The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (92 page)

He
did
not
judge
the
Ochre.
They
had
lived
all
their lives
with
the
constant
threat
of
having
their
children stolen
from
them.
It
was
not
easy
for
them
to
have
become the
very
thing
they
most
hated.

Days
later
Carnelian,
worn
down
by
another
day
working as
an
overseer,
returned
to
the
hearth
desperate
for
its familial
warmth.
Sil
and
the
other
women
were
lining their
bench.
A
smell
of
stew
was
drifting
in
the
air.
He went
to
wash
first
and
smiled
when
one
of
the
children greeted
him,
then
jumped
when
something
in
the
shadow under
the
mother
tree
moved.

'You,'
he
gasped,
seeing
it
was
Osidian.

'I
have
come
to
impart
to
you
the
role
you
will
play
in my
great
hunt.'

Osidian
said
no
more
and
Carnelian
was
glad
when
he left
him
alone
to
his
washing,
for
it
gave
him
time
to
order
his thoughts. When he joined the hearth he found Osidian was not there.

'Ravan?' Carnelian asked as Akaisha handed him a steaming bowl.

The Master came without either of my sons,' she said, severely.

'Did he say-?'

'He said nothing.'

Akaisha must have seen his anger, for she put her hand on his arm. 'We need him, Carnie,' she said, quietly. 'If his plan fails, the Tribe will starve.'

He gave her a nod, smiling, and she released him.

Carnelian carried the bowl to his sleeping hollow. Osidian was there.

'I have brought you some food,' Carnelian said, in Quya.

'Leave it on the ground,' the shadow replied. Carnelian put the bowl down. 'Are the hostage children well?'

'Well enough.' 'Was that your idea?'

Osidian smiled. 'Amusingly, the savages thought it up entirely on their own. It seems they have the capacity to learn something from their superiors.'

'Why are you training the Ochre for war?'

'Carnelian, you have known my intentions since the day we reached the Earthsky.'

Carnelian became exasperated. 'You really believe the Ochre can win you back your throne?'

They shall be but the first tribe of my host.'

'Plainsmen against the legions?'

'My first move in the game that is to come.'

Carnelian felt he was talking to a madman.

Osidian took him by the shoulders. 'Believe me, Carnelian, we shall return to Osrakum and regain everything we have lost.'

Carnelian took a step back to break the hold Osidian had on him. 'Even if you were successful, you would be returning to Osrakum alone. I shall remain here with these people.'

'I will not allow that,' said Osidian, his voice ice.

'"You will not allow?" You may control events here, Osidian, but you do not control me. I know you could manipulate me, use force even, but my heart will no longer yield to you.'

Carnelian felt Osidian's anger in the stillness. 'In addition, I will play no further part in your schemes. If you continue on your path I will do anything I can to stop you.'

Osidian smiled. 'Anything?'

Carnelian restrained his lust to punch Osidian's white face. He thought of again threatening to betray his plans to the Elders, but he feared what Osidian might do to Fern. A murmur was coming from the hearth.

Osidian chuckled. Thinking up threats, Carnelian?' He grew serious. 'I will devise a way to change your mind, but take care; what I have set in motion here cannot easily be stopped. Whether or not you decide to oppose me, accept that your precious 'Tribe" can never return to the life they had. Either they shall follow the path I have chosen for them or else they will be destroyed. However much I may feel the God working through me, a successful outcome is not assured, but be certain of one thing: I alone can hope to control the forces I have unleashed.'

Carnelian felt he was being possessed by Osidian's vision.

'Are you sulking, Carnelian?'

It seemed a different person saying that. Carnelian felt annoyed at being spoken to like a child and then, realizing how childish this was, he smiled.

Osidian glared. 'Do you mock me, my Lord?'

This made Carnelian burst into laughter, which he took some time suppressing. 'Not at you ... at me,' he managed to say.

As the tremors of mirth subsided, the horror flooded back.

'You were going to tell me about this great hunt of yours.'

Osidian frowned. 'You will play your part?' 'Do I have a choice?' 'Knowing you, none at all.'

Carnelian could feel the faraway thunder through his saddle-chair. His aquar was very still as she blinked her enormous eyes at the horizon. Her eye quills twitched at every sound.

'Make ready,' he cried.

He was outside the Newditch on one side of the Horngate. Other riders formed a line with him stretching away into the lush fernland. On the other side of the gate under Sil's command was another line of aquar raked back, each hitched to one of the drag-cradles he had modified according to Osidian's instructions.

The thunder deepened under the clear sky. The ground was now shaking so that Carnelian, seeing the breeze ruffling the fernheads, could imagine the earth they concealed was undulating with the slow rhythm of deep water.

The riders, all women, coughed their tension. Carnelian joined them in gazing off to where they could see the horizon darkening with a mounding mass. He swallowed past a parched throat.

Closer and closer rolled the flood. The earth's shaking jostied him in his chair. His aquar's quills half-flared as she drew back her head and stared veiling her eyes with their inner lids. He rubbed his feet on her back to calm her.

Carnelian began to see details in the flood. Necks reaching up to the sky like tornadoes.

'Heaveners,' the cry of shock went up from the women round him.

Carnelian sagged, knowing they were right. Osidian had said nothing about the giants being the victims of his hunt. Carnelian felt he had been tricked. The women were arguing among themselves. Should he sabotage Osidian's hunt? Gripping his saddle-chair against the tremors, Carnelian looked round at the fernmeadow. He relived the grinding labour of the Bluedancing; the conflicts among the Ochre. Could he dismiss all those sacrifices? Could he deliver the Tribe into famine?

He surveyed the women, all pale indecision. He saw how they were having difficulty controlling their aquar. The heaveners were close enough for him to see the mountainous churning of their legs. It was now or never.

'Light up now!' he bellowed.

The women confronted him with stares. It was Sil who spoke for them. 'Carnie, they're sacred.'

'Do you want the Tribe to starve?'

That made up their minds. Craning round he saw more women flinging torches into the drag-cradles. The kindling piled on them ignited with a blast that caused Carnelian's aquar to take several steps forward. He let her go and saw at the edges of his sight the other riders lurching raggedly into movement. He urged his aquar into a run. Craning round, he saw his drag-cradle shaking and jumping, rolling fire into the ferns. Smoke the colour of old teeth was snaking in among their stems.

Looking forward, he gasped with horror as he saw the heaveners' tidal wave was almost upon them. The quakes were rattling his bones. The saurian stench struck him so that he could almost not breathe. His left foot trammelled the aquar's back, insisting she keep her headlong lope towards the onrushing stampede.

Still she was veering slowly to the right as Osidian had predicted she would.

The hills of muscle were almost upon them. Their backs eclipsed the sky. Then the saurians were pouring their thunder past him and he heard the thin ululating and the human cries. He saw the tiny Plainsmen scurrying among the giant's legs, faces distorted in an ecstasy of fear. He glimpsed Osidian among them like a lightning flash and then they were past and for moments he gaped at the road they had crushed across the plain as he felt the thunder recede.

He turned his aquar and saw the heaveners narrowing their herd into the cone he had helped create. On either side of the giants a hedge of smoke was rising, rooted in flame. Clouds billowed and greyed his line of sight. A tiny darting of aquar pulling flames closed the gap.

Then the storm fell silent. The mass of smoke thinned slowly as it rose into the sky. The fire was spreading, rustling, as if it were some creature scratching its back through the ferns. Turning, he saw that the drag-cradle he had been pulling was threatening to become a ball of flames.

More and more of the Tribe were coming down to gape at the captive giants. Among the younger hunters, the excitement of the chase had not yet worn off. Beaming, red-faced, they were telling everyone everything they had seen and felt. The silent reception smothered their ardour until they too were watching the heaveners nulling within the imprisoning circuit of the ditch and rampart. Pushing through the crowd searching for Fern, Carnelian and Sil found him standing staring at the heaveners through tears.

'Husband,' Sil said, and reached up to touch his face.

Fern turned and saw them. 'Seeing them there ...' He blinked away his tears. 'We've robbed them of their thunder.'

The three of them looked at each other guiltily. .

Sil began to cry. 'We had no choice. The Tribe ...'

Fern looked at them wild-eyed. 'Galewing said the same to us as we discovered what it was we were to hunt. Many wanted to send word to the Elders, but Galewing said the women would oppose this on religious grounds and so they must not allow the Tribe to die for their beliefs.'

'Our beliefs,' said Sil.

His eyes on
Fern
,
Carnelian
began worrying if he had erred in setting his friend's safety above that of the Tribe. This was all part of Osidian's schemes. Searching, he found him towering among a group of youths.
Carnelian
began making his way towards them.

Krow was the first to see
Carnelian
approaching and, clearly troubled, he looked away.

Ravan grinned. 'Well, the Master's delivered as he said he would.'

Carnelian
talked over the youth in Quya. 'My Lord, the Ochre loathe what you have made them do.'

Osidian turned, smiling. 'Have I not given them what they wanted?'

These creatures are sacred to them.'

Osidian's smile broadened and Carnelian realized, sickened, that this was the very reason for the hunt.
Carnelian
felt people stirring and saw they were turning their backs on the rampart. Following their gaze, he saw the Elder women approaching. The horror in their faces was clear to see. They came close enough for
Carnelian
to reach out and touch Akaisha but she shook his hand off as she watched the heaveners' necks crossing and recrossing against the sky.

This is unholy,' Whin cried from their midst, and many of the other Elders joined their voices to hers.

A stunned silence fell.

'But you sanctioned this,' said a voice.

'We did not sanction
this?
cried Whin.

Ravan confronted her. The Master's brought us more meat in one day's hunt than our warriors could've managed in two whole seasons.'