The Prodigal Troll Part 18

"Four," Maggot said firmly. "What is, we go do?"

"To hunt and kill the Lion of the valley," said Keekyu. "If we can, and if the Lion does not kill us first."

Pisqueto stopped smiling and bounced less.

"He speaks truly," Sinnglas said. "But without the Lion to protect them, the invaders will be afraid."

"Four of us not are needed to kill lion," said Maggot, swinging his arm to show how he had choked and stabbed one. "I kill lion, one time, all me. From out of tree, I felled, I stabbed lion in heart. Take me to valley where this lion is, and I will kill him."

The three men waited quietly for a moment. "You will come with us and have your chance," Sinnglas said.

Keekyu took steps along the trail. "We must go with the news, and prepare the men of the village for the dance, and for the expedition that is coming."

"It's war!" Pisqueto said. Sinnglas nodded.

Maggot shared their happiness. "It's war!" he said cheerfully.

group of women, ranging from old and stoop-shouldered to young and grinning, was gathered just outside the palisade gate. They s.h.i.+ed away from Maggot as he pa.s.sed by, but he was too busy thinking about the other woman to care. He was going to war with Sinnglas, and while he didn't know what war meant, he knew there was a lion to kill. The woman had looked at the lion's skin. He could kill Sinnglas's lion too, if it was bigger, and present her with that skin to show her his intentions.

Sinnglas led the other three through the village. It contained thirty-nine lodges-Maggot had counted them twice-although some contained only a few fire pits and some contained many. They came to Sinnglas's wife's lodge and entered. People looked up as the four men walked past the other fires to the room where Sinnglas lived.

His wife turned her round face questioningly toward them, but Sinnglas said nothing to her. When Maggot, Keekyu, and Pisqueto sat beside the fire pit, she placed bowls of ground corn before them. Keekyu picked up his bowl, took one bite, and grunted. "I don't dare eat this."

Sinnglas's wife stopped what she was doing, but didn't look over at him. Pisqueto, bent over his bowl, said around a mouth of food, "Why not?"

Keekyu sighed, his older face sagging sadly. "When we have no corn to eat next winter, I'll remember this bowl and die of heartbreak."

Pisqueto grinned. Sinnglas's wife smiled very slightly and went back to work. Maggot scooped his food into his mouth, but everything tasted like smoke to him, stifling his appet.i.te.

Sinnglas didn't eat. Instead, he retrieved his hatchet and sat apart to mark it with red paint, tie red feathers to it, and bind it with strings of black beads. His wife walked toward him, then away. She pulled first at one braid, then the other, plucking at the quill-work flowers that outlined her dress.

"Will it be tonight then?" she asked finally.

"Yes," Sinnglas said, without looking up.

Her shoulders slumped as she turned away.

Maggot was not sure what had just happened between them. People were not demonstrative in the same way that trolls were. While living in their lodge, he had seen Sinnglas and his wife couple several times, but he had never seen them groom one another-women did that only with other women, men with men. He had not been introduced to Sinnglas's wife, or told her name; and when he had tried to speak to her, she always turned away from him. Perhaps that was what he had done wrong with the woman in her tent. He should have just given her the lion's skin and not mentioned the good way she stank.

Sinnglas's wife placed a second serving in front of Keekyu. Pisqueto made a pleading gesture, but she took away his and Maggot's empty bowls to clean them. Keekyu smacked his lips noisily, taunting them both as he ate.

When Sinnglas completed his preparations, he rose to leave. Maggot and the two brothers followed him to the clearing outside the council lodge.

A tree trunk, stripped of bark and branches, rose out of the ground. It stood half again taller than a man, as straight as a ray of light. Skins of snakes, some of them longer than Maggot had ever seen, looped around and around the post in great flimsy coils, slowly shredded by time and weather. The wizard Gelapa tended the snakeskins, collecting them from the lower valleys. When the wind blew, he crouched by the post, listening to the skins as they scuffed and whispered. Later, he made announcements according to what the skins had told him. Although Maggot had tried listening to the skins, they said no more to him than gra.s.ses rustled by the breeze.

Gelapa sat beside the pole now, with his head canted to one side, listening though no wind stirred the skins. He wore his hair in two short braids, like the women. His eyes were deep-set, wrinkled at the corners and resting on thick folds of skin. He squinted at the four men, scowled at Sinnglas and Maggot. Then he shook his head, saying, "Young men will always be young men."

"If only leaders would always lead us," Sinnglas replied.

He raised his hatchet and made to strike it against the post, but the wizard coughed. "Does the wind carry the future to you"-he turned his head to Maggot-"or to your friend, that you know the future and the vote of the council before the council votes?"

"I raise a raiding party, Grandfather," Sinnglas answered. All the men called Gelapa Grandfather. "Those who wish to follow me may do so."

"Who do you make your raid against?" Gelapa asked.

People gathered to watch, including many of the women from the gate, alerted perhaps by Sinnglas's wife, who hovered nearby. Sinnglas held his blow and spoke loudly, so that they might hear him. "Against those who take the meat from our mouths. Against those who steal the harvest from our fields."

The wizard rose slowly. He stood stiffly, with his back bent, glaring at Sinnglas. "So you say, Grandson. But will you return from your raid with meat and corn and gourds, or only with news to make the mothers mourn?"

"I will come like the sun, rising high above the mountains, bringing another season in which our people may grow-"

"No," Maggot blurted. "Like the sun, not."

Sinnglas stared at the ground, caressing his hatchet. "And what should I say instead, Maqwet, my friend?"

Maggot inhaled, thinking of the things he wished he might have said when he'd campaigned against Ragweed to be First. "You say instead: the sun, when you return, will fear your coming. It will not to rise unless first you give it your speak. The sun, when you speak, will hunt down the lion. Like a pack of dyrewolves, it will tear the lion to pieces."

Sinnglas's hand paused in its stroke. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "You will have to say it for me; otherwise I would be bragging."

"I will say it for you."

Gelapa teetered unsteadily away from Maggot. His face was marked by loathing. "So that's how it is?"

Sinnglas nodded. "Yes, Grandfather."

Gelapa looked to the crowd, encompa.s.sed them with a sweep of his arm. "Do well, then. We have a distinguished guest among us. It will be good to show Squandral the spirit of our young men, and also the wisdom of our elders."

Sinnglas raised the hatchet and thunked it into the post. A strip of snakeskin broke loose and fluttered to the ground.

Keekyu shook his fist at the crowd. Some cheered and shouted Sinnglas's name, while others rushed off among the narrow paths between the houses to tell the rest of the village.

Gelapa bent to the ground and gathered up the snakeskin, saying, "Ah ah ah, that's how it will be. Very well, let some mother prepare to weep." Before he shuffled away, his sunken eyes glanced off Maggot once last time.

Sinnglas had many friends-the men he visited frequently. One showed up at the post, then another, their arms full of items Maggot had never seen them wear before. Pisqueto and Keekyu went and collected similar things. In a short time nine men had joined Sinnglas and his brothers. The youngest was a slight lad who barely had hair about his groin; Sinnglas was the oldest but for Keekyu, and the only man among them who was married. Keekyu had no mate. Most were around the ages of Pisqueto and Maggot, between fifteen and twenty winters. They entered the building beside the council lodge.

A few men stopped, pointing with their chins at Maggot's long hair and smiling. Mostly they ignored him. They put on skirts that hung to their knees, beautiful things with fringes like hair and covered with tiny beaded patterns. Some were made of deerskin, and some of a soft, plush fabric marked with colors like Maggot had seen among the lion hunters. They fastened elaborate belts about their waists and slipped soft boots upon their feet, some tying bright red leggings about their knees, pausing often to praise one another.

Maggot wandered around the lodge watching them dress. When he heard voices outside, he went to the entrance and pushed aside the skin.

The villagers had gathered in a big circle centered on the council lodge next door. Mostly women and children-he saw none of the older men who formed the council. The wizard paraded around in front of them, speaking on the sacredness of the ancient ways of their people.

The crowd murmured and parted from behind. Damaqua strode through them, ducking his head as he entered the council hall.

Behind Maggot, a young man shouted, "Ai-yi-yi-yi yi yi-Yi!"

Some of the small children ran over to the lodge to peek into the door. When they saw Maggot they stopped short, eyes wide. He dropped the skin and chose a place against the wall where he could crouch.

All of the men wore their black hair cropped short, although Sinnglas and his brothers had been letting theirs go uncut since the spring. Sinnglas had told him that the invaders prohibited men from wearing warrior's braids: when they came to trade or collect their taxes, they cut off the hair of men who wore it too long or killed the men instead. Inside the lodge, men covered their hair with caps, some red and some white, one man's a yellow like b.u.t.tercup flowers. Sinnglas's cap had a silver band around the base, as did several others. All were adorned with cl.u.s.ters of white feathers and a single eagle's plume projecting upward from the top. Many had a short braid of black hair affixed in the back. More and more of the men broke out in trilling screams as they painted each other's faces with stripes and dots.

Caught up in the spirit at the preparations, Maggot imitated their shout. "Ai-yi-yi-yi yi yi-Yi!"

The men fell silent, glancing at Maggot and then to Sinnglas. Perhaps he had not done it right. His voice, schooled to deepness by life among the trolls, did not always. .h.i.t the highest notes.

Then Pisqueto laughed and answered with a call of his own. Several men echoed it, and they all returned their attention to grooming one another. When Sinnglas finished painting Keekyu's face, he came over to Maggot.

"Stand," he said, and Maggot did. "Turn around."

Maggot turned around, feeling Sinnglas's hands in his hair, sorting it into three long strands.

"You will not dance with us," Sinnglas said, looping one strand over another. "You are not of our village, nor did you come to us bearing the black-beaded warclub. But this will give my brother Damaqua and his followers something to think about. Perhaps, this will also make Squandral see the necessity of war even without my brother's support."

"Would that be good?" Maggot asked.

"It is our only hope as a people. Our fires grow cold. Where once we had villages all along these foothills, from the great sea in the north to the plains in the south, there now remain but a few: three in this region-my brother's, Squandral's, and Custalo's-plus several more farther to the south. The game in our hunting grounds diminish, and the soil of our fields grows thin because the invaders occupy the land where we would have once planted new crops."

Maggot's throat grew choked as Sinnglas spoke. He had witnessed the same thing among the trolls.

Sinnglas finished the braid and tied it at the base with a ribbon. "Now you look like a warrior, as we did in the days of honor before the invaders came."

Maggot tugged at his braid. It pulled his scalp tight. It was just like the one worn by the bearded man, the one he called First, who had led the lion hunters.

"The path of peace pursued by my father and my brother leads us only into the invaders' trap," Sinnglas said. "We cannot move over the mountains: our enemies prosper there and outnumber us, but they do not pursue us here because of the giants living in the high places and because they do not wish to anger the Lion. So this is where we must stand and fight."

Maggot thought that he would like fighting. From what Sinnglas told him, it was a kind of wrestling like his old bouts against Fart and other trolls. "I will fight with you."

Sinnglas squeezed Maggot's forearm. "This dance will let us see if all of my people feel as you do, or if they would rather hide in the woods like deer, a few here, a few there, always frightened of the Lion's roar."

Drums sounded outside, a rhythm tapped and cut short. The wave of voices rose and fell. The wizard had ceased speaking.

The men inside the lodge stamped their feet impatiently and flexed their arms. Naked from the waist up, each man carried a warclub, bow, or other weapon. Some wore no more than the basic cloths, and a little paint. Others wore decorated bands about their arms and thighs, and several had rattles tied in bundles about their calves.

They were all ready except Sinnglas, whom Maggot had delayed. Sinnglas tied a set of copper bells, tarnished green with age, below his knees. He jingled when he stood and walked to the head of the line waiting at the entrance. Then he ran through the entrance. The others followed him, screaming.

Maggot exited last, walking, silent. The dark blue of evening bruised the eastern sky.

Sinnglas's shrill cry continued as he led the runners outside the circle of people. Over a hundred people gathered, the whole village, until the elder men of the council came out of the lodge and stood in the circle. Squandral joined them, gazing down the beak of his nose like an eagle perched on the mountainside. The trollbirds hovered at his shoulders. Narrow-faced Menato scanned the crowd until his eyes lit on Maggot, paused, and moved on. When Damaqua finally emerged last, he stood there solemnly, lids half-closed like an old troll asleep on his feet. Tanaghri, his advisor, slipped away.

Sinnglas led the dancers around the outside one last time, stopping when he reached Damaqua. The jingling and the rattles fell silent. They stood there, the two brothers facing one another. The crowd murmured and s.h.i.+fted. Sinnglas opened his mouth to say something.

Damaqua stepped aside first.

Sinnglas gave a frightening whoop, which was answered by the others as they poured into the open circle. There was a collective exclamation from the audience to which Maggot added his voice. The drummers were seated off to one side next to Gelapa. Four men sat at two drums, like the one Maggot had stolen, only shorter and squatter. They began to pound and sing as the feet of the dancers resounded upon the ground.

"Heh," someone said behind Maggot.

He jumped, spinning to see Damaqua's advisor, Tanaghri.

"Tell Sinnglas that he should enjoy his dance tonight," Tanaghri said. "Let the young men feel good. But the council will send a mes senger down to the Lion's men to warn them of his coming. It will be best if he turns them elseway, over the pa.s.ses, to attack the farms of our ancient enemy."

"I to tell him should go now?" Maggot asked, so fl.u.s.tered he couldn't put his words in proper order.

Tanaghri snorted. "Only a fool needs close instruction. No, tell him alone, later, when the dance is done."

He turned away and pa.s.sed through the crowd again.

The rapid song paused-Maggot spun to see the drummers and dancers waiting. Just as he drew breath to ask someone about this, the music and dance resumed at a faster pace, building to a crescendo. When it ended the dancers paced, heads down, in a tight knot until Sinnglas whooped, the others answered, and the drummers began a new song.

The dancers pounded their heels upon the ground in time with the music and struck exaggerated poses with their weapons. One man listened and another watched, one man struck with his club while another cut with his knife and others drew their bows. Kinnicut, the blacksmith, wielded his iron-headed war hammer as though he stood at his pounding stone. Sometimes they attacked and sometimes defended.

It was not the way that Maggot would hunt a lion.

But then his way, dropping from a tree, was the troll way, and he wanted to learn to be like people so he could find the woman again and show his interest to her.

The dancers continued until their bodies glistened with sweat. Maggot had never hunted animals or wrestled another troll where the action continued as long as this. Sinnglas extended the time between songs when the men stalked menacingly within the circle. But again and again he raised his voice, the dancers answered, and the drummers played.

As the seventh or eighth song-a rapt Maggot had forgotten to count-built toward its culmination, a tapping sound came from the circle of observers. The drummers stopped instantly, mallets poised in the air. The dancers paused too and stood relaxed, breathing deeply.

The interruption was made by Kagesh, one of the council members. "All my friends and relatives," Kagesh said. "This dance pleases me, and I hope it will continue unabated. I give thanks to the wardancers for the spirit with which they perform their duty to our people. When I was a young man, I was the greatest dancer in the village. No one could surpa.s.s me. So I know that it is thirsty work. To the dancers I give this flask of medicine waters, to allay their thirst when they are done."

Some of the people laughed or clapped, and some of the dancers smiled. But not Sinnglas, who had many times decried the invaders' medicine waters. Keekyu, often the brunt of his brother's complaints, stepped forward and politely accepted the gift on behalf of the dancers.

The drum sounded, Sinnglas whooped, and the dancers responded. The performance resumed. During the next dance, there was another tap and another lapse into silence.

Tanaghri stood at the left hand of Damaqua again. "All my friends and relatives," he said. "It is fitting that the dancers should perform tonight, for we have among us the eminent Squandral, who has gone to war in his own day. I want to recognize the women who a.s.sisted in the preparation of the feast that honored Squandral. We did not eat so much food, or so well, when I was a young man. Since I cannot give presents to them all, I ask that one comes forward, she who was greediest and ate most from the pot."

The crowd laughed at this, and one bent old woman was pushed forward by the others, shuffling over to Tanaghri to accept his gift of a silver coin. She held it up and grinned with gap-toothed goodwill. The people applauded. When the old woman stepped away, the drummers resumed, the dancers cried out, and the cycle repeated.

More interruptions followed, many of them barbs exchanged between the older men or comments honoring the singers and dancers. The speakers gave away medicine weed and silver coins and other items, some to the singers, some to the dancers, some to one another, as twilight fell. Maggot soon realized that the speeches gave the dancers a chance to rest, and encouraged them, so that they could keep up their performance. When they danced, Maggot found himself pounding out the rhythm with his own feet.

Then Damaqua tapped, and the drummers and dancers fell silent. Sinnglas froze in midmotion, forgetting to relax.

"All my friends and relatives," Damaqua said in his fluid, resonant voice. "I would like to recognize my brother Sinnglas, the leader of this dance. Maybe you remember our father, who was wise and had long vision so that for many years he served as our First." The word he used was not First, but that's how Maggot understood it. "I would like to present Sinnglas with this medal, on which the Empress's face is printed, to remind him of what our father wore all those years he lived in peace with the invaders."

The medal hung on a ribbon around Damaqua's neck. He lifted it over his head and offered it to Sinnglas, who stood motionless with his warclub raised above his head. Damaqua walked into the circle, medal dangling from his fist.

For several seconds, the only sounds to be heard were the rapid chirps of the crickets and the distant burps of frogs.

Sinnglas covered his brother's fist with his hand. One of the drummers started pounding again, and after missing several beats, the others joined in. But Sinnglas did not let go of his brother's hand, or else his brother would not let go of the medal. And because Sinnglas made no sound, the other dancers stood still amid the drumming.

Maggot s.h.i.+fted, fidgeted, until his eyes met those of Sinnglas's wife, and he saw her worry and fear for her husband, her embarra.s.sment by this thing done wrong, and then Maggot found himself pus.h.i.+ng through the silent throng of watchers until he ran into the circle, raising the war whoop in Sinnglas's place.

As he started pounding his heels in imitation of the dancers he had watched so carefully, one voice took up the cry with him-Pisqueto. Then Keekyu, then the others. They all commenced dancing. When he completed the circle, Maggot saw Sinnglas take the medal from his brother, hang it about his neck, and join the dancing, and he felt glad.

He slashed with his knife, reliving his struggle with the lion, showing them all his skill and fearlessness before they went to hunt another lion. He dropped to his knees, nearly tripping the man behind him, wrapped his arm around an invisible throat, and plunged the knife between its ribs.

The dance went by more quickly when one partic.i.p.ated. The tempo increased sooner than Maggot expected, but before the song concluded Sinnglas jumped to the side of the drummers and tapped wood for silence.

"All my friends and relatives," he said, panting, bending to untie the bells from his legs. "My wise brother Damaqua recalls our history for us. He reminds us that the long period of peace we had with the invaders began with a period of war. To show him that we must be like our father, and move through war to peace again, I give him these copper rattles. If he has not forgotten the ways of our people, perhaps he will come back into the circle and show us how to dance."