with dogs, children, women chattering—so why the silence? If only the mist would clear. Straining his ears, Kwimu begins to think he can pick up the muffled sound of voices. Men talking—or arguing, for the sound becomes louder and sharper.
And then an appalling scream tears through the fog. Kwimu grabs his father. The scream soars into bubbling hysteria, and breaks into a series of sharp, yipping howls like a mad wolf. The morning erupts in shouts of anger and alarm, and a ring-ding, hard-edged clashing. Flocks of screeching birds clatter up from the forest.
As if their wings are fanning it away, the mist thins and vanishes. At last Kwimu and Sinumkw see what is going on below them, down by the river mouth.
The earth has been flayed. Instead of grassland, pits and scars of bare red soil show where the turf has been lifted.Two strange lumpish sod houses have been thrown up on a rising crescent of ground between the edge of the forest and the sea. They look like burrows, for the withered grass grows right over them, but smoke rises from holes in the tops. Between these houses—these burrows—men are swarming.
Men? Their faces are white as paint, and they seem shaggy round the head, like a lynx or bobcat.These are not the Kwetejk, nor like any men Kwimu has ever seen. Are they the dead then, returned from the Ghost World? But some are pursuing others, hacking them with long axes, stabbing with lances. Some lie motionless on the ground.
Sinumkw taps Kwimu’s shoulder. “Look!” His voice is awed, shocked. “In the river. Jipijka’maq!”
Kwimu drags his eyes from the scene below, and the hairs rise on his neck. Floating in the wide shallows where the river meets the sea are two things—bigger than the biggest canoe—and surely they are alive? For each has a head, staring shorewards from the top of a long neck. Each head is that of a Horned Serpent.
The smaller of the two is painted red, and the horned head snarls open-jawed from the top of a slender curving neck.The larger one is painted in red and black stripes, and it lifts a goggle-eyed head, beaked like a screaming eagle.
“Grandmother’s story,” whispers Kwimu. “This is what it meant.”
These people are Jipijka’maq—Horned Serpent People, shape-changers. They come from out of the water and under the ground. Their whiteness is not paint, but the bleached pallor of things you find under stones. But why are they fighting, and why are they here? Kwimu moistens his lips, staring at the sprawled figures on the ground. Perhaps they’re not dead. Perhaps, any moment now, their feet and hands will vanish, their bodies will swell and lengthen, and they will slither off on their bellies into their dark earth houses?
But they never move.
“Hah!” With a cough of disdainful laughter, Sinumkw points suddenly. “See the coward there!”
A man in a green cloak is escaping, running away from the fight. He’s dragging a child along with him, a young boy. Just past the end of the nearest house he stops, and pushes the child, pointing to the woods. The message is clear. “Run!” he’s saying. “Run and hide yourself. Go!” The child hesitates, and is sent staggering with a hard shove between the shoulder blades. The man whirls and goes racing back.
So he’s not a coward after all; he was trying to save the child. And he’s unarmed, except for a knife. His enemies are coming to meet him. In the lead is a burly, bear-like man, obviously a chief. By his side is a boy no older than Kwimu, with long loose golden hair that floats behind him as he runs, yelling. The burly chief shouts an order to his warriors. They spread out to catch the man in green, who dodges two of them and dashes on like a hunted animal, heading for the river. And then he trips and falls.
The chieftain shouts again and points. His men scatter sideways. The chieftain’s right arm comes up, balancing his spear. He pauses a second, and throws.
There’s a ragged chorus of whoops and howls from the men. They run forward, closing in on the crumpled green bundle. The spear stands straight up, a marker pointing at the sky. It twitches suddenly, it wags to and fro. The green bundle is still moving, trying to crawl away. Kwimu’s breath hisses through his teeth.
The boy with the golden hair strolls up behind the men. He looks no older than Kwimu, maybe fifteen winters old. His weapon is shaped like the long-bladed leaves that grow in the marshes—red with blood. The others part to let him through; the burly chieftain puts an arm round his shoulders. Together they gaze at the man on the ground. Then the chieftain tugs his spear out. The golden youth hooks a foot under the body, rolling it on to its back. The man’s pale face comes into view. Still alive. His fingers open and close like claws.
Warriors taunt each other when they fight. If the man on the ground can still speak, this is the moment for his final defiance. And perhaps he does gasp something out. But the golden-haired youth laughs.The high, shrill sound echoes upwards. He puts the point of his long red blade to the man’s throat, and shoves it in. Kwimu shuts his eyes. Only a blink, but when he opens them again, it’s over.
He turns his face away, and freezes. That child—the child the man in green was trying to save! He hasn’t run off; he’s peering round the corner of the nearest house, clutching the sod walls with both hands, craning his neck to see what’s happening. He sees the dead man, and shrinks like a snail when you tap its shell.
The burly chieftain gives orders, pointing this way and that. His men fan out and start searching between the houses. Kwimu sucks in his bottom lip. They’re hunting for the child. And they’ll find him; there’s nowhere to run.
The child presses against the wall. Any moment now the men will simply come round the building, and there he’ll be.
Then Kwimu almost shouts. The child turns and flings himself at the soft sod wall, digging fingers and toes into the cracks and crannies. He scurries up like a mouse, pulling himself on to the roof just as the nearest man rounds the corner. He lies flat. His light hair and clothes blend with the pale grasses growing on the turf roof, but he’s still completely visible to anyone who glances up. In fact, Kwimu can see one of his feet sticking over the edge.
But the man doesn’t look up. He strides along with his head down, staring at the ground. Kwimu bites his lip, hardly able to breathe. Don’t move. He’s gone, but there’s another one coming. Don’t move!
Neither man looks up. It seems crazy, but they don’t. Kwimu sighs silently, surprised by the strength of his feelings for this strange foreign child. Beside him, Sinumkw shakes with admiring laughter. “That little weasel! To fool all those warriors with one simple trick! Look, they can’t think where he’s gone.”
And it is funny, in a way, seeing the men poking and prodding around the houses, and gazing into the woods, when all the time he’s a few feet above their heads, as still as a sitting bird. All the same, Kwimu’s nails are cutting into his palms by the time the men give up. Maybe their hearts are not really in this search for a small boy. They return to the chief and his golden son, empty-handed.
The chief shrugs. It’s clear he thinks it doesn’t matter much. He gestures to the bodies lying on the ground, and goes on talking to his son. Obediently the men drag the bodies down to the water’s edge. They wade yelling into the cold river, carrying the dead out to the smaller, slenderer of the Serpents, which jerks and snubs at its tether as if outraged at being given such a cargo. One by one, the bodies are tumbled in.
Where’s the child?
Sidling up the roof like a crab.
At least he’s pulled his foot in—no, don’t
