The Tattooed Tribes (32 page)

“
I thought a million was a good place to
start the bargaining. What had you in mind?”

“
I might settle for a couple of
hundred
million acres,” Lucien
replied.

“
Are you interested in serious negotiations
or not?”

Below Vlic
grabbed Lucien’s arm. “You aren’t …” he began.

“
Of course I’m not,” Lucien replied, “but
Jon is right, I have to keep him talking. Look!”

He gestured
out to the valley beyond where the shadows began to grow long as
the sun began its slow descent.

“
They won’t risk anything in the dark,
especially if they are high on dust. Your father will be here
tomorrow at the latest.”

Vlic looked at
the gathering gloom and nodded.

“
Seriously,” Lucien called. “Fifty million
acres and I chose which fifty.”

“
Five.”

“
I thought you wanted a serious
negotiation. I’ll go down to forty-five, but I still get to do the
choosing and you pay for the fence.”

“
Fence?”

“
Yeah. The bloody great fence I want
surrounding my land, so none of your bastards can get
in.”

“
And none of yours can get out,” Marcus
replied. “You can have your fence around ten million
acres.”

“
Not a bad offer,” Jon whispered, and
Lucien grinned at him.

“
Forty million and I don’t agree to
anything until we have worked out trading terms.”

Jon shook with
silent laughter. “Well done.”

There was a
long pause from above. “Now why are you coming up with these
ridiculous ideas?”

“
They might be ridiculous to
you!”

“
You’re up to something,” Marcus said. “I
hadn’t realised just how much like me you are. For some reason I
thought all that wallowing in mud and filling the house with
rotting vegetation and dead animals was due to a lack of brain, but
you really are moderately clever, aren’t you?”

“
I’m a fucking genius,” Lucien
replied.

He ducked just
in time, spotting the flash of fading sunlight on the barrel of his
father’s rifle. The bullet whizzed by his ear and buried itself in
the ground behind him.

For the first
time since he was a small child, Lucien’s father succeeded in
making him cry. “”Do you hate me that much, dad?” he asked, his
voice cracking.

“
I don’t hate you, Lucy. I’m completely
indifferent to you and you’re standing in my way. I’ve worked it
out; you’re trying to buy time and I’ve a good idea why, so I’ll be
taking advantage of the coming darkness to remove myself, but I
thought I might have a go at removing you as well. I’ve a feeling
you’re going to be a bloody nuisance in the years to
come.”

He said
nothing more and they heard nothing more, but there was a quality
to the silence that spoke of his no longer being there.

“
Are you all right?” Stacey asked. Her
normally stern face was softened.

“
I guessed most of it,” Lucien replied. “I
just never thought he’d try and kill me.”

He turned and
looked at Jon, but whatever he was going to say was interrupted by
a shout from above.

“
Kid!” Frain yelled down. “Hey,
kid!”

“
What?” Lucien shouted back.

“
Are you the brat Harabin had in tow
earlier this year?”

“
Might be!” Lucien replied.

“
Did you buy yourself a woman with those
trade beads?”

The angst his
father had caused was forgotten. Lucien, the dare devil alight in
his eyes, gave Stacey a wink.

“
I’ve got more respect for my body,” he
shouted back. “I blew it on booze and weed instead.”

There was a
genuine laugh from above. “I thought you weren’t the usual sort The
Guild love so much. Too much like your old man. Did you get a
thrashing for it?”

“
Might have.”

The laugh came
again. “He said he sacked you.”

“
No, he didn’t,” Lucien replied, “He just
told you I bought weed, you thought the rest.”

“
He lied when he told me you weren’t
around,” Frain continued. “The Tribes don’t like a
liar.”

“
He wasn’t lying,” Lucien replied. “He
didn’t know I was here. I didn’t follow orders and came after
him.”

“
That was a stupid thing to have
done.”

“
That’s me all over, just plain
dumb.”

“
Yeah, that’s what your old man said. And
he told me just how many of you are down there. You can’t stay
there forever, boy! Give it up now and I might let you
live.”

“
My dad is a lying bastard, so why don’t
you come on down and check!”

It went quiet
above and Lucien turned to his companions.

“
They’re up to something,” he said. “Dad
has told them something. Brace yourselves.”

He pushed them
all back deep into the shelf, making Brigedh and Dr Riddett crawl
as far in among the roots as they could. Jon managed to ease
himself back and Stacey leaned over her father to protect him. He
had slipped back into unconsciousness and if he had the time to
consider the matter, Jon would have warned her to be prepared for
the worst.

Lucien wormed
his way along to the end, in the hope of getting an idea of what
was going on above.

“
In!” he hissed to them. “Back in as far as
you can go.”

There was
barely time to do as he said before a huge boulder rolled down the
slope and ripped away a section of the canopy, leaving a hanging
curtain of foliage on either side of the gap.

Instantly
Lucien fired up at the faces looking down on their handiwork; there
was a grunt and the sound of a body falling to the ground, followed
by the sounds of much activity and argument.

Briefly
another face appeared, but Vlic grabbed the rifle Dr Riddett had
put down and fired.

For a second
it seemed as if the man’s chest had bloomed like a rose, scarlet
petals opening outwards to show a dark centre.

“
Good shot,” Lucien remarked.

Vlic, slightly
green around the gills, nodded. “My father would be proud.”

“
You can’t hold out forever, you little
bastard!” Frain screamed down at them. “And when I get hold of you
I’m going to make you watch while I kill your boss and then I’m
going to take my time killing you.”

In the next
twenty minutes more rocks of various sizes came down the slope and
several flaming faggots, which did little more than add to the
smoke twisting around the valley.

“
Should we try and make a run for it come
dark?” Dr Riddett asked.

“
No!” Stacey replied. “That’s exactly what
they want us to do. And even if we could go fast enough, we
couldn’t do it carrying Jon and my father.”

“
We could leave …”

Lucien said,
“We know what we’re doing. You can go if you want, but Vlic, Stacey
and I stay. And so does Mr Wainwright and Brigedh and Jon and all
the rifles.”

She might have
argued, but a sudden cascade of dirt and pebbles seemed to herald
the start of another attack, so she returned to cowering with
Brigedh. More disturbed earth fell, but it was not a rock that came
tumbling down, it was Tim Frain.

He flashed
passed them, two arrows protruding from his back.

“
Dad!” Vlic exclaimed, leaping to his
feet.

“
Wait!” Jon ordered.

“
But …”

“
Wait, Vlic,” Lucien begged.
“Please!”

They waited,
every nerve strained. There were noises of a fight from above,
cries of pain and alarm, followed by the sound of running feet, but
finally it all died away and a face appeared over the edge. Lucien,
unwilling to trust anything, lifted his rifle.

Iesgood’s face
appeared and said, “You’ll be in even bigger trouble if you shoot
me!”

Chapter
20

In the hours following some terrible deeds
were done and by the time the sun came up in the morning there was
not one of the
Niifliinling
left alive. Eldrien had made a last stand in the woods
beyond the clearing, but it had been nothing more than a
gesture.

Lucien learnt
all this later from Vlic, who witnessed some of it. He had watched
another battle, the one to keep Jon alive.

After Iesgood
arrived, there had been a collapse and Lucien realised it had only
been willpower keeping Jon going. The girls who had accompanied the
war party fought to save him. When they were not feeding him a
variety of potions, they applied dressings and salves to his wounds
and bound up his broken ribs.

The red cords
came out and they wove their magic, constantly knotting and
unknotting and it must have worked, because he did not die.

They worked on
Eric Wainwright as well, watched continuously by Stacey who wove
her own complex patterns of knots as she sat by her father’s
side.

The magic
worked for Jon, but did not for Congressman Wainwright. Despite all
the girls could do and did do, sometime during the night he could
no longer endure the shock and loss of blood and he died quietly in
the arms of his daughter.

Lucien, seeing
her ravished face, tried to find something kind or helpful to say,
but failed completely.

“
It’s okay,” she told him. “And maybe it’s
for the best. He would’ve hated prison.”

She did not
cry and both Vlic and Lucien would have felt a lot better and more
able to cope if she had. Dr Riddett, subdued but recovering fast,
suggested the girl was incapable of depth of feeling, but everyone
ignored her.

Brigedh would go and sit quietly beside
Stacey, who in turn sat quietly beside Jon, helping to keep watch
over him. And it was Brigedh who held Stacey’s hand when they
buried her father far away from the place they threw the bodies of
the
Niifliinling
.

“
He was in error,” Iesgood had said. “But
he does not deserve to lie with them.”

The passage
back along the valley was not easy, Jon had to be carried on a
litter and the going was tough. None of it helped his wounds, but
once they reached the river and he was laid in a canoe, he showed
signs of improvement.

The trip
downstream was a period of constant anxiety for Lucien; he and
Stacey took turns to kept watch over Jon. They were probably of no
real assistance and a hindrance to the real nurses, but the girls
did not seem to mind and encouraged them to keep vigil.

By necessity
they had to make slower passage than the rest of the boats, which
went on ahead to carry the news back home and to prepare for his
arrival.

When they
finally rounded the bend of the river and the bluffs came into
view, Lucien saw their return had been watched for and there was a
crowd waiting on the beach.

Bweriit
herself came down to the landing to examine Jon. She laid a hand on
his forehead, felt his ribs and stomach, making him gasp with
pain.

“
Take him to my cabin,” she
ordered.

Jon was lifted
gently from the canoe and carried up the slope towards the village.
He protested a little, telling those doing the carrying he was able
to walk, but they ignored him.

Lucien made to
follow, but Bweriit stopped him.

“
Not you!” she said. “The last thing I need
is you underfoot.”

“
But …”

She ignored
him, turning her artic eye to Stacey instead.

“
You,
gwerl
.
Come with me and do not argue.”

Stacey gave
Lucien a look of mute apology before obediently following the
Elder, leaving him alone and ignored on the beach, until Geelbrie
came up beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.

“
He’s going to be all right,” she told him.
“We were fairly certain ourselves, but now Bweriit
liedwer
has him in her care, there can
be no doubt.”

“
Are you sure?” Lucien asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Really sure?”

“
Yes.”

Then, to his
eternal shame, he began to cry. Quietly at first, then in great
racking sobs that tore his throat and chest.

Within a
minute Vlic’s mother appeared and led him away. She put him to bed
and whatever she made him drink sent him off to sleep for the rest
of the day and all of the night.

When he
finally woke his first concern was for Jon, but he was not allowed
to see him. Bweriit turned him away at the door.

“
He is better, but he needs rest,” she told
him. “What he doesn’t need is a disobedient and troublesome
cheed
bothering him.”

With this, any
idea Lucien may have harboured about being feted for his ingenuity,
insight and courage, took a body blow.

His main
concern had been for Jon, but underneath his worry a small part of
him had been trying hard not to preen. Although he concealed it as
best he could, he was well pleased with himself.

He knew he had
been scared, but he had not given in to his fear. He had killed a
man, probably several men and, while he was not proud of this, he
was satisfied with his resolve in the face of something
repugnant.

Also, he was
rather proud of the way he had dealt with his father. Marcus had
not been amongst the dead, which had not surprised Lucien or
disappoint him, as he was rather looking forward to hunting him
down.