The Standing Dead

Bravely, Fern described to them the aftermath.

'How did my son die?' asked one old woman.

Fern left out the full horror of Cloud's fate, but told her he had died protecting the youths of both tribes.

She looked around her tearfully. 'Always he thought more of others than of himself.' Some of the women took her hands and stroked them as they agreed with her. 'His heart was large. His adopted tribe would've joined with us in mourning him.'

'And this ravener took no one?' asked one of the veterans, incredulous.

'He was driven away before he could,' said Fern.

His words put a frown on every face.

'Driven away?' a voice asked for all of them. 'You told us you had no fire.'

Fern looked at Osidian and, as he described how they had found him painted with gore, holding Stormrane's broken spear, Carnelian saw with what renewed awe the Elders regarded this example of the Standing Dead.

Fern's voice wove on for a while and then he drew every eye once more to Osidian as he told of the fight in which Ranegale had been killed.

'Was it fair?' Harth barked, hungry for revenge.

'It was,' Fern answered.

'How can you say that,' cried Loskai. He stabbed a finger at Osidian. 'Look how massive he is.'

Fern glowered at Loskai. 'You know full well how wasted he was from the fever; from his struggle with the ravener.'

Loskai spluttered incoherently.

Fern gave a snort of disgust. 'You were happy enough with the fight when you thought your brother would win.'

'Was it as Fern says, son?' Crowrane pleaded. When Loskai looked at the floor, his father sank back scowling.

Akaisha gave Harth and Crowrane a glance of sympathy. 'Go on, my son.'

Fern spoke in a melancholy tone of their journey into the heart of darkness. Gloom settled over his listeners like the sudden night of an eclipse and, as Fern followed the Master through the nightmare, eyes strayed to Osidian who had been their beacon in that primeval dark. When Fern's story brought them out into the bright Earthsky there was a general relief. People lost their rigid postures and sat back. A gentler twilight settled on the Assembly as Fern and Loskai together described how Osidian had found a way for them across the uncharted vastness of the Earthsky. Carnelian could feel tension returning when the story began to draw them closer to the Twostone koppie. He could see everyone knew what was coming. It was now Ginkga who told the story.

'We found them hiding in a ditch, children mostly, a few women.'

'We tried to sprinkle at least a handful of earth over their dead mothers and to drive the wingless scavengers from their fathers, but you saw how vast the slaughter was, how hopeless a task it was to keep the raveners from their feasting.'

Silence fell as everyone, blind for the moment, contemplated the immensity of such loss.

'And the survivors?' asked Fern at last.

'We brought them home with us,' said Galewing.

'We've distributed them among the hearths,' said Kyte.

'But their wounds will take a long time healing,' a woman said and there were many slow nods.

'And it will be hard on the girls without a connection to -' said one man.

'Some wounds can never heal,' Ginkga said over him as if she was unaware he had been speaking. Carnelian noticed many of the women had hardened their faces.

'We brought a Twostone lad home with us,' Fern said.

'A hearth will be found for him,' his mother said, which pleased Carnelian.

'What of the salt you carried?' a voice demanded and, round the margins of the room, the men looked at Fern and Loskai with narrowed eyes.

'None was lost,' said Fern, and he stepped forward folding back the cloth from a bundle in his hand to reveal a long yellow cake. He placed it carefully at Harth's feet. She picked the salt up and it was passed back, through the women, to the man who had spoken. He examined it minutely, before, satisfied, he reverently rewrapped it.

A grumbling rose up, mainly from the men.

Galewing pointed a four-fingered hand. The lepers extracted from us more than twice the usual tolls. You're responsible for that loss.'

Fern flushed while Loskai began protesting his innocence.

'Not one, but both of you will bear the responsibility for this,' snapped Galewing. 'Unless you wish to blame the dead?'

Loskai seemed to consider it, but he saw, as quickly as Carnelian did, that the Elders would not stand for this.

A woman spoke out. 'Are you more concerned about salt than the safe return of our children?'

This isn't a case of one or the other, it is -'

'I think you'll find, Galewing,' said Akaisha, 'the Tribe has lost no salt.'

The leper tolls -'

'Perhaps the only advantage of not returning through the Valleys was that my son and his companions paid nothing to the lepers.'

'But… but their long detour caused more salt to be consumed,' blustered the Elder.

'We've seen with our own eyes the unbroken loaf they've brought back and there's a little more salt besides as well as twenty and eighteen bronze, double-headed coins.'

She looked at Loskai. 'Isn't that so, child?'

Loskai was forced to give a nod.

Akaisha turned back to Galewing. 'I recall you brought back two loaves and fifteen coins. If I'm not in error, this means that, of the twenty loaves this Assembly gave into your keeping, more have been returned than would've been expected from an uneventful journey to the Mountain.'

The veteran frowned, then ducked her an apology but still looked unhappy as he fingered one of the salt beads in his hair.

People were looking at Galewing, their raised eyebrows registering surprise. Akaisha twitched a smile at her son.

'What I still can't understand is how the Manila could come so early to the Twostone koppie,' said Kyte, looking haunted.

The Elders looked uneasy.

'We debated that enough when you returned,' said Harth. 'It's a mystery without solution. Now we must concentrate on the issue for which this Assembly was called.'

She moved out and turned to face the Elders. 'You've seen them and know why they came here. Think hard, my mothers and fathers, for the Tribe has never been in greater danger. What are we to do with these Standing Dead?'

'Could we not send them back to the Mountain?' said one man.

Harth turned to her son, her white eyebrows raised. 'Well?'

Loskai looked at Osidian with a cold smile broadening on his lips. Still smiling, he shook his head. 'I don't think so, my mother. If this one could find his way across the Earthsky to the Twostone, I'm sure he could as easily bring the dragons here.'

They told me they wouldn't,' Fern blurted out.

Harth turned on him gaping. They knew where the Koppie lies?'

Fern grimaced. He glanced at Carnelian apologetically. They know who we are.'

Harth's eyes ignited. 'You actually told them?'

They saw it in the pictures on my father's hand.'

Carnelian saw the veterans regard their palms as if they had suddenly snagged them on thorns.

'He looked at the pictures and spoke the name of the Tribe,' said Fern.

Akaisha rose and surveyed the Assembly. 'You see? If the bodies of our dead had been left behind they would've led the vengeance of the Mountain here.'

Ignoring her, Harth drew closer to Fern. 'Is that why you brought them, child?'

Fern looked at the ground, shook his head. 'No, my mother. I brought them because they asked me to.'

Voices rang out in anger.

Harth waited until the hubbub had subsided. They asked you to?' she said, quietly.

They helped me save the souls of my nearest kin.'

They led you into sacrilege,' said Harth, severely.

They asked for sanctuary.' He opened his arms to the Assembly. 'My mothers, my fathers, you can all see how badly they've suffered at the hands of their own kind.'