The Standing Dead

'And at the moment they're supplementing what we give them with the djada they've saved from their migration. What'll happen when that runs out? How much hunting will we have to do?'

People hung their heads, worrying about it.

Sil looked at Akaisha and Whin. 'If we don't feed them they might rise against us.'

Several of the men snorted their derision at this suggestion. 'What threat are women and children?'

'My daughter's right, they outnumber us,' said Whin.

'Even without their men,' Sil added.

'And you're not always here,' Whin said to the men.

Fern looked grave. 'And we're going to be out hunting, perhaps further afield than we're used to.'

'Couldn't we send them back to their own koppie?' said Koney.

Akaisha shook her head. 'Without men to hunt for them, we'd be condemning them to death. If our situations were reversed, would you want to be thrown out onto the plain with your children?'

Nursing her newborn, Koney shook her head. 'No, my mother.'

Whin frowned. 'Our compassion might yet bring us disaster.'

'Perhaps we should consider using their labour to extend the Koppie, as the Master has said.' Ravan had come visiting as he sometimes did. People no longer felt him part of their hearth.

The Elders don't need the Master to work that out for them,' said Akaisha without looking at him. The area of new land we would have to enclose would have to be enormous to solve the problem of grazing the aquar as well as to bring enough fernroot into safe gathering to feed us all.'

Then we must hunt more,' said Fern.

'We already hunt more,' said Akaisha. 'And though we're hunting enough to feed everyone, not enough's left over to make djada for the next migration.'

Everyone looked grimly into the fire. They looked up as Ravan stood to speak.

The Master sent me to tell you he's devised a way in which more than enough food can be provided for everyone.'

Ravan stopped to take pleasure in their rapt attention. Tell us then’ snapped Whin.

Ravan shook his head. 'He's not yet sure, my mother; he's not fully worked it out, but it would necessitate all the Tribe working together under his direction.'

'Would it indeed?' said Whin angrily, but Carnelian could see, though she tried to hide it, how attentively Akaisha was listening to her son.

'When will he be ready to reveal to us this plan?'

'It'll be ready when the Elders give him the authority to put it into action.'

Though Akaisha and Whin frowned, Carnelian saw they were considering it and only then did he fully appreciate how desperate the situation had become.

One day, Carnelian and Fern were fetching water with Osidian and his hunt along the margin of the bellower lagoon. Flamingos in fiery clouds had just touched down and their chatter and busy sculling were rippling both air and water.

Carnelian was watching fish darting. 'It's a miracle,' he announced. They have sprung up from what was dust.'

'Mother Earth is bountiful,' said Fern, then smiled, 'just after the Skyfather's made love to her.'

Their musings were disturbed by a call from Krow. They saw an aquar speeding towards them.

'News from the Koppie?' said Fern and everyone frowned expecting the worst.

The aquar skidded to a halt. The Elders command that the two Standing Dead should appear before them.'

As Ravan translated, Carnelian glanced at Osidian, expecting defiance but saw only a mild, even contented, acquiescence.

'We'll ride back with you,' he said, then turned to Ravan. 'You will come with us.'

'I'll come too,' said Fern.

'You will remain here,' Osidian said, severely.

Fern looked to Carnelian, but he was seeing how much his friend's defiance had angered the other men. Fearing what might happen should he support him against the Master, Carnelian decided to say nothing and, angry, Fern backed down.

Osidian was smiling coldly as he gave Krow command of the hunt. The youth looked at Fern as if he were measuring him up. Riding away, Carnelian worried that he had made a mistake in leaving Fern behind at the mercy of Osidian's followers.

THE GREAT HUNT

Forgive our need, little sister

Receive the salt from our tears

Know that we are grateful for the gift you give us of yourself

Know that we have gloried in your beauty and your strength

Return to sleep in the earth, the mother of all

Until the Skyfather comes to make you rise again

In the uncurling of unending time

(Plainsmen hymn of thanks sung over creatures they have hilled)

Carnelian followed Osidian and Ravan into the Ancestor House. In the gloom, he could only just make out the Elders there waiting for them. It felt very different from the first time he had appeared before them: many were known to him now.

'We've brought you here so we might consider the freedoms which you currently enjoy within the Tribe,' said Kyte, in Vulgate.

Osidian smiled. ‘I had imagined you were going to beg me to save you from famine.'

Ravan hesitated, then translated Osidian's words for the Assembly.

Harth rose to her feet, eyes flaming. The famine you've brought upon us.'

As some of the Elders berated her, Osidian bent to hear Ravan's translation of her words. He gave an elegant shrug. 'Can you deny the benefits the Bluedancing have brought you?'

Ravan translated. Harth ignored him and addressed the Assembly. 'We must sort this out amongst ourselves.'

'What would you have us do, Harth?' someone said.

'Let's be rid of the Bluedancing.'

Her words produced a murmur of protest. Akaisha rose. 'Would you have us send our own children to the Mountain?' She glanced round at the faces of those whom she knew had grandchildren marked for the tithe, then she looked back at Harth. 'Do you want your own son to have died for nothing?'

Harth scowled to hold back tears. Her husband, Crowrane, spoke up. 'We could keep the marked Bluedancing children, they wouldn't be too much to feed.'

'Shouldn't we also keep some of the unmarked ones so we might use them to replace any that might die?' said Mossie.

Harth turned on her. 'Why not keep some of their women? I'm sure some of our men could get them with child. That way we could breed children to present to the next Gatherer in place of our own.'

'It would be heartless to separate them from their mothers,' said Ginkga. 'Do we really want to keep them here as orphans for as long as seven years?'

'Besides, the labour of the Bluedancing frees us,' said several people at once.

Harth looked suddenly frail. 'Our ferngardens won't yield any more than they've always done; our men already hunt as much as they can and yet every earther they bring us is immediately consumed. We've been home for more than a moon and haven't managed to make a single rope of djada. Mothers and fathers of the Ochre, if you're determined we must keep all the Bluedancing, can one of you tell me where we'll get food for our migration?'

Carnelian considered her words. It was a choice between starving or else sending the Bluedancing out to die on the plain, with the consequence that Poppy and the other tithe children would, after all, have to be sent into the clutches of the Masters.

Carnelian became aware Akaisha was looking at him hoping for some other way. He shook his head and she looked disappointed. Frowning, she turned her gaze on Osidian. 'Ravan told me the Master knows a way out of this dilemma.'

She looked at her son. 'Ask him what it is he'd have us do.'

Ravan relayed the question to Osidian who whispered a reply.

The Master says that he has in mind a great hunt; a new kind of hunt that will bring the Tribe an abundance of meat,' said Ravan.

'What's the bastard talking about?' demanded Crowrane.