Before Theogany
By
Peter G Bailey
Smashwords Edition
Published by
PGPublishing on Smashwords
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First published in Great Britain by PG Publishing
Copyright 2011 by Peter G Bailey ©
First published electronically in Great Britain by Amazon in 2011.
All characters in this book are fictitious and bear no relationship to any person, alive or dead, known to the author.
A catalogue record for all published eBooks is held in the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-9569875-0-1
To Joy - who walks like a Goddess, smiles like an angel and is heaven to hold.
A pre-historic African tribal thriller
One paragraph synopsis:-
Young warrior challenges Alpha male for tribal domination.
Two paragraph synopsis:-
Brought up in a cenogamic culture Orrig is angered when his childhood sweetheart, Rysta, is casually raped in front of him and the Locha tribe by Utch, the dominant hunter and senior warrior.
After attacking and nearly killing him, Orrig and his friend Lanal escape to start their own tribe before Orrig returns to the Locha to claim the leadership from Utch.
Historical briefing notes:-
The story is set in tribal pre-historic southern Sudan eight thousand years before Christ and before Hesiod of Boeotia was reputed to have written the Theogany, his Greek version of how the universe was created from chaos and the role the Greek Gods played in its creation.
There was no written language at the time and the ancient Egyptians were in their conceptual stages of forming the most advanced and complex civilisation then known.
In the wilder, greener regions to the south, primitive hunter/gatherer tribes roamed the plains and forests taking a living anywhere it could be found. Iron was unknown, but the cutting properties of flint and obsidian were utilised in the form of weapons used for hunting, defence and attack.
Vast herds of grazing animals provided the main nutritional source for the hunters and shrubs and forests provided fruits, leaves and berries to add variety to their diet. Life was harsh and decrepit old age unknown. Besides the toll taken by predators, death came to the tribes through the senseless attrition of other tribes with each jealously guarding its own identity and fighting each other for the possession of breeding females and hunting space. Because they kept apart the basic language they all possessed gradually took on tribal differences still reflected in the numerous languages used throughout Africa today.
Chapter- One Youthful Discontent
Chapter- Two The Hunt
Chapter- Three Long Nights and Hot Days
Chapter-Four The Flight to Safety
Chapter-Five The Shape of Paradise
Chapter-Six The Blooding
Chapter-Seven The Strange Land
Chapter- Eight All This is Mine
Chapter-Nine The Shattered Illusion
Chapter-Ten The Predator Returns
Before Theogany
Chapter One
Youthful Discontent.
Resentment seethed in Orrig’s heart long before the extravagantly contemptuous Utch dragged the screaming twelve-year old Rysta from his arms and raped her in front of him and the rest of the indifferent tribe who bothered to stand and watch such a commonplace event. These defiling scenes represented a part of their daily lives, sometimes entertaining, sometimes unedifying and brutal, but always present. Even Orrig would have remained unconcerned had the girl been anyone other than Rysta, but she was the nearest thing he had to a sister and he felt protective towards her for reasons other than a close adelphic relationship. He wanted her for his own when the time came.
The rampant Utch had never displayed an interest in the young girl despite her blossoming womanhood. Most of the tribe who bothered to watch the assault knew the abuse was no more than a public demonstration of the transgressor’s masculine dominance in the tribe and of his contempt for the growing physique and maturity of the young Orrig.
Nobody, not even the girl’s distraught foster mother, intervened to prevent the exploitation. In the cenogamic community in which the tribe lived it was Utch’s right: it was any man’s right, although males usually exercised restraint until the girl developed into full womanhood. Rysta had shown signs of awakening puberty and a girlish awareness of her future role in tribal life for many weeks, but she did not deserve the fate suffered under the bare fiercely thrusting buttocks of the tribe’s premier hunter and bravest warrior. He was punishing her and the increasingly distressed Orrig for the growing attachment they showed to each other and the assault did no more than reinforce the fact that Utch’s domination placed him above any desires younger members of the tribe might feel for each other. That was not the way the tribal system worked. If Orrig wanted sexual supremacy in the choice of the women he wanted to serve then he had to fight Utch for the privilege; and not one grown man in the whole tribe was brave enough to accept that challenge. Utch was too strong, too fast, too ruthless and too cunning; moreover, he had the best killing weapons. Any fight with Utch ended only one way, the death for his assailant. Utch was mercilessly unrelenting in seeking supremacy and winning.
The youthful Orrig might not match the rampant rapist in a trial for domination because he had not yet reached full stature even though he excelled in many of the warriors’ tests of courage, endurance and forbearance. He had those useful qualifications, but had not developed the confidence where his outstanding size and strength could realistically be used to tackle such a relentless warrior as Utch. He matched Utch during long tribal hunting forays, and had proved himself a good hunter, but that was all. It might have been his increasingly adolescent swagger around the compound that brought about the scene he now watched in helpless rage and anguish. There was no doubt that the lesson was intended for him to learn and not forget; Rysta was being made to suffer as a warning, and there was no appeal for justice.
It was true that the crippled Asib ruled as tribal chief and had done for as long as most people could remember, but he could no longer be described as the dominant tribal male. Once he could easily best Utch in every aspect of tribal life, but no longer. He lay a twisted cripple, a wreck only tolerated by Utch because of his unrivalled knowledge of tribal and hunting lore and the respect others held for him. There was nothing Asib did not know. He once led by example and ability, but a clear brain was all that remained of his indomitable spirit, and that was fading.
Along with every other tribal member Utch treated the crippled chief with the deference of someone he once feared and admired, yet for all the fear and loathing Utch instilled in those around him, he did not understand that Asib was not the man he was, and never would be. The last despairing death throes of a bull buffalo badly gored the jubilant chief leaving him more dead than alive. With injuries so bad his fellow hunters and tribesmen, including Utch, had earnestly debated the advisability of putting him out of his misery with a spear thrust through the heart; a merciful release not unknown nor unexpected for hunters less physically distressed than Asib appeared to be. With harsh living conditions to contend with and food so precious it was sometimes shared only by those able to contribute to the tribe’s well-being an injured hunter would be despatched just as casually as any game just killed. If the injured man or woman consumed hard won resources and contributed nothing they were a liability and in the roving tribe there was no room for compassion, or mercy.
Probably because the route back to their village lay over easy ground and Asib had made a good kill his companions carried his gory remains back to his hut and against all predictions their chief survived. He recovered and continued to lead his tribe from a pain-wracked litter; although hunting and fighting, previously accomplished with ease and assurance, were beyond him.
The function of lead hunter and tribal food provider fell to the fierce, strong-will and totally reckless Utch. He could out-run a Wildebeest and was brave enough to contest a kill with a pride of lion armed only with a handful of rocks and aggressive shouts. He was as wild and unpredictable as the animals he hunted, and as merciless and unfeeling as any plains’ predator. It was suspected that he only tolerated Asib until the day when the chief offered nothing useful in the way of advice and guidance. When that day came the village, and probably Asib himself knew, Utch would take his flint hunting knife to the chief’s wasted throat and cut it, and as in the callous rape of Rysta, no one would raise a hand in the victim’s defence, least of all the small group of tribal women supporting Asib where men would not. It was the tribal way of life. Tribesmen and women rarely succumbed to natural deaths and usually met violent ends in their own tribe; by tribal enemies; in the jaws of a predator, or by ravaging disease and slow starvation.
Women, because of their meek dispositions and semi-protected lifestyles died less violently, but no older. For them death came from overwork, stress and over-breeding. From their twelfth year women were constantly pregnant, and few ended their weary lives survived by more than a handful of their offspring. For a child to survive into their tenth year was an achievement, to reach beyond twenty, a miracle. For the men and women of the semi-nomadic Locha tribe living and hunting in the part of the African continent known eight thousand years later as Southern Sudan, life was brutal and short. Forty was ancient and a life span of middle twenties average.
The tribe treated Utch with extreme caution. His temper and humour were uncertain, volatile and at all times his rabid anger could lead to violent death, even amongst his simpering acolytes. He feared nor favoured anyone and was not a man to displease, even with a full belly and having sated his endless sexual appetite with the best of the tribe’s womanhood. He was certainly not a man to enrage at a climatic moment during his assault on the now compliant girl under him.
Rysta, whose dark dusty face had distorted with unimaginable terrors when Utch threw her to the ground and forced himself between her knees, tried to compose herself. Knowing nothing could save her from the ordeal she accepted her fate with the equanimity of countless centuries of female subjugation before her. She had seen other girls and women raped often enough and knew the same thing would happen to her one day. It was a fate young girls whispered about in fearful anticipation as they went through the list of males they would most like to suffer such an indignity with, and those they would not under any circumstances. Strangely, by a quirk of peculiar female perversity Utch, despite his unsavoury reputation and brutish behaviour, was favoured because of his brute strength, power and dominance over other men of the tribe. To be picked by him and publicly served was considered a tribal honour. It gave a girl status and almost guaranteed protection. Other men dare not touch her until her dominant seducer either indicated that he had satisfied himself with her charms, or he had moved on to favour another victim.
Now, the unwilling subject of Utch’s venereal attention, Rysta found the ordeal not as unpleasant as she imagined. Strength and total dominance brought its own rising exhilaration and fulfilment. Through half-closed and increasingly delirious eyes she could see sympathy in some women’s eyes and jealousy in others. They remembered the violent end to their own parthenic state and in their own introduction to the unpleasant ways of tribal men. If any mother, other than Rysta’s foster mother, stood watching she would feel proud that the warrior Utch preferred her daughter to other girls blossoming into womanhood. A mother gained prestige from the patronage of a strong man, and if nothing else, the public rape of her daughter increased status and standing amongst other women. After the preferential deflowering of her daughter she would be respected and her company and advice sought. The watching women nodded understandingly as they regarded Rysta’s half-hidden face as it slowly transformed from panic into the tenseness of strained emotions as sexual fulfilment built up to the inevitable cataclysmic response she knew would please her preoccupied assailant.
Even as her pelvic responses began arousing his desire to a satisfying degree Rysta heard Utch grunt and utter a bellow of rage as he violently threw off a heavy weight that landed on them both. Opening wide alarmed eyes Rysta saw Orrig flying backwards blood streaming from a lip split against his own teeth. She closed her eyes quickly not wanting the urgent moment to slip by as Utch continued thrusting. She was not disappointed. Almost without breaking rhythm he completed his task and with a grunt he held her pinned to the ground until the wild emotional surges in him subsided.
Under him, tearful and squirming in movements of exaltations that were not wholly exaggerated Rysta clung to his strong frame with arms unwilling to release him. It was something she had seen other girls and women do and knew instinctively that men liked to think they brought intense pleasure to their partners and they were sometimes roused to anger if not enough female appreciation was shown for their efforts. She had seen women badly beaten by Utch for not showing gratitude for his attention and she did not relish the same treatment.
Besides the fear of being beaten Rysta was acutely aware that her foolish foster-brother Orrig had recklessly launched himself in a screaming fury at the thrusting Utch and had been knocked almost senseless for his pains. A vicious backward swing of an elbow caught Orrig full on the side of the face sending him staggering, head filled with exploding lights and sparks, to his knees. Dimly, she saw Neeg and Erek running to see what had happened. They were Utch’s faithful henchmen and if they laid hands on the attacker they would kill him to gratuitously please their leader, a thought that caused Rysta to cling to her seducer all the harder. If Utch rose from his labours contented and in good spirits he might forgive the hotheaded Orrig for his intemperance, if not Orrig was in for a torrid time.
Unaware of the Rysta’s concerns and half-blinded with pain Orrig scrambled to his knees and crawled through the legs of the women around him. He tasted blood in his mouth and was grateful that the women he struggled through would not willingly let Neeg and Erek lay hands on their foolhardy victim, many of them had held him as a baby not all that long ago. To their maternally moulded instincts Orrig was a boy and still nominally under their collective care. Neeg and Erek were grown men and had no right to beat, injure and possibly kill a child half their age. Seeing the attack the women guessed the reckless action would warrant Utch’s anger and while they would be unable to prevent it they saw no reason to assist.
When free, Orrig rose to his feet and ran. The brave thoughts and manly aspirations swarming through his mind for saving Rysta from her fate were now subjugated to the more primitive instincts of survival. He knew Utch would kill him if caught, but where could he hide?
The semi-permanent tribal encampment stood against one of the many rock outcrops scattered everywhere over the flat plains of that part of continental Africa. The high ground provided protection from flash floods during heavy rains and the camp boundaries could be made safe from most marauding wild animals. The sleeping area allocated for women, girls and young boys was perched high up in the rock overhang while men and young boys, who scorned to remain with their pampering mothers any longer than they felt the need, slept in roughly constructed composite animal skin and grass thatched huts in the main enclosure below. Around this area a formidable barrier of spiteful acacia bushes, that could defeat all but the most determined of wild bull elephants, had been constructed. At the moment, the defensive wall seemed designed to keep Orrig a prisoner, trapped and available to be picked off at Utch’s predatory leisure.
Instinctively he fled to the women’s section. As an emerging warrior and fearless hunter he normally shunned the place of weakness and had not slept there for many months; but he went there when in need of moral support and ego boosting encouragement. His gentle mother Wenga always knew what to say and this seemed a time when her protection was needed, although what she could do against Utch, or any of his acolytes Orrig did not stop to consider.
Long before Neeg or Erik discovered what happened at the rape site Orrig reached his anxious mother. Greeting him she clasped him to her naked bosom even though there was a great disparity in their physical sizes. He was large, heavily muscled, awkward and juvenile in manner and attitude, while his mother was small neat, precise and grossly undernourished.
Even to the most unobservant of casual outsiders, Orrig and his mother were different in build and character to the rest of the tribe. They were both dark skinned and their thick crinkly hair grew close to the skull instead of hanging in long, loose, unkempt masses that tumbled over the faces and shoulders of the rest of the Locha tribe. Although Wenga was noticeably smaller, shorter and more delicately built than her tall tribal sisters Orrig was almost as tall as the average grown Locha male, but a good deal stockier and heavier. Where they were long limbed, slim and wiry; he was well muscled about the chest, shoulders and arms. The young men and boys of the tribe had long ceased ridiculing him for his different shape, pigmentation and crinkly hair: an amusing pastime that stopped abruptly when they realised he could inflict a great deal more pain on them in a fist fight than they could on him by humiliating words and gestures.
With that physical advantage his last few years had been relatively free of abuse. Indeed, he had become a cult hero when he proved that he could hurl a spear, sling a shot or throw a stone further and more accurately than any of the youths and a good deal further than most grown men. This aspect of his growing maturity and self-confidence had first attracted Utch’s malign attention. The tribe’s bravest warrior and best hunter did not tolerate rivals and he recognised Orrig had the potential to unseat him sometime in the future unless he safeguarded his position while the upstart was still young, impressionable and lived in fear of him.
Wenga greeted her only natural child with maternal pleasure. Unknown to Orrig and forgotten by most of the tribe, she arrived as a captive in the Locha camp after a bout of inter-tribal warfare against one of the Locha’s sworn enemies, although she was not one of them either. All the tribes the Locha came into contact with were of the same basic stock as themselves and they fought viciously against each other despite that apparent affinity. Asib ruthlessly killed alien tribesmen, but preserved the lives of the women and children. Good female breeding stock was an attractive commodity for any tribe to acquire and many tribal raids were undertaken for that one purpose. Not that Wenga provided any offspring for the many Locha tribesmen, including Asib himself, who repeatedly raped her when she first arrived. Despite the Locha men’s persistent efforts she produced nothing more than the child she carried in her arms on arrival.
From the beginning no one commented on her darker colour, her rounder features and her different characteristics. She was accepted by the Locha women with as much grace as they accepted any newcomers forced on them by their belligerent and acquisitive menfolk. Generally, a new arrival was treated with withdrawn reservation until integrated by language and customs, and by bearing children fathered by the fighting men and hunters granted such rights by virtue of their individual prowess. Since these rights were generally exercised at communal sex orgies charges of mate stealing were rare.
With a baby and a quick mind she was accepted into the tribe and when she demonstrated a talent for recognising and locating edible plants, roots and berries, she became lauded as a tribal asset. Her culinary additions broadened the unrelieved tribal diet of plain meat obtained by the hunters. From leaf and root infusions picked from the plains and river banks she could also concoct herbal remedies and healing compounds that cured common complaints and healed injuries far more quickly than when left to natural processes. Tribal health improved with her advice and it was also her administrations that saved Asib’s life when he returned bloodied and nearly dead from his hunting accident. Asib had been grateful and she had lived under his benign protection ever since.
Having witnessed his rash attack on Utch from the rock shelf where she crushed plants, seeds and roots while listening to the complaints and sufferings of tribesmen and women seeking her remedies to cure anything from bee stings to tape worm, Wenga knew why her son had come.
Seeing her, as she always appeared to him, calm, wise and collected quickly reduced Orrig to the days of his maternal dependency on her.
‘Moma,’ he groaned, not caring that other women and children could overhear his pleas. ‘I’ve been foolish. I attacked Utch and I fear he will kill me over the roasting fire, what shall I do?’ He threw his strong arms around her naked waist and tried to bury his head in her far from ample bosom just as he did as a child. She had been a source of comfort then, what could she do now?
After a few moments of reflection, during which she tugged at the leopard tail trailing from her head band she pulled her son away from the crowded spectators and led him towards the rocky slope leading back to the dangerous living area he had just escaped from.
‘We must see Chief Asib,’ she decided. Flicking the tail, used mostly to distract insects, but more often when deep in thought. She set off, tugging her uncertain son after her.
There was no recrimination in her voice, just a calm acceptance that chaff had been cast to the winds and it must fall somewhere. The most protected woman in the compound could do nothing to defy Utch and his men if they were determined to kill her son. Wenga could probably poison them later, but that luxury would not save her son now. Only a direct appeal to the one man Utch listened to would forestall that, but for how long? Utch had a long memory for exacting retribution and he prided himself on demanding and extracting a full measure of repayment for everything he considered a transgression against a code only he was familiar with. His unpleasant and gory reputation depended on such vengeance being widely recognised and feared so that no one took advantage of his non-existent generosity. Awed campfire whispers recorded many instances of men he held grudges against not returning from hunting trips, or disappearing from their sleeping skins overnight and never being seen again. It was said that dangerous hunts were often organised for the sole purpose of gaining revenge against tribesmen who attracted his malice.
‘Asib?’ Orrig repeated doubtfully as he fearfully followed in her sprightly steps. ‘Nobody takes notice of Asib. He’s not far from joining the rainbow hunters.’ Orrig spoke in the secret language they shared and which, as far as he knew, no one else in the tribe understood. It was a tongue they shared since birth and he guilelessly assumed it was their lifelong secret and every mother and child shared something similar between them. Not even Rysta understood the language when he tried to share confidences with her.
‘He will know what to do, my son,’ Wenga assured him patiently. She had more faith in Asib’s waning power than Orrig trailing unwillingly in her wake.
Once in the dusty compound again Orrig cast apprehensive glances in the direction where Rysta had been raped and where he had launched his ill-advised attack. A larger crowd had gathered as the momentous news swept through the compound as though carried on the winds of a firestorm. Tribesmen wanted the astounding details from those fortunate enough to have witnessed the assault to compare them with those who had not. They then chose the version they most liked. Clearly Orrig’s action had aroused a keen interest in those who considered trivia and personal rivalries important items to mull over and speculate on, when nothing else occupied their attention. Orrig’s precipitant action added gloss and flavour to an otherwise routine loss of virginity. For some there was little resulting bloodshed and the victim seemed to enjoy her ordeal after the first few harrowing moments, but the incident would provide a conversational subject for many days with each contributor knowing the show was not over. The final drama would be enacted when Utch caught the young whelp that dared attack him.
Orrig narrowed his dark eyes in the strong sun that made the ground dance and quiver in the heat and distant objects shimmer as though cut adrift from the ground and hung suspended in space. He stared hard, unable to fully believe what he was seeing; Utch was pressing his young victim rapturously to his side as though savouring a triumph he wanted all to see and be aware of. To Orrig the expression of affection caused deep resentment; and to his intense chagrin, Rysta looked up at her violator with a smile on her young face that extended to her eyes in a way that said she had not been adverse to the brutal experience. The look contained a mixture of hero worship and adulation, a display that cut into Orrig as though Rysta had stabbed him in the heart with a blunted hunting spear. He felt enraged as a tide of indignation rose in his breast to confront the increasing fear for his own physical safety. Contentment was an emotion he thought Rysta would find difficult to accept, and he found her acceptance confusing and hard to understand.
He knew no one man had a claim on any one woman in the tribe, an accepted tribal custom that had stood the test of time, even in other tribes. It had always been that way. Men and women changed sexual partners as often as the mood and inclination took them with younger women often finding a queue of rampant males waiting to serve them after a successful hunt. Orrig longed to be a member of such a queue, but the favour was denied him until he reached an age when he was considered a full member of the warrior class. When that happened, his first public taking of a woman would be a matter of great amusement, ribald speculation and no little entertainment amongst both men and the women of the tribe. Would he make his own choice, or would some wizened old crone be made available for him to release his first seeds of manhood into? He had seen that indignity happen too often to graduating males to imagine he would be better favoured, especially now. The first sexual performance of any maturing male was cheered and celebrated as a rite of passage much as his first hunting kill and his first solo lion hunt had been. In his dreams he wanted his first experience of sex to be with Rysta, but now she would was available to any man who cared to take her. She might even attract queues of warriors until she became pregnant. The length of a waiting queue caused much speculation in the women’s quarters and was looked on as a matter of personal pride, especially by mothers. Like hunters’ tales of bravado, stories of waiting impatient lovers grew with age and proud repetition. Rysta was attractive enough to break all records a glum Orrig silently suspected.
Knowing the unwritten and invariable rules governing tribal life as well as he did why should he feel upset that Rysta was now available to satisfy any man’s capricious demands? He knew it would happen one day and the two children had often talked about him being first in the queue. Then it had been childish talk. Reality lay like a thundercloud over the plains. Not only had he not been at the front of the panting queue waiting to attend her, he was unlikely to ever get the chance of mating with the object of his youthful desire. Within the hour he might be dead: killed by Utch.
The truth behind his dejected feelings was narrow, subjective and entirely self-centred. He had long considered Rysta to be his personal property. They had grown up as children when Wenga had taken the orphan Rysta to her breast when her own mother died of a wasting disease brought on by a venomous snakebite. The two children played together, fought together, bathed together and had been inseparable until this defining moment. He even fought with his friends for saying unkind things about her when she was younger. Now Utch had torn them asunder in a way Orrig could never forgive and which might now cost him his life.
As she clung to the graceful, but in Orrig’s eyes, repulsive Utch, Rysta looked angelically happy. How could she feel like that? He felt betrayed and devastated even though he understood the circumstances and knew the rules.
Dragging his gaze from the hateful scene he cast furtively around for any activity that might indicate the gathering of a gang of Utch’s friends ready to surround and beat him to death in an orgy of retributive hate. He saw nothing, but that did not mean he was safe. Indeed, Neeg and Erek were talking to Erro and the one-eyed Rian, a man as vicious and unforgiving as Utch himself. The four men were doing no more than idly wasting time until their leader finished his dalliance with Rysta. Then perhaps the group would come looking for him. The thought sent a thrill of horror through his muscular frame and beads of sweat to his forehead. He did not enjoy the feeling.
Not faraway Lanal, Orrig’s friend, confidante and wrestling opponent, sat haunched on his heels scratching designs in the dry earth with a piece of white fire bleached bone. He appeared absorbed in the task with nothing on his mind apart from whiling away the hours until the next meal was prepared and distributed. He always fronted that queue and was the only young man in the tribe Orrig would trust his life to and not be let down.
Watching him Orrig grimaced, half-annoyed that Lanal had not sought him out to reassure him of his everlasting support. He desperately needed such a declaration.
The scene in the compound was an everyday occurrence; even the fawning group gathered around Utch and his new conquest, but Orrig was not fooled by the lack of apparent activity. It was hot and tribesmen always relaxed until the day cooled. That way they saved energy and did not waste the food so laboriously gathered and prepared. Orrig knew of cases where Utch and his thugs had waited until nightfall before extracting their revenge on someone who had annoyed the group earlier in the day, or even many days earlier. Time made no difference as long as the occasion for revenge was right and the ground prepared. When it was the victim was beaten, tortured and in the worst case the mutilated half-dead body was dragged outside the compound to be taken by roving of hyenas, or jackals who sniffed around the thorn barricades to see if a free meal was handy enough to sneak in and steal. In those cases it was.
Without glancing left or right Wenga continued determinedly on her way. In her prejudiced opinion Orrig was still a wilful youngster not old enough to pay for a minor indiscretion with his life. That plea she would make to Asib. Orrig would grow into a fine hunter and sire many brave warriors if he were allowed to live, she would aver. Her son was always included as a first choice in hunting parties and the selection was not without merit. He was fast, strong, had endless stamina and could cast a spear or shoot an arrow as far and as accurately as most of the more experienced hunters. The tribe did not have that many fit; brave young warriors it could afford to kill or maim for the passing gratification it would give Utch. In her heart Wenga suspected her mother’s anxious plea would be rejected: what did women know of men’s affairs? But she had to make the attempt.
Becoming more anxious as he moved away from the relative safety of the rocks Orrig followed his mother to the largest hut in the compound. The structure, built with special care and with the choicest materials, housed the tribal chief. It also acted as a council chamber for the elders when called to advise and make communal decisions. It was more substantially built than most because, while other camp dwellers could desert their flimsy shelters for the more certain cover of the rock overhangs during violent storms and torrential rain Asib could not be moved. Crippled, he remained exposed along with the women and men brave enough to remain at his side and resist the tempestuous elements.
Such loyalty was not without its penalty in strained nerves and raised anxiety levels, however. Although tribesmen were brave and fearless in most things, they had a morbid respect for the powers of the angry heavens. They did not understand flashes of lightning, nor the loud crashes of thunder that accompanied them. To their cowering minds such celestial manifestations of bad-temper could only be directed at them. On the vast thinly populated plains there were not many other tribes available to attract such awe-inspiring displays of anger: the nearest being a hundred miles distant and the storm was not banging and crashing over them. Every strike of lightning, therefore; and every roll of imperious thunder seemed to be aimed directly at them personally. It searched for men and women of evil intent and selected those who had done wrong. If the camp and its occupants survived destruction, the storm had clearly not been intended to punish them, perhaps some animal had offended the heavens and even now it lay burnt to a crisp somewhere out on the plains.
The failure of lightning bolts to strike Utch and his follower always greatly disappointed the more thoughtful tribal members, especially Orrig and Lanal. During each storm they gripped each other’s extended fingers and offered a combined wish that a bolt would descend and strike him. Many times, while hunting after a storm, they stood in silent awe beside a burnt tree struck by such a bolt and regretted its destructive force had not been better directed.
Such a judgmental storm was not imminent as Wenga and Orrig approached the chief’s hut. The sky remained intensely blue and cloudless. No wind stirred the trees and bushes outside the compound. This was day for lazing and talking up a good hunt for the following day, not one for pleading for a son’s worthless life.
The position of chieftainship over the one hundred and twenty members of the Locha tribe warranted no privileges apart from that imposed by the power of a strong right arm and the willingness of followers to obey orders. Apart from fighting and hunting a chief was expected to make balanced judgements in tribal grievances, no matter how large or small. Only patience and a sense of humour dictated how much abuse a chief was prepared to tolerate from any litigant-minded subjects. Asib, more than most, exercised endless patience and was always available to listen and to decide. While Utch, when he eventually took over, as indeed he must with no one to challenge his position as contender, would probably tolerate no complaints and would decide everything in his own favour; or he would be lazy and decide nothing. Until that unhappy day Asib’s wise decisions, when sought, were binding on the tribe, even if Utch rarely took notice of them unless they favoured his own ambitions.
Because of the latter consideration it was increasingly common practice for Asib’s council and advice to be sought less often as he grew physically weaker and as Utch grew stronger and more dominant. What point was there in having a dispute favourably decided if Utch refused to recognise and support it, as he sometimes did out of pure perversity and meanness of spirit? Asib could do nothing to enforce compliance. For that reason many tribal complainants were taken straight to Utch for summary judgement, and that was often no more than a bored grunt or the merest waving of a disinterested hand, and then only half-heartedly to Asib if Utch’s disdainful judgement proved unfavourable to the plaintiff. The possibility of conflict between Asib, the recognised chief, and Utch the man in waiting, was often brutally forestalled by the simple expedient of Utch, or his henchmen, taking big sticks to any complainant daring to object to his sometimes capricious brand of justice administration. Once either man had given a judgement a resentful mood settled in the minds of those who received less than their expectations, and a sense of delight, and obligation delighted those who gained. Utch expected his largesse to be recognised while Asib increasingly despaired that his ever would.
Wenga had no intentions of appealing to Utch’s brand of casual mercy. She detested his high-handed oppressive bullying and always had. Orrig, for his part, once admired Utch as a model for the way all excitable and brave warriors should behave. He even emulating the obnoxious habits that brought his one-time hero such feared notoriety. The juvenile hero worship lasted no longer than the time it took his mother to point out the man’s unsavoury characteristics and his penchant for a violent lifestyle. From that moment Orrig kept out of Utch’s way, although in a small tribe that was not always possible. In the community every fit young man was required to hunt, fight and spend long hours training for both. It was in those activities that man and boy came into abrasive contact.
After the bright sunlight and overpowering heat of the compound, the inside of Asib’s thickly thatched shelter seemed noticeably cooler with the atmosphere more subdued, even noises from outside were suppressed to a faint hubbub, but those from insects buzzing around inside were more pronounced and incessant.
Asib sat uncomfortably on a wooden structure that could be raised to allow him to sit upright, or lowered to allow him to rest in a prone position. Neither facility afforded much relief from the constant nagging pain in his shattered hip and shoulder. Where he had once been magnificently tall, willowy, athletic, confident and strong, he was now sallow; pain-wracked and physically distorted by the bad set of broken and crushed bones, the crepitations of which could sometimes be heard when he moved. In the gloom he looked close to sunken-cheeked death, but then he looked that way since returning from the hunting foray. Every agonised day since had been a testamentary miracle of man’s ability to survive adversity. Asib clung to life then and he clung to life now with great fortitude. Those who loved and supported him swore his persistent survival was due more to his desire to save the tribe from Utch’s leadership than from his own fear of death. It was said that he clung to life to allow another claimant to rise and deprive Utch of the right to declare himself to be the next chief. If true it was a magnanimous gesture, but the hope appeared forlorn and unattainable. In the whole tribe no one was willing, or was prepared, to stand against the fearsome contender, and the reason for that was not hard to find.
A contestant would not only have to defeat Utch in a physical battle that would undoubtedly result in the death of one of them, they also needed the support of strong backers to prevent Utch’s henchmen taking over the leadership mantle in his place. Rian was the obvious candidate to fill that gap, but he was no less attractive as a leader than the ogre himself.
As a supplicant, Wenga dropped to her knees and kissed the back of the good hand Asib offered in acknowledgement of her courtesy. Looking up and behind her she cast an angry glance at the still standing Orrig. Abashed by the reproval he quickly followed her in kneeling and taking the proffered hand. He had been in the chief’s hut often enough as a child accompanying his mother on her pain-relieving missions, but not many times since. Then, he had been fearful of the cries of pain from a grown man and the distraught atmosphere of anguish emanating from the women gathered around him. Together they unnerved him and made him want to flee the place of pain and seek the bright open air and the company of fit young boys of his own age. The women, although desperately wanting to help the dying chief only had tears and genuine grief to comfort his suffering and that had never been enough. Wenga’s painkilling herbs had been more successful, but regrettably they now failed to bring the relief they once did.
The scene of torment profoundly affected the young Orrig and whenever he could he avoided the hut and swore he would never be put in such an undignified position himself; nor did he want to ever witness such suffering again. As a child he preferred to play with his friends and Rysta outside the hut while his mother went inside.
Now, from his nearly full-grown sixteen years, Orrig looked at his chief and felt the same uncomfortable emotions he always suffered. Asib, almost skeletal, was wasted to a collection of bones and dry sinewy flesh that would hardly interest a hungry hyena so poorly presented was the offering. His long unwashed hair hung thick with dirt and lice, and raw skull showed through in the places where his head rested on an animal skin grass-stuffed pillow and had been fretted by the incessant movement of his head as he tried to suppress the cascading pain in hours of fruitless repetitive mind-numbing rolling head movements. Orrig smelt the stench of decay but set his face against showing repugnance, knowing his mother would chastise him for lack of respect if he did.
Asib allowed his deeply hollowed eyes to wander over Wenga’s bent form and then over Orrig’s tall well-muscled frame as though trying to place each of them in the tribal hierarchy. His mind was alert and his black eyes shone with a brilliance that defied the decrepit appearance of his poor body.
‘My child, is this your boy?’ he asked gently. He called all the women of the tribe ‘my child’, even those who might be older than him, although there were few of those surviving in the tribe. It was possible that some of the younger women might be his own daughters since, in his days of fitness and health, he had an avaricious appetite for women and took his unrestrained fill of the most attractive, including Wenga when she was younger.
‘Yes, Chief! This is the young man who brings dishonour to your tribe...’ Wenga murmured contritely.
‘Dishonour?’ Asib repeated uncertainly as though not understanding the concept. He looked unhappily at Orrig’s bowed head with its unusual ulatrick covering. A slight frown furrowed his crusted forehead. He knew Orrig well from the proud reports passed on by Wenga and from others and from these dishonour was not an offence he would have laid on the broad shiny shoulders of the young man kneeling contritely before him. In tribal lore dishonour was a charge only levelled at a fighter who showed cowardice in battle, or on the hunt. He had not heard of any inter-tribal fighting. ‘I hear only good things of this young man; my child, explain yourself.’
In confident sentences Wenga told him of the circumstance of Orrig’s attack on Utch. She offered no apologies, nor gave reasons that might lay behind the sudden fit of madness that had overtaken her unsettled son. She saw no need and might even have regretted that Orrig had not killed Utch in the abortive attempt. While she spoke Asib never removed his gaze from the closely curled top of Orrig’s head.
‘You like this Rysta girl?’ he asked Orrig when Wenga finished speaking. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen her...’ He waved a weary hand over his crippled torso area indicating that she had probably been born since his affliction and young girls were never brought to visit him on his own strict orders. He had sufficient masculine pride not to appear unbecoming to the fair sex in his indelectable state and he did not want to see fear and loathing reflected in the unclouded innocence of their eyes. Only women of his own age attended him. From them he had no secrets and anyone as helpless as himself had no dignity either.
‘I wanted her for my own,’ Orrig confessed lamely as though about to make a pathetic request for the return of a plaything taken from him by a bigger and stronger boy. There did not seem much else to say. He could not deny the attack on Utch. He had done it and there were many witnesses; moreover, he still had dried blood on his face and a swollen lip from Utch’s angry retaliation to show for it. He closed his mouth hoping to disguise the evidence before Asib noticed it and made a judgement. He was about to add that he was not sorry for his action, but such a defiant declaration of regret might do more harm than good, even if the tribe did appreciate open confessions and abject apologies to one’s elders and betters, especially if offered with a contrite demeanour and humble assurance that the offence would not be repeated.
Asib shook his head sadly. ‘You know the ways of the tribe, Orrig. The grown men and fighters who protect and feed us have first choice of everything. It is their right and it’s always been that way.’ He looked at Orrig’s strong back and shoulders approvingly. ‘One day soon you’ll be in a position to stake your claim and no one will dispute your right...’
‘But she’s too young, she’s not ready. I would have claimed her by right in a few months. I’ve killed my lion and served my solitude on the plains. I need only kill a bull buffalo and I too will be a hunter with full rights,’ Orrig protested more vehemently than he intended. ‘Utch is jealous that I will one day be a better hunter and a braver warrior than he is...’ As he spoke Orrig was aware of his mother’s growing alarm at his impertinence in interrupting the wise flow of words from the tribal chief. Her bowed shoulders stiffened as she turned to glare at him. His ill-considered words made her mother’s plea for mercy more difficult.
‘What Orrig say’s is true, my Chief,’ Wenga interposed hastily as she saw Asib’s eyes harden in anger at such youthful truculence. If nothing else the young cub needed a lesson in respect; first he disputed Utch’s right to claim a young virgin and now he shouts down his chief. All that flashed across Asib’s face in a brief moment of rancour. ‘She wants more time to grow into a women and Orrig is growing stronger and more manly by the hour.’
‘The sun and the wind can see that,’ Asib agreed without looking at her. His gaze remained fixed on Orrig. ‘You think one day he’ll kill Utch?’ he asked her almost plaintively. ‘Such a blessing would allow me to pass on with peace in my heart.’
‘No, my Chief, Orrig is too young and inexperienced for that pleasure,’ Wenga objected hastily. Although wanting the tyrant dead as much as anyone in the tribe she preferred to let some other mother’s son take the glory of confronting Utch in a fight to the death; not her offspring.
Asib smiled weakly, almost in disappointment. ‘Then I fear he will watch many virgins deflowered before it is his turn to join the feast. Only the brave and the strong can earn the right to sire future generations of Locha. It is so with the lions and it is so with the buffalo. What weak and feeble stock could last half a moon in the wilderness beyond the thorn palisade? The strong must father the strong out there and so it must be with the peoples of the tribe of Locha.’
‘We do not dispute the wisdom of that truth, my Chief,’ Wenga assured him soothingly. ‘I ask that my boy be spared Utch’s wrath until the day he might challenge for the leadership himself.’
It was not an idea that greatly appealed to her mother’s protective instinct, but she could see that Asib attached credibility to the idea of conferring the title of successor on someone with physical credentials. Orrig, big and strong, could only improve with age and experience. In that observation he heartily agreed with Wenga, but would Orrig live that long if Utch began looking on the youth as a potential challenger? Asib doubted it. Utch would kill him using almost any pretext, and what better pretext did he have than the excuse of punishing an ill-considered attack on his own person.
As though too tired to hold it upright any longer Asib let his unlovely head drop back to the grass stuffed animal skin placed there for just such a purpose. There he closed his eyes in the hope of dispelling the unwelcome problem before him in the realms of deep sleep so that when he awoke Wenga and Orrig would be gone and their troubles would be gone with them. Without strength there was nothing he could do to save Orrig if Utch intended taking the young man’s life. No one obeyed him if his wishes ran counter to those of the next leader; a fact so well established that he hardly dared make a ruling he knew the man would disapprove of. In this case Utch was likely to oppose anything that did not end in Orrig’s unpleasant and painful death. Just when everyone in the fetid hut thought Asib had fallen asleep he opened his eyes again.
‘Send for Utch that I might confer with him on matters of the next hunt,’ he said wearily.
‘The next hunt?’ Wenga repeated uncertainly. What had the next hunt to do with the urgent matter they were discussing? Orrig could be dead before then. Behind her, one of the hut women left to carry his message and for a minute unbroken silence fell. Wenga stirred uneasily. Orrig might die sooner than she thought if Utch found her and her son conferring with the chief and he knew nothing of the meeting. Such incidents had resulted in severe beatings for ill-advised supplicants before.
‘Does your boy want to be chief one day,’ Asib asked, ignoring her need for clarification. The question was addressed to her, but he looked at Orrig for his reaction. It made a difference if she agreed but he was unwilling and unsuited to the task.
‘I do, my Chief,’ Orrig agreed hesitantly. Inside, he knew such naked ambitions, if broadcast, would certainly lead to a confrontation. ‘But only if anything should happen to Utch. I’m afraid of him.’
‘Were you afraid when you faced your first lion?’ Asib asked gently.
Orrig eased himself from a kneeling position to sit back on his calves. It was more comfortable in that position and if Utch came into the hut he could spring to his feet and burst out through the back of the hut to escape. His mother would be safe; warriors rarely killed women without good reason, even Utch. In answering Asib’s question, Orrig wanted to boast that he had not been frightened when he saw his first angry black-maned male lion turn to face him in a contest that only one of them would walk away from. Boasting of hunting prowess and bravery was the thing to do in front of his proud mother and other listening women, just as it had been in a fireside gathering of the hunters and elders when he returned dragging the skin and head of his victim. They expected it and revelled in the vicarious thrills, but it was stupid to boast of a desire to confront Utch.
‘Yes, I was frightened,’ he heard himself admit. For a moment he felt ashamed and then glad. Perhaps the cowardly response would allow Asib to discount him for the leadership role and remove the need for him to face Utch.
Asib nodded slowly by rolling his head from sided to side. ‘I was too,’ he admitted with a wry ugly grin. ‘If you had said you were not afraid I would think you a truly remarkable warrior, but a foolhardy one and one not worthy of assuming the mantle of leadership.’ He nodded thoughtfully and smiled, or it might have been a grimace of pain as he moved his shoulder. ‘Only liars and warriors with no true feelings say they were not afraid of their first lion; after all, brave men have died in the jaws of the beast for the thought not to have troubled the bravest of hearts.’ Asib paused before going on ponderously. ‘It’s only when you realise lions are truly cowards at heart themselves and are more afraid of us than we are of them, that you become bold enough to run at them with nothing but a rock in either hand and your courage in your mouth.’
‘But my boy,’ Wenga interrupted pleadingly. All this talk of killing lions was not saving her son from the most ruthless killer on the plains of Africa. If that man walked into the hut and found them talking to their chief she did not know what she would do, although she knew she would die protecting her son; that maternal duty was so much a settled fact in her mind she barely gave it a second thought. To be in a position to protect him she carefully edged herself between Orrig and the door. Anyone entering would have to pass her and she would not allow Utch that advantage even if she attacked him first and died as a result of her action.
Asib looked at her kindly. She had given him much pleasure when they were both active and he needed a woman’s comfort. After his accident only her medicinal brews numbed the worst of the pain by sending him into timeless sleep and into a fog of mental haziness where the troubles of rude life hardly mattered. She had eased him through the worst of his pains and even now he begged for potions to send him into the oblivion of deep rest.
‘My child, take your son to Eft, Valin and Omel and get him to stay with them for a few days. They will protect him until I see what Utch has in mind.’
‘But they are old and are no match for Utch and his friends,’ Wenga protested disappointedly.
‘They know how to fight, my child,’ Asib assured her patiently. ‘Take Orrig to them. He will be safe there while he’s in camp. Tomorrow the hunt goes out and Utch will not touch him on the plains. His skills are needed and Utch respects that. Utch will get over whatever anger he might feel for Orrig’s stupidity.’ Asib lifted his good hand in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Anyway, I suspect you might be too anxious for the safety of your son. I hear no bellows of rage coming from Utch’s offended lungs and he’s never short of breath to advertise his anger.’
‘My thanks are endless and may your seeds prosper wherever they are sown, my Chief,’ Wenga said meekly, but inappropriately. She bent to kiss the hand again and moved aside to let Orrig do the same.
‘Don’t bring shame on your mother, Orrig, or you’ll have me coming after you,’ Asib informed him seriously. ‘Whatever you do in life, remember her above all else.’ He grinned crookedly. ‘Now be gone and let us hear no more of this nonsense.’
‘What does he mean by that,’ Orrig asked when he and his mother were out of the hut and he was gulping in the clear clean air of the vast plains.
‘Do everything he says, son. Keep out of Utch’s way and stay with Eft until we know what mood Utch is in.’
‘No, I meant about wanting me to be chief? There are plenty of warriors with a better claim than me. I couldn’t fight them all.’
‘You won’t have to, dear. Did Utch? He beat a few men and is good at his work; others now make exaggerated claims for him and there is no one willing to say, hold! I dispute your claim.’
‘Mother, you don’t understand the ways of men,’ Orrig protested impatiently. ‘They are brutal. Utch will stop at nothing to be chief and if he doesn’t kill me now, he will if my name is mentioned as a contender.’
‘Then we must kill him first.’ Wenga lowered her voice and spoke in tone that made Orrig wonder if he had heard right.