The Beginning, Henry Hasse [rooftoppers txt] 📗

Plainly, the way would now be slow and heavy with suspicion, but a method to abate such a threat must soon be formulated.

On that Otah and Kurho were agreed!

So the two great leaders agreed, and were patient, and twice more there were meetings. So engrossed they became and even enamored, that they were only dimly aware—

Others in the valley, those so scattered and isolate as to be considered only clans, had long watched and waited—and yearned. Neither the long-shaft weapon nor the way of making were longer secret—so why should they not also have?

Inevitably the reports trickled in. A lone clansman had been observed near the river, employing one of the weapons crudely devised but efficient. Some days later, one from the high-plateau was seen skulking the valley with such a weapon. Those lone ones, who barely subsisted in the barren places beyond river and cave, nor foraged afield—discreet and fleeting at first but with increased daring as the days went on.

And so fixed were Otah and Kurho that such reports were tolerated. There could be no threat here! True, the way of the making was no longer secret. True, such clan-people had long been despised and neglected and left to their own grubbing hunger—but was it not recognized, especially now, that the tribes of Otah and Kurho would determine the fate of all?

They erred—both Otah and Kurho. Neither would determine, nor would preponderance of weapons determine. It was not yet perceived that such clan-people were not Tribe-People, and thus could not know the meaning of Council, nor weigh consequence, nor realize in their new-found cleverness that a single arrogant act would trigger the first and final avalanche....

It came. It came on a day when a lone and hungry clansman found himself a full day's journey beyond the river; he was not of Otah's Tribe nor any tribe, nor did he know that the two he faced were of Kurho's Tribe. In the dispute over the bring, so emboldened was he by his weapon newly-fashioned that he used it quick and surely.

He did not again look at the two bodies! Taking up his bring, the lone one departed quite leisurely, without even the good sense to flee in horror of the consequence.

Consequence came. It came soon, before the sun was scarcely down. It came swiftly without question or council, as word reached Far End that two had been slain. Throughout the night it came in divergent attack, as Kurho deployed a token force near the river and sent his real strength high to the north, across the valley-rim and down upon Otah's people. It was at once attack and reprisal and reason!

And for Otah it was reason! For many weeks past, in test and maneuver of the long-shafts he had looked to the north. Now couriers brought the alarm swiftly, and within minutes his forces were launched—fearless ones who knew each foot of terrain by day or night. Otah led one contingent and Mai-ak the other, strategy being to stem Kurho's strength high upon the valley-rim, deplete the enemy and then join force to hunt down any who sifted through.

It was good strategy, the only strategy—and for a time it went well. Within the hour Kurho's forces were scattered, as attack and counter-attack surged and slashed in wild eruption of the long-shafts. Just as eruptive were the neuro-emotives, as each in his primal way must have known that this was the long awaitment, this was the grim finality in Kurho's boast and Otah's boast of weapons.

A few sifted through, but were quickly brought down as Otah's drifting rear-guard deployed to their assignments. It became evident early that Otah's tribe was more proficient in the long-shafts!

Alas, mere proficiency would not prevail against force of numbers. Well within the hour Otah knew it, knew with a raging despair that time was not with him, he had deployed too late with too little. Now he knew with consuming clarity, that despite the lulling pretense Kurho's boasts of strength had not been idle boasts!

This was Otah's last bitter thought, and then he was too occupied for cerebral indulgence. For the next minutes he wielded truer than any! Men came and fell, and others leaped and fell, skulls shattered, the life-stuff spurting, before Otah's shaft went spinning away in shattered ruin; he leaped to seize another, employed it in great sweeping swaths against those who still came. Two went down, but two came to fill the gap. In perfect unison, one parried as the other wielded truly to the mark....

It cannot be said, with surety, that Otah in that ultimate moment felt pain. It is fairly certain that both finitely and cosmically the initial numbing shock did register; and it may be assumed that he jolted rather horribly at the splintering bite of bone into brain. But who can say he did not reach a point-of-prescience, that his neuro-thalamics did not leap to span the eons, and gape in horror, in that precise and endless time just before his brains spewed in a gush of gray and gore, to cerebrate no more?

A matter of minutes, now. Both Kurho and Mai-ak knew it. The latter had glimpsed Otah's destruction, and with wild abandon sought to rally his men into the area.

There was no longer an area. There was clash and groan and rush and retreat, there was dark endless rock and a darker sky, from which the very stars seemed to recoil in darkest wonderment at man's senseless assault. The valley-rim yawned, and there Mai-ak made his stand and made it well.

He was unaware that Kurho was no more—that the man of boast was at this very moment a quivering, protoplasmic lump splattered across a dark crevice. A random weapon in a frantic hand had proved to be no respecter of person. Nor did it matter! Decimated as they were, enough of the enemy got through. Once propelled in the insane purpose there could be no stopping, as they descended upon Otah's people who huddled in the caves....

For weeks, they had been told that when it came it would be from above, sudden and savage without defense or recourse. Few had believed, or bothered to plot the route to safety. Would not these issues be resolved? Had not their caves been always safe and secure?

Now there was no time for belief or wonder. Within minutes none of Otah's tribe were alive, neither women nor children. Gor-wah the Old One remained, having failed in his exhortations; now he stood quite still, erect and waiting, with arms outflung as the weapons came swarming, and when that final blow fell the expression upon his mouth might have been a grimace or might have been a smile....

Nor did the others escape, those at Far End who also huddled and waited and would not believe. Their caves at the valley-floor were even less secure. Whether it was blinding hate or the bitter dregs of expediency, for Mai-ak and his remnants there was only one recourse now. It had been deeply ingrained!

Grimly they pursued the way, automaton-like, unresponsive now to horror or any emotive. And once again, within the hour the weapons fell.

It was swift and it was thorough.

Methodical. Merciless. Complete.

It will not be said here when emotive-response returned. Does one return from a horror all-encompassing, or seek to requite the unrequited? Does one yearn for a Way that is no more when deadening shock has wiped it out?

The season of thaw came, and again the great cold and once more the thaw. Both Obe the Bear and the great saber-cats were at large across the valley, and for those few who remained the bring was not easy now. There was more dangerous prey!

Lone clansman encountered clansman across his path, and there was furtive slinking. Each went silently alone and returned alone to his place of hiding. Bellies growled, but none dared use his weapon except in secret.

Perhaps a few, some isolate few remembered that time of chaos a season ago—but it was fleeting recall at best, as somatic responses rose to blot it out.

It was not to be forever! One thing remained, unasked and unbeknownst, grooved with synaptic permanence in their burgeoning brains. This was neither beginning nor end: for though Otah's Tribe was gone, bellies still growled. Kurho's Tribe was no more, but the weapons yet remained.

There could be no beginning or end—for would not new things come, means and methods and ways of devising so long as man remained? Was not this The Way?

Such were Mai-ak's thoughts at the time of the next thaw; when he felt the thing-that-prodded that would not let him be, and his anger became stubborn resolve; when day after day he bent the young saplings, and found a way at last to fasten the sinew.

When he pulled, finally, pulled with all his strength, and with great gloating saw his shaft go outward to a distance never yet conceived....

THE END