The Texts Of Festival (4 page)

Oltha sat in a carved chair in front of the table where the men played the knife game. Apart from straw, rugs and two large chests, the table and chair were the only furniture in the tent, in fact the only furniture in the whole camp, the property of the chief — tokens of his authority, carefully carried from place to place in the rear wagon.

About fifteen men crowded the tent, some standing, some sprawled in the straw. They were short, thickset men with coarse, brutal faces, and either shaved heads or long straggling hair, greased down with animal fat and gathered into heavy plaits wound with strips or rags. They had a standard dress of a coarse woollen or hide tunic: a sleeveless one-piece garment ornamented with crude brooches or studs and their leggings were bound up with thick strips of leather. Their bare arms were covered with tattoos, birds, animals, skulls, and women in obscene poses; and their faces carried the marks of a hard, bestial, outdoor life.

A few were already snoring; the hill farmer’s beer was taking its toll and would ensure that the game did not last all night, although it was likely that fights would break out before the last man collapsed. Fights, however, broke out most nights in camp and it was as well that the men were unconscious while the moon was still high. At dawn they would have to break camp and make the long day’s journey to the meeting place.

Outside the tent the remainder of the mounted guns stood watch, lounged by the fire or grappled with a woman in the deep shadows. The deal of beer had turned the camp into a party and around the twenty fires or in the dozen squat, conical tents figures shouted, sang and stumbled. Even the guards grew lax.

It was as well that they were partying tonight. The next few days would be given to travelling and fighting.

He stood up and the knife chant faltered. The man with his hand spread in the candlelight stopped his stabbing and straightened.

‘’Nuff?’

‘’Nuff,’ confirmed Oltha, ‘soonly I sleep. March tomorrow.’

The men nodded and filed out of the tent. For a while he sat in the empty tent. He listened to the shouts as the men from the tent joined their brothers round the fire. Oltha scratched his stomach and felt pleased. His tribe was becoming strong. Not, of course, as strong as in his grandfather’s day. He dimly remembered the legendary time: how once the guns had ridden the roaring iron monsters that sped across the land. In his grandfather’s day the tribe had been invincible; even the lords of Festival had feared their might and paid tribute. But the iron monsters had one by one died until, even when he was a child, only five had remained. As he grew their magic had failed and the stocks of the spirit had dwindled. Then had come the defeat in the west; the last two machines had been destroyed. The warriors, his father among them, had fallen before Starkweather’s army and their repeating guns and he became chief of a broken tribe, outcasts on the barren, spoiled hills.

Gradually they had regained their strength, raiding farms, absorbing small warrior bands and attacking hill settlements.

Of course many had died in their wanderings, particularly the children, but gradually the power of the tribe grew. They raided towns, taking weapons, supplies and women captives to swell the tribe. The tribe stood at thirty mounted guns, seventy archers and two hundred foot warriors. With the power of the alliance they would take tribute from Festival for the first time in two generations. Oltha stood up and pushed through the tent flap. The warriors round the fire greeted him; one passed him a jug of beer. He drained it and spat in the fire. Maybe they wouldn’t stop at tribute; maybe they would take Festival itself.

Oltha stalked through the camp. Silhouetted against the firelight, dark figures swayed and stumbled between the rough hide tents, and smoke drifted close to the ground. Occasionally it would billow up and catch his throat. A huge warrior pumped at a woman on the ground in Oltha’s path. Urgently they forced themselves at each other; the woman, head thrown back and a white leg clasped across the warrior’s back, looked with unseeing eyes at Oltha as he grinned and stepped round.

Indeed, with the added strength of Iggy and his hard crystal boys, maybe they would take Festival. Of course the alliance would not last. The crystal madness of Iggy’s gang would quickly lead to fighting. With luck most of them would die in the battle. Their wild-eyed killing was awesome but their madness also led to massive losses. Oltha could deal with Iggy. Oltha could deal with the world.

Pressed against a tree one of old Peg’s brood, a leggy teenager with small hard breasts, struggled with a short fat bowman.

Oltha approached them, spun the man round by his shoulder and hit him once across the mouth with his fist in its studded leather glove. The man crashed into the base of the tree and slid to a sitting position, wiping blood from his lips. Oltha laughed and, seizing the girl round the waist, slapped her backside and half dragged, half carried her back to his tent.

By the time the sun stood clear of the hills the tribe was on the move. In single file they had come down from the hillside and formed up to march in open formation along the broad valley.

The mounted guns came first, abreast of each other in a broad line. Behind them a wide loose column of the foot men. On either flank a line of archers watched the hill slopes and then the wagons and a straggle of women, children and animals.

Oltha sat on his pony in the centre of the line of horsemen.

For most of the morning they moved slowly down the valley. The sun grew hot. Oltha sweated in his leather shirt. The studs chafed his shoulder blades. Beneath him the pony plodded across the hard ground and sparse grass. Beside them a river wound sluggishly down the valley, its banks lined with weed beds where mosquitoes danced.

At the end of the valley Oltha ordered a stop and women served a meal of dried meat, cheese and hard bread, and another deal of beer was distributed. They ate hurriedly and then reformed into a long column to cross the hills. By mid-afternoon they halted at the top of the line of hills. On the other side of the valley beneath them was the settlement where Iggy and his men had turned a tribe of hill farmers into their slaves.

Oltha sent his scouts ahead.

The crash of boots on the front porch roused Iggy from his nod. Winston was yelling in his ear, going too fast for him to make intelligence of it.

‘Cool off, mutha, whassa matta?’

‘Looks like they’re a-comin’.’

‘You sho’?’

‘Sho’.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Top of that hill, bro’ Iggy.’

‘No shit?’

‘An’ scouts a-comin’.’

Iggy giggled and stood up.

‘Round up the boys, an’ get the signal t’gether. Ri’?’

‘Ri’ on.’

Winston thundered off and Iggy yelled for a villager to get him a jug of water and sluiced it over his face and neck. The hill boy stood looking at him, scared and awkward.

‘Whatcha starin’ at, mutha, ain’tcha got no work?’

Iggy aimed a kick at the hill boy who scuttled away; then he buckled on his gun, pulled his wide brimmed hat over his eyes and stepped down into the village square. He was aware that he cut an impressive figure in front of his men. He had class. His black silk shirt was an antique, as were his high boots while the black trousers of finished leather with the silver studs down the outside seams had belonged to one of the sharpest dressers in Festival until he had taken a fancy to them. His hard eyes, which contrasted so strikingly with the soft femininity of the rest of his face, scanned the dusty square of the little village. He scowled; it was little more than a collection of brick and thatch cottages grouped around a well and a square of beaten earth. He knew that he could do better than this. At his signal a villager brought his horse.

Men started to assemble in the village square as Winston spread the word. Iggy selected seven of his top guns and told them to saddle up. A pillar of smoke rose from the signal fire. Oltha would be coming in. Iggy grinned and sniffed a small pinch of crystal. Winston hurried across the square.

‘Break out the repeaters.’

‘Sho’ Iggy.’

‘An’ load ’em.’

‘Sho’.’

The seven men whom Iggy had selected returned with their horses; then Winston led a party of villagers who carried the eight priceless rapid-fire guns into the square.

‘Okay, each of yous take a repeater; we gonna blow Oltha when he sees us.’

The guns were handed out and Iggy turned to Winston. ‘Get the rest of the boys spread out, an’ wait. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

Iggy mounted and the troop of eight rode out of the village.

Oltha’s tribe wound its way down the hillside. The scouts had spotted the signal and Oltha had moved the tribe. At the front, his ten best guns bunched behind him, Oltha looked back at the whole tribe. If it was a trap there was no way back. They would have to fight their way out of it.

As they neared the foot of the slope Oltha saw Iggy and his men sitting motionless by a small clump of trees perhaps three hundred paces distant. Oltha raised his hand and one by one the tribe halted. For a while they paused, peering across the valley at their future allies; then Oltha kicked his pony and, motioning to the ten to follow, thundered across the grass to where Iggy and his seven riders sat waiting.

Iggy watched, his face blank as the tribesmen galloped towards them. Only the occasional twitch of the black gloved hands showed the tension and the hits of crystal he had been through on the way to this meeting.

With ten paces between the two groups, Oltha halted his men. They wheeled their ponies flashily, making them rear and throw up divots of turf. Then they formed into a line and Oltha walked his pony slowly forward. Iggy, equally slowly, rode out from the shadow of the copse to meet him. Facing each other they halted.

‘Greetings from the tribe of Oltha.’

‘Hi there, ride t’village?’

Oltha dispatched a man to bring in the tribe. Then he and Iggy rode off towards the village. The two groups of horsemen fell in together and followed them.

Nath covertly eyed the men who rode amongst his brothers. They looked ill-fed, thin, gaunt, with staring eyes; although their rich clothes, larger mounts and the fact that, to a man, they carried rapid-fire guns belied any suggestion of poverty.

Iggy and Oltha rode side by side. Iggy surreptitiously glanced at the hill chief. These hill boys were a mean bunch, with their short shaggy ponies and rough leather clothes. With these hick butchers he could run rings through Festival. There would be a problem in controlling them, of course. At least until he had them strung out on crystal and that wouldn’t be easy. By the look of the mob coming down the hill there must be a few hundred of them and the chief would probably know enough to suspect if he went around handing the stuff out like candy. The first stage would be to turn on his roughest boys. After that, if the chief gave any trouble, he could safely waste him.

Iggy yelled a question at the silent chief.

‘How many have ya brought?’

The chief looked at him as though figuring in his head. ‘Three times hundred.’

Iggy grinned to himself. He had guessed right.

‘Countin’ women?’

‘More, with women.’

‘Ri’ on. You betta pick a buncha land on the edge of the village. Betta camp there. Git y’self togetha an’ come ’n’ party. Ri’?’

Oltha grunted and gathered his men to select a camp for the tribe. Iggy and his escort rode back to the village, casting long shadows.

Outside what had been the house of the village headman, Iggy and Oltha watched their men party in the village square. The atmosphere was subdued, each side viewing the presence of so many strangers as a potential threat. Oltha had only permitted his horsemen to come into the village. The remaining bulk of his men he had ordered to stay with the tents. Oltha no longer expected an immediate trap but it paid to be careful. If most of Iggy’s men were in the square it meant that he had about seventy under his control and the size of the horsepens signified that all were mounted. Finally Iggy broke the silence.

‘You wanna go inside an’ talk?’

Oltha nodded.

Inside the house two village women served them with beer, corn spirit and oat cakes, and once they were alone Iggy brought a chair to one side of the fire that blazed in the wide stone hearth and indicated that Oltha should seat himself. The fire threw flickering patterns on the beamed ceiling. Iggy picked up a small carved box from the mantel shelf. Opening it he sniffed a small hit of crystal, hesitated and offered the open box to the hill chief. Oltha shook his head and Iggy grinned, shut the box and returned it to the shelf.

‘You reckon to take Festival.’

Iggy shrugged.

‘Why not?’

‘T’ hold or t’ loot?’

‘Either, work it out when we get there.’

‘When do we start?’

‘Hold it, hold it. Not so fast.’

‘Why wait? We ride to Festival. We fight. No reason to wait.’

‘You ain’t that dumb. We gotta lot needs doing. That’s why wait.’

Oltha said nothing. There was the sound of shouts and laughter. Iggy stood up and walked to the window. The groups of men who had previously stayed with their own kind were gradually beginning to mingle. When the hill boys got drunk there would probably be fights. Winston’s squad would take care of that if it became necessary. Iggy turned to face the fire.

‘The first thing we’re gonna need is supplies an’ an easy fight so we can see how our boys work out togetha, ri’?’

Oltha nodded.

‘An’ I got a deal that’d take care of both those.’

Oltha looked puzzled.

‘No easy raids left in this country. Too near Festival.’

‘There’s a caravan, four days out from the great bridge, four days out on the old road headed for Festival.’

Oltha slowly leaned forward, a wolfish grin spreading over his face.

‘A caravan?’

‘Ri’, a caravan. An’ in two days it’ll cross Ruined Hill, not a morning’s ride from here. First we take the caravan. After that we head for Festival. Agree?’

‘Agree.’

Iggy again took the carved box from the mantel. He took another hit of crystal, hesitated, glanced at Oltha and replaced the box.