West of January

WHEN I RETURNED TO CAMP, ANUBYL WAS VISIBLE in the distance, having trouble staying on a horse. Probably, like me, he had watched riding being done but had never been allowed to try. I hoped he would fall off and break his neck.

My mother had been bandaged by the other women. She was lying facedown, covered by a thin blanket. The flaps of her tent were open, and a soothing breeze floated through. To save her having to raise her head, I stretched out flat on the rug at her side, horrified by her pallor.

She smiled and moved her hand closer. I took it. It was cold.

“I am glad,” she whispered. “I was frightened you would not come back.”

“I will kill him!”

She tried to shake her head. “No, I am glad, too, that you did not try to interfere.”

“I am a coward!”

“No.” she said again. “I was wrong. He was within his rights. You were not a coward. You did right.”

I was almost sobbing. “He is a tyrant!” Of course, I had never seen a tyrant, but I knew the stories. It was the worst thing I could think of to call him. Speaking was obviously difficult for her, but she insisted on trying. In broken phrases she explained things I did not know. Anubyl could have done worse. He might have killed off the babies. He might have slain Indarth out of hand, and perhaps others, like myself or even the older women. He was herdmaster and could do what he liked with any of us. Rantarath and Jalinan were pregnant, and he had ordered them to contrive miscarriages right away, but that was to be expected, for of course he would want the women to start producing his own young as soon as possible. Anubyl, my mother told me, had done nothing outrageous.

I was too innocent to think of it then, but I have often wondered since: Had she guessed that our new master would soon contrive to establish his authority by making an example of someone? Had it not been she, it would likely have been another of us, woman or child. She may well have taken the risk she did, not merely in the faint hope of aiding her banished son Indarth, but also by way of volunteering to be the scapegoat if she was discovered. That would have been like her. Certainly she must have known the danger.

She even made excuses for Anubyl. “He has traveled far alone, Knobil. Being alone can make a man mad. He will heal now, with women to tend him.”

Then she whispered, “Is he near?”

No—the monster was far off, still fighting with his horse. When I said so, my mother told me to close the flaps. Now I realized that the other women must be staying away, and keeping the children away, for some reason. So I did as I was bid and returned to her side.

“Look in my brown pack,” she said. “Be quick.”

After some prompting, I discovered what I was supposed to be searching for, wrapped in a cloth at the bottom of her tiny collection of belongings. I sat down and opened the package. All I found was a triangular piece of leather, small enough to fit on the palm of my hand. The back was rough and still its natural tan shade, except for a few curious black squiggles. The smooth side had been painted pale blue, with a strip of green along one edge. I stared in bewilderment at this inexplicable object.

“Come close,” my mother whispered, so I lay down again, nearer than before, still holding this meaningless, and yet apparently important, token. “It is yours, Knobil, and precious. So he said.”

“Who said?”

“Your father. You must keep it in the dark. No sunlight. The color will fade.”

I knew that properly fixed dyes would not fade. I knew a lot about dyeing and weaving. Those things were women’s work, but my father had supervised them, so I had watched and learned also.

I heard my mother’s scratchy voice again: “He said you must take it to Heaven.”

Probably she did not realize how little I understood, for she was in great pain and very weak. Probably I did not catch everything she said in that thin gasping whisper. I did not know anyone called Heaven, and although she may have thought she was making clear to me which father she meant, I did not catch that important distinction.

“Does everyone get one of these?” I asked.

“Only you.”

I saw that she was too exhausted to say any more and that I must leave my questions for later. So I rose and put away her pack. Fortunately I did have a place where I could keep a small valuable, although until then I had never owned anything more precious than a sling. Slings need shot, so we boys all carried pouches on our belts to hold any suitable pebbles that we happened to see. I wrapped my green and blue treasure back in its cloth and placed it carefully in the bottom of my pouch.

My mother seemed to be sleeping. I threw open the flaps and went off in search of food. When I returned, she was dead.

“Would you please help me, Knobil?” Aunt Amby asked. “Please?”

She was kneeling in the door of her tent, braiding something, and I had been going past. A woman could give orders—or even punishment—to a herder, but certainly not to a loner. Now I was one of the oldest herders, and the women’s attitude toward me was changing. I found that “please” more alarming than flattering.

I condescended to help and knelt to hold one end of the string she was making. Her callused brown hands fluttered like butterflies as she combined the thin woolen yarns. My assistance did not seem necessary—she could have used her foot as easily.

“I am making him new breeches,” she said, not looking up. Of course, I knew who “him” was. Only a herdmaster wore breeches. Anubyl was growing out of them as fast as the women could sew them, and they were proud of him. He could still eat half a dasher in one sitting.

I did not know what use this cord would be for breeches, but I said nothing. Amby flashed me a worried glance and bent to her task again.

“He let Arrint take food and water,” she said defensively.

But no woollies, no woman.

“Who’s next?” I asked bitterly. “Todish?”

“He is growing fast.” Then she added quietly, “You were born before Arrint.”

I had already come to suspect that. I was learning the difference between growing up and growing bigger, coming to realize that I was never going to be big. My fair complexion disguised my increasing maturity, but now I had to keep my elbows close to my ribs, and this talk reminded me that I had not been doing so. Fortunately Amby seemed to be concentrating entirely on her braiding and had not noticed.

Always I stayed as far away from Anubyl as I could, but at the moment he was out riding;—he had mastered the horses—so I could be brave. “It is shameful to make you and Ulith and Talana share a tent!”

She shook her head. “Oh no! Old wives do not need a tent each. It is customary. A man does not want too many tents showing. We do not mind sharing. We do not all sleep at the same time! We are grateful for being allowed to stay at all, Knobil.”

“Then it is shameful about Oapia and Salaga!” Two of my half-sisters had been promoted to their own tents. Anubyl was spending much time with them.

Amby glanced up briefly at me. Her wrinkled cheeks blushed very bright. She dropped her eyes again. “No.” Then this white-haired mother of many children started to stammer as she told me things that a woman should not discuss with a man, only with other women. She explained the incest problem. She explained why my father had been required to trade daughters to obtain new women. Anubyl need not do so—he had an unlimited supply ripening to hand.

Once I understood that, she added more truths. “Of course, a loner can circle around and kill his own father, Knobil. But it is a foolish thing to do. He is better to find another man’s herd, so he gains more women for his own use. Do you see?”

I saw. I saw also that these were things my father should have lived to tell me. I was much more interested in vengeance than in this legendary sex thing. I said nothing.

Amby muttered quietly, “You will tell the others, Knobil?”

Were the women afraid that we boys would mutiny? They were overestimating us, I thought. I was the oldest, apparently, and I was a craven nothing. Did they think I might lead a revolution? I turned my head away so she would not see my tears and shame. I detested Anubyl with every breath I drew. I dreamed constantly of vengeance and justice, but I was a yellow-haired runt, a blue-eyed freak. And a coward also! Revolution? I was not capable of talking back to a woollie.

Amby sighed. “There! That’s done! Pass me that knife please, Knobil.”

Reluctantly I rose and went where she pointed.

“Be careful!” she called. “It is very sharp.”

I took the knife to her, preparing a snappy retort about being old enough to know about knives. Then the odd quality in her voice registered. She held out the knots, and in silence I cut off the loose ends for her. I was puzzled, but she was avoiding my eye.

“I have a good sharpening stone,” she said. “Makes a knife so sharp you can split hairs with it.”

Then she rose and walked away, out of the tent.

I was left holding the knife. It was a very tiny knife, the smallest in camp. At my feet lay the cord she had braided. It would make an excellent bowstring.

I had aimed my line of woollies so that it would pass by a very large boulder and give me double cover. I was sitting behind the boulder, biting my tongue with concentration and getting cramps in my fingers. I had never heard of shaving, so it had not occurred to me that a very sharp knife could be used razor fashion. It is not easy to grip hairs in your own armpit to cut them, and blood running down my ribs would certainly attract attention. But this was why Amby had given me the knife. It might buy me more time to grow a little more, and I understood time just enough to appreciate that. I had the bowstring wrapped around my thigh, under my pagne.

Armpits or not, I was determined that I would not be sent away any time soon. I was terrified at the prospect. Anubyl had gone out into the grasslands and survived, learned his archery and other skills. He had grown to manhood and then proved it by winning women and fortune. But he was big and I was a midget, or so I thought.

Yet the waiting was torture also. I dreaded my coming ordeal, but simultaneously almost hoped for it, for then I would be free to go off alone to a tree-filled hollow somewhere and make a bow and learn to use it. I would shadow the family’s progress from water hole to water hole until I was ready. Then I would gain my revenge!

Somebody laughed, and I almost cut myself. It was my sister Rilana, watching my antics.

“Come and help me then, if you think it is so funny.”

She shook her head and knelt down at a safe distance. “What you are doing is not proper,” she said smugly.

“Easy for you to say! How are you going to feel when he drags you into a tent and pushes bits of himself inside you?” I was still weak on the theory of intercourse.

She smirked. “Rantarath says it feels wonderful. She always asks him for more, she says. Jalinan says he does it better than Father did.”

“Dungpiles!”

“What do you know? Perhaps you should cut something else off with that knife. You obviously have no other plans for it.”

I felt sudden terror. “You won’t tell him I have a knife?”

She considered. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“I’ll—I’ll cut your breasts off! Except you haven’t got any!”

“Yes, I do.” She smoothed her woolen dress to show the bumps. “Anubyl says they are growing nicely. He felt them. He says I am going to be next after Thola, as soon as he gets all the others bearing.”

“He killed our father! He beat our mother to death! And you want him lying on you, kissing you, rubbing on you?” I felt sick at the thought.

Rilana tossed her hair. “Yes. I shall please him greatly and make lots of daughters for him and be the best of all his women.”

Where this argument might have led, I cannot guess. It ended there, though. The wind changed. We heard the noise simultaneously, and I suppose my eyes widened at the same moment as hers did—a distant squealing and rattling, the sound of an angel’s chariot.

Rilana was about to run, but I jumped and caught her arm. She was taller than me, but I was stronger.

“You stay here and herd!” I said.

“Why? It’s your turn. I want to go and see the angel.”

“I am going to the angel!” Hope blazed within me. Here was a solution that I had not thought of and certainly had not expected. “You stay here!”

“Will not!”

I punched her and she yelped. “I am going to the angel!” I insisted. “Angels stop violence! So I am going to tell them what Anubyl did to Father and what he did to Mother. The angel will punish him!”

—2—

I RACED BETWEEN THE WOOLLIES like a dispossessed dasher, not even waiting to conceal my illegal knife. When I reached the other side of the herd, I stopped, balked already. Below me was the camp and beyond that the pond. It was a poor one, a slimy puddle in a wide expanse of white dried mud, flanked by a tangle of crisp brown undergrowth and the stark silver skeletons of trees. Against that drab decay, our five tents shimmered in the sun’s glare, a line of brilliantly colored prisms. The angel’s chariot stood on the far ridge, dark against the sky.

It was a strange, dirty violet color, with one red sail and one dark blue. Even as I watched, the red sail vanished, and then the blue did the same, more slowly.

But already Anubyl was almost there, thumping along the skyline on his horse. I was too late.

Smoke was billowing up from the campfire. The women flustered around, preparing to serve the honored guest, and children romped in wild excitement. Herders were streaming in from all directions.

I sank down behind a small boulder, stuffing the knife into my pouch and pondering. Confrontation would have to wait, obviously.

Anubyl slid expertly from his saddle and led the horse forward. He shook hands with the angel. The two of them started down the slope, angling to avoid the prickly thicket and the pond, heading for the camp. This would be an exciting moment for the usurper, his first chance to play host to an angel, and he would be hard on his women if they did not provide good hospitality. Unlike my father, Anubyl was not above hitting them when they displeased him, although now he used fists or his belt, not a club.

Angel and herdmaster reached the camp. Amby was fussing around with cushions and rugs. The mare was given into the care of Todish, who strutted off proudly with her. Talana was spitting dasher steaks by the fire.

Alongside the visitor, Anubyl seemed enormous. His beard was thicker now and he had meat over his bones. Already his fourth set of breeches strained to contain him. He had discarded all weapons, even his knife, as a courtesy to the angel.

The newcomer was elderly, red-faced, and portly, with sparse white hair plastered to his scalp with sweat. His fringed leather shirt hung outside his belt and protruded far out in front of him. He was fanning himself with a leather hat. I stared at him in dismay. His trousers were tattered. He had jowls. How could this shabby old man distribute punishment to the lean young herdman towering over him?

But everyone had always spoken with awe of the angels’ powers—although those had never really been explained to me—and I managed to convince myself that he was no older than Aunt Amby. She was still the boss among the women, although Anubyl thought he had appointed Jalinan the senior. Moreover I could see that Anubyl was being very respectful to the pudgy little visitor. With the wisdom of true age to guide me now, I know that my youthful inexperience had been deceived by his baldness and large belly. He was not old, barely middle-aged.

The two men settled on the cushions before the center tent, Jalinan’s, and were hidden from my view. Rantarath came forward, kneeling to offer a bowl of water, towels, and the crude soap we made from woollie fat and wood ash. The unoccupied members of the family, the herders and toddlers, formed themselves into a wide half-circle beyond the fire, to sit and stare unblinkingly.

I crouched behind my cover, my heart thumping furiously. I had to plan my move carefully for I was in clear view of the children. If they gave me away to Anubyl, he would certainly intercept me. What was needed was good stalking technique, but stalking was something I had always been good at and lately had been practicing assiduously. I dropped to my belly and began to wriggle.

It was not a pleasant journey. The grass was patchy, and any bare rock or even a pebble would blister. There were also cactuses. I did not recall noticing such problems when I was small, and of course I did not understand why things should be different now. By the time I reached the cover of the old wives’ tent at the near end of the line, the angel had almost completed his meal. With few exceptions, the whole family was facing in roughly my direction. I eased across the gap between the first tent and the next as slowly as grass grows. There was no outcry, so no one had seen me. The women were still busy, and probably nervous about the coming moment of decision.

“I find your advice strange, sir,” Anubyl was saying. “Why not continue westward to this ocean before turning north?”

“Because there are a thousand herds between you and the ocean.” That had to be the angel’s voice, of course. It was higher-pitched, and it had a curious soft lilt to it. My skin shivered with excitement at being close enough to hear an angel speak.

“And they are going north?”

“I hope so.” The angel sounded exaggeratedly patient, as if he was repeating something he had said before. “We have been telling them for long enough. They certainly can’t go west. Any who go south will be trapped. There is no way out to the south.”

“How far north?” Anubyl was angry.

“The beaches extend into the fringes of Tuesday—about as far north as woollies like to go. The problem is that you have all these others ahead of you, and they will have cropped the grass. You may have to go very far north to find good grazing. I admit that you will have trouble. The woollies will become very sluggish, but that is better than having them starve.”

There was silence, and then Anubyl’s harsher voice said petulantly, “I have scouted good water holes to the south—several of them.”

There was more silence before the angel spoke again, still patient. “You have many fine women, I see. How many are with child?”

“Two, at least, the old wives say. My first crop!”

“I congratulate you. But if you go south, Herdmaster, the babes will die before they walk.”

“You croak a hard call, sir.”

“And all your woollies, also.”

Anubyl grunted. He did not want to hear that hard call. “More tripe, sir? Some curd? You will not try the roo-brain mash?”

“I am so full I could not eat a flea’s earlobe, Herdmaster. Your women are most outstanding cooks, even among the herdfolk, whose food is spoken of with awe throughout all Vernier.”

“You are kind. They have other abilities, sir, also.” I heard a handclap and guessed that Anubyl was gesturing to his women to line up for inspection. “I offer you rest from your travels and the enjoyment of whichever companion may please you.”

“Your hospitality has already put me more in your debt…”

The speeches became formal, the angel complimenting his host and politely declining, the herdman insisting. This must be a ritual, I thought, like the speech Jalinan’s brother had made when he offered her to my father. But the second of the voices had changed, meaning that the two men had moved. Hoping my heart would not jump right out of my throat—where it had no right to be—I rose to my feet. Then I dashed through between tents to deliver my accusation.

I almost ran into Anubyl, but he had his back to me. I dodged around him and past the angel also, seeking safety on his far side. The two of them were standing, studying the four younger women, who were likewise standing—in a line, blushing, excited, all greatly hoping to be chosen for this honor. The three old wives stood behind them, watching with interest. Nine sets of eyes turned to stare at me in shock or horror.

“That man killed my father!” I shouted. My voice came out much more shrilly than I had expected. At the same moment I registered with astonishment that this pudgy angel man beside me was barely taller than myself.

Anubyl roared and began to move.

The angel stopped him with a gesture, and everyone froze.

The pink, baggy, sweaty face studied me without expression. “What’s your name, lad?”

I blurted out my name as Anubyl began to move again.

“Truce, Herdmaster!” the angel snapped, and Anubyl stopped once more, quivering with fury.

“And who was your father?”

“Er…” I did not know my father’s name. I croaked and fell silent, choked by conflicting rage and terror and embarrassment.

The angel’s white eyebrows dropped in a frown. “Was he herdmaster? Is that who you mean?”

“Yes, sir.” Certainly! Who else?

The angel glanced toward Anubyl. “I just had to be sure, you understand? The coloring?”

“Of course, sir! Now you will permit me to teach a few manners?” The young man’s eyes had blood in them—my blood.

“Also, he beat my mother to death!” I squealed.

The angel looked back at me and shrugged. “That is not my business, either, young Knobil. Did you think it would be?”

“Sir…angels prevent violence—don’t they?”

“Not that sort of violence. And if Herdmaster Anubyl wants to beat you also—did you think an angel truce would save you from that?”

I had no words left. My plan had failed, utterly, and I had not considered that possibility. I began to tremble more violently even than Anubyl, although for other reasons.

The angel turned back to him. “Perhaps it does. I have never heard of the truce being carried that far, I admit, but I suppose violence is violence—”

“With respect, I disagree! This is a family matter.” Anubyl showed his teeth and began to edge around the angel to get his hands on me. Violence he wanted.

The little man moved slightly, blocking him. “He expected to be safe while I was here, Herdmaster. It was ignorance, but perhaps we should not disappoint his ideals?” He shrugged, seeing that his audience was not supportive. “Oh, well… These so beautiful damsels? You were about to introduce me to that one.”

Anubyl shot me a murderous glare and then turned to describe Oapia’s virtues and skills. The angel glanced briefly at me. I was not too stupid to read the message in his eye—I had been given a reprieve, but not for long.

With a sob, I turned and ran between the tents and began racing up the hill. At the crest I paused for a moment to look back. I was just in time to see the angel following Oapia to her tent. The rest of my family had not moved—women standing, children sitting, all staring up at me. Anubyl was already running, not toward me, but in the direction of the horses. His bow and his sword were there, also.

Ahead of me, empty ridges marched outward to reach the sky. On my right was the herd, with very few herders tending it.

About three woollies out of five owned a dasher, so the odds were against me. I was lucky, else this tale would have ended right here. I would have been ripped to fragments.

The underside of a woollie, I discovered, was cramped, smelly, and unbearably hot. The great shaggy feet shuffled on either side of me, and I had barely room to move, my back pressed against the monstrous belly, which rumbled and bubbled continuously. A calf-length pagne was not designed for crawling on hands and knees. The heat and the stench made my head spin.

In theory I could remain there as long as I could stay awake. I had food, for the rear nipple dangled in my face. In practice, of course, the heat was deadly, and I quickly rubbed my knees raw, for I had no way of avoiding rocks and cactuses as the woollie blundered ahead, continuously grinding grass. I had not known that woollies avoided eating cactus, but that one did. It was a humiliating refuge, a mobile torture chamber, and a very fitting prison for a coward.

What could I hope to accomplish? Anubyl had only to wait until I became exhausted and the woollie crawled away, leaving me lying in full view. He would certainly stay awake long enough for that to happen, and I did not think his murderous rage would cool very much in the meantime. I should have run while I had the chance and died with a little more dignity.

And eventually I managed to convince my craven body of that, or else the pain in my knees did so. I spread myself flat and let the rear canopy of hard wool scrape over me. Sunlight and blessed fresh air returned. I prepared to breathe my last…

Somebody sniggered.

I sat up with a wail.

It was Rilana, regarding me with much amusement. “What’s it like in there?”

“Where is he?” I looked around at the humped shapes of woollies.

She smirked. “He’s gone out to get the women and poles.”

Of course! I should have thought of that. Work parties could evict dashers, and they would race around until they found unoccupied woollies, or the one with me under it.

“Here!” Rilana said and held out a canteen. “It’s only half-full, but it’ll have to do. There’s a gully over that way.”

She shook her head and was suddenly serious. “Good luck, Knobil!”

I grabbed the water bottle, spotted a quick kiss on her forehead, and ran.

So my cowardice did save me in the end. Anubyl had first looked for me in the open and then guessed—or been told—that I had hidden in the herd. Later, while he was looking for me under the woollies, I was fleeing away over the grasslands. Obviously Rilana had kept her word and hadn’t told him I had gone. My luck held again. I was able to stay down in gullies for a long way. One small herder does not show up for very far on a landscape so huge. He did not come after me on his horse, or if he did, he did not find me. Probably he preferred to stay close to the camp while the angel was there.

By chance, or because my luck still held, I was heading south. Anubyl had said that there were water holes that way. Even after the angel left, he would probably want to scout to the north, if he believed what the angel had told him. South was my safest road.

I settled into a long-distance lope, a loner at last.

—3—

THE LOPE FELL TO A WALK, the walk at last to a stagger.

The sun burned without mercy above my left shoulder. Desiccated ridges and hollows rolled on without end. Boulders and sand, scabby grass between patches of gravel and shattered dry clay—an empty land beneath a vacant sky.

“You can’t go on forever, you know,” said a whisper in my ear.

“Who are you?”

“I am Loneliness. I am your companion now.”

“Go away.”

“Not until you die. I shall be with you always, until then. It won’t be long.”

“I have a knife and a bow string and a water bottle.”

Loneliness laughed at my side. “An empty water bottle and no sling. Even Indarth had a sling.”

“What need I fear? Thirst? I shall find a pond. Food? I can eat miniroos. Poisonthorn? I am not a child!”

“Eagles. Rocs. Roo packs. People.”

“They are rare,” I insisted. “Anubyl survived. I shall find a pond with trees and make a bow.”

There was no shade, but I sat on some thicker grass to fashion a sling from my pagne. It had been tattered before, and I was now left with little to cover my nakedness. That hardly seemed to matter very much.

“Or even traders!” I said loudly. “I may meet some traders.”

Loneliness laughed again. “You have nothing to trade. Traders would not be interested in you.”

He was wrong, of course. He did not know—because he was me, and I did not know. Traders would have been very glad to see me, but I met no traders, not then. Those canny, nervy folk would have long since fled the grasslands.

I was surprised at the effort needed to force myself back onto my feet. Loneliness fell into step beside me once more. His voice was the sound of the wind on the hills. It was the crunch of grass below my feet, and sometimes it was my voice.

“What if you see another herd?” he asked. “People? You will want to go to them, won’t you? You have never been away from people before.”

“And the man will kill me. No, I must be alone. Until I can go back and kill Anubyl.”

“He is a man. You are a boy.”

“I am a man now.”

“Are you?” Loneliness inquired. “Your body hair is coming in gold, like the stuff on your head. Your eyes are blue like a newborn’s. They never turned brown, as eyes should. There is something wrong with you. You will never be a proper man, freak.”

The grass was withered to its roots, littered everywhere with dry dung. The hollows held the corpses of ponds, and the only trees I saw had long since been cut down or shriveled to useless brittle tinder.

My heart burned with contempt for the angel. So my mother’s death was not his business? What use were the angels, then? Nasty little man, I thought—old, fat, and useless.

“You can’t go on much longer,” Loneliness remarked. “If you lie down, you will never rise. The sun will cook you while you sleep.”

He was right. Without water I would die soon. Even my eyeballs were dried out—I fancied my eyelids squeaked when I blinked, and I laughed long and loud at the thought. Todish would have found that funny, too, and Rilana…

I stopped in a hollow and tried digging in the clay with a stick. I found no water and almost fried my feet. I scouted for miniroo pellets, but even miniroos seemed to have vanished from the great lonely world.

“There is a hill,” my invisible companion remarked helpfully. “It is a little higher than the others. Climb that, and if you do not see water there, then give up.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Thank you.”

I was almost ready to drop to hands and knees when I reached the top, and it was so wide and flat that I could not see the land beyond. Behind me, to the north, there was no sign of the family’s woollies; no sign of anything except endless gray rumpled landscape, shimmering and writing in heat haze below a cloudless sky. I must not stray east or west, or I would lose my sense of location. I wanted to keep that, so that I would be able to find Anubyl when I was ready to kill him.

“His danger does not seem very great,” Loneliness said, but I did not reply.

If Anubyl had truly found water holes in this direction, then I had missed them. Scouting was much easier on horseback than on foot.

For a while I sat on a rock and gave way to despair. Never had I been alone like this, out of sight of my family. Even our herder hunting parties had been communal affairs. The thirst and hunger were bad, but the solitude was worse. I was the only boy in the world.

Finally I managed to overcome my frightening torpor, climb onto my aching feet, and trail wearily over the flat summit. The country to the south came into view. I stood and stared blankly. It seemed just the same as the country to the north…except…

Fatigue had slowed my thinking, I suppose, and at first I thought it was only a roo. A single, solitary roo would be no great threat—and edible, if I could somehow catch it. Then a terrible recognition began. Roos traveled in packs, and this creature was alone. Roos bounded, and this one was walking. It was very far off to the southeast, two or three ridges over, and a roo would not be visible so far away Therefore it was very big. It had to be a tyrant.

At the distance it seemed white and the tiny forelimbs were invisible. The massive tail balanced the forward-sloping torso above the enormous hind legs, the gigantic melon-shaped head. The pointed ears stuck up like horns.

My mind began to race, rummaging through memory for all the stories I had heard. Tyrants were so huge that they could overturn and eat woollies. They were implacable and could outrun a horse. No arrow could penetrate them deep enough to kill. They had one weakness: their eyesight. All they could see was movement, and a man who stayed still was invisible to them. I dropped to a crouch.

But it saw me. Even at such a distance, even so small a motion, it had seen. The massive head swung around and the monster came to a halt, peering across the landscape, seeking the source of that movement. I stayed as still as a boulder, only my heart moving.

That may have been the first time in my life that I truly appreciated what time was—it crawled. Then the tyrant’s great jaws opened. And closed. And a faint roar came drifting over the ridges to me. I shivered, feeling a strange prickling down my back.

At last the tyrant decided that it had been mistaken. It started moving again, resuming its original progress, heading north.

I was enormously, intoxicatingly, relieved. All I needed to do was stay where I was, and it would go away.

Go away north. I thought of Anubyl, riding out with bow and sword to defend his ill-gotten riches. The tyrant would swallow him whole, and his horse also, and my soul rejoiced at the vision. Then I thought of the others: my brothers and sisters, my aunts, the woollies. The tyrant would have a great feast. Once it came in sight of the woollies, my family would be lost, for there was no way to make woollies keep still. There would be no way to keep the toddlers still either—not for the length of time it would take a tyrant to eat all that herd.

My sense of relief died. It dried up and blew away, and horror replaced it. I must try to turn the tyrant. We had been traveling southwest for the last few camps, so the monster was merely prowling, not following our tracks. I tried to convince myself that it would change direction of its own accord, as if by mere wishing I could create a wisdom about tyrants. But I watched, and it did not deviate at all from its course. It vanished briefly in a small dip and then reappeared, still striding northward.

Duty? I doubt that I had ever heard the word, but it was only Anubyl I hated. Aunt Amby, Aunt Ulith…young Todish, who had been my closest friend since Arrint left…even Rilana, nasty little snit though she was… Their faces floated before me in unexpected tears, and I knew that I must try. Better one than all.

When? Trembling, I rose.

Again it saw me. This time the motionless inspection lasted longer, the roaring was repeated several times. But it was still farther south than I was. I saw that I must wait until it had progressed more to the north. Then I would be turning it away from my family, roughly to the southwest. I must hope that it would pursue me for long enough to fix that southwest direction in its mind, so that when I had escaped it would continue to the southwest. If I escaped…but all I would have to do was freeze and it would lose me.

Or so I thought. The only animals I really knew were woollies and horses. Woollies were as stupid as cactuses, but I should have remembered that horses were not. I should have known that tyrants must have some means of catching prey and hence could not possibly be evaded as easily as that. I should have known that any predator in the grasslands would die of starvation were it so brainless. But had I known, I could not have done what I did.

I waited until I dared wait no longer. My terror seemed to be growing to fill the whole world and I thought my courage would fail. I poured sweat. My teeth chattered. I dribbled where I stood, not even daring a hand movement to lift my pagne—fear is agony, and we cowards pay dearly for our defect. The tyrant vanished, reappeared, vanished… Now it was moving away from me, and I thought I might do nothing if I waited any longer. I jumped in the air and waved my arms. I think I even yelled, although it was so distant that my voice would never have carried to it.

In instant reaction, the tyrant spun on one foot and headed toward me. Thirst and hunger and weariness were all forgotten now. A basic human instinct for survival took over, and I began to run in earnest. I fled.

Had I been smarter, I would never have started that race. Had I had any sense at all, I would have planned my route and conserved my strength for a final spurt. Instead, I plunged headlong down the slope into the next hollow and then straight up the opposite side. Not having eyes in the back of my head, I paused at the top and turned, panting for breath and watching for my pursuer. But this crest was lower and I could not see beyond the ridge I had left.

As the moments passed and the monster did not appear, I began to appreciate my stupidity. I did not know which way to run, and I was not sure I had any strength left to run with anyway.

Then it came into view, rising enormous over the skyline like the thunderclouds I could remember from my youth. And it was already on the hill I had just left. Far faster and far huger than I had realized, it seemed to grow up and up, white against the sky—ears and wicked eyes and then the enormous fang-filled jaws. Petrified, I could only stand and gasp for breath, and feel sick.

Then the whole monster was visible, striding across the mesa toward me. The great legs did not seem to be hurrying, but they ate distance relentlessly. Now I could see the tiny forelimbs, curled close to the chest, each bearing a single, gleaming curved claw. But mostly I saw the endless array of ivory daggers around the ghastly black maw.

Panic! My paralysis vanished. I turned again with a squeal of terror and raced down the next slope.

Why I did not break my neck is a great mystery, for the hill was steep. I traversed it in bounds almost as long as the tyrant’s strides, and I was looking over my shoulder most of the time. The ground thumped against my battered feet, every blow rattling me to my teeth—cactuses and rocks and slithery patches of gravel—but I ignored the pain. I knew I must get out of sight for a moment and change direction, but I seemed to have left it too late. The slope was steep, but not steep enough. The tyrant’s eyes were high enough to keep me in view, and it was still moving faster than I was, even though it was on the flat plateau.

Then mercifully it reached the gully and dropped swiftly out of sight. And I had reached the base of the main hill. A long gentle slope stretched down to a tangle of dead silvery trees in the center of the valley. Water gleamed there. How I needed that water! And the trees would provide cover…

Fortunately I retained just enough wit to remember my strategy. I was not going to reach that cover before the killer came over the ridge behind me. Water must wait, and I must change direction. I veered hard to the right, leaping and staggering and bounding over rough grass and low scrub, still twisting my head around to watch for my pursuer—and running right into a boulder. I cracked my knees with an excruciating blaze of pain. I toppled over, hit the ground, rolled, and stopped. The tyrant s head appeared in the sky.

That rock had saved me, for I had not been expecting the monster so soon. Had I still been running, it would have seen me and been able to hold me in view. I lay flat, with blood running from my shins and tears of pain or terror running from my eyes. I tried not to breathe. The tyrant reached the top of the slope, leaned back, and slid all the way down in a landslide of gravel and dirt, balanced on its great spread feet and massive tail. The impact of its landing shook the world.

It stopped and peered around the hollow: where is lunch?

Its size was unbelievable, four or five times what I had expected. At close range—much too close now—it was an iridescent silver, the short fur gleaming with rainbow lights. I recalled a vague memory of a trader once showing my father a length of tyrant fur, and my father’s derision at the price being asked.

The head stopped moving; the eyes and ears did not. They flickered this way and that, together or separately. I wished I could turn off my heart, for if the tyrant could not hear it, I could hear nothing else. Then the monster roared, filling the whole valley with bone-breaking noise and rolling echoes. I very nearly jumped to my feet and fled in terror at that unexpected explosion of sound. Which was the why of it, obviously.

More roars followed, but now I was ready for them. My neck trembled with the effort of holding my head in the awkward position it had happened to be in when the tyrant came over the skyline. I did not even blink. Give up! I thought. I have beaten you! Go away!

But I did not say that, and the tyrant did not believe that. It lurched into motion, heading down to the copse of withered trees, and the ground trembled with the impacts: Boom…boom…

Yet still I dared not move, for I could see that a tyrant, like a roo, had a third eye in the back of its head. Every animal or bird I had ever seen had three eyes, except people and horses, and I had always felt cheated by having only two. So I remained in my awkward sprawl, with gravel digging into my elbows and a steady agony of cramp spreading through my neck and shoulders from the twisted angle of my head. Black flames danced over my vision as I forced my eyelids not to blink.

The tyrant reached the little grove and swiftly demolished it. Stamping its huge feet and lashing its tail, it wheeled and trampled in a frenzy of destruction, pausing once in a while to bend and snuffle and inspect something suspicious. Tree trunks splintered and toppled, mud splashed, until in short order what had once seemed like a safe hiding place had been leveled. Nothing remained but a puddle of splinters. Then the monster paused, baffled, glaring around and roaring.

Could it not hear my heart? Would it give up?

No! Now it began circling outward, the thunder of its tread shaking the valley floor, the massive tail sweeping wide arcs over the grass. The tail caught a boulder larger than me and hurled it sideways. In a flash the monster spun around and slammed a foot down on it. It bent and sniffed, then turned back to its systematic quartering of the ground. My heart sank into black despair.

I blinked. Nothing happened. Very slowly I began easing my head into a bearable position. If death was imminent, then there was no point in enduring more pain. The tyrant froze. Two evil eyes peered across the valley in my direction. I stopped breathing again.

At that moment came salvation. The monster’s ears swiveled, then its head, and it stared hard at one of the flanking hills. Without more warning, it turned and went striding off, faster than ever, clods of mud flying from its taloned feet. With a whimper of disbelief, I watched as the tyrant flowed up the hill and vanished over the skyline. I collapsed with sobs of relief, my heart thudding against the ground, my gut fluttering with nervous reaction.

Then I heard what it had heard—a distant rattling and squeaking, faint hints borne by the wind. But there was nothing I could do to warn the angel, and I did not care what happened to him anyway. Sounds of monster footsteps and angel’s chariot died away together, and I was left in peace, alive.

Soon I rolled over and sat up to inspect my injuries. I had badly scraped both my shins and a few other places, but the worst damage was to my knees, especially the right one. It was already puffed and stiff. The left was painful, but not so bad. Only with great difficulty was I able to rise. Yet I needed water desperately, and I would willingly drink whatever foul muck the tyrant had left in the water hole.

I tried a step and almost fell. The valley danced black about me and then slowly cleared. For a moment I considered crawling instead of walking, but that seemed likely to be more painful, and slower. So I lurched forward, another step…then another…

The hollow was a wide place between three mesas. Three valleys led into it. I had not progressed very far when I heard the rattling of the chariot again, coming from the gap on my left. My terror surged anew. I had been hoping that the tyrant was now engaged in eating angel, but somehow the angel had escaped and was now leading it straight back to me.

Sure enough, in a moment the red and blue sails came into sight, and the violet body of the chariot below them. It was bouncing along at a leisurely pace, zigzagging around between the rocks and hummocks, certainly not moving fast enough to escape from the tyrant. The angel had seen me—he waved. Perhaps he had escaped the monster by accident and did not even know it was after him?

I stood, helpless and almost immobile, watching the chariot veer across the valley floor, growing steadily larger. I had never been close to one before, for chariots were strictly out of bounds for us children. It was bigger than I had expected; I should hardly have needed to duck to walk underneath it. It rocked and swayed, and I was surprised to see that the four great wheels were in some way flexible, as if made of something springy, like cartilage, and they absorbed the worst of the shocks from the uneven terrain. Two of the wheels were alongside the main body, just in front of the mast. The other two stuck out behind on a sort of flat tail.

Inasmuch as the chariot was like anything else I had ever known, it resembled the baskets in which my mother and aunts had gathered roots—wide and flat-bottomed, with sides sloping outward. But those baskets had been rectangular, and while the chariot was squared off at the back, in front it was pointed with a long pole protruding there, the bowsprit. The sharp front is of no great advantage on land, but it does help when the chariot floats on water. These were all things I was to learn much later, like mast as the name of the vertical pole in the middle.

The chariot swung suddenly up the slope on which I stood, slowed, and then turned aside before it reached me, stopping with a final squeal and sway. Silence returned. The angel was sitting by the mast, peering at me from under his wide-brimmed hat.

He bent from sight and then straightened up. “Catch!” he shouted. His throw was a poor effort, and the missile landed several steps short of me, but it was a leather water bottle. I almost forgot my pain as I lurched over to grab it. Nothing in the entire world could have been more welcome. Few things in my life have matched the joy of that drink. I spilled water over my chest in my eagerness. I almost choked. In that climate there was no such thing as cool water, of course, but I could feel the wet relief running down inside me, all the way to my stomach.

By the time I lowered the half-empty bottle, suddenly nauseated, the chariot’s sails had disappeared and the angel was climbing down clumsily at the back. Then he waddled over to me with a flat-footed rolling gait, wiping his red face with a grubby cloth. In his other hand he held a club, a wooden blade on a long, thin metal handle.

“Thank you, sir,” I croaked.

He scowled, looking me up and down. “You did that deliberately, didn’t you?”

“Did what, sir?”

“I was watching. I saw it notice you and then lose you. I thought you were safe. Then you started to run.”

“I thought it would find my family. I hoped to turn it.”

“You’re a brainless little bastard!”

“Yes sir.”

He grunted and turned to look back the way he had come. “Your cute little pet will be along shortly. Keep still again, and let’s hope it goes right by us.”

And if it didn’t? Would he hit it with his club? He seemed strangely unworried.

“You can’t outrun it, sir? In your chariot?”

“Shut up!”

As he spoke, the tyrant came into view around a distant bend in the valley. I froze. The ground began to throb below the great feet as the monster approached, growing larger with a terrifying swiftness. It came straight for us, as if it would pass between us and the chariot. From the corner of my eye I saw the fearsome silver head against the sky when it passed behind the mast. This was its closest approach yet. A rank, animal stench stung my nostrils. It moved beyond my sight, and I dared not turn my head to follow.

I remember watching the set of three colored ribbons streaming in the wind at the top of the mast and wondering why that sort of movement did not attract the monster. Either it could ignore wind motion somehow, or else it saw moving objects well enough to know that ribbons were of no interest to it. Once again I was not even daring to blink. The angel was motionless also, near me but out of my view. I stared at mast and distant sky, and I trembled.

The death tread stopped.

Silence. Only the wind…

Roar! The noise was so close that I jumped.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” my companion snarled. That broke the spell. The tyrant and I moved at the same time. I turned, and it was so close that I had to bend my head and look upward. It was spinning around, its beady eyes glaring down at us in triumph, the great jaws opening. I clearly remember the wet ropes of spittle hanging from them.

The angel raised his club to his shoulder, but backward—the wooden part against his shoulder, the long metal handle pointing up at the monster’s head. Thunder! Startled, I lost my balance on my bad knee and fell in a sprawl of agony. More thunder.

A moment after I hit the ground, so did the tyrant, and the whole world seemed to bounce.

The angel said, “Fornicating vermin!”

In great agonizing spasms, I threw up all the water I had just drunk.

—4—

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF HEAVEN am I going to do with you?” the angel demanded.

He was holding a bloody ax over one shoulder. Under his other arm he clutched the tyrant’s two foreclaws—curved, pointed murder, like shearing sickles…trophies. The rest of the vast carcass lay as the death throes had left it, so close that I could watch the insects settling on its eyes.

I was sitting on the earth, still close to my damp patch of vomit, barely mobile at all. The angel had laid a wet compress on each of my knees, had washed the worst of my scrapes, and given me a rag to make bandages. He had produced smoked woollie meat for me to eat, and I had drained the water bottle.

I was feeling shaky and light-headed, more like a small herder, or even a toddler, than a bold and predatory loner. The world was turning out to be a much tougher place than I had expected.

To the angel I was obviously an unwelcome complication. All the time while ministering to me, he had muttered angrily under his breath. It was very foul breath—he stank. Everyone did, of course, but his sweat smelled different. Now his face bore a ferocious scowl.

“You have been very kind, sir.”

He spat. “You insult a herdmaster in front of his women. You provoke tyrants. Now you have mashed your knee. Your life expectancy is not very high, stupid.”

“Sir?”

“Oh, shut up!” He stumped back over to the chariot and tossed the foreclaws up into it. He wiped the ax on the grass and threw it in also. Then he turned around and glared at me, spreading his feet, folding fringed sleeves over the round white-haired belly that bulged through the front of his unbuttoned jerkin.

“I was going to make sure you found a water hole. That was all. Not for your sake, you understand!”

“No sir?”

“Shut up!”

“Yes sir.”

“For your father’s sake… Then I saw the tyrant, and I decided to let it have you. It would have been a mercy. But you had the sense to keep still. And then you deliberately provoked it!” He glared in angry silence for a while. “Do you know how slim your chances are?”

I shook my head, not understanding any of that.

“About one loner in thirty lives long enough to make his kill. You have no herd, no bow…” He bared his yellow teeth. “And it’s hopeless anyway—the sun is coming.”

“Sir?” I glanced uneasily up at the sun.

“You’re almost into High Summer! Dry water holes…no grass…cactus…tyrants… An entire herd wouldn’t save you.” He shook his head in exasperation. “Stupid little herdboy doesn’t understand.”

“Sir? What did you do to kill the tyrant?”

Again that yellow-toothed snarl. He pointed. “That’s a gun. Only angels have them. That’s why people are nice to us.”

I had thought it was because angels helped people.

He was a strange man. I had very little experience with men, yet I could sense a deep rage in him. He was venting it on me, but I had done nothing to anger him.

“I suppose I could take you with me until we find a decent slough. Except that there aren’t any left around here.”

“No sir?”

“No sir! And I’m heading west. Every pee hole from here to the ocean has a herd around it—packed like flies on a dead roo. You’ll die for certain, anyway. Why should I bother with you?”

He was talking more to himself than me, but I said, “No reason.”

The fat face scowled even more furiously, but for the first time he spoke to me as if what I thought might matter. “What do you want?”

“To kill Anubyl.”

He snorted with disgust. “That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Why?”

“He killed my father and my mother.”

“Your mother, maybe. But I’ve never seen a herdman with fair hair and blue eyes. Those features come from the wetlanders, mostly. Did any of your older brothers or sisters have your coloring?”

“No sir.” I had thought I was the only one in the world. Yet an ancient memory stirred…an angel with golden hair…

“Probably your real father was an angel. A herdmaster won’t let any other males near his women. Only angel sperm can cuckold a herdman. I’m surprised he kept you when he saw what had happened.”

I had never even considered that possibility, for I knew nothing about inheritance and precious little about sex.

The angel cursed under his breath. “But if he did, I suppose I can do no less. Get in.” He pointed.

Astonished, I never thought to question or disobey. He did not help me to rise, and he frowned impatiently at my snail progress. With every twitch of my right knee a red flame, I lurched over to the back of the chariot, trying not to sob with the agony, dreading that one little cry might reveal to the angel what a contemptible wastrel I really was. I scrambled up as quickly as I could. He stood and scowled, and he made no move at all to assist me.

“I’m out of my mind,” he muttered. “Brainless, ignorant, murderous little herdbrat!” He clambered heavily up behind me. “But spunky—crazy like an angel…”