The Stone Arrow Read online

  Tagart wiped his mouth, got up, and turned towards the yew tree. The forest could have him later.

  * * *

  The vigil over the corpses on the Dead Ground began at nightfall. The dust of the village square had turned to mud: the rain seemed to be settled now, falling steadily hour after hour. Twilight had come early. Dark figures, some bearing hooded lights on poles, crossed and recrossed the compound, converging on the Meeting House.

  Inside was a blaze of light, brightest at the altar, where Sturmer was making ready for the prayers and the token sacrifice to Gauhm. The yellow glow filled the room to the rafters and threw shadows from beams and projections and the moving shapes of those on the floor. No one spoke. The only sounds were those of the rain, and the sputtering wicks in the lamps at the altar and in the sconces round the walls. Sturmer stood over the stone slab; the kid struggled in the crook of his arm and lay still.

  The Meeting House was full. At this time yesterday there had been a hundred and ninety-six people in the village. Now there were a hundred and seventy. The injured numbered forty or fifty, some with only mild bruises, but others with serious wounds or broken limbs, which meant more deaths to come, and permanent cripples among those who survived. These men, like the widows and children of the dead, would be a heavy burden on the village.

  It was a harsh price to pay for rain. Groden had been discredited, for a time at least. Sturmer decided not to accuse him. There was no proof, and an accusation would lose Sturmer what little ground he had made.

  He reverently placed the bowl of kid’s blood on the altar-stone, spread wide his arms and raised his eyes in the chant. The others responded.

  Groden’s bass voice, as feeling and grief-stricken as any in the room, was among them.

  7

  Yew-wood made the best bows and the strongest spears. It was magic, protected by the Sun who gave everything, guarded for the hunters by the Sun’s disciple, the Moon. To keep animals away the Moon had rendered the shoots and berries poisonous: thus yew trees always remained well filled and dark, a safe place to hide in overnight, as the Sun had intended. The thick branches kept out the rain; the resinous, soothing balm of the leaves lulled and refreshed; and where the shed needles fell they made a soft, dry bed.

  Sleep came to Tagart eventually. He had lain awake for a long time, sometimes speaking words aloud, his face hot and puffy with weeping.

  When he awoke it was still night. The forest was silent but for the rain. He sipped from one of the water-bags, raising with himself and immediately rejecting the question of food. The previous evening he had tried to eat, but had gagged and been unable to swallow anything. He felt no more able to eat now. Nevertheless, food remained his priority. He would go and see whether the hummel had been interfered with, cut whatever meat remained and bring it back to the yew where it was dry and the smell of food would less readily escape to bring unwelcome visitors. Possibly he would go to the trouble of finding some flat stones, build a hearth and risk a smokeless fire to cook it, risk a stray wisp being seen in the village. He changed his mind. Raw meat was just as nourishing, if less palatable.

  He left the yew tree to relieve himself, came back and dressed in skins which had hardly dried overnight. Dawn showed grey above the trees as he set off for the hummel.

  A little while later he was back with fifty pounds of venison, sliced into strips and hung from either end of a hazel pole. The hummel had been a big animal, fat and well fed, three times Tagart’s weight. He had done well to kill it. A beast like that would have supplied the tribe for two days or more. But now he had contented himself with the easy cuts and left the rest for the scavengers. One uncertainty had been resolved in his mind: he would not go hungry.

  He finished tying the last strip of meat inside the yew. The rain had slackened, strengthened, and slackened again. Each renewal of gusts dislodged a noisy shower of droplets. The wind had a cold edge: he found himself shivering again as he knelt down to sort through his meagre supplies. From them he selected what he felt he would need, packed everything into his pouch and one of the goatskins, and started out.

  He went first to the place where he had left the hummel’s skin, dangling from a branch.

  He was glad it had not leaked. It hung there, grotesque, the elegant curves of the animal’s chest parodied by the swell of water, its flanks and haunches tapered to a creased apex, stretched tight by the weight.

  The oak to which he had fixed it was just off the farmers’ path from the village to their shrine. He had chosen the spot because of a nearby lime tree, a hundred and twenty feet tall, with an unobstructed drop from one of the limbs at a height of ninety feet or so. There were many such trees at various points along the path: what made this one suitable was the way the holly bushes grew below it. Not only did they cover both sides of the path, restricting its width, but there was a particularly stout plant – almost a tree – about twenty feet from the path and directly below the limb with the unobstructed drop.

  Tagart set about this bush with his knife. First he stripped the branches from the stem and cut it to waist height and, with a new blade, sharpened the tip to a point. Just below the point he cut out a notch with its upper surface parallel to the ground, so that the holly stem looked like a harpoon with a single barb. From the discarded section of the stem he cut an identical harpoon. The two barbs fitted together, slotting into each other like two hands with bent fingers interlocked. Along the back of the free harpoon he scooped a longitudinal groove, deep enough to take the radius of his rope, which later he would need to bind on with twine, pulling every turn with all his strength, for the lashing would have to support the weight of the hummel-skin filled with water.

  But for the moment he slipped the bundle of twine into his tunic, selected a piece of tallow, and climbed the lime tree. He edged out along the selected limb: the ground was a long way below. His tools, the skins, seemed tiny. If he fell now he would be impaled on the sharpened holly stem.

  He fastened a piece of flint to one end of the twine and lowered it gently to the ground. The flint swung to and fro interminably as he adjusted the position of the twine on the limb. After many attempts he found the point exactly above the holly stem, with the twine hanging still and the flint just touching the tip. He marked the place with his fingernail and let the rest of the twine drop down on the other side.

  With his knife he grooved across the mark he had made; when satisfied with its depth he rubbed the groove with tallow, again and again to smother the sticky lime sap and make a practically frictionless surface. The purpose of the twine hanging on either side of the limb was to give a lead with which to pull over the rope. He placed the twine in the groove and returned to the ground.

  Alone, without the aid of other hands, the next part of the operation was more difficult. There was far too much water in the hummel-skin. He emptied most of it out, into two goatskins. With twine and many knots he made the hummel’s hind legs fast to the free end of the rope. Cutting it free from its overnight branch, he hoisted the skin high into the lime, pulling hand-over-hand until the hind legs just reached the groove.

  He had judged it quite well. The weight of the rope hanging down was a little greater than the weight of the skin; the rope didn’t move as Tagart cautiously loosened his grip, and when he took his hands away altogether it merely eased somewhat, pulling the skin upwards and against the branch.

  He pulled the dangling rope straight and held it against the holly stem, and to it lashed the second harpoon. This he fitted into its sister notch on the stem and temporarily bound the two together with a few turns of twine. The rest of the rope, below the second harpoon, amounted to some ten or twelve yards. He began to lead it towards the path.

  The dead-weight and its release were almost complete. He was ready to start work on the trigger.

  For this he needed two lengths of springy holly, one thrust into the ground at a shallow angle, and the other – which provided the power to work the release – a small sapli
ng stripped and bent over in a loop, its tip shaped to hook into the tip of the first length, in principle like the interlocking barbs on the two harpoons of the release. Pressure on the first length would push it down, allowing the sapling to snap back, jerking with it a length of twine attached to the second harpoon. The two harpoons would then be pulled apart, allowing the hummel-skin to fall.

  Whoever had applied the pressure to the first length of holly would find the end of the rope – which Tagart was now tying into a noose with a sliding knot – closing about his ankle. The water-filled skin had ninety feet to fall, onto the holly stem, whereupon it would burst. The victim, by now hoisted some sixty or seventy feet into the air, and no longer counterbalanced by the weight of the water, would do the same.

  He had to clear two or three branches and sprigs before the trigger cable was completely unobstructed; and he had difficulty with the trigger pedal, for the ground was so dry that it was no easy matter to drive it in. But at last he was satisfied, and he went about with leaves and handfuls of earth to camouflage the noose and the rest of the mechanism. By dragging a small log onto the path he guided the future footsteps of his quarry; he roughly guessed at the length of stride, adjusted the position of the log, stood back, made another adjustment, trying to plant the footfall directly on the trigger pedal, in the centre of the hidden noose.

  All that remained was to fill the hummel-skin with water. This he did by making trips to the river with his goatskins, climbing into the lime tree and carefully decanting the water into the larger skin. The two harpoons creaked under the weight, but the lashing held firm. Tagart undid the temporary turns of twine holding them together and, with a stick, prised the harpoons apart fraction by fraction until the notches overlapped by no more than a finger’s width.

  A final inspection, a check that he had left the least possible slack in the trigger cable, that everything was hidden from view, the cut wood disguised with earth, that the noose would not snag at the critical moment; and the trap was ready. Part of the drop of rope was on view, and so was the hummel-skin, if anyone cared to look up, but he hoped it would not be noticed against the drabness of the tree.

  The trap had taken a long time and a great deal of effort to make. He had never attempted one on his own before. Normally there were others to lend a hand, three or four men to hoist the water-filled skin straight up to the branch and hold it there while the harpoon was lashed.

  But, he had done it. He had done it alone, and as he stood looking at it some of his doubts began to dissolve. If he could make one trap successfully, he could make many, and if he could make many he would be well able to achieve what he had set out to do.

  He gathered up his belongings and started for the next tree. He had hidden the noose so well that he forcibly reminded himself where it was as he passed.

  It would not do to tread on the trigger.

  * * *

  Tagart heard the faint clink of a mattock and stood quite still. He had just finished making a long ramp covered with brushwood, which he had left hidden at the top of the escarpment. Work had gone well during the day. The rain had stopped early in the afternoon, and now the sky was blue.

  The sound came again. He had not been mistaken.

  He was quite close to the fields here. The ground sloped down to the field-edge, which he could just see in places where the trees allowed. The barley showed rich brown and yellow, lit by brilliant evening sunshine.

  He changed direction, moving swiftly and silently from tree to tree, approaching the origin of the sound. His feet were noiseless: he had been trained to avoid crackling twigs and beechmast husks, rustling leaves, branches that were dead and would snap if trodden on.

  He stopped to listen. The mattock clinks were coming singly, intermittently, as if one man, working none too enthusiastically on his own, were digging the ground, bending, digging again.

  Tagart moved to the very edge of the woods and looked out across the field. The user of the mattock could not be seen from this angle. The sound originated away to the left, hidden by an elbow of trees. To come upon him Tagart would have to walk across open ground, between the forest and a shallow dip in which men might be waiting.

  He was immediately on his guard. It was too easy, too neat, and much too soon after the raid for him to find a man out alone.

  Had he been seen the previous day in the village? Was that it? Did the farmers now know that someone had survived? Were they trying to lure him into the open? They would surely know the futility of chasing a nomad through the forest. Their only chance of killing him, of preventing word of the massacre spreading to other tribes, would be to bring him onto open ground and surround him.

  Or was he overestimating them, attributing to them powers of cunning which they did not have? They were farmers, men who lived by grubbing the soil and slaughtering captive beasts; not hunters, whose living depended on foresight and strategy. Were they capable of such a plan?

  He did not know. He was tired, of that he was certain, and when tired he knew that judgements could be wrong. Everything in him urged him to go back into the safety of the deep forest, to feed himself and recuperate, to make more preparations before letting the farmers know that not all was to be well for them. He wanted to renew his supply of arrows and flints, establish another hiding-place in case the yew were found, replenish his ropes, rig more traps, attend to more of the pitfalls the tribe had dug earlier in the season …

  But he was only one man, and men were not meant to work in the forest alone. Every hour that passed increased his chances of being injured or falling sick with no one to treat him, or of being overpowered by some animal larger and stronger than himself. And, however many preparations he made, he knew he would never be satisfied, he knew he would always need just one more trap or another dozen arrows to help reduce the appalling odds against him.

  So he turned and went back into the trees, as silent as before, moving in a curve that would emerge from the woods more or less opposite the labourer and his mattock. As he went, he slipped his knife inside his tunic and, forming a makeshift plan, tightened the drawstring at the top of his pouch.

  He stood beside fluttering leaves of hazel and whitebeam. At his back was the forest, his world. Before him stretched the alien fields. And there, across the slope, was a stocky man working on his own.

  Tagart stepped into the open. The man with the mattock looked up suspiciously.

  Tagart set his face in a smile and went on.

  “I come in friendship,” he said.

  PART TWO

  1

  “It cannot be Tsoaul,” said Vude, a grandfather with white hair and nut-brown face and arms, one of the elders in the Council and a supporter of Sturmer. “It cannot be him. How can it when the savages are all dead?” He turned his eyes again to the stone pointer, and to the mattock thrust by its haft into the ground beside it. The mattock looked like the one Gumis had taken the previous evening, and this was the place where Sturmer had told him to clear stones, but of Gumis himself there was no sign. He had not returned at nightfall, nor had he been seen at daybreak, which had come cloudy and cool, with pearly mists above the river and the rain-soaked fields.

  When it had been realized in the village that Gumis was truly missing, a search party had set out: Sturmer, Vude, Domack the Toolmender, Merth, Tamben, and several others. They had gone first to the top barley field, and had been mystified to find the stone arrow pointing towards the forest.

  “It cannot be Tsoaul,” said Vude, for the fourth or fifth time, but his voice lacked conviction.

  “Look at the ground,” said Meed, a small, swarthy man with rounded shoulders and a way of twisting his head sideways when he spoke. “Where is the struggle if Gumis was taken by force?”

  Sturmer dropped to his haunches and minutely examined the soil near the arrow. The ground was too rough and stony to show much detail, but Meed’s suggestion seemed logical: if there had been a fight it would show. There was no sign of a fight. Hence G
umis had gone of his own free will. It did not occur to Sturmer that the traces might have been doctored by an expert hand.

  “There was no forcing done here,” he concluded. “We do not know why Gumis should have left his work, but he went in peace.” Sturmer rose and allowed his gaze to follow the direction of the arrow. “He left this marker to show us where he has gone.”

  “Tsoaul enticed him away!”

  “Tsoaul made the marker!”

  “That cannot be!” cried Tamben, a man of twenty-seven, fair-haired and quiet, who had been coerced into taking part in the raid. “The savages are all dead. How can dead men do his will?”

  “Then explain why else he should go! There is no reason for it.”

  “A game. He’s playing a trick to make us fearful.”

  Sturmer said, “Gumis does not play games. He has no mind for them. He is interested only in food and sleep.”

  “Could he have been carried off by some animal?”

  “A bear,” said Domack.

  Sturmer rounded on him. “Did a bear make this marker?” he said, trying to keep the mounting panic out of his voice. “Did a bear post the mattock in the ground? Did a bear drag him off and leave no tracks?”

  “Then it cannot be Tsoaul,” Vude said, calmly. “The bears are his servants, as are the savages. The savages are all dead; there are no tracks, so it wasn’t a bear. So Tsoaul cannot be involved. We are worrying for nothing.”