King of The World's Edge Read online

  In the dusk we could see it take a direction that would bring it around the waking City of the Snake, and as we disappeared among the trees, hurrying for our very lives, we heard the wind from nowhere, coming over us in a gentle breeze, the first airy outriders of the fearful cavalry of the storm which would follow to devastate and destroy.

  And this time there would be no Myrdhinn to call off those trampling cataphracts of the gathering windy legions.

  13 The Stonish Giants and the Flylng Heads

  All that day we pushed toward the north, through the forest, beneath a gray sky from which, toward evening, a light snow came sifting down. By this time we had left the large towns well behind us, though we could see smoke rising in many places, questioning and answering, as the word was passed along to the scattered villages and the lonely outposts, in hard-won clearings.

  But these very messages defeated their own purpose, for the broken, puffing pillars of smoke showed us the position of our enemies, and Hayonwatha read the signals and told us of the almost total destruction of the City of the Snake, and of how we were thought to have gone down the river toward the south, many coracles having been found to be missing.

  This mistake was the saving of us, for the forts along the northern frontier were lax in their night watch, and we passed between them, so closely that we saw the dying embers of a signal fire, with no one near it, and slipped within the borders of the free Chichamecan wilderness, five and fifty fighting-men in single file, making no more noise than so many foxes. And few as we were, Myrdhinn was with us, a host in himself!

  Toward morning, having marched twenty-four hours without food or sleep, with short pauses for rest, we began to feel that we should be far enough from danger so that we might stop and recuperate. But Hayonwatha led on as tireless as ever, and seeing that our aged seer did not demure, we were shamed and followed on, though all our muscles complained, having softened during our imprisonment.

  Just at daybreak, we came out upon the shores of a small lake with a wooded island in it. Here, under instruction from our leader, we made rafts and piled upon them all our armor and gear.

  These things we ferried over to the island, while Hayonwatha and his ten men returned into the forest and were gone a long time, wiping out our tracks. Then they made false tracks and returned on the opposite shore, blotting out their latest marks before they entered the icy waters and rejoined us, half dead from the cold.

  Nor could we make any fire till after dark, and then only the merest spark among a nest of boulders where every ray of light was deadened—and this of certain woods carefully chosen which gave no smoke that might carry an odor to the shore. So, without supping, · we slept, and in the morning found that any traces we might have left were now securely hidden, for snow lay deep upon our brush shelters and continued falling all that day.

  This was followed by severely cold weather in which the lake froze over, except upon one side of the island for a space of about twenty feet where an underwater current rushed black and bubbling to the surface. Here the fishing was very good. There were also hares in the groves and fat, warmly feathered birds which could be easily captured after they had roosted for the night Yet, food for all of us was not to be had in sufficient quantity, and had it not been for the fortunate coming of a noble stag, with all his retinue, to our retreat (having been pursued by wolves across the ice from the mainland), we should have been forced to seek elsewhere for our living and this might have been our deaths.

  Twice we saw antlered Tlapallico scouts, and once a raiding-party going southward with scalps and Chicha-mecan prisoners.

  Before our meat was quite gone, Myrdhinn and Hayonwatha came to a decision and we moved onward into Chichameca, crossing the deep snows by means of flat, oval boats fastened one upon each foot whereby we did not sink into the drifts, these being made of interwoven withes and thongs and very light, though hard to learn the practice and use, and the cause of much cursing and sore muscles.

  At this period of the whiter season, the northern peoples seldom engage in any great amount of warfare, owing to the difficulties of travel; so it seemed our best time for making a peaceful contact.

  We met a small party of Tlapallicos and shot them down from among the trees while they lay in camp. We lost none and released several prisoners, all women, who fell upon their dead captors with reviling and would have mutilated the bodies had we not interfered, although Myrdhinn ordered the heads to be cut off and brought with us.

  This was a lucky meeting, for these women were of the People of the Hills, Hayonwatha’s tribe, and some remembered his mother, Thiohero; so they willingly guided us to their people and saved us two days’ journey. We made friends, became temporarily a part of the tribe and wintered there in stout log houses, the village enclosed by a stout palisade though not as well as others in Tlapallan.

  We gave daily instructions in the use of the bow, and these tall forest men became good archers, which unproved their hunting and their chances of survival in the grim fight for life against Nature and the many enemies which surrounded and beset them continually.

  As winter wore into spring, Myrdhinn became more exclusive and harder to see.

  He had smoked and preserved the Tlapallican heads; now at nights he studied the stars, and daily he busied himself in a house reserved for his private use, from which came many evil smells and sometimes colored lights and heavy choking smokes.

  Often he held talks with Hayonwatha and the head men of the tribe, learning their legends, superstitions and fears—planning his plans.

  We became deeply attached to these People of the Hills and found them reverent of us at first, then companionable and jolly when we knew them better, though we had yet to learn of their natural ferocity in battle.

  We thought, one day in early spring, that time had come. The men began painting themselves for war, the young boys and youths emulating their elders, and kings sent word from the other settlements to this Onondaga village that the nation was to make ready.

  But Myrdhinn interfered with this plan, and after a long conclave to which he alone of our company was admitted, a short time elapsed and a party set out, well armed, but not painted for war, toward the nearest community of traditional enemies.

  I, with ten armored Romans, was among them.

  After days of travel, we approached with great caution the largest village of the Possessors of the Flint. When far enough away to be sure that our activities would not be observed, we stripped the bark from a large birch and made a speaking-trumpet longer than a man. Then, in the dusk, we came to a spot near the edge of the clearing where this village lay. We set up the trumpet on a tripod, and waited for complete darkness.

  When we could no longer see into the clearing, two of the swiftest young men seized four of the preserved Tlapallican heads by their long hair and made swiftly toward the village. Here they hurled the heads, each grinning most ghastly because of its shrunken lips, over the palisade and ran back to us very quietly.

  This caused a faint buzz which was rising to a hubbub when our trumpet bellowed in the night.

  “Ganeagaono!” Hayonwatha’s voice rumbled like an inhuman monster.

  “Possessors of the Flint! I am a Stone Giant! Harken to my council! Long have I slumbered in the hills until my people should need me. I am your friend!

  “The Flying Heads are gathering in the forests and the mountains to devour the once mighty nation of the Onguys. Tharon and the Sender of Dreams bade me rise and scatter them like crows from your cornfields. They are too many for me alone!

  “Ganeagaono! Continue to listen. I rose among their chattering council. They fled after breaking their teeth upon my limbs of stone! They are meeting to eat you up, one little nation at a time, for there is no longer a powerful people to fight them away.

  “Possessors of the Flint! Harken! Look upon the Flying Heads I struck down as they came to spy upon your weakness and to listen
on your rooftops as you plan to kill your brothers! Send your runners with peace belts to the People of the Hills, at earliest dawn.

  Set a date for a peace council. I go to warn the other nations. You will meet them all at Onondaga!“

  The thunderous grumbling stopped. Myrdhinn gave me a long tube and held a coal of fire to its upper end. Immediately sparks cascaded from it like a fountain. I strode out into the open, and a moan of terror, like wind among bare branches, swept that crowded palisade, and a ball of red fire shot from the tube, high into the air, coloring me the hue of blood.

  Strong men groaned in awe. I was dressed in full armor, and, being well over six feet, must have appeared in that uncertain light far beyond natural stature.

  I stood there a moment in a shower of sparks. Then I gave them the full Roman salute, turned as the tube spat out a clot of green flame, and in that ghastly light re-entered the forest.

  The fire-tube at once was extinguished.

  Myrdhinn hugged me in his joy. “Fine! Fine!” he muttered. “Listen to that roar of utter terror! Now if the others are only as successful.”

  Hayonwatha was already snapping orders, and guided by him we made our way back to our forest town.

  Other expeditions came straggling in. All had proven successful. The other four nations were in panic, and by daylight runners came in from those we had warned. A little later came emissaries from the Great Hill People, and later still came messengers from the Granite People and the People of the Mucky Lands, while the Onondagas, well schooled in their lessons, met these panting peace-bringers with well-simulated terror of a night visitation which they pretended to have experienced themselves.

  Back went the runners with a date for a conclave, and less than a week later all met at a lake which all desired, but which had been a battleground ever since the breaking up of the Qnguy nation.

  And there they were met together, a great multitude, their smokes studding all the hills around the lake, met in mutual fear of an imaginary enemy although their one real and dangerous foe had not been enough to cause them to combine.

  From concealment, we Romans in full armor marched forth, with Myrdhinn at the head in his ceremonial robes, his sea-found headdress trailing long green feathers far down his back.

  Now, at this sight a murmur of dismay ran through the host confronting us. Yet we could see that though they were afraid (for at first sight we must have appeared like true sons of those rocky hills) at the clank of our armor, they quickly recovered their natural dignity and stoicism, for they are a people who take great pride in preserving their composure, even under great bodily suffering.

  Already they had so commanded their features that no look, even of surprise, betokened that our coming was a thing beyond then: experience. But nervous clutchings of hatched handles and knife-hafts, and gloomy stares, showed us plainly that their interest was precarious and the beautiful glen of Thendara might once more become a battlefield.

  We approached the assembled Onondaga nation. Fifty paces away, We halted. Myrdhinn advanced and Hayonwatha came forward to meet him, bearing a long, feather-decorated pipe, lit and smoking.

  They went through a ceremonious ritual, during which we felt that those piercing eyes focused upon us were rapidly learning that we were far more human than we bad at first seemed.

  We all became uneasy. At length, Myrdhinn spoke loudly:

  “Men of the Onguys, order your women to put out your campfires!”

  They eyed him in wonderment and he repeated:

  “At once. To the last ember!”

  Through the host, the striplings sped to the lake shore, to the hills. The many plumes of smoke thinned and vanished.

  “As you, on earth, blot out the many scattered fires that mark each separate family of the once powerful

  Onguys, I, Tarenyawagon, blot out the Great Flame. Behold!“

  He gestured toward the sky and a running sound of woe swept the throng. A black shadow was impinging upon the edge of the sun!

  Before their fear could turn toward thoughts of saving the sun by killing us, Myrdhinn raised his voice.

  “Men of the Onguy Nation! I see before me many men. They look at one another in hatred and suspicion, yet they are brothers. They are of the same color, they speak the same language; among them are the same clans, the same societies; they like similar foods, they play similar games—they are brothers.

  “My sons: should brothers kill one another while the roof above their heads is burning from the sparks of an enemy torch? Should brothers fight among themselves when then: father, their mother, their little children are being led into captivity, or aleady suffer under the whip of their merciless captors? _ ”Continue to listen, my sons:

  “You have an enemy at the door of every lodge— more treacherous than the tree-cat, more savage than the bear, more to be dreaded than the hungry wolf pack. One man is helpless; one clan may strike and run, but if all the brothers hold together, they may drive the enemy from their doors!”

  All the sun was now darkened but a tiny edge, yet no one murmured or slipped away.

  “People of the Granite, of the Great Hills, of the Mucky Lands! Look about you! Possessors of the Flint, regard! Your enemies are not the Flying Heads, nor are they men gathered here! Beside each of you stands a brother to fight for you, to guard your back in battle. He will help and protect you, if you will do the same for him. Throw down your old black thoughts and let them mingle with the blackness that shrouds us now.”

  For all the sun was completely blackened!

  “Let one darkness blot out the other. Clasp your neighbor by the hand and let me hear you call him brother!”

  That was an anxious moment. Myrdhinn had only short moments to complete his long-considered plan and it seemed that it was bound to fail, as that assemblage stood peering at one another. Everything must be over before the light reappeared or the people would realize the event to be only a natural phenomenon of the skies.

  At length an old feeble king of the Nudawaono tottered toward the equally ancient long of the Onon-dagaono and took his hand.

  A great shout went up and the ferment of fellowship began to spread through the gathering. Hayonwatha’s shell trumpet cut through the uproar and Myrdhinn spoke again.

  “My children: Do not forget your present emotions. There will come to your minds grievances, old sores not yet healed by tune, new differences of opinion. Pass over them or let them be settled by your councilors. You have one great enemy—Tlapallan!”

  A mighty roar of fury interrupted him. Pale and anxious, counting the remaining seconds, he waited for order.

  “Continue to listen, my sons: Revere the aged, abandon them no longer to the beasts of the forest. Consider them to be your charges, even as your infants. Are you not better than the Mias, who regard an aged person as merely a body to be mutilated for the glory of a bloody god?

  “Be kind among yourselves, merciless to your one enemy. So shall you find peace and become great. Thus you shall form a league in which you will know power, and in so doing you unite in planting a four-rooted tree which branches severally to the north, south, east and west. Beneath its shade you must sit in friendship, if it is not to be felled by your foes.

  “Beneath it also you must erect a mystical Long House in this glen, in which you all may dwell, and over it will stand the mighty tree of the League as your symbol and your sentinel forever!

  “I give you new fire for your hearthstone.”

  He rapped the coal from the ceremonial pipe upon the ground. It sizzled, a running serpent of fire darted along the ground, a cloud of white smoke rose, there came a noise like a thunderclap, and a few feet away from the center of the cleared space in which seer and trumpeter stood, a bright red blaze sprang up out of the ground.

  And at that exact instant the bright edge of the sun reappeared!

  “Light torches, return to your weik-waums and k
now this spot henceforth as the Place of the Council Fire. Be Onguys no more, but call yourselves Hodeno-saunee, People of the Long House.

  “I have spoken!”

  He returned to our company, and in perfect unison we retired to quarters previously arranged for us by the friendly Onondagas, while as we went we saw the throng pressing forward to secure the magic fire, clutching brands, strips of clothing, or reeds.

  Now, you must not think this speech changed in a day all the harsh feelings of many years.

  It was, however, the beginning of a long council and there was wrangling and bitter words, but before these bickerings could develop into real trouble Myrd-hinn would thrust himself into the talk and suddenly argumentation was over before the participants rightly knew how difficulties had so suddenly become simple.

  The council lasted four days. Myrdhinn was formally adopted into the Nation of the Flint and given important office in its councils, Hayonwatha also was given the rank of Royaneh, or councilor, and had I wished, I could have also been honored.

  But I wanted none of this barbaric adulation, and indeed, Myrdhinn received it unwillingly, fearing it would hinder his own plans for the spring traveling. For he was very anxious to be away toward the south‘ west, in search of the Land of the Dead.

  Eventually the council broke up, with the result desired by all. Five nations, each feeble by itself against the overwhelming might of Tlapallan, had now combined into a great forest power.

  The lusty young giant stretched its muscles and desired war to test its strength, but its brains (fifty Royanehs elected by the people) bade it wait and bide its tune and grow stronger.

  So, during the spring, the People of the Long House learned the use of the bow and became proficient and dangerous. And in the last days of that season we determined upon a raid upon the Miner’s Road and possibly an attack on the frontier of Tlapallan.