Hresh moistened his lips. “It is a title that they had in the time of the Great World,” he said hoarsely. “A man-chieftain is what the word means, just as Kreun said a moment ago.”
“There are no man-chieftains in our tribe,” Koshmar said.
A great wave of strength and strangeness came then from Harruel. Hresh felt it with his second sight and it all but bowled him over; it was like standing in a gale that swept trees from their roots.
“The rule of women is over,” Harruel said. “From this day forth I am king.”
Calmly Koshmar signaled to Konya and Staip and Orbin.
“Surround him,” she said. “Seize him. He has taken leave of his senses and we must protect him against himself.”
“Stand back,” Harruel said. “No one touches me!”
“You may be king,” said Koshmar, “but in this city I am chieftain, and chieftain rules. Surround him!”
Harruel, turning, stared coldly at Konya, who did not move. He looked then at Staip, and at Orbin. They remained still.
Now he faced Koshmar again.
“Be chieftain all you like, Koshmar,” he said in a dark, even voice. “The city is yours. Or, rather, it belongs to the Helmet People, now. I will go from it and cease to trouble you any longer.”
He looked around. By this time the entire tribe stood gathered. Even those women and children who had locked themselves in the temple when news of the invasion had begun to spread had come forth. Harruel’s brooding eyes rested now on this one, now on that. Hresh felt that dark dreadful gaze come to bear on him, and he glanced down, unable to meet it.
Harruel said, “Who will come with me? This city is a sickness, and we must leave it! Who will join me in founding a great kingdom far from here? You, Konya? You, Staip? You? You? You?”
Still no one moved. The silence was terrible.
“Why should we huddle in this dead city any longer? Its fame ended long ago! See, the stinking dung of the enemy’s beasts already is piling high in the boulevard. There will be more of it. The city will be buried under it. Stand to this side, those of you who are weary of the rule of women! Stand to this side, those of you who want land, riches, glory! Who will go with Harruel? Who? Who?”
“I’ll go with you,” Konya said in a rough, ragged voice. “As I promised long ago.”
Hresh heard Koshmar gasp.
Konya looked across the circle of tribesfolk toward Galihine, his mate. Her belly was swelling with an unborn. After a moment she crossed the center of the circle and took up her place at Konya’s side.
“Who else?” Harruel asked.
“This is insanity,” said Koshmar. “You will perish outside the city. Without a chieftain you will suffer the hatred of the gods, and you will be devoured.”
“Who else comes with me?” Harruel asked.
“I will,” Nittin said. “And Nettin with me.”
Nettin looked dumbstruck at that, as though he had hit her with a club. But she crossed obediently beside her man, carrying her babe Tramassilu in her arms.
Harruel nodded.
“I’ll go,” Salaman said suddenly. Weiawala followed him, and the young warrior Bruikkos, and then, after a moment, the girl Thaloin, who had been pledged a few days earlier to Bruikkos as his mate. Hresh felt a chill invading his soul. He had never expected anyone to choose to follow Harruel; but this was catastrophic. The tribe was breaking in two.
“I am with you also,” said Lakkamai.
A soft half-smothered outcry came at once from Torlyri. She bit her lip and moved to one side, looking away, but not before Hresh had seen the stricken look on her face. Koshmar too looked stricken; and Hresh understood that it was a look of fear, for she must be dreading that Torlyri would follow Lakkamai out of the city. But Torlyri remained where she was.
Harruel turned now to his own mate.
“Minbain?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I will go where you go.”
“And you, Hresh?” Harruel said. “Your mother goes, and your little brother, Samnibolon. Will you stay behind?” He walked toward Hresh and stood looming over him. “Your skills will be needed in our new life. You will be our chronicler as you have been chronicler here, and anything you want will be yours, boy. Will you come?”
Hresh could make no reply. Mutely he stared at his mother, at Koshmar, at Torlyri, at Taniane.
“Well?” Harruel asked, more menacingly. “Will you?”
Hresh felt the world whirling about him.
“Well?” said Harruel again.
Hresh looked down. “No,” he said, so faintly that he could not be heard.
“What? What did you say? Speak up!”
“No,” Hresh said again, more clearly. “I mean to stay here, Harruel.” He felt his blood racing fiercely within his body, and it gave him energy and force. “We must all of us leave Vengiboneeza one day soon,” Hresh said, “but this is not the time, this is not the way. I will remain. There’s work here that I must do.”
“Miserable boy!” Harruel cried. “Flea-ridden little cheat!”
His long arm lashed out. Hresh jumped back, nearly but not quite fast enough; Harruel’s fingertips struck him across the cheek, and so great was the power even of that glancing blow that it sent him flying through the air and tumbling in a heap. He lay there quivering a moment. Torlyri came to him and lifted him and held him tenderly.
“Who else?” Harruel asked. “Who else follows me? Who else? Who else? Who else?”
12
The Strangeness of Their Absence
That day was known ever after as the Day of the Breaking Apart. Eleven adults had departed, and two children; and for a long time thereafter the strangeness of their absence resounded in the city like a great gong.
It was some weeks before Hresh could bring himself even to enter the event in the chronicles. He knew that he was being remiss in his duty, but still he avoided the task, until one morning he realized that he was not sure whether it was ten adults that had gone, or seven. Then he saw that he must set down an account of what had taken place before he lost a clear sense of it. He owed that to those who would read the chronicles in the times to come. And so he opened the book and pressed his fingerpads against the cool vellum of the first blank page and said what he had to say, which was that Harruel the warrior had rebelled against the authority of the chieftain Koshmar and departed from the city, taking with him the men Konya, Salaman, Nittin, Bruikkos, and Lakkamai, and the women Galihine, Nettin, Weiawala, Thaloin, Minbain—
The hardest thing was entering his mother’s name. When he attempted it, it would not come out right, and he put down Mulbome and then, erasing it, Mirbale, before he was able to make the true name appear on the page. He sat a long time staring at the jagged brown lettering, when he had finally done it, putting his fingers to it again and again to read and reread what he had written.
I will never see my mother again, he told himself. But he could not quite comprehend the meaning of those words, no matter how many times he spoke them in his mind.
Sometimes Hresh wondered whether he should have gone with her. When he had looked at her, at that moment when Harruel was asking him to come, he had seen the silent urging in her eyes. And it had been painful to turn away from her and refuse. The choice had been an agonizing one; but even if it meant parting from his mother, how could he leave the tribe, and everything that was yet undone in Vengiboneeza, and all that he might learn from these Helmet People, and Taniane — yes, and Taniane! — to follow the brute Harruel and his handful of followers into the wilderness? That was not the destiny he saw for himself.
Minbain’s was the only loss that stung Hresh deeply. He felt sorry for Torlyri, losing her mate; but Lakkamai had meant very little to him, or Salaman, or Bruikkos, or any of the others who went with Harruel. They were just people, familiar faces, parts of the tribe. He had never been close to them, though, as he had been close to Torlyri, or Taniane, or Orbin, or even Haniman. None of those had gone, or he would have been badly hurt by their going. But Minbain had been a part of himself, and he a part of Minbain, and all that was sundered now. Hresh had seen dark clouds forming ever since Harruel had taken Minbain for his mate. Whatever Harruel touched, he changed, and eventually he absorbed.