The Kin (57 page)

Farj cried in a strong voice, the voice of a leader, “This is good. I, Farj, make the count for you. I count our deaths, our wounds, our blows. We are Snake. A snake coiled itself about me. It laid its head on my shoulder. This was a sign to you. I am chosen.”

The men said in their hearts, Fat Pig killed his son. He does not forget this. He seeks vengeance
.

The women said in their hearts, One son lives still. He does not want his death. He seeks peace
.

Both said, “We saw this sign. Let Farj make the count for us.”

Siku stood before her Kin. Black Antelope went behind her. No one saw him. He breathed upon Siku
.

Siku cried in a clear voice, the voice of a senior woman, “This is good. I, Siku, make the count for you. I count our deaths, our wounds, our blows. We are Fat Pig. A pig stood in our way. It lay down. I climbed on its back. It led you to Yellowspring. This was a sign to you. I am chosen.”

The men said in their hearts, She is a child. She makes the count. We do not like her counting. We say, “A child did it. It is nothing. Let us count again. Let a man count.”

The women said in their hearts, Her father is killed. Her mother died. She knows war, what it does
.

Both said, “We saw this sign. Let Siku make the count for us.”

Farj said, “This is good. Now we make the count. We play the game of pebbles.”

Farj and Siku went to the spring. He was tall, he was proud, he was a leader. She was small, she was a child, a girl child. They put their hands in the water. They took out pebbles, black and yellow and grey. They emptied their gourds. They went to their Kins. They counted deaths, wounds and blows. For each death they put a black pebble into their gourd. For each wound a yellow pebble. For each blow a grey pebble
.

They went to the spring. They knelt down. The Kins stood around them. No one moved. No one breathed. They watched Farj and Siku
.

Farj said, “I play black. I play five deaths
.”

He put his hand in his gourd. He took out five black pebbles. He laid them down in a line
.

Siku put her hand in her gourd. She took out black pebbles. She laid them down beside Farj's line. They were five
.

Siku said, “I play yellow. I play ten and three more wounds.”

She put her hand in her gourd. She took out ten and three more yellow pebbles. She laid them down in a line
.

Farj put his hand in his gourd. He took out yellow pebbles. He laid them down beside Siku's line. They were ten and three more
.

Farj said, “We play grey. We play blows. We play by one and by one.”

Each put their hand in their gourd. By one and by one they laid down grey pebbles. Ten and ten and two more each laid down
.

Farj said, “My gourd is empty.”

Siku put her hand in her gourd. She took out a grey pebble. She laid it down
.

She said, “My gourd is empty.”

They rose. They faced each other. Farj was tall, he was proud, he was leader. Siku was small, a child, a girl child
.

Farj said, “Siku, strike me a blow.”

Siku struck Farj a blow. With a child's strength she struck him. He fell down. He howled. He said, “Oh, oh! I am struck with a strong fist! Oh, oh!”

All saw. All heard. None spoke. They said in their hearts, What is this? What does it mean?

Farj lay on the ground, a big man, a leader. He howled
.

Siku stood over him, a girl, a child. She shook her fist in the air, she triumphed
.

A boy laughed. All heard him. They said in their hearts, This is laughter stuff. They all laughed. Their laughter was of this sort:

See, it is the time of rains. The air is thick, it is heavy. Men snarl, they pick fights. Women shrill, they say fierce words to their mates. Children whine, they are bad. Now, see, the rain comes, it goes. The air is light, the earth makes sweet smells. All are happy. All are kind
.

Of such sort was the laughter of the two Kins
.

Farj rose. He went to the spring. He took out a grey pebble. He laid it down. The lines were equal
.

He said, “All is paid. Now we go to Odutu, Odutu below the Mountain. We unswear the War Oath.”

CHAPTER TEN

Mana was foraging. Not far off, Bodu and Nar were standing under a stinkfruit tree, waiting for Tinu to crawl far enough along a branch to knock the fruit down with her fishing stick. Ripe stinkfruit were very soft. If you tried to knock them down by throwing stones at them they would either burst when you hit them, or when they fell and hit the ground. So the trick was for somebody to climb the tree and knock them down one at a time, while someone else waited below to catch them.

The trick was trickier still this time, because there was a hornets' nest dangling among the ripest fruit, with the hornets coming and going. That was why Tinu was using her fishing stick, so that she didn't get too near. Several of them had kept their fishing sticks because they were useful for a lot of other things besides fishing.

Mana wasn't helping because she didn't much like stinkfruit. Some people thought they were delicious, though even they needed to hold their noses to eat them. She didn't much like hornets either, so she'd gone off to look for something else. The four of them had already been at the end of the line of foragers when Bodu had spotted the tree a little distance away, so Mana was now even further from the rest of the Kin.

Out on her own like this she went warily, with all her senses keyed, and paused to peer and sniff and listen each time she moved on. She heard the coming sounds when they were still far off—someone running, running desperately, with rasping gasps for air and unsteady tread. In a moment she knew the runner would pass close by.

Stranger comes. Hide. See him. Then choose. Does he see you?

That was a rule Mana had been taught from the moment she'd first known words. She ducked down and waited. The runner came into sight.

It was a demon woman.

Mana glimpsed only her head and shoulders over some bushes before she disappeared behind a larger clump. Beyond these was open ground. Mana waited for her to reappear. She could still hear the heavy, exhausted breathing, but the woman seemed to have stopped.

Now she moved on, and burst into sight, a tall, slim, dark woman whose unbalanced, floundering pace showed how near she was to the end of her strength. She crossed the open ground and disappeared.

Mana stayed where she was. She already knew what would happen next. How could she help? Run to the other foragers, beg them to come? There wasn't time—from the way the woman was running her pursuers must be close on her heels. Besides, most of the men were away, hunting. And anyway they wouldn't come—she'd heard the adults deciding some time ago that what happened between the marshmen and the demon people was no concern of the Kin.

All Mana could do was creep in under the bush and lie there with grief in her heart, and wait.

Wait
.

The voice of Moonhawk seemed to whisper in her mind.

Almost at once she heard the cries of hunters hot on the trail, spread a little apart so as not to miss the signs if their prey turned aside, calling to tell each other as they ran that they had seen some fresh trace. And then their easy breathing, and the pad of their footsteps.

Now she saw them, four marshmen, the nearest going past in full view not ten paces from her, the others beyond, moving with the swift lope of huntsmen, smooth and confident, sure that their chase would soon be over. The second man from Mana was the one actually following the trail. Like the woman, he too appeared for a moment over the lower bushes and vanished behind the larger ones, but he came out far sooner into the open ground beyond. All four ran out of sight.

What had the woman done there? Why had she stopped, with the trackers so close? Rested? No. When a runner rests, gasping for air, the breathing slows, deepens. But hers had quickened, if anything. She had been doing something, doing it in a desperate hurry …

Looking for a hiding place, then? Perhaps, but …

Anyway, Mana must get back to the others, so that they would know where she was. She crawled out, and with sickness in her mouth and in her spirit started off for the stinkfruit tree. Nar and Bidu were there, no longer looking up at Tinu but watching the chase. A man's voice shouted in the distance, behind her and to her left. Others joined in, savage and triumphant. The hunt was over. The woman would not have screamed or pleaded for life—she was a demon woman … strange that she had run at all … They'd found her hiding somewhere … A demon woman, lurking and hiding …?

Mana remembered the demon women in the lairs, facing the Kin when they had come, expecting to be killed, but too proud to flinch or show fear.

But the whisper in her mind just now hadn't been memory.
Wait
, Moonhawk had said, telling her something as she lay there.

Mana turned and hurried back to where she'd lain, and then carefully on, picking the hardest ground, to the further side of the bushes. Here the soil was sandy, and she could see two sets of tracks, the woman's and the hunter's close beside them. Mana looked to her right. Both sets of tracks vanished at a patch of gravel and resumed. On the sand, neither set faltered. The woman must have stopped actually on the gravel.

Quickly Mana scanned the area for a way of reaching the place without leaving tracks of her own, but couldn't see one. The hunters would be coming back along the trail soon, looking for what they'd missed, so she ran to the gravel, bent, and lifted aside a low, sweeping branch of the largest bush.

The demon baby was lying there, awake, but not making a sound. He was a boy, about one moon old. He stared at Mana with large, vague eyes as she lifted him out and carried him back the way she'd come.

Nar and Bidu were watching her now from under the stinkfruit tree, but she didn't head for them at once. To confuse the marshmen, if she could, she set off toward another patch of bushes, deliberately leaving a few footprints, just as the woman had done. Once there she planned to try to make it look as if she was hiding among the bushes, and then go back to the foragers, leaving no trail. As she was nearing the bushes she heard Nar's warning shout.

“Mana! Marshmen come!”

She turned and ran for the tree. To her left she could see two of the marshmen loping back along the trail. They'd already reached the open area just before the gravel patch. They must have seen her, but the baby was hidden behind her body. In a moment they'd find her footprints and realize. Clutching the baby against her she raced on.

She was already gasping with the effort when she heard the marshmen's shout. Nar and Bodu were on the far side of the tree now, yelling to the foragers to come and help. She took a quick glance to her left, and saw the marshmen racing to cut her off. She was nearer than they were, but they were faster, and closing all the time.

She reached the tree only a few paces ahead of them. She'd run there without thought, because that was where her friends were, but it was only Nar and Bodu, and Tinu up in the tree, against the angry marshmen. Nar was hurrying back to help. Bodu was waving frantically to the foragers. For a moment Mana thought of trying to throw the baby up to Tinu, but it was useless. She knew she hadn't the strength.

She turned and faced the marshmen. It was the only thing to do.

There were two of them. The other two were out of sight. They raised their fishing sticks. Mana could see and smell the fresh blood smearing the vicious points. “No!” she shouted. “You do not kill him! This is bad, bad!”

They glanced at each other and half lowered their fishing sticks, but Mana could see they were still furiously angry. She didn't recognize them, but she was sure they knew she was Kin, and they wouldn't want to hurt her if they could help it, because the Kin were allies and friends, and if it hadn't been for the Kin the marshpeople would still be hiding in the marshes and living in dread of the demon men.

One of them made the
Give
sound—ordering, not asking—and took a pace towards her, reaching out for the baby as he came. She was backing away when something fell from the tree, right at the man's feet, and burst.

He stopped in his tracks, startled. There was an instant's pause, and a cloud of furious hornets rose roaring round him.

Mana turned and ran. The sudden terror of the hornets gave her a burst of strength. Bodu and Nar were already racing ahead. Someone was running beside her. Tinu. She must have dropped from the tree the moment she'd dislodged the hornets' nest.

But Mana was gasping again. Her knees were starting to buckle. She couldn't see—there was blackness in her head. Her foot caught on something. She stumbled, started to fall, still clutching the baby, trying to twist herself so that she didn't fall on top of him …

A hard arm caught her and held her up. A man's voice grunted. Tor. Then he grunted again on a different note, startled. He'd seen the demon baby.

“What happens?” said several voices together. Mana was unable to speak. Her lungs were dragging the air raspingly in through her throat, her heart was slamming against her ribcage, her head was full of the red darkness. She heard Nar starting to explain what he'd seen—not everything, but enough …

By the time she had recovered enough to look around more than half the foragers had joined the group and the rest were still gathering. Each newcomer needed to be told the story afresh. Mana stood in the middle of them with her head bowed over the baby, not daring to look at their faces. She could tell from the voices that no one was glad of what she'd done. What she heard was doubt, disapproval, anxiety, bewilderment.

There were throbbing patches of pain in her left shoulder and thigh. Hornet stings. She hadn't felt them at the time.