The Iron Breed (29 page)

He hoped that the Barkers would run into Broken Nose. In his mind Furtig gave that name to the great boar leader. The People could not echo the speech of the Tusked Ones, any more than they could the sharp yelps of the Barkers—though no reasonable creature could deem those speech. At the rare times of truce communication, one depended on signs, and the learning of them was the first lesson of any youngling's education.

Furtig watched the Barkers out of sight and then worked his way around the tree, found a place where he could leap onto the next, and made that crossing skillfully.

He was still growling. To see Barkers invading the hunting territory of the Five Caves was a shock. He would waste no time duck-stalking. On the other hand he must make sure that those he had seen were not outscouts for a larger pack. There were times when packs changed hunting territories, driven out by larger packs or by lack of game.

If such a pack were coming into the woods, then Furtig's warning would carry a double impact. He must back trail on those he had seen for a space.

For a time he kept to the trees, where he left no trail to be sniffed out even though, unlike the Barkers and the Tusked Ones, his people had no strong body odor. They hunted by sight and hearing and not by scent as did their enemies.

As a final precaution Furtig opened a small skin pouch made fast to his belt. Within was a wad of greasy stuff; its musky smell made his nose wrinkle in disgust. But he resolutely rubbed it on his feet and hands. Let a Barker sniff that and he would get a noseful as would send him off again, for it was the fat of the deadly snake.

Down again on the ground, Furtig sped along. As he went he listened, tested the air, watched for any sign that the home woods had been invaded in force. But he could not find anything save traces of the small party he had seen.

Then—His head jerked around, his nose pointed to a tree at his left. Warily he moved toward it. Barker sign left there as a guide, but under it—

In spite of his disgust at the rankness of the canine scent, Furtig made himself hold his head close, sniff deeper. Yes, beneath that road sign of the enemy was another, a boundary scent—of the People, but not of his own clan.

He straightened to his full height, held his arms overhead as far as he could reach. Scratches, patterned scratches, and higher than those he could make with his own claws. So the stranger who had so arrogantly left his hunting mark there had been larger, taller!

Furtig snarled aloud this time. Leaping, he slashed with his claws, managing to reach and dig into the other's sign, scouring out that marking, leaving the deeper grooves he had made. Let the stranger see that! Those deep marks crossing the first ought to be a warn-off to be heeded.

But the forest was getting far too crowded. First a hunting party of the Barkers, now a territory marking left by a stranger, as if Fives Caves and its clans did not exist at all! Furtig abandoned his back trailing. The sooner the People learned of these two happenings, the better.

However, he did not throw away caution but muddled his trail as he went. If any scout tried to sniff out the reptile scent, he would be disheartened by these further precautions. But this took time, and Furtig had to make a wider circle to approach the caves from a different direction.

It was dusk and then night. Furtig was hungry. He rasped his rough-surfaced tongue in and out of his mouth when he thought of food. But he did not allow himself to hurry.

A sudden hiss out of the night did not startle him. He gave a low recognition note in return. Had he not sounded that he might well have had his throat clawed open by the guard. The People did not survive through lack of caution.

Twice he swung off the open trail to avoid the hidden traps. Not that the People were as dependent on traps as the Rattons, who were commonly known to have raised that defense to a high art in the lairs. For, unlike the People, who distrusted and mainly kept away from the Demon places, the Rattons had chosen always to lurk there.

The Five Caves were ably defended by nature as well as by their inhabitants. None of them opened at ground level. High up, they cut back from two ledges with a straight drop below. There were tree-trunk ladders rigged to give access to the ledges. But these could be hauled up, to lie along ledge edge, another barrier to attack. Twice the caves had been besieged by packs of Barkers. Both times their defenses had been unbreakable, and the attackers had lost more pack members then they had slain in return. It was during the last such attack that Furtig's father had fallen.

Within, the caves cut deeply, and one of them had a way down to where water flowed in the ever-dark. Thus the besieged did not suffer from thirst, and they kept always a store of dried meat handy.

Furtig's people were not naturally gregarious. Younglings and their mothers made close family units, of course. But the males, except in the Months of Mating, were not very welcome in the innermost caves. Unmated males roved widely and made up the scouts and the outer defenses. They had, through the years, increased in numbers. But seldom, save at the Trials of Skill, were they ever assembled together.

They had a truce with another tribe-clan to the west, and met for trials with them that they might exchange bloodlines by intermating. But normally they had no contact with any but their own five families, one based in each of the caves.

Furtig's cave was at the top and north, and he swung up to it quickly, his nose already sorting and classifying odors. Fresh meat—ribs of wild cow. Also duck. His hunger increased with every sniff.

But as he entered the cave, he did not hurry to where the females were portioning out the food but slipped along the wall to that niche where the senior member of the clan sat sharpening his hunting claws with the satisfaction of one who had recently put them to good use. So apparent was that satisfaction, Furtig knew Fal-Kan had been responsible for the cow ribs.

Though his people's sight adjusted well to partial darkness, there was light in the cave, a dull glow from a small box which was another of Gammage's gifts. It did not need any tending. When the first daylight struck into the mouth of the cave it vanished, coming alive again in the dusk of evening.

Gammage's bounty, too, were the squares of woven stuff that padded the sleeping ledges along the walls. In summer these were stowed away, and the females brought in sweet-scented grasses in their places. But in the cold, when one curled up on them, a gentle heat was generated to keep one warm through the worst of winter storms.

“Fal-Kan has hunted well.” Furtig squatted several paces away from his mother's eldest brother, now sitting on his own sleep ledge. Thus Furtig was the prescribed respectful distance below him.

“A fat cow,” Fal-Kan replied as one who brings home such riches each morning before the full heat of the sun. “But you come in haste, wearing trail destroyer—” He sniffed heavily. “So what danger have your eyes fastened on?”

Furtig spoke—first of the Barkers and then of the strange boundary sign. With a gesture Fal-Kan dismissed the Barkers. They were what one could expect from time to time, and scouts would be sent to make sure the Barkers were not pack forerunners. But at the story of the slash marks Fal-Kan set aside his claws and listened intently. When Furtig told of his counter-marking, the Elder nodded.

“That was well done. And you say that these slashes were not deep. Perhaps no more deeply set than these could do?” He held out his hand, extending his natural claws.

“So it looked.” Furtig had long ago learned that caution was the best tone to take with Elders. They were apt to consider the opinions of the young as misled and misleading.

“Then this one did not know Gammage.”

Furtig's open astonishment brought him to the discourtesy of actually interrupting an Elder.

“Know Gammage! But he is a stranger—not of the Five Caves—or of the western People. Gammage would not know him.”

Fal-Kan growled softly, and Furtig, in confusion, recognized his error. But his surprise remained.

“It is time,” Fal-Kan said in the throat-rumbling voice used for pronouncements against offenders of cave custom, “that one speak clearly about the Ancestor. Have you not wondered why we have not been favored by his attention lately, during this time of your growing—though it would seem by your actions that you have not in truth progressed far beyond a youngling?”

Fal-Kan waited for no answer but continued without a pause.

“The fact is that our Ancestor”—and he did not say Honored Ancestor or use any title of respect—“is so engrossed by this fear of returning Demons which has settled in his head that he raises voice to unite all People—as if they were of one family or clan! All People brought together!” Fal-Kan's whiskers bristled.

“All warriors know that the Demons are gone. That they slew each other, and that they could not make their kind anymore, so they became fewer and fewer and finally there were none. Whence then would any come? Do old bones put on flesh and fur and come alive again? But the Ancestor has this fear, and it leads him in ways no prudent one would travel. It was learned the last time his messenger came that he was giving other People the same things he had sent here to the caves.

“And—with greater folly—he even spoke of trying to make truce with the Barkers for a plan of common defense, lest when the Demons returned we be too scattered and weak to stand against them. When this was known, the Elders refused the gifts of Gammage and told his messenger not to come again, for we no longer held them clan brothers.”

Furtig swallowed. That Gammage would do this! There must be some other part of the story not known. For none of the People would be so sunk in folly as to share with enemies the weapons they had. Yet neither would Fal-Kan say this if he did not believe it the truth.

“And Gammage must have heard our words and understood.” Fal-Kan's tail twitched. “We have not seen his messengers since. But we have heard from our truce mates in the west that there were truce flags set before the lairs in the north and strangers gathered there. Though we do not know who those were,” Fal-Kan was fair enough to add. “But it may well be that, having turned his face from his own kin when they would not support his madness, Gammage now gives to others the fruits of his hunting. And this is a shameful thing, so we do not speak of it, even among ourselves, unless there is great need.

“But of the hunting sign on the tree, that we must speak of—all warriors together. For we are not so rich in game that we can allow others to take our country for their own. And we shall also tell this to the western kin. They come soon for the Trials. Go and eat, warrior. I shall take your words to the other cave Elders.”

2

The visitors had been in sight of the cave scouts since midafternoon, but their party did not file into their usual campsite until after nightfall. This was the alternate season when the western clans came to the caves. Next season Furtig's people would cross country for the Trials.

All the young unmated warriors who were to take part in the coming contests scattered along the in-road (unless their Elders managed to restrain them with other duties). Though it was ill mannered to stare openly at their guests, there was naught to prevent their watching the travelers from cover, making comparisons between their champions and those marching in the protect circle about the females and younglings, or, better still, catching glimpses of their Choosers.

But to Furtig none of those were as attractive as Fas-Tan of the cave of Formor. And his interest was more for probable rivals than for the prizes of battle the other tribe could display. Not, he reflected ruefully, that he had much chance of aspiring to Fas-Tan.

Through some trick of heredity which ran in her family, she had odd fur coloring which was esteemed, along with the length of that fur, as beauty. The soft fur about her head and shoulders was nearly three times the length of that sprouting from Furtig's own tougher hide, and it was of two colors—not spotted or patched as was often the case but a dark brown shading evenly to cream. Her tail, always groomed to a silken flow, was also dark. Many were the fish-bone combs patiently wrought and laid at the message rock to the fore of Formor's cave, intended by the hopeful to catch the eye of Fas-Tan. And to know that she used the work of one's clumsy hands was enough to make a warrior strut for a day.

Fas-Tan would certainly have first choice, and with her pride, her selection of mate would be he who proved himself best. Furtig had not the least chance of catching her golden eyes. But a warrior could dream, and he had dreamed.

Now another thought plagued him. Fal-Kan's revelations concerning the folly, almost the treachery of Gammage, hung in his mind. He found himself looking not at the females of the westerners, but at the fringe of warriors. Most had hunting claws swinging at their belts. However, Furtig's eyes marked at least three who did not wear those emblems of manhood, yet marched with the defenders. A warrior could gain his claws in two ways, since they no longer came from Gammage. He could put on those which had been his father's if his sire had gone into the Last Dark, or he could challenge a claw wearer and strive for a victory that would make them his.

Furtig's claws had been his father's. He had had to work patiently and long to hammer their fastenings to fit his own hands. If he were challenged tomorrow by one of the clawless and lost—He dropped his hand protectingly over the weapons at his belt. To lose those—

However, when he thought of Fas-Tan there was a heat in him, a need to yowl a challenge straight into the whiskered face of the nearest warrior. And he knew that no male could resist the Trials when the Choosers walked provocatively, tails switching, seeming to see no one, yet well aware of all who watched.

And he was the only contender from the cave of Gammage this year. Also, since his brother Fughan had brought home no mate, he was doubly held to challenge. He wriggled back into the brush and headed for the caves.

As he pulled up into his own place, he gave a small sigh. Trials were never to the death; the People were too few to risk the loss of even one warrior. But a contender could be badly mauled, even maimed, if the Ancestors turned their power from him.