The sky poured its water into the thirsty earth, washing the air clean of dust. Those next few days were a carnival. The rain raised the wilting necks of the aquar and the spirits of the people. Everyone seemed younger, renewed along with the world. Laughter was everywhere and singing. When they camped, children ran laughing, playing muddy games under thunderous skies.
Calm interspersed the storms: the clouds would open and allow the sun in to dazzle them. Now they smiled to feel its warmth upon their faces. Too soon the clouds would close and the rain resume its downpour. So much rain that the plain began softening into a marsh, in the midst of which lagoons were spreading. Soon every day had become a plodding, sodden slog through sucking mud.
Carnelian collapsed beside Fern. Akaisha had chosen a ginkgo for her hearth and had made them hang blankets in the branches, though these gave scant protection. They hung sodden, collecting the rain which spilled over in rivulets, splashing them, besieging them with puddles. All around them in the rumbling gloom the Tribe sheltered as best they could, but even the aquar drooped drenched.
Whin and Sil had nestled a fire between the roots of the tree. When the wind gusted, it forced the smoke towards them in choking, eye-stinging drifts. The lurid flicker sporadically lit Osidian's face.
'Will this curse never cease?' he moaned.
'It'll not stop until after we reach the Koppie, Master,' said Ravan.
'As much as once I loved the rain, I loathe it now,' Osidian said in Quya, addressing Carnelian as if the youth had not spoken.
Embarrassed by the sound of that tongue, Carnelian looked round apologetically.
'It makes me remember,' Osidian continued, relentlessly, his hand straying up to his neck scar. Fire flashed under the ceiling clouds some distance away. Carnelian waited for the thunder. It came rolling, heavy, stuttering, sonorous.
'Hark, He speaks,' said Osidian in an ominous tone and the rain fell with increasing ferocity.
Carnelian's eyes snapped open. A scream. Questions cutting across each other. He sat up. The smouldering fires revealed black shapes scudding through the camp. For a moment one fire was blotted out by a vast hurtling shadow trailing a wild whoop. A battle-cry choked to gurgling by an arcing shape. Everywhere mounds of darkness were rising uttering fearful cries.
Someone pushed by him, crying in Quya, The Two. The Two.'
Osidian was too fast for Carnelian. He saw with dismay Osidian's bright naked body leaping towards their attackers. He was too visible. Cursing, Carnelian overthrew his immobility, rummaging violently among the piles of baggage. When the haft of an axe slipped into his hand, he flung himself round wielding it, crashing after the cold flicker of Osidian's body. Kicking his way through obstructions, his foot caught and he was flung to the ground. He rose, groaning. Something whistled past his ear even as he was thrust back into the mud.
'He almost had you,' cried Fern in anger.
Carnelian could make out the mounted shape as it scooped up a piece of darkness that shrieked with a child's voice, then it was coursing away. Fern helped him up as the cries receded into the darkness. Only a few fires still burned.
'Are you hurt?' said Fern, running his hands over Carnelian, searching for wounds.
Carnelian slipped away from him and stumbled through the dark, steering by the faint beacon of Osidian's body. Everywhere, shapes were stirring, moaning. Some voices wailed while others rang out begging for light.
Carnelian approached Osidian's long white back, glowing in the gloom. Ravan and Krow were already there, reluctant to touch him. Carnelian crept round to peer into Osidian's face. Motionless marble. He gingerly reached out to touch the stone. Cold. Sticky. He jerked his hand back. Osidian seemed to be a corpse, standing. Carnelian licked his fingers and tasted salt.
'Is he wounded?' asked Ravan.
Nothing.
'Well, are you?' Carnelian demanded. 'It is the other that is slain.'
Carnelian could not help drawing away from the eerie voice. He stumbled backwards over the body lying on the ground and fell. Dazed, he lay there feeling the rain falling on his face in a steady rhythm.
Poppy clung to Carnelian. Through the rain, he saw the camp, now a battlefield. All their makeshift shelters were leaning at crazy angles with their blankets trampled into the mud. Bales disembowelled their contents into puddles. People, moaning, were bending among the wreckage, searching. Some were pulling things together as if they had been merely blown down by a freak gust. Many just stood sightlessly staring out over the featureless land.
The Elders began moving among them, ordering things. Some were so weak they had to lean on the arms of their grandchildren, but, even so, they were listened to with the rest.
Akaisha pulled at Carnelian's shoulder. 'Carnie, don't just stand there, dear. Help me clear up this mess.' She noticed Poppy and they exchanged a glance. Both could see in the girl's face that she was seeing the massacre of her people.
'I'll look after her,' Akaisha said, softly.
Carnelian nodded and carefully transferred Poppy's grip to Akaisha's robe; then, kneeling, he kissed her before going off to help Sil tug a blanket from the clutches of the mud. When it came free, they scraped it as clean as they could and put it on a drag-cradle that was propped up against a ginkgo. They were returning for another when a cry of anguish made them stop and turn. Osidian was standing among women shouting at him in anger.
Carnelian touched Sil's hand. 'I'd better…' 'I'll come too,' she said.
Osidian saw them. 'Carnelian, tell these savages I slew him and so he is mine.'
The women caught Carnelian in their crazed stares. Ginkga came to his rescue, ordering the women all back to work, growing angry when they resisted her. 'First let's get things back to normal. After that there'll be plenty of time for retribution.'
As the women moved off they revealed the corpse lying at Osidian's feet. He was not Ochre. He wore a black hunter face and his hands were painted blue.
There was a slap on Carnelian's arm. He whisked round, angry. Seeing it was Ginkga who had struck him,
Carnelian let go of his rage and went back to pulling blankets from the mud.
The Tribe assembled at the centre of the camp around the frame Osidian had made from two drag-cradles and from which the corpse hung, naked, dangling its blue hands. A livid cut across its shoulder was pulled open by the weight of its head. The sight of one of their attackers had awoken snarling hatred among the crowd.
Akaisha came to stand beside Osidian and called for silence. Grimly, she counted out for them their losses. Five mothers had had young children carried off. Two women had miscarried. One man had lost his wife; another had spilled his brains into the mud; five had sustained cruel gashes.
A young, pregnant woman spat out a chilling description of what she wanted to do to the body.
Akaisha shook her head. 'Mutilating this dead man will not bring your son back, Ceda.'
'What will then?' the woman cried. She looked around her with narrowed eyes and every man she looked at averted his gaze. She gave a snort as she placed her hands on her swollen belly. 'You're all such men when it comes to making babies, but you'll not bleed to keep them.'
Ravan pushed past Krow to stand beside the corpse. He reached down to lift its hand, then turned the painted palm in all directions. 'Can everyone see the colour?' He dropped the hand with disgust and wiped his fingers down his robe. 'We know his Tribe.'
'The Bluedancing,' cried the crowd.
'Let's take our revenge on them. Let's go and bring our children back.'
Several of the younger men cried out their support.