Manly Wade Wellman - Hok 01 (2 page)

 
Blood for Blood

 
          
THE
others were out of the tent by now. There was considerable hysterical weeping,
notably by Asha, who had lost baby and husband in almost the same instant of
time. Hok, bound by racial custom not to speak to his stepmother, told Eowi to
comfort the distracted woman. In the gray dawn he and Zhik reconnoitered.

 
          
A
look told them everything. Strange, enormous tracks behind the tent, a slit in
the hide covering—the Gnorrl, plainly, had crept up here. By guess or scent it
located the sleeping place of Asha’s baby son. A single strong rip with a sharp
flint would give egress to a hand. The Chief, the only camper awake, had been
slapped to death like a fly—the strength of the Gnorrl must be enormous. Had
Hok pursued blindly, he might have died as well.

 
          
The
brothers looked pallidly at each other. “You are the Chief now,” Zhik said.

 
          
Hok
had not thought of that, but it is true. He, with manhood barely upon him, must
be leader, defender and father of this handful. The realization steadied him,
and he made plans for the space of two breaths, while Zhik waited expectantly.

 
          
“I
am going to take up the trail,” said Hok at last. “Stay here and bury him.” He
gazed down at his dead father.
“Heap stones, to keep the
beasts away.
Then break camp. Keep your weapons in hand, and have Barp
and Unn
do
the same. Yes, and Eowi too, and Asha when
she stops crying. Be ready to fight for your lives.”

 
          
“I
understand,” nodded Zhik.

 
          
“When
you are ready to march, wait here and watch. I will make a damp- wood fire.
When you see its steam, come and find me there.”

 
          
Zhik
nodded as before, started to ask a question, but tactfully paused. Hok knew
what was on his mind, and issued a final command.

 
          
“The
trail leads north. If I make no signal by
noon
, you will know that I will never make
signals again. You, Zhik, will be the Chief. Lead the others south.”

 
          
“South?”
echoed the younger brother. “Where there is danger?”

 
          
“Maybe
the danger is less than what we have found.”

 
          
He
turned away without waiting for further comment from Zhik. He saw to his
javelins,
slung them in place, thrust axe and knife into his
girdle. Neither speaking nor looking back, he strode quickly out of the camp,
picked up the spoor of the raider and followed it at a trot.

 
          
THE
footprints of the Gnorrl betokened a long, wedge-shaped sole, point-heeled and
splay-toed. Its greatest weight was at the outer edge—Hok remembered how
grotesquely the legs had bowed. From force of habit he gauged the length and
tempo of the stride, the considerable bulk supported on these strange feet.

 
          
The
sun was well up by this time, and he glanced quietly but expertly around. The
country was all rolling meadow, well grown with grass and heather— rain must
fall plentifully. Far to the north he saw wooded heights, from which a river
wound its way. He made out distant dark spots at the brink— wild cattle drinking,
and a rhinoceros or two, proof of the good hunting to be found. Upon his right,
the
east,
ran at an angle the silver thread of the
creek beside which his people had made camp, and he could descry a little
ravine through which it ran to join the river.

 
          
The
track before him doubled back toward the creek and into the ravine. Cautiously
Hok approached, his javelin poised. He did not enter the cleft, but scouted
along its lip. Where it opened at the riverside he picked up again the tracks
of the Gnorrl. A gout of blood showed beside them and, farther on, another.

 
          
The
trail led him along the sand of the river’s brink to where, winding upstream
around a rocky height, it was lost to view. He paused a moment under the high
rock before turning the corner. Breeze brought him a tiny wreath of smoke.

 
          
“The
Gnorrl uses fire,” he said to himself. “It cooks.”

 
          
No
question what cooking it did this
morning.
More blood
spotted the track at juncture of bluff and river. Here were many footmarks of
varying degrees of freshness, easily classifiable as made by three pairs of
feet—two large, one smaller. Hok slipped gingerly around the point of the bank.

 
          
Just
beyond the steep slope of rock curved away from the water. It made a
crescent-shaped open space, tufted here and there with grass, almost entirely
enclosed by the bluff and the river. At the center point of the bank’s inward
curve, at twice Hok’s height above the sandy soil’s level, opened the wide
mouth of a cavern. A tall man, standing on its floor, might touch the roof by
jumping, and across the opening from side to side would take four considerable
stretchings of the legs. A jagged shelf extended above this grotto, filling it
with shadow, and an ancient water channel descended diagonally from the
cavern’s lower lip to the ground, making a natural runway up which two men
might mount abreast. The air was full of the musky odor Hok had first known
beside the slain deer.

 
          
This
was the den of the Gnorrl.

 
          
Hok’s
heart drummed partridge-like within him, but he advanced without hesitation.
His nose curled with revulsion at the stench. He got a better view of the
cavern, and from its shadowy interior came forth new wisps of smoke, laden with
the smell of roasting.

 
          
He
gained the foot of the runway— deep and narrow and not as steep as the bank to
left and right. It was worn as smooth as Hok’s palm; the feet of Gnorrls must
have trod it for uncountable years. Hok set up a fierce yell, beating with his
javelin-shaft on the stone.

 
          
“Hi, hi!
Gnorrl, Gnorrl! Come out, baby-killer! ”

 
          
He
heard movement in the cave overhead. A deep rumble made reply. Hok laughed
scornfully: 

           
“Gnorrl!
Come
out, and eat javelin!”

           
Something crept into view at the lip
of the opening-—a dark, coarse hand, matted with hair, that grasped the
shoulder of rock beside the deep-worn runway. Above it
peeped
the low, bearded face of the Gnorrl.

 
          
It
looked like the one Hok had seen yesterday, the one that had wanted to fight
for the deer’s carcass. This time he refused to shrink from its biting gaze.
“Come out, Gnorrl!” he urged. “Show me your body!”

 
          
As
though it understood, the thing rose into view. It swung a stick abruptly; from
that stick’s cleft end a stone whizzed, over Hok’s instinctively ducking head.
The Gnorrl charged down after the missile, lumbering swift as a rhinoceros.

 
          
Hok
let fly with his javelin. The upward angle was strange, but he knew his weapon.
There was a hum in the air, an abrupt
chock
as the stone point drove home, and the Gnorrl fell on its face. It came sliding
down the sloping way. Almost at Hok’s feet it
subsided
quivering, blood from its gasping mouth soaking the sand.

 
          
A
coughing roar sounded from above, where another Gnorrl had appeared. This was a
female, almost as thickset and fearsome as her fallen mate. She saw at once
what had happened. Her voice shrilled into a scream as she dashed
Vengefully
down the narrow way.

 
          
Hok
snatched his second javelin from behind his shoulder, but there was no time to
flex and throw. He quickly planted the butt-end in the sand, dropped to one
knee, his right hand supporting the shaft at an angle. Even as the she-Gnorrl
launched
herself
through the air, her great hands
crooked like talons for the grapple, he point-blanked the flint head into the
center of her gross breast. The force of her own assault impaled her, and Hok,
releasing the javelin, sprang lightly to one side. She floundered down, the
blood-gushing point springing into sight between her hairy shoulder blades. Hok
caught hold of the shaft just at the lashings and with a wrench pulled it clear
through her body.

 
          
She
still lived, trying to squirm around and clutch his ankle. He danced away,
laughed, and stabbed through her eye into the brain. As she sagged into death
he freed his javelin a second time and sprang across the carcass of the male to
mount upward to the cave.

 
          
Inside
the dark chamber
crouched
a halfling male cub of the
Gnorrls. Its frightened face was greasy with eating, and one hand clutched a
gnawed morsel. Hok darted a glance at the fire and the interrupted cooking.
That one glance was enough. He set foot on the floor of the grotto, watching
the young Gnorrl.

 
          
It
chattered at him like a crazy monkey. Monkeylike, too, it was fuzzy of body,
nervous of movement. Hok chuckled harshly. The young Gnorrl understood, tried
to retreat. In a far corner of the grotto opened a small inner cave. Hok let
the thing win almost to that hiding; then, still chuckling, he darted his
javelin.

 
          
Just
before
noon
, called
by Hok’s damp-wood smoke signal, Zhik and the others arrived. They found their
new leader seated at the foot of the runway, scrubbing his weapons with sand.

 
          
“The
Gnorrls are dead, all,” he told them. “I have thrown them into the river.”

 
          
“Is
this their cave?” asked Eowi, her eyes round.

 
          
“No,”
replied Hok. “It is our cave now. Get green wood, to burn and drive away their
smell. In this good game country we stay.”

 
Skirmishing

 
          
T'HE
grotto, with its water-worn sides and floor of hard-trodden earth, was more
than large enough for all the surviving members of Hok’s family. In odd corners
the new tenantry found the possessions of the slain Gnorrls. Near the runway
were heaped throwing stones, to be flung by hand, or with a cleft stick, as Hok
had seen and survived. A horizontal crack, like a natural shelf, held other
stones, rather roughly chipped into tools and weapons. These included
hide-scrapers that Asha and Eowi appropriated, also several almond-shaped
flints, like helveless axes, to be held in the hand.

 
          
Gnorrls,
too, were learning something about the weapons of the strangers. On the morning
after the first night in the cave, Zhik went for a brief scout down river and
returned to say that Hok’s three victims had washed ashore in the shallows not
far away. Barp and Unn slipped off to see the corpses, and returned shuddering.
From the shelter of a willow clump they had seen half a dozen living Gnorrls
moaning sadly over die dead. Eventually, said the frightened boys, these
grotesque mourners had carried the bodies away.

 
          
“They
are like men,” commented Zhik. “They weep for the slain and take them away to
bury them. The Gnorrls worship.”

 
          
“They
are evil,” growled Hok, and dutifully boxed the ears of Barp and Unn, warning
them to avoid all contact with Gnorrls.

 
          
Other
clues to Gnorrl-life turned up in the cave, and from them Hok and Zhik deduced
that the shaggy people lived in rock-sheltered communities during winter,
rather wretchedly and scantily. Warm weather would set them roving in small
groups again, even as true men loved to do. It had been only chance that the
last three Gnorrls idled in these winter quarters.

 
          
If
this was an established stronghold of the things, they would want to come back,
and there would be trouble; but Hok felt that the odds lay with the defenders.
The Gnorrls would have to gather upon the open half-moon of sand below, in fair
view and could scale the runway only a pair at a time. The ledge above the
grotto precluded attack from that quarter. Wisdom and watchfulness would do the
rest.

 
          
Accordingly
the young chief announced that whenever he and Zhik were absent, Barp and Unn
must keep faithful watch at the river’s brink, where they could see up and down
stream, while the women held themselves ready at all times to hurl spears or
stones against attackers.

 
          
T'HE
next adventure with
Gnorrls
 
was
Zhik’s alone. He and Hok, hunting,
for meat, went in opposite directions across a plain on which grazed deer and
cattle. When the brothers met later in the day, Zhik was minus a javelin and
trembling with rage and excitement.

 
          
He
had stalked a wild cow, crept through high grass and pierced her heart with a
javelin. Then, before he could come up to her, the nearby thickets had vomited
Gnorrls, and he had been forced to run for his life.

 
          
It
was the last lone hunt of either young man for many months. Not only did they
roam together thenceforth, but they made more preparations at the cave. From
leg bones of deer and bison they cut serviceable points, which they bound to
straight shafts. Thus they made plenty of good javelins for throwing or
stabbing. These they stacked near the runway, ready for instant use. Hok
instituted target practice for Barp, Unn and the women.

 
          
But
the feared attack did not come until autumn’s frosts made the mornings white.
It was then that the Gnorrls tried to take back their ancient shelter.

 
          
They
made a rush early in the dawn. Only Asha was awake, and had gone down to fill a
skin water-bag. The hairy ones were upon her in a triumphant, yelling wave.
Even as Hok and Zhik started to wakefulness on their pallets at the lip of the
grotto, they saw their stepmother beaten to death with stones and ragged clubs,
and her limp body dragged backward out of sight beyond the shoulder of the
bluff.

 
          
The
girl Eowi, who had been on guard but had gone into the rear of the cave, rushed
back and hurled the first vengeful missile. It was one of the bone-tipped
javelins, and it split the broad face of a Gnorrl as he gained the very foot of
the runway. He sat
down,
howling through a sudden mask
of blood, and his blind wriggles blocked for the moment a concerted charge.
Meanwhile the open space below seemed thronged with the enemy, and into the
heart of them Hok and Zhik threw spear after spear. No
need
to take careful aim
at such close quarters; four of the besiegers were
down in as many breaths, and the rest gave back. The occupants of the cave
shouted their defiance, and Barp threw a lucky shaft that pierced the shoulder
of a Gnorrl slow in retreating. Screaming loudly, the wounded monster sprang
into the water and wallowed there. Again the cave-holders yelled, as at a good
omen.

 
          
Five
human battlers were in action— Hok, his three brothers and Eowi. The Gnorrls
numbered six times as many, and seemed to have some sort of attacking order.
One or two growled commandingly, and made gestures as if to show how few were
the enemy. A volley of stones spattered the defenders, and Unn yelled in
startled pain. There was another dash for the runway.

 
          
This
time it was almost taken. Barp, Unn and Eowi threw their javelins too quickly
and, although the casts took toll, a flood of Gnorrls came scrambling up the
narrow channel in the rock. Hok and Zhik, who had reserved their casts, now
skewered each his Gnorrl, but the others swarmed over the fallen and up to the
very level of the cave floor. It looked like defeat, destruction. Desperately
Hok slashed with his axe of flint, hewing down the foremost attacker. Then it
was Eowi who turned the tide of battle.

 
          
She
had snatched a blazing stick from the breakfast fire, and ran to thrust it into
the snarling face of the next Gnorrl.

 
          
That
move was genius, or luck, or both. Had the Gnorrl been killed outright, he
would have fallen, and his comrades behind rushed trampling over his body to
the conflict. But as the flame kindled his rank beard, there went up from his
great mouth a hideous howl of pain and terror. He toppled backward on the slope
of the runway, flung out his thick arms and grappled those behind him. Crazed
with fear and agony, he tried to fight his way back through the press. Two or
three other Gnorrls slipped and fell. Zhik, greatly daring in his extremity,
sprang upon the fallen bodies,
spuming
them with his
moccasined feet and thrusting with a javelin at those beyond and below. A
moment later the whole attack was demoralized and the Gnorrls, dragging some of
their wounded, fled wildly back to the river, then along the edge and out of
sight beyond the bluff.

 
          
Hok
and his people waited cautiously while the morning sun lifted itself in the sky
by the breadth of a hand. Then they descended to the ground and recon-
noitered. The Gnorrls were not to be seen up or down river,
nor
on the meadow below the bluffs. On the sand lay nine of the creatures, dead or
dying. Three of these had fallen upon the runway and had slid to its foot. Hok
and Zhik finished the, last struggles of the wounded with judicious axe-blows
and hurled the bodies into the river, where they drifted quickly away.

 
          
The
only loss on the side of the defenders was Asha, whose corpse had been borne
away by the retreating Gnorrls—for what purpose Hok well knew. He grimaced in
revulsion at the idea, but reflected that his stepmother’s flesh was a repast
dearly bought. Lesser mishaps were a deep cut on his own cheek, which he could
not remember sustaining, a wrenched ankle for Zhik, and a big bump on Unn’s
forehead from a flung stone.

          
 
THE following day a heavy snow fell, and the
Gnorrls menaced them no further. Undoubtedly the strange aborigines of this
northern meadow-country found another shelter from the cold. Once or twice,
when hunting on fair days for snow-bogged elk and bison, Hok and his brothers
saw Gnorrls at a distance and were interested to see that the natural
shagginess of the things was augmented by crude mantles or skirts of skin.
However, there was no more fighting, no close contact even, during all the
season of snow.

 
          
Several
times in midwinter the cave- dwellers found themselves on the shortest of
rations, but all of them were young and vigorous, and all lived to see the
spring.

 
          
Hok,
sauntering southward with Zhik, saw something else.

 
          
“Smoke,”
he pronounced, pointing afar in the direction whence they had come a year ago.
“Fire—of men, like ourselves.”
He looked at his brother
sidewise. “You can be chief for a time —and Barp and Unn have grown. They can
help hunt and guard.”

 
          
“Why
do you talk like this?”

 
          
“I
am going south,” replied Hok. “Where there are men, there will be women. I want
one.”