Ta-se-ho shook his head after the third day. ‘I’ve never seen so many Ruk,’ he admitted. ‘Something has kicked their nest.’
The going was slow because of the heavy, sticky, ungainly buckets of honey, which the warriors carried on long yokes. A strong man could carry four buckets all day on a clear trail, but as soon as they left the main paths, the difficulty of negotiating the narrower capillaries of the Wild with yokes on their shoulders began to remind Nita Qwan of his days as a slave in the mountains east of Albinkirk.
By the time they reached their village they’d seen twenty giants, and they hadn’t lost a man, and Ota Qwan’s reputation as a leader had reached new heights. They had harvested almost fifty bark buckets of Wild honey, and they hadn’t lost one on the dangerous journey back.
Any sense of triumph was immediately overturned by the obvious sense of crisis that pervaded the village. Ruk had devastated a pair of villages at the eastern corner of the Sossag holdings. Only a few of the People had been killed – the Ruk enjoyed general devastation too much to focus on small prey – but the survivors became refugees at the edge of winter, and the trickle of new faces threatened to consume any surplus the Sossag had gathered after a spring spent at war.
The matrons met and talked, and summoned the Horned One, the old shaman who knew the lore of the land, and his apprentice, Gas-a-ho, passed the rumour that he had been asked about the Sacred Island.
‘What about it?’ Nita Qwan asked his wife.
She looked around as if others might be listening in on their conversation. ‘I shouldn’t know – I’m not a matron yet,’ she said, and patted her belly. ‘Although I expect you’ll see that status changed soon enough.’
‘Shouldn’t know isn’t the same as don’t know,’ he said.
She wriggled her toes. ‘To the east, just at the border of our hunting lands and those of the Huran, there is an island in the sea. On the island is a lake at the top of a mountain. In the centre of the lake is an island. It is sacred to all the peoples and creatures of the Wild.’
‘Sacred?’ he asked.
‘No one Power is allowed to hold it,’ she said, and would say no more.
The next day he asked Gas-a-ho while he and Ota Qwan mended nets, and the youth, puffed up with self-importance, said, ‘That is a matter for the shaman.’
They were repairing nets because the matrons had decided to send a fishing expedition out onto the lake to gather as many fish as they could. Their plan was to salt them against winter need. Another party of men would sweep the woods to the north and west for deer – and for early warning of Crannog People.
When the boy was gone, Ota Qwan finished a repair carefully, wrapping the bark thread again and again with practised ease. When he was done, he raised his eyes. ‘It’s Thorn,’ he said.
‘You can’t know that,’ Nita Qwan said with some annoyance. Ota Qwan’s endless sense of his own superiority was more than a little grating, despite his successes.
‘My wife’s mother told her, and she told me,’ Ota Qwan said. ‘Thorn has taken this place of power which I didn’t even know we had.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t expect the wilderness to be so small.’
‘What do we do?’ Nita Qwan asked. Thorn was more a name than a threat, but he understood that the sorcerer had been the Power behind their spring campaign. ‘He can’t force us to war in the winter – or can he?’
‘I’ve learned one thing in my years with the People,’ Ota Qwan said. ‘Let the matrons decide. You can shape the decision by influencing the information on which the matrons act, but after that you have to accept their word.’
‘And have you?’ Peter asked.
‘Have I what?’ Ota Qwan asked, biting off a length of bark twine.
‘Have you influenced the matron’s information?’ Peter asked. He wasn’t sure exactly why his brother annoyed him, but he was growing angry.
Ota Qwan spread his hands. ‘Don’t make me the bad guy. All hell is about to break loose on us, brother. There are giants out there, smashing villages. If they hit us we’ll spend the winter in the woods, and most of the children and old people will die. That’s not my opinion. That’s the way it is.’
‘So what do we do – talk to Thorn? Is this his doing?’ asked Peter.
Ota Qwan frowned. ‘The matrons think so. I don’t know what I think. ’
Nita Qwan smiled. ‘That’s a first.’
Ota Qwan shook his head. ‘I don’t want to quarrel, brother. The matrons think we should send for allies. Allies can lead to tangles.’
‘And the Huran?’ asked Nita Qwan.
‘The Southern Huran make war on the Northern. Nothing new there. Who knows who started it? The Southerners get trade goods from the Empire, and now the Northerners get trade goods from the Etruscans. They make war over beaver pelts and honey. The matrons say that this year the Etruscans haven’t come.’ He shrugged and sat back. ‘These are the sorts of things my family used to watch and understand. When I was another man – with another life. Why did I think life among the Sossag would be simple? It is life!’
The matrons debated for three days. It was the longest debate that any of them could remember, and the work of the village all but came to a stop. Rumours flew – that they would pick up their belongings and move until the giants were gone, that they would launch a great raid on the Huran for food and slaves, that they would send an embassy to Thorn . . .
In the end the senior matron, Blue Knife, the tallest woman in the village, called them to council.
‘Thorn has moved to the Sacred Island.’ She looked around with the calm dignity that characterised the matrons in all their dealings. Rumour said they fought like dogs when alone, but if there were any cracks in their unity they never showed to the rest of the People.
‘The Horned One, our shaman, has made his castings. He has confirmed it is Thorn on the Sacred Island, and that it is his workings that send the Crannog People into our lands.’ She looked around, and Peter felt as if her eyes came to rest on him. ‘We lack the strength to fight Thorn without allies,’ she said. ‘We have discussed sending to Tapio Haltija at N’gara, and we have discussed sending to Mogon and her people. It was Thorkhan, Mogon’s brother, who claimed these lands. But he died facing Thorn, and Thorn may well feel that he is now lord here.’
Again her eyes passed over the crowd. Again, Peter felt singled out.
‘We want this conflict to end. The warriors have been consulted. They say that every Ruk we kill does no hurt to Thorn, but will cost us ten men. They say Thorn can bring fire and death in the depths of winter when even men on snowshoes can do little to strike back. So had Tadaio made a decision for all the People: to ignore Thorn’s demands and go our own way. He thought we were strong enough. Perhaps we were – if Thorn had not chosen to become our neighbour. Now we must find another path. Tadaio is dead. We have lost two villages. So the matrons have decided to send an embassy to Thorn.’ She bowed to Ota Qwan. ‘We have chosen our brother Ota Qwan to lead that embassy.’
Ota Qwan rose and bowed. ‘I accept the task and the pipe of peace. I will attempt to bring Thorn to a happier disposition.’
Blue Knife frowned slightly. ‘Promise him anything he requires. Surrender anything but our bodies. Offer warriors in his wars.’
Ota Qwan was clearly displeased. ‘This is craven surrender!’
‘The matrons have seen the rise and fall of many Thorns. We lack the strength to face him. So we will lend him the least aid we can manage without incurring his wrath. We will offer songs to his pride. We will aid him.’