Exile's Children (33 page)

This pleased them, for the treacherous raid heated tempers that might be cooled only in blood, and many set to speaking of the numbers they would slay and the punishments they would inflict on the Tachyn.

Racharran left them to it. His spirit was sunk low, for he saw the hoped-for peace was all lost, wisdom burned away in the flames of Chakthi's rage, and he foresaw chaos descending when the People stood in great need of common sense and common purpose. He walked a distance off alone, to where the waning moon painted the green grass all silvery and the river ran quick between its banks, babbling as it conversed with itself and the night. He looked to where the sentries patrolled, and past them to the trees, and then beyond toward the mountains, distant now and dark, the Maker's Mountain a pale pillar upholding the sky. He wondered how Rannach fared, and Arrhyna, and what newborn terrors Colun might find on his return home.

He spun, his Grannach blade in hand, as soft footsteps came up.

“Ho, it's me.” Morrhyn raised hands in gesture of calming. “Think you a Tachyn might come so close?”

Racharran shook his head, returning the blade to its sheath. “This talk of war troubles me,” he said. And beckoned the wakanisha to his side. “Shall we walk aways?”

Morrhyn fell into step beside his friend. “I should have dreamed of this,” he murmured.

Racharran's laugh was a souring of the night. “We'd no need of your gift to foretell it.” He glanced sidelong at the Dreamer. “That Chakthi's crazed enough to break the Will? I
knew
that; but still men died.”

“That was not your fault,” Morrhyn said. “You did all you could.”

Racharran said, “I hoped too strong. I set too much faith in men. I hoped Chakthi yet retained some honor.”

Morrhyn said, “Because you are a good man; an honorable man. Men like you see the best in others; you seek to see it, and overlook their weaknesses.”

“And so my people die.” Racharran stooped to lift a pebble from the river's shore, flung it out over the water. It splashed and was gone. “Do such ‘good men' make good akamans?”

Firmly, Morrhyn answered, “Yes. You hold to the Will and seek only the good of all the clan, of all the People. That must be our hope, for I think that every breaking of the Ahsa-tye-Patiko now must be an offense against the Maker, and we shall need his goodwill in the times to come.”

Racharran grunted, folding his blanket tight around his shoulders as if a chill wind blew, though the night was warm as the New Grass Moon faded toward its rebirth as the Moon of Dancing Foals. “And what shall come?” he asked. “More attacks? More die along the way? Until the young men fret and perhaps rebel? And then? War with the Tachyn? When we should all of us think on what Colun told us, and prepare for the worst.”

Answers were hard to find: Morrhyn sighed and said slowly, “Perhaps; likely. There's a blind madness come to Ket-Ta-Witko, I think. It's as if”—he hesitated, looking toward the distant bulk of the Maker's Mountain—“as if some dark wind blows through the mountains to soil our minds and make us mad. You see the danger, and Yazte. But the others are like children hiding under their blankets, waiting for the night to go away.”

“Shall it be a long night?” Racharran asked. “And shall it go away?”

Morrhyn closed his eyes a moment. He thought it might be no bad thing to find his own blankets and draw them firm over his head and
play the child. But he could not: he was wakanisha of the Commacht, as Racharran was akaman, and they could neither of them forsake their duties. He said, “I think it shall likely be a very long night, and I cannot say if it will go away.”

Racharran halted. The river folded here, a steep bank sliding down to a sandy bench. He lowered himself to the ground, legs dangling, and motioned Morrhyn to sit beside him. “What does your dreaming say of this long night?”

“Nothing.” Morrhyn spread helpless hands wide. “Since I sat in the wa'tenhya, I've not dreamed at all.”

Racharran turned to study his face. The akaman's was lit stark and hard-planed by the moon. Morrhyn found it hard to meet his eyes: they held no accusation, but still he felt accused. He said, “Since then I've slept like a child—either sound or waking frightened through the night. But what wakes me, I cannot say. There's nothing here.” He tapped his head as if to dislodge some clogging hindrance. “No dreams, no warnings—only fear.”

Racharran nodded, unspeaking. He stared at the river, running oblivious of their presence or their concerns, like passing time that flows and changes and is the same and always different.

Morrhyn said, “I'm afraid. I feel unarmed—as if I were a warrior hunting a man-eating lion in a thick, dark wood without weapons. I know the beast is there … somewhere … but I cannot see it or smell it or hear it. Only know that it watches me. And waits to pounce.”

He felt Racharran's hand upon his shoulder then, squeezing. The akaman said, “Perhaps when we come home?”

“Perhaps.” Morrhyn smiled sadly. “But meanwhile, what use am I? A Dreamer bereft of dreams? Useful as a blind horse.”

Racharran's hand squeezed harder. “A blind horse can still carry a load, my friend.”

“Save,” Morrhyn said, “it's not much use in battle, eh?”

“You wakanishas do not fight,” Racharran said. “Yours is the harder part.”

“I am afraid.” Morrhyn paused so that Racharran could not decide whether he stated a simple fact or voiced a wider fear. “I am afraid that in the days to come we shall all of us be called to fight. Against men or … something else. And my weapons are my dreams. Are they lost, then I am … what? Truly useless.”

“No!” Racharran shook his friend as he might a despondent child. “You are what you are—wakanisha of the Commacht! Not only our Dreamer, but also arbiter of the Will. You interpret the Ahsa-tye-Patiko, and in that I think I shall need your help in the days to come.”

“The Ahsa-tye-Patiko?” Morrhyn found a turf loose between his knees and worried it up and tossed it into the edgewater. It fell soggy and bobbed awhile, then took the current and was borne away. He could not look at Racharran's face as he said, “I wonder if the People do not all forget the Ahsa-tye-Patiko. Surely Chakthi disregards it; Vachyr did. Rannach was driven to that …” He bit his tongue. “Forgive me, old friend.”

“No.” Racharran shook his head. “For what you say is true. Rannach
did
 … what you say.”

“With cause,” Morrhyn said.

“Yes.” Racharran nodded. “But still, to no good effect. And did Chakthi plan it all, or only Vachyr, then the end's the same, no? The Matakwa ended in chaos and we all go our separate ways when we need harmony. But still we need the Will. Let the Tachyn forget it; we Commacht shall not.”

“You see things straight,” Morrhyn said. “True as an arrow.”

“Because I see them simpler,” Racharran gave him back. “To draw the bow and sight the shaft? That's easy—any warrior can do that. But you? Your task is the hard one, brother. You're the one communes with the Maker and must translate his Will for us.”

“Save part of that is the dreaming,” Morrhyn said. He tried to find the turf along the river's length and could not. He wondered if it floated on or sank.

Racharran said, “A part, yes. But another is the Ahsa-tye-Patiko, and that part you can still carry.”

“Like,” Morrhyn asked, “the blind horse with its load?”

“If you will,” Racharran answered. “It's a load needs bearing. I think that I shall need your strength when the warriors grow restless.”

Morrhyn said, “You shall have it—for what it's worth.”

Racharran said, “It's worth much. Now, do we go check the picket lines and then find ourselves food? I think Lhyn's a flask of tiswin yet unopened. Save Colun found it.”

Morrhyn smiled and nodded his assent, and they rose from their melancholy contemplation and returned to where the clan built the fires and wondered what the morrow held.

They crossed the river with a vanguard established on the farther bank and warriors watchful on the near. There was no attack, and by mid-morning all were safely over, even the slain whom they carried with them that they might be set to rest in the trees of their own country. They
went swiftly as a clan might, which was not very fast with old folk and children to tend, horses to herd, laden pack animals and travois to haul. Racharran took to halting early did some readily defensible place appear, and each night the camp was guarded. But still they moved inexorably toward their own country, and that was their beacon and their hope.

They came to a place where the land ahead was open, spreading wide between far ridges topped with birch and tamarack. The sky was oyster blue and laced with drifts of high cloud that strung out like the tails of racing horses on the sweet-scented wind. Off to the south a small herd of buffalo grazed, the bulls ringing the cows and calves as they scented the passing clan. Racharran led the column, his shield firm on his left arm, Grannach-bladed lance tall in his right. Bow and shafts lay quivered across his back. That morning, as Lhyn readied food, he had honed his knife. It was not the way he would usually have come home, and it seemed a weight upon his shoulders and his soul. He wished it might be different, yet knew it was not and could not be, and that he must accept it as he had urged Morrhyn to accept the weight of the wakanisha's burden.

He saw the Tachyn as his people reached the end parts of the ridges and the full width of the plain beyond spread out, sloping down to a deep and fast-running stream that marked the boundary of the Commacht grass. There were twenty men by his count, riding their animals slow along the ridgetop to his right, and when he looked to the left he saw twenty more, pacing their horses to match the column. They made no move to attack, only rode in insulting escort, as if daring the Commacht to charge them. Forty warriors were scarce enough to halt or defeat the clan, but they could inflict a damage Racharran had sooner avoid. He wondered what they planned, and if more men waited in hiding ahead, behind the last slopes of the ridges. He thought of the Ahsa-tye-Patiko, which forbade him to make the first move, and that the water ahead should be a barrier, his people penned by river and ridges.

His own warriors danced their horses around him, urging him to attack, telling him they could easily sweep these upstarts from the slopes.

He said, “No! We are yet bound by the Will. Find Morrhyn and bring him.”

A man raced back along the nervous column to where Morrhyn rode with Lhyn and brought the wakanisha to Racharran.

The akaman pointed his lance at the Tachyn and then at the river. “Twenty and twenty to either side,” he said, “and likely as many hidden ahead. I'd not fight them if I can avoid it, but they may not grant us that choice. What are your thoughts?”

Morrhyn nodded, recognizing the true purpose of Racharran's question, of the summons: to emphasize the wakanisha's position, establish his authority. These last nights, there had been mutterings amongst the impatient warriors—that their Dreamer lost his power, could no longer warn of hazards to come. Even now he saw faces turned dark and doubting toward him, waiting on him.

“The Ahsa-tye-Patiko is clear on this,” he said. “Each clan is granted safe passage home, and to deny that is to deny the Will, to risk the Maker's anger.”

From amongst the warriors came a voice he recognized as Bakaan's: “Chakthi denies the Will at his pleasure! Are we to die at his whim?”

Racharran's voice cracked through the morning. “We are Commacht! Would you forget the Will, then go join the Tachyn.”

Morrhyn saw Bakaan frown and lower his face. He said, “They do not attack yet.”

“Not yet.” Racharran looked again toward the river. “But when we reach the ford?”

Maker guide me, Morrhyn thought. Have I offended you, punish me, not all the clan. “That would surely be the place,” he said. “But why reveal themselves? I wonder if Chakthi has some other design in mind.”

“What else could it be?” Racharran asked.

Morrhyn turned in his saddle to study the watching Tachyn, the river ahead. “Perhaps …” He gathered his thoughts, not knowing if the Maker granted him insight or if it was his own intuition. “Perhaps Chakthi seeks to share his sin. None saw him when they attacked before.” He looked around: men shook their heads. “Perhaps this is like the kidnap—that Chakthi would draw us into a trap and claim his hands clean, that these warriors act unknown to him. Perhaps he'd lure us into a breaking of the Will.”

A man barked laughter and shouted, “What matter? Are we attacked now or at the ford, the defenseless ones shall suffer. Why do we not charge them?”

Morrhyn thought that Racharran would answer, but the akaman sat silent, leaving the response to him. He said, “It is a Racharran says—we are Commacht: we hold to the Will. Let Chakthi bloody his hands, not ours.”

The same man demanded: “And so we go like dew-eyed deer to the slaughter?”

Racharran was about to speak, but Morrhyn reached out to touch his wrist and silence him—the akaman had passed him this burden: now he would carry it as best he could. “I think they may not attack,” he
said. “I think perhaps they look to draw us into a charge, and after claim it was
we
made the first move.”

“I would,” the man declared. “Make the first move.”

His cry was answered with shouts of agreement and approval, and all the while the column moved slowly on toward the ford and Morrhyn knew he must do something to hold his people to the Will, that the angry warriors not defile the Ahsa-tye-Patiko. He looked again at the Tachyn: they waved their lances in challenge, and the breeze carried their jeers.

He said, “No! The first move is mine.”

His voice was loud and firm: it stilled the warriors. Racharran stared at him, eyes framing a question. He said, “I shall go to them and ask them what they do.”