The Kin (53 page)

She waited, scarcely breathing. She could no longer see the ridge, but instead she had a clear view down to the marsh and along the flank of the promontory to her right. Below her the line of shadow had almost reached the shore. The slope was still in darkness, but the sky above was brilliant with stars and bright with the nearing moon. Before long, against that brightness, Mana saw the line of demon men creep past, spread out along the hill. The nearest one was not ten paces from her.

Just after he'd gone by she gave the reed a tug. The cairn unbalanced and rattled noisily down the slab.

The demon man halted, turned, stared. Mana held her breath. Would he guess what had happened? Or would he think that he had somehow dislodged the cairn as he passed it? Yova's yell of
Danger!
gave him no time to make up his mind.

Shrieks and screams rose from the lair, the handful of people there shouting at the top of their voices, sounding like three times their number, and continuing to make the hillside echo with their panic as they raced down the hill.

The line of demon men charged after them, their war cries doubling the din.

Mana raised her head to watch. The moonlight had reached the edge of the reeds. She could see the heads of people milling around by the path entrance, their bodies still in darkness—not many, but making it seem as if others had already passed through, and these were the last few struggling to get in, screaming with panic as they waited for their turn. The final one vanished into the reeds while the attackers were still charging down the hill.

This was the next critical moment. The leading demon men didn't hesitate but plunged in through the now obvious entrance. Would they all follow? Would anyone stay on guard? No. They all gathered at the place and crowded through.

Now Mana crawled from the slot and, crouching in the shadow of the boulder, looked left and right along the hillside. No demon men watched there, either. Cautiously she raised her head into the moonlight and checked the ridge. That too was empty. She turned, cupped her hands round her mouth and screamed the moonhawk call at the top of her voice, twice and twice,
yeek-yeek
…
yeek-yeek
.

She waited and repeated the signal.

They are all gone in. None keeps watch
.

Unsure if her voice would carry that far against the wind she climbed onto the boulder, raised her arms over her head and waved them up and down, until she at last saw people slipping out from the reeds to the left and right of the entrance.

They waved to her to show that they had seen her, and all but one disappeared along the path where the demon men had gone to start dragging the reedstems off the series of fresh traps that had been prepared for this moment. The last one, Tinu, came racing up the hill with a bundle over her shoulder. Mana ran to meet her, took the bundle—dry reeds—and arranged them into a loose pile on a jutting rock. Tinu opened the fire log she was carrying and tipped the contents onto it.

There was no need for her to blow on the embers. The wind did that, setting them glowing at once. Mana fed them with loose wisps of leaves, which curled, crackled and burst into flame. Within instants the whole pile was ablaze.

Out on the island, and along the curving path to left and right, watchers were waiting for the signal. They too had dry reeds piled and fire logs ready. Now it was Mana and Tinu's turn to stand with pounding hearts and stare and wait …

There! An orange spark!

And there! And there! Soon the reedbeds were alight at each place, and the sparks became brightnesses as the flames roared up, and fresh sparks shone and grew between them as the people out there raced along the path with twists of flaming reeds in their hands to start fresh fires, working all the time from the outer ends towards the safety of the island, in case an eddy of wind should cause the flames to swirl backwards and set light to the reeds behind them.

But the wind held steady and drove the flames before it, spreading them to left and right, joining the separate blazes together, so that soon the two watchers on the hillside saw two curving lines of flame stretching towards each other while the smoke, bright silver in the moonlight, streamed in front of them as they roared towards the shore, building a wall of flame to trap the demon men inside it and drive them back the way they had come.

By the time the two lines joined into one they were moving as fast as a man could run, certainly faster than a group of men who had been following what had seemed one simple path and then suddenly found themselves lost in a tangle of paths that led only into blind alleys in the middle of the reedbed—and then, when they realized their danger and turned to race back to the safety of the shore, found that path blocked by places where the footing suddenly gave way beneath them, leaving them floundering in thick engulfing mud, which they must either struggle through or fight their way round through the mass of reeds.

And all the time the smoke was streaming over them, and nearer and nearer they could hear the growl and crackle of the flames …

Tinu was jumping up and down in her excitement, clapping her hands, exulting not just in watching the destruction of these terrible enemies, but (perhaps even more) at the glory of seeing her huge trap working, just as she'd planned it. But Mana felt no such thrill. Mainly she felt a huge relief that things had gone so well, so luckily, and that the hideous danger they been living under would soon be over.

But at the same time, with another part of her, she felt the horror of how it had needed to be done. That men, people, should die like this. Even at this distance, she could now hear the bellow of the flames, and mixed into them, faintly (or was that only her imagination?) screams. There'd been no help for it. It had had to be done. But it was wrong, wrong.

She could no longer bear to watch or listen. She put her hands over her ears, turned away and faced up the slope. By now the moon was clear of the ridge, no longer silver, but browny orange behind the veil of smoke. Into the round of its disk flew a bird.

One of the moonhawks again, of course. But this time it didn't fly on. Full in the face of the moon it poised, hovering with wings spread wide. It seemed to be watching the scene below, just as Mana and Tinu had been doing. Perhaps it wasn't one of the nesting pair after all. Perhaps it was Moonhawk herself, come to see that all went well for her Kin.

A prayer formed itself in Mana's mind. Silently she breathed it between her lips.

Moonhawk, I praise
.

Moonhawk, I thank
.

Let it be finished, Moonhawk
.

Soon, soon
.

With a tilt of its wings the bird swung away and was gone. Comforted, Mana turned back to the marsh.

The smoke was denser around them now as the flames marched closer. It streamed up the hill, hiding the shoreline. Shouts came suddenly from it, the voices of men in rage—the five of the Kin who had gone along the path to open the traps and had then returned to wait in ambush by the entrance, ready to strike down any survivors as they struggled through into the open. The path was only wide enough for one of the demon men at a time, as they were forced out by the closing flames, groping, blinded with smoke.

Tinu gave a cry, pointed, snatched up a stone and raced to her right. Someone was running up the slope. Two others were chasing him, with digging sticks held ready to strike. Without thinking, Mana seized a stone and ran to cut the first man off, to delay him for just an instant.

All four shapes—Tinu, the two men of the Kin, and their quarry—disappeared in a swirl of smoke. It cleared, and she saw Tinu's throwing arm lash forward as the man rushed past her. He staggered, missed his footing, half fell. Before he could recover his pursuers were on him, beating him down with savage strokes.

Mana dropped her stone and turned away. Only later did she think how strange it was. Suppose she had been the first to see the man escaping, she would have done exactly as Tinu had done, and rushed to try and delay him so that the men could catch and kill him. But seeing it happen, as she had, it filled her with horror.

That was the last of the demon men to try to escape from the reeds.

When the tips of the curving line of flame met the shore they died away, and the curve itself closed inward until the two ends met, and the fire died. Now there was nothing left for it to burn, but ribbons of smoke continued to stream for a while out of the charred mess beyond. Then they too dwindled and died and the night grew clear.

The group on shore, Mana, Tinu and the five men, climbed halfway up the hill and waited, though they didn't expect the others to try to find their way out of the marsh until it was daylight, and the embers of the great fire were cool enough to walk on, and they could see their way for sure.

Some kept watch, but Mana herself lay down and dropped into a wonderful, deep and dreamless sleep, and didn't wake until it was broad day. The others were already coming and going from the island or searching along the shore and around where the paths had been.

She could see the bodies of demon men lying by the entrance. Beyond them stretched a great black space, from which the wind picked up sudden flurries of ash flakes and floated them up the hillside.

Mana didn't go down to join her friends but waited until she saw the whole party gather together and come trooping purposefully up the hill. Tun led the way. In his hands he cradled a dark round thing. Kern's head. Mana guessed that the first thing they had done, as soon as it was light, was search for the leader's body, and found the head lying beside it.

Net had a wound in his side, where a blind thrust from one of the demon men had caught him as they fought at the entrance. Moru had painful burns from a freak explosion of flame, backward into the wind. Several of the others had lesser burns, and many had eyes still weeping from the smoke.

Chogi had already done what she could for these hurts. Now, before they fed or rested, Tun led them along the hill and up the headland to the cairn. They unpiled the rocks from Kern's body. Tun settled his head into place. They rebuilt the cairn.

The women lined up to the east of it, with the rising sun behind them. The men sat facing them, and beat out the rhythm with their hands, groaning in slow deep notes through closed lips. The women stamped to the time of the beat and set up the shrill interlacing wail that would loose Kern's spirit from the place where he had died and send it on its way to the Good Place on the Mountain, the Mountain above Odutu, where the First Ones lived.

Mana watched and listened, feeling all round her the others' feeling of Tightness, of release at a dreadful act being at last undone and made well. She shared the feeling. She was glad for Kern, glad for herself and the Kin. But there were other spirits still bound to this hillside and the marsh below it. She could sense their presence also, the spirits of all the demon men who had been killed that night, and earlier. She could almost feel them around her, almost hear them wailing faintly in the sweet morning air.

When the dance was over they went quietly back along the hillside, but as they crossed the spur that brought them in sight of the eastern marsh, the leaders halted. The rest climbed up to see why they had stopped. Down on the shoreline a single figure was dancing wildly to and fro. Ridi. Her wild chant of triumph reached them on the wind, as she exulted in the vengeance that had fallen on her enemies.

Mana watched for a little while, thinking,
No, I am not like that
. She realized that Noli was standing beside her.

“Noli,” she whispered. “Help me. I have a trouble in my heart.”

Noli seemed to be in some kind of dream. The death dance was First One stuff. Maybe she had been some of the way with Kern on his journey. Now Mana saw the ordinary brightness come back into her eyes.

“Mana,” she murmured. “What is this trouble?”

“Noli … it is these others …” said Mana. “They are demon men … They are dead … spirits … Where do they … How …?”

Noli understood the stammered question. She shook her head, smiling.

“Mana, I do not know,” she said. “It is not our stuff. Soon we leave this place.”

“Noli, it is my stuff,” Mana insisted. “It is a trouble in my heart. What do I do?”

“Mana, I …” Noli began, shaking her head again.

She stopped, shuddered and clutched Mana by the shoulder. A dribble of froth appeared at the corner of her mouth. Mana put an arm round her, ready to stop her from falling, but it wasn't needed. The whisper of Moonhawk's voice was so soft that only Mana could hear it.

“Wait.”

Noli sighed, shook herself and looked around. She frowned at Mana, puzzled. “Moonhawk was here?” she asked. “She spoke?”

“Yes,” said Mana. “It was for me.”

The others were starting to move on. Noli nodded, shook herself again, and followed them. She didn't remember what had just happened, Mana realized, perhaps not even Mana asking her question.

That didn't matter. Mana knew what to do now. Wait.

Oldtale

THE PIG HUNT

The men of Snake came back from their hunting. They were tired. They were hungry. They brought no meat
.

They said, “Yesterday we saw many zebra. Today they are gone. We saw their tracks. All went together. We followed them far and far. We did not find them.”

The women mocked the men. They said, “You are foolish hunters. The zebra are more clever. Tonight you eat plant stuff only. Your strength is gone.”

The women laughed at the men. Their laughter was of this sort:

See, it is dusk. The starlings gather to their roost, the blue starlings. The sky is dark with their wings. They clamour with shrill voices. A lion roars. He is not heard. So loud are the voices of the starlings
.

Such was the laughter of the women at the men of Snake. The men were ashamed
.