Slowly, hardly daring to move, Carl leaned his spear against the tree at his back. It wouldn’t do much good if the beast charged. He drew out a fistful of arrows, slipped the bow off his shoulder, and strung it with one gasping motion. It was a better weapon.
The tiger snarled, flattening its belly to the ground. The smell of blood from the bag of game at Carl’s waist must have stirred its hunter’s heart. The boy fitted an arrow to the string and drew the bow taut. His pulse roared in his ears.
The tiger crept nearer.
The bow sang, and the tiger screamed and launched itself. Carl sprang aside almost as he shot. The tiger hit the ground where he had been and threshed about, biting at the arrow in its shoulder. Carl picked another arrow off the ground where he had thrown them, drew the bow, and let loose. He couldn’t see in the murk if he had hit or not. The tiger staggered to its feet, growling. Before the tawny thunderbolt could strike again, Carl’s bow had hummed afresh. The tiger screamed again and turned away. Yelling, Carl groped for another arrow. He fired and missed, but the beast was loping in a three-legged retreat. As Carl sank shaking to the ground, he felt blood hot and wet beneath him.
If the tiger lived, he thought without exultation—he was still too frightened himself for that—it would have a proper respect for mankind.
The thought continued as he resumed his way. It wasn’t the animals which man had to fear. Tiger, bear, snake, even the terrible dog packs could not face human fire and metal. Slowly, as men hewed down the wilderness, its snarling guardians were driven back. Their fight was hopeless.
And in the City, it had began to dawn on him that not even the supernatural, demons and ghosts and the very gods, threatened men. The powers of night and storm, flood and fire and drought and winter, were still a looming terror, but they had been conquered once by the ancients and they could be harnessed again.
No, man’s remorseless and deadly foe was only— himself.
But that enemy was old and strong and crafty. It had brought to agonized wreck the godlike civilization of the ancients. Today, in the form of taboo and invading barbarians, it was risen afresh, and seemed all too likely to win.
Overwhelming despair replaced Carl’s fear. Could the children of light ever win? he thought. Must the Dalesmen go down in flame and death before the trampling horses of Lann? Must the last gasp of ancient wisdom rust away in darkness? Could there ever be a victory?
Chapter 6
TABOO!
following the wild cattle trail, John’s party took only another day and a half to get through the western forest to the point where he had meant to strike east for Dalestown. The wagons lay in the cover of brush at the edge of cultivation, while Tom and Carl rode out to find if the settled lands were still free.
The boys returned jubilantly by sundown. “There’s been no fighting around here,” said Carl. “As far as the people we talked to know, the Lann haven’t gotten farther yet than the northern border.”
“That’s far enough,” said John bleakly. Strain and sorrow had made him gaunt in the last few days. His eyes were hollow and he seldom smiled. But he nodded his unkempt head now. They’d have a safe passage to Dalestown; that was something.
At dawn the caravan stirred, and wagons creaked through long, dew-wet grass until they emerged in open country and found one of the pitted dirt roads of the tribe. There Carl took his leave of them. “You don’t need me any longer,” he said. “There are no enemies here, and the farmers will give you food and shelter. But it will take you perhaps two days to reach the town, and I have news for my father which can scarcely wait.
“Aye, go then—and thank you, Carl,” said John.
“Father, how about letting me go along?” asked Owl. “It’s just driving from here on, no work—and it’s awful slow!”
A tired, lopsided smile crossed the man’s bearded face. “All right, Jim,” he agreed. “And I daresay Tom would like to follow. I’ll meet you in town, boys.”
The red-haired lad flashed a grin. “Thanks,” he said. “I just want to see people’s faces when Carl shows them that magic light.”
The three friends saddled their horses and trotted swiftly down the road. Before long, the wagons were lost to sight and they rode alone.
The country was fair with hills, and valleys green with ripening crops, tall, windy groves of trees, the metal blink of streams and lakes, and shadows sweeping over the sunlit breadth of land. The farms were many, and wooden fences held the sleek livestock grazing in pastures. Most of the homes were the usual log cabins, larger or smaller depending on the wealth of the man and the size of his family, but some of the richer estates had two-story houses of stone and square-cut timbers. Now and again the travelers passed through a hamlet of four or five buildings—a smithy, a trading post, a water-powered mill, a Doctor’s house—but otherwise the Dales lay open. Smoke rose blue and wing-ragged from chimneys, and farmers hailed the boys as they went past.
Carl noticed that workers in the yards and the fields were almost entirely women, children, and old men. Those of fighting age were marshaled at Dalestown. And even these peaceful stay-at-homes carried spears and axes wherever they went. The shadow of war lay dark over the people.
On rested horses, the ride to town took only a day. In the late afternoon, Carl topped a high ridge and saw his goal in the valley below him.
Not much more than a village as the ancients had reckoned such things, it was still the only real town that the tribe had. Here the folk came to barter and make merry; here the Chief and the High Doctor lived, and the tribesmen met to vote on laws and action; here the four great seasonal feasts were held each year; and here the warriors assembled in time of danger. That was the first thing Carl noticed as his eyes swept the scene: tents and wooden booths clustered about the town to house the men, wagons drawn up and horses grazing in the fields, smoke of cooking fires staining the sky. As he rode down the hill, he caught the harsh reflection of sunlight on naked iron.
A twenty-foot stockade rising out of high banks inclosed Dalestown in four walls. At each corner stood a wooden watchtower, with catapults and stone-throwing engines mounted just under the roof. In each wall, gates of heavy timber, reinforced with metal, protected the entrances. The town had fought off enemy attacks before. Carl hoped it would not have to do so again.
He and his friends picked a threading way between the camps of the warriors. It was a brawling, lusty sight, with beardless youths and scarred
old veterans swarming over the trampled grass. Sitting before their tents, they sharpened weapons and polished armor. Some were gathered about a fire and sang to the strum of a banjo while the evening meal bubbled in a great kettle. Others wrestled, laughed and bragged of what they would do, but Carl saw many who sat quiet and moody, thinking of the defeat in the north and wondering how strong the wild horsemen of Lann were.
The main gate, on the south side, stood open, and a restless traffic swirled back and forth between the armed guards. One of them hailed the Chiefs son: “Hi, there, Carl! So you’re back? I thought the devils in the City would have eaten you.”
“Not yet, Ezzef.” Carl smiled at the young pikeman, gay in red cloak and polished iron cuirass. Ezzef was one of the Chief’s regular guardsmen, who ordinarily existed to keep order in the town. Carl and he had long been friends.