Noman (3 page)

There was nothing she could say. All she wanted to do now was to get away without crying in front of him.

"You say you love me. Well, I don't want your kind of love!"

She kept her head averted and waved one hand to say, Yes, I understand; no more. She left him there, forcing herself not to run, feeling a stinging in her eyes.

Outside the command tent the sudden brightness of the sunlight dazzled her. She shielded her eyes with one hand and faced the ground. As she did so, the ground turned dark. Frightened, she looked up and saw the same darkness everywhere, as if night had descended. The tents lining the street were black masses, past which walked gray people, casting black shadows. Beyond the great camp the hills were gray, beneath a leaden sky. All color had been drained from the world.

She closed her eyes and leaned against a tent pole, breathing rapidly.

I'm losing control of the colors. I'm going mad.

When she opened her eyes again the world had returned to its proper hues. Morning Star gave herself a shake and walked away rapidly across the camp. When she was sure she was far enough away not to be seen, she let the tears come.

"This can't go on," she told herself.

***

Once Morning Star had left, the Wildman's mood changed. His anger faded, and he found himself consumed with restlessness. He stamped up and down the shaded length of the command tent, and kicked away the pile of cushions on which he had been sitting, and trod with one bare foot on the little heap of nutshells, and shouted out loud at the stab of pain.

Then he strode away down the main street towards the river.

As he walked, buried doubts began to surface. All round him was the great army he had called into being. Not just the fighting men: the women, the children, the cart oxen and the milk cows, the huts and the wagons, the cats and the dogs and the rats, an entire seething city sprung out of nowhere. For what? He had dreamed of becoming a warlord like Noman, the only living man to come face-to-face with the All and Only. But the god he had believed in was dead. The Nomana were dispersed. And he was left alone, powerful but purposeless, a warlord without a war. Snakey urged him to march on Radiance, but there was no army in Radiance. The axers had melted away after the disappearance of their priest-king. Radiance was given over to bandits and looters. There was no glory to be won there; only the messy business of imposing order and policing the streets. The Wildman was a bandit, not a policeman.

Snakey said, Let's go! Let's move! But where?

On the high bank above the river, the Wildman came to a stop and looked down at the scene below. A group of men were painting black-and-yellow stripes over newly shaved heads. More recruits for Snakey's Tigers.

He watched the upraised faces as the paint transformed the young men into some other kind of creature, something pitiless and frightening. The stripes created a powerful bond. The Tigers were the finest fighters in his army. But were they his, or Snakey's?

Snakey loves me.

Suppose Snakey were to make a challenge to his leadership. Would the bands loyal to him be strong enough to defeat the Tigers?

He shook his head angrily. This was the work of Morning Star. She had infected his mind with doubt. But he was proud of the Tigers. He had always looked on them as his surest line of defense.

Now, watching the new recruits swagger in their striking new markings, he saw the Tigers for the first time as an army within his army, and he knew that their power must not be allowed to grow any stronger. Morning Star was wrong about Snakey, he was sure of that. Snakey would never turn on him. But there might rise up other chiefs within the Tigers with ambitions that were harder to control.

What should he do?

The answer lay before him. It was the shaved heads and the painted stripes that made the Tigers. Scrub off the paint. Let the hair grow back. No more private army. He, the Wildman, united all spikers under his leadership. That alone must be the source of their pride and their strength.

The decision made, he felt a wave of new resolve flow through him. For weeks—he could admit it now—he had been becalmed, like a sailing ship at sea when the wind has died. Nothing had interested him. Nothing had given him pleasure. Even now he had no idea where he should go, or what he should do with his great army. But he had an immediate challenge before him, one that he was sure would meet resistance, and the Wildman liked opposition.

"No," said Snakey.

"I'm the chief, Snakey." The Wildman stood before him, his eyes glittering. "I give the order. You have to obey."

"It's a bad order, Chick. Nobody obeys a bad order."

"Then you answer to me."

Snakey held his painted head high with defiance. On either side the chiefs of the bands looked on in utter silence. All understood that suddenly, out of nowhere, a battle for supremacy had exploded into the open.

"Our stripes are our pride," said Snakey. "You don't take our pride."

"There's only one chief."

"You're the chief. When did I say different?"

"Then, you obey."

"Not this time, Chick."

Morning Star, standing unnoticed at the back, could see from Snakey's colors that he had come to the meeting ready to fight. Even now he was working himself up for the conflict. His colors pulsed a deep fierce red, and he rose up and down on the balls of his feet, tensing every muscle in his body, for action. He was a bigger man than the Wildman, and hardened by long years of bandit fighting; but he had no chance. The Wildman had been trained as a Noble Warrior.

"You mean to fight me, Snakey?"

"Man-to-man. No tricks."

"Any way you want."

"Call it."

"Now."

So quickly it had begun. Neither man moved for a moment. They stood some five paces apart, watching each other, sensing each other's intentions. Morning Star, looking from one to the other, realized that the Wildman still did not believe that this was a fight to the death. He was not afraid enough, and so not angry enough.

Snakey turned and walked away. His back was to the Wildman, presenting an easy target. The Wildman made no move to attack.

"You breaking?"

"No break," replied Snakey. "The fight's on."

He walked out into the blazing brightness of the street, and down the bronzed earth road to the far end, where he came to a stand. The more public the encounter, the more pride was at stake. On the street, you fought to the end. No mercy, no surrender.

The Wildman followed more slowly. He made his stand facing Snakey. A hundred paces between them, and their shadows sharp on the dirt.

"You don't want to do this, Snakey."

"I'm doing it, Chick."

Spikers came crowding from all sides to line the long street, the Tigers massing on the south side, armed and ready. When the Wildman saw this, he understood that everything that was happening had been planned. But still he could not believe that Snakey wanted to kill him.

"Don't do this, Wildman," shouted Morning Star.

"You started it," replied the Wildman. "Now I'm going to finish it."

Morning Star knew what would happen now. She didn't want to see it, but couldn't leave. So she stood still and silent in the sun, like everyone else in the ever-growing crowd, and waited for the storm to break.

The Wildman was the first to move. He set off at a slow deliberate pace down the street towards Snakey. His lean golden arms swung by his sides, his silver bracelets jangling and glinting in the sunlight. He carried no weapons. His eyes shone.

"Chuck-chuck-chicken," he murmured as he walked. "Here comes the Wildman."

Snakey drew his spike and moved it from hand to hand. He could throw with his left as well as his right. One spike, one throw. Then it would be bare hands.

The Wildman kept on walking, twenty paces away now, closing in. Snakey crouched, bouncing on his long wiry legs, still passing his spike from hand to hand.

"No tricks, Chick," he said.

"Just you and me, Snakey."

On he came. No way of knowing what strike he was planning. The way he was walking he looked as if he had in mind to walk on by.

"Heya!" he called softly. "Do you lo-ove me?"

Snakey sprang. With one bound, he halved the distance between them, and as he sprang, he hurled his spike. Not at the Wildman, but up, spinning over his head, forcing him to look up—and as he looked up, Snakey struck, hands in a double fist, punch powering deep into the Wildman's belly. And the Wildman was down.

The spike fell to the ground, impaled itself in the dirt, and Snakey seized it. The Wildman lay buckled on the road, winded, struggling for breath, seeing only the patch of earth before his eyes. But onto that patch of earth fell the shadow of the spike as it descended, and with a violent convulsion of his body he twisted aside, and the spike smashed into the ground. Snakey had struck with so much force that he couldn't pull the spike out again. The Wildman rolled and looked up, saw Snakey black against the glare of the sky, and knew the blow had been intended to kill.

So Star was right.

The certainty released him. No more doubt. Now it was kill or be killed.

"Hey-a-aa!"

With a ripple of pure force he was up on his feet and one hand was jabbing, jabbing, nothing too serious, just to keep his opponent on his back foot. Then two swift steps in close to a full-body hold, each now holding the other, and Snakey squeezing him, aiming to crack his ribs in his strong arms. But the Wildman had him where he wanted him, and his hands felt for his black-and-yellow striped neck.

Once he had his neck he had his life. This was what he knew how to do, no tricks, man-to-man. There in the street for all to see, in the burning mid-afternoon sun, he gripped and gripped and felt Snakey's arms go limp round him, and a savage exultation flooded his senses. From somewhere far away he heard Morning Star's voice calling, "No, Wildman! No!" but the joy in his heart answered,
Yes, Wildman! Yes!
and he squeezed the life from the one who had tried to kill him, his challenger, his enemy, his childhood friend.

Such a silence at the end. Nothing moving now. With difficulty he cracked open his hands and the thing dropped to the ground, and the silence covered it. No joy now. Only exhaustion, and something deeper than exhaustion. The Wildman sank to his knees. There was Snakey staring up at him, only he didn't see him, because he was dead.

And I might as well be dead too, thought the Wildman as he slid into the silence.

It was dark, and Morning Star was standing by his side, illuminated by the soft light of a candle.

"Night already?"

"Almost morning."

"I've slept long."

"You emptied yourself," she said. "You had to sleep."

"What did I do?"

"You took a life."

He remembered then. Snakey loved him. Snakey tried to kill him.

"Seems you were right."

"Wish I hadn't been."

Her voice was different. She sounded as if something had broken in her.

"Had to do it, Star."

She was silent for a moment. He looked up at her and smiled. He liked to see her familiar face. He was used to having her watch him. But she was not watching him now. Her eyes were gazing into the shadows.

"I'm going to go away," she said.

That was what had changed. She had stopped needing him. The Wildman had never known how much she had needed him until it stopped.

"Don't go."

She shook her head, very slightly. The decision was made. Inside herself, she had already left.

"You're the spirit of the spikers, Star. You're the little mother. Can't do it without you."

"You don't need me, Wildman. You don't need anyone."

"Don't go today. Today's not a good day."

"Like you always say," she said, "people do what they have to do."

She rose to her feet.

"I only stayed this long to say good-bye."

Through the opening of the tent the Wildman saw his friend and self-appointed bodyguard, Pico, asleep on a rug. Beyond him the Caspian called Sky, who was only ever ridden by Morning Star or himself.

"You'll take Sky?"

"No. I'll take nothing."

That was the Nomana way: to possess nothing, to build no lasting home. To love no one person above all others.

A great ache opened up in the Wildman. He wanted to say to her that the bond between them, between himself and her and Seeker, was all they had. He wanted to tell her that he missed the old days. He wanted to tell her that he hadn't meant to kill Snakey, and didn't want to be the leader of an army, and no longer knew where to lead them. But he said none of it. Partly it was pride. But also he knew it would make no difference. People did what they had to do.

"Take care on the road, Star. Dangerous times."

She stooped down and kissed his cheek; a kiss at last. She had wanted to kiss him for so long, but now that she did, what had once seemed so big had become little. Only a pressure of the lips.

"Till we meet again, Wildman."

M
ORNING
S
TAR LEFT THE SPIKER CAMP BEFORE THE SUN
rose, while the new day was still cooled by the night. She had no direction to go; but she walked fast, simply wanting to be gone.

As she walked, her mind was full of what she was leaving, and of the momentous fact that she was leaving. For so many months she had allowed herself to be filled by her passion for the Wildman, and now, as quickly as it had come, it had gone. She felt as if she had woken from a dream. Now she could admit to herself that she had been unhappy for all that time. She had no place in the spiker army. She was not their little mother. She had stayed in the camp only to be close to the Wildman. That closeness had been necessary to her, but it had not made her happy. Most days he had not even noticed her existence. Over the months she had shrunk in size, it seemed to her, until she had reached the point of invisibility, or of not existing at all. That was why she had had to go. To exist once more.

That, and the killing. It had shocked her deeply. In those terrible last moments, she had looked at the Wildman and seen on his face and in his colors, in the pulsing reds shivering into orange, a terrible ecstasy of killing joy.