Manly Wade Wellman - Hok 01 Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  Prologue

  STONE-AGE Europe was spacious, rich and un- crowded; but there could be only one race of rulers.

  Homo Neanderthalensis must have grown up there from the beginning, was supreme and plentiful as the last glaciers receded. His bones have been found from Germany to Gibraltar, and his camps and flints and fire-ashes. We reconstruct his living image—burly and stooped, with a great protruding muzzle, beetling brows, no chin and no brow. Perhaps he was excessively hairy—hardly a man, but were Homo Sapiens, in body and spirit like us, their children. They could not parley with the abhorrent foe they found; there could be no rules of warfare, no truces or treaties, no mercy to the vanquished. Such conflict could die only when the last adversary died.

  It must have been a struggle generations long. Was it not full of daring, despair, sacrifice, triumph? Was not the conquest the greatest, because the most fundamental, in the history of the race? No champions of mankind ever bore a greater responsibility than those first little bands who crossed, all unaware, the borders of Neanderthal country.

  With one such band, at the moment of such crossing, our story begins:

  CHAPTER I

  The Land of the Gnorris

  THE southern country had come to hold too few game herds, too many hostile bands of fellow- hunters; hence the family’s spring migration, many days5 journey into the north which these days grew warmer than their fathers had known it.

  This particular bright morning found the whole nine scattered. A foolish deer, grazing too close, bounded away with a javelin in its shoulder, and the swiftest runners led the chase with the rest trailing behind. So from horizon to horizon and beyond, with flecks of blood to point the way across rich green meadows, and hunger to quicken moc- casined feet. The sun had reached zenith and passed when the first of the hunters, gaining the top of a little knoll, saw that the prey had fallen and died just beyond.

  That first-comer was the eldest son of the wandering household, and the tallest and swiftest. He was as strong as the leopard whose pelt he wore for single garment, and his smooth young skin showed tanned and healthy with good outdoor living. His lion-tawny hair had been cut shoulder length and was bound back from his shrewd face with a snakeskin fillet. His chin, plucked clean of beard as custom decreed with bachelors, jutted squarely. His mouth was wide and good-humored beneath a straight nose, and his gray eyes opened widely, clearly. In one hand he swung a stone-bladed axe, and a loop at his shoulder held the mate to the javelin that had pierced the deer. His name, and he hoped to make it great, was Hok.

  Pausing thus, Hok grinned triumphantly for just the half of an instant. Then his eyes narrowed and his lips drew tight. Something dark and shaggy crouched on the far side of the fallen animal. A bear? Hok’s free hand flashed backward, twitching the second javelin from its strap.

  Behind came the patter of other feet, and a comradely panting. That was Zhik, a younger half-brother and favorite companion. Not as tall as Hok, nor as old by three years, the stripling nevertheless was sturdy and handsome. Hurrying from behind, he poised a spear of his own.

  At that moment the shaggy thing rose from the side of the deer, rose on two legs to face them. It was not a bear.

  Barely thirty paces separated the youths from the creature that disputed their right to the meat.

  It had hands and feet, coarser and larger than Hok’s own; it was a head shorter than he, but broader; it wore no clothes, and coarse hair thatched shoulders, chest and knotted limbs. Then its eyes grappled Hok’s across the intervening space.

  Shrewd were those eyes, in a broad, shallow skull like the skull of a hairy lizard. Fire was in them, and intelligence and challenge. The two bright crumbs of vision, under their coarse brows, did not falter before Hok’s gaze as would a beast’s. Meeting the stare, startled and fierce on his own part, the hunter-youth was aware only vaguely of the rest of the face—out-flaring nostrils, a sagging lip, a hideous rank beard and forelock, ears that seemed to prick like those of a wolf.

  Zhik drew in his breath, as if setting himself for the cast. “Wait,” interposed Hok quickly, he did not know why.

  A third human figure had come from behind—the Chief, their father and head of the party, a hunter still vigorous and swift but unable to match forever the pace of these two eldest sons. He, too, balanced a javelin ready, and at sight of the creature before them his heavy, fulvous beard gaped open in amazement.

  As for the curiosity itself, this last reenforcement daunted it. Slowly, clumsily, it backed away. They saw that it moved with knees bent, back hunched, arms hanging forward like an ape’s. Its eyes still turned to Hok, and it was at him it blurted a sudden gutteral sound of defiance. Then, turning upon broad, flat feet, it made off with awkward speed. It dropped into a fold of the meadow, remained invisible for moments, then reappeared beyond, well out of javelin range, to plunge into a thicket.

  Zhik, the youngest, recovered his high spirits first. “Gnorrl!” he shouted after the fugitive, in imitation of its throaty cry. Hok laughed, and repeated, “Gnorrl!” A new word was born into man’s language, a word that would be used often and fearfully in days to come.

  All three moved forward, tensely cautious. It was as though they expected the slain deer to spring up, alive and savage. But it was dead enough. The

  Chief turned it upon its back, then drew a knife of ground buckhom. Hok knelt to help him open the belly and peel the hide, but Zhik gazed searchingly around the horizon for long moments.

  “That Gnorrl left a bad stink here,” announced the Chief. “Let us drag the meat away.” They did so, but still smelled, or fancied that they smelled, the vanished monster.

  The rest of the party came up as the butchery went on—first Asha, latest wife of the Chief, a plump, handsome young woman in a doe-skin tunic, with a naked boy-baby straddling her hip; next Barp and Unn, half-grown sons of Zhik’s dead mother, carrying on their unwilling shoulders part of the camp-luggage; after that Eowi, full sister to Hok, a slim and agile maiden also loaded with bundles; finally Asha’s other child, the little girl Nohda, old enough to walk but not to carry any burden save her clout of hare’s fur and a necklace of red seeds. As these arrived, they helped in cutting up the meat. Under the Chief’s direction the four quarters, the loin and tenderloin, the heart, the liver and the kidneys were detached and wrapped in the new hide. The ribs, head, shins and entrails remained for hyenas and ravens.

  BY now it was mid-afternoon, and the party went no further than a willow-fringed creek before the Old Man uttered the laconic order “Camp.” At once Hok and Zhik produced axes and cut long, supple willow poles. Several of these were thrust into the ground and bent together for central lashing. Over them Asha and Eowi drew the tent- cover of sewn hides. Barp and Unn gathered kindling and heavier wood, and the Chief reverently produced from his belt-pouch the long, charred fire- spindle. A piece of soft, punky wood served as hearth, and upon this he twirled the spindle-point, crooning the while the ancient prayer to the fire god.

  When a bright blaze had been kindled, the meat was apportioned. The Chief got, as was his right, the tenderloin. Next choice, a steak from the rear quarter, went to Asha. Hok’s turn came third, and he cut slices of liver and impaled them on a green willow withe. As he put them to the fire, his sister Eowi came and squatted beside him.

  “What happened?” she asked. “None of you have told, but—”

  “Gnorr
l!” cried Zhik, whipping himself erect and standing at gaze.

  They all saw it then, far down the stream. It had crept up to watch them, and at the chorus of bewildered shouts from the campers it now shrank back into a little clump of bushes—a broad, repulsive shagginess that blended into the leafy shadow.

  Hok had dropped his liver into the fire and had sprung to where javelins were planted, tip in earth, for a quick snatch. His back tingled and crawled, in the place where, with his long-ago ancestors, a manelike strip of hair had bristled. His eyes measured the distance to the bushes. He ached to throw a spear.

  Eowi came to his side again. She had rescued his dinner from burning, and was touching it with a gingerly forefinger. “I know now without being told,” she said softly. “That was the danger. What was it, a man?”

  “No,” returned Hok, his eyes still prodding the clump. “It was a Gnorrl. Zhik made the word.”

  The Chief was laughing loudly and carelessly, for the sake of the frightened children. After a moment, the others joined in his merriment. Barp and Unn whooped bravely at the silent bush- clump, waving their axes and exhorting the Gnorrl to show himself and be slain.

  Hok returned to his cooking, tried a lump of liver experimentally, and finally ate with relish.

  BUT as the sun drew to the horizon’s edge, Hok’s uneasy mood came back upon him. The Chief and Zhik betrayed something of the same feeling, for they brought wood in great billets and built the small fire into a large, bright one. Hok sought serenity in toil, looking to his weapons. Did not the edge of his axe need retouching to make it sharper? With a bone chisel he gouged away a tiny flake of flint. But this aided neither the appearance nor the keenness of the weapon. He started suddenly.

  It had grown dark as he handled his gear, and he thought that something heavy and stealthy moved outside the patch of firelight. He felt as he had felt in childhood, when his mother, the Chief’s first wife, still lived and told of how her dead grandfather had moaned outside the tent to be let in.

  The Chief, who likewise felt the need for occupation, tightened the already perfect lashings of his javelin. “We shall sleep outside tonight,” he decreed. “Zhik, too. The women and children in the tent, and a big fire kept up until morning. One of us will watch.”

  “Well said,” agreed Hok. “I am not sleepy. I shall watch first.”

  It developed that Zhik was not sleepy, either, but Hok was the elder and had made first claim. The Chief then raised his voice, calling “Silence!” At this customary signal for bed-preparations, Asha, carrying her baby, entered the tent. Eowi and little Nobda followed, and then Barp and Unn, who took their places at either side of the doorway. The Chief and Zhik lay down by the fireside.

  Hok, left to his vigil, fought hard against the perplexing sensation of being watched. He tried to say that these were fancies. The chill at his backbone came because it was a spring night, and he had come farther north than ever before. The uneasiness wras because of the strangeness. Any prudent hunter did well to watch, of course; if the Gnorrl came. . . .

  It did not come, and at last he grew sleepy. The stars overhead told him that night’s noon was at hand. He nudged Zhik into wakefulness, and lay down.

  He dropped into sound slumber, for moments only as it seemed—then started to his feet with a wild, tremulous wail for fear and pain ringing through his head. Catlike, he commanded himself upon the instant of rousing, could see, stand and clutch at his javelin.

  It was dawn. The crying came from the direction of the tent. Something huge and dark was carrying something small that struggled and screamed. The Chief, too, was there running with axe uplifted.

  But a shaggy arm drove out like a striking snake. Hok saw the Chief spin and fall heavily. The Gnorrl—it was that, of course—fled with its prize.

  When Zhik and Hok had gained their father’s side he was dead. His skull had been beaten in, as though by the paw of a bear.

  CHAPTER II

  Blood for Blood

  THE others were out of the tent by now. There was considerable hysterical weeping, notably by Asha, who had lost baby and husband in almost the same instant of time. Hok, bound by racial custom not to speak to his stepmother, told Eowi to comfort the distracted woman. In the gray dawn he and Zhik reconnoitered.

  A look told them everything. Strange, enormous tracks behind the tent, a slit in the hide covering—the Gnorrl, plainly, had crept up here. By guess or scent it located the sleeping place of Asha’s baby son. A single strong rip with a sharp flint would give egress to a hand. The Chief, the only camper awake, had been slapped to death like a fly—the strength of the Gnorrl must be enormous. Had Hok pursued blindly, he might have died as well.

  The brothers looked pallidly at each other. “You are the Chief now,” Zhik said.

  Hok had not thought of that, but it is true. He, with manhood barely upon him, must be leader, defender and father of this handful. The realization steadied him, and he made plans for the space of two breaths, while Zhik waited expectantly.

  “I am going to take up the trail,” said Hok at last. “Stay here and bury him.” He gazed down at his dead father. “Heap stones, to keep the beasts away. Then break camp. Keep your weapons in hand, and have Barp and Unn do the same. Yes, and Eowi too, and Asha when she stops crying. Be ready to fight for your lives.”

  “I understand,” nodded Zhik.

  “When you are ready to march, wait here and watch. I will make a damp- wood fire. When you see its steam, come and find me there.”

  Zhik nodded as before, started to ask a question, but tactfully paused. Hok knew what was on his mind, and issued a final command.

  “The trail leads north. If I make no signal by noon, you will know that I will never make signals again. You, Zhik, will be the Chief. Lead the others south.”

  “South?” echoed the younger brother. “Where there is danger?”

  “Maybe the danger is less than what we have found.”

  He turned away without waiting for further comment from Zhik. He saw to his javelins, slung them in place, thrust axe and knife into his girdle. Neither speaking nor looking back, he strode quickly out of the camp, picked up the spoor of the raider and followed it at a trot.

  THE footprints of the Gnorrl betokened a long, wedge-shaped sole, point-heeled and splay-toed. Its greatest weight was at the outer edge—Hok remembered how grotesquely the legs had bowed. From force of habit he gauged the length and tempo of the stride, the considerable bulk supported on these strange feet.

  The sun was well up by this time, and he glanced quietly but expertly around. The country was all rolling meadow, well grown with grass and heather— rain must fall plentifully. Far to the north he saw wooded heights, from which a river wound its way. He made out distant dark spots at the brink— wild cattle drinking, and a rhinoceros or two, proof of the good hunting to be found. Upon his right, the east, ran at an angle the silver thread of the creek beside which his people had made camp, and he could descry a little ravine through which it ran to join the river.

  The track before him doubled back toward the creek and into the ravine. Cautiously Hok approached, his javelin poised. He did not enter the cleft, but scouted along its lip. Where it opened at the riverside he picked up again the tracks of the Gnorrl. A gout of blood showed beside them and, farther on, another.

  The trail led him along the sand of the river’s brink to where, winding upstream around a rocky height, it was lost to view. He paused a moment under the high rock before turning the corner. Breeze brought him a tiny wreath of smoke.

  “The Gnorrl uses fire,” he said to himself. “It cooks.”

  No question what cooking it did this morning. More blood spotted the track at juncture of bluff and river. Here were many footmarks of varying degrees of freshness, easily classifiable as made by three pairs of feet—two large, one smaller. Hok slipped gingerly around the point of the bank.

  Just beyond the steep slope of rock curved away from the water. It made a crescent-sh
aped open space, tufted here and there with grass, almost entirely enclosed by the bluff and the river. At the center point of the bank’s inward curve, at twice Hok’s height above the sandy soil’s level, opened the wide mouth of a cavern. A tall man, standing on its floor, might touch the roof by jumping, and across the opening from side to side would take four considerable stretchings of the legs. A jagged shelf extended above this grotto, filling it with shadow, and an ancient water channel descended diagonally from the cavern’s lower lip to the ground, making a natural runway up which two men might mount abreast. The air was full of the musky odor Hok had first known beside the slain deer.

  This was the den of the Gnorrl.

  Hok’s heart drummed partridge-like within him, but he advanced without hesitation. His nose curled with revulsion at the stench. He got a better view of the cavern, and from its shadowy interior came forth new wisps of smoke, laden with the smell of roasting.

  He gained the foot of the runway— deep and narrow and not as steep as the bank to left and right. It was worn as smooth as Hok’s palm; the feet of Gnorrls must have trod it for uncountable years. Hok set up a fierce yell, beating with his javelin-shaft on the stone.

  “Hi, hi! Gnorrl, Gnorrl! Come out, baby-killer! ”

  He heard movement in the cave overhead. A deep rumble made reply. Hok laughed scornfully:

  “Gnorrl! Come out, and eat javelin!”

  Something crept into view at the lip of the opening-—a dark, coarse hand, matted with hair, that grasped the shoulder of rock beside the deep-worn runway. Above it peeped the low, bearded face of the Gnorrl.

  It looked like the one Hok had seen yesterday, the one that had wanted to fight for the deer’s carcass. This time he refused to shrink from its biting gaze. “Come out, Gnorrl!” he urged. “Show me your body!”

  As though it understood, the thing rose into view. It swung a stick abruptly; from that stick’s cleft end a stone whizzed, over Hok’s instinctively ducking head. The Gnorrl charged down after the missile, lumbering swift as a rhinoceros.