So Star was right.
The certainty released him. No more doubt. Now it was kill or be killed.
"Hey-a-aa!"
With a ripple of pure force he was up on his feet and one hand was jabbing, jabbing, nothing too serious, just to keep his opponent on his back foot. Then two swift steps in close to a full-body hold, each now holding the other, and Snakey squeezing him, aiming to crack his ribs in his strong arms. But the Wildman had him where he wanted him, and his hands felt for his black-and-yellow striped neck.
Once he had his neck he had his life. This was what he knew how to do, no tricks, man-to-man. There in the street for all to see, in the burning mid-afternoon sun, he gripped and gripped and felt Snakey's arms go limp round him, and a savage exultation flooded his senses. From somewhere far away he heard Morning Star's voice calling, "No, Wildman! No!" but the joy in his heart answered, Yes, Wildman! Yes! and he squeezed the life from the one who had tried to kill him, his challenger, his enemy, his childhood friend.
Such a silence at the end. Nothing moving now. With difficulty he cracked open his hands and the thing dropped to the ground, and the silence covered it. No joy now. Only exhaustion, and something deeper than exhaustion. The Wildman sank to his knees. There was Snakey staring up at him, only he didn't see him, because he was dead.
And I might as well be dead too, thought the Wildman as he slid into the silence.
It was dark, and Morning Star was standing by his side, illuminated by the soft light of a candle.
"Night already?"
"Almost morning."
"I've slept long."
"You emptied yourself," she said. "You had to sleep."
"What did I do?"
"You took a life."
He remembered then. Snakey loved him. Snakey tried to kill him.
"Seems you were right."
"Wish I hadn't been."
Her voice was different. She sounded as if something had broken in her.
"Had to do it, Star."
She was silent for a moment. He looked up at her and smiled. He liked to see her familiar face. He was used to having her watch him. But she was not watching him now. Her eyes were gazing into the shadows.
"I'm going to go away," she said.
That was what had changed. She had stopped needing him. The Wildman had never known how much she had needed him until it stopped.
"Don't go."
She shook her head, very slightly. The decision was made. Inside herself, she had already left.
"You're the spirit of the spikers, Star. You're the little mother. Can't do it without you."
"You don't need me, Wildman. You don't need anyone."
"Don't go today. Today's not a good day."
"Like you always say," she said, "people do what they have to do."
She rose to her feet.
"I only stayed this long to say good-bye."
Through the opening of the tent the Wildman saw his friend and self-appointed bodyguard, Pico, asleep on a rug. Beyond him the Caspian called Sky, who was only ever ridden by Morning Star or himself.
"You'll take Sky?"
"No. I'll take nothing."
That was the Nomana way: to possess nothing, to build no lasting home. To love no one person above all others.
A great ache opened up in the Wildman. He wanted to say to her that the bond between them, between himself and her and Seeker, was all they had. He wanted to tell her that he missed the old days. He wanted to tell her that he hadn't meant to kill Snakey, and didn't want to be the leader of an army, and no longer knew where to lead them. But he said none of it. Partly it was pride. But also he knew it would make no difference. People did what they had to do.
"Take care on the road, Star. Dangerous times."
She stooped down and kissed his cheek; a kiss at last. She had wanted to kiss him for so long, but now that she did, what had once seemed so big had become little. Only a pressure of the lips.
"Till we meet again, Wildman."
3 Lost Children
MORNING STAR LEFT THE SPIKER CAMP BEFORE THE SUN rose, while the new day was still cooled by the night. She had no direction to go; but she walked fast, simply wanting to be gone.
As she walked, her mind was full of what she was leaving, and of the momentous fact that she was leaving. For so many months she had allowed herself to be filled by her passion for the Wildman, and now, as quickly as it had come, it had gone. She felt as if she had woken from a dream. Now she could admit to herself that she had been unhappy for all that time. She had no place in the spiker army. She was not their little mother. She had stayed in the camp only to be close to the Wildman. That closeness had been necessary to her, but it had not made her happy. Most days he had not even noticed her existence. Over the months she had shrunk in size, it seemed to her, until she had reached the point of invisibility, or of not existing at all. That was why she had had to go. To exist once more.
That, and the killing. It had shocked her deeply. In those terrible last moments, she had looked at the Wildman and seen on his face and in his colors, in the pulsing reds shivering into orange, a terrible ecstasy of killing joy.
She didn't blame him. If she blamed anyone, she blamed herself: for not speaking sooner, for not knowing the Wildman better, for provoking the fight—in sum, for seeing too much and doing too little. Her gift had brought no good to anyone. Better that she go.
As the sun rose and cast her shadow long and thin before her, it struck her that this was how her mother must have felt, all those years ago, when she had run away from her husband and child to escape the darkness.
Am I running away from the darkness?
She followed the road into a dip in the land, at the bottom of which was a stream lined with willow trees. The stream had dried up, leaving its stony bed exposed to the light of the new day. At the point where the road intersected the stream, three large smooth boulders lay in a line: stepping-stones to carry travellers over the water, now beached by the drought. On the middle one of the three stepping-stones sat a small boy, his head in his hands, weeping.
As the child became aware of her approach, he stopped snivelling. He peeped at her between his fingers. She advanced slowly, not wanting to frighten him.
"Can I help you?" she said.
"Lost," he replied.
He was indescribably dirty. She guessed he was about six years old, but he was wearing the clothing of a grown man. The sleeves and waist and leggings were hitched up and tied with string.
"Who are your people?"
"Don't know."
"How did you get lost?"
"Don't know."
He had stopped crying. His grimy cheeks were well smeared by the rubbing of his hands, but there was no sign of tears. His aura was a feeble muddy orange.
He jumped off his boulder and held out one dirty little hand for her to take.
"You look after me," he said.
It was more a demand than a request. He had a sharp little face and long matted brown hair that kept falling across his eyes. Morning Star took his hand and felt the immediate tenacious clamp of his grip.
"Come along," he said.
He tugged at her, so she came along. They crossed the stream to the other side, then left the road to follow a faint path. For a lost child he seemed to be in a remarkable hurry.
"Where are we going?"
"Along," he said.
She established his name, which as far as she could tell was Burny, but he did not ask for hers. He struck her as being very nervous. Nothing odd about that, given that he was a lost child, but it felt somehow out of place, or unexplained.
The boy must have sensed her hesitation, because all at once he started to talk.
"So I'm lost and you found me," he informed her. "I'm a lost child crying and that, and here we are, coming along."
"Yes," said Morning Star, rather taken aback. "Here we are."
"And you're holding my hand and that, and I'm the poor little kiddy you
found lost and crying—"
It seemed to strike him then that he wasn't crying, so he offered a few token whines as if to round out the picture. They had now left the road and the stream and the willows behind and were approaching a section of the old ruined wall that had once formed the boundary of a longforgotten kingdom. Where their path met the heaps of fallen stones, the way had been cleared so that travellers could pass unobstructed. On either side the remains of the wall rose up in broken mounds.
Morning Star came to a stop. The child jerked on her arm, but she didn't move.
"You'd better tell me, Burny."
He started to cry. This time actual tears flowed.
"I'm just a poor little kiddy," he wailed. "You found me lost and crying. You got to look after me." He gave a violent tug on her hand. "You got to come along. Just over there."
"What's just over there, Burny?"
"It's not fair," he wailed. "I said the words. I did the crying. It's not fair."
"You did it all very well," said Morning Star soothingly. "No one could have done it better."
"There," said the boy, looking round and raising his voice. "Lady says I done it right, so it's not my fault."
Morning Star looked towards the tumbled mounds of stones.
"I think you might as well come out," she said.
So out they came. There were three of them, a boy of about thirteen and two girls, one big and one little. They were all as ill-dressed and dirty as Burny, and had the same pinched, hard look on their underfed faces. They carried knives.
"You boggy baby!" said the boy. "Trust you to make a muck."
"Didn't!" cried Burny. "Lady says I done it right!"
"Don't need boggy babies in the band."
"I said the words! I did the crying!"
"Let him be," said the big girl, a sullen-faced ten-year-old. "We got work to do."
The children were closing in on Morning Star, forming a circle round her. They held their knives in their hands and fixed their eyes on her legs and arms.
"If you mean to rob me," she said, "I've got nothing."
"Everyone got something."
"The clothes I'm wearing. That's all."
"They'll do."
Now they were very close. Morning Star looked from face to face, seeing there the tense energy focused only on the deed, not on her. They were more like young wolves than children.
But they were children.
"All right," she said. "You can have my clothes."
She let go of Burny's hand, and making only slow movements, she unwound her badan. She drew her tunic over her head and laid it on the ground before her. The two girls started to snicker. She shrugged off the vest she wore beneath, and she laid that too on the ground. The snickering stopped.
Now she was naked from the waist up, and the bandit children were staring at her in absolute silence. In particular the one she took to be the leader, the big boy, was staring with his mouth open.
She began to untie her breeches.
"Stop!" cried the sullen-faced girl. "This is stupid."
She turned on the boy in a sudden fury.
"What you gooping at, Hem?"
The boy jumped as if she had smacked him.
"Nothing."
The two little children looked to their leaders.
"Do we cut her? Do we do it?"
"No," said the girl. "We don't want her boggy clothes."
Burny ran to the sullen girl and pulled at her arm.
"Libbet!" he cried. "Libbet! I did it right, didn't I? It's not my fault. I never made a muck."
"Don't matter now," said Libbet.
Morning Star put her clothes on again. Hem, the big boy, was trying not to stare at her and failing. His colors were quite different from the others. All round him hovered the gray blue of helpless yearning.
Throughout the entire confrontation, Morning Star had felt no fear. It hadn't been necessary to use her strength to defend herself. But now it was over, she found she wanted to help these wild children; and for that, she needed to command their respect.
"Look at me, all of you," she said.
They all looked at her but for the one called Libbet.
"You too, Libbet."
Libbet glanced round, full of scorn.
"If you think—"
It only needed that one moment of eye contact. The angry words died on her lips. Morning Star held them all, touching them with the smallest tremor of the power that was in her, not wanting to crush them or awe them, only to make them understand that she could protect them.
Then she sat down on one of the mounds of rubble and spread her arms wide.
"Come to me," she said.
They came, their knives still in their hands, and crowded into her embrace. They didn't jostle or quarrel, but each one strained to be as close to her as possible; Libbet too, and Hem. They huddled round her in the early morning sun, and felt her warmth and power, and nuzzled her body with their dirty faces as if she were their mother.
"We can all help each other," she said to them, stroking their bony backs and their knotted hair. "Let's all be good to each other."
After this they took her back to their den, which was no more than a burrow in a nearby bush. Here they had stored the fruits of their robberies: some old empire gold shillings, some clothes, some travel packs. They robbed for food, which they ate there and then. The rest was of little use to them.
"When did you last eat?"
"Yesterday," said Libbet.
"What time yesterday?"
"'Bout now."
"So you're hungry again."
"Always hungry," said Libbet with a shrug.
"Me too."
"You can share what we get," said Hem.
"Thank you," said Morning Star. "But this doesn't seem the best place to get food. I'm on my way to my home village. Why don't you come with me?"
"We stay clear of villages," said Hem.
"They chase us!" chimed in the little girl, who was called Deedy. "They put dogs on us!"
"I'll tell them not to," said Morning Star. "But you'll have to stop attacking people."
"Then, how are we to live?"
"We'll find a way."
"What makes you so clever?" said Libbet in a surly tone.
"I'm a Noble Warrior," said Morning Star, drawing her badan over her head.
They all gasped at that.
"A real hoodie?"
"Yes."
"I heard they was gone," said Hem. "I heard their castle was smashed to muck."
"They've gone from one place. Now they're every place."
"So, you're a hoodie." Libbet was taking in this information, and it pleased her. It made it all right that she had given in to her. "I'll come along with you if you want."
That was all it took. Burny and Deedy clamored to come with her too, and Hem shrugged as if to say that he cared very little either way.
Burny chose to take this outcome as a personal triumph.
"I found her!" he said to anyone who would listen. "I said the words. I did the crying. I got us the hoodie lady."
Morning Star was glad of their company on the road. They quarrelled with each other and endlessly demanded her attention, and that stopped her from thinking about herself. Libbet scolded and chivvied them, graceless but caring in her way, and Hem acted the man, strutting ahead of their little procession and scowling at others they encountered on the road.
When they reached one of the many rivers that watered the fertile plain, Morning Star proposed that they all take a wash. The river was low, but clear water was flowing in midstream, and it was shallow enough for even the smallest to stand up in. The little ones regarded washing as a water game, all the more welcome after a long morning tramping the sunbaked road. They stripped themselves naked and hurled themselves into the river, then set about an activity they called washing but which more closely resembled fighting.
"Let's wash Burny! Grab him! Wash him!"
"Yow! Ow! Let m
e go!"
Libbet washed herself more sedately, sitting on the riverbank, stripping off sections of her clothing one at a time. Hem did not wash at all.
Morning Star was aware that he watched her, while doing his best to make out he was doing nothing of the sort. She could still see the look on his face and the color of his aura when he had seen her stripped before them. She had thought about it since and had come to the conclusion that Hem had been struck with admiration. Morning Star was far from vain about her personal appearance, but the colors never lied. This led her to a further conclusion that was new to her. She was no beauty, of that she was sure. But perhaps—just possibly—she had a beautiful body.
Hem was only a boy, but he was a boy forced by hardship to grow up young. He was a boy becoming a man. He was awkward and shy and aggressive and suspicious of everyone, but in his unguarded eyes she had caught the first ever reflection of herself as a woman who might be desirable to a man. She was not a little mother to Hem.
"Not going to wash, Hem?"
"What for?" he muttered. "The muck comes back."
They didn't eat all that day, and were dull with hunger by the time they reached the village. Morning Star led her ragged little troop past the familiar landmarks of her childhood towards her family home. Here was the timber bridge over the stream, and here the long stone on which the village women beat the wet clothes on washday. Here was the bakehouse with its great oven, where once she had seen a whole pig being roasted. Here was the fork in the road, with its bench made of a felled tree, where there was always one of the old people sitting watching the world go by. But there was no one on the bench this late afternoon. There was no one to be seen anywhere. There were chickens scratching in the dirt in front of the houses, and a cat asleep in a warm patch of late sunlight; but their owners were out of sight.