The Standing Dead

Later, Poppy, wide-eyed as she relived the wedding, insisted on telling Carnelian everything. How they had spent the day washing Koney with cedar water and decked her out in a new robe the women of the hearth had been embroidering since before the Rains. How they had rouged her face and woven magnolia buds and petals into her hair. How when Hirane had come with his father and the rest of his people, wearing the black face of a hunter, he had found her waiting for him concealed beneath a wedding blanket of the richest ochre. How both his hearth and theirs had danced around the couple. When the moon rose high enough to make bright the root fork of their mother tree, he had poured water on Koney's blanket and she had come out of it as beautiful as the stars. Sitting in the fork they had spoken their vows, broken salt together, and then Akaisha had removed his shoes so that he might stand barefoot upon his new rootearth and all his new hearthkin had given him the kiss of welcome.

As the girl spoke, Carnelian saw the light filling her face and he would have kissed her but did not want to break her vision, but as she described the newly-weds being led to the sleeping hollow where they would make and bear children, he saw trouble come into her eyes.

'What's the matter, Poppy?' he said stroking her cheek.

She looked through tears at him. 'When I'm old enough, will you marry me, Carnie?'

Carnelian was taken aback.

She sank her head. 'None other will,' she whispered.

He raised her chin and looked into her eyes. 'You'll be beautiful, many will seek your hand.'

She shook her head. 'I'm not rooted in this earth.'

Carnelian glanced up at the boughs and branching roof of Akaisha's cedar.

This mother tree is yours now too.'

'She shelters me but knows nothing of my mothers.'

Carnelian was becoming upset when he saw a glimmer appear in her eye. He watched her reach inside her robe and fish something out from an inner pocket. She placed a tiny bundle on her knee and lovingly unwrapped it.

'A winged seed,' Carnelian said.

She looked up at him. 'I brought it from the koppie of my people. Within there sleeps a daughter to my mother tree.'

Then you must plant it,' he said, elated. 'Will the Elders allow it?' she asked. Carnelian's excitement died. He could not give Poppy the answer she craved.

'Will you ask them for me?' 'When the time is right.'

Accepting this, Poppy rewrapped her seed with infinite care, then returned it to its place next to her heart.

On the last morning of Carnelian's fourth hunt, while he and the others were preparing for the final day's journey with the earther they had killed, Ravan cried out, pointing. Smoke was rising from the Crag up into the dawn sky.

As one they converged on Crowrane begging permission to return. The Elder stood some moments in the midst of their tumult, narrowing his eyes in the direction of the signal, before he turned grimly to them nodding his head.

Carnelian did not need to be told something was wrong. As he worked the tow rope's loose from the crossbar of his saddle-chair, he grew sick imagining what might be happening at home.

He was soon mounted. The eyes of the riders around him betrayed that they too were listing dangers. Those who were still worrying at knots were cursed by those already mounted. With a cry of frustration, one of them produced a blade, hacked through a rope, then flung himself into his saddle-chair.

When everyone was up, Crowrane, without a word, turned his aquar towards the Koppie and sent her into a jog. They all followed him in a great raising of dust.

Their aquar reached the Newditch in a lather from the run. Smoke was eddying up from the brow of the Crag.

The Mother be praised,' a voice cried, and several women ran across the earthbridge to meet them.

'What is it?' Crowrane demanded, speaking for everyone.

The Gatherer's here,' one of the women panted, eyes darting from one black face to the next.

The men who had young children rode past her, their saddle-chairs clacking against each other as they scrambled across the bridge. Carnelian stared stunned, then remembered Poppy.

This can't be,' said Crowrane, aghast. 'He's not due until next year.'

Carnelian was gripped by another sickening realization: Fern's doom had come.

The woman seemed to be swallowing a stone getting her breath back. 'He came in the night as he always does.

The Tribe woke to find his tents already set up in the Poisoned Field.'

More of the hunt were streaming into the ferngarden while the women rushed around trying to stand in their way. 'We must hide the Standing Dead. They must be hidden.'

'Hide them where?' Ravan demanded.

Verging on hysteria, the women looked to Crowrane for help. The Elders, my father… they've told everyone…' They looked at Carnelian, at Osidian. They mustn't be seen.'

Carnelian felt nauseous. His world had come to pieces and now so would that of all these people he loved. If he or Osidian were found there, the Masters would destroy the Tribe. He saw desperate indecision in Crowrane's eyes.

'What are the creatures babbling about?' a voice asked in Quya.

Carnelian turned to see Osidian calm amidst the storm. His hand commanded Carnelian to answer. Finding his voice, he explained the disaster. Of all the emotions he had been expecting Osidian to feel, rage was the most unexpected.

Crowrane was arguing with the women.

Osidian looked away to the northern horizon. They seek us. I had expected that they would, but not so soon. I am not yet ready.'

'Ready for what? Who is it that seeks…?' Carnelian remembered whose creatures the childgatherers were. 'How could the Wise know we are here?'

'I did not say that they know where we are precisely, but you yourself told me they saw where we left the Guarded Land; saw our captors were from this plain.' Osidian smiled a dark smile. 'Of course, down here, without their watch-towers, they can only fumble blindly hoping to find. The fact they have set their childgatherers to the search implies much.'

Carnelian thought about it. 'Otherwise it would be the legions that sought us out.'

Osidian's smile grew colder still. 'My mother would see to that.'

Then they do this without her knowledge. Why?'

Osidian frowned. 'Who knows what has come to pass in Osrakum since we left.' He smiled again. 'Still, this development is suggestive.'

He leered at Carnelian. Tell me, my Lord, shall we allow ourselves to be found?'

Carnelian regarded him with horror. 'Why would the Wise seek to know where we are, other than to destroy us?'

'Or by finding us, pull down my beloved mother.'

Cold rage infused into Carnelian. 'If we are found here these people will be punished.'

'Exterminated,' said Osidian, taking pleasure in the word.

'You two Standing Dead, dismount,' commanded Crowrane, but Carnelian ignored him and addressed Osidian.

'I will not allow you to endanger the Ochre.'

Osidian sneered. 'Will not allow? I do not yet choose to reveal myself to the Wise, but you can be certain my decision pays little heed to your threats, Carnelian; even less to what might happen to these.' He indicated the people round them with a dismissive gesture of his hand. 'I have other plans.' Osidian turned his aquar with his feet. 'Come.'

'Dismount, I say,' bellowed Crowrane. 'Surround them.'

Carnelian saw Ravan, Krow, others of the young men of the hunt hanging back, looking from their Elder to the Master.

'Where?' Carnelian asked Osidian. 'We shall return to our quarry.'