Heldo-Bah clearly fears that his prized quarry will escape, however unbelievable the method; and he produces the same knife once more, ready to do what he must. But then he, his two companions, the Wife of Kafra, and even the panther snap their heads toward the southeast, expressions of alarm on all their faces:
Through the forest comes the low call of a powerful horn, its sonorous, steady drone slow to reach its peak but full of urgency. Called the Voice of the Moon, the massive instrument rests against a high hill in the Bane village of Okot, and is as old as the tribe itself. It was fashioned from clay taken out of the bed of the Cat’s Paw, after the first of the banishments resulted in the exile community’s establishment two centuries ago; and it has been used ever since to order tribesmen home, throughout as much of Davon Wood as its twenty-foot tube and ten-foot flaring bell — so enormous that the Horn requires huge bellows to produce its single, mournful note — can penetrate.
The foragers silently wait out the sounding of the Horn, hoping that they will not have to descend while the Wife of Kafra and the panther are still present. But after a few seconds of silence, the enormous instrument calls out again, and with greater insistence; or so it seems to Keera, who is keenly aware that danger in Okot means danger to her family.
“Come!” she murmurs. “Two blasts, we must—” But Heldo-Bah points to the ground without comment:
The Wife of Kafra, on hearing the Bane Horn, seems to have disappeared atop the panther. Likely she is moving through the northernmost portions of Davon Wood as swiftly as she can toward home, the fiery Bane thinks; but his face says that they cannot yet be certain.
The great Bane horn grows silent again; and only when Keera can detect neither scent nor sound of the woman as well as the panther does she nod, at which Heldo-Bah throws his knife angrily toward and into the Earth. “Ficksel!” he declares, shaking a fist in the direction of Okot, the Voice of the Moon, and the Bane Elders who ordered the sounding of the mighty alarm. “Bloody Groba,” he grumbles, making his way back down his ash. “No sense of timing!”
The three are soon on the ground, Keera deftly leaping from ten feet. “Two blasts of the Horn,” she says. “What can have happened?”
“Try not to fret, Keera,” Veloc says, pulling Heldo-Bah’s knife from the ground, tossing it to his comrade, then quickly starting out for the southeast. “Why, I’ve heard the damned thing sound for no more reason than—” He stops with an awkward rattle of his sack, however, when he hears the Horn sound yet again; and then he turns, not wishing to appear as concerned for Keera’s husband and her children as he feels. “Three blasts …” he says evenly, looking to Heldo-Bah; but all he finds playing across his friend’s scarred features is worry to match his own.
“Can either of you remember so many?” Keera asks, her composure deteriorating.
Heldo-Bah forces a smile onto his face. “Certainly!” he says, with an affected lack of concern: for he knows well that something undeniably important, and likely sinister, is happening. “I recall it well — so do you, Veloc. When that detachment of Broken soldiers chased an Outrager party into the Wood — the Groba ordered at least three blasts, and I’m fairly certain there were more. Isn’t that so, historian?”
Veloc understands Heldo-Bah’s intent, and quickly replies, “Yes — yes, it is.” He can dissemble in no greater detail, and the three foragers stand motionless as the third blast wanes; but when the Great Horn immediately issues another, Keera moves quickly to her brother’s side.
“It doesn’t stop!” she cries. “Why would they issue so many? It will bring the Tall to the village!”
Veloc puts an arm tight around her, trying to make his voice as gentle as his words are hard: “They may already be attacking Okot, Keera — that may be what is happening …”
“More bitch’s turd!” Heldo-Bah declares. “Pay him no mind, Keera — the Tall can’t find Okot, much less attack it. Besides, do you not find it even a little odd that we should hear so many horn blasts on the same night that a Wife of Kafra entrances and then makes away with a Davon panther?” He tousles Keera’s hair. “What is happening has naught to do with any attack on Okot — something of a different nature is going on, I’d stake my sack’s earnings on it. But we won’t know anything until we get there — so let’s be off.”
“If you’re saying that you do suspect sorcery here, Heldo-Bah,” Veloc says, as the group strap their sacks tight and Keera buries their fire, “then I must tell you that Bane historians have determined that, since the expulsion of the sorcerer Caliphestros following the reign of Izairn, the Tall have forsworn—”
“Ah, the scholar speaks again,” Heldo-Bah declares, as he leads the party away. “What’s your explanation, then, cuckolder? Has all of Nature been stood on its ear during the Moon we’ve been away? Do women now seduce and ride upon great cats, and will you rule in Broken, come sunrise?”
Veloc, at the rear of the little column, rolls his eyes toward eternity and sighs heavily. “I did not say that, Heldo-Bah. But it is a fact that—”
“Oh, fact, fact, fact!” Heldo-Bah spits, as he increases the party’s pace to a steady run. “I’ve no use for your facts!”
Keera has no strength to stop her companions from arguing, nor to take her usual place at the head of the group. Heldo-Bah knows the way back to Okot, and it is all Keera can do to keep herself from growing frantic as she travels. My family is in danger—the phrase repeats itself silently in Keera’s mind, along with all its terrible implications: My family is in danger …
1:{vii:}
Who speaks truth, and who insults Kafra with lies, in the
Sacristy of his High Temple?
The first blast of the mighty woodland clarion had caught the ears of Arnem, Niksar, and Yantek Korsar, along with those of their escort from Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, just as the group reached the marble-paved forecourt atop the steps outside the entrance to the High Temple in Broken.
“It’s the Bane Horn — in Okot!” Niksar had pronounced, with more alarm than he would have liked. But if Arnem’s young aide had been startled, the detachment of preening soldiers from the Guard, who had laughed among themselves during the walk to the Temple, had been struck dumb with fear. Arnem and Korsar, for their part, had halted, at first showing little concern at the dour intonations; but as the number of blasts had continued to rise, both grew silent and speculative, wondering what could prompt such blaring from an instrument that seldom saw use.
Now, a fifth sounding of the Horn is echoing up the mountain and over the walls of Broken, bringing momentary stillness to even the crowded stadium. Yantek Korsar gazes over the slate-tiled rooftops and the southern wall beyond: from the group’s vantage point atop the highest spot on the mountain, the old commander can discern the Moonlit Cat’s Paw’s, and the edge of Davon Wood beyond it.
“That it is, Niksar,” Korsar says softly. “The Bane Horn. A powerful yet lovely sound, to be made by so blasphemous a people, wouldn’t you say? It has a name, I seem to recall. What is it, now …?” His question goes unanswered: the heightening effect of the Horn is such that the soldiers atop the steps scarcely even hear the yantek’s words.