The Kin (30 page)

Noises, a shout, men shouting, the shouts of the hunters as they leaped for the kill.

Ko twisted round to where he could look towards the river, but could see nothing. The shouts were coming from down in the dry riverbed, out of sight. So the prey must have come from Nar's side, and he, Ko, hadn't seen anything, nothing at all … Surely his buck would break out now and come racing towards him …

No.

He turned back and stared longingly across the plain. Perhaps even now …

Far as the horizon nothing stirred on the baked and dreary emptiness, lit clear by the sideways light of the late afternoon sun.

But yes, there!

Much closer than he'd been looking, a movement.

Why hadn't he seen it before?

Because it was almost the same colour as the tawny plain. The lion-coloured plain that hid the lions. But for the movement of their shadows he mightn't have seen them at all as they padded towards the river. Three lionesses and two cubs. Very dangerous.

A lioness with cubs to feed is afraid of nothing.

Ko turned towards the river, cupped his hands round his mouth and yelled the whooping, carrying call that meant
Danger!
Everyone used and understood it, both the Moonhawks and the others from the old Kins, who had words, and the Porcupines who didn't.

Nobody heard. The hunters were making too much noise. A few small deer were scrambling up the far bank and dashing off across the plain.

He called again, even louder. He saw the lions pause in their stride. Their heads turned towards him. His heart thumped. Lions could climb trees. He checked for a branch he could scramble along, too far for a lion to follow him. But the lions padded on towards the river.

Ko waited for a lull in the shouting, and yelled again,
Danger!

This time somebody heard him. A man appeared from the riverbed. He spotted the lions at once, now nearer to him than Ko's tree. He turned and shouted down to the men in the riverbed. Several men scrambled up the far bank, three of them with the bodies of deer across their shoulders. They ran off, staggering under the weight, while the others followed as guards, looking over their shoulders as they ran.

That couldn't be everyone. No. As the leading two lions disappeared into the riverbed, more men climbed to the top of the further bank. They all had stones cradled on one arm, with the other one free for throwing. They lined up, ready to drive the lions back if they tried to attack.

A moment later two men came in sight to Ko's left, further up the river, and started running towards him. He recognized Suth and Kern, and sighed with relief. They were coming to see that he was safe. Though he might dream of finding his own way back to the lair, alone in the dangerous night, he didn't want to have to do it for real.

But the lioness and her cubs hadn't yet followed the other two down into the riverbed. She too saw the men running towards the tree and at once turned and came after them at a rapid lope. The cubs followed.

Ko yelled and pointed. The men glanced over their shoulders and sprinted for the tree. The lioness quickened her pace, gaining on them all the time.

Ko scrambled round the tree to where he had wedged his rock, heaved it up and rested it at chest level on a sloping branch. Perhaps he could still do something. His heart hammered. This wasn't a dream.

Suth was faster than Kern. He reached the great boulder on which the tree stood and scrambled up it, then turned to help Kern.

Almost at the rock, Kern glanced back. As he did so, his foot caught, he stumbled and fell. He was up in an instant, but the lioness was close behind him. Suth shouted and flung his digging stick. Its sharpened end hit her on the right shoulder, below the neck, a good strong blow that made her flinch and pause a moment. Kern reached the boulder, but hadn't time to climb it. Desperate, he put his back to it and raised his digging stick to strike one last blow.

Hopeless. This was a lioness with cubs to feed.

Ko fought for a kneehold on the sloping branch. Two-handed he heaved the rock above his head. He couldn't possibly throw it far enough. But perhaps, just as the lion sprang …

He tensed, scrabbling for a better hold, and slipped.

He grabbed for the branch, and the rock tumbled from his grasp. He watched it fall, straight down, useless.

It just missed Suth, slammed into the very rim of the boulder, and shot forward, catching the lioness full in the face as she sprang. Kern at the same moment flung himself sideways. The lioness buffeted into the boulder and half fell, but staggered up, shaking her head, with blood streaming from her nose and mouth.

Suth yelled and helped Kern up the face of the boulder, and together they scrambled up the tree.

The lioness was still staggering round, trying to shake the blood off her face and out of her eyes, but after a little while she recovered enough to pause and study the three people in the tree. She and her cubs were scrawny with hunger. Every rib showed clear. If she didn't find food soon they would all three die.

Ko, Suth and Kern watched her deciding whether to try to climb up after them. At last she turned and padded draggingly towards the river, followed by her cubs.

They waited until the lions vanished into the riverbed, then climbed down and ran off in the opposite direction before making their way back to the outcrop that was their lair. They took wide circuits round any cover that might hide other lions. By the time the outcrop came in sight their shadows stretched tens and tens of paces in front of them.

“Ko,” said Suth, when they were almost there, “tonight I tell the Kin your deed. I, Suth, praise.”

“I, Kern, also praise,” said Kern. “I praise and thank.”

These were words that Ko had longed to hear, ever since he could remember, especially from Suth. So why did they make him feel uncomfortable when they were now at last spoken? He didn't understand.

“The rock was big,” said Kern wonderingly. “It was high in the tree. How is this?”

Suth looked at Ko.

“I … I do not know,” said Ko. “I found it there.”

He knew that Suth had long ago guessed about his dreams, but Ko wasn't going to say anything about them in front of Kern.

“This was lucky, lucky,” said Kern.

Suth was still looking at Ko.

“Lucky is good, Ko,” he said.

Oldtale

THE DAUGHTERS OF DAT

Dat was of the Kin of Parrot. He had two daughters, children only, named Gata and Falu. Their mother, Pahi, was bitten by a red scorpion. At Ragala Flat she was bitten. There she died
.

Dat said to his daughters, “I have no mate. Who now pounds grass seed for me? Who mixes gum-root paste? This is woman stuff.”

Falu said, “We, your daughters, do these things, my father
.”

Gata said nothing
.

Dat said, “One day men come, from Fat Pig and from Weaver. They say to you, ‘Gata, Falu, we choose you for our mates. Do you choose us?' What then do you say to them?”

Falu said, “We say, Go to our father, Dat. Ask him.”

Dat said, “Is this a promise, my daughters?”

Falu said, “It is a promise, my father.”

Gata said nothing
.

So Gata and Falu did woman stuff for their father
,
Dat. They pounded his grass seed and mixed his gum-root paste. He was happy
.

Tens of moons passed, and more tens, and Gata was almost a woman. Parrot camped at Stinkwater, and Snake was there also. Gata saw a young man, tall and strong. His name was Nal. She said to Falu, “Soon I am a woman. I choose Nal for my mate.”

Falu said, “This is not good. You are Parrot, my sister. Nal is Snake.”

Gata said, “These are words. I, Gata, choose Nal for my mate. I choose no other man.”

Now Gata was a woman. She was very beautiful. Men came to her, from Fat Pig and from Weaver, and said, “Gata, we choose you for our mate. Choose one of us. Whom do you choose?”

Gata said, “My father, Dat, chooses for me. Ask him.”

Gata whispered in her father's ear, “Choose none of these men, my father. I, Gata, ask
.”

Dat said to the men, “I choose none of you.”

He was happy to do this. He did not wish Gata to leave him
.

A new man came from Weaver. His name was Tov. He was small, but clever, and laughter was in his mouth
.

Falu saw him. She was a child still, half grown, but her heart sang for him. Tov saw only Gata. He came and came to Dat, saying, “Give me Gata for my mate.”

Dat said to his daughters, “This man comes and comes. What do I say to him?”

Gata said, “Say this to him, my father: First you give me a gift.”

Dat said, “What gift do I ask?”

Gata said, “Say this to him, my father: Bring me a tooth of the snake Fododo, the Father of Snakes. Bring me the poison tooth.”

Dat said, “This is a hard thing I ask. Tov cannot do it.”

Gata said, “You are right, my father. Tov cannot do it.”

She laughed, and Dat laughed with her
.

Tov came yet again to Dat. Falu saw him and followed him. She lay in long grasses and listened to their talk
.

Tov said, “Give me Gata for my mate.”

Dat said, “First you give me a gift. You give me a tooth of the snake Fododo, the Father of Snakes. You give me the poison tooth.”

Tov laughed. He said, “You ask a hard thing. Yet for Gata I do it.”

CHAPTER TWO

There was one good thing about the drought—fuel was easy to find. Most of the trees and bushes were dead. Dried by the roasting sun, their branches snapped off easily, and then burst into flame at the first spark.

That night the people sat round the two fires they had built on the top of the outcrop where they were lairing. The moon was full, and the Kin were mostly Moonhawk, so they feasted. Not that it was much of a feast. They had three starved deer, a few small animals they'd hunted or trapped, some lizards and a couple of snakes, some wizened roots, a few handfuls of grubs, and sourgrass, whose leaves were good to chew but choked you if you tried to swallow them. That was all, but they'd eaten scraps of things during the day, and now everybody got three or four mouthfuls, so they finished hungry but not starving.

Kin—Ko and the Moonhawks, and the remnants of the other Kins who had straggled through to the New Good Places and joined them—sat round one fire, and the Porcupines round the other. This wasn't unfriendliness. They were on good terms, and used to each other. Before the drought they had usually moved about separately, but when they'd met up they'd greeted each other with pleasure. Now, as the last water in the river failed, they were following it down together.

It was the only thing they could do. Already they had come almost as far as any of them had ever been, because to the north lay an enormous marsh, blocking their way. Ko had heard the adults worrying what they'd do when they reached it, but at least there ought to be water there.

The reason why Kin and the Porcupines sat separately in the evenings was very simple. The Porcupines didn't have language. They touched and stroked each other much more than Kin did, and they used a lot of different sounds—warnings and commands and greetings and so on—but they couldn't talk about anything the way Kin did. They couldn't gossip or argue, or praise or boast, or tell and listen to the Old-tales, which was how Kin liked to spend their evenings.

Tor was the only Porcupine who stayed with the Moonhawks, because he was Moonhawk too. When Suth and Noli and Tinu had first rescued him, and Tinu had mended his broken arm, they had given him his name and let him join the Kin, and now he was Noli's mate. Ko didn't remember the rescue. As far as he was concerned Tor had always been there, gentle and kindly, with his strange-shaped arm, because it had mended crooked, though it was perfectly strong.

They finished eating what little there was, but went on passing the meatless bones around to suck and gnaw in turn. While they were doing this the men stood up and made their boasts about what they had done in the hunt.

Suth was the youngest of the men, so he came last. He stood and raised a hand for silence, and looked at Tun, who nodded. Though he was youngest, everyone listened when Suth spoke. They thought well of him. When he was still a boy he had fought and killed a leopard, single-handed. That was a great deed, the deed of a hero. He had the scars of the leopard's claws on his left shoulder, and a small one on his cheek. The other men had man-scars on both cheeks, cut there by the leader of their Kin at the special feast when they had been accepted as men. Suth had only the scar that the leopard had made. It was enough.

“I, Suth, speak praise,” he began. “I praise the boy Ko. We hunted. Ko kept watch in a tree. Three lions came …”

Slowly he told the story—how he and Kern had run from the lioness, and how she had almost caught Kern, but Ko, up in the tree, had thrown a great rock (Suth didn't say “dropped”—he said “threw”) and had managed to stun the lioness for long enough to let the two men climb the tree and escape.

Suth stopped and sat down. Ko realized that everyone was looking at him, sitting with the women and children on the other side of the fire, opposite the men. Noli, beside him, nudged him gently with her elbow. He stood up and raised his arm and looked at Tun.

Tun nodded gravely. Silence fell. Ko tried to speak, to make his boast. This was a moment he'd dreamed of again and again, though boys didn't normally get to boast in front of all the adults like this—they boasted among themselves all the time, of course. In Ko's dreams the words came smoothly, proudly. Not now. Whatever Suth said, he knew that he hadn't been the hero of his dreams, clever and brave, saving the day. Yes, he'd maybe saved Kern's life, but it had just been a stupid accident.