Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (48 page)

From the dusky sky, the cowbird came swooping in, screeching, to defend its mistress. It dived at Aoz Roon’s face. Curd leapt high and caught it by a leg. It slashed at him with curved beak, it battered his head with furious wings, but he tightened his grip and dragged it to the ground. A quick change of grip and he had its throat. In no time, the great white bird was dead, its pinions sprawled without motion across the muddy path.

The gillot also was dead. Aoz Roon stood over it, panting.

‘By the boulder, I’m too fat for this kind of activity,’ he gasped. Shay Tal stood apart and wept. Vry and Oyre inspected the dead brute, regarding its open mouth, from which a yellow ichor seeped.

They heard Tanth Ein shouting in the distance, and answering shouts coming nearer. Aoz Roon kicked the gillot’s corpse so that it rolled on to its back, causing a heavy white milt to flop from the jaws. The face was severely wrinkled, the grey skin wormlike where it stretched over bone. The body hair was moulting; patches of bare skin showed.

‘It has some filthy disease perhaps,’ Oyre said. ‘That’s why it was so feeble. Let’s get away from it, Laintal Ay. Slaves will bury its corpse.’

But Laintal Ay had dropped to his knees and was uncoiling a rope from the corpse’s waist. He looked up to say grimly, ‘You wanted me to perform some great deed. Perhaps I can.’

The rope was fine and silken, finer than any rope woven from stungebag fibre in Oldorando. He coiled it about his arm.

Curd was holding the kaidaw at bay. The mount, taller at the shoulder than an average man, stood a-tremble, head high, eyes rolling, making no attempt to escape. Laintal Ay tied a noose in the rope and flung it over the animal’s neck. He drew it tight and approached the trembling creature step by step, until he could pat its flank.

Aoz Roon had recovered his composure. He wiped his sword on his leg and sheathed it as Tanth Ein arrived on the scene.

‘We’ll keep watch, but this was a solitary brute – a renegade near death. We have reason for continuing our celebrations, Tanth Ein.’

As they clapped each other’s shoulders, Aoz Roon looked about him. Ignoring Laintal Ay, he concentrated his regard on Shay Tal and Vry.

‘We have no quarrel, whatever you imagine to the contrary,’ he told the women. ‘You did well to sound the alarm. Come with Oyre and me and join the festivities – my lieutenants will welcome you.’

Shay Tal shook her head. ‘Vry and I have other things to do.’

But Vry remembered the stuffed geese. She could still smell them. It would be worth enduring even that hated room for a taste of that superb flesh. She looked in torment at Shay Tal, but her stomach won. She yielded to temptation.

‘I’ll come,’ she told Aoz Roon, flushing.

Laintal Ay had his hand on the kaidaw’s trembling flank. Oyre stood with him. She turned to her father and said coldly, ‘I shall not come. I’m happier with Laintal Ay.’

‘You please yourself – as usual,’ he said, and marched off along the dripping lane with Tanth Ein, leaving the humiliated Vry to follow behind as best she could.

The kaidaw stood tossing its great bracketed head up and down, looking sideways at Laintal Ay.

‘I’m going to make a pet of you,’ he said. ‘We shall ride you, Oyre and I, ride you over the plains and mountains.’

They made their way through a gathering crowd, all pressing to see the body of the vanquished enemy. Together, they went back to Embruddock, whose towers stood like decaying teeth against the last rays of Freyr. They walked hand in hand, differences submerged in this decisive moment, pulling the quivering animal after them.

The veldt was banded with upstart flowers as far as eye could see, and farther, farther than any man on two legs could investigate. White, yellow, orange, blue, viridian, cerise, a storm of petals blew across the unmapped miles to wash against the walls of Oldorando and incorporate the hamlet into its blast of colour.

The rain had brought the flowers and the rain had gone. The flowers remained, stretching to the horizon where they shimmered in hot bands, as if distance itself were stained for spring.

A section of this panorama had been fenced off.

Laintal Ay and Dathka had finished work. They and their friends were inspecting what they had achieved.

With saplings and thorn trees, they had built a fence. They had chopped down new growth till the sap ran from their blades over their wrists. The saplings had been trimmed and secured horizontally to serve as the bars of the fence. The uprights and horizontals were packed branches and whole thorn trees. The result was almost impenetrable, and as high as a man. It enclosed about a hectare of ground.

In the middle of this new enclosure stood the kaidaw, defying all attempts to ride it.

The kaidaw’s mistress, the gillot, had been left to rot where she fell, as the custom was. Only after three days were Myk and two other slaves sent to bury the body, which had begun to stink.

Blossom hung neglected like spittle from the kaidaw’s lips. It had taken a mouthful of pink flowers. Eaten in captivity, they seemed not to its taste, for the great gaunt animal stood with its head high, staring out over the top of the stockade, forgetting to munch. Occasionally, it moved a few yards, with its high step,
and then came back to its original vantage point, eyes showing white.

When one of its downward-sweeping horns became entangled in the thorns, it freed itself with an impatient shake of the head. It was strong enough to break through the fence and gallop to freedom, but the will was lacking. It merely gazed towards freedom, blowing out sighs from distended nostrils.

‘If the phagors can ride it, so can we. I rode a stungebag,’ Laintal Ay said. He brought up a bucket of beethel and set it by the animal. The kaidaw took a sniff and backed away, bridling.

‘I’m going to sleep,’ Dathka said. It was his only comment after many hours. He crawled through the fence, sprawled on the ground, stuck his knees in the air, clasped his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. Insects buzzed about him. Far from taming the animal, he and Laintal Ay had earned themselves only bruises and scratches.

Laintal Ay wiped his forehead and made another approach to the captive.

It brought its long head down so as to look him levelly in the eye. It was blowing softly. He was aware of the horns pointing at him, and made coaxing noises, poised to jump aside. The great beast shook its ears against the base of its horns and turned away.

Laintal Ay controlled his breathing and moved forward again. Ever since he and Oyre had made love by the pool, her beauty had sung in his eddre. The promise of more loving hung above him like an unreachable bough. He must prove himself by that imaginary great deed she required. He woke every morning to feel himself smothered in dreams of her flesh, as if buried under dogthrush blossom. If he could ride and tame the kaidaw, she would be his.

But the kaidaw continued to resist all human advances. It stood waiting as he approached. Its hamstrings twitched. At the last possible moment, it bucked away from his outstretched hand, to prance off, showing him its horns over one shoulder.

He had slept in the stockade with it on the previous night – or dozed fitfully, afraid of being trampled under its hoofs. Still the beast would not accept food or drink from him, and shied away
from every approach. The performance had been repeated a hundred times.

Finally, Laintal Ay gave up. Leaving Dathka to slumber, he returned to Oldorando to try a new approach.

Three hours later, as the Hour-Whistler sounded, a curiously deformed phagor approached the enclosure. It dragged itself through the fence with awkward movements, so that gouts of wet yellow fur were torn out by the thorns, to remain hanging among the twigs like dead birds.

With a dragging gait, the oddity approached the kaidaw.

It was hot inside the skin, and it stank. Laintal Ay had a cloth tied round his face, with a sprig of raige against his nostrils. He had made two Borlienian slaves dig up the three-day-old corpse and skin it. Raynil Layan had soaked the skin in brine to remove some of its unpleasant associations. Oyre accompanied him back to the enclosure and stood with Dathka, waiting to see what happened next.

The kaidaw put its head low and breathed a soft question. Its dead mistress’s saddle, complete with flamboyant stirrups, was still strapped about its girth. As soon as Laintal Ay reached the puzzled beast he set one foot high in the near stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. He was mounted at last, positioned in front of the animal’s single low hump.

Phagors rode without reins, crouching over the necks of their mounts or holding the harsh frizzled hair growing along the ridge of their necks. Laintal Ay clutched the hair tightly, awaiting the next move. From the corner of his eye, he could see other villagers, strolling across the Voral bridge, coming to join Oyre and Dathka and watch the proceedings.

The kaidaw stood in silence, head still low, as if weighing its new burden. Then, slowly, it began an absurd movement, arching its neck inward, bringing its head round until its eyes, from an upside-down position, could look up and regard the rider. Its gaze met Laintal Ay’s.

The animal remained in its extraordinary position but began to tremble.

The trembling was an intense vibration, seemingly originating at its heart and working outwards, much like an earthquake on a
small planet. Yet still its eyeballs glared fixedly at the being on its back, and it was bereft of voluntary movement. Laintal Ay also stayed motionless, vibrating with the kaidaw. He remained looking down into its twisted face, on which – so he afterwards reflected – he read a look of intense pain.

When it did finally move, the kaidaw shot upwards like a released spring. In one continuous movement, it came erect and jumped high in the air, arching its spine like a cat’s and curling its clumsy legs beneath its belly. This was the legendary spring jump of the kaidaw, experienced at first hand. The jump took it clear over the stockade fence. It did not even brush the uppermost sprigs of thorn.

As it fell, it snapped its skull down between its forelegs and thrust its horns upwards, so that it struck the ground neck first. One of the horns was immediately driven through its heart. It fell heavily on its side and kicked twice. Laintal Ay flung himself free and sprawled among the clover.

Even before he climbed shakily to his feet, he knew that the kaidaw was dead.

He pulled the stinking phagor skin from his body. He whirled it round his head and flung it away. It fell into a sapling’s branches and dangled there. He cursed in frustration, feeling a terrible heat inside his head. Never had the enmity between man and phagor been more clearly demonstrated than in the self-destruction of this kaidaw.

He took a pace towards Oyre, who was running to him. He saw the villagers behind, and bands of colour. The colours rose, took wing, became the sky. He floated towards them.

For six days, Laintal Ay lay in a fever. His body was lapped in a flamelike rash. Old Rol Sakil came and applied goosegrease to his skin. Oyre sat by him. Aoz Roon came and looked down at him without speaking. Aoz Roon had Dol with him, made heavy with child, and would not let her stay. He departed stroking his beard, as if remembering something.

On the seventh day, Laintal Ay put on his hoxneys again and returned to the veldt, full of new plans.

The fence they had built already looked more natural, dappled
all over with green shoots. Beyond the enclosure, herds of hoxneys grazed among the bright-coloured pastures.

‘I am not going to be beaten,’ Laintal Ay said to Dathka. ‘If we can’t ride kaidaws, we can ride hoxneys. They are not adversaries, like kaidaws – their blood is as red as ours. See if we can’t capture one between us.’

Both of them were wearing hoxney skins. They picked out a white-and-brown-striped animal and approached it on hands and knees. It was resting. At the last moment, it got up and walked away disgustedly.

They tried approaching it from different sides, while the rest of the herd watched the game. Once, Dathka got near enough to touch the animal’s coat. It showed its teeth and fled.

They brought up the rope taken from the gillot and tried to lasso the animals. They ran about the plain for several hours, chasing hoxneys.

They climbed young trees, lying in wait in the branches with the lasso ready. The hoxneys came sportingly near, pushing each other and whinnying, but none ventured under the bough.

By dusk, both men were exhausted and short-tempered. The nearby carcass of the kaidaw was being stripped by several scholarly-looking vultures, whose clerical garb contrasted with the gobbets of golden meat they were swallowing. Now sabre-tongues arrived, driving the birds away and quarrelling over the feast among themselves. Soon it would be dark.

The two retired to the comparative safety of their enclosure, ate pancakes and goose eggs with salt, and went to sleep.

Dathka was the first to waken in the morning. He gasped and propped himself on one elbow, hardly able to believe his eyes.

In the cool dawn light, colour had scarcely returned to the world. Grey mist lay in strata, completely screening the old hamlet from their sight. The world lay in a succulent grey-green mist, characteristic of a Batalixian sunrise in these days. Even the four hoxneys now grazing contentedly in the stockade appeared as little more than pewter imitations of hoxneys.