Fors forgot his own bruises as he watched Arskane step into place at the right of his father. The woman chief who had given the mountaineer the rights of the tribe was there, too, her robe a spark of bright color among the drabness of the hide jerkins and the tanned skins of the men.
And opposed was Marphy and his fellow long robe. Only Cantrul was missing. The heads of family clans had usurped the place the High Chief should have held.
“Cantrul—?”
From beside Fors, Jarl made answer to that half question.
“Cantrul was a warrior—and as a warrior he entered on the long trail in a fitting fashion—taking a goodly number of the enemy with him. They have not yet raised up a new High Chief in his place.”
What else the Star Captain might have added was blotted out in a roll from the talking drums, a roll which wrung harsh echoes from the surrounding hills. And when those faded, Lanard edged forward, though he needs must lean upon the arm of his son to spare weight from a leg which was bandaged from knee to ankle.
“Ho—warriors!” His voice followed the drums’ beat in its force. “Here have we carried spears to a great killing and given the death birds a feast beyond the memory of our father’s fathers! From the south have we marched to this war and victory is ours. Our arrows have struck full upon their marks and our swords have been blooded to their hilts. It this not so, my brothers?”
And out from the ranks of his tribe behind him came a low growl of agreement. Here and there some of the younger men cried the shrill war slogan of a family clan.
But from the ranks of the under chieftains in the mass of the Plainspeople arose another man and he answered with prideful words of his own:
“Lances bite as deep as swords, and the Plainsmen have never known fear of a fight. Death birds eat today from our providing also. We stand shame-filled in the sight of no man!”
Someone began the war song Fors had heard on his night of captivity among the tents. Hands were reaching for bows and lances. Fors got to his feet, forcing his body to obey his will. He pushed aside the hand the Star Captain put out to stay him.
“There is a fire breaking out here,” he said slowly. “If it comes to full flame it may eat us all up. Let me go—!”
But as he half staggered down the slope to the council fire, he sensed that the Star Captain was still at his back.
“You have fought!”
From somewhere within him that clear cold voice had come at his willing—It was a chill wind to cut through the evil vapors of a swampland. In his head the thoughts Arskane had planted long ago were coming to life so clearly that he was confident at last of their truth and rightness.
“You have fought!”
“Ahhh—” That answering sound was close to the purr which Lura might voice when remembering her hunt.
“You have fought,” he repeated for the third time and knew that he had them now. “The Beast Things are dead. These Beast Things—”
That accented word have riveted their full attention.
“You have looked upon the enemy slain—is that not so? Well, I have lain in their hands—and the horror that you know is tenfold in my memory. But I say that you might also look in fear as well as in pride of your victory, for there lies among them a dire promise. My fathers’ fathers fought with these creatures—when still they held to their home burrows. My father died under their claws and fangs. Long have we known them. But now there has been born amongst them something stronger—something which threatens us as the burrow creepers of old never did. Ask it of your wise men, warriors. Ask them what they found in the circle of the dead within that barrier up there—what may come again to plague us in future years. Tell these your people, oh, healer of bodies.” He addressed himself to the Plains white robe. “And you, oh, Lady.” He spoke to the woman chief. “What have you seen?”
It was the woman who replied first.
“I saw and heard many things. In the seeing there was nothing to doubt. I hope with all my heart that your notions are mistaken. There lay among the Beast dead one who was different. And if the fates are against us, then this one will be born again among them—again and again. And, its knowledge being greater, so will it prove a worse menace to us and all human beings. Thus, because this may be true, I say that those who are humankind must stand together and put a united sword wall against these things bred out of the ancient evil of the cities which was sown by the Old Ones—”
“It is true that mutants may come of mutant stock.” The white robe spoke after her almost against his will. “And these Beast Things were led and ordered as never has their race been before. When their strange chief fell they were broken, as if their knowledge was all blotted out in that single death. If they breed more such as he, then they shall prove a force we must reckon with. We know but little of these creatures and what their powers may be. How can we guess now what we shall be called to go up against a year, ten years, a generation from now? This land is wide and there may be much hiding within its vastness which is a menace to our breed—”
“The land is wide,” Fors repeated. “What do you and your tribe seek for here, Lanard?”
“A homeland. We search out a place to build our houses and sow our fields anew, to pasture our sheep and dwell in peace. After the burning mountains and quaking land drove us forth from the valley of our fathers—the sacred place where their machines landed from the sky at the end of the Old Ones’ war—we have wandered many circles of the seasons. Now in these wide fields, along the river, we have found what we have sought for so long. And no man or beast shall drive us from it!” As he ended, his hand was on his sword hilt and he stared straight along the ranks of the Plainsmen.
Fors turned now to Marphy: “And what do your people seek, Marphy of the plains?”
The Recorder raised his eyes from the ground where a pattern of crushed grass blades had apparently held his attention.
“Since the days of the Old Ones we of the Plains have been a roving people. First we were so because of the evil death which abode in the air of many quarters of the land, so that a man must be on the move to shun those places where plagues and the blue fires waited to slay him. We are now hunters and rovers and herdsmen, warriors who care not to be tied to any camp. It is in us to travel far, to seek new places and new hills standing high against the sky—”
“So.” Fors let that one word fall into the silence of those war-torn ranks.
It was a long minute before he spoke again. “You,” he pointed to Lanard, “wish to settle and build. That is your nature and way of life. You”—it was Marphy he turned to now—”would move, grazing your herds and hunting. These,” he bent a stiff arm painfully to gesture up the hill to that uneven pile of earth and stone under which lay the bodies of the Beast Things, “live to destroy both of you if they can. And the land is wide . . . ”
Lanard cleared his throat—the sound was sharp and loud. “We would live in peace with all who raise not the sword against us. In peace there is trade, and in trade there is good for all. When the winter closes in and the harvest has been poor, then may trade save the life of a tribe.”
“You are warriors and men,” the woman chief of the Dark People broke in, her head high, her eyes straight as she measured the line of strangers facing her. “War is meat and drink at the table of men—yes—but it was that which brought the Old Ones down! War again, men, and you will destroy us utterly and we shall be eaten up and forgotten so that it shall be as if man had never lived to walk these fields—leaving our world to the holding of those!” She pointed to the Beast Things’ mound. “If now we draw sword against one another then in our folly we shall have chosen the evil part for the last time, and it is better that we die quickly and this earth be clean of us!”