The Kin (23 page)

The man behind her yapped sharply and let go of her hand. She jumped. For a dreadful instant she was falling. Then a firm hand fastened around her wrist and hauled her back up and over.

She worked her way further along the ledge so that Suth could go back for Otan. She couldn't bear to watch. She never saw how they got Tor over.

That was the worst, but even the easier parts of the climb were very slow as each person waited for the one ahead to get past the trickier places. Luckily, the cliff was mostly shaded as the sun moved towards the west. By the time they were all safely at the top, it was almost setting.

Noli made a point of waiting for the men who had helped her. She put her hands together in front of her chin, bowed her head, and told them, “I, Noli, thank. Moonhawk thanks.”

They looked surprised but pleased, and gave the usual little grunt of acknowledgment. Then she hugged Tor and he put his good arm around her and hugged her back and laughed.

“Noli,” said Suth, pointing at the rest of the party, who had reached the top before them and were getting ready to camp for the night. “This is not good. The moon is big. We rest a little, then we walk. Daytime is too hot. We, Moonhawk, know this.”

“Suth, you are right,” said Noli. “But they have no words. How do we say this to them?”

With grunts and signs they tried to explain to Tor, and to Fang, the leader of the canyon people, but they just looked puzzled. Noli found Goma and took her hands and looked into her eyes, and thought about the battering heat of the desert day and the coolness of walking under the stars, but nothing seemed to pass between them. The First One wasn't there to help them. Goma tried. She seemed to understand that Noli was attempting to tell her something important, but it was no good. After a bit she began to look so unhappy that Noli gave up.

“Do we, Moonhawks, go?” said Suth. “Do we stay with these people?”

“We stay, I think,” said Noli. “Tomorrow they find what we tell them is true.”

She was right. For a while the next morning they made good speed over the easier ground, following the line of the canyon. As the sun rose higher, they started to suffer. The canyon people seemed to feel the heat even more than the Moonhawks. Though it could be bakingly hot down below, there was usually shade somewhere, close to the cliffs or under trees. Here there were only thin strips beside the taller boulders, and at midday even those disappeared. By that time they were already looking desperately for a way down into the canyon.

Mercifully they found one where another old rock-fall had left its pile against the cliff. It was a much easier climb. Apart from one or two stretches, even the small ones could get down unaided. And here too the top of the mound had remained clear of the flood, with its plants intact, so they found a little to eat, and they had water again.

What was more, they could see that the canyon ahead would be easier going. As the flood had rushed further from its source, its level had fallen, so that here there were only patches of mud among the tumbled boulders and smashed plants in the bottom of the canyon, and more of the higher ground had escaped destruction. They travelled on for the next few days and found just enough to eat, though the water in the river still had that muddy, smoky taste.

Three times they passed caves. Here the canyon people halted and called. When they heard no answer, a few of them went in, and then came out wailing and shaking their heads.

“The water came at night,” said Suth, the first time this happened. “The people slept in their caves. The water covered them. They are there, dead.”

Noli didn't answer, but she knew he was right because she could feel the First One close by, mourning with its people. This time it didn't come as a tingling of her skin or a stirring at her nape, but she felt it all the same. She saw Goma standing apart from the others, shuddering and weeping, so she went and put her arm around her and wept with her. Why hadn't the First One warned these people, as it had warned Noli and Goma of the coming flood? Was there no one in these caves it could come to? She didn't know.

On the sixth day the walls of the canyon gradually dropped away as the ground above sloped down. By afternoon they came out into the open, and now they could see for a very long way.

Far in the distance the snowy peaks of mountains glittered in the sun. In front of them lay an immense plain. The river ran down into it, with trees on both banks. They could see the ribbon of green winding away and away. Everything in the nearer ground had been smashed flat as the flood had spread out. Beyond that the plain was mostly yellow, sun-baked grass, with little chance of having people food in it. But here and there were flat-topped trees, and patches of bushes that looked hopeful.

Noli heard Suth sigh with pleasure, and she knew why. This was what he had been longing for. This was what their old Good Places had looked like. This was home.

One thing, aside from the river, was different. All over the plain, though well apart from each other, rose strange outcrops of rock. Some were just great craggy mounds, but others were more straight-sided and almost flat on top. Noli studied them with interest. They looked as if they would make good lairs.

Just beside one of these a puff of orange dust rose. It was too far for her to see what caused it, but she could guess. Some big hunting animal had disturbed a herd of grazers and they were galloping away, churning up the dust with their hooves.

The canyon people were making little mutterings of doubt and alarm. Where were the sheltering walls? Where were the caves they were used to?

Suth had no such thoughts. He sighed with happiness again.

“These are Good Places,” he whispered. “These are Moonhawk Places.”

The name stirred Noli.

No
, she thought.
Not Moonhawk. Never again. But another
.

She was aware of that Other poised nearby. It was doubtful, unsure, as its people were doubtful and unsure.

A new thought came to her, stranger than any before.

Moonhawk was old, and Black Antelope and the others. Old, old
.

This is a young First One, young, a child among First Ones
.

How can this be? I do not know
.

Without moving her lips, she whispered in her mind.
Stay with us, First One. Do not be afraid. For you also, these are Good Places
.

Oldtale

THE MOTHER OF DEMONS

There is Odutu, the Place of Meeting, Odutu below the Mountain
.

There is the Mountain above Odutu. At its top live the First Ones
.

There is the Pit beneath the Mountain. It is as far beneath as the top is far above. There lives the Mother of Demons
.

The Mother of Demons woke
.

She said in her heart, As I slept, I heard wailing. I heard the voices of my children. They wailed. How can this be?

To tens and tens of demons I gave birth. I fed them. They grew strong. Their colours were fearsome
.

I said, “You are strong. I feed you no more.”

They said, “We are hungry. Mother, where is our food?”

I said, “The First Ones have made Good Places. There you find people. Give those people the yawning sickness. Lead them where the crocodile lies in wait
.
Put poisonous berries in their gourds. They die. Their spirits leave them. Your food is the spirits of people.”

Why now do my children wail?

The Mother of Demons called to her children, “Come!”

They came to her call. To the Pit beneath the Mountain they came. They were feeble and pale. They shook like old men. Like old men they tottered
.

The Mother of Demons counted her children. Tens and tens she counted. Three were not there
.

She said, “I sent you out strong. I sent you out in fearsome colours. Why are you weak and pale? Why do you totter and shake like old men? And where is my son Rakaka? Where is Sala-Sala? Where is Woowoo?”

They said, “A hero is born among people. His name is Sol. While he was still a small one he fought with Rakaka. He cast a great rock at him, so that he was carried away. Then Rakaka fled far and far into the desert, and there he hides in his own places beneath the earth and does not come out
.

“While Sol was still a boy he fought with Sala-Sala. He beat him and bound him into a great tree, the Father of Trees. It grows by Stinkwater
.

“When he was a man he fought with Woowoo. He beat him and prisoned him in a pit beneath Sometimes River
.

“We say in our hearts, This Sol is too strong for us. We dare not go to the Good Places. There he does to us as he did to Rakaka and Sala-Sala and Woowoo.”

The Mother of Demons cursed her children
.

She said, “You are fools. Why do you go to the Good Places by one and by one? This hero, this Sol
,
fights you by one and by one. Go by five and by five. Sol fights with one of you. That one flees. Sol chases him far and far. When Sol is far and far, four are left. They walk through the Good Places and find their food. Now, go!”

The demons laughed and were happy. By five and by five they came to the Good Places. To each Kin came five. They lay in wait
.

A demon stood before Sol
.

He said, “Fight with me, hero.”

They fought. The demon fled. Sol chased him far and far
.

While he was gone the other demons walked through the Good Places. They gave people the yawning sickness. They led them where the crocodile lay in wait. They put poisonous berries in their gourds
.

The people died. Their spirits left them. The demons feasted on their spirits
.

Those times were bad, bad
.

CHAPTER SIX

They drank that evening at the river, but the air there smelled of sickness, like the bad season at Stinkwater, and the banks were lined with dense bushes where wild beasts might lurk. The river itself looked too small for crocodiles, but you could never be sure about them. Though it had water, the river was not a Good Place.

So as the sun sank everyone headed for the nearest of the rocky outcrops to lair. On the way they passed a grove full of the nests of weaver birds, and while the parent birds screeched around them in outrage, they knocked down as many as they could reach. It seemed that the canyon people hadn't done this before, but they joined in with a lot of shouting and excitement. The eggs were tiny, and the unfledged nestlings weren't more than a mouthful, but everyone got something.

They didn't find much else, but the Moonhawks, at least, were used to hunger. It would take many moons to explore this plain and find its Good Places, where the right grasses grew, with fat seed in their season, and the plants with good nuts and berries and roots and leaves, and the warrens of small beasts that could be trapped or dug out.

And they would need to learn its dangers, the poisonous plants, the places of sickness, the waterless stretches, and the habits of the big hunting animals.

The Moonhawks knew all this, even the small ones, but they were happy, because they also knew that this was their kind of place. It was right for them. But the canyon people seemed to be more and more anxious, and muttered among themselves, and looked longingly over their shoulders towards the great desert through which their canyon ran.

As they approached the outcrop they gathered fuel and dragged it up to the top. The Moonhawks built their fire, and they settled down to sleep, though a few kept watch by turns all night.

Soon after they had moved on the next morning, they came to a termite colony. Not all termites were good to eat, but these were, with long narrow nests as tall as a man, all pointing in the same direction.

The trick of robbing a termite nest was to get to the nursery chamber, where the fat grubs were, before enough of the warrior termites swarmed out to attack. It took two people: one to loosen the dirt with a digging stick, while the other kneeled and scooped it away.

Unlike the men of the Kins, the canyon people didn't carry digging sticks around with them, but cut fresh ones when they needed them. They hadn't robbed termites before, so Suth and Noli showed them how. When they'd been bitten as much as they could stand, Suth handed his digging stick over and went aside with the Moonhawks to chew the rubbery little grubs.

Tinu wandered around as she ate. Noli heard her call and saw her beckon from the other side of the colony. The Moonhawks trooped over to see what she'd found.

Several of the nests had already been robbed. A deep pit ran down into each. In some, the termites had started to repair the damage, but had only half-filled the pit, so the robbery couldn't have been more than a few days back.

“Ant bear does this?” suggested Noli.

“Ant bear hunts by one and by one,” said Suth. “This is people stuff.”

“See, Suth, see!” called Ko from another mound. “Mana finds a hand.”

They went and looked. Close by the pit, on the pile of loose dirt that had been scooped from it, was the print of a left hand. It was just where someone would have leaned, kneeling to reach to the bottom of the pit. Suth laid his own hand on it. The print was larger.

They looked at each other in doubt. Did this Good Place belong to someone? Would there be trouble if people came and found strangers robbing their nests?

They searched around and found that only eight nests had been robbed, so whoever had been here, there probably weren't enough of them to be afraid of.

At midday they went back to the river for water. This time they found a wide shelf of rock along the bank where nothing grew and they could drink without fear of attack from the undergrowth, so Noli and the Moonhawks were surprised when a sudden clamour of alarm rose among the canyon people.

They found them clustered around a place where silt from the flood had washed across the rock. The soft surface was covered with the prints of animals that had come to drink. Clear through the middle of them ran several lines of huge paw marks with four clawless toes at the front and a triple pad at the back. The Moonhawks recognized them at once.