The Kin (47 page)

Still holding close to Suth, Mana listened to the talk. Every so often another fit of shuddering welled up inside her from the memory of what she'd seen.

“Are these men?” said Kern. “Are they people? Are they demons?”

“I say they are people,” said Var. “Their First One is a demon.”

“Mana found a man,” said Tun. “Four hunted him. We kill three. One runs. Now, does he bring others?”

“I say this,” said Chogi. “Noli is right. Moonhawk showed her. We were in the Old Good Places. Strangers came. They gave no warning. They killed men. They took women. These are like those.”

Mana heard mutters of anger at the memory. It was no wonder that the normally peaceful Kin had fought so fiercely.

“Those others had words,” said Kern. “Do these? This man—he runs. He finds others—other demon men. He says to them,
This happened
. How does he say this?”

“Kern, I do not know,” said Chogi. “I say they come.”

“Those other strangers were many, too many,” said Var. “We could not fight them. These four carried sharp sticks. They were not digging sticks. They were not fishing sticks. I say they were fighting sticks. These are fighters, they are people-killers. Soon many come. We cannot fight them.”

For once nobody laughed at Var for his gloomy forebodings. What he said was only too likely to be true. The four strangers hadn't been hunting the wounded man for vengeance, or for any reason that the Kin could understand. They had hunted him because they were killers. The skulls at their belts said that.

“Hear me,” said Tun decisively. “I say this. We do not stay here. This is a demon place.”

Nobody argued. With those dead men in and around the camp, how could it be anything else?

“We do not sleep in the marsh,” Tun went on. “There is sickness. We do not go north. These men come from there. It is dangerous, dangerous. We go to the other side of this hill, far and far. We walk on hard rock. Our feet are careful. We leave no trail.”

“Tun,” said Kern. “On that side the reeds are dry. They are dead. They have no fish.”

“Kern, you are right,” said Tun. “We make paths in those reeds. We hide our paths. Out beyond is water. We fish there. All the time we keep watch on the hill. These demon men come. Our watchers see them. We hide in the reeds. Perhaps they find our paths. We make the paths narrow. These men come by one and by one. We fight them by one and by one. We lie in wait. For them it is dangerous, dangerous. Perhaps they do not come in the reeds. They are afraid.

“Hear me again. This is difficult. It is dangerous. It is not good. But what other thing do we do? Other things are worse.”

They discussed the plan for a while. Nobody liked it, but as Tun had said, what else was there to do?

“I have a bad thought,” said Var. Again, nobody laughed at him. “The rains go. Soon is west wind time. These men stand on the hill. Does the wind blow away the haze? Do the men see our paths?”

“Suth, what is this?” whispered Mana, puzzled and anxious. She didn't clearly remember a time when the rainy season had been a regular thing. Rapidly Suth explained that after the rains had been over, a steady wind used to blow from the west. Var was suggesting that if that happened here, the demon men might be able to see far out across the marshes and work out where the Kin were hiding.

By the time she listened again, Kern—always much more cheerful than Var—was reminding them that soon after they'd arrived on the promontory he had explored far up its western side, and found very little by way of food.

“This man runs away,” he said. “He finds others. How long is this? One day, two? I do not know. He says,
Men and women are in that place. Come. We hunt them
. This is another day. They bring food. They come. They do not find us. They eat their food. They have none. They find no food here. Do they know fishing? I say they do not. They go away. We come out of the marshes. We fish. We keep watch. We do not hide all the time. This is better.”

The rest of them talked it over, sounding slightly more cheerful. Mana felt Suth pat her comfortingly on the shoulder.

“Mana, you fish at your fishing hole,” he said. “Is this good?”

She took his hand and squeezed it, but still she found herself imagining what it would be like to crouch at her fishing hole, still and tense, waiting for a fish to come sidling into the open, but all the time wondering if one of the demon men mightn't have slipped unnoticed past the lookouts and be creeping along the path behind her. Another fit of shuddering shook her.

Suth knelt and took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“You are afraid?” he asked gently.

“They are demons,” she muttered.

“Mana, you are Moonhawk,” he said. “We are brave. We are clever. We are strong. Moonhawk helps us. These men are not demons. They are people. They say in their hearts,
All are afraid of us. All run before us
. But Moonhawk are not afraid. We do not run. First we hide. We make plans. We wait. We choose good times. We beat these men, these people-killers. We, Moonhawk, do this. You do it, Mana. You help.”

She nodded and pulled herself together, squaring her shoulders and standing erect. Tun was right. It was going to be difficult and dangerous, but there was nothing else to do. And Suth was right too—Moonhawk could do it. But not if they let themselves be scared stupid.

Now the mothers came sombrely up from the marsh with their small ones. Ko had told them the news. As they climbed the hill they must have been having much the same discussions as Mana had just heard. They stood and listened in silence while Tun explained his plan. His words meant nothing to the stranger woman, of course. She looked around, spotted Mana, and came and made questioning noises to her.

To save trying to explain with grunts and signs Mana led her up the hill and across to a point from which they could look down onto the camp. The woman stared, gave a gasp of astonishment, thrust her child into Mana's arms and dashed off, not slackening her pace until she reached the spot. As soon as she'd regained her breath she knelt by the two bodies that were lying face down and heaved them over onto their backs. Then she rose and stretched both arms to the sky and gave a great shout, like the scream of a furious beast.

She bent again and dragged the body by the fire up to the other two and laid it beside them, then started to dance around them, alone on the rocky hillside, clapping her hands and singing at the top of her voice.

The others heard the glad and savage chant and came to see what it could mean. They watched the dance in silence for a while.

“This is good,” said Tun. “The demons do not come near her. They are afraid. Now Tinu fills the fire log.”

Tinu scampered down the hill and did as he suggested. Mana wondered if perhaps she wasn't in any case as scared of demons as the rest of them. When she returned the stranger woman came with her, no longer the cowering, desperate creature she had been till now, but walking erect and smiling.

They climbed to the ridge, on a slant that took them further to the north. Even the smallest children were careful to step where they would leave no footprints. Yova and Moru worked their way along the top to keep lookout, while the others slanted on down the other side of the promontory towards the western shore.

Below them lay another arm of the great reedbed they had come to know so well, but here the reeds grew not in good water, but out of an immense muddbank. That had dried out, and as a result large patches had died completely, leaving a confusion of dead stems. Though the rains had come and gone, even where the reeds still lived the first green shoots were only just beginning to spear up through the brown, dry tangle.

It was midday by the time they reached the shoreline. Normally they would have rested through the heat, but most of the adults started at once on the slow and difficult task of cutting a hidden path into the reeds. Suth, though, said, “Come, Ko. Come, Mana. We find lookout places,” and led them up the hill.

Mana might not have spotted the feather if she hadn't been watching where she put her feet. She bent and eased it out from a cranny between two rocks—a single plume, of a dull, bluish dark grey. When she twisted it at an angle to the sunlight the blueness seemed to rise to the surface and shimmer to and fro over the sombre undercolour. She knew only one bird that had feathers like that.

“Suth, see what I find!” she said, and showed it to him.

He stopped and took it from her, making it do its trick with the sunlight.

“Moonhawk,” he said. “Mana, you find a good sign.”

Smiling, he handed it back and they climbed on.

From the top of the ridge Mana gazed back. Yes, she thought, Var had been right. The marsh haze was their friend. If an enemy stood where she was standing, he would see the reedbed clearly for the first few tens of paces, and the people who were working there now, but beyond that everything would be vague brown distances. Not even a broad trail would show up. But if the west wind came and brought clear air, then it would be far harder for the Kin to hide themselves.

They found Yova and Moru tucked down among the boulders on either side of the ridge, each with a clear view north along her flank of the promontory.

“This is good,” said Suth. “Now Mana and Ko keep lookout. Yova and Moru go down. They cut reeds. I look for a thing.”

So Ko took over from Moru on the eastern side of the ridge while Mana stayed on the western side. She settled and began to study the landscape to the north. The slope wasn't regular, but full of dips and rises. She looked for places where any attackers would need to cross some kind of ridge or spur, and she would have her best chances of spotting them. Below her Suth moved to and fro, searching the hillside. Mana had no idea what he wanted until he heaved up a flat slab of rock and staggered with it up the hill. He was gasping with the effort by the time he reached her.

He knelt and propped the slab upright, just above the lookout. Now Mana saw that all its surface was covered with glittery little specks, which made it much paler than any of the other rocks around.

When he'd recovered his breath he said, “One watches by the path into the reeds. He sees this rock. He says in his heart,
No enemy comes.”

He laid the rock flat.

“The watcher does not see this rock,” he said. “He says in his heart,
It is gone. An enemy comes
. He tells others. They hide. Is this good?”

Mana remembered how fast the demon men had covered the ground in their first attack. There wouldn't be time for the watchers to run down to the shore and warn the others. Even to shout, or to stand and wave, might be dangerous. But … Her heart tightened with renewed dread.

“But the watchers, Suth?” she whispered. “Where do they go?”

He nodded confidently.

“I find a place,” he said.

Again he searched the slope, pausing often to gaze north and crouching low whenever he crossed open ground. Mana returned to her watch, but as she scanned the hillside her mind kept telling her,
This is danger. All the time it is danger. All the time we move like Suth. We watch. We run. We hide. We are afraid
.

Suth didn't find what he wanted in front of her or below her, so he moved out of sight behind her, and after a short while called softly to her to come. She did so, moving as he had moved, and found him squatting beside a large slab a little way down the hill, doing something with a few smaller rocks at its lower end. As she knelt beside him he lifted one of them away and showed her a narrow opening beneath the slab.

“I am too big,” he said. “Can you go under this rock? Take my digging stick. Look for scorpions.”

Cautiously Mana wormed her head and shoulders into the slot and prodded around with the digging stick. When her eyes were used to the dimness, she made out that further in the space widened enough for her to wriggle through and squirm round until she could see out into daylight.

“This is good,” said Suth. “See. Take this.”

He passed one rock in to Mana and placed the rest across the opening, leaving a narrow gap, then removed them and made her practise reaching out and dragging them into position, before fitting the one he'd given her into the final gap. Then he fetched Ko and tested whether there was room for him to fit in beside Mana. There was, just, but he had to work his way in feet first and then almost wrench his chest through the slot. When Suth was satisfied he let them come out.

“Suth,” said Ko. “This place is small. Does Yova go in there? Does Moru?”

“Ko, they do not,” Suth answered. “Few can keep lookout. Tinu and Shuja—they are small. You, Ko, and Mana. That is all. Now, Ko, you go back to your place. I bring Tinu and Shuja. I show them. Mana, wait.”

So she crouched beside him on the roasting hillside until Ko was out of sight. Then he looked her in the eyes and said, “Mana, you do this? You are not afraid?”

She swallowed. The slot beneath the rock looked like the mouth of a burrow. Mana had many times dug small animals out of their burrows, listening eagerly to their terrified squeakings as she came nearer to the nest. Now it would be her and Ko in the burrow. She knew that Suth must have guessed what she was thinking, or he wouldn't have asked. She looked down at her hand and realized that she was still grasping the moonhawk feather.

“Yes, Suth, I do this,” she answered.

She watched him stand and use the sole of his foot to blur away any betraying scrape marks that the rocks might have left as they were dragged to and fro. Then she crept back to her lookout while he made his way down to the marsh.

For the first time ever that Mana could remember they made no camp that night. There was no cheerful fire. The workers had cut an open circle at the far end of the path they had made, and floored it with mud and built their fire out there, banking it around with more mud and leaving two small openings above and below, so that there would still be embers hot enough in the morning to start a fresh fire. Like that it was invisible from the shore, and there was no danger of any spark setting light to the great reedbed on which their safety depended.