Wars of the Aoten Page 9

  Chapter IX

  Alone among the Rufoux, and rightfully so, Arielle stood like a conquering Amazon and exulted over the Aoten retreat. Wyllem, dead on his feet, made for her first, then thought better of it and turned toward Artur.

  “Will you be following them?” he asked.

  Artur gazed upon him in disbelief, panting, not saying a word.

  Wyllem turned his attention to the field. “This destruction — the giants would have done no worse. Can we save what remains?”

  “We have to find a way to guard these crops,” said Artur.

  “The vast fields are too vulnerable. How many men would it require? Do we have that many Rufoux, to guard the fields day and night?”

  “We have to find a way,” Artur repeated.

  “Can we get by guarding a smaller portion?”

  “We must have sufficient grain to keep us alive.”

  “What about the flooding time? If we lose more of the crop, what will we eat then?”

  Artur looked at Wyllem but did not reply.

  “These questions run throughout the clan,” Wyllem continued. “A murmuring rises against you, Artur. Can we live on less?”

  “No,” said Artur bluntly, and he turned from the fields and walked toward the village. “Nor can the Aoten.” One by one the rest of the Rufoux fell in behind him. Determined, he strode to the nearest hut and took hold of a scythe. He turned on his heel to face the still-gathering men and women of the clan.

  “These damn freaks will not reign as gods over us!” Artur declared. “These miserable beasts are flesh and bone! Strong as they be, they suffer the same weaknesses of all mortal beings. They feel the spears and arrows, they thirst for water, and they hunger for food — they have shown us that. We will not stand down before mortal beings!” he screamed as though his lungs might burst, brandishing the farming implement high over his head.

  The rest of the Rufoux, some still milling about at the rear, responded with a tepid cheer, but a cheer nonetheless.

  “The secret still runs from me!” Artur blurted out in outrage and frustration. Andreia started slightly and stared at him; only now was she sure he’d listened to her.

  “The Aoten will fall to defeat! We will know the way, though today our weapons cannot harm them. For now we can only hold them off. But they have the same weaknesses as all flesh! Like Mog against the Emim, we drink of our rage, and today we invent a new weapon! Like Mog, we will deny them their source of life!” Again he lifted the scythe into the air, and the surrounding eyes watched without understanding. But at the name of Mog, the ritual humming had begun, as though the meeting had become a religious ceremony. Artur began to regain the clan’s confidence.

  “Aoten want Rufoux crops. All Medialia wants Rufoux crops! Well, they can’t have them! We keep them for ourselves! No more will we let the Aoten walk into our fields and fill their appetites on our labors! No more will Rufoux soil feed the gorging of inhuman beasts! Let them root and scrape like pitiful rumidonts; they will no longer suck the blood of the Rufoux!”

  The crowd answered with another hollow cheer, a little bolder, but still not knowing what Artur meant.

  “Today we reap! Take up your scythes, take up your pitchforks, and follow me to the fields! Today we reap, tomorrow they starve!”

  At last the clanspeople knew Artur’s meaning and saw his wisdom, and each man and woman responded with sincerely upraised voices and ran to their huts to fetch farming tools. Andreia smiled warmly at Artur’s words from afar, pulling down strings of leather she had been drying on a frame; they would do well to tie bundles of stalks. Wyllem looked like the world had been lifted off his shoulders, but as he headed toward his dwelling Artur caught him by the shoulder.

  “You must remain here,” he said. “After all, we have to guard a smaller portion.”

  “Meaning what?” Wyllem asked, his eyes puzzled.

  “We’ll be guarding all of the crops, but a smaller portion of land. You must stay here and organize the storehouse. Take as many men as you need and build a hut, a stout hut large enough to hold all the crops, with only one entrance. Build it in the center of the village. It’s one thing to pull our food out of the ground; let’s see if the Aoten can pull it out of our fists!”

  The plan truly impressed Wyllem. He clapped his hand down hard upon Artur’s shoulder, and jogged off in the opposite direction, a new spear jaggling back and forth upon his back.

  True, the ears of grain had not quite reached maturity yet; in normal times the Rufoux would gather them only as needed, giving the plants more time. But the grain would ripen in storage, as long as it could dry, and the amount would be enough to feed the clan until the next planting time. The flooding Alluvia would force the harvest soon, anyway. Perhaps the clan would be able to drive away, or kill off, the Aoten by then.

  Even though much of the crop had been trampled underfoot, some of that fruit could be salvaged. And though many acres lay destroyed, many more still survived, and the work lasted long through the day and into the night. The battle that morning had left the Rufoux exhausted and battered, so the toil felt particularly laborious. In the village the storehouse went up steadily, the frame made of so many more beams than usual, it might as well have been solid wood. Wyllem had the builders stretch an extra layer of skins over the structure for still more security. They very pointedly made the doorway only Rufoux-size, and quickly sheaves of grain entered inside.

  Through the late morning and into the afternoon the work stretched, from the afternoon into the evening, past the setting sun and into the moonlit night, and still reapers stayed grimly to their task. Uneasily they worked, keeping one eye always over their shoulder for the possible return of the giants.

  “Is it true the Bedoua never go outside under the moon?” Wyllem said idly as the mild orb stared down at them.

  “Who’s to say?” Artur replied. “Their habits signify nothing to us.”

  “I heard something,” said Osewold. His attention to detail always raised a flag in Artur’s mind.

  “Look into it,” Artur said to Wyllem, indicating the forest.

  Wyllem in turn appointed Osewold to lead a small group of men and Arielle into the wood, stealthily, and without light. They picked their way along for several yards and saw nothing.

  Osewold stood still as the standancrags and listened, staring into the shadowy gloom as if he might see the noise.

  “It must be nothing,” he said finally.

  “Let’s go further,” said Arielle.

  Osewold nodded in a noncommittal fashion and pointed the way. Slowly the group worked its way farther from Rufoux territory and deeper into the wooded lands. The low strains of mysterious music came and went, almost like a dream. Each careful step brought fears of a stick that might snap too loudly, or a trap that might be sprung. Suddenly, one man fell with a high squeal and called out in a whispered scream, “He’s got me! He’s got me!”

  Finally the searchers had to see, and a torch was lit. The Rufoux man frantically wrestled a furry beast upon the ground, and in a twinkling all the men leapt upon it. The creature whipped into a mighty panic, made only worse by the flashing of the torch near its face, and the squealing sound continued. With some difficulty the search party restrained the creature and finally got a look at it.

  It looked like an Aoten, but only the size of a Rufoux woman. Apparently a youngster had somehow become separated and fallen asleep in the forest. The giant’s squealing, prompted by awakening to a man falling upon it, had changed into a guttural mumbling as it climbed to its feet. The thing had extremely powerful arms, and it used its huge head like a battering ram against its foes. Still now the Rufoux struggled to keep it under control, each man with his weapon drawn.

  “What is this baby doing out alone in the wood?” Arielle wondered out loud. “Do they not care for their young?” Though a warrior, Arielle also was a mother many times over and would defend her children to the death. Even the beasts of the wilds, at least th
e woolly ones, watched over their little ones.

  “Perhaps only for a time,” Osewold speculated. “Perhaps not at all.”

  He studied their captive; clearly it posed no threat, but certainly they could not simply release it. He shuddered to think of taking it back to camp. Osewold had not come prepared to make such a decision.

  “Well, what do you think …” he began to ask Arielle, but he was cut short.

  A muted call rose from deeper in the wood, and the Aoten child stretched and answered with another high squeal. The ruckus had aroused the Aoten camp, and regardless of whether the giants cared before about the lost youngster, they certainly sought him now. The Rufoux struggled again to quiet him, and the youngster fought back with renewed strength. The possibility of rescue always renews the desire to survive, and the young Aoten put all his strength into shaking off his captors.

  The overwhelming odds, the violence of the scuffle, the flash of sharp Rufoux weaponry: Time was the only arbiter of the inevitable. Strife gives rise to passion, and in the Rufoux world passions flew from the heart and into the eyes, and the teeth, and the fists. The desperate contest intensified, and almost without noticing, the Rufoux warriors found themselves standing over the body of the young giant, dead in the undergrowth. Each one of the searchers looked upon him with a mix of dread, disgust and pity, each with at least a trace of blood on his blade. Again the call came from the direction of the Aoten camp, a little bit louder, a little clearer, and to a man the Rufoux warriors looked toward it with deep alarm.

  “We’d best be off!” said Osewold, and he was gone.