A Wizard in a Feud

6

Gar heard the ball smack into a tree trunk, heard two rifles crack, one from ahead one from the far side of the road and to the rear. He turned, gathering himself and readying his staff even as his mind searched for his attackers.

There they were, reloading their rifles, thoughts hot with avarice and rank with resentment and rage. Gar crouched in the underbrush, waiting, silent. Finally a voice from ahead called, “He’s dead, Lem.”

“He’d better be, with you calling out like a banshee,” Lem answered in a furious whisper. Gar tracked the voice—the man to the left, the one who had shot first.

“He’s out cold, at least,” the voice from behind answered. “Or playing possum,” Lem answered. “What’s got into you, Farrell? You used to know better than to sound off!”

“Aw, he can’t hurt us,” the first voice said. “Didn’t have no rifle, anyways—and no clan; he’s just a trader.”

“Then every clan would be out to avenge him! Okay, Zeke, we’ll go look, but you better hope it’s out cold, and not dead, if you don’t want the Farlands teaming up with the Gillicutties and the Orkneys to clean us out of these woods!”

“We’ll be right beside you, loaded and cocked,” Zeke assured him. “What’s he going to do when he’s looking down three gun barrels, hey?”

It was a good question, Gar decided. As a precaution, he focused his thoughts into gathering moisture into the pans of the flintlocks, saturating the priming powder into sludge. It wouldn’t go off even if one of them did manage to squeeze a trigger, but Gar didn’t intend to give them the chance.

Lem came close first, but stopped six feet short of the underbrush to wait for his friends to come up. With a man of normal height that might have been enough, but Gar shot out of the brambles staff first, extending his seven feet of length into ten.

The butt caught Lem in the belly and he folded, mouth gaping in pain as the rifle dropped from his fingers.

Farrell shouted in anger and came running, but Lem called, “Stay back!” Gar heard his hammer click in the pan, then his curse at the gun’s refusing to fire.

Farrell had paused, but now he charged in again, rifle leveled for a point-blank shot. Gar swung his staff, knocking it away. The useless hammer clicked and Gar swung the end of the staff to crack against Farrell’s head.

Zeke shouted in anger. Gar whirled to see him charging in, face red and distorted with rage, swinging his rifle by the barrel, stock arcing down at Gar where he still crouched by the roadside.

He waited for the moment, then shot to his feet, and the rifle butt cracked against Gar’s staff. Zeke backed away, round-eyed, staring up at the giant who seemed to have sprouted from the earth.

But Lem had caught enough breath to get back in the fight. He launched himself at Gar’s shins, his body a wrecking ball. Gar shouted with anger as he fell. Zeke yelped with relief and charged back in, rifle swinging, even as Lem rolled up to his feet and swung his rifle barrel in a short vicious arc.

It caught Gar across the shoulders and striped his back with pain, but only added its force to his momentum as he turned the fall into a dive, the dive into a somersault, and shot to his feet right under Zeke’s nose, fist swinging in an uppercut. He pulled his punch and the fist only caught the man’s chin. Zeke staggered back, raising his rifle to guard and Gar twisted it from his hands.

He swung to face Lem with a rifle in one hand and a staff in the other, both raised to swing. “Put it down, Lem, or I’ll put it down for you.”

The woodsman froze, glaring in baffled anger. Then he took refuge in a face-saver. “How’d you know my name?”

“Heard you talking to one another, of course,” Gar said. “Put down the rifle.”

Lem measured his own five-and-a-half-feet against Gar’s height and muscle, then spat a curse and laid down his rifle. “Go see how badly Farrell’s hurt,” Gar directed, “then bring him back here—without his rifle.” He stepped back and pivoted so that he could see both men. “Come on over, Zeke. I want your rifle, too.”

“The hell you say!”

“I’ll take it from you awake or out cold, just as you choose,” Gar said evenly. “It would be easier for you if I didn’t have to knock you on the head.”

Zeke gave Lem an uncertain glance. The leader’s mouth twisted with chagrin, but he gave a brief nod. Zeke stepped forward, reversing the weapon to offer it to Gar stock first.

Gar took it and said, “Help Lem see to Farrell. I tried not to hit him too hard, but you never know.”

The hint of mercy seemed to unnerve them more than his anger had. Lem turned and waded into the brush after Farrell, Zeke close behind. Gar took both guns by the barrels in one hand, held his staff ready in the other, and followed them closely.

Farrell was propped up on one elbow, head in one hand.

Lem’s voice softened as he knelt. “Bad as that, of buddy?”

“Hard fist.” Farrell tried to sound disgusted, but it came out as a croak.

“It wasn’t no fist, it was the end of his stick,” Lem said, as though a staff against a rifle were unfair odds.

“I’ll be okay.” Farrell reached up. “Just help me stand.” Lem beckoned Zeke, who stepped around and took Farrell’s other arm.

“I don’t need that much help,” Farrell protested, but he leaned on both of them as they drew him to his feet.

“Are both his pupils the same size?” Gar asked.

“Pupils?” Lem turned to frown. “He ain’t no schoolmarm!”

“The little black circles in his eyes.” Gar strove for patience. “Are they both the same size?”

Lem glared hatred at him, but turned to look.

Now that Gar could see them up close, his victory ceased to impress him. All three men were gaunt with hunger and scabbed with the sores of vitamin deficiencies—all in all, a pretty scruffy crew. Of course, they’d had rifles, but he had put those out of action at the outset. Feeling a little guilty, he said, “Lousy timing—you ambushed me just as I was thinking of stopping to eat.” He swung his pack off his shoulder, unstrapped it one-handed, and took out a loaf and a wedge of cheese.

All three men stared at the food, transfixed. Lem asked hoarsely, “You planning to just eat that while we watch?”

“Why, would you like some?” Gar held out the loaf.

Lem grabbed the bread, tore off a chunk for himself, then two more for his friends and reluctantly handed it back.

“It’s pretty simple fare,” Gar said, “but if one of you will build a fire and another fetch water, we can stew some salt beef till it’s soft enough to chew.”

“Reckon we can do that,” Lem conceded. “Got a bucket?” Gar handed him the folding canvas pail.

Lem took it and turned away. “You boys build the man a fire, now.”

Zeke did, with the efficiency of long practice, piling tinder and arranging sticks in a cone over it. “ ‘Course, if I had my rifle, I could snap a spark in there right quick. ‘Thout it, though, I’ll have to rub two sticks.”

“Stand back,” Gar said.

The two men retreated. Gar knelt with one eye on them and one on the fire, then cocked one of the unloaded rifles, held it on its side, and pulled the trigger. There was no report, of course, but the flint struck sparks from the pan. They fell into the tinder, and Gar struck twice more, then stepped back. Zeke knelt again and breathed carefully on the sparks until flames blossomed. By the time Lem came back with the dripping bucket, they had a merry campfire burning.

They sat on their heels around the flames, munching bread and cheese while the aroma of stewing beef spread through the air. Gar let his gaze roam around the clearing and said, “It’s better out here—away from the smells and noise of the towns. Too many people.”

“Wouldn’t know about towns,” Zeke grumbled.

“Even the farms,” Gar qualified. “Barnyard smells, fifty people at one meal all in the same hall—too many for the space, at least.”

“Too many people who don’t like to hear the truth,” Lem said with disgust.

“Not many who do,” Gar said, his interest piqued. “The townsfolk believe that a naked Truth lives in the bottom of each village well.”

“Couldn’t,” Farrell said. “There’d be too much of it in the water, and the folks couldn’t stomach that.”

“Naked?” Zeke’s eyes glinted. “What would happen if she came out?”

“A man named Hans Sachs wrote about that once,” Gar said. “Truth told a man and a woman how tormented and lonely she was, and they felt sorry for her and embraced her—until she started telling them each the truth about themselves.”

Lem actually laughed—a hard and brittle sound, but a laugh. “What’d the man and woman do then?”

“Chased her back into the well,” Gar said. “Figures,” Farrell snorted.

Lem nodded. “I spoke the truth once.”

“Really.” Gar tried to keep from pouncing on it. “What happened?”

“They chased me away for it,” Lem said bitterly, “my own kith and kin!”

Farrell nodded. “I wasn’t that dumb, but almost. Started talking as how what happened three hundred years ago shouldn’t matter now.”

“They chased you away, too?” Gar asked.

“Not until three or four cousins started allowing as how I was making sense.” Farrell turned and spat. “Grandpa said I was takin’ the starch out of the whole clan, and if we did that, them Elroys would just roll right over us. The great aunts agreed with him, so they kicked me out to warn the others.”

“You have the same story?” Gar asked Zeke. The woodsman flushed and looked away.

“No, he was different,” Lem said. “Couldn’t take his eyes off his cousin’s wife, and couldn’t talk to her without sounding sweet.”

Gar frowned. “But he didn’t do anything.”

“No, but you can’t have that kind of thing,” Lem said. “Sooner or later cousins will start fighting if there’s a woman between ‘em—and you need to be fighting the enemy clan, not your own.”

“Didn’t do nothin’ at all,” Zeke grunted. “Not like Orville, not atall.”

The other two men suddenly became fascinated by the sight of the broth bubbling in the kettle.

“What did Orville do?” Gar asked. “Coward talk,” Lem said.

“Can’t say why.” Farrell frowned, puzzled. “He’s a brave man, the kind to go up against a bear with nothing but a knife.”

“Yeah, but he’d already shot his rifle, and that didn’t stop the boar-bear,” Zeke objected. “Five more men shot it, too, before it reached him.”

“But he held his ground,” Farrell objected.

“Swung aside at the last minute,” Lem reminded him. “Yeah, but that’s just good fighting,” Farrell countered. “He still stood with that knife up, waiting to see if the bear turned on him.”

“It didn’t?” Gar guessed.

“No, it stumbled on and lay dead,” Farrell told him. “Don’t change how brave he was, though.”

“So what kind of ‘coward talk’ did this brave man make?” Gar asked.

The men glanced at one another, clearly unwilling to talk about it even now. At last Lem said, “That there weren’t no point to people getting killed when they didn’t have to—that folks don’t have to fight, and surely not to the death.”

“Coward talk, all right.” Zeke nodded with conviction. “So he’s out here with the rest of us now, and it’s kill or be killed for sure.”

“Only if the clans get together to clean us out,” Lem demurred.

“Yeah, or unless another band tries to take our food,” Zeke shot back.

Farrell nodded. “Least that makes sense—killing to get food for starving folks.”

“Not like killing ‘cause one great-great-fifty-times-great grandpa shot another.” Lem stood up. “Enough talk. Time to hike home if we want to get there before dark.” He looked down at Gar. “Come if you want, stranger. The roof might be only straw, but it’s better than sleeping out in the open.”

“It does feel like rain,” Gar admitted. “Do you always invite the people you ambush home?”

“Sure—why not?” Lem grinned. “Once we’ve got their food and their goods, leastways. They don’t usually accept, though.” Gar shrugged. “Why not? I’m a trader, and your people might have furs to swap for needles.” He stood and started kicking dirt over the fire.

The outlaws began to relax on the way home, becoming downright talkative. Gar only had to toss in the occasional question to steer the conversation toward the outlaw life and the reasons for taking it up; the men were quick enough to argue the merits of their comrades’ cases. When Lem claimed that the youngest of their number, a teenager named Kerlew, had been outcast for being a weakling and just downright strange, Farrell objected.

“Kerlew ain’t no weakling,” he said. “He’s made it through three winters with nothing worse than a head cold, and he’s always brought in his share of squirrel meat.”

“Makes good gunpowder, too,” Zeke observed.

Lem grinned at Gar. “You notice they don’t try to say he isn’t strange.”

“Well, he does get that faraway look in his eye a lot,” Zeke admitted.

“And he talks about the gods like he really believes in ‘em.” Farrell shook his head in despair.

“His clan cast him out for no more than that?” Gar asked in disbelief.

“He likely would have run away on his own, sooner or later,” Zeke opined. “They made fun of him so much, it’s a wonder he stayed till he was eighteen.”

“Thought he had nothing to lose,” Lem explained to Gar, “so he started preaching peace—and by oak, ash, and thorn, that boy can preach!”

“But his clan declared him a coward and cast him out?” Gar asked.

“A coward and a traitor, for making the Murrays doubt themselves and their cause,” Lem said, bitter again. “Thought he weakened their backbones.”

“Now he stiffens ours,” Farrell said. “If you don’t think the outlaw life is the right life, stranger, you just ask young Kerlew, and you’ll be dazed by his answer.”

“You think this life is right and good?” Gar asked in amazement.

“ ‘Course we do.” Lem looked him straight in the eye. “We don’t have to kill no one for no good reason, stranger—or for the sake of a quarrel hundreds of years gone, which amounts to the same thing.”

“We’ll kill if another band tries to kill us,” Farrell said, “but I’ll tell you, none of us can remember the last time that happened.”

“ ‘Course, you don’t live to be all that old, with only thin walls to keep out the cold, and with bears and wolves against you,” Lem pointed out. “But the word gets passed down. Eighty years since one band tried to kill off another for their food, that’s what we figure.”

“That’s very good,” Gar said. “I should think hunger would drive you to it more often than that.”

“It might, if the clans didn’t club together to wipe us out every so often,” Zeke said bitterly.

“When you tell it that way, I’m surprised there’s anyone who doesn’t join you in the forest,” Gar said.

Lem eyed him askance. “You know what ‘outlaw’ means, stranger?”

“Happens that I do,” Gar said. “It means that you broke the law, put yourself outside it, so you lose its protection. Anyone can kill you for any reason, and your clan won’t avenge you.”

Lem nodded. “So anybody from any clan can beat us up or steal from us or kill us off if they’re fool enough to come into the deep woods, where every tree trunk might have a sharpshooter ready to kill them.”

“But it means no healing if you’re sick, and none of the goods you can make on a homestead,” Farrell pointed out. Gar nodded slowly. “Good reasons to stay within the law, even if you don’t really agree with it. You’d have to be awfully sick of fighting to stand up and walk out. Do all the clans have those laws?”

“There’s stories about clans who didn’t, but they died off,” Farrell said offhandedly.

Gar felt a chill. He wondered if the tales had been true, and talk against war really did make a clan weak—or if they were simply stories made up to frighten clansfolk into doing as they were told.

“You do get sick and tired of the fighting if you live long enough,” Zeke allowed, “ ‘specially if you get to know somebody from the other clan and find out how much they’re like you.”

“And there’s always some who do,” Lem sighed, “and who fall in love.”

Gar felt the chill again. “You sound as if you know what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve got two in our band right now,” Lem said, “and it’s a miracle they’re still in love, after the way they starved and just barely managed till we found them.”

“Allie is a Rork,” Farrell said, “and Billy is a Gonigle. Hard for young folk not to meet each other, when the same stream flows through both their farms.”

“But if their clans didn’t live next to each other, they wouldn’t be fighting?”

“Seems to be the way of it,” Lem sighed.

“Good fences make good neighbors,” Farrell added, “but it seems the ancestors didn’t believe that.”

“So we’ve been learning it the hard way ever since,” Lem said sourly.

Gar steered the conversation back to crime. “Didn’t they try to hide the fact that they were in love?”

“Oh, they tried,” Lem said, “but good luck keeping anything secret from your clan. You’re going to go sneaking off far too often, and sooner or later there’ll be a pair of eyes to watch you go.”

“And a pair of silent feet to follow you,” Farrell added.

“Somebody got curious, and trailed one of them?” Gar asked.

“One of the Rork girls, as Allie tells it,” Lem said, “a little one. You know how the tads are about spying on the big ones when folks come a’ courting. Well, the child followed Allie…”

“Fun game,” Zeke said generously.

“Yeah, tracking without being spotted,” Lem agreed. “The tad was too good at it, though, and Allie didn’t suspect a thing, though I’m sure she must have been wary…”

“When she was on her way to meet Billy?” Farrell asked. “She might have missed a few twigs breaking.”

“No doubt,” Lem agreed. “But the tad saw her meet Billy, saw her kiss him, and ran straight home, bursting with the news.”

“Poor kid probably didn’t think she’d get Allie in trouble for anything more than kissing,” Zeke sighed.

“Likely not. But she told, all bright-eyed and bursting with the excitement of it, and her grandma sent out a dozen men to bring the lovers in.”

“That time, she did hear something,” Farrell said.

“She says she heard a jaybird calling at night,” Lem went on, “and knew right away what was coming, so she sent Billy running right quick.”

“Musta been someone in the clan who cared about her,” Zeke said. “Only a fool would give a jay call at night.”

Lem nodded. “Next thing she heard was gunshots.” Gar stared. “And they’re both still alive to tell of it?”

“You ever try hitting a target at night, when it’s twisting and turning ‘mongst moon shadows?” Farrell asked.

“I have, yes.” Gar didn’t think it necessary to tell them that the weapon had been a crossbow. “I see your point.”

“So her clan gathered to judge, and cast her out,” Lem said. “But the tad felt bad about it and went to tell Billy—he was hanging around down by the creek hoping to see her again.”

“Her grandma sent a truce party to tell the Gonigles first, though,” Farrell said, “and they sat in judgment and cast out Billy.”

“Good thing, too,” Farrell agreed. “If they hadn’t, he’d have upped and run away to find Allie, and his kinfolk would have come after to shoot him for treachery.”

Gar stared, aghast. “There’s no sense in that.”

Lem shrugged. “There’s no sense in feuding either, stranger, but try and stop it.”

“We did,” said Farrell, “most of the folks in our band, one way or another.”

Gar frowned. “Wouldn’t both clans have hunted them down for outlawry?”

“Just for the hell of it, you mean?” Lem nodded. “There’s always some like that. Too much killing, and most folks grow to hate it, but some grow to like it. That’s why they lit out.”

“Strangers would hate them less than their own clans,” Farrell observed. “No reason to think them traitors.”

“Oh.” Gar thought that over. “So this all happened far away?”

“A month’s travel,” Lem said. “Probably would have gone farther, if they hadn’t come across a band that welcomed them.”

“We did.” Farrell nodded. “They’re good kids.”

“Our kind,” Zeke agreed.

Gar appreciated the irony of it—that the ones who turned vicious were still welcomed in their own clans, as long as they didn’t torment their own, whereas the ones who sickened of the slaughter and took a stand against it, were outlawed. “What if someone kills a person in his own clan?”

“Oh, he’ll be killed in his own turn,” Lem answered, “so those who do usually light out before they can be caught.”

“There are vicious outlaws too, then?”

“Some,” Farrell said, his voice hard. “When we find ‘em, we kill ‘em, too.”

Gar frowned. “That seems harsh.”

“How do you think we find out, stranger?” Lem challenged. “They try to hurt someone in the band, that’s how! It comes down to kill or be killed, really.”

“You could cast them … no, I see the point. An outcast from the outcasts is likely to haunt the woods looking for folk out on their own, waiting for a chance for revenge.”

“We never go out alone,” Lem said, “but accidents happen.” Gar could imagine it, one of the outlaws thinking they would be safe just this once, going a hundred yards from the camp for a bucket of water from the stream. “What happens if someone steals?”

“From another clan?” Zeke grinned. “He’s a hero!”

“No, from his own clan.”

“Oh! Well, if they find it out, he’s outlawed.”

“ ‘Course, it’s been known for one clan member to accuse another, and talk a third into lying about it before the family council,” Farrell said judiciously, “but it don’t happen often.”

“Why not?” Gar asked, afraid of the answer.

“Why, because the liar’s outlawed, too.” Farrell looked up at Gar. “Mind you, nobody minds the odd lie here and there, in the daily round—you have to be wary and take your chances. But before the council, now, when someone else’s doom is hanging—well, that’s something else.”

“I can see that it would be.” So they outlawed treachery in even the slightest form, and cowardice, murder, theft, and false witness-but only within the clan. “I suppose if a clansman falls in love with a cousin’s wife and she falls in love with him, they just run away and find an outlaw band to join?”

“If they can,” Lem said, with flat cynicism.

“More likely the clan will hunt them down and bring them back for trial,” Farrell said.

“Then they’ll cast ‘em out,” Zeke finished.

“Has to be done the right way, eh? How about if a single man falls in love with his cousin, and gets her pregnant?”

“That’s punishable by marriage,” Zeke said, grinning, “as long as the cousin isn’t too close—by blood, anyway.”

“Second cousins are okay,” Lem said, “but it’s better to marry into the next county.”

“Oh.” Gar raised his eyebrows. “You get together with other clans?”

“Sure,” Farrell said with a sardonic smile. “The clans who share a boundary with you, you’ll fight to the death, but the one ten miles away, well now, they’ll be your friends.”

“Especially if they live right next to your neighbors, but on the other side,” Lem explained. “ ‘Course, you have to go to the parties all together, but folks don’t generally ambush then.”

An unwritten law, Gar guessed, without which every clan would spend its whole life cooped up on the same few acres and die off from inbreeding.

It made sense, in its way. All of the “crimes” the three outlaws had spoken of weakened the unity of the clan and its ability to fight without mercy. Apparently, now and then, enough outlaws survived to form a band such as the one toward which they were going. He suspected that over a few generations the band would become a clan in its own right.

He wondered how long it took the new band to start a feud of its own and to begin outlawing its lawbreakers.

All at once the trees opened out on either side into a clearing perhaps a hundred yards across. Toward its center stood a ring of stoutly built, thatch-roofed log cottages. Pigs rooted about in the grass circle at the center, and children ran about with men and women watching them as they worked at household chores.

Gar stared. Apparently the band had been going longer than he had thought. “This is your home camp?”

“That it is, stranger, and we’ll thank you to shuck your pack and put up your hands.” Lem nodded toward the cottages, grinning. “Maybe you can fight three rifles, but how about a dozen?”

More than that—a score of outlaws had seen them, and were coming toward them with their rifles leveled.