Tsuga's Children Read online

  Mori’s bow fell from his hand, his thick left forearm transfixed by Runa’s arrow. Without looking at his arm, he stared up at the ledges. “But she is dead!” he said.

  Along the stone platform and above the Cave of Forgetfulness on the ledges a company of archers was assembling. “For Ahneeah and the Tree!” shouted a young man with a weathered face. “Hunters here!”

  Others shouted that cry, but Mori’s deep shout was the loudest. “Kill them! Guards of the Chigai! Kill them all! Loose the wolves!”

  But now the half-wolves were no longer half-wolves, they were wolves whose leader had surrendered, whose human masters were busy elsewhere. When released, each turned tail and made for the darkness, leaving this human turmoil far behind, as is the way of wolves.

  Mori’s guards formed around him, big men with long bows and deadly axes, more of them than there were able men of the hunters. But the light of the fire and the torches was dimming now, and people ran here and there in confusion, screams of fear and panic everywhere. The dim air was full of the hiss of arrows and the clashing of steel. A tall guard leaned his whole length forward and hit the ground like a felled tree.

  Arn had been watching the two children upon the stone, and when Mori had taken Runa’s arrow in his arm he saw Bren push Arel off the stone, then roll over to fall on top of her on the grass below. When the guards formed in front of Mori and began to advance upon the ledges, Arn ran down the stones, ducking and jumping. The councillors had joined the fighting, but he had to get to his two friends. A dead guard, two arrows in his chest, lay in front of him. Arn took the large knife from the guard’s belt as he passed. An arrow slit the shoulder of his parka, giving him a sharp sting. Others hummed and hissed overhead, meeting earth or flesh with the same thuck, thuck. He ran by the thighs of frantic men as if he ran past trees in a forest, until he found the stone altar and hid behind it with Bren and Arel. With the guard’s knife he cut the thongs at their wrists.

  “My father!” Bren said desperately. Arn held him, saying, “Wait, Bren!”

  Mori stood on the grass with his broadax in his right hand, his wounded left arm at his side. With the ax he broke the arrow off on both sides of his arm. “Kill those archers!” he screamed to his guards. A guard stood at his side, and to him he said, “Kill the four children! Find them and kill them!” Then he looked back at the thousand people of the Chigai on the meadow. “Forward!” he shouted to them. “Come forward and fight for Mori and the Chigai!”

  “Come,” Am said. The guard approached the altar, ax in hand. The three children ran through the screaming and the arrows, over bodies slippery with blood. To the guard they must have looked like a scampering of rabbits as they disappeared into the darkness. But he knew where the other child was tied to a sentry stone, so he went to kill her first.

  Jen was tied to the boar stone, thongs around her chest and legs pressing her to the cold stone. The stench of carrion from the decomposing boar’s head fell upon her like a thick pouring of the odor of death. It was upon this stone that the fresh head should have been placed according to the ritual of the Chigai, but there had been no fresh boar’s head, so the old one remained. The people who had stood near her had all moved away now, and she was alone in the dim light, hearing the cries and the clash of battle at the ledges. She tried to get free, but the thongs had been wet, and as they dried they tightened. If she couldn’t get loose somehow, the tightening thongs would compress her chest and kill her. She felt the gradual, inevitable clutch of them until it seemed she would be pressed into the stone itself, and become stone.

  The silhouette of the guard grew as he approached her, walking fast and deliberately toward her. He grew taller and taller as he came on, his ax swinging in his hand.

  “Help me!” she cried, though she had no hope.

  The guard stopped and looked down at her. “I’ll take her head back to Mori,” he said out loud. “That ought to please him.” He raised his ax to make a slanting cut, so as not to dull his edge on the stone, but a low sound came from behind him, a sound of distant thunder, unlike the battle sounds. At first he shrugged it off, but it grew deeper and more rhythmical and closer. It approached him, that deep pounding of the earth. He turned, but it was too late. A great black hump-shouldered thing hit him at the thighs and lifted him up, his ax flying. When he came down, one leg was useless, torn to the bone. He tried for his knife, but the thunder had turned, and the last he saw in the faint light was a gleaming yellow tusk like a saber that entered his side and split him into darkness.

  The boar nosed the corpse of the guard, then turned to Jen. Battle thoughts roiled his mind, but then it began to settle, and the signals became fainter. He was a boar; he was wild and did not belong here. His instincts all cried out to him to run. But fading, fading, barely caught by Jen, was an acknowledgement of some service done, the faintest echo of gratitude and payment. Then he turned and ran toward the wilderness, his thunder fading across the meadow.

  But the thongs tightened remorselessly, and soon Jen fainted, her head falling forward to her chest.

  As soon as the three children knew they had escaped the guard, Bren said, “Jen! She’s tied to the sentry stone with the boar’s head!” They were at the edge of the fighting now. Bren and Arel both had knives they had taken from the dead, the knives almost the size of swords to them. “Come!” Bren said, and they ran back across the meadow, past groups of the people of the Chigai who didn’t seem to know what to do. Some milled about like cattle, others merely sat and moaned. None did anything to stop the children as they ran on.

  First they came to the wrong sentry stone, almost missing it in the darkness. Was the boar stone to the right or the left? “No good to stand here,” Bren said. They ran to the right, on a guess, the only thing they could do, and found the boar stone at last. Arn tripped over the dead guard and was lucky not to cut himself on his knife. He went to cut Jen free, but Bren stopped him.

  “Wait!” Bren commanded. “You’ll cut her! I’ll do it!” He felt carefully around Jen’s ankles until he found where the thong was away from her flesh, then cut it once. Then it was a matter of unwinding the rest. “I saw them do it with one thong,” Bren said as they unwound it. “It was wet.”

  Jen fell into their arms, but they warmed her with Bren’s decorated parka, and held her until she breathed long breaths again and came awake.

  The four friends were together once more, but they had little hope that the battle had gone to the hunters. There were too many of the Chigai, and of the big guards with their broadaxes. Over at the ledges the sounds of fighting had died down, although from across the meadow were still the shouts and clashes of battle. Someone had heaped more wood on the council fire, which flamed up again in light that illuminated the Great Tree. They decided to approach the fire, crouching and hiding as best they could, to see what had happened to Bren’s father.

  Creeping, and running crouched down in the odd shadows, they approached the place where all the bodies lay. In the fire’s bright light a strange dance of violence was happening. They came close enough, hiding now behind the body of a bulky Chigai guard, to see two big men fighting with axes. Around the men in a circle were five Chigai guards, watching the fight. Andaru held his left hand to his wounded side, while Mori did the same with his wounded left arm. The axes rang and sparked when they met, the two men advancing to swing, turning and staggering back to avoid the deadly edges. They were both tired, both painted with blood that seeped down through the shaggy cattle skins they wore around their waists. Mori smiled and spoke as he motioned his guards back. “You are the only one of your thin people who could give me a fight, and if I want I’ll split you down the center!”

  Andaru, his eyes jet-black and intent beneath his black brows, raised his ax in answer. His face was pale from the hurt of his wound, but his big arm rippled along its length as it easily held the heavy ax, waiting for Mori’s next charge.

  “Wait,” Mori said. “You are the last, now. All your p
eople are dead or gone. You may still live and be the leader of my guards.”

  Andaru held his ax still in the air. “No,” he said. “I must die for what I have done. Come at me!”

  Mori smiled again and advanced. In the clash Andaru dropped his ax and went to his knees, looking at his right arm where it was slashed through the muscle to the bone.

  “Now,” Mori said, “here is another for my voracious gods!” and raised his ax high over his head.

  But Bren was not through. He had found a thick Chigai bow and a spent arrow. He stood, the bow taller than he, trying to pull it. It was much too heavy a pull for him; his arms shook and trembled with the effort. But with one harsh sob he managed to pull it half of a full yard and sent the arrow on a high arc. The children watched its flight as it rose, black against the fire, orange against the blackness, to its full height and its unwavering descent upon the sweat-shining body of Mori, where it sank half its length between his neck and shoulder.

  He gave a long cry as he dropped his ax and turned to see where the arrow had come from, then saw Bren, who stood with the long bow, and Arel, Arn and Jen, whose pale young faces shone in the firelight. “The children!” he cried in despair. “Gods of the Chigai, are you defeated by children?” and fell dead.

  Three of the guards bent to Mori, while the other two came after the children. They got halfway before a whisk of angry arrows swept them down. On the ledges figures in brown buckskin appeared, bows drawn.

  “Surrender!” they called to the three guards around Mori’s body. The confused guards, who thought their side triumphant, tried to stand and draw their bows, but all three went down with several arrows in their bodies.

  “Jen and Arel, Arn and Bren!” came a woman’s voice, and the children ran to the ledges to find Runa and the young man with the weathered face, several of the councillors and others. Bren had gone to his father’s side, where the big man lay beside the fire.

  Arel’s arms were around her mother. “But we thought they had killed you!” Arel cried.

  “There will be a reckoning at daybreak,” Runa said. “But no; we led them into the darkness, where our hunters’ eyes knew better how to see.”

  19. Judgements and Farewells

  The council fire was kept fueled with wood throughout the night as the badly wounded, Chigai as well as those in brown buckskin, were brought in and placed near its warmth. Aguma, Runa and others tended them. Most of the people rolled up in their sleeping-skins and slept, exhausted by the fighting. Bren sat unsleeping near his father, who woke toward morning and called out for Tsuga.

  In the cold light of pre-dawn the thin old man made his way down the ledges and stood, leaning on his long bow, over Andaru.

  “Forgive me if you can, Tsuga. If not, I can’t blame you,” Andaru said.

  “Your son has forgiven you,” Tsuga said.

  Andaru could hardly look at Bren. “I am proud and ashamed,” he said. “I was bitter toward life and chose the powers of death; I do not deserve such a son.”

  “You did not serve death that obediently,” Tsuga said. “You saved old Ganonoot from a soldier’s ax—an act of mercy, no matter how little you thought it at the time.”

  “Tell Runa,” Andaru said, his voice fading. “Tell Runa that I didn’t know Mori would have them kill Amu, or sacrifice her daughter. I was told other things.”

  “Amu and Arel are alive,” Tsuga said.

  “Thank Ahneeah, then,” Andaru said, and died.

  Though Bren’s face was wet, he made no sound. He looked once at the dead face of his father, the face so much like his own with its dark, overshadowing brows, then sat until full dawn staring into the moving embers of the fire.

  At dawn the people gathered at the council fire. The dead were moved to a place on the meadow within sight of the Tree and the Cave of Forgetfulness, where they would be buried.

  Most of the people of the Chigai had left during the night, in their confusion and panic, but a hundred or more had stayed. From this group a delegation had come to Aguma and Tsuga. Their leader, an old white-haired man, was the last of the former councillors, the rest having been imprisoned and killed by Mori and his guards.

  “It will be hard for our people to go back to freedom,” he said. “But we have been sad and lethargic under Mori’s rule, frightened by the death-fear of the animals. We have yearned for Ahneeah’s justice.”

  “We are all one people,” Tsuga said. “May we remember that we do not own the world or its creatures.” He looked over at the four children, Bren and Arel still wearing their sacrificial clothing. “This night may well have had a sadder ending—though it is sad enough for many.

  “Now we will bury our dead, and may their spirits enter the Cave of Forgetfulness.”

  Later in the day, after the burial of the dead and a meal for the living, the people gathered again at the council fire. It was time to tell of the battle, and of the deeds of those who were no longer there.

  Twenty men and women of the people had fallen. There would be empty hogans in the winter camp, orphans, old people with two families, but the people would take care of this.

  The stories were told. The old councillor whose face had long ago been clawed into deep red furrows and his right arm taken by a bear swore that three times in the battle, when Chigai came at his armless side and would have killed him, a great black bear had suddenly appeared out of the darkness and with a swipe of a paw killed his attacker and saved his life. “I swear it!” he said. “Their axes were no match for him!”

  Jen found Tsuga’s eyes upon her when the old councillor said that. Tsuga nodded, with almost a trace of a smile—or at least a brighter gleam in his somber old eyes.

  Bren said, “It was Jen who set the wild leaders free—the wolf, the boar and the bear.”

  Runa told of the fight in the pine forest, and how Am had shot the half-wolf before he could leap upon her, and how Amu had not died; he rested now in his hogan at the winter camp.

  The councillor in goat skins and the councillor of the reasonable gestures sat quietly and said nothing. The people knew they had both run away during the fighting. Some of those who had been most in favor of the Chigai, however, had changed at the sight of the living children on the altar, and the news of Amu’s being shot in the back, and Mori’s arrogance. And aside from the guards, few of the people of the Chigai had fought for Mori.

  All knew how Bren had taken a man’s heavy bow and shot the arrow that ended Mori’s life. No longer would they laugh at him for wanting to grow up too soon and be a great hunter.

  Aguma said, “Now we will carry our wounded back to the winter camp, where there is food, shelter and medicine for them. We will remember this night as the Battle at the Tree, and when all of the story is known, it will be told at the evening fires.”

  As the people prepared to go to the winter camp, Tsuga came to Jen and Am. “I know how much you want to return to your home, but first go to the winter camp. Arn’s wound, though it may seem slight, must be treated with medicines, and there you may rest and prepare for your journey.”

  “Are you coming with us?” Jen asked.

  “I must go to the village of the Chigai,” Tsuga said. “Jen and Arn, I have not helped you, and I cannot help you. All I can give you is knowledge, but of that you have already gained much. I can tell you to begin your journey when you have rested, that you must go alone, as you came, and that you may come upon companions who may help you.” He placed his old hands on their heads. “Now go with your grateful friends, and rest for your journey.”

  Carrying their wounded on stretchers of saplings and skins, the people began the long walk back to the winter camp. They rested that night in the forest and arrived the next afternoon. The four children went immediately to Amu, who lay propped up on a bough bed in his hogan. Runa hadn’t stopped to rest in the night, so she was already there.

  Amu put his hand on Bren’s shoulder. “I have heard nearly everything,” he said. “I am sorry for my bro
ther Andaru, and proud of his son.” Arel put her head in his lap. “And my daughter, who went with Arn into danger when I thought she was going to safety in the west!” He looked at Jen. “And Jen, who hears strange thoughts, and acts upon them.”

  He and Arn compared their wounds. The cut on Arn’s shoulder, though shallow, was two inches long—a scar he would bear for the rest of his life. Amu’s wounds, healing now, were raised dark welts on his back and chest, each a slashed circle.

  For three days Jen and Arn rested, repaired their clothing and spent their time with their friends. Arn’s wound was treated twice a day with medicine. On the second day he and Arel walked upriver to the crossing and retrieved their packs, sleeping-skins, Arn’s bow and quiver, and their knives, finding the slightly rusty knives just where the patrol leader had made them throw them down. Arn had been afraid that Gort’s body might be there by the ashes of the fire, and was relieved to find no sign of him. He still felt badly about how he hurt Gort with his knife, even though he’d had to do it.

  He was grateful to Arel for having saved his life that morning. He said, “It wasn’t told at the council fire, Arel, but I know how you saved my life, and I’ll never forget it.”

  On the way back Arel took his hand as they walked along the riverbank. “Warm Arn,” she said. “I’ll never forget you.”

  He looked down at her pale face, her narrow shoulders that seemed so weak, yet were strong.

  The morning of the fourth day was clear and cold; it was time to leave. More and more, thoughts of their mother and father, who would think them dead, came to both Jen and Arn. They saw the sorrowing faces, the cabin cold without wood or food.

  The people were sad when they said they had to go. There were offers of gifts, much too many for them to carry. They told Runa and Aguma what Tsuga had said to them, that they must go alone but might meet help along the way. The thought of the bat cave and the dank black passages through the mountain made them cold, but the thoughts of home were stronger.