Just introduced it as a kind of play-acting, you mean? I think that’s a little unjust, Alea said. After all, every generation finds some belief of their own to prove their independence. Children and grandchildren could have drifted farther and farther away from the Druids’ teachings.
Away from Druidism—but toward what? Gar wondered. What replaced it? What do they believe in now?
The blood feud, Alea thought darkly. The vendetta.
Yes. Gar’s thoughts had somber overtones. When there’s no law, people band together into clans and tribes for security. Their only protection against strangers’ mayhem is knowing their own clan will take revenge if they’re hurt.
So someone from clan A kills someone from clan B, Alea said, and clan B kills a clan A member in revenge.
Then clan B goes out to kill as many clan A people as it can, Gar said. Vengeance begets vengeance, and pretty soon clansfolk from A are killing clansfolk from B in revenge for the last death, and clansfolk B are killing clansfolk A in revenge for the revenge …
…And revenge for the revenge for the revenge, Alea said, and so on and so on and so on.
Before long; A clansfolk are killing B clansfolk whenever they can, simply because they were born to, Gar finished, and no one even remembers how it started.
Or if they do, they don’t care, Alea said. Neither do I. Never mind how they started the feud-how do we stop it?
By introducing law, Gar answered.
Brilliant, Professor, Alea thought with withering sarcasm. How do you intend to do that?
I haven’t quite worked out that part yet, Gar admitted.
He would, though—Alea was sure of that. She felt a cold chill. Gar’s plans always worked, but they sometimes had disastrous side effects.
The clansfolk were up bright and early very bright, and far too early. They were out feeding the barnyard animals in the false dawn. When Gar and Alea were on the road, though, that was when they usually woke up, so they sat down with the family and pitched in to a very hearty breakfast.
They were at the head table again, and the talk was of the crops and the stock, the weather and the work to be done that day. Gar and Alea listened, soaking it all in but unable to join the conversation, since they knew nothing of the topics—not here, at least.
After a while, the family realized it, and an uneasy silence settled as everyone thought frantically of a topic that would include the guests, but Alea found one first, one that had been piquing her curiosity for some time. “We met some … people on the road such as we’ve never seen before—glowing creatures with wings who claimed to be older than any human folk. Could they have been real?”
Isaac and Martha shrank back in their chairs, making signs against evil. So did Grandma Em, but she gave them a look that was quite severe and demanded, “Had you gone into the deep woods, then? Tell me you didn’t meet them in the fields!”
“No, we didn’t,” Alea stammered. “We lost our way…”
“In the woods.” Gar took up the tale with easy grace. “The road led into a woodlot, then ended. We cast about, trying to find our way back to the fields, but the trees grew larger and larger until…”
“Grandma Em!” A young man hurried up to the table, rifle still in one hand as he snatched off his hat with the other. “Ephraim has sent word, from the fence out past the north forty. He saw the glitter off a gun barrel coming down the hillside a mile off. Then a flock of grackles burst into the air, making a racket that sounded an alarm for all the birds in the forest!”
4
An alarm for us, too!” Isaac shoved back his chair as he rose. “There’s Belinkuns coming through them woods!” Then he remembered the courtesies and turned to Grandma Em. “Shall we go against them?”
“Do,” Grandma said, “but only send twenty rifles. Leave a dozen here and have the other ten scout the rest of the boundaries. It’s not like the Belinkuns to let themselves be seen so easy.”
“Diversion!” Martha snapped. “They’re trying to draw us away while their main body attacks somewhere else! You take the twenty, Isaac, and I’ll go scout with the ten!”
“Sound the alarm,” Isaac told the young man, who nodded and hurried away.
Word had run by itself through the keeping room, though. All the clansfolk were up and running for their weapons except for a few Grandma Em’s age, who sat and swore because they were too old to do more than hug the little ones who stared, wide-eyed and frightened, as their parents and big brothers and big sisters rushed about, snatching up weapons and hats and bolting for the door. In minutes they were gone, leaving only the old and the young. Even the bigger children exclaimed in anger and pleaded with their seniors to be allowed to go out and join the fight.
“Don’t even speak of it, Allie,” one old woman told a ten-year-old. “You know you’re not big enough to tote more than a carbine.”
“But I’m a dead shot with it!” The little girl thrust her jaw out pugnaciously. “I can bring down a squirrel at a hundred yards!”
“So you can, and that’ll suit us right fine when you’re fourteen,” said the old man sitting next to her. “Wait till you’re old enough to carry a rifle, though.”
“That’ll be forever!”
Alea stared at them, shaken.
“What ails you, friend?” Grandma Em asked. “Never seen one so keen?”
“Not that young, no.” Alea pushed back her chair and rose. “If you don’t mind, Miz Farland, I’ll go out and join the rifles.”
“Yes, I think we should.” Gar rose, too. “After all, you’ve given us hospitality.”
Grandma Em frowned. “Can you shoot?”
“Of course.” Alea didn’t mention that she’d never used a gun that fired bullets, only raw bursts of energy.
The old woman considered the issue, frowning, then pronounced her judgment. “ ‘Tain’t fitten for guests to take sides, and poor hospitality if we let you go into danger.”
“We can’t just sit here idle while people may be dying!” Gar objected.
Grandma Em smiled. “You sound like that eager little one there.”
“I’m a bit older than ten,” Alea said tartly.
Grandma Em relented. “Well, that’s so. Go and watch, then, and maybe help with the wounded if the shooting moves past them. But don’t let yourself get into the line of fire, you hear?”
“We hear,” Alea said, “and we promise. Come on, Gar.”
She rushed for the doorway; he was only a step behind her.
Grandma Em smiled after them, nodding her head slowly, and if the gleam in her eye was shrewd, who was there to notice?
As soon as they were out in the yard with people rushing past too quickly to listen, Alea said, “I’ll scan the other boundaries. You sound out the main force of Belinkuns.”
Gar nodded, his eyes losing focus. Alea turned away with a shudder; it seemed as though the man became a mindless body. Of course, she went into the same sort of trance herself, listening for the Belinkuns’ thoughts, but that didn’t matter—she didn’t have to watch it.
There they were, a score of Belinkuns slipping through the northern field, bowing low so that the ears of maize above their heads would hide them. But Alea listened for other thoughts, other minds. She sensed the sharp wordless impulses of hungry creatures, the unvoiced delight of those who had found some food, but strongest and most clearly of all, the feelings of excitement and zeal from the humans who stole through the northwest woods, following the gully of the stream that made the land unfarmable, their thoughts keen with the hunter’s delight, exultant with the anticipation of victory. She counted the different thought signatures, personalities as clearly different as their faces, then said to Gar, low voiced, “They’re in the northwest woods.”