Stone spring

FIVE
86

The Thirty-Third Year After the Great Sea: Spring Equinox. Following the slow rise of the land, the Pretani party walked out of the forest cover and into the glare of the spring sun. It was noon, the sun was as high in the southern sky as it would get all day, and the air was heavy and windless.

Acorn, twenty-five years old and proud in her hide tunic, led steadily and strongly, Kirike thought, as befitted his half-sister’s rank as the Root of the Pretani. But the handful of warriors who followed her grumbled under their breaths about how thirsty they were and the state of their feet. Warriors always grumbled.

And Old Resin, who had seen thirty-six summers, hobbled into the light, muttering and squinting. ‘Wretched sun… Give me the forest shade any day. If we’d been meant to stumble about in the light the tree gods wouldn’t have blessed us with their shadow.’

Acorn said, ‘Oh, stop complaining, old man.’ She dug a battered cloth cap out of Resin’s pack and set it on his bald, sunburned head. ‘That’s enough shade for you. Mind you, from now on it’s open spaces and sunlight all the way to Etxelur. What about you, Kirike? I suppose you’re used to this.’

Kirike set down the bag he was carrying, turned his face up to the sun and stretched. ‘But it’s a long time since I made my home among you.’ More than fifteen years, in fact, since he had come home with his father, Shade, to the woods of Albia. He was over thirty years old himself now. He breathed deep of the air, and he thought he detected a whiff of salt, that odd sharpness that he remembered vividly from his boyhood, so different from the damp, cloying smells of the forest. Suddenly his heavy, scratchy hide tunic felt uncomfortable, and he remembered how he had run with Dolphin Gift along the endless strands. ‘I have Pretani blood, but Etxelur is in me too. Besides, even the strongest tree needs the sun.’

Resin hawked and spat. ‘A nice Pretani saying for an Etxelur boy. Let me remind you of another. Saplings grow only when the great tree falls. And this old tree hasn’t fallen yet. Is that bag of bones too heavy for you? If so pass it over, and let’s get on.’

Kirike’s sack, carried on a long shoulder strap, contained the bones of their father, Shade, dead a year now. They were making the long trek to Etxelur to fulfil his strange but firm wish that his bones should be placed in the land where the events that had shaped his whole life and the future of his people had occurred. ‘No,’ he said. ‘My father’s not heavy.’ He hoisted the pack. ‘Anyhow, I vaguely remember this route.’

Resin hobbled onward up the grassy slope, leaning heavily on a gnarled stick. ‘So you should. This is the way we marched when we made war on Etxelur, all those years ago. And this is the place we decided to call Boundary Ridge, for it’s as good as any a place to say that here Albia ends, and Northland begins…’

When they reached the crest of the ridge the land fell away before Kirike, the forest-choked hills of Albia giving way to a broad plain that stretched all the way to a misty, washed-out horizon. It was a land of shining water, streams and marshes and lakes reflecting the blue sky. The only trees grew in scattered clumps, probably willow and alder, water-lovers. Everywhere threads of smoke rose up from the people’s fires. Off to his left-hand side, to the north, he glimpsed the ocean, a grey horizon perfectly flat.

But Northland was not as it had once been. There were ditches dead straight across the ground, cut as if by knives, and reservoirs round as cups. Some of the larger streams were dammed by pale walls, and the flow behind them was backed up into new lakes. By the ocean shore he could make out the sea walls, pale lines and arcs drawn all along the coastline. Over three decades after the disaster of the Great Sea, people had shaped the landscape. And such systems now stretched all the way along Northland’s northern coast, from Albia in the west to the World River estuary and Gaira in the east.

‘Remarkable,’ he said now. ‘It all started at Etxelur. But now it’s spread across the whole country, like, like-’

‘Like a pox,’ Resin grunted, standing beside him. ‘More to the point, look down there. There’s a house, right in the middle of our trail.’

So it was, a slim cone that stood on a ledge of flat ground, halfway down the slope. Its walls were leather, unlike the kelp houses Kirike remembered from Etxelur – a tent meant for a summer’s hunting inland, perhaps. A couple of hare, skinned, hung on a rack outside the house, and a hearth barely smoked, choked with ashes.

As they waited, a young man, bare to the waist, emerged from the house. When he saw the Pretani party on their ridge he waved and called into the house.

Acorn said, ‘Did you see the marking on his belly? Rings and tail.’

It was a mark Kirike wore tattooed on his own body, a mark he hadn’t otherwise seen in years. The mark of Etxelur. His breath caught; he was thrilled.

A young woman came out of the house, not much more than a girl, perhaps fifteen years old. She looked up at the Pretani. With a murmur to the boy she walked up the slope. Wearing a simple green smock, she was barefoot, and wore her strawberry blonde hair swept back – red and green, light and airy.

And when she got close enough for him to make out her features Kirike gasped. The small, rather serious face, the compact frame – the resemblance was unmistakable. ‘You’re Ana’s daughter,’ he said. She frowned, and he realised he had used the Pretani tongue. He made a mental effort to switch to the Etxelur language of his boyhood, and repeated what he had said.

‘Yes. My name is Sunta, named for my mother’s grandmother. And you are Kirike. My mother described you well.’

He grunted. ‘I’m surprised, since I haven’t seen her since she was pregnant with you.’

She laughed, and Kirike saw a row of wooden teeth in her open mouth. ‘Your mother was my mother’s sister,’ she said, precisely, as if figuring it out. ‘So we are cousins.’ She glanced at his companions.

Kirike said, ‘This is Resin our priest, closest companion of my father, Shade. This is Acorn, my father’s daughter – my half-sister. And now the Root of the Pretani.’

Acorn smiled. ‘We share no blood, Sunta. But I would like to think we are cousins of a sort.’

Sunta’s grin widened. ‘You speak the Etxelur tongue!’

‘Kirike taught me. I hope you can forgive my slips.’

‘It is all so different from how it was when your father’s father was the Root, and he came to Etxelur.’

‘All that was long ago. In the end my father Shade paid the price for those times.’ Kirike hefted the sack. ‘I think that is why he wanted his bones to rest among you. To close a too-long story.’

She nodded. ‘Today is all about honour, I hope. You, Acorn, honour us by speaking our tongue. Shade honours Etxelur with his final wish. And my mother urged me to honour you by coming out here to meet you at this junction between Albia and Northland. For we knew you would come this way.’

Acorn nodded. ‘And she sent her priest. I noticed your teeth. Do the priests of Etxelur still wear the teeth of wolves in their ceremonies?’

‘Oh, they do,’ Sunta said lightly. ‘And, yes, that was why I was conceived, for my mother wanted me to be both Giver and priest. My father Jurgi took out my adult teeth when they started to grow, and he started my training. But it didn’t take with me, and before he died Jurgi persuaded my mother to pick somebody else. You can imagine what a row that caused.’

Acorn glanced at Kirike. ‘I can. Similarly, I think our father always intended Kirike to become the Root.’

‘But Acorn is much better at the job than me,’ Kirike said with a smile.

Resin growled, ‘Kids never turn out the way you hope they will. It’s the blight of humanity, and why nothing ever gets done.’

Sunta laughed. ‘I never wore the wolf’s jaw. Still, I’m my mother’s daughter and here I am.’ She gestured. ‘Please, come and join us. We have food, you can see, and water, and fruit juice.’

‘All I want is a bit of leafy shade,’ Resin muttered, and he limped forward.

Sunta skipped forward and took his arm. Next to Resin she was like ivy wrapped around an old tree trunk. ‘Then come into the house. Shall we rest for the remainder of the day, and begin our walk to Etxelur tomorrow?’