The Prodigal Troll Part 19

Laughter, and even applause, answered this turnabout, some of it from Squandral's two men. Damaqua accepted the rattles with an expression as blank and ominous as the sun. He did not put them on.

The drummers resumed. Sinnglas whooped, and this time Maggot fell in with the others. While he danced, he felt larger than Ragweed, or Big Thunder, capable of anything. His glance caught Pisqueto's coal-dark eyes, and he saw the same thing reflected there. Caught up in emotion, he missed Squandral tapping for silence and stopped only when he heard his voice.

"All my friends, all my relatives," he said, speaking loudly, through his mouth, so that Maggot understood his words. "In all my years, I have never seen a war dance as memorable as this one. My praise goes out to all the dancers. Like one of those within the circle, I am a visitor here in your village. I speak of the one called Maqwet, who came out of the mountains, I am told, in the same way that First Man did."

Maggot stood straighter. He didn't know why the story of First Man had come up again. He'd told the trollbird, Menato, that it was untrue.

"While I do not have any tooth or tusk to give him," Squandral said, "if he plans to stay among us, he must learn to put something on his head. So I give him this cloth and ask him to wear it when he goes down among the invaders."

He unwrapped the red length of fabric from around his head, and a single braid dropped loose. A warrior's braid.

Sinnglas whooped immediately, before the drummers struck a single beat or Maggot could accept the proffered cloth. First Gelapa, the wizard, and then Damaqua, and then most of the other council members withdrew into the lodge. The drummers refused to continue without their leaders present. Pisqueto and some of the others danced without the drummers, singing the war songs themselves. Others stood there, confused.

Sinnglas ran over and embraced Squandral. "You are with us then? You will join us in this war?"

"Though it breaks my heart in two to do so," Squandral said loudly enough for others to overhear. "I thought I had seen enough of war, but the invaders treat us badly. Some of their men burned with the fire water, and set upon a group from our village. They killed my niece and her husband, and their little child. We asked for justice, but Baron Culufre says he can do nothing. I will join you until my family is revenged and the invaders know that they cannot treat us so."

"With you by my side, the enemy will fall before us."

Squandral grunted noncommittally. "Our chances were not good the last time, and that was thirty years ago, when I was a young man. Our losses were great, and we were weaker when the war was done than when it began. We have not grown greater since, but the invaders spread like locusts in the summer. Yet, if we do nothing, I fear our people will disappear completely."

"It is what I have been saying. Damaqua will change his mind now. He will join us."

"I will carry the hatchet into our village," Squandral said loudly. "And I will send Menato south with it to Custalo. Together we shall have at least fifty warriors. We had many more than that the last time we fought the invaders, and their numbers were much less."

Sinnglas made a sharp cutting gesture with his hand. "The wolverine feeding at the carca.s.s of a deer has many fewer teeth than the pack of wolves around him, yet holds onto his own. It is not our size that matters, but the strength of our attack."

"Still, our women and children should prepare to flee into the mountains."

"That will be wise," Sinnglas admitted. "We should strike quickly, with surprise."

"That will be wise also." Squandral said something through his nose that Maggot didn't quite catch.

"I did see the snakeskin fall," Sinnglas answered. "Did the wizard say whose death it presages?"

Squandral shrugged. "All men die. Let us hope it is a good death, whoever's it is."

They said their farewells then, and Sinnglas and Maggot returned to the lodge of his wife's family. She put out two bowls of food. Maggot ate while Sinnglas removed his regalia. Their children, a little boy and a little girl, peered at him with awestruck eyes from behind their mother's skirts while she presented Maggot with a bearskin bag. He peered inside and found more food. He scooped some out with his fingers. It tasted like parched corn, but it was sweet like the maple syrup. He shoved several fingerfuls into his mouth. Her mouth dropped open aghast, but Sinnglas laughed out loud.

"No, my friend," he said. "That is to sustain us on our journey. Save it for tomorrow. We must take the warclub to Custalo's village and dance there next."

Maggot closed the bag reluctantly. He was not used to the idea of saving food for tomorrow, but he could learn, just as he meant to learn what war was.

Outside in the central plaza, Sinnglas and Maggot joined the other dancers gathered around the post. They dressed plainly, carrying weapons and bearskin bags of food. A light wind rustled the dead snakeskins.

"We must strike quickly, take them by surprise," Sinnglas told them.

Maggot recalled Tanaghri speaking to him before the dance. He was supposed to remember something, but it was a stem lost in the swirling waters of the past day.

Perhaps he would remember later.

aggot stood in the central plaza of Custalo's village when the dancing was over. He stared at the stars, letting the sweat evaporate from his skin. A crowd of people stirred around him.

"War is good," he said, grinning.

Sinnglas grinned too. "This war is very good."

So far war involved only dancing. Menato had come ahead to prepare the way for them, so Sinnglas's men were welcomed enthusiastically in Custalo's village. It was two villages, actually, on a high plain that straddled the mountain ranges; one was a little smaller than Damaqua's village and the other a bit larger, situated within a morning's walk of one another. They had danced in both villages over the course of two nights. Maggot liked the dancing. It was exciting in a different way than wrestlingwhen it was over, no one was injured and all the dancers felt good.

"That is a very great honor, my friend," Sinnglas said, indicating three eagle feathers in Maggot's hand. Custalo, hearing the story of Squandral's gift of his turban to Maggot, had presented the feathers to Maggot during the dance.

"What do I do with them?" Maggot asked. The sweat ran down his hand, making the feathers damp.

"You wear them in your cap," Sinnglas said.

Maggot did not like having his head covered, but he was trying hard to be like people. "You to show me how. I am glad to war with you, my friend."

"Good," Sinnglas said, turning to talk to the men from Custalo's village. About four handfuls had already changed out of their dancing costumes and were prepared to go.

Maggot spun in a circle and regarded this village that was at once both familiar and strange. This was troll country. He looked over the palisade and wondered if his mother or any of the other trolls were out there watching him the way he had sat through the nights looking over the walls at people. With his eyes closed in a thick fog, he could find his way from here down to the hot stinking springs, and from there, even with his nose squeezed shut, he could trace the trails rock by rock down to the safety of the caves. Now he had crossed over the wall and was on the inside. He was closer to the woman he wanted.

Keekyu screamed and flung his arms about, laughing. Maggot watched him share a bottle with some of the other young men, who grew also increasingly boisterous. Noticing his attention, Keekyu walked over and thrust the bottle at Maggot.

"Go on, take a drink!"

The noise of conversation around Sinnglas fell suddenly hushed. Maggot saw his friend glaring, his face as angry as it grew during the dance.

Custalo stood beside Sinnglas. The old warrior had a gentle face like a baby's, until one read the harsh shape of his mouth or felt the cutting manner of his eyes or listened to the stories of his raids against their enemies across the mountains. People and their things could be so different on the inside than on the outside. Trolls were not like that. Custalo stared at the eagle feathers crushed in Maggot's fist.

Keekyu gave him a sloppy smile. "Go on!"

"No," Maggot said. He turned away. If he had to choose between Sinnglas and anyone else, he would choose his friend. He held the feathers more gently as he joined the others.

Sinnglas's followers and the men from Custalo's village walked north for several days. On the third night, they camped on a bluff overlooking a river much wider than any Maggot had ever seen in the high mountains.

Despite a slight breeze, pungent grease smeared over their bodies, and smudge bundles burning in the fires, the biting insects swarmed to devour them the way crawling bugs consumed the final shreds of meat off the bones of a corpse. A few men slept despite the insects. Sinnglas, Keekyu, Custalo, and the few other older men crowded around a fire, planning strategies. Maggot sat with Pisqueto on the edge of the bluff, trying to escape the stifling heat.

Below them, groups of deer rested in the river water among the long gra.s.ses. Nothing but their noses and antlers showed above the water's surface.

"Smart," Maggot said, slapping another insect as it landed on his neck. "Perhaps we go down to the water with them."

Pisqueto chuckled. "Heh."

"When will we come to Squandral's village?"

"Tomorrow. It sits between the hills, at the place where three rivers come together."

"Three rivers? Are they all as big as this?"

"The one that flows west is larger, but it leads down to the River Wyndas, and the sea." He lifted his chin. "Look."

A faint, phosph.o.r.escent light as long as a small tree drifted in a serpentine path downstream toward the deer. At first Maggot took it for the reflection of the moon, or perhaps the milky band of light that crossed the sky.

"Is it a snake?" he asked, thinking that now he understood the source of the snakeskins on the pole in Damaqua's village.

"No."

The light vanished below the surface of the water, reappearing in front of one deer slightly apart from the herd. Only the glowing head of the creature appeared, a beacon of light wavering in front of the transfixed deer while a few animals turned to climb out of the river. The head darted forward, the deer bleated, and all the herd splashed up the bank to scatter into the woods. The snake-or whatever it was-coiled around its victim, dragging it under. The river churned like water boiling in a pot, and then the splas.h.i.+ng stopped.

Pisqueto slapped more bugs. "The Old Ones."

"Old Ones?"

"If you come near one, you mustn't speak to it or look into its eyesthe Old Ones will take you to the other side." Pisqueto tugged on the gorget at his throat. It was carved in the shape of a snake circled on itself. "Have you not seen the images of the Old Ones among us?"

"I see," Maggot said. He lifted the colored amulets around his own neck. "I thought they things like this. To say we are people."

"No." Pisqueto glared angrily. "The soulless made those."

Frowning, Maggot smacked his nose as an insect landed on it, and then he winced at the blow.

"The soulless, the invaders," Pisqueto explained. "In the wintertime, when the Old Ones grow sluggish, they seek them out on the riverbanks or dig their burrows in the mud and kill them. That is why our people grow few. The spirits of the Old Ones do not protect us anymore because we do not protect them. Now, Banya, their wizard, he shows respect but ..."

Pisqueto's voice trailed off. Maggot lifted his necklaces, the light filled stones clicking as they bounced against each other. "These not like yours?"

"No. Has Sinnglas not talked to you about them?"

"No."

"Heh. Why do you wear them?"

Maggot recalled the woman with the blue gem against the skin of her throat. "They remind me of one."

Pisqueto's grunt did not say anything that Maggot understood. They sat quietly, stirring only to slap at the bugs. Much later, the Old One, glowing faintly now, dragged its distorted and distended form upon a mud bank in the middle of the river. One by one the deer timidly returned to cool off in the water at another place farther upstream.

"Why do they go back, when they know it is dangerous for them?" Maggot asked.

Pisqueto crushed yet another fat mosquito on his arm, leaving a tiny streak of blood. "Because they must. Because where else can they go?"

After a while, Maggot said, "Tomorrow we will go to Squandral's village. Then we will make your war."

The post in Squandral's central plaza was covered with more skins than Damaqua's village and many more than Custalo's. But it sat at the junction of several rivers, all of them containing Old Ones. The dancing that night included men from all three villages and some outlying places. During one of the dances, Maggot became so wrought that he stabbed the air repeatedly and screamed. "Show me the lion," he shouted. "I to kill him!"

Squandral's men chuckled. "Look at the vulture," they said.

Afterward, Sinnglas came over to Maggot and smiled. "You will have your chance, my friend. We will go avenge the deaths tonight. Now you will see what war is really like."

"Good!" Maggot panted.

He was ready to chase down any lion they wanted and destroy it.

They set out in the darkness for a settlement of farms downstream, where Squandral's niece and her family had gone to trade the day they were murdered.

They ran hard, heading south and west, crossing the rivers at fords. Before dawn they came to a clearing surrounded by pines in the shadow of a mountain's steep slope. The men from the different villages kept mostly to themselves, but Sinnglas, Squandral, and Custalo met together with a few others. Sinnglas took Keekyu with him.

Some of the older men slept or rested. Maggot had the wakefulness of night and newness both upon him. So he joined those who prepared themselves. "This cap," he told Pisqueto. "It I cannot wear to war." It distracted him.

Pisqueto shoved the red cloth in the back of Maggot's belt. "But you will have to stay out in front so that we can see it," he said, laughing to himself. Then he tied the eagle feathers into Maggot's braid. They tickled his shoulder when he moved his head at first, but soon he no longer noticed them.

Sinnglas and Keekyu returned. Keekyu made a bow-drawing motion to Maggot. "The invaders asked us to give you a bow before we attack them."

Some of the other men chuckled.

"What?" Maggot had practiced with Keekyu's bow until his thumb was rubbed raw. Though he could shoot far, he had not yet gotten the knack of hitting the target.

Keekyu laughed, then looked at Sinnglas. "I'll tell the others the plan?"

Sinnglas shrugged, and then squatted down beside Maggot and Pisqueto. "Squandral has made a good plan."

"What is it?" Pisqueto asked.

"We'll attack them just after sunrise. A few men from each village will be our reserve. They will stay downstream from the settlement, in case the invaders try to escape that way. I want you with the reserve, Pisqueto. You too, my friend, Maqwet."

"I to be with you," Maggot said firmly. Then thinking of the red cloth in his belt, he added, "Out in front."

"Nor will I stay with the crippled old men and boys," Pisqueto complained.

"It is not just old men and boys," Sinnglas answered. "It is for those who have never fought before, to stay with those who have fought the most to give them wisdom and guidance."

"Will you or Squandral or Custalo be with the reserve?" Pisqueto asked.

"No."

"Heh," Pisqueto said. "But you three have fought the most, haven't you?" He grinned in triumph when Sinnglas looked away.

Maggot stood up, drawing his knife. "I will be with you, my friend, out in front."

The group of reserves took cover alongside the river trail behind mounds of debris-dead branches, uprooted trees. Maggot and Pisqueto went with the main force of men upstream. They pa.s.sed around a settlement, or small village, its rooflines distinguishable against the sky.

"When will we start to seek the lion's tracks?" Maggot asked, doubting any bigtooth lion would hunt so close to a cl.u.s.ter of houses.

Sinnglas angrily gestured him to silence, while some of the other men glared at him. Pisqueto came up beside Maggot and whispered, "We just pa.s.sed his dung heap."

Maggot had seen no sign of scat, but he studied the ground closely as they walked on.

With the birds singing for the morning, they divided into two columns. Squandral and Custalo led the main group of more than forty warriors back toward the cl.u.s.ter of fortified farmhouses.

Sinnglas took his eleven men and proceeded down to a stream, to approach from the flank. They hurried silently through the shadows under the woods, the dark shapes reminding Maggot of trolls running back to their caves at sunrise after a night of too much feeding.