Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country (14 page)

“He was a demon. Only fire will destroy him,” said the taller of the two men, dismissively. “But one of your warriors fell on ours and killed two. It was a cowardly act to slay sleeping men. If you give the killer to us, we will make peace with you. If not, prepare for war!”

Rydl translated, and a stir of voices followed the threatening words. Zan-Gah, now recovered from his ordeal as captive, stepped forward and he was angry. The two messengers recognized him and stood back in real fear. If they had had their weapons at hand, they might have used them to defend themselves. “We have never been your enemies, but you yourselves have been,” Zan said in their language, wrath in his eyes. “You held my brother prisoner for two years, and now his mind is filled with vengeance. From my single night in your hands I can begin to imagine how you treated him. Yes, he killed men who had tormented him, and it will be difficult to hold him back from further harm. But it is your own fault!”

“Give us that man and we will be content.”

“No!”

It was fortunate that Dael was not present. He had left with a few of his friends the day before to revisit the volcano. Otherwise, he would have assaulted the two Noi men on the spot. The messengers turned to go. Several of the people stepped aside to let them pass.

“Wait,” said Zan-Gah, subduing his anger. The pair turned again. “There is some justice in your position. But there is justice in ours too. Let us come to an agreement. Is there anything that we can give you that will satisfy you and calm your desire for revenge? The man you seek is not entirely guilty, so let us settle on something that will please and satisfy your people. Then we can make peace. But we will fight before we give him up, and beware our weapons. The wasp people thought themselves stronger than we, and you see their fate!”

The Noi messengers were still afraid of Zan's supposed magical powers, and, too, they had always considered the wasp people more powerful and warlike than themselves. Now they were negotiating with the people who had overcome this fierce race and who apparently could bring magic into any battle. They asked for a moment to consider Zan-Gah's proposal and stepped outside the hut.

No doubt the two messengers felt a certain shame in backing off from their demands; and considered that they would have to come home with something extraordinary if they and their people were not to look like fools. Just then a child in the crowd sat on one of Morda's tusks and
it dropped to the ground. Morda heard it collapse and came running out of his hut, looking at it with dismay and disgust. Meanwhile, the Noi men were gazing at the two objects with wonder. They had never seen a mammoth, and although they recognized that these were some kind of teeth, did not know what they were. They only could see that the creature they came from must have been larger than anything they had ever beheld. They looked at them and felt their smooth surface, deeply impressed. Then they both said almost at the same time: “Give us these and we will be satisfied.”

Morda stiffened and frowned. Two glowering tigers became visible in the dark caverns beneath his shaggy eyebrows. Even before their alien words were interpreted Morda knew what these men wanted; and he had no intention of giving up his prized possessions. The gigantic tusks looked so handsome in front of his house, and told the world the kind of man he was! And how he had labored to chop them from the stinking corpse of the mammoth! “Choose another gift,” he snorted. “These stay here. I carried them on my own back at the risk of my life, and I certainly will not give them up to strangers!”

Risking Morda's anger—and he was already angry—Zan spoke up: “These twin tusks have a magical power. As long as you have the two of them together, no demon can trouble you with his double.” Morda saw then and there that he was going to lose both tusks. He had hoped to content them with only one. The Noi men were fascinated. They conferred in a whisper. Then turning to the others they said
they would be satisfied if the gift were accompanied by a general apology. Rydl told them what they were saying.

“We are sorry,” several men said in feigned contrition, nodding their heads and glancing at each other. Their gestures conveyed apology. The messengers were content.

Perhaps if the tusks had not been so easily knocked down Morda would have resisted parting with his treasures. If truth be told, he was sick of worrying about them. Nevertheless, he demanded to be compensated by the rest of the Ba-Coro if he were to give them up. Chul understood Morda's self-importance and congratulated him on his “noble sacrifice.”

“You are saving our people from a dreadful war, and we thank you. It was bravely done!” he said, putting his ponderous hand on Morda's shoulder. Several others said similar pleasing things.

Morda grunted. He was highly flattered by this praise, but had determined to be discontented until he received some other reward besides congratulations. Meanwhile the Noi men were loading the tusks on their shoulders. The great weight of the objects made them all the more valuable to them. They awkwardly grabbed their spears and left the way they had come, singing a rhythmic song as laboring men often do, greatly pleased.

Zan also praised Morda for his sacrifice, and promised him the lion skin—his own most prized possession—to compensate him for what he had given up. It was the magnificent pelt of the lioness he had killed when he was a boy. Zan had accomplished that feat almost by accident,
and everybody still honored him for it and called him Zan-Gah. The hide was not that difficult to part with. Zan privately rejoiced to have saved his brother, realizing that events might well have taken a different turn. He also rejoiced that Dael had not been present.

 

 

 

 

When Dael returned from the fire-mountain, half his men walked on one side of him and half on the other. This formation reflected a new fact: Dael was indisputably their leader. And he was more. He was their prophet and their seer. It appeared that they would follow him blindly, so much were they in awe of his magnetic and forceful personality. His authority, which had been considerable before the last visit to the volcano, was cemented by a new stunning episode experienced in the mountain's shadow. Dael had fainted. Dael had seemed dead. And then he arose with a look of the other world on his face. None of the men had ever encountered anyone who could communicate with spirits in the land of the dead. It was frightening, sinister, and yet empowering to know one who had made the voyage to that dark region and returned to tell what he had learned.

This time Dael was not docile. Perhaps he would have been if Zan had been there to guide his waking thoughts. But now the exhilarating experience of being admired to the point of adoration, combining with the harrowing intensity of his passions, lent him a new
dynamic confidence. Upon awakening he almost glowed with an unearthly feeling, so that he hardly knew where he was. He believed that he had indeed communicated with spirits, and was entitled to the authority his men gave him. With an enlarged sense of self he intoned commands, and they were obeyed with alacrity.

Dael's followers were mostly young men—apt and vigorous hunters and warriors. Almost all of them had some time ago scarified their faces in swirling patterns in imitation of their master. Together they composed a formidable and frightening cadre. They reentered the Ba-Coro camp as if they were its rulers, and everybody looked up. Had they been an invading force they could hardly have garnered more notice. They intended no mischief toward their own, but Dael had deliberately made a show of force before their assembled eyes. He sent his men to their huts knowing that they would come when he called them.

Dael was about to return to his own crude dwelling place when he chanced to espy Morda wearing his newly acquired lion skin. Asking him how he happened to have “Zan-
Gaaahh's
property,” Morda explained; and as he did Dael visibly changed, almost exploding with anger. He was enraged that peace had been made with his mortal enemies during his absence; but that the Ba-Coro had
apologized,
as Morda sheepishly confessed, infuriated him to the point of danger. Dael declared he would have consented to be torn to pieces before making such concessions. Then he learned that the proposal had come first from Zan-Gah, and he was
genuinely mortified, and full of wrath. But suddenly Dael said no more on the subject, although a furious turmoil boiled within. “No brother of mine!” he was thinking to himself. He was determined that the peace settlement would not stand, and as evening approached he quietly called his followers together.

Their huts were somewhat to the north of the general encampment, and being apart they could confer without it being immediately apparent to the others of the Ba-Coro. Dael spoke to his men with glittering eyes and impassioned brow, denouncing the peacemakers and sending the thoughts of his men in a new aggressive direction. By nightfall the schism of the Ba-Coro, which had been trying to heal itself, was wider than ever. Dael didn't care.

“We will not abide by this shameful agreement,” he concluded with iron determination. “Bring your spears and by morning we will be in position to attack our enemies. Then come what may! The other warriors (cowards!) will join us in the fight or perish at the hands of the Noi. They will fight, I promise you! We have superior weapons and we need not fear them.”

Dael knew his men had long since practiced to proficiency with their spear-throwers. He had made the significant discovery that superior weapons sometimes were as important as superior courage—and his faction had both. In fact Dael had long anticipated war with the Noi, and now he would initiate it with a provocative surprise attack.

Dael had another power and it came decisively into play. Dael could talk to the spirits, and vowed to enlist their aid. His fainting fits were becoming more common, brought on by hysterical extremes of emotion and his intense personal conviction that he could contact the lower world whenever he wished. As he readied his men, he suddenly fell to the ground, writhed, foamed at the mouth, and seemed dead. When he rose to inspire his followers, he described visions of the spirit world, uttering wild mystic messages of courage and attack. Soon the men were in frenzy, and were almost prepared to fight with their own kinsmen. But Dael urged them north towards the camp of the Noi.

A full moon illuminated the forest, but it was still too dark to travel easily. A group of twenty men would necessarily make noise tramping through the woods, and Dael's efforts to quiet them were less than successful. Moreover they were pulsing out rhythmic grunts to fire their courage, as men of war will. They had worked themselves into a state of exaltation, perhaps necessary for battle but not conducive to an effective surprise maneuver.

At length, having marched most of the way, Dael stopped his band and commanded that they quietly rest until dawn approached, with the thought that they could resume the assault once it was light enough to see. No one built a fire, and the half-exhausted men fell asleep. Dael woke them with the first light.

Dael was a man of abrupt action, not at all inclined to make careful plans. He and his men, under the spur of rage and sudden impulse, had marched off to
ambush the Noi without considering the problems that night presented. They might well have been ambushed themselves! Their progress had been heard and observed, and when they arrived at the Noi village, warriors stood in their path ready to defend it. A wall of spearmen held their lengthy weapons erect and ready.

A tremor passed through Dael's entire band. The defenders were several times more numerous than they! Dael himself was not subject to fear. From where he stood he could see Morda's tusks already mounted in a place of honor, and the sight infuriated him. Calling his men to second him, he flung his spear and his followers did the same. The spear-throwing device Rydl had invented gave them an advantage, for it enabled their weapons to fly farther and faster than those of the Noi. But the distance separating the two hosts was not great enough to give them much benefit, and the Noi, sustaining this assault and retaining their weapons, charged at the invaders.

There were too many to resist. Dael's men broke and ran lest they be surrounded and slaughtered. Dael, slower to depart than the others, was separated from them and fled in a different direction into the woods, followed by his pet wolves, which had trailed the entire way. The surprise attack had been a failure. Three of his own had been left behind dead, and three Noi warriors were grievously wounded. Now alone, he was pursued by six Noi men, and there was nothing to do but run and hide if he could.

Dael went crashing through the forest with ample strides, the Noi men hotly after him. His wolves, large, dangerous looking animals, ran behind and possibly
seemed to the men to be chasing him too. These desert people were unfamiliar with the wolf and afraid of it, but that did not slow them down and they ran with all their might. Dael came to a creek and ran nimbly over the fallen log that spanned it. His pets waded after him through the shallow water, determined to keep him company. One warrior threw his spear, which might well have pierced its target had not a low branch deflected it. But the chase would soon be over. Dael's flight was arrested by a high, overhanging embankment and he was forced to run along side of it, looking for an escape. In another minute he would be surrounded and killed.

Yet at the base of the rising wall of earth and mossy rock was a hollow—a hole half stuffed with leaves. Maybe it was a cave! Dael fairly dove into it, his wolves worming their way after him on their bellies. Unluckily it took but a moment or two for his enemies to find the opening and note the marks of entry. Meanwhile Dael tried to see the extent of the hollow by the dim light coming solely from the opening. He immediately determined that it was not a cavern, only an animal's den, as the foul smell of decaying flesh and some animal bones told him. Dael's pursuers had him trapped, and had only to follow him through the hole if they dared. Dael got ready to fight. Seizing a large thighbone, he prepared to brain the first entrant.