Fargoer (22 page)

Now an unknown land unfolded in front of them. The Kainu had fished in the great southern lake, but only a few older members of the southern Kainu’s had ever come this far. They stopped to negotiate what to do next.

“Let’s keep going south and burn everything in our path. That will teach them to stay in their own land,” Kirre suggested. She had a bloody wound in her forehead from last night’s battle, which made her old and hard face look even more brutal.

“That will drive them to seek vengeance, at least, and the southern Kainu will be the ones to suffer the brunt of their anger. It’s best to just kill the patrols that move north,” answered Bjorn, the speaker of southern tribes. He was a large man with lively eyes, and he was looked down on by the northern women.

“For such a large, strong man, you are quite a coward,” Kirre snarled.

The blond man’s eyes narrowed with anger, but Aure interrupted them:

“Let’s see what these southerners’ lands are like. Then I’ll decide what to do.”

The chieftain’s word was heeded, and the group continued, with the scouts moving ahead. They sneaked forward, on the both sides of the path. This way anyone coming down the trail wouldn’t notice them. They didn’t have to wander for long, when the path led into a clearing, where many log houses had been built beside a small creek. The Kainu observed it for a moment, from the shelter of the forest. Nothing could be seen moving and they slunk across the clearing and into the houses.

It was very clear that the inhabitants had left in a hurry. There were warm embers in the fireplace and unfinished food on the dishes.

“Let’s burn it,” Kirre said after they had secured the surroundings of the house. She didn’t dare to do it herself, however, but waited for Aure’s decision. Bjorn said nothing, the Kainu knew his opinion.

“Burn it,” Aure confirmed.

The Kainu set the largest house on fire and moved off immediately, their purpose being to catch the escaping southerners.

The pursuers soon got proof that they were on the right track. There was a metal buckle on the ground, dropped in a hurry, and further on they found a child’s straw doll. The path led the Kainu on toward the south, and they moved rapidly but cautiously, keeping an eye on what was ahead.

The chase continued into the afternoon with the terrain getting more wet, until finally they reached the edge of the forest. Before their eyes was a wide swamp, with only a few crooked trees growing here and there. Now they knew where the people had escaped to, because in the middle of the swamp was a raised islet that had been surrounded by a simple stockade built to a man’s height, The Kainu could see lookouts watching the edge of the forest through the holes in the construction.

The Kainu drew together to decide on how to proceed.

“We must charge from different directions. There can’t be many men there. We will surely prevail,” said Kirre.

“Many of us will pay with our lives for such folly. We will have to wade through the swamp, across open ground. If they have any skilled archers, their arrows will not miss,” replied Vierra, measuring the distance between the forest’s edge and the islet.

“We wait for the night, that way they won’t be able to see to shoot. Split up the group and watch from both sides, so they can’t escape,” Bjorn suggested. Nobody had a better proposition, and they had come so far already. Aure was thoughtful, and looked at the swamp with a mysterious look on her face. She nodded at Bjorn, silently accepting his proposal.

The Kainu dispersed to the forest’s edge to form a blockade, so preventing any attempt to escape, and they waited for the night. No one made a run for from the stockade, however, and both sides waited for the dark, in silence.

Finally the sun set on the horizon, reddening, and the southerners lit a great bonfire in the middle of the stockade. There it glowed like a flame to a moth to the Kainu as they waited for the darkness and the signal to attack.

Darkness soon took over the swamp. Kirre took up her drum and started pounding it in an even rhythm. Her example was followed by many others, and the edge of the swamp boomed with the ominous rhythm of the drumming, gathering speed slowly. The crescent moon rose to oversee the spectacle that was being played out beneath it. If fear was eating into the southerners’ hearts, they didn’t try to escape or to cry for mercy. Over the noise of the drumming what sounded like a night bird’s call was suddenly heard, and more than ninety Kainu began simultaneously to cross the swamp to the islet.

They came like the wolves of the forest, crouched and low, and, in the pale light of the moonlit night, they got close to the palisade before they were noticed. Then there was a yell from the walls, and arrows started flying toward the attacking enemy. The Kainu didn’t respond by shooting back, but only waded on through the swamp. Only a few were struck by the arrows, more out of bad luck than the accuracy of the archer, before the Kainu arrived on the shore of the islet.

Only then did the Kainu drop their drums and let their own bows sing, directing their shots toward the southern archers who were shooting from behind the poles. Angrily flew the arrows from both sides, with the Kainu arrows mostly striking their intended targets and the southerners’ missing theirs. The Kainu vastly outnumbered the dozen southern men who were defending the stockade.

Suddenly the Kainu swarmed over the walls with their knives held between their teeth. As soon as their feet touched the ground they fell upon the Southern men like wild beasts. For a moment the defenders held their ground, but soon succumbed to the desperate and blood-filled flurry of the attackers’ blades, reflecting the glow of the fire. For years, the Kainu’s hatred had grown like a rain swollen river because of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the southerners, and now the river of hate burst its banks flowed over in uncontrollable torrent of blood.

Vierra was carried along with them, but, while it felt as if her hands were being guided by her brothers’ and sisters’ hatred, she had the feeling that she was observing all this bloodshed from outside of herself. Had the invaders’ slave whips changed her or was it that she never really fitted in? The more the southerners’ blood was spilled, the less she wanted to be part of it. When it was all over, she just felt a great weariness and an emptiness inside her.

When no opposition remained, and the blood fog lifted from the Kainu’s eyes, they looked around. The fire that burned in the middle of the palisade had started to fade, but it still shed enough light to show, as far from the Kainu as possible, a group of frightened women and children. There were about ten women and twenty children, from infants to those of ten summers. Women grasped their children and children their mothers, like a drowning man grabbing the side of a boat. Their eyes looked glassily at the savages, who had just slain their husbands and fathers. Even the smallest children were not crying anymore, even though they had done so during the onslaught. They sensed that their lives were now hanging by threads, and like fawns in a high grass they tried to hide in their mothers’ hems and laps, completely still.

But they couldn’t hide, and their mothers’ hems were no aid against the furious warriors. The majority of the Kainu hesitated though, the hatred that churned in their minds started to fade, and they weren’t child murderers. The toughest and angriest hardened their hearts though, Kirre among the first, as she yelled.

“What are you waiting for? Finish the job! These children will grow to be new fur taxers, murderers and plunderers of women. Strike them all to the ground, and the fire will then carry them to the forests of the underworld, to accompany their dead men!”

No! I will not kill children,” Vierra yelled in objection. Her will to fight was completely gone, and her thought went again along its old, familiar paths. Kirre took a step towards the people that shivered in the middle, her bloody knife held up high.

“You weak fool, I will start if nobody else has the courage.”

“They must be killed, the children will grow to be new taxers, new robbers like Kirre said. Even if we don’t want to,” said Aure. She also lifted her knife and prepared to finish what was still undone.

Then Bjorn stepped to their way and raised his hand as a sign to stop.

“Wait, warriors of Kainu. I have a suggestion. We are not child killers, and it is in vain to slay powerless women too. You northern sisters and brothers have no use for these people, but we in the south have a lot of burned land to clear, household animals to tend to and crops to thresh, more than we can do ourselves. Give these children and women to us, and we will raise them to be Kainu, who will never steal women or tax furs. They will grow calluses in their hands from the work, but they’ll keep their lives and won’t suffer unnecessarily, as long as they work.”

“Let them go rather than make them slaves,” spat Vierra. Her grim expression revealed her opinion in this matter. However, she was not in a position to affect the chieftains’ decision.

“We will not,” said Aure and took a breath. Everyone was ready to hear the chieftain’s word.

“Bjorn can keep the women and children, we will take them with us to the north. Here we will burn everything, the dead southern men and our own fallen sisters and brothers, at sunrise. Everything that’s valuable will be evenly divided between those who participated in the battle. Now, let’s rest and treat the wounded.”

The chieftain’s order was the law. The dark night went on, and there was no sign yet of a new day on the skyline.

In the heart of the swamp

A cold wind from the east woke Vierra up from her uneasy sleep. Around her, the Kainu slept the restless sleep of those triumphant in the bloodshed. There was only a faint glimmer of light in the eastern sky, like a passing thought that the night might be ending.

Vierra flinched as she heard voices in the dark. Somebody was talking by the fire in hushed tones. Two figures were drawn together against the dim light. Vierra was lying outside of the flickering light of the dying flames. She rolled over and onto her knees, and, taking her spear with her, crawled away into the darkness, making no sound.

The moon gave light just enough to see the shadow-like shapes of two people, one large and one small, when they left the camp and walked down from the neck of the land and into the swamp. Vierra followed the figures in the dark like a shadow, wondering how they could see the mires and tussocks in front of them. Vierra could see the black traces of the footprints of the ones she followed, and stepped into them as she walked. She knew that she couldn’t cross the swamp on her own in the darkness before dawn.

Her hand found its way to the necklace that was under her fur coat. She had done it many times during the passing days. The touch of the cool bones calmed her nerves. She couldn’t understand why someone would go like that, into treacherous ground in the dark.

The duo finally stopped in the middle of the swamp. They had walked a good while away from the dry land and the burned palisade. The shimmer in the eastern sky started to spread, and Vierra could see better around her. A huge quagmire spread on front of her eyes. It was like a black, round eye. A hole that lead somewhere, a destination of which Vierra didn’t want to know anything about.

When a voice finally broke the silence, Vierra recognized it as Aure. Deep inside her she had known it, who she was following, but for some reason had hoped that it was not so.

“Behold, oh Great Spirit, I have brought a child like we agreed, will you now give me mine back?”

From somewhere in Aure’s direction came the answer, with a shrill, frenzied voice. The inhuman note of the voice echoed in the desolate swamp, so that it couldn’t be said where it came from exactly. So repulsive it was that it raised Vierra’s neck hair and filled her mind with uneasiness and fear.

“Only one, I know you have many. I want more, one is not enough.”

“But you promised my youngest daughter back! You said you can bring her back from the underworld! I have given you so much already, fish, meat, men too.” Aure’s voice was cracked with pain and despair.

“Dead, already slain men they’ve been. Only one alive and he was ruined with mushroom. I want children, lively and fresh. There is power in children I can use to bring your girl from among the dead. If you bring all the children you have, I will give you all your three daughters.”

Aure was silent for a long time and then replied, with a broken voice.

“Very well. Here she is, brown-haired and beautiful.” And she started to sing, as submissive as a slave only can be.

Spirits of the gloomy swampland
Little people in the deep
Chorus of the helpless children
Victims who the death will keep

Hear me good, my offer take
Down now pull him to you
Eat him with your hungry mouths
All blood, gut, all sinew

Give me luck and grant me hope
Give me back what life did steal
Though I come from world above you
All my wounds and ailments heal

The girl, seven summers old, had begun to quietly and hopelessly weep during the song. Aure flicked the hood from her head, revealing her night-black hair that was here and there streaked with white wisps that were clearly visible in the growing eastern light. She knelt on the ground and grabbed the girl around the neck, ready to push her head under the water.