The Prodigal Troll (29 page)

Squandral said things through his nose about each gift, but Maggot couldn't understand him or read his expression. He wondered if Squandral would keep his blanket or give it away for something to eat.

Damaqua puffed on the pipe before he spoke again. "Now the honorable Squandral asks us to put aside all our years of peace like a bad harvest, to set aside our relationships with the invaders like crops ruined by insects. This is a hard thing for us to do. If we thrust aside all our crops, what will we eat and where will we get the seedcorn to plant when next year comes? Look around us here. What man among us does not carry something taken in trade from the invaders?"

Maggot had a belt now, a breechcloth that he liked, and a fine hatchet that he kept waiting to find a use for-most of the other men also carried them. He wore no shoes upon his feet nor any of the other adornments preferred by Sinnglas's people, having too many things to carry about already. When he leaned over the shoulders of the other men for a closer look at the gifts, Squandral stared at him. He was a hard man, made of granite. Maggot met his scrutiny without flinching.

Damaqua continued speaking, emphasizing his words with his hands. "The honorable Squandral says that a time has come for war, that the invaders push into the higher valleys, killing our game and squeezing us against the wall of the mountains. This is true. He says that they move onto our land with no respect for our use of it and build their farms and houses. This is also true. He says that we must rebel against them, as we did thirty years ago when he and my father were young men." He slapped the back of one hand against the other palm. "That if we strike the hand that steals from our plate, it will be less likely to steal from us again."

His gaze rested on Sinnglas, challenging him.

"I do not say yes or no to Squandral's proposal," Damaqua said. "Let us have our feast and consult with one another, and then reach our consensus."

He handed the pipe over to Squandral, who sucked at it like a baby at its mother's breast. Throughout the room, men bent to trade counsel with one another.

"How will they vote?" Maggot whispered in Sinnglas's ear.

"We will not be unified in this. Damaqua cannot win a vote for peace, but my followers cannot win the vote for war."

War. That word he did not yet understand. Sinnglas's language baffled him. It had one word that meant to dig. There was no way to say, as a troll could, to-dig-with-the-fingertips-in-soft-soil, to-probewith-toes-in-dirt, to-scoop-handfuls, to-overturn-with-the-feet, toopen-new-passageways-underground. The words for food and for the finding of it also seemed greatly impoverished to Maggot. And it had words like war that described nothing tangible, nothing he could imagine. Whenever he asked Sinnglas to describe the meaning of war, his friend embarked on a long series of stories about the invaders, their abuses and injustices.

But these abuses drove Sinnglas; Maggot understood that much. Sinnglas had been following the men in the camp of tents to watch against them when the flood struck, separating him from his brothers. He had been preparing for this war then. So if Maggot had not saved him, there might not be a war at all. The war was very important to Sinnglas. Maggot was glad that he had saved Sinnglas.

Squandral, the newcomer, spoke again, and Damaqua repeated his words about feasting and careful thought and agreement, and then the men rose to leave.

Maggot followed Sinnglas outside. The weight of all his tools and weapons still felt odd to him, bouncing against him as he walked. As did his clean skin and hair. He had scrubbed himself raw in imitation of the other men.

Sinnglas and his two brothers carried their bows and quivers. Maggot followed them outside the village palisade, larger and sturdier than the one by the river, as they crossed the fields and meadows toward the forest. No one spoke for a long time, until they were far away from anyone else.

Maggot lost hold of his tongue first. "The man, he nose, like a hawk-"

"Squandral," Sinnglas said. "A great man. First among his people, a friend of my father's when he was First among ours."

"Squandral," Maggot repeated. "He wants we do what?"

Sinnglas meditated on this, wearing the same expression on his face that Damaqua had when smoking the pipe. The two brothers looked very much like one another.

The four men followed a path through the woods and over a ridge. Another person waited for them down in the glade-one of the two trollbirds so recently perched upon Squandral's shoulders.

"That," Sinnglas said, "is what we have come to find out."

Away from craggy-faced Squandral, this man made a stronger impression. He was lean, with a long axe-shaped head. He and Sinnglas exchanged nods, and then they both squatted down, troll-style, resting arms on their knees. Maggot hunkered down beside them, but Keekyu and Pisqueto waited at a short distance.

"Greetings, Menato," Sinnglas said.

"And greetings to you." He lifted his chin in Maggot's direction. "So this is your foreign wizard. Is it true that Gelapa has put a curse on him?"

Because of the charms about his neck, and because of things that Sinnglas had said about him, these people believed that Maggot was a wizard. This made men hesitant around him and the women afraid. The women avoided Maggot, even though he told them he was no wizard. The only other wizard in the village was Gelapa, an old man who rattled turtle shells at Maggot whenever he came close. People feared him too. Another thing Maggot didn't understand.

Sinnglas merely shrugged. "Gelapa is weak. He drinks too much of the medicine water. He could not heal a bullfrog of its croak, and his curses couldn't make a rabbit jump."

"Heh." Menato lifted his chin again at Maggot.

"His name is Maqwet." Sinnglas was unable to give Maggot's name the deep throaty inflection of a troll. "He comes from over the mountains."

Menato smiled. "Squandral calls him the Vulture, because of the way he hovered over the council meeting. There is a hungry look in his eyes."

"Heh," Sinnglas said. "Vulture. That's good."

Off to the side, Pisqueto chuckled. He was very young, with no hair on his chin and hardly any flesh on his bones. Keekyu, who was older than Damaqua, smiled, rubbed his nose, and stared at the ground. He had an unfamiliar sick smell about him sometimes.

"We have heard rumors of him," Menato said. "We have heard that he is one of the southerners, come from over the mountain to pledge their men in joining our war. Now that we have seen him with our own eyes, Squandral doesn't know what to believe."

Sinnglas answered with a small, tight shake of his head. "He is not one of the southerners. We have seen them, you and I, when we went raiding among them. Maqwet does not look like them, does he?"

"No."

"Also, he knew no more of their language than he did of ours. And yet he can describe all the passes through the mountains, and the paths of the rivers and the ways they flow."

Maggot had tried hard to explain himself to Sinnglas, and he had wearied of it. All he wanted to do was learn enough to follow the woman where she went. He would help Sinnglas as a favor for that knowledge, and then he would go find her.

"So where is he from then?" Menato asked.

"Maybe he is like First Man," Sinnglas answered. He glanced sideways at Maggot and explained. "When the animals stole the secret of speech from Earth Spirit, they began to mock Earth. Mammut said, `Look how weak Earth is: I can tear it up.' Flathorn Stag said, `Look how ugly Earth's plants are, I will mark them with my antlers.' Crow tried to warn them that Earth was angry, but they wouldn't listen. So Earth Spirit let loose a great flood that drowned all the animals. Those that survived crowded together on the high mountaintop, and Earth Spirit opened a crack in the ground and out came First Man."

Maggot craned his neck and concentrated. He knew almost all these words, but had never heard this history before.

"So," said Sinnglas, "Earth Spirit took the power of speech away from the animals, all except for Crow, and gave it to First Man. Then Earth said to him, `You may take one thing from each of the beasts and keep it for yourself.' From the lion, First Man took a tooth and fashioned it into his knife. From the mammut, he took the long tusk and made a spear. From the stag, he took the flathorn and made it into a shovel, and so on. The animals remember their loss, and so continue to tear up the earth, but Earth Spirit pays them no heed. From Crow, First Man took nothing, and Crow, in gratitude used his speech to teach him wizardry."

"Heh," Menato said thoughtfully.

Sinnglas stared at Maggot, seeming to measure his response. "So I say you are like First Man. You appear after a flood, coming out of the mountains, born, as you tell us, of no woman. You came unadorned, naked as a newborn, but with tools, as First Man did; and like First Man, you are also a wizard."

Maggot sank back on his haunches. "No. When they raised hands for First, I lost the hands to my father," he said, the words he had repeated many times now coming to him more easily. He looked at Menato. "I have never speaked to a crow, but now I speak with happybird-that-visits-in-the-night." There was no word for trollbird: that was the best translation Maggot could manage.

"Heh," the lean-faced man repeated. He didn't move for several long seconds. "He talks like a wizard."

Sinnglas laughed. "Yes. And he saved my life, when I was swept away in the floods. You may believe that also."

"Ah, the floods."

"My life was saved, but others died, and we did not find their bodies. Now their spirits haunt us. We lost all our spring planting and much of our remaining seed, and many animals were destroyed. Plants we collected from the forest have been swept away. This will be a hard year for us."

Menato shifted his legs, placed his fingertips on the ground. "It is the invaders who do the damage to us. Our village was spared the worst, but the floods swept away the tame cattle of the invaders, whole herds of them. Now the invaders come and trample our fields, hunting the deer and bison we would eat. They tell us that we will have to pay a heavy tax in crops this year. The Lion will devour us all."

Maggot frowned. He supposed that a lion could eat several handfuls of people, but no lion he had ever seen could eat all the people in this village.

Sinnglas nodded. "Their emissaries have said the same to us, though our second crop is late planted and less than it should be. They already planned to bring their herds up here to pasture, and so they came to kill the lion and the wolves that live up here. But the floods drowned their herds and so they do not come. Damaqua says it is a sign that we should continue to accommodate them. But I say they will come next year, when they are stronger and we are weaker. It is better if we strike now, while there is still strength behind our fist."

Menato pursed his lips. "This is what Squandral thinks also. He respects and fears the Lion. But we are too weak to act alone, so Squandral will not go to war without Damaqua."

"Without Damaqua or without our village? Damaqua will be for peace, but we are divided. He cannot get consensus."

"But neither can you."

Sinnglas shook his head. "No, I cannot."

Maggot shook his too, practicing the gesture so that he would not stick his tongue out when he meant no. Pisqueto looked at Maggot, stuck out his tongue, and bugged his eyes. Keekyu smiled, briefly, and Maggot laughed aloud.

They all sat silently for a time. The warm sun on Maggot's back made his skin itch for shade.

"We must do something," Menato said finally. "If we do not stop the invaders here, we will have to flee south across the mountains and fight for land within the country of our enemy."

"Some already flee," Sinnglas said. "They went that way last winter but never arrived."

"We must do something. This is what Squandral says."

Sinnglas's mouth tightened. "I will raise a raiding party, such as one that we would take across the mountains into the land of our enemy. But I will lead it down into the valleys stolen by the invaders. Damaqua cannot stop that."

"That is good."

"I will call for the dance tonight, as the old men gather in the council lodge. But it will only be my venture, not the will of our village."

"It will be a start," Menato said. "I will tell this to Squandral." He rose to leave.

As he slipped off into the woods, Maggot and the other brothers stood around Sinnglas.

"That went well," Pisqueto said, his grin as bright as a halfmoon. "The famous Squandral will be with us when we fight! How can we lose?"

"I did not hear Menato promise that," Keekyu said.

"Nor did I," Sinnglas admitted. "Likely we will make this raid alone." Then he smiled too, an expression somewhere between the grim face of Keekyu and the boyish joy of Pisqueto. "Perhaps it will just be the three of us then." He glanced at Maggot. "Perhaps even four."

"Four," Maggot said firmly. "What is, we go do?"

"To hunt and kill the Lion of the valley," said Keekyu. "If we can, and if the Lion does not kill us first."

Pisqueto stopped smiling and bounced less.

"He speaks truly," Sinnglas said. "But without the Lion to protect them, the invaders will be afraid."

"Four of us not are needed to kill lion," said Maggot, swinging his arm to show how he had choked and stabbed one. "I kill lion, one time, all me. From out of tree, I felled, I stabbed lion in heart. Take me to valley where this lion is, and I will kill him."

The three men waited quietly for a moment. "You will come with us and have your chance," Sinnglas said.

Keekyu took steps along the trail. "We must go with the news, and prepare the men of the village for the dance, and for the expedition that is coming."

"It's war!" Pisqueto said. Sinnglas nodded.

Maggot shared their happiness. "It's war!" he said cheerfully.