moment later a file of Outfolk spearmen went past. They were all men, all with bronze-tipped spears and all had grey tattooed streaks on their faces. They had no dogs with them, and they seemed more intent on leaving the ridge than searching for prey. Saban heard them splash through the stream, heard the flutter as the waterbirds fled their presence, then there was silence again.
The last night was Saban’s worst. It rained, and the wind was high so that the noises of the trees were louder than ever as they tossed their heads in the wet sky. Branches creaked and, far off, Rannos the god of thunder tumbled the blackness. And it was dark, utterly dark, without a scrap of Lahanna’s light piercing or thinning the clouds. The darkness was worse than a cold hut, for this was a limitless night filled with horrors and in its black heart Saban heard something huge and cumbersome crash through the woods and he huddled on his platform thinking of the dead souls and their yearning for human flesh until, wet, cold and hungry, he saw a grey dawn dilute the damp darkness above the ridge. The rain eased as the sky brightened, and then the ox horns sounded to say that the first ordeal was done.
Twenty-two boys had left Ratharryn, but only seventeen returned. One had vanished and was never seen again, two had been found by hunters and had been driven back to Ratharryn, while two more had been so terrified of the darkness of the trees that they had willingly gone back to their humiliation. But the seventeen who gathered at Slaol’s temple were permitted to tie their hair in a loose knot at the nape of their necks and then they followed the priests down the track that led to Ratharryn’s entrance and their path was lined with women who held out platters of flat bread and cold pork and dried fish. ‘Eat,’ they urged the boys, ‘you must be hungry, eat!’ But hungry as they were, none touched the food for that too was an ordeal, though an easy one to survive.
The men of the tribe waited beside a raging fire inside the great wall and they thumped their spear butts on the ground to welcome the seventeen. The boys still had two tests to face, and some could yet fail, but they were no longer jeered. Saban saw Jegar, and saw the leaves bound with twine on his hand, and he could not resist dancing a few steps of victory. Jegar spat towards him, but it was mere petulance. He had missed his chance and Saban had survived the woods.
The boys had to wrestle against men for their next test. It did not matter if they won or lost, indeed no one expected a half-starved boy to beat a full-grown man, but it was important that they fought well and showed bravery. Saban found himself pitted against Dioga, a freed Outfolk slave noted for his bear-like strength. The crowd laughed at the mismatch between boy and man, but Saban was faster than any of them expected. He slipped Dioga’s rush, kicked him, slipped past him again, slapped him, jeered at him and landed one blow that stung Dioga’s face and then the bigger man at last caught the boy, threw him down and began to throttle him with his big hands. Saban clawed at Dioga’s tattooed face, attempting to hook his fingers into the man’s eye-sockets, but Dioga just grunted and bore down with his thumbs on Saban’s windpipe until Gilan hit him with a staff and made him let go. ‘Well done, boy,’ the high priest said. Saban choked as he tried to answer, then sat with the other boys and heaved breath into his starving lungs.
The seventeen boys endured the fire last. They stood with their backs to the flames as a priest heated the sharpened tip of an ash branch until it was red hot, then placed the glowing tip on their shoulder blades and left it there until the skin bubbled. Gilan stared into their faces to make certain they did not cry. Saban sang the rage song of Rannos as the fire scorched his back, and the heat was such that he thought he would have to cry aloud, but the pain passed and Gilan grinned his approval. ‘Well done,’ the high priest said again, ‘well done,’ and Saban’s heart was so full of joy he could have flown like a bird.
He was a man. He could take a bride, own a slave, keep his own livestock, give himself a new name and speak in the tribal meetings. Neel, the young priest, presented Saban with the chalk ball that was his childhood’s spirit shelter and Saban danced up and down on it, breaking and powdering the chalk as he whooped with delight. His father, unable to conceal his pleasure, gave him a wolfskin tunic, a fine spear and a bronze knife with a wooden handle. His mother gave him an amulet of amber, which had been a gift to her from Lengar, and Saban tried to make her keep it for she was sick, but she would not take it back. Galeth gave him a yew longbow, then sat him down and tattooed the marks of manhood on his chest. He used a bone comb that he dipped in woad, then hammered into Saban’s skin; the pain meant nothing to Saban for now he was a man. ‘You can take a new name now,’ Galeth said.
‘Hand-Splitter,’ Saban said jokingly.
Galeth laughed. ‘I thought that was your work. Well done. But you’ve made a lifelong enemy.’
‘An enemy,’ Saban said, ‘who will find it hard to hold a bow or wield a spear.’
‘But a dangerous man,’ Galeth warned him.
‘A crippled man now,’ Saban said, for he had heard that the flint knife had bitten right through the sinews of Jegar’s hand.
‘A worse enemy for that,’ Galeth said. ‘So will you change your name?’
‘I shall keep it,’ Saban said. His birth name meant Favoured One and he reckoned it was apt. He watched the blood and woad trickle down his skin. He was a man! Then, with the sixteen others who had passed the ordeals, Saban sat down to a feast of meat, bread and honey, and while they ate, the women of the tribe sang the battle song of Arryn. By the meal’s end the sun was going down and the girls who had been sequestered all day in the Temple of Lahanna were taken to the Temple of Slaol. The tribe lined the path from the settlement to the temple and they danced and clapped as the seventeen men followed the girls who would now become women.
Derrewyn was not among the girls. She was too valuable as a bride to be given to that night’s revelry, but next morning, as Saban walked back into the settlement to find a place where he could build his own hut, Derrewyn greeted him. She gave him one of her precious necklaces of white sea-shells. Saban blushed at the gift and Derrewyn laughed at his confusion.
And that same day Gilan began to plan how the eight stones would be placed.
The new men were not expected to work on the day after their ordeals, so Saban wandered up onto the hill to watch Gilan begin his work in the Old Temple. Butterflies were everywhere, a host of blue and white scraps being blown across the flower-studded grass where a score of people were digging the chalk with antler picks to make ditches and banks that would flank a new sacred path leading to the temple’s gate of the sun.
Saban walked to the western side of the temple and sat on the grass. His new spear was beside him and he wondered when he would first use it in battle. He was a man now, but the tribe would expect him to kill an enemy before he was reckoned a proper adult. He drew out the bronze knife his father had given him and admired it in the sunlight. The blade was short, scarce as long as Saban’s hand, but the metal had been incised with a thousand tiny indentations that made a complex pattern. A man’s knife, Saban thought, and he tilted the blade from side to side so that the sun flashed from the metal.
Derrewyn’s voice spoke behind him, ‘My uncle has a sword just like that. He says it was made in the land across the western sea.’
Saban twisted round and stared up at her. ‘Your uncle?’ He asked.
‘Kital, chief of Cathallo.’ She paused. ‘Of course.’ She crouched beside him and placed a delicate finger to the blue-red scabs of his new tattoos. ‘Did that hurt?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Saban boasted.
‘It must have done.’
‘A little,’ he conceded.
‘Better those
