Virginia Hamilton (2 page)

Duster and Glass put on their mitts. They began to smack each other gently about the face and arms. Halfway through, Glass boxed Duster strongly about the ears.

“Be joking too fast,” Duster toned. “Stop it, Glass.”

“Who be joking? Be brushing you off,” she hummed.

“You call that brushing?” Duster trilled. “I call you hurting.”

“You be a big fool, then.” She clipped him hard under the chin.

Neat score, thought Siv. The leader not be letting that pass.

Duster gave Glass a hard smack to the jaw. She returned with a jarring kick to his rump.

Swiftly he caught her foot in one hand and swung her off the ground. Then he had her by both feet.

“Ha-hahn!” he toned in triumph, disturbing to nearby trips who had been sleeping still.

“Noisy Duster!” someone shouted a three-tone, signaling no offense at cautioning the leader.

“Fill his mouth with dirt,” came a fighting singsong from someone else.

Duster ignored them and swung the smooth-keep around and around by her feet. Her arms were straight out in front of her, with the palms of her hands touching. Duster knew that any moment she would flip sideways and spin free. Before she could execute the move, he let go of her feet. Glass went flying over the dust. Small and agile, she managed to tuck her legs and head before she hit the ground in a curl. Glass rolled nicely, but the impact knocked the breath out of her. She shivered on her back, her mouth agape with the pain.

Duster was beside her. He bent over her, smiling. “Don’t be testing the leader before his food-time,” sounding in his well-modulated command mode.

In a moment, when Glass had her breath again, she grew formal with her leader. She got to her feet and stood at attention. Careful to hold back anger from her tone, she sounded, “It be my mistake, O Duster. Lead on.”

With palms down, Duster crossed his wrists, dismissing her. He gave away not one single tone. Leader, he was.

Glass turned on her heel and took her stand to the left of Siv, the leggens. They now had their backs to Duster.

Duster gazed at their rigid pose and nodded with satisfaction at the strength they held between them—loyal Siv and smooth Glass. No leader could ask for better first-and sec-sides at his command. He murmured a six-tone of thanks, taking his place in front of them with his back to them, Siv on his right and Glass on his left.

Shortly after, Glass burst out with a fighting singsong: “The beasts be running!”

Her arm and leg muscles tensed in preparation. Likely she would not need to rescue the leggens, but if old Siv got into trouble, Glass would defend him. Only when Siv missed the first weapon thrust, or if he was attacked, would the smooth-keep dare leave her leader’s left side.

“Go then, good Siv,” Duster toned over his shoulder. “Hunger be making me twitch. Be second day hungering. Go, before we weaken.”

“I’m gone!” rumbled Siv with a deep and daring tone.

His long, slender legs glided gracefully into the murk of Dustland.

H
UNGER PROPELLED A BEAST
into a self-weapon. Duster spied it streaking toward Siv, the leggens. Motionless, Siv was barely visible in the distance. Then he was moving, running. He raised one arm straight up, signaling to the leader and smooth-keep that he had sighted the deadly beast.

Glass’s face froze in concentration as she peered toward Siv.

Duster took two side steps to his right, in front of the place Siv had been. By this move he gave the smooth-keep room to throw. Glass had both hands behind and just below her neck, ready to thrust them into the pack she carried between her shoulder blades. With lightning speed she could pull weapons from her pack and set them in motion. The moment Siv leaped high and spun toward her, she would release the weapon an arm movement from him had signaled.

Now, in the distance, Duster sighted two pumps of Siv’s right arm. And softly he toned to Glass to make ready the deep-daggen.

Glass found the bone weapon by feel, pulling it expertly from the pack. The deep-daggen was hollow and weighted with grit and dirt that was sealed inside.

“Now!” Duster toned, his voice loud.

Glass threw with strength and accuracy. The heaving motion was so smooth, Duster found it impossible to tell when she released the daggen. But he saw it disappear in the murk.

Instantly, it seemed, Siv had the daggen in his grasp and raised it for the leader and smooth to see. It was a bit whiter than the gray light of day. Moving still, Siv timed his run away from the beast so it overtook him at the moment of its most furious stride. The beast had no chance to leap. It must run to kill, leaning ever closer toward the leggens.

The animal was at full speed. It could do nothing when, with an added burst of momentum, a powerful second wind, the leggens crossed in front of it, out of reach.

Be perfect move! Duster observed. Now the leggens’ weapon hand holding the deep-daggen was nearest the animal.

Siv slashed from the beast’s rump forward along its spine. It was still running when its backbone split in two. More slashes with the daggen separated flesh and skin from the split spinal column. The animal’s legs buckled. With a loud crack it nosed into the dust, its neck broken.

The beast died. Siv knelt beside it and carved a clean line across its withers. Watchful that no other beast take him by surprise, Siv worked the skin down the body. He cut it away and stashed it inside out at the bottom of his catchen bag. A wild, warm odor rose from the animal flesh. His stomach heaved with the good smell of it.

Be food for all! Siv made a mental note. Leader be glad.

Before the animal flesh could cool, he carved it, placing bloody chunks on top of the skin at the bottom of his catchen. Then Siv hacked the ribcage and shank bones into manageable parts. He stuffed them along the insides of the catchen. Finally he loped back to his trip.

Siv sang out, “Leader, I win by your luck,” trotting up to Duster. He laid his catchen at Duster’s feet, opening it and spreading out the kill. He toned a rejoicing and handed over the kill daggen.

Duster licked the blood on the deep-daggen. He touched the signs of his own good sorceru carved on it by his own hand. Then he pressed the daggen to Siv’s right arm in thanks. “Good Siv!” he toned. “Leggens be true!”

Siv grinned and, with respect, did not touch the leader.

Glass then sang out a trilling of her own thanks. Her cool voice was well modulated. Clear and clean, it had a crystal quality in the thick air. Duster found her voice as thirst-quenching as a palm of fresh water. When she finished her song, he touched the daggen with his sorceru to her left arm, giving thanks for her part in the kill. Duster handed her the deep-daggen for her to sharpen again and put away.

There had been a large run of beasts, as Duster had suspected there would be. His plan had been to situate his packen of youngens between a freshwater pool he’d come upon in a place where no water had ever been, and the trail wandering beasts might take when they scented the pool.

Since he had begun dreaming, Duster had learned to plan ahead, and had even thought to wonder how the water pool came to be. He didn’t know how dreaming helped him question or learn new things. He simply knew that it must. So much that was new now happened within him. And he felt overjoyed with the growing in his head.

Packens of youngens seemed never to learn that beasts must always come to water. Youngens and even the grims, who were older and roamed in their own packs, did not understand why humans covered themselves with dirt in the
dark
dens. Duster knew. It was to keep moisture in themselves, absorbing what little moisture there was from the dirt. Duster was beginning to realize much. He taught new tones of voice that he made easy for Siv and Glass to learn. They accepted what he taught them. He was leader. Siv thought every leader learned to teach and to dream as his leader did, so he expressed to Duster. But Duster knew they did not.

Three leggens of the packen trotted forward, laying their catchens by Siv’s. Each bent forward before Duster. Duster took their weapons and tasted the blood. He noted that the signs of their lesser leaders’ sorceru were good. He pressed their weapons to their right arms, just as he had done with his Siv’s.

The smooth-keeps of the packen came forward. Duster repeated the gesture of thanks he had given to Glass.

Leggens and smooth-keeps stood in line behind Duster’s Siv and Glass as leaders of trips came forward. Duster gave to each a personal tone of regard. Each, in turn, gave him a nod with head turned away and a tone of awe given only to the leader of packen. Duster accepted the awe due his authority.

So it was that there was calm in the packen. All had been given full share in Duster’s praise of them for food-time. Now the packen formed up to eat. Trip leaders and Duster made the center group. The leggens with Siv formed the inner circle. The smooth-keeps under Glass had the outside, in which they turned away from the center to guard both leggens and leaders from danger.

Food was slashed into serving portions by the leggens’ circle. Bled pouches were handed over to the leggens so blood from the kills could be squeezed into them. Later they would go as a packen to the fresh-water pool to drink as much as they wanted. Food was passed into the leaders’ circle and out to the smooth-keeps’. All ate, savoring the delicious taste of wildmeat.

While they ate, the entity called Mal came, sweeping across the land at the level of the dust. Leggens threw down their food, feeling nauseous, heads aching. Smooth-keeps recognized the power of the unseen force that hurt the leggens. They saw and heard nothing with which to do battle. Angry, they felt a sickening fear. They spilled their bled pouches in the dust. Weapons were useless. The smooths covered their eyes and fell to their knees.

Duster stood in his circle of leaders. He had awareness. Always he had it for the unseen non-being. Only with the coming of his dreaming had he known to think of It as Mal. The Mal. Mal, as if he had forever called It so.

Leaders shielded their eyes, as if the fear and sickness Mal brought them could cause blindness. Standing there, Duster sensed the Mal sweeping back and forth, making most of them deathly ill and afraid. To Duster, Mal was like Nolight and Graylight. It came and went. It was, is, to be endured.

“What it be you seeking?” toned Duster to the Mal.

The leaders shuddered. Complete dark of Mal descended to surround the packen.

Not you,
spoke the Mal.
I seek others. Have you felt others?

“Be seeing no others,” Duster toned, feeling simple-minded, unthinking. He recognized himself as the old Duster with nothing much in his mind.

If others do come, you will tell me at once?
asked the Mal.

“Yes,” the old Duster said simply, believing he would.

What is it you wish?

“Be wishing for nothing,” Duster toned.

All is well here?

“Well being,” toned Duster.

This land is your place,
said the Mal.

“Be knowing that,” softly now Duster toned, serene.

You will not leave
...
you will not try again to leave?

“Once be trying,” sang Duster. “You be making me so sick, I quit.”

Do others think to try?

“Only leggens ever be thinking it,” trilled Duster. “Be come sickness and almost dying. Leggens never even be thinking it again!”

All is well, then?

“All,” toned Duster.

The Mal swept on, taking away the utter dark. Leggens felt better and began to eat again. The smooth-keeps were upset because their bled pouches lay dusty on the ground. They would not be able to clean the pouches until the packen went for water. They must try to be more careful, they told one another. Duster toned to them not to worry. The smooths brightened. Soon they forgot that the Mal had come.

This time of the Mal, Duster had been made into the old Duster of slow thoughts. The Mal thought nothing had changed. Duster realized this and was not afraid. Now he remembered that in his dreaming there had come a wonder. Within the dream, but not a part of it, he remembered seeing four strangers who came toward him along the way. They had hurried to him—how had he forgotten? The wim had touched him and spoken words to him. He remembered there had been no troubling tones in her voice.

Duster still stood in his group of leaders as the packen continued its food-time. Now, happily he trilled in his resounding tenor voice:

“Come out. Be come out from my head, wherever my dream be waiting to dream. You, travelers, be come out. Come out! The Mal be gone!”

The unit mind-jumped free from Duster. Truly the Mal was gone. The unit took on form, but kept itself invisible from Duster and his packen so it would not cause another disturbance so soon after the Mal. It settled its force away from the smooth-keeps’ circle. It knew it must go slowly. It must not frighten Duster.

With a delicate probe it summoned Duster to bring Glass and Siv before it.

Duster touched Siv, signaling the leggens to follow him. When he came to Glass’s circle, he took her by the hand, pulling her to her feet. Surely she could feel his trembling. It didn’t concern him that she might think him afraid. He had no time now to tone to her and explain.

The power out of his dream was unlike what Duster knew the Mal to be. He had seen the power in the shape of four separate youngens. They were human, like him, but taller, even taller than the leggens. They could be four thoughts as separate as the humans he had seen, or they could be one thought and one mind. The awareness of such strange power terrified Duster. He shook all over in anticipation of what might come.

Another Mal? he wondered. He did not think so. Then, what?

The force of power was near the ground in front of the packen. Duster felt it observe, listening.

He formed up his trip in its proper order. Glass was behind him on his left; Siv, on his right.

“Why this way we be up?” Glass toned. “Be wanting my meat.” She had not finished eating.

With a hand behind his back, Duster gave her a circling thumb signal to keep still. Glass read him. Still she couldn’t understand why she had been taken away from her circle while eating.