The Kin (50 page)

But there had been a different Mana yesterday, one who had never killed people. That Mana had been happier, despite her fear.

She and Ko watched all morning, but saw no sign of danger. There was no question now of fishing in the eastern marsh, with the path no longer hidden and the spirits of the dead men bringing demons to lurk among the reeds. So they went down the other side and out to the island and ate scraps for their midday meal. But Suth came in with the cheering news that the path had now reached a new area of water where the fishing was better, and several fish holes had already been cut. When they had eaten they went out to see, and were allowed to fish for a while at one of these. They took turns. Mana caught nothing, but Ko speared a good fish, short but deep bodied, and carried it back to the island in triumph.

Not far into the night, as she slept on the hillside, Mana was woken by the moon rising above the ridge. It was now more than half full, its light even brighter and the shadows it cast even blacker than they had seemed the night before. The moonhawks were again busy, coming and going in quick succession as the stronger light made it easier for them to find their prey.

Someone close by was moaning in her sleep. The sound stopped, and Mana saw a dark figure—Noli—push herself up and stand with arms wide spread, facing the moon. The bottom half of her body was in shadow, but the top half was clear in the sharp, pale light. The voice of Moonhawk breathed in slow syllables into the silence.

“Big moon … Men … bring Kern …”

Mana rose and crept to Noli's side, ready to ease her fall.

“Big moon …” sighed the voice again.

Noli shuddered. Mana put her arms round her. Her body went as rigid as a log, and then, just as quickly, slack. Mana was almost knocked over by the sudden weight, but she managed to lower her to the ground, still asleep but again moaning softly, while everyone else, wide awake now, sat up and wondered in whispers what the message could mean. It was a long time before any of them slept again.

Next morning went much the same as the day before. Mana and Ko kept lookout and saw nothing. But as they went down the hill at noon they felt a change. There was a wind blowing in their faces. The adults were already talking about it as they reached the island.

“I say this,” said Var. “These men find no food here. They go back to their place, they get food, they bring it. This is two days. It is three. I do not know. Now west wind comes. They stand on the hill. They look far. They see the marsh. Do they see our path? Our island? I say they do.”

“Moonhawk says big moon,” said Net. “Three days is not big moon.”

“Hear me,” said Suth. “I say this. Var is right. Net is right. Say in your hearts,
I am a demon man
. Now say,
Men, women are in this place. We are many. We hunt them. Where are they?
What do you do? I say first you come, few, few. You hide. You are not seen. You look this way, that way. You see the marsh. The mist is gone. You say,
They are there
. You search the rocks. You smell baby dung. You find people hair. You say,
They sleep here
. You say,
At night we come, at big moon. Moon is strong. We find these men, these women. They are asleep
. I think you do all this.”

“Suth, you are right,” said Chogi.

“This wind is bad, bad,” said Var.

A slight movement caught Mana's eye. Tinu, sitting a few places to her left. She had reached across Bodu to touch Noli's wrist. Bodu shifted out of the way, and while the others continued to talk Tinu squatted beside Noli and mumbled into her ear. Mana couldn't hear what she was saying, but she could see how eagerly she struggled to get the words out through her twisted mouth.

After a while Noli signalled to Suth, who rose from among the men on the far side of the fire and came round. Tinu shuffled herself back and she and Suth crouched together, he listening and sometimes asking a question, Tinu mumbling excitedly away, scratching on the ground with a stick, rubbing the marks out, and drawing again.

Mana saw Nar watching them anxiously. Since he and Tinu had chosen each other, though they were not yet mates, he had been very protective of her. And Tinu had grown more confident, but still she would never have dreamed of standing up in front of everyone and telling them some idea she had had, though they would all have been ready to listen.

Now the rest of them continued to argue about when and how the next attack would come, but somehow aimlessly, as they waited to hear what Tinu was telling Suth.

At last he moved back to his place among the men, but didn't sit down. He looked at Tun.

“Speak, Suth,” said Tun. “We hear.”

“Hear me,” said Suth. “This is not my thought. It is Tinu's. I say it for her. Var is wrong. This wind is not bad. It is good.”

Stage by stage he told them Tinu's terrifying plan.

They argued about it for a long while, some of them adding ideas and details, others making objections. Var kept saying how dangerous it was, and how many things could go wrong. What if the wind died? What if the demon men realized it was a trap? What if only a few of them came after all? What if …?

Every time he raised one of these doubts Mana heard mutters of agreement.

“Hear me,” said Chogi suddenly. “I remember this. There was a demon lion. The men made a trap. Noli was bait, and Ko. We killed the demon lion. It was Tinu's thought. There was a demon crocodile. The women dug a trap. Nar was bait. We killed the demon crocodile. This also was Tinu's thought. Demon men came to the reedbed. Tun fought them, and Ridi and Mana. They killed them. At a trap they did this. It was Tinu's thought. Now I say this. We make a new trap. We are bait, we women, our men, our children. I say in my heart,
This is dangerous, dangerous. But it is Tinu's thought. It is good.”

“Hear me,” said Tun. “I say this. Var speaks well. Chogi speaks well. Who is right? I do not know. But I have another thought. It is this. I swore an oath. On Odutu I swore it, Odutu below the Mountain. In my oath I said,
I
kill these demon men
. How do I do this? It is difficult, difficult. Tinu shows me the way. It is enough.”

That settled it. Even Var stopped arguing. He too had sworn the oath upon Odutu below the Mountain and, however dangerous the undertaking, that oath was binding. The risk had to be taken.

They started at once on the task, Tun allocating the different jobs that had to be done, mostly cutting a huge new curving path through the dried-out reedbed between the island and that shore, but also hollowing out crude fire logs from whatever they could find, and cutting extra traps along the main entrance path.

But of course they still needed to eat, so Mana was sent off to fish at one of the new holes. As she settled down beside the little patch of water she felt that she would never catch anything. All of her, body and spirit, seemed to be vibrating, silently buzzing, with a new mixture of excitement and hope and fear. The long, poised stillness needed for fishing seemed quite impossible, but she found that her feelings seemed to weave themselves together, telling her that what she was doing, as well as what she was going to do, was all part of the plan. They were things within her power, not beyond her. If she did them right, the Kin would survive. If not, then not.

So focused, she fished eagerly, passionately, all afternoon, and it seemed to her that her waiting was stiller than usual, her aim surer, her strike swifter. She made five strikes in all, and as the sun went down towards the west and the strange clean air glowed with gold light, she came back to the island with five good fish threaded on her stick.

For the next three days Mana saw very little of the work that everyone else was busy on. In the mornings she kept lookout on the ridge, at midday she went back to the island and gobbled whatever had been left over for her, and then went straight out to one of the fishing holes for the rest of the afternoon.

On the second day came a stroke of luck. Net, Yova, Nar and Tinu, cutting the northern arm of the new path, reached the nesting area of a colony of marsh herons. Nar ran to fetch help, and while the adult birds circled, squawking furiously, the people robbed the nests of tens and tens of half-grown fledglings. There was a feast that evening on the island, and a change from the endless diet of fish. They left the marsh as darkness fell and climbed the hill with a strange, unreasonable feeling that all might yet be well.

That night, for the first time, they laired in the same place as the night before, a little way down the hill from the hiding place that Suth had found for the lookouts. When they left next morning they made no attempt to conceal the fact that they'd been there—indeed they deliberately left a few traces, a handprint in a soft patch, the spine of a small fish, a few strands of human hair.

Tinu's plan had several versions, depending on when and how the enemy chose to attack, and whether scouts would come first to spy out their ways. That would be best, for then the scouts would find a place where people had laired in the night, and the demon men would come and try to catch their prey sleeping unawares one night when the moon was big.

Noli was no help with any of this guesswork. Though Mana and many of the others had heard Moonhawk's message, Noli herself had no memory of it at all, only the shadowy knowledge that she had dreamed, and Moonhawk had been there in her dream.

So each morning as Mana climbed the hill in the brief half-light she told herself that today would be the day. She settled into her place as the sun rose and concentrated everything that was in her into a steadfast search of the hillside, working her way over it rock by rock by rock, making sure that she missed nothing at all, not the slightest movement or change.

Each day the wind blew ever more steadily, rattling the dead reedstems together and scouring the haze away, just as Var had said it would. By the second day Mana, slinking down the hill with Ko after their stint on watch, could see the bright glimmer of water far out across the marsh, and beyond that other reedbeds and islands, stretching all the way to the western hills.

But to her relief, though she knew where the path was, she couldn't actually see it winding its way through the tangled reeds. The nearest island must be the one where they laired, but there was no sign of the fire, or of people living there.

Oldtale

SIKU

Fat Pig and Snake went down the Mountain. Black Antelope made himself invisible. He went with them. They did not see him
.

They were afraid. They said in their hearts, We have no powers. Men hunt us. They kill us. They roast our flesh on embers. They eat it. We are gone. This is bad, bad
.

Fat Pig said, “My Kin lair at Windy Cliff. They do not eat Pig. I go there. I hide in long grasses. I wait. I see Roh, their leader. I show myself to him. He sees me first. He hears my words. This is good.”

Fat Pig journeyed to Windy Cliff. Black Antelope went with him. Fat Pig did not see him
.

Now Kin fought with Kin, Snake against Fat Pig. They raided, they lay in wait, they set traps. They struck fierce blows, they threw stones, they bit with their teeth, blood flowed, men died. Those times were bad
.

The men of Fat Pig said, “The rains are gone. Soon all the Kins go to Mambaga. The white-tail buck cross the river. The Kins hunt them. We do not fight at Mambaga. It is a Thing Not Done. But see, now Snake lair at Old Woman Creek. They go to Mambaga by way of Beehive Waterhole. We go now. We lie in wait for them there.”

They sharpened their digging sticks. They set out. The women stayed. They were sad
.

Siku was a child. She had no father, no mother. She foraged with the women. No one watched her
.

She came to the cliff. A bloodberry vine grew there. It was of this sort:

See, Gata the Beautiful. Her hair was long, long. It shone. It flowed down over her shoulders. Her skin was hidden. So the bloodberry vine flowed down the cliff
.

Siku saw good bloodberries. She said in her heart, They are too high. The vine is weak. The women are heavy. They do not climb to them. But I am a child, light. I climb
.

She took hold of the vine. She climbed. The vine broke. She fell. She fell upon a soft thing. It was Fat Pig. He hid behind the vine
.

Siku spoke as a child speaks, thus: “Pig, why do you hide? My Kin is Fat Pig. We do not eat pig.”

Fat Pig did not answer. He said in his heart, Must I speak to a child? Must she carry my words to my Kin? Who hears me?

Siku said, “Oh, pig, I am sad, sad. Men lay in wait. They killed my father. I have no father. My mother grieved. She did not eat. A sickness took her. I have no mother.”

Fat Pig said in his heart, This is my doing. He spoke. He said, “Siku, I hear you.”

Siku said, “Oh, pig, you have words! How is this? Is it demon stuff?”

Fat Pig said, “Siku, it is not demon stuff. I am Fat Pig.”

Siku knelt down. She laid her forehead on the ground. She fluttered her fingers. She said, “Oh, Fat Pig, I am your piglet. The men go to Beehive Waterhole. They lie in wait for Snake. Say to them, Do not do this.”

Fat Pig said, “Siku, they do not hear me. Only you hear me.”

Siku said, “Fat Pig, how is this?”

Fat Pig said, “Black Antelope made it so. I do not tell you more. It is my shame.”

Siku said, “Fat Pig, this is not good. Our women said to the men, Do not go. The men said, There is rage in our hearts
—
we go. How do the men hear me, Siku? I am a child, a girl child.”

Fat Pig thought. He said, “We find Snake. He is at Old Woman Creek.”

Siku said, “That is far, too far.”

Fat Pig said, “Climb on my back. I go quick.”

Siku climbed on his back. All day he ran, and all night. Black Antelope went with them. They did not see him. They came to Old Woman Creek
.