The Standing Dead

'You must kill us both.'

Akaisha lifted her head. 'How might we do that safely? Earlier, you told me he had influence among the young.

I'd go further: since he slew the ravener, there're many in the Tribe who idolize him.'

She peered into the night. 'Even now he has them with him out there somewhere. We daren't risk making the attempt.'

Carnelian's heart raced. He could see the path of hope she was showing him. 'I could go out and convince him we are in no danger.'

'I might let you go, but the other Elders wouldn't. By threatening you they hope to bring him in.'

Hopelessness returned. 'He'll not come.'

She nodded. 'He will have to when the Withering forces us to go to the mountains. Until then, as long as we have you, he'll not put us in the hands of the Bluedancing.'

'How can you be so sure of that, my mother?'

'I've seen the way he looks at you.'

'And will the Tribe be able to live with this?'

'If they found out about the Master's threat, there are those who might act and so bring disaster.' She fixed him with a glare. 'You understand?'

Carnelian nodded, not blaming them.

'Harth demanded that you should be bound but I argued that might give the Master enough of a pretext to betray us. I told the Assembly you could be bound by an oath. Promise me you'll make no attempt to join him.'

'Is my word guarantee enough?'

She took his hand and placed it firmly down on the root he was sitting on. 'Swear on my mother tree who is a part of the Mother.'

'I swear on her and also on my blood that I'll remain within the Koppie as your hostage.'

She gave his hand a squeeze. 'Well then, it seems that, for the moment at least, we have ourselves a deadlock.'

'You'll send Ravan to tell him this?'

'My treacherous son,' she said, bitterly. 'Yes, we'll send him back to his master in the morning.' She kissed him upon the cheek. 'At this moment, Carnie, you seem more Ochre to me than does my own son.'

'Don't blame him too much.' Carnelian remembered how, when he had thought his father dead from his wound, he had become involved in the intrigues of House Suth and so brought about the crucifixion of Fey, one of his father's marumaga half-sisters. Grief could blind those it struck.

He smiled at Akaisha. 'For the moment your son is in the Master's thrall, but I believe, in time, he will see what the Master is and then he'll return to his people.'

THE WITHERING

Death is the mother of life.

(a precept of the Plainsmen)

The next morning at breakfast, people asked where Ravan was and Akaisha informed them he had returned to join the Master. They looked at each other, knowing that Ravan and the others were meant to be warding with Father Crowrane.

'Why do you tolerate this affront to our ways?' asked Fern.

'It is every man's right to choose with whom he hunts,' retorted Akaisha, and no one dared to ask her anything more.

Carnelian listened to Sil and others whispering to each other the story going around about how the Master, with only a handful of their men, had not only managed to bring their earther home but had, besides, protected it all night from ravener attacks.

A few days later when they did not return to take their place in the ditches, their hearths began to worry. Father Crowrane and the few older men who were all that remained of his hunt worked as best they could, but when three days later they were supposed to go and fetch water, there was not enough of them and the rotas had to be readjusted, which caused a general anger.

During the day, Carnelian could suppress his fretting in his toil under the Bloodwood Tree, but in the evenings, by the hearth, he could not avoid seeing Akaisha's thinning face.

When Ravan appeared at the Horngate with Krow and others, the women at their butchery dropped everything and rushed to meet them. Carnelian and Fern lifted their heads and saw the hunters, their aquar hitched to a construction upon which lay an earther so immense that for a moment it seemed they would not be able to get it across the earthbridge. With a glance at each other they hurried after the women.

As the aquar came towards them through the fern-garden dragging the earther, children ran out from the drying racks to swarm the hunters and their catch. Carnelian watched one tiny pair clamber up onto its head, run along it, then scale the slope of its crest to reach the hill of its back. Carnelian did not like the childish shrieks of excitement nor the swagger of the hunters. Osidian did not seem to be among them.

Carnelian slowed to a walk as he overtook the women. As the procession drew nearer he grimaced, recognizing one of the children sitting astride the monster's back as Poppy. Ginkga, the Elder in charge, gave him a glare, warning him not to try to escape. The youths were boasting of the hunt, running their hands up the great sweep of the bull's horns, pointing out the hawser tendons beneath his smooth young hide, while all the time, the children frolicked, or drank in the glory of the hunt, wide-eyed.

Ravan called a halt and strutted out accompanied by Krow, who was beaming. At the head of the women, Ginkga confronted the youths.

'Where've you lot been? Do you know your hearths are half mad with worry?'

Smiles were fading all around her. Krow held on to his, but looked uneasy.

Ginkga pointed at the earther. 'What do you expect us to do with that monstrosity?'

Ravan frowned as if he was finding himself unexpectedly among strangers. He peered past the women to where a smaller earther lay half dismembered under the branches of the Bloodwood Tree. 'Get rid of that scrawny carcass. It's clear ours has far more and better meat.'

Ginkga scowled. She walked past Ravan and several of the women followed her. She pointed at the sled of roughly hewn wood upon which the bull lay.

'Where did that come from?'

'We made it,' said Ravan.

The Elder raised an eyebrow. 'It's made of wood.'

Ravan frowned more deeply. 'So, we cut down two or three acacias. There's plenty more where they came from.'

His comment produced a catching of breath among the women. Ginkga addressed her words to the youths standing behind Ravan. 'Are any of you here unaware that every tree is holy to the Mother?'

Many of the hunters blushed; looked away; let their eyes fall.

The Elder approached the saurian, nodding as she appraised him. 'I can't deny that he's magnificent.'

The youths lifted their heads desperate for her approval.

'But you've cut him down in the full flowering of his strength. He should be out there fathering more of his kind. Didn't that occur to any of you? Did you also forget his herd will need him to defend them against raveners?'

The hunters withered under her disapproval.

'We've brought meat for the Tribe,' said Krow, aggrieved.

'Meat?' Ginkga demanded. 'Can't you see that even if we were ready for him, he's got more on him than we could possibly process before he begins to rot? Not to mention that we're expecting Kyte's hunt in tomorrow.' 'So some'll be wasted.'

Ginkga regarded Ravan as if he were speaking a foreign tongue. 'All flesh is a gift from the Mother.'

Ravan gave her a sneer as he pointed at the young bull. 'We weren't given that. We took it,' he said, snatching a handful of air.

People gaped in shock. Fern strode forward, his skin and hair stiff with blood.

'Have you lost every last bit of sense you had? How can you say such things?'

Ravan's smile chilled Carnelian. The Master has taught me to be a man.'