Planet Of Exile

CHAPTER FOUR: The Tall Young Men

THE SOUND OF rock pounded on rock, hard and unrever-berant, rang out among the roofs and unfinished walls of the Winter City to the high red tents pitched all around it. Ak ak ak ak, the sound we.nt on for a long tune, until suddenly a second pounding joined it in counterpoint, kadak ak ak kadak. Another came in on a higher note, giving a tripping rhythm, then another, another, more, until any measure was lost in the clatter of constant sound, an avalanche of the high dry whack of rock hitting rock in which each individual pounding rhythm was submerged, indistinguishable.

As the sound-avalanche went ceaselessly and stupefying-ly on, the Eldest Man of the Men of Askatevar walked slowly from his tent and between the aisles of tents and cookfires from which smoke rose through slanting late-afternoon, late-autumn light. Stiff and ponderous the old man went alone through the camp of his people and entered the gate of the Winter City, followed a twisting path or street among the tent-like wooden roofs of the houses, which had no sidewalls aboveground, and came to an open place in the middle of the roofpeaks. There a hundred or so men sat, knees to chin, pounding rock on rock, pounding, in a hypnotic toneless trance of percussion.

Wold sat down, completing the circle. He picked up the smaller of two heavy waterworn rocks in front of him and with satisfying heaviness whacked it down on the bigger one: Klak! klak! klak! To right and left of him the clatter went on and on, a rattling roar of random noise, through which every now and then a snatch of a certain rhythm could be discerned. The rhythm vanished, recurred, a chance concatenation of noise. On its return Wold caught it, fell in with it and held it. Now to him it dominated the clatter. Now his neighbor to the left was beating it, their two stones rising and faUing together; now his neighbor to the right. Now others across the circle were beating it, pounding together. It came clear of the noise, conquered it, forced each conflicting voice into its own single ceaseless rhythm, the concord, the hard heartbeat of the Men of Askatevar, pounding on, and on, and on.

This was all their music, all their dance.

A man leaped up at last and walked into the center of the ring. He was bare-chested, black stripes painted up his arms and legs, his hair a black cloud around his face. The rhythm lightened, lessened, died away. Silence.

"The runner from the north brought news that the Gaal follow the Coast Trail and come in great force. They have come to Tlokna. Have you all heard this?"

A rumble of assent.

"Now listen to the man who called this Stone-Pounding," the shaman-herald called out; and Wold got up with difficulty. He stood in his place, gazing straight ahead, massive, scarred, immobile, an old boulder of a man.

"A farborn came to my tent," he said at last in his age-weakened, deep voice. "He is chief of them in Landin. He said the farborns have grown few and ask the help of men.

A rumble from all the heads of clans and families that sat moveless, knees to chin, in the circle.

Over the circle, over the wooden roofpeaks about them, very high up in the cold, golden light, a white bird wheeled, harbinger of winter.

"This farborn said the Southing comes not by clans and tribes but all in one horde, many thousands led by a great chief."

"How does he know?" somebody roared. Protocol was not strict in the Stone-Poundings of Tevar; Tevar had never been ruled by its shamans as some tribes were. "He had scouts up north!" Wold roared back. "He said the Gaal besiege Winter Cities and capture them. That is what the runner said of Tlokna. The farborn says that the warriors of Tevar should join with the farborns and with the men of Pernmek and AUakskat, go up in the north of our range, and turn the Southing aside to the Mountain Trail. These things he said and I heard them. Have you all heard?"

The assent was uneven and turbulent, and a clan chief was on his feet at once. "Eldest! from your mouth we hear the truth always. But when did a farborn speak truth? When did men listen to farborns? I hear nothing this farborn said. What if his City perishes in the Southing? No men live in it! Let them perish and then we men can take their Range."

The speaker, Walmek, was a big dark man full of words; Wold had never liked him, and dislike influenced his reply. "I have heard Walmek. Not for the first time. Are the farborns men or not—who knows? Maybe they fell out of the sky as in the tale. Maybe not. No one ever fell out of the sky this Year ... They look like men; they fight like men. Their women are like women, I can tell you that! They have some wisdom. It's better to listen to them ..." His references to farborn women had them all grinning as they sat in their solemn circle, but he wished he had not said it. It was stupid to remind them of his old ties with the aliens. And it was wrong ... she had been his wife, after all...

He sat down, confused, signifying he would speak no more.

Some of the other men, however, were impressed enough by the runner's tale and Agat's warning to argue with those who discounted or distrusted the news. One of Wold's Springborn sons, Umaksuman who loved raids and forays, spoke right out in favor of Agat's plan of marching up to the border.

"It's a trick to get our men away up north on the Range, caught in the first snow, while the farborns steal our flocks and wives and rob the granaries here. They're not men, there's no good in them!" Walmek ranted. Rarely had he found so good a subject to rant on.

"That's all they've ever wanted, our women. No wonder they're growing few and dying out, all they bear is monsters. They want our women so they can bring up human children as theirs!" This was a youngish family-head, very excited. "Aagh!" Wold growled, disgusted at this mishmash of misinformation, but he kept sitting and let Umaksuman set the fellow straight.

"And what if the farborn spoke truth?" Umaksuman went on. "What if the Gaal come through our Range all together, thousands of them? Are we ready to fight them?"

"But the walls aren't finished, the gates aren't up, the last harvest isn't stored," an older man said. This, more than distrust of the aliens, was the core of the question. If the able men marched off to the north, could the women and children and old men finish all the work of readying the Winter City before winter was upon them? Maybe, maybe not. It was a heavy chance to take on the word of a farborn.

Wold himself had made no decision, and looked to abide by that of the Elders. He liked the farborn Agat, and would guess him neither deluded nor a liar; but there was no telling. All men were alien one to another, at times, not only aliens. You could not tell. Perhaps the Gaal were coming as an army. Certainly the Winter was coming. Which enemy first?

The Elders swayed toward doing nothing, but Umaksu-man's faction prevailed to the extent of having runners sent to the two neighboring Ranges, Allakskat and Pernmek, to sound them out on the project of a joint defense. That was all the decision made; the shaman released the scrawny harm he had caught in case a decision for war was reached and must be sealed by lapidation, and the Elders dispersed.

Wold was sitting in his tent with men of his Kin over a good hot pot of bhan, when there was a commotion outside. Umaksuman went out, shouted at everybody to clear out, and reentered the great tent behind the f arborn Agat.

"Welcome, Alterra," said the old man, and with a sly glance at Ms two grandsons, "will you sit with us and eat?"

He liked to shock people; he always had. That was why he had always been running off to the farborns in the old days. And this gesture freed him in his mind, from the vague shame he suffered since speaking before the other men of the farborn girl who had so long ago been his wife.

Agat, calm and grave as before, accepted and ate enough to show he took the hospitality seriously; he waited till they were all done eating, and Ukwet's wife had scuttled out with the leavings, then he said, "Eldest, I listen."

"There's not much to hear," Wold replied. He belched. "Runners go to Pernmek and Allakskat. But few spoke for war. The cold grows each day now: safety lies inside walls, under roofs. We don't walk about in timepast as your people do, but we know what the Way of Man has always been and is, and hold to it."

"Your way is good," the farborn said, "good enough, maybe, that the Gaal have learned it from you.

In past Winters you were stronger than the Gaal because your clans were gathered together against them. Now the Gaal too have learned that strength lies in numbers."

"that news is true," said Ukwet, who was one of Wold's grandsons, though older than Wold's son Umaksuman.

Agat looked up at him in silence. Ukwet turned aside at once from that straight, dark gaze.

"If it's not true, then why are the Gaal so late coming south?" said Umaksuman. "What's keeping them? Have they ever waited till the harvests were in before?"

"Who knows?" said Wold. "Last Year they came long before the Snowstar rose, I remember that. But who remembers the Year before last?" "Maybe they're following the Mountain Trail," said the other grandson, "and won't come through Askatevar at all."

"The runner said they had taken Tlokna," Umaksuman said sharply, "and Tlokna is north of Tevar on the Coast Trail. Why do we disbelieve this news, why do we wait to act?"

"Because men who fight wars in Winter don't live till Spring," Wold growled.

"But if they come—"

"If they come, we'll fight."

There was a little pause. Agat for once looked at none of them, but kept his dark gaze lowered like a human.

"People say," Ukwet remarked with a jeering note, sensing triumph, "that the farborns have strange powers. I know nothing about all that, I was born on the Summer-lands and never saw farborns before this moonphase, let alone sat to eat with one. But if they're witches and have such powers, why would they need our help against the Gaal?"

"I do not hear you!" Wold thundered, his face purple and his eyes watering. Ukwet hit his face.

Enraged by this insolence to a tent-guest, and by his own confusion and in-decisiveness which made him argue against both sides, Wold sat breathing heavily, staring with inflamed eyes at the young man, who kept his face hidden.

"I talk," Wold said at last, his voice still loud and deep, free for a little from the huskiness of old age. "I talk: listen! Runners will go up the Coast Trail until they meet the Southing. And behind them, two days behind, but no farther than the border of our Range, warriors will follow—all men born between Midspring and the Summer Fallow. If the Gaal come in force, the warriors will drive them east to the mountains; if not, they will come back to Tevar."

Umaksuman laughed aloud and said, "Eldest, no man leads us but you!"

Wold growled and belched and settled down. "You'll lead the warriors, though," he told Umaksuman dourly. Agat, who had not spoken for some time, said in his quiet way, "My people can send three hundred and fifty men. We'll go up the old beach road, and join with your men at the border of Askatevar."

He rose and held out his hand. Sulky at having been driven into this commitment, and still shaken by his emotion, Wold ignored him. Umaksuman was on his feet in a flash, his hand against the farborn's. They stood there for a moment in the firelight like day and night. Agat dark, shadowy, somber, Umaksuman fair-skinned, light-eyed, radiant.

The decision was made, and Wold knew he could force it upon the other Elders. He knew also that it was the last decision he would ever make. He could send them to war: but Umaksuman would come back, the leader of the warriors, and thereby the strongest leader among the Men of Askatevar.

Wold's action was his own abdication. Umaksuman would be the young chief. He would close the circle of the Stone-Pounding, he would lead the hunters in Winter, the forays in Spring, the great wanderings of the long days of Summer. His Year was just beginning ...

"Go on," Wold growled at them all. "Call the Stone-Pounding for tomorrow, Umaksuman. Tell the shaman to stake out a hann, a fat one with some blood in it." He would not speak to Agat. They left, all the tall young men. He sat crouched on his stiff hams by his fire, staring into the yellow flames as if into the heart of a lost brightness, Summer's irrecoverable warmth.