“Let us watch, and see if he dies well,” said another.
“He will,” said another. “He is Hunlaki.”
“The dogs have not fed in two days,” said another.
“They will feed tonight,” said another.
“Excellent,” said another, “or they would soon drag down a steer.”
“Come out, decrepit one!” called the fellow, in helmet and fur, at the foot of the stairs to the wagon.
But the door to the wagon did not open.
“Come out, old one!” cried the fellow at the foot of the stairs. “The dogs are hungry!”
“Hunlaki was a great warrior,” said a man.
“Long ago,” said another.
“Depart from my wagon, old one!” demanded the fellow at the foot of the stairs. “I have a throat to cut!” And, indeed, he had in his hand a Herul knife, with its blade from Venitzia, and its handle of yellow bone.
The reason that, to the puzzlement of Cornhair, there were few old men in the Herul camp was that the Heruls, as certain other species, tend to eliminate the old and weak, particularly older and weaker males. There seem to be several strands of consideration which feed into this particular practice, cultural, and, possibly, biological. First, there is an examination of newly hatched offspring. Those deemed unsuitable are thrown to the dogs. Second, there is competition amongst the wagons, for wagons, particularly fine wagons, rather like that in some species for territory. And, as territory is acquired, in many species, so, too, as a consequence, are females. Amongst the Heruls, the possession of a wagon, particularly a fine wagon, confers position and status, and the possessor of a large, strong, well-built wagon is likely to have a choice amongst young females. There are also, of course, as in many species, competitions for dominance, with its usual concomitant of access to females. Sometimes conflicts occur amongst males, with females as, so to speak, the prize. Many Herul females are pleased to mate with a male who has killed to possess her. Even old women, nursing precious memories, proudly tell their grandchildren of such things. One then adds to such things the fact that, throughout much of their tribal histories, the Heruls have faced the natural selections of hunger, disease, and war, and in primitive war, war in which intelligence, keen senses, and physical skill are likely to make the difference between life and death, natural selections take place, selections which, in their way, strengthen certain bloodlines conducive to group survival. As with various peoples, all males are expected to be warriors and face enemies, aggressors, invaders, and such. It is not the case with the Heruls, as it is with more civilized folk, that the healthy, intelligent, adept, and strong are sent forth to die whilst the sickly, stupid, clumsy, stunted, and weak remain at home, in safety, to propagate their kind. In any event, nature, with its blind, unplanned wisdom, the fruit of millennia of harsh selections, for better or for worse, has produced certain animals, such as the vi-cat and arn bear, and certain peoples, such as the Heruls.
“Come out, old one!” cried the fellow at the foot of the stairs leading up to the wagon of Hunlaki. “You have lived long enough! Come out! I have a throat to cut!”
Scarcely had these words left his throat when a hand, from behind, seeming to emerge from the crowd, closed over his mouth, tightly, and pulled his head up and back, exposing the throat, and the knife, with a swift, clean draw, cut back to the base of the spine.
“I am out,” said Hunlaki. “And it is you who have lived long enough.”
The fellow twisted in the dirt and blood at Hunlaki’s boots.
“I, too, had a throat to cut,” said Hunlaki.
“He did not see you,” said a fellow.
“It was not my intention that he should,” said Hunlaki.
“You are cunning,” said a man.
“I keep my saddle,” said Hunlaki. “I keep my wagon.”
“Excellent, dear friend,” said one whom Cornhair had heard called Mujiin.
Mujiin, it was said, had long ridden with Hunlaki, even from the time of the last, great battle with the Otungen, following which the Plains of Barrionuevo had become the Flats of Tung.
Mujiin seemed much pleased.
He had not, of course, interfered in the business at hand. It was not the Herul way.
“Strip this,” said Hunlaki, gesturing to the gasping, choking figure at his feet, its hands clutched about its throat, the blood running between the tentaclelike digits. “The dogs are hungry.”
“Tonight they will be fed,” said a fellow.
“We will gamble for his helmet, his furs, and horses,” said a man.
Mujiin had ascended the steps of Hunlaki’s wagon. He carved a deep notch in the right doorpost of the wagon. It was one of six such notches.
The figure at Hunlaki’s feet was now inert.
Its helmet, furs, and boots were being stripped away.
“It seems you still live, old warrior, old Hunlaki,” said a man.
“As of now,” said Hunlaki.
“I thought he would kill you,” said a man. “But he did not.”
“And you lost a silver darin?” said Hunlaki.
“Two,” said the man.
“I hope to die in battle,” said Hunlaki, “and hope to be killed by a greater one than he.”
“Who?” asked a man.
“A greater one than he,” said Hunlaki.
He watched the stripped body of the Herul being dragged toward the gate. There was a line of blood marking the furrow of its passage. Outside the gate, one could hear the howling of the dogs, doubtless excited by the smell of blood, a scent which their keen nostrils can detect, even in the summer, at a range of several hundred yards.
Hunlaki wiped his blade on his fur boot.
A Herul youth, perhaps no more than five years of age, looked up at Hunlaki.
“Learn from this, young warrior,” said Hunlaki. “Be not boastful, be not vainglorious, do not preen like the bright-tailed sunbird. Do not stand out. Do not be easy to see. Be one with the grass and trees. Do not stand upright on high ground. Be always on your guard. Look about yourself frequently. When one faces north, expect the vi-cat to attack from the south. When one faces south, expect it from the north.”
“I will, old warrior,” said the child.
“I must to my watch,” called Mujiin, pleased, from the high step of the stairs to the wagon of Hunlaki.
“I shall accompany you,” said Hunlaki.
The incident had occurred in the neighborhood of noon.
The fortresslike Herul camp was a large one, though many are larger. It consisted of some fifty wagons. The camps are larger in the spring and summer when there is ample grazing for the cattle. That is also a time for trading, converse, courtship, riding contests, martial games, the chanting of histories, and such. In the fall and winter the camps are smaller and, naturally, more numerous. This distributes the herds in such a way as to take advantage of the seasonally reduced pasturage. In the fall the herds begin to grow their winter coats. It is said that the cattle then resemble lumbering, shaggy hillocks, and, when it snows, seem like small, white, living mountains, the air above them steaming with the smoke of breath, crowding together in large circles. The Tangaran winter is often a difficult time for the herds and, in the fall, perhaps anticipating losses, the Heruls thin the herds for meat, hide, and bone, which, in the spring, may be used in trade, usually with the merchants of Venitzia. Fodder is also cut and dried in the summer, by women and slaves, and stored in earthen burrows. This is usually reserved for prime animals, and cows. Many of the steers wax fat in the summer and fall, and live off this fat in the winter. It is common, too, for them to chop and paw through the snow, for grass, lichens, and herbs.
In late Igon, Cornhair, nude, but wrapped head to foot in thick furs, the furs fastened tightly about her with several coils of rope, had been brought to a trade island in the Lothar. There she was flung, from the man-drawn sled, so helpless and wrapped, upon the stony beach of the island, on its eastern side, nearest the Flats of Tung, with other trade goods, for there were several such sleds. Helpless in her wrappings of bound fur she understood little of what was transpiring. After a time she heard the approach of horses, or what we have, for convenience, termed horses, snarling and snorting, apparently breasting the chill stream, several of them, and then she heard their paws breaking the edge of ice, near the shore, and then heard their scratching on the cold, stony beach. Boots struck the beach as riders dismounted. Something, too, or several things, seemed to be dragged over the cold gravel of the beach. She then heard Telnarian, and something else, which she did not at that time recognize. She heard also the cackling of domestic fowl, the squealing of pigs. After a time, she sensed something close to her, and then something was undoing the furs about her head. They were suddenly pulled back and she shut her eyes against the painful, ensuing blast of light, with its concomitant of bitter, piercing cold. She opened her eyes, screamed, and lost consciousness. She had seen her first Herul, the large eyes, the scaled skin, the seemingly earless head. Almost immediately she was returned to consciousness, awakened, slapped again and again, for stockmen, slavers, and Masters tend not to be patient, let alone indulgent, with their beasts, no matter how slight, soft, and fair they may be. “No, no!” she cried. And then, wide-eyed and horrified, she was silent, as a clawlike tentacle was pressed across her lips. She felt the hardness of the monitory digit and realized she was not to speak. Too, in a moment, she felt one of those digits press against the side of her neck. She did not understand this, but, within the digit, then unsheathed at the Herul’s will, was a soft membrane which, even in its momentary contact with her skin, registered her unique biological identity, leaving a trace which, in the Herul’s memory, was uniquely hers, much as a Herul dog might remember her smell, a slaver might take her measurements, and her finger and toe prints, or an imperial warden obtain and file away a record of her hereditary uniqueness, that borne unmistakably in each of her cells, which no disguise or falseness could alter or conceal. Later, when she would be tied naked to the learning post in the Herul camp, many other Heruls, considering her, would make a similar determination.