The Chalk Giants (17 page)

A roar cut him short. Voices shouted, above the din.

‘Mata . . . Mata led us...’

Cha’Acta felt sweat running beneath his robes. The mob surged forward; he checked it, imperiously. ‘Hear me,’ he said.

‘Hear me, for your lives. The people from the north have told us, and some of you have seen, that a stockade is no defence against these warriors. For they press so thick against it, cutting and stabbing with their swords, that the stoutest fence is finally thrown down. Now what we must do is this. We must ring the village, on its weakest side, with a great bank and ditch. The chalk we shall pile high, so it is steep and slippery to climb; and in the ditch, planted close together, we shall set forests of pointed stakes. The stockade we shall line with our best slingers and archers, and hold the enemy away until he tires. This the God revealed to me; and this we must do at once.’

‘And this the God revealed to me,’ shouted Mata. She stooped and snatched up something that lay at her feet, held it out for all to see; a goat hide, cured to suppleness, bearing in great black charcoal strokes the figure of a man. The club he carried he brandished fiercely over his head; his eyes glared; his great member rose proudly, thrusting up before his chest ‘See the God’s own shape,’ said Mata. ‘For so he appeared to me not two hours since, as I sat here on the grass. While you and your greybeards, Cha’Acta, wagged your silly heads in the Council Lodge and talked long, stupid words.’

At that the blood seemed to flow from Cha’Acta’s face and arms, leaving him icy cold. ‘Mata Godbride,’ he said, ‘you lie...’

Mata’s eyes were sparkling at last, brilliant with hate. ‘And you lie, holy priest,’ she shouted. ‘Before the people, and in sight of the God.’ She danced on the wall, wrenching at the neck of her tunic. ‘In the reedbed, before he took me to wife, the Corn Lord put his Mark on me,’ she said. ‘This is a great Mystery; greater than Cha’Acta’s...’

The crowd bellowed; and the Chief Priest, face blazing white to the lips, called hoarsely. ‘Mata, as you love me ...’

‘As I love you?’ she squalled. ‘For this I have waited, Cha’Acta, many moons, and suffered your weight on me ...’ She flung out an accusing arm. ‘Cha’Acta Priest,’ she shouted, ‘took me against my will, forcing me in the Sacred House there when I was promised to the God. And Cha’Acta took the Bride Choele, killing her afterwards to seal her tongue--’

Cha’Acta waited for no more. He ran with surprising speed across the grass, up the swell of ground to the wall. In his hand gleamed a short, curved knife. Mata didn’t move; she stood contemptuously, feet spread on the wall, hair flogging her bare white shoulders. Ten paces he was from her, five, three; and something nickered in the high, warm light. Few saw the flight of the spear; but all heard the thud as it struck home, full between the High Priest’s shoulder-blades.

Cha’Acta had gained the base of the wall. He stood quite still for a moment, eyes wide, ashen face turned toward the girl. One hand was to his chest; across the fingers, where the iron tip of the weapon pierced the flesh, ran a thin, bright trickle of blood. He raised the knife, uncertainly; then his legs lost their strength. His body toppled, crashing through the bushes below the wall; then it was bounding, faster and faster, down the sheer slope of grass. The onlookers, rushing forward, saw it strike the base of the Mound, fly loose-limbed into the air. A stout tree shook to its top, a splash arose; then he was gone, and the stream was rolling him away.

For a moment longer the crowd stared, pale-faced and shocked, edging back from where Magan stood wide-eyed, glaring at the fingers that had made the cast. Then Mata raised her arms.

‘Build the God...!’

The shout spread, on the instant; she was seized and swung from hand to hand, carried by the surging, rejoicing mob down the long slope of the Mound.

Through the rest of the day the villagers scurried across the face of the great hill, roping out a grid pattern two hundred paces deep, nearly a hundred and fifty broad. At nightfall, fires sprang up at a score of points around it. The work went on far into the hours of darkness; women and children toiled forward and back across the slope, bringing fuel for the beacons. At first light Mata, who had not slept, began her part. Men followed her, wonderingly. She carried the tiny drawing of the thing to be; over it, they saw, she had inscribed a network of the same fine crossing lines. She worked methodically, with many pauses and checks, pressing lines of white pegs into the ground; by midday nearly half the Giant was visible, and work had started on the cutting of the head. Men tore at the turf with hatchets and antler picks; others shuffled forward and back up the hill, doubled over by the weight of baskets of chalk rubble that were tipped out of sight among the bushes of the Mound. In the village hearths burned low, babies cried unfed; while lines of women both old and young, scurried across the hill, wearing a maze of new tracks in the grass, bringing platters of fish and meat to the workers, and jugs of milk and beer. At nightfall Mata left her marking-out to supervise the digging at the shoulders. The trenches, she proclaimed, were everywhere too narrow; she ordered them widened to the span of a tall man’s arm, and deepened by a foot or more. Fresh shifts of workers scurried to the task; and by the second dawn the head and shoulders were complete.

With the dawn came a little group of strangers. They stood far off below the Sacred Mound, well out of the longest bowshot, and stared up at the hill. Magan marked them worriedly, shading his eyes with his hand. They were too distant for details to be clear; but their clothes seemed not to be the clothes of chalk dwellers, and on their heads he caught the gleam of iron. Also he saw that each had come on horseback, a nearly unheard-of thing; he could make out the animals grazing, farther down the slope. A party was detached to investigate; but long before they came within hail the strangers wheeled their mounts and trotted away.

Mata, dark lines of tiredness under her eyes, still scurried from point to point, directing every detail of the work; and slowly, sparkling-white, the Giant grew. The arms developed hands, the hands burst into fingers; then the great club came into being, vaunting across the grass. But by midday the valley floor was once more a-straggle with refugees. They shuffled past in groups, staring in wonderment at the toiling villagers; and one of them called up. ‘What are you doing, fools who live on the chalk?’ he said. ‘Do you think the Horse Warriors will be frightened of your little picture? Will they run with hands above their heads, crying “Oh”?’

Magan, poised on a slight eminence with the spears of his bodyguard clustered round him, answered loftily enough. ‘Get to the sea, old man, and do not trouble us with chatter. This is God’s work, and a magic thing.’ But even as he spoke the headman lifted his eyes worriedly, scanning the vacant outlines of the hills.

By the third evening, the trickle of refugees had once more thinned; but fires burned close, reflecting angrily from the clouds. Also, carried on the wind, came the dull throb of drums; and for the first time folk paused uneasily in their work, stared questioningly at each other. Then it was that Magan sought out his daughter; but she brushed him away. ‘Be silent, Father,’ she said. ‘You have already killed a Chief Priest; hold your peace, or perhaps the God will kill you too.’

By the fourth dawn the Giant’s great prick lay proud and gleaming across the hill, and the diggers were working on his feet and calves. The drums had beat throughout the night; now they fell ominously quiet. One scout, posted by Magan a mile or more out on the heath, returned swearing he had seen the glint of armoured marching men; the others never came back at all.

Then Magan frowned, seeing where faith had led them; but there was no time left for further reflection. From over the skyline beyond the Sacred Mound galloped a column of riders. They came with terrifying speed, fanning out across the turf, banners and standards fluttering; from them as they swept closer rose a harsh, many-throated roar.

Magan, shouting despairingly for his spears, ran down the hillside, whirling his own sword above his head. Everywhere men flung down their mattocks, grabbed for weapons. A line formed, packed and jostling. It checked the charge; though the weight and pace of the riders tore great gaps in the villagers’ ranks. The warriors, fighting well, re-formed; and a desperate retreat began, up across the sloping grass to the stockade gates. Behind the fight women and old folk scurried across the hill, flinging their baskets of rubble aside as they ran. Mata, hacking wildly at the turf, glared up to find herself nearly alone. The Giant was all but complete, part of one foot only remaining to be worked; but her voice, shrill as a bird, went for the moment unheeded.

Magan, fighting his hardest, heard behind him a fresh sound of disaster. He glanced back, appalled; and a groan burst from him. Over the stockade black smoke climbed into the sky, fringed at its base with leaping tongues of flame; on the ramparts tiny figures swayed, locked in deadly combat. The attack had been two-pronged after all; the second column of raiders, approaching unseen, had already taken the all-but-deserted village, and fired the huts.

Hope had gone; now only one thing remained. The headman raised his voice in a great shout.

‘The Giant... Fight to the Giant, and stand...’

The lines reeled, locked and breathless; a battling half-moon formed, withdrawing step by step across the grass. Against it the raiders charged again and again, with reckless skill. Everywhere men had fallen, lay tumbled in ungainly heaps, half-seen through the drifting smoke. Magan opened his mouth to shout again; and a lance, wickedly barbed, took him in the throat, stood out crimsoned a foot beyond his head.

Behind the fighting men, almost between the legs of the horses, a frenzied little group still hacked at the turf. Sweat ran, blinding, into Mata’s eyes; her hair hung across her face; and arbitrarily it seemed, two trenches met. The God was finished.

She turned, yelling defiance, sent the mattock spinning at the face of a mounted man. She ran upward, diagonally across the hill. Her hair flew round her; her breasts, uncovered, swung and jolted from her dress. The grass, close before her eyes, raced and jerked; but the frenzy in her brain blinded her to all else. Level with the Giant’s head she turned, squalling with triumph, staring down at the great thing Cha’Acta hadn’t lived to see; and the line below her broke, the last men of the village went over in a writhing heap.

Something hummed past her, and again. She ran once more, doubling like a hare; for only her own folk used the sling. Beside her a woman staggered in mid-stride, twisting to show her shattered forehead. Mata glared up, at the stockade and watchtower; and there was the dark blur of a descending missile. For a moment, while sense remained, she wondered how the sky could have made a fist, hit her so terribly in the mouth; then her legs buckled, she rolled back with the slope. She fetched up, finally, in the Giant’s heel; behind her on the grass stretched wavering spots of red.

He came floating at last from agony and dark, brighter and more lovely than she had seen him before. He stooped above her, frowning, his great gold eyes compassionate. Shudders shook her, racking her ruined body. It seemed she raised her arms; and his entering was first the greatest pain she had known, and afterwards the greatest peace. She sighed, yielding; and the Corn Lord took her up, flew with her to a far place of delight.

The invaders were well pleased. The storage pits of the village, undamaged by the flames, had yielded grain for an entire season; the valley was sheltered, opening to the south; and in all the land there were no enemies left. Their chieftains strutted, jangling the trinkets they had stolen from the dead; while those who took other pleasures from the wreckage on the hill found many of the bodies still warm,

Potts has had a most unpleasant dream. In it - could it have been a picture he saw once - there was this wheel A great golden wheel rolling across the hills, shooting out rays like sunbeams or spurts of yellow grain. He thought how fine it looked rushing along there against the bright blue sky, and the grass and bushes swaying to the wind it made. Then all at once it turned and was roaring at him, all the weight and vastness; and when the golden flame had passed she lay there broken and bloody like a doll, he couldn’t believe it when he saw her.

He has woken to darkness. In the darkness is the sound of the sea. Also it seems a bird is wailing somewhere. But that’s not possible; so the noise must be in his head.

He wants to move, but he can’t. His arms feel heavy, like lead; and there’s this tight pain across his chest, it makes breathing difficult. When he coughs there are sparks of colour behind his lids, and the pain is worse. So things are going wrong again.

He thinks if he could only get himself more upright his breathing might be easier. He tries pushing with his heels, and his palms against the floor. It’s difficult; but it will be worth it. Any thin g would be worth it to stop the pain.

There, he’s managed it. And his breathing is better, much better; it was smart of him to think of doing that. Though the wall is uncomfortable against his shoulders and the back of his head. What would be good would be to have a pillow behind him. One of the blankets would do, rolled up; but not for a minute. He’ll get his breath back properly first.

He’s feeling guilty now; the pain made him forget the Wheel, and what happened to her. He feels bad about the whole thing, naturally; but he’s also baffled. He’s certain this time it wasn’t his fault. It was nothing to do with him; it just happened, out
of
the blue. Nothing anybody could have done.

He’ll get the pillow in a minute. Right now he’s in a sweat; Funny, he was shivering when he woke. He opens his mouth, drawing in deep breaths; but the air itself feels hot. And there’s this roaring in his ears. Like thunder.

For weeks now the heat had not abated. Day after day the hard sky pressed on the rounded chalk hills; the leaves of trees hung listless and dry, the growing grain yellowed, rivers and ruins shimmered with mirage. The nights were scarcely cooler. Men tossed and grumbled in the stockaded towns, dogs ran snapping and foam-flecked. At such times tempers are short; and the temper of the Horse Warriors was at its best an unsure thing.