Death is the mother of life.
(a precept of the Plainsmen)
The next morning at breakfast, people asked where Ravan was and Akaisha informed them he had returned to join the Master. They looked at each other, knowing that Ravan and the others were meant to be warding with Father Crowrane.
'Why do you tolerate this affront to our ways?' asked Fern.
'It is every man's right to choose with whom he hunts,' retorted Akaisha, and no one dared to ask her anything more.
Carnelian listened to Sil and others whispering to each other the story going around about how the Master, with only a handful of their men, had not only managed to bring their earther home but had, besides, protected it all night from ravener attacks.
A few days later when they did not return to take their place in the ditches, their hearths began to worry. Father Crowrane and the few older men who were all that remained of his hunt worked as best they could, but when three days later they were supposed to go and fetch water, there was not enough of them and the rotas had to be readjusted, which caused a general anger.
During the day, Carnelian could suppress his fretting in his toil under the Bloodwood Tree, but in the evenings, by the hearth, he could not avoid seeing Akaisha's thinning face.
When Ravan appeared at the Horngate with Krow and others, the women at their butchery dropped everything and rushed to meet them. Carnelian and Fern lifted their heads and saw the hunters, their aquar hitched to a construction upon which lay an earther so immense that for a moment it seemed they would not be able to get it across the earthbridge. With a glance at each other they hurried after the women.
As the aquar came towards them through the fern-garden dragging the earther, children ran out from the drying racks to swarm the hunters and their catch. Carnelian watched one tiny pair clamber up onto its head, run along it, then scale the slope of its crest to reach the hill of its back. Carnelian did not like the childish shrieks of excitement nor the swagger of the hunters. Osidian did not seem to be among them.
Carnelian slowed to a walk as he overtook the women. As the procession drew nearer he grimaced, recognizing one of the children sitting astride the monster's back as Poppy. Ginkga, the Elder in charge, gave him a glare, warning him not to try to escape. The youths were boasting of the hunt, running their hands up the great sweep of the bull's horns, pointing out the hawser tendons beneath his smooth young hide, while all the time, the children frolicked, or drank in the glory of the hunt, wide-eyed.
Ravan called a halt and strutted out accompanied by Krow, who was beaming. At the head of the women, Ginkga confronted the youths.
'Where've you lot been? Do you know your hearths are half mad with worry?'
Smiles were fading all around her. Krow held on to his, but looked uneasy.
Ginkga pointed at the earther. 'What do you expect us to do with that monstrosity?'
Ravan frowned as if he was finding himself unexpectedly among strangers. He peered past the women to where a smaller earther lay half dismembered under the branches of the Bloodwood Tree. 'Get rid of that scrawny carcass. It's clear ours has far more and better meat.'
Ginkga scowled. She walked past Ravan and several of the women followed her. She pointed at the sled of roughly hewn wood upon which the bull lay.
'Where did that come from?'
'We made it,' said Ravan.
The Elder raised an eyebrow. 'It's made of wood.'
Ravan frowned more deeply. 'So, we cut down two or three acacias. There's plenty more where they came from.'
His comment produced a catching of breath among the women. Ginkga addressed her words to the youths standing behind Ravan. 'Are any of you here unaware that every tree is holy to the Mother?'
Many of the hunters blushed; looked away; let their eyes fall.
The Elder approached the saurian, nodding as she appraised him. 'I can't deny that he's magnificent.'
The youths lifted their heads desperate for her approval.
'But you've cut him down in the full flowering of his strength. He should be out there fathering more of his kind. Didn't that occur to any of you? Did you also forget his herd will need him to defend them against raveners?'
The hunters withered under her disapproval.
'We've brought meat for the Tribe,' said Krow, aggrieved.
'Meat?' Ginkga demanded. 'Can't you see that even if we were ready for him, he's got more on him than we could possibly process before he begins to rot? Not to mention that we're expecting Kyte's hunt in tomorrow.' 'So some'll be wasted.'
Ginkga regarded Ravan as if he were speaking a foreign tongue. 'All flesh is a gift from the Mother.'
Ravan gave her a sneer as he pointed at the young bull. 'We weren't given that. We took it,' he said, snatching a handful of air.
People gaped in shock. Fern strode forward, his skin and hair stiff with blood.
'Have you lost every last bit of sense you had? How can you say such things?'
Ravan's smile chilled Carnelian. The Master has taught me to be a man.'
Ignoring Ginkga's glare, Ravan turned on his heel and, accompanied reluctantly by Krow, strode to his aquar.
'You come back here,' she bellowed, but Ravan was deaf to her as he unhitched his aquar from the sled.
'Child, I command you to return with me to the Ancestor House.'
Ravan vaulted into his saddle-chair, made his aquar rise and sent it striding away towards the Horngate. The other youths looked, some apologetic, some angry, but they too were unhitching their aquar. They ignored Ginkga, who was in their midst pulling at them, berating them. Carnelian moved forward with Fern, but neither was sure what to do.
Raising a choking cloud of red dust, the hunters flew after Ravan. The women pulled their ubas over their noses and mouths, all the time staring at the Elder. She was coughing, squinting at the veiled shapes of the riders as they rode out onto the plain. A movement above her drew her eye. Poppy and a boy were still astride the bull.
'Have you no respect? Get down from there!'
The children slithered to the ground and fled with the others back to the racks.
Ginkga turned on Carnelian. 'Are you satisfied, Master?' Then she rounded on the women.
'Well? Don't you think we'd better get on with it or shall we just stand here all day watching the poor bastard rot?'
News of Ravan's defiance spread quickly through the Koppie. Carnelian saw how keenly Akaisha and Fern felt the hearth's shame. At first rumours abounded of the punishment that would certainly be meted out upon the errant youths, but as time passed it became clear the Elders were not going to act. People looked at their old people and wondered at their powerlessness.
Ravan did not return, but the youths who returned periodically with their kills upon other sleds confirmed he was hunting with the Master.
One time, Krow came with others boasting of a brawl in which they had triumphed over some Bluedancing. Around the hearths it was difficult not to greet this news with approval. For as long as anyone could remember, the Bluedancing had been provoking the Ochre. It was high time those bullies were shown there were men prepared to stand up to them. Whin was clearly unimpressed by the assurances that the Master had remained concealed throughout the brawl. Carnelian and Akaisha exchanged glances, both wondering if Osidian was sending them a warning.
The increasing glamour of hunting with the Master made more and more of the Tribe's young men desert their hunts for his. Forced to defend them, their kin declared that all they were doing was risking their lives daily beyond the safety of the ditches for the good of the Tribe, for its pride. Others were not so forgiving. They were resentful so many of the young men should refuse to fetch water or to work in the ditches, but they did not feel they could protest too much in case people should believe they spoke out of envy at the evident success of the Master's hunt. These malcontents carried their anger to the Elders, who once more showed themselves unwilling or unable to act.
There were other concerns. The mother trees declared the beginning of the Withering by producing cones while, beneath a high pearlescent sky, the sun was burning the world to dust.
One day, struggling against smothering heat, Carnelian became aware that every fern frond he could see was brown. Gazing out past the Newditch, he saw the world beyond was sepia to the horizon.
'How can anyone possibly survive out there in that shadeless world?' he rasped through his parched throat.
Fern had a sombre look. The lagoons will soon dry up and then the herds will begin their migration to the mountains. We must follow them or else die.'
Carnelian smiled. 'At least we'll be free of this,' he said, lifting up his brown, blood-stained arms. He watched Fern return to his work miserable, frowning, and only then remembered it would also be time to send children to Osrakum.
'Smoke,' Carnelian cried, pointing at a mass of it rising well above the crowns of the magnolias, bending its back as it leaned towards the west.
Not hearing other cries joining to his own, he turned and saw that only a few people had even bothered to lift their heads. He pulled at Fern.
'Fire.'
His friend seemed infuriatingly unconcerned. There's fire spreading within the Newditch,' said Carnelian.
Fern gave a nod. 'We must burn the ferngardens now while they still have the memory of green life in them.'
Carnelian watched the edge of the pall fraying in the breeze and understood. Soon the ferngardens would be tinder-dry.
Fern spoke again. 'If we burn them now, any fire that comes across the plain will find nothing here to consume and so turn aside.'
Carnelian gazed out over the plain and his breathing stilled as "he contemplated how easily it could all turn to flame.
Every day after that, a ferngarden was set alight, beginning with the westernmost and moving progressively closer to the Grove. Soon, while at his work, Carnelian was able to watch the neighbouring field being sown with fire. Starting at its western margin, gradually retreating with the breeze at their backs, people wrapped in soaked blankets beat smoke from the flames as they steered the smoulder over the land.
The day that they burned the Eastgarden, Carnelian and Fern were spared their labours. From the safety of the Homeditch they stood and watched the Bloodwood Tree sifting clots of smoke through its branches. That evening and for many after, they had to quit the Grove, for the breeze carried the smoke in among the mother trees. Carnelian took his turn at moving along the eastern run of the Homewalk, his mouth and nose smothered beneath his soaked uba, his eyes stinging, making sure that, though serpents of blue smoke might be curling among their trunks, no spark would live long enough to harm the mother trees.
At last, men returning from the lagoon announced it had shrunk to brackish pools. What water they had managed to bring back they distributed direcdy among the hearths. Standing round with Akaisha, Whin and the others,
Carnelian saw their allowance was not even enough to fill their water jar halfway.
Akaisha tasted it and, grimacing, spat it out. This isn't good enough to drink.' She smiled grimly round at her hearthkin, then pointed at the jar. 'Wash yourselves as best you can with that. There'll be no more washing until we reach the mountains. I'm going to meet with the other Elders.'
Sil touched her emaciated arm. 'My mother, can we take water from the cistern to drink?' 'A little,' Akaisha said and walked away. Carnelian caught her up and fell in step. 'Migration?' 'A few days at most.' 'Why do we delay?'
'We daren't expose the Tribe to the plain until we are certain the raveners are gone.'
They walked on some more in silence. The charcoal reek of burning still persisted disturbingly in the Grove.
'I'm worried about Ravan, the others,' said Carnelian.
She stopped and looked him in the eye. 'Don't you think their mothers are too? Thirst will bring them in.'
She took leave of him and he watched her go. Peering out through the cedar canopy, he hoped she was right. He imagined Osidian and the others out there alone in what had become a desert. If he came in, it was certain the Elders would have him killed. They had waited long; had suffered enough humiliation. A turmoil of emotions churned Carnelian's stomach. It was a while before he remembered that Osidian's death might be closely followed by his own.
Next day, half the Tribe came down to the djada field to bale the dried meat and load it onto the drag-cradles that had been laid flat on the ground in neat rows. Night was falling when the job was done.
With Poppy, Carnelian proudly surveyed his stack of djada coils. 'It took longer than I thought.'
'It always does,' said Fern. 'Come on or we'll be late for the feast.'
'Feast?' Carnelian asked seeing how sad Fern had become.
His friend glanced at Poppy. Tonight is Skai's Tithing Feast. Tomorrow, he leaves for the Mountain.'
The girl took his hand and clung to it. Sharing the pain, Carnelian was relieved his friend's eyes held no blame.
Together they wandered up past the rows of drag-cradles.
There's a lot of djada, isn't there, Poppy?' Carnelian said. The girl gave the merest nod.
'It'll have to feed us all until we return, as well as the aquar on the journey,' said Fern.
'How long will we be away?'
Fern shrugged. 'Until the Rains come: between four and five moons.'
Carnelian squeezed Poppy's hand. 'It'll be quite an adventure, won't it?' She gave him a watery smile.
He and Fern continued making conversation about the migration as they passed under the Old Bloodwood Tree. The ferngarden on the other side of the Outditch was black and barren.
'I can't get used to the stench of burning.'
The Rains will wash it away,' said Fern.
His friend's blank expression made Carnelian certain Fern was thinking about his daughter. Carnelian walked the rest of the way brooding about whether he would survive to suffer the day of Poppy's Tithing Feast.
They did not hear the usual talk and laughter as they approached the hearth. Instead there was a murmur, as if people were afraid of making echoes. They formed two rows of shadows enclosing the fire glow. One rose; it was Akaisha coming to meet them.
'We've been waiting for you,' she whispered, then led them back towards the hearth.
As Carnelian came fully into the firelight, he made a smile for all the sad faces ruddy in its glow. There was one among them he had not expected to see.
'Ravan,' he gasped. 'Have the others returned with you…?'
Vestiges of hunting paint deepened the shadows around the youth's eyes. They choose to remain with the Master.'
Then why are you here?' said Fern.
'I've come as the Master's emissary.'
Fern snorted a laugh. '"Emissary?" Do you really believe you're going to impress anyone with those airs?'
Ravan reddened. 'I suppose you consider yourself fit to speak for the Tribe. I would've thought the past season hardly prepared you for anything better than carrying offal.'
Fern's murderous advance on Ravan was stopped by Akaisha's voice. 'Shut up, both of you! You shame me even more than you shame yourselves. Have you forgotten whose night this is?'
Fern paled and returned to his place. Ravan remained standing, not even looking at his mother, still glaring at his brother.
'Sit down,' Akaisha hissed through her teeth.
Ravan glanced at her, then shrugged before dropping insolently onto the bench. Separating from Poppy, Carnelian waited to see her in her place, then he walked round Ravan to sit beside Fern. Sil was watching her husband with concern. Akaisha was looking down at her lap. When she lifted her head sorrow was softening her face.
'Whin, dear, will you be first?'
As Whin rose, Carnelian saw Skai sitting where the rootbenches met; Akaisha's traditional place. Leaning over the pot, Whin ladled some of its contents into a bowl. She held it up to Skai and looked at him through her tears.
'My heart will ache for you for ever, my little one.'
Carnelian watched as one by one his hearthkin took the bowl, put a little more broth into it and pledged him their love. Then Akaisha told Carnelian it was his turn. He glanced at Whin, at the boy's parents. He was overcome that they should show no hatred for him on such a terrible day. It was all he could do to manage the ritual without spilling the bowl along with his tears.
Beneath the Crying Tree, the Tribe formed a ring around the five tithe children and the men and women who were to accompany them to the Mountain. Appraising the gathering with a Master's eye, Carnelian saw a crowd of unkempt savages standing around a brown-leafed tree among the ashes of a dying land. In their midst the tithe children seemed a beggarly tribute to pay the Lords of the Three Lands in Osrakum. Carnelian looked around him at the dark faces and saw their human pain. Shame crushed his false aloofness. It was in his blood, his bones, that he felt the value of what was being given up. These children were flesh torn living from the body of the Tribe. It only took the thought that the following year Poppy would be standing there for him to be suffering with them. He drew her closer to his side.
'Why is he here?' cried a woman's voice.
Harth, pointing at Carnelian, drew the eyes of the Tribe to him. He broke into a sweat. Akaisha clasped his shoulder.
'As a member of my hearth, Carnie has as much right as any to be here.'
Fern and Sil, holding each other and their baby, both gave him a solemn nod. Whin's bleak eyes saw nothing but her grandson.
Scowling, Harth looked away. Beside her Crowrane kept his glare fixed on Carnelian but people were turning back to the tithe children.
'We go, fathers and mothers,' said the men and women standing beside them. 'We go, brothers and sisters.'
Those going looked at those remaining and they in turn looked back. Ash floated in the air like infernal snow.
'Son,' a father cried and ran in to embrace one of the children. His action released many others. People streamed across the divide; the sound of their grief a winter wind.
Ginkga, her voice none too steady, commanded that they must all face this bravely. The ring re-formed slowly. The sobbing died to a groaning, then to a rocking of heads. Aquar were brought laden with djada, fernroot as well as cone-nuts and die other few luxuries the Tribe had managed to hoard for this day. Solemn-faced, Harth held aloft a loaf of salt which she showed to the Tribe.
The blood of our men,' she said, then wrapped the loaf lovingly in an oiled cloth before handing it to one of the tribute-bearers. A gap appeared in the further curve of the ring and the tributaries moved out through it. The whole Tribe walked with them across the Poisoned Field and down to the Outditch, where the tributaries had to wait for them all to cross. They followed them across the blackened ferngarden to the Newditch and out onto the gold of the plain.
The whole Tribe stood watching as the aquar carrying their tribute took the first steps of their long journey to the distant Mountain. Looking back with tear-striped dusty faces, the children were soon lost beyond a veil of dust.
The Tribe buried their grief in the feverish final preparations for leaving. Carnelian went down with Fern and others to the djada field to fetch the packs their hearthmates would be carrying on the migration. Poppy aside, the children did not seem haunted by the hearth's loss and ran around in shrill excitement. Whin and her sisters frowned, but most looked on indulgently, glad these at least they had kept. Carnelian felt people were trying not to look at him.
Most of the cooking pots had been stowed and so that night they had the first meal of what promised to be many of djada washed down with a mouthful of water. The taste brought back to Carnelian memories of his journey from the Guarded Land. These forced Carnelian to confront his feelings for Osidian and what he was doing. Ravan had returned to him that morning. Carnelian shared the Tribe's desperation to see their young men return safely. All day he had been finding it difficult to stay silent when he saw the accusing looks the Elders were getting from everyone. Time was running out. Osidian must return. It was inconceivable he had not planned for this. There was hope in Ravan's visit. Surely he had come to bring the Elders some proposal from the Master, but if they had come to any arrangement, they were keeping it to themselves.
He looked for Akaisha in the root fork and found it was empty. He leaned close to Fern.
'Where's your mother gone?'
'Preparing the guardians for the Grove gates.'
'Guardians?' Carnelian said, wondering who was being left behind.
'Huskmen.'
Carnelian rose. 'Where will I find her?'
Fern pulled him back. 'Waking the huskmen is a ritual tinged with death and thus dangerous to all but the Elders.'
Carnelian nodded and sat down again. The hearth felt dead without its fire. He was cold and unhappy. Glancing at the packs all lying neatly stowed against the trunk of the mother tree, he realized he was already feeling homesick. He looked up into her branches and smiled. He would miss her and her perfume. Looking down, his eyes met Poppy's. She looked away sadly, glancing in the direction of the sleeping hollows. Where, Carnelian thought, her own tree lies buried.
The Tribe rose with the sun. Poppy's face was beautiful in its melancholy. Today we go to the mountains.'
To the mountains,' said Carnelian, searching for Akaisha. He spotted her by the rootstair marshalling the men. He set Poppy to stowing their blankets to keep her out of his way. As he approached Akaisha, the men began filing down the hill. She regarded him with a frown.
'Where are they going, my mother?'
To hitch the aquar to the drag-cradles. You should go and help them.'
'May I first speak with you?'
Akaisha thought about it. 'Wait here a moment.'
He watched her go and give some final instructions to the women, then she beckoned him. As he neared her, Sil walked past him avoiding his gaze.
Akaisha watched her move away, then glanced at Carnelian. 'You two should be better friends.'
Carnelian would have asked Akaisha what she meant but saw she had more important matters to attend to. He accompanied her as she toured the hearth. They checked each sleeping hollow to see nothing had been left behind. Then they moved towards the mother tree and made sure everything had been properly stowed among its trunks. As she strummed ropes and tucked in the corner of a blanket Akaisha mumbled at him. 'We don't want to come home and find this stuff all rotted by the rain.'
The Master…?' he began, but the stare she gave him struck him mute.
'My care is more for the lads he has with him.'
He thought of protesting but saw her mind was only half with him and could not bring himself to speak. Instead, he waited while she busied herself checking what she had already checked before.
She turned to look at him. 'Will he bring them in?'
Carnelian grew excited. 'Did he say he would?'
'My son…' Her brows creased. 'Ravan said the Master would on the condition that we should vow not to raise a hand against him. We swore on our mothers' and our fathers' bones.'
'When will they come in?'
Akaisha shrugged.
'Will we wait for them?'
Akaisha flared to anger. 'We cannot. We dare not consume another day's water here.'
Carnelian caught her eyes and saw how powerless she felt. So Osidian had won. He saw Akaisha's need for reassurance.
'He will come. Even he cannot survive here without water.' Then, as an afterthought, 'You have all the water there is.'
She put a warm hand upon his arm. 'Stay with me.'
They came round the tree and found the women already gone. All that was left was Carnelian's djada pack with their blankets that Poppy was trying to pick up.
'What are you doing?' Carnelian said, walking up to her.
'I just thought I'd carry it for a bit.'
He laughed. 'It's nearly as big as you are.' He kissed her and hoisted the pack up onto his shoulder, then, giving her his hand, the three of them began walking off towards the rootstair.
Carnelian touched Akaisha's shoulder. 'I've forgotten something, my mother.'
She raised an eyebrow. 'We'll wait.'
'You may as well go on, I'll soon catch you up.'
Akaisha shrugged, took Poppy's hand and they set off. Carnelian ran back to his sleeping hollow. Certain they were now well out of sight, he began digging where he and Poppy had buried her mother tree seed. He was despairing of finding it when he felt it in the earth. He lifted it carefully. Though its wing was black and tattered, the seed was still whole. Perhaps one day Poppy might be allowed to grow her mother tree in some garden in Osrakum. He slipped the seed carefully into an inner pocket and then ran towards the rootstair.
Carnelian and Poppy stood with Akaisha by the Lagoongate, watching the aquar go by pulling drag-cradles that sagged under their loads of swollen waterskins.
'You two can go ahead,' Akaisha told them. 'I'm just waiting to seal this gate.'
'We'll wait with you if we may, my mother,' said Carnelian.
He had already counted sixty drag-cradles and he could see an apparently endless line of them stretching off round the Homing under the cedar trees. It was strange to see aquar allowed into the Grove. Even though the morning was still cool, he savoured the comfort of having the canopy over his head.
Carnelian gazed out over the golden plain. 'No doubt we'll soon miss this shade.'
'Be sure of it,' said Akaisha.
Eventually the last drag-cradle scraped past and they were followed by a party of Elders led by Harth. She gave Carnelian a look of disapproval before addressing Akaisha. 'What's he doing here?'
'Keeping me company.'
Harth looked up at Carnelian. 'So you believe you've beaten us?'
Carnelian did not know what to say.
'How many times have I told you, Harth: Carnie is on our side.'
Harth gave a snort and moved away. Carnelian saw the other Elders were carrying two jars and, on a drag-cradle, something covered with a blanket. They came through the gate and put everything on the ground. Akaisha closed the gate and then one of the old men dipped his hand in one of the jars and brought it out black and reeking of charcoal. Reaching up, he drew his hand across the gate leaving shiny black daubs on its wicker. Harth did the same with red chalky ochre.
When they were done, the Elders all stood back and began a grumbling incantation. The blanket was pulled back to reveal a bony cadaver of a man, leathery brown, with holes for eyes, his papery lips pulled back from a yellow grin. Carnelian was reminded of nothing as much as one of the Wise he had seen unmasked, which made him shudder. He felt Poppy clutch his arm and slip her body round behind his leg.
'He can't harm you,' he said, gently.
Harth whisked round. 'He has more power than you might imagine against our enemies.'
Between them, the Elders raised the huskman and propped him up against the gate. Drawing back they began shouting at him, arraigning him with the crimes he had committed against the Tribe, promising him that if he should fulfil his duty well and protect their home, one day they would expose him on the summit of the Crag tower and allow his soul to be carried up to Father Sky.
Leaving that wizened sentinel, they wandered under the trees along the Lagooning, walking in the ruts the laden drag-cradles had gouged in the rusty earth. Fern and Sil, with Leaf strapped to her back, were waiting for them by the final gate. All together, they walked across the earthbridge into a world drenched by the gold of the sun. The Tribe and the aquar with their drag-cradles were dark motes beneath a copper sky.
Akaisha and the other Elders moved in among the people dictating the order of their march. Slowly, the aquar were formed up around the people with their burdens. Riders floated in dust clouds further out. With thin warbling cries the Tribe stirred into movement, fading Carnelian's view of the world behind their dust.
A weaving of withered ferns held the parched earth in thrall. Trees waved flags of scorched leaves at the Ochre as they passed. The herds were gone. Dust spat at them on the torrid breath of the wind. The heat was terrible. With a leaden heart, Carnelian had given up looking for Osidian. Making sure Poppy was well protected, he wrapped the cloth of his uba around his face and bowed his head to protect his eyes from the grit and glare. Blind, he trusted to the feeling in his feet, using the burn of the sun upon his forehead to tell him in which direction their path lay.
The lagoon,' said Fern.
Carnelian looked at the handful of cloudy water-holes. Pointing, Fern undulated his hand and Carnelian saw the faint curves printed on the earth that were the ghosts of the vanished water. He lifted his eyes up to the featureless heat-grey sky and could not believe it would ever rain again. Around him the Tribe were marching across the cracked lagoon bed. Carnelian watched with curiosity as some women brushed the ground with their feet. Youths hung around them keenly waiting.
'What are they doing?' he asked Sil.
'We'll show you.'
Sil felt the earth with her calloused foot, she smiled and tapped the sand with her heel. Fern fell on his knees and dug where she indicated. Carnelian joined him. The earth had been baked so hard that at first it was like clawing stone. Then it began to soften, grow moist. Fern sat back to watch him. 'Go on,' he encouraged.
Carnelian felt something cold and slimy and yanked his hands out of the hole.
'I'll do it then,' said Fern, pushing him out of the way. He slipped his hands in and fetched something out that glinted in the sun. A fish. Carnelian was too astounded to say anything.
'Dreaming,' said Fern, giving it to Sil, then turned his back so she could tuck it into his pack.
'Even in the Withering, Carnie, the Mother provides for us,' she said, grinning.
The dark mass of the march had crested a ridge ahead.
'Come on,' said Sil, breaking into a lope. Carnelian scooped Poppy into his arms and ran to catch up. On the way they passed some boys dancing around a murky puddle jiggling their spears. One after another they plunged them in then, together, drew out a struggling dwarf-crocodile. They held it up as a trophy and Sil touched it to bless it for them.
'Kill it mercifully,' she said.
'And quickly,' said Fern. 'Or else you'll be left behind.'
Carnelian put Poppy down as they came over the crest of the slope and saw the soft circular outlines and eggshells scattered everywhere half filled with sand.
The remains of the bellower rookery,' Carnelian muttered. For some reason, the site reminded him of the ruins of the Quyan city he had seen from the leftway on his way to Osrakum.
The Tribe plodded on until the sun fell behind them, spindling their shadows off in the direction of their march. As the women of each hearth made a ring of blankets, the men cleared a great space among the brown and brittle ferns. They piled great armfuls of the stuff in the centre of the blanket rings and lit fierce fires. Carnelian saw Akaisha and others gazing off back the way they had come until it became too dark to see anything. It grew quickly cold. Carnelian huddled round their fire with the rest of his hearthmates as they all tried to recapture something of the comfort of their home. He sensed that much of the sombre mood was due to worry about the missing youths. As a djada rope was passed around, Fern produced the fish he had dug from the ground and buried it in a cooler corner of the fire. When it was cooked, he distributed pieces of its charred flesh, which were delicious. A waterskin came round from which sips were taken to help lubricate the chewing of the djada. Whin was telling a story about animals who spoke with human speech, in which her sisters and Akaisha had roles and the children joined in gleefully with the choruses.
As the sky frosted with stars, they quietened so that Carnelian began to notice the muttering, a rare laugh drifting from the other hearths. People grew drowsy in the warm flicker of their fires.
'We are so naked here,' Carnelian whispered to Fern.
'Our mother trees are already far away,' said Sil.
'And the tribute bearers and the children too,' said Whin.
In the firelight Carnelian saw Fern looking over to Leaf, sleeping in her mother's arms, and drew Poppy to him and stroked her head encouraging her to sleep.
Commotion broke suddenly around them. Carnelian leapt to his feet even as the whole Tribe did so, obscuring the light of their fires with their bodies, everyone jabbering.
'Is it raveners?' he asked.
'Silence,' cried Akaisha. Other Elders all across the camp could be heard echoing her cry. The people quietened, calmed. Carnelian could see vague shapes moving in the dark.
'Riders,' Fern breathed.
'We are returned,' said a voice in the night.
Carnelian knew it was Ravan. Those who hoped their sons were returning to them began to call out the names of their hearths. It was a while before Akaisha began to speak her name into the darkness. The calls subsided and still she called: 'Akaisha, Akaisha.'
A black mass looming up out of the night silenced her. It divided into the shapes of two riders. Their aquar knelt and two men dismounted. One was vast beside the other. Silence.
'Make them welcome,' Akaisha hissed.
At her command, Carnelian and the others moved round the fire so that its light poured out to illumine the figures. They strode in to close the ring and then sat down. They were offered djada and water.
'It's good to have you back, son,' Akaisha said.
When Ravan did not even turn to look at her, Fern grew incensed. 'Didn't you hear your mother?'
The younger people were sneaking glances at each other. Whin was regarding the Master with unconcealed loathing. Akaisha was struggling for composure.
It was Poppy who pointed out the shape standing watching them in the night.
'Come forward,' said Whin.
Moving into the light the shape revealed itself to be Krow.
'Well?' Whin demanded.
Krow's black hunter's face glanced at the Master for guidance but he seemed unaware of him.
'Krow has nowhere else to go,' said Carnelian, at last.
Akaisha found a smile for the youth. She beckoned. 'Join us.'
Krow muttered his thanks to Akaisha and shot Carnelian a grateful look. After that, people spoke in whispers, giving the Master anxious glances, while he sat, a massive shadow gazing unblinking into the fire. Once he did look at Carnelian, who saw in his eyes fierce triumph.
In the morning the Tribe flung the embers of their hearths into the wind. Where fire caught, smoke leapt quickly westwards. They turned their backs on the flames and trudged into the sepia east. The Master walked in their midst as if he were alone. Observing him, Carnelian feared what he might be feeling. He needed to probe him, but Osidian never spoke. What little he ate he passed through the folds of his uba so that only the pale mouth in the blackened face was revealed. His eyes seemed to have no more sight in them than glass. Poppy shunned him as if he were a stranger. Ravan served him like a slave so that his own people turned away, not wishing to see his humiliation. Krow might have been the Master's shadow.
As the days passed, Carnelian gave up waiting for Osidian to speak. He strove to bear the weariness of the march as well as he saw the Elders and the children were doing. Still, each day was like a fever to which only the cool repose of night brought some relief.
One day, feeling a tremor of thunder coming from the west, Carnelian asked Fern with eager delight whether it might be some rain.
Fern's eyes peered out between the folds of his uba. There'll be no rain for several rebirths of the moon. Until then, the Withering will tighten its grasp on the land, relentlessly.'
Carnelian waited for more, but Fern only said, 'I fear we may soon enough see what is following us with thunder.'
Carnelian did not have the energy to pursue it. The sun was turning the world to molten gold. Their store of water was the very heart of their march. Over the first few days they had come across water-holes, puddles, which they drained down to the mud and even that they did not waste, but plastered it on the aquar to cool the burning in their hides. Eventually the land had nothing to offer them but dust.
The thunder following them became a shuddering in the ground. Looking back, Carnelian saw a sandstorm bearing down on them. The Elders began shouting orders. The arc the Tribe made across the plain began coalescing around groups of Elders. The children huddling in beside them were walled in by the kneeling aquar. On the outside men swung their bull-roarers while women gathered stones.
Carnelian stood with Osidian, Ravan and Krow on one side, Fern on the other whirling the blade of a bull-roarer around his head, dizzying Carnelian with its strobing, moaning cry. The women had built a cairn of stones in front of them. Sil pushed herself between Carnelian and Fern. She glanced back anxiously to see Leaf in Akaisha's arms. Poppy was there too. Carnelian gave her a smile and she returned it nervously. He turned back to watch the storm roll mountainously towards them.
Their heads,' a voice screamed and many arms pointed up into the clouds that were billowing up and obscuring the sun.
Carnelian looked and saw dark shapes floating high among the veils of dust, the necks that held them there, then emerging through the murk their chests and the column legs that were churning the earth.
Carnelian fell back against Sil. 'Heaveners,' he gasped in fear and awe, as every eye was locked to the oncoming giants.
'Such power,' exclaimed a voice in Quya. Looking out of the corner of his eyes Carnelian saw Osidian's, fierce and staring. But the shaking of the ground forced him to think about himself. He ignored the stones tumbling at his feet. He caught one glimpse of the nearest Ochre clump before all vision was blasted away by a tidal wave of grit.
Madness took them all. Carnelian shouted and screamed with the rest as he cast stones up at the lumbering, sky-filling shapes. Cliffs of hide slid past on either side. Each footfall shook the ground. Grey with dust, the mouths of the Tribe choked and bellowed. Coughing mixed with screams and the rattle of stones glancing off hide. Then the heaveners were gone, rumbling away into the east. Carnelian sagged exhausted among the ashen crowd, feeling the thunder slowly recede even as the sand stopped hailing.
People burst into song and laughter, with wonder at witnessing such sacred power and majesty; hugging and kissing each other in delight at their survival. Carnelian was pulled into a dance by Sil and Fern, tears smudging the dust around their eyes. It took Carnelian a while to notice Osidian emotionless, gazing off after the cloud-shrouded giants.
They tramped eastwards along the wide roads driven through the dead fernland by the herds. Carnelian was grateful the load of djada he carried had been reduced by consumption, to match the depletion in his strength.
One morning he saw, rising with the sun, mountains liquid blue in the dawn.
'Drink deep of that sight, Carnie,' Fern said. Though we've still more than half our journey before us, it's a promise of cool air and crystal water.'
Until the sun rose to its full fiery strength, the sight of the mountains was enough to put smiles back onto the dust-bleached faces of the Tribe. Soon the glare had turned the sky opaque so that it appeared the mountains had been nothing but a mirage.
Often in the morning and in the quick dusk of evening, they could gaze with longing at the mountains that grew day by day more solid. At last the morning came when Akaisha promised her hearth they would soon be climbing up out of the burning plain. They chewed knotted djada, their eyes grit-reddened and weeping, but they made better speed drawn on by the sight of journey's end.
The land began to fold, and here and there a leaf missed by the passing herds, or a still green fern crozier, gave them hope. They wound up into the hills along ever-steepening paths. The mountains formed a distant turquoise wall across the lower sky from which noisy rivers poured their colour down into the valleys.
As the day was waning they reached a land of verdant valleys curled with delicious mist. They kept to the paths that wound around the slopes. In the valley bottoms, the ferny pastures were filled with the creatures of the plain.
By a narrow defile, they entered the valley which, Fern told Carnelian, the Tribe considered its own. Men that had been sent ahead waved down from the craggy heights to indicate the place was free of danger. Once through that gateway, the aquar fanned out and Carnelian found he was walking into a long and narrow valley, green-walled and watered by a stream.
People all around him sighed their relief, kicking their hot feet through the coolness of the ferns lining its banks. Eastwards, the mountains rose dipped in the cool blue of the fading afternoon. For Carnelian it was a sacrament to kneel before the glimmering stream. He bent to scoop a tiny pool into his cupped hands and, blinded by its dazzle, drank. He winced as the water drove its iciness through his teeth and deep into the bones of his face, then laughed with the sheer pleasure of it. When he had drunk his fill, with Poppy holding his hand, they went to luxuriate in the shadow of a tree.