Slow Turns The World (2 page)

Torrin heard a faint song carried on the breeze.

Hush, oh hush now mother beast

Your baby lies besides you.

Slow turns the world

Your eyes grow tired

And sleep has come to find you.

A cow barak stood away from the herd suckling a calf and approaching it slowly was Varna, wife of Torrin.  She sang her song to the great beast that stood three times her height, advancing cautiously, until her hands lightly touched the mighty head beneath the huge spiral horn.

Hush, oh hush now mother beast

Your baby lies at rest.

I ask you share that mother’s milk

Which flows within your breast.

The barak lowered its face to receive the soothing touch and half closed its round black eyes.  When the calf had drunk its fill Varna stroked and soothed her way from the mother’s head to the udder, all the while singing her soft hypnotic chant.  She reached up and squeezed a teat, catching the jet of warm milk, first in her mouth, and then in a clay pot.   Torrin waited silently as the milk was drawn, as his wife stood beneath the barak’s belly, between four legs as wide and heavy as tree trunks.  He reflected upon an old question that was often argued by the campfire.  Who is bravest?  The hunter who faces the bull barak with only a spear or the maiden who steals milk with a touch and a song? Both had cost too many lives.  Varna, her pot now full, left the barak and came towards him.

“You should practice your art on me,” he called to her.

“That I have already,” she answered, placing her hand upon a swollen belly.  She winced a little.

“It is the father's son who needs the soothing touch,” she said stroking the dome of flesh.

He walked to her and placed his hand upon hers as he looked down into a face that filled his eyes with shades of brown.  There was the lighter, near golden tones, of her long plaited hair, the scattering of tiny moles across her cheeks and the deep nut-brown shade of the eyes that looked into his.

“I wish you could bear the child here,” he said.

“It is four moons away yet and by then we must be gone.  Is there news?”

“Perrith says that the barak will know when the time has come.”

“The barak run swiftly, we may not catch them again before the mountains.  Could we not move on before them and then wait for their passage?”

“This many are saying and it has wisdom.  But we might wait two moons and then the herd may pass running and we would cross the mountains with empty bellies.”

“What is your judgment?”

“It is not my judgment to make.”

“Torrin!” She squeezed his hand firmly and looked him hard in the eye.  He sighed, shook his head, and spoke.

“I would drive the herd onwards to the mountain’s edge and there let them grow as fat as they will. The herd will move on when the barak sense the sun is too low, or if the cold winds come.”

“Any man can start the barak to run but none can make him stop.”

“Aye, but as true as that is, it would still be my choice.”

“And this you will say to the elders?”

“This I have said already to Perrith.”

Later they gathered by a log fire where barak meat turned slowly upon a spit.  The men, returned from hunting or other labours, grouped together talking, joking and arguing.   Casan emerged from her tent and came towards them.  Perrith, at the centre of the group, and Torrin, by his side, stopped their laughter and silence spread like a ripple through the group.

“Welcome my wife and mother of the tribe,” said Perrith. “Will you sit with us?”

“It is time for walking, not sitting.”

“The wind is warm and the land is bountiful and the barak knows when he should walk.”

Casan eyed the sitting men with distaste.

“This land makes you lazy,” she spat the words at them.  “And the barak too.  They linger because they have become too fat to walk.  Do they even run when your spears and arrows strike?  Look at you great hunters sitting here while the women work.  Nagul!  See your wife struggling to bear us water?  Can you not carry a pitcher too?  Can you not do her service?”

“I do my wife good service, be assured.”  Nagul spoke the words loudly and the men laughed.

“Then tell me,” said Casan,   “when she calls you 'Nagul the swift', is it the speed of your feet she speaks of?”

Nagul's face flushed as the men roared out their laughter.

“Aye, you can laugh,” said Casan sweeping her eyes slowly over them, “but do not forget that it is to me that women come when potions are needed; potions for all afflictions…”

Several of the men lowered their gaze while the others laughed louder still.

The moon Kanu, small and swift, sank into the east, becoming blood red as the horizon consumed it.  It marked the beginning of the sleeping time, and Torrin lay with Varna within their tent.  There were storms on the distant plain, great towers of cloud that hid the sun, which flickered and rumbled.  The air was thick and warm within the leather dome.  

“Husband, do you sleep?”

“My body would sleep, but my mind is restless…”

“What troubles you?”

“Perrith's father is old,” said Torrin,  “as old as any man I have known.  Some say he has nearly walked full circle around the world and that he may come again to the place of his birth.”

“But now his legs are pained,” said Varna, “and to walk becomes a torment.”

“I believe his journey is over Varna; that it shall end here, and this Perrith knows too.”

“Perrith bonds deeply with his father.”

“So do we all.  He was father to every one of us before he passed the pendant to Perrith.  To walk on without him will be a greater burden than if we were to carry the old man upon our backs.”

“And knowing this, Perrith lingers….”

“As might any of us….”

“No, husband, if you led us it would be otherwise.”

“Varna.  I have walked alone on the plain and listened to the quietest voice within me, according to our way.  It was Perrith that pulled me from beneath the hooves of the barak that killed my father.  It was Perrith that became both my father and my brother.   I know no wiser nor better man and I shall serve him.”

They lay quietly for a while before Torrin turned towards her and gently pulled away the hide that covered them.  He looked at her naked body, at her lean strong limbs, at the breasts that had grown fuller and firmer as the dome of flesh beneath had swelled.   He ran his palms over the silk smooth skin and she smiled back at him.

“What would you do hunter?” she whispered.  “Is there something you seek?”

“Aye.  There is a trophy I would have…”

“Then…” she said, stroking his body, from shoulder, chest to belly, and then lower still, with a feather-light fingertip, “you will need a straighter stronger spear than this…”

She rolled upon him and her lips left tiny moist spots of warmth upon his neck while her gently teasing fingers moved upon him.

“Now hunter…. Are you ready… to make your thrust?”

“Aye…”

“Good, for the beast springs upon you.” She pinned his hands down and sat astride him.  With the gentlest movement of her hips she slid onto him and took him deep inside.

“And…” she whispered, eyes closing, “is not quickly tamed.”

They slept at last but then Torrin sat up suddenly.

“Listen,” he said, “do you hear?”

There was a faint and distant sound amongst the growling thunder.

“A horn,” said Varna, “sounded three times.”

Torrin leapt to his feet, pulled on his leather jerkin and left the tent with spear and bow. Outside, many of the men had emerged and had already put arrows to their bowstrings.  The repeated three calls of the horn became louder.  In the distance, across the gentle hillocks of the plain two running figures could be seen.

“It is Valhad,” said one of the men, lowering his bow.

“Aye, and Turnal.”

Valhad and Turnal were son and daughter of Perrith.  Babes who had shared the womb and grown from a common seed, though none would guess it.  Turnal was in every way Casan's daughter; tall, slender, beautiful and fierce.  She hunted with the men; drank with them, joked with them.  She would even wrestle by the fireside and never lacked a challenger, for how else might a man embrace her?  But Valhad?  Some said Turnal had stolen his courage in the womb for he had never killed any beast with spear or blade.  But he was the chieftain's son and when Perrith's journey ended it was to Valhad that the pendant should pass.  It would be Valhad that stood before the Vasagi to offer his service as chieftain.  But his ascendancy was not assured, for many preferred Turnal.  The barak taught the Vasagi many lessons; they knew that it was not always a bull that the herd followed and gave submission to.  Turnal, if she was chosen, would not be the first woman to lead the tribe.   

Torrin knew there was more to Valhad than the others guessed.  Some moons before there had been a great bull barak that was made lame and mad with pain.  Torrin had watched unseen as Valhad came and sang to the beast as the women do when drawing milk.   Valhad had soothed it, stroked its head between the deadly horns and then reached down to pull a jagged flint from the cloven hoof.   Then Torrin knew then that the courage of Valhad was of another kind, and that he might be like no other chieftain the tribe had known.

Perrith went out to meet them.  They stopped before him panting and sweating.  Turnal spoke first.

“The Ummakil…”

“Where?  How far?  What have you seen?”  

“We saw smoke, my father,” said Valhad,  “from the hilltop yonder, we saw it in the east, by the forest's edge.”

Perrith turned to the gathered tribe.

“Pathfinder!” he commanded and Rasgan hurried forward.

“Pathfinder, what other tribes might pass by here?”

“None that we have ever known. None save one, and I fear it is them.”

The lightning flashed again and several heartbeats passed before the rumble came.  Perrith looked at the many faces turned towards him in expectant silence and spoke again.

“We shall move.  Torrin, take who you will and drive the barak west.  Let all others prepare to walk.”

The Ummakil followed much the same pathway as the Vasagi, but lived most times in the chill twilight that follows sunset.  They lived in a cruel land, perpetually at the end of autumn.  It was a place where all things died and withered, where no birds sang from the branches that reached upwards with naked twig fingers to a cold and purple sky.  They hunted with dogs and ate the meat of the beasts that had lost their way, or did not have the inner voice that urged them on towards a warmer brighter land.  The Ummakil lived in the cold dark margin of the living world and had themselves become cold of heart.   To them all that lived was to be hacked, burnt, hunted and consumed; be it tree, beast, or other tribe.   Most times the Ummakil were a distant menace; but once or twice in a man’s life, they would move into the east, into the brighter lands and set their dogs upon all who dwelt there.

As Kanu rose again, its dark orb creeping across the disc of the setting sun, Torrin led a band of fifty hunters across the plain towards the grazing barak.  The thousand animals that made the herd were already restless and skittish because of the approaching storms.   To drive them on would be a perilous task.   The Vasagi fanned out across the plain crouching low.  Here and there stood the rianna trees; great slender towers breaking into spidery meshes high above.   Their bark was black and gnarled like stone, for they stood many lifetimes and journeyed through the great darkness, then through the warmer fertile days of light, through the time of searing heat and back again into the long sunset.  Their last crown of leaves was falling and none would sprout again for half a lifetime, until the world made half a turn.

Torrin heard light foot falls approaching as Turnal and Valhad joined him.

“Father sent us to join you,” whispered Turnal as she knelt beside him.  “That you should show us the way of the task.”

“The task is simple enough,” replied Torrin, “to make the herd run, in the direction we choose, without any of us being killed or trampled.  We must be careful for if they see our number too soon they will move away, but not far or fast enough.  And the bulls may attack.”

Torrin stood slowly and looked along the line of hunters.

“Turnal,” he said “Go to the end of the line and make it longer.  Try to keep them from running back behind us.  Valhad, stay here with me.”

Turnal sped off between the scattered trees, her dark locks bobbing.

“What shall I do, Torrin?”  Asked Valhad.

“Stay close to me.”

“Should I not take a place in the line with the others?”

Torrin turned to look at the young man beside him.  He had the blue eyes of Perrith, but bluer still, as blue as any flower that ever grew, and hair as golden as Varna's.  There was an earnest enquiring smile surrounded by a short wispy beard.  It was the eyes that had some special quality, that pierced deep and seemed to speak as if words were in them.

“I would bring at least one of you home alive, Valhad.”

“This is how your father died?”

Torrin looked into those blue eyes for a silent moment, then nodded, for it was so, and the old pictures in his mind of a falling, rolling body under trampling hooves troubled him much.  It was as though Valhad knew that, as if he could look through the mask of Torrin’s eyes and read the private words within.

“Will they run or fight today, Torrin?”

“The thunder makes them strange and I would not guess how it will be.  Stay close and do not chase them far beyond the trees for they might turn.   And if you cannot escape hold your spear well; you know where the point must go.”

Valhad looked uneasily at the carved bone forming the point of the weapon.  

“You know I have never killed any beast, Torrin.”

“You never needed to.  That may soon change.”

Torrin jumped up and led the line of hunters forward.  They ran towards the herd, shouting, slapping their hands together and waving tasseled spears above them.  As one the startled barak turned their heads.   Many took off, cantered a little and then stopped to see what threatened them.  Several of the bulls darted from side to side and bellowed defiance.  The hunters ran on towards the milling animals, still shouting and waving.   Torrin glanced to the right and saw that part of the herd already galloping in flight.  He turned to the left and watched as a lone bull charged at the line of advancing figures.  He saw one hunter scooped and tossed into the air; the man landed heavily, rolled through the grass but quickly sprang upright.  The bull spun ready to attack again but a swift darting figure diverted its attention and drew it away.  Although the scene was distant Torrin recognised Turnal weaving through the grass, leading the bull towards a broad rianna tree.  She hid behind the trunk and began a deadly game as the enraged animal chased her in circles, butting and gouging the ancient timber.