is the meeting place of the Groba.
“Yantek Ashkatar,” the impressive Bane replies, reflecting the same trace of comradeship with his own slight smile, and a pleasant narrowing of his dark eyes. “I see your manners are no better than ever, Heldo-Bah.”
“And I see you’re still playing at soldiers with the children,” Heldo-Bah says, angering the larger of the two pallins; but the man called Ashkatar holds a hand up, and indicates the burning huts.
“All right, men,” he says. “Back to your posts. I’ll attend to this fellow.”
The two soldiers reluctantly move along the line of the palisade toward the flames. Yantek Ashkatar looks into the distance over Heldo-Bah’s shoulder. “You three are the last home,” he says. “You could not have been close. I assume that Keera and Veloc are with you?”
“Yes. And we want word of Keera’s family.”
“I wish I had it for you,” Ashkatar sighs. “There simply wasn’t time. We’ve already burned the dead—are burning them still, in pyres downriver. But as to just who’s been burned—I honestly don’t know …”
There are not many in the Bane community for whom Heldo-Bah has any use, fewer still among those that command the tribe; but one of those is Ashkatar, and the respect is rooted, characteristically, in a shared experience of conflict against the Tall. The incident took place when they fought side by side among many other Bane warriors to prevent Broken soldiers from crossing the Cat’s Paw and advancing into Davon Wood, an attempt that was the result of the particularly bloody murder of a group of Tall children by several Outragers. Those killings had been a reprisal for the beating of a Bane trading party inside the city of Broken by a group of drunken merchants; a beating that Heldo-Bah and Veloc had witnessed, just as they had witnessed, from a helpless distance, the singularly disproportionate Outrager attack on the children. The two foragers had raced back to Okot, choosing a shorter route than the Outragers knew of and arriving to tell the Groba the truth of the situation before the Outragers had an opportunity to lie about it. Although Veloc played his part in the subsequent effort by the young Bane army to hold the Tall soldiers at the Cat’s Paw, it was Heldo-Bah who approached Ashkatar with a solution: after a bloody night, during which Ashkatar’s men learned more than one way to kill Tall soldiers without being seen, the officers commanding the Broken force were greeted at dawn by the sight of the three guilty Outragers’ heads, placed on spears and smuggled into the Tall camp.
Notes were left with the heads, saying that these were in fact the men responsible for the children’s deaths, and that the Bane would consider the matter closed if the Tall did likewise; and so a battle that might have gone on for months was cut short by the tenacity of the Bane commander and the imagination of the tribe’s most despised forager. In the years since, Ashkatar and Heldo-Bah have often crossed paths; and it is Ashkatar who frequently defends the forager against attempts by the High Priestess and her knights to run Heldo-Bah out of the tribe altogether; and that is why, when the two meet, it is as if they were only slightly estranged brothers.…
Ashkatar cracks his six-foot whip, producing a sound as lethal as the snapping of the falling trees nearby. “Damn the Tall … If they want us dead, why don’t they face us? Instead, they spread this vile pestilence …”
“You think the Tall responsible?” asks Heldo-Bah.
Ashkatar lifts his mailed shoulders. “There are some peculiar reports, from other foraging parties—you’ll have to compare whatever you’ve seen against them.” The Bane yantek looks beyond Heldo-Bah once again, this time nodding a greeting. “Ah. Veloc—Keera. Good. The Groba is anxious to see all three of you.”
Keera has begun to collect her wits, in the manner of those who have been expecting, for longer than their spirits can bear, to hear dreaded news: unsteadily, but using the ordinary duties of daily life as an anchor. She carries her own sack, while Veloc has the other two hoisted onto his shoulders. As Heldo-Bah takes his, Keera speaks:
“Yantek,” she asks quietly. “Have you heard of my family?”
“We haven’t been able to keep careful records, Keera,” Ashkatar answers, true gentleness in his voice. “Or records of any kind.” He approaches to take her sack onto one of his own shoulders, and then, tucking his whip into his belt, puts his free arm around her; clearly, Keera finds the press of his weighty limb comforting. “Some survived—but the disease simply kills too quickly to allow us to take note of just who. And it continues spreading, even after the host is dead. We had no choice but to burn the bodies. Those who were exposed but are not yet ill, have been taken to one chamber of the Lenthess-steyn—many of the healers lived, thank the Moon, and are attempting to determine why some, like themselves, are unaffected, but others die. The ill are in the uppermost chamber, receiving what care can be given—which is very little. And in the deepest chambers, more healers have been picking at the dead for two days, to know where the plague strikes in the body—the mechanism of how it kills.” The yantek stares into Keera’s face intently. “More have died than have lived, Keera.”
At this, Keera gasps. “May I—go and look for them?”
Ashkatar considers the matter. “Will you not let the healers try to find them? You are our finest tracker, Keera. If I’m any judge, we will need you, in the hours to come. The Groba has asked for you, as I say, specifically.”
Keera has been shaking her head from almost the instant Ashkatar began to speak. “I cannot—I cannot meet with the Groba and speak of this as a ‘problem.’ I must find them, I must know, ere I go mad with the fear of it …” She thinks to bury her face in her hands; but she will not break yet; certainly not in front of the commander of the Bane army.
“Then you enter the Lenthess at your own peril,” Ashkatar replies, nodding. “Should you display signs of illness, you will be
kept there. It’s all we can do. Come—Veloc, Heldo-Bah, you as well. We go to the square.” The four walk past the soldiers who are hard at work with axes. “Linnet!” Ashkatar bellows.
An unusually tall Bane (unusually tall, that is, for a Bane who is not also an Outrager) turns: he has stripped to his waist, and his powerful muscles glisten in the heat of the blaze. “Yantek?”
“Assume command, here. I must take these foragers to the Groba. You have your orders.”
“Yes, Yantek—although the fire grows hellish hot, and spreads too fast. If we cannot contain it—”
“I’ve told you already, Linnet—if you cannot contain it, then direct it. Toward the northern huts. They have been sealed, and want only pitch and oil to draw the flame. See to it.”
“Aye, Yantek. The Moon’s blessing go with you,” the younger man says. He glimpses Keera’s terrified face. “The Moon’s blessing, lady …”
Keera nods in confusion, leaving Ashkatar to say, “And with you—may it go with all of us, now …”
Ashkatar leads the way through the forest tangle, emerging on the main path into the village far enough downhill that the group does not run the risk of being struck by burning tree limbs that, when they become fiery embers, break off and hurtle toward the Earth in dangerously large pieces, which burst apart on the forest floor. The flames rising from the twenty-odd huts have now joined, some forty feet above, to form one massive column of flame which seems to be pulled upward—as if some deity is sucking the life from Okot, and especially the northeastern settlement; some capricious, cruel god, Keera cannot help but continue to think, until a more pragmatic fact occurs to her:
“There can be no doubting it, now,” she murmurs to Ashkatar, who keeps one heavy arm around her shoulders, even as her brother holds her left hand tight in his. “With so many soundings of the Horn, and now this fire—the Tall will finally see in what part of the Wood Okot is.”
“They’re probably assembling their blasted troops even as we speak,” Heldo-Bah says.
“But let the rest of us concern ourselves with all that, Keera,” Veloc says, scowling at Heldo-Bah for his thoughtlessness. “Worry only for Tayo and the children.”
“And we did consider that likelihood, Keera,” Ashkatar adds. “But there was no other course to take—fire stops the spread of the illness, this is virtually the only thing we do know.”
The group are on the main pathway into Okot now, which is a well-worn cart trail, with clumps of forest grass growing between its two deep ruts. They soon reach the central “square” of Okot (really a circle that the cart path makes around the village well, the only thing in the area that actually is square), to find it flooded with Bane of every description. Men, women, children, household and farm animals, all mill about in near-panic, the humans fixing their attention on the northern and southern sides of the square. Towering over the northern gathering ground is the cliff face into which the Lenthess-steyn caves are set; while the southern ground leads up to a smaller rock formation, one with a gaping hole between two mammoth boulders: the Den of Stone, where the Groba is now meeting. On the northern side, a group of counter-weighted wooden cages on powerful ropes slowly and constantly rise to and descend from the various Lenthess openings, in which the bright light of torches can be seen, and out of which drifts their smoke. Against the walls of the Lenthess caves are cast the eerie shadows of Bane healers: men with long, thin beards and ankle-length robes, women in less impressive but more practical shirts and pantaloons, their hair tied above their heads and covered with white kerchiefs. Long lines of anxious Bane wait to take their turn in the cages, trying to find what Keera seeks: news of whether their families are well or stricken, or if, indeed, they are there at all, or have already been burned in the mass pyres near the Cat’s Paw.
When they have reached the rock-and-mortar walls that enclose the village well, the foragers note that there are Bane soldiers everywhere, blending in because they wear no armor. Their agitation at this moment of supreme crisis is admirably controlled, given their relative inexperience. Uncertainty as to just how to manage the situation is clear in their faces, but they keep moving, getting tribe members into lines and keeping them there, doling water from the well to healers who fetch it, and guarding the Den of Stone from the villagers’ desperate demands for information.
For the ordinarily calm forest community, it is an unprecedented sight; and even Veloc and Heldo-Bah feel their nerves begin to fray, in the face of a scene that looks to burst into mayhem at any moment.
“All right, Keera,” Ashkatar says. “I’ll have two of my men take you up—” He points the whip toward the wooden cages. “Pallin—yes, you! And the other, as well. Get over here, I’ve a job for you!”
Seeing whom the voice emanates from, the two young pallins dash toward the Bane commander. Their faces are covered in charcoal and ash, and it is clear that they must have been tending the fire up the pathway, but that this work is being done in rotations to avoid any one man being exposed for too long to the flames and the heat. Both of the pallins, having removed their scale armor, go about their business with their short-swords belted around their soft, quilted gambesons, which ordinarily shield their flesh from the weight and the rivets of their armored hauberks.
“Yes, Yantek?” the first pallin says, as they reach Ashkatar.
“This woman may have family in the Lenthess—stay with her until she finds them or you’re certain they’re not within. Understood?”
The two young warriors hesitate, examining Keera, then Veloc and Heldo-Bah, and paying close attention to the sacks on the backs of the men. The second pallin pauses, leaning toward his commander.
“But, Yantek—” he struggles to say. “She is only a forager …”
Ashkatar drops Keera’s bag from his shoulder, takes his arm from her and snatches his whip from his side; then, in another swift motion, he cracks it once, then wraps it around the youth’s neck four or five times. In an instant, he pulls the choking soldier’s face close to his own.
“She is an important member of the Bane tribe, boy, and she is a mother and a wife! If I had to snap your neck right now to save hers, I wouldn’t hesitate—understand? Never show the pride of the Tall to me, soldier, or the river will know your guts. Now—escort her!”
Ashkatar pulls the whip from the pallin’s neck in a hard jerk that leaves burning lines in his flesh, which the soldier grabs at to make sure his head is still secure. The first pallin, having taken Ashkatar’s point (which would have been difficult to miss), approaches Keera gently.
“Come, lady,” he says nervously, “we will not leave you until we know what has become of your family …”
“Correct,” Ashkatar says, nodding. “Take her up at once; the Groba wishes to speak to her as soon as she is finished with this mournful work.”
“Yes, Yantek,” the second pallin manages to wheeze out, his throat nearly as distressed as his neck. “We will guard her with our—”
“Go!” shouts the commander, and the soldiers hurry to catch Keera, who is already on her way to the wooden cages. She glances back to her brother and Heldo-Bah once, and Veloc puts his hands tightly together and raises them to her, urging strength and hope; while Heldo-Bah vents his worries for Keera’s family on the two hurrying soldiers.
“You heard your commander, bitch’s turd!” he shouts, chasing after the soldiers and kicking them to a run. “And if I hear one word of complaint from my friend, be sure that the yantek will be the next to know of it!” Heldo-Bah turns to Ashkatar, allowing a small grin to enter his face.
“Something amuses you, Heldo-Bah?” Ashkatar rumbles.
“Your disposition’s improved no more than my manners,” Heldo-Bah says merrily. “I thought perhaps you’d actually grown into this ‘yantek’ foolery; and so, yes, it both amuses and, I must admit, pleases me to know that you can still tend to business as in the old days.”
“Hmm!” Ashkatar noises. “Your disposition wouldn’t please th
e Moon, either, Heldo-Bah, if you spent your time defending the tribe, rather than foraging and raising hell with the Tall!” The whip cracks again, causing a passing dog to leap and yelp in fright. Then the Bane yantek turns and, retrieving Keera’s foraging sack, marches to the Den of Stone. “And you people!” he calls out to the small but agitated crowd that is still calling for the Groba to emerge and tell whatever they may know. The mob turns as one, when its members hear the whip come alive again. “What in damnation is the matter with you? What don’t you understand? It’s plague, damn it all! Do you think the Groba and the Priestess are sorcerers, who can drive it from us with magic? Get to your homes, damn you, and let them do their work in peace!” Ordering a few more soldiers to break up the crowd, Ashkatar takes up position just in front of the stone pathway that leads up to the entrance to the Den of Stone, and cracks the whip once more. “I mean it!” he calls to the crowd. “I’d enjoy flaying someone alive, right now—so don’t any of you try my patience any further!”
Between Ashkatar’s bellowing and the soldiers’ less than gentle prodding with long staffs, the crowd breaks up; and as the last of them disappear, an aging, grey-bearded Bane in a simple broadcloth robe appears at the top of the stone pathway that leads into the cave. His bald pate gleams with sweat in the light that seeps through the trees above, and glows orange as it reflects the softer illumination of a torch that is mounted just beside the mouth of the cave. Searching Okot’s crowded square, this frail, proud character finally shouts, “Yantek Ashkatar!”
Ashkatar spins about expectantly. “Yes, Elder?”
“The Groba wishes to know if the foraging party of Keera the tracker has returned yet!”
“Two of them are here, Father—Keera herself is delayed.”
“Then send the others in to us.” At which the wizened old man turns back toward the entrance to the Den of Stone.
“The foragers, Elder?” Ashkatar calls. “Before I have an answer to my request?”
“Your answer will depend on what the foragers have to tell the Groba,” the Elder replies, annoyance clear in his voice, a voice that is far stronger than his overall appearance would lead one to expect. “And so, send the first two of them in to us!” Before waiting for another question, the old man shuffles back into the cave.