Manly Wade Wellman - Hok 01 Read online

  “They are planning something,” said the older brother. “They care for their dead—that means that they worship, as we do. If they worship, they think. And they are many, where we are few.”

  It was early in the summer that Barp and Unn, rambling together in search of marmots, came back in a scamper to gasp out what they had seen—a group of Gnorrls overpowering a human stranger. He, a slim youth whose budding beard was dark, was patently unused to Gnorrls. They had stalked and surrounded him almost effortlessly. But the novelty of the tale was the fore- bearance of the captors. Instead of tearing their prey to pieces, they had bound him with long strips of tough bark and dragged him away northward. Hok frowned and pondered. Then he asked Barp and Unn if this was not a joking untruth.

  Both lads protested earnestly, and offered proof of their adventure. Unn, stealing in the wake of the Gnorrls and their prize, had picked up something that might have been torn from the man’s belt during the brief struggle— a pouch, made of striped catskin. Hok took the article, opened it and made an inventory. There was a hank of split- sinew thread, three or four flint flakes, a bone awl ground to a slender point, with a spiral line incised around it. At sight of this last item, Oloana cried out sharply and ran to clutch at the splinter of bone.

  “My brother!” she exclaimed.

  “What?” grunted Hok. “What about your brother?” Zhik and Eowi both came near to listen.

  “It is his,” replied Oloana. “I made the awl for him. The man the Gnorrls took is my brother—Riw, the son of Zorr.”

  Hok pursed his lips. “He must have followed us here. He should have kept his eyes open.”

  “The Gnorrls did not kill him,” said Barp again. “I wonder what they will do with him.”

  Oloana was looking only at Hok. “Go,” she said suddenly. “Follow him.”

  “Huh?” ejaculated her husband. “Follow your brother?”

  “See if you can get him away from the Gnorrls.”

  That began a discussion that did not end with supper or with bedtime. Hok pointed out that Rivv had come north to avenge himself on Oloana’s abductor —which meant Hok; Oloana answered that Rivv meant only to help her. Hok argued that the Gnorrls probably had killed Rivv; Oloana made reply that, had they intended to do so, they would not have bound him and carried him away. Hok complained that Rivv was of a strange and enemy people, and Oloana flashed back with considerable heat that she herself was of that same race.

  The night long there was little sleep for anyone within earshot of the two, and in the morning the debate came to a conclusion that feminists might regard as epoch-making—the woman had her way. Hok made over temporary command to Zhik, took his weapons and a few slices of dried meat, and left camp to follow the brother of Oloana.

  CHAPTER VII

  Rescue from the Gnorrls

  HE picked up the trail where Barp and Unn had said he would. It was easy to trace, and as he went northward he saw, in one or two spots, the clear-made tracks of the Gnorrls, Among them were the distinctive narrow prints of a true man’s foot.

  Thus guided, he crossed a little range of hills and came late in the afternoon to a place where a year ago he had mentally set up the boundary of his hunting grounds. A sloping height rose beside the river that poured down from the north, and to the west were trees. Between the rising ground and the river at the east was a very narrow strip of sandy beach that had once been part of the river bottom. At the southern end of this strip lay a long jumble of boulders, washed there in ages past by a greater river, now choked with sand and coarse weeds.

  The Gnorrls had taken this low, narrow way and he followed them, observing as he did so that the water had once risen here to considerable height, but that it had fallen and now ran swiftly in its narrow channel, almost in rapids. Emerging from the pass, he saw that the northern face of the rise fell nearly perpendicularly, and that beyond a small meadow began semi-wooded country, with thickets and clumps of trees and brush.

  At that time Hok may have been close upon the heels of the Gnorrl band, which would be hampered by its prisoner; but he went no farther into strange country, camping before sundown on the sand at the northern end of the tunnel between river and height. The next morning he resumed his hunt, but moved slowly and with a caution that may have been greater than was necessary. Thus, he did not approach bushes, groves or other possible hiding places of Gnorrls without an examination from all sides. His second night out from home he spent without a fire, climbing a tree for safety from possible wolves or cave-lions. The following day he spent in a treacherous and foggy swamp, and barely emerged before it was nightfall again. This time he camped in a sort of burrow made by the uprooting of a great tree, and in that shelter he dared built a fire.

  Dawn almost brought disaster, for it was a fearsome scream that brought him instantly erect, awake and alert as the wild instantly are, to face the leap of a tawny, spotted sabertooth.

  He had no time to more than seize his javelin, drop to one knee, and present its point to the charging monster.

  Braced against the ground behind him, it impaled the great cat from breast to spine.

  Scrambling from beneath its great weight, he wrenched his spear from the carcass and then stared down in awe. Fearsome things in this Gnorrl country.

  AT noon of his fourth day he moved cautiously over an open plain, sparsely covered with grass and heather, and bearing scant sign of game. It was a poor country up ahead, he guessed, and he could not blame the Gnorrls for wanting back the pleasant territory he and his were now holding.

  The lips of a valley lay northward, apparently formed by a curve of the river on a lower reach of which his people camped. Toward this depression led the tracks of the Gnorrls he followed—they must be within it. At once he dropped down and began an elaborate creeping approach, flattening his long body in the heather. After a time he saw a Gnorrl, then several more, emerge from the valley and strike off westward, as if hunting. He waited for them to get well away, then resumed his lizardlike advance.

  The sun dropped down the sky, and down, as Hok drew nearer to the valley. He paused at last—he heard a noise, or noises. That was the kind of noise made by many throats and tongues; more Gnorrls must be in the valley. At length he won to the brink, gingerly parted a tussock of flowered stalks, and gazed down a rocky incline upon the floor of the valley.

  It was full of Gnorrls.

  The steeps that made up this slope of the valley fringed a great rounded level space, a sort of vast enlargement of the guarded camp ground which Hok’s own people had taken from the Gnorrls. In ancient times the river had been higher and wider up here, too; this had been a bay or even a lake. Now a big dry flat was visible, and this unlovely people gathered upon it, to make fires and rubbish-heaps and stenches.

  The Gnorrls sat, singly or in family knots, around small, ill-made hearths. Some of them toasted bits of meat on skewers of green wood, some chipped and knocked at half-finished flints, women chewed the fleshy surfaces of hides to soften and smooth them. Little Gnorrls, naked and monkeyish, romped and scuffled together, shrilling incessantly. Some of the old males grumbled to each other in the incomprehensible language of the race, pausing now and then to wag their unshapely heads as though in sage agreement. Over all went up an odor, so strong as to be almost palpable, of uncleanliness and decay and near-bestiality—an odor that had something in it of reptile, of ape, of musky wolf, as well as something like none of these.

  Hok tried to judge how many there were. Like most intelligent savages, he could count up to a hundred—ten tens of his fingers—but beyond that was too difficult. There were more than ten tens of Gnorrls, many more. With something of a pioneering spirit in mathematics, Hok wondered if there could not be a full ten of ten-tens; but there was not time to count or add or compute, even if he could marshal the figures in his head.

  Thus he estimated the situation, as a good hunter and warrior should, half instinctively and almost at first sweeping glance. His second glance show
ed him the specified item he had come to note and to act upon.

  Close to the foot of the declivity, but well to the left of where Hok was peeping down, stood a little gathering of Gnorrls, all full-grown males, and in their center a tall figure. This one had a smooth dusky skin, a lean body, an upright head with a black young beard —Rivv, no other. He stood free, though Hok thought he could make out weals upon chest and arm that bespoke recently-loosened cords. One big Gnorrl held Rivv by the wrist. Another held out something to him.

  Hok stared, absolutely dumfounded. By all mysteries of all gods and spirits, known and unknown, the Gnorrl was trying to make Rivv take a javelin! Why? Hok almost thrust himself into view, in his amazed eagerness to see more. Then it came to him.

  The Gnorrls had puzzled it out. Man, fewer and weaker than they, had one priceless advantage, the javelin and the art of casting it. That was why Rivv had been seized and kept alive. The Gnorrls meant to learn javelin-throwing. Rivv was to teach them.

  To Hok’s distant ears came the voice of Rivv, loud even as it choked with rage: “No! No!” And the Gnorrls understood his manner, if not his words. Their own insistent snarls and roars beat like surf around the captive, and the Gnorrl who offered the javelin thrust it into Rivv’s free hand and closed his fingers forcibly upon it.

  Far away as he was, Hok could see the glitter of Rivv’s wide, angry eye. For a moment the prisoner stood perfectly still, tense, in the midst of that clamoring, gesticulating ring of monsters. Then, swift as a flying bird, his javelin hand rose and darted. The Gnorrl who held Rivv’s wrist crumped with the javelin in his breast.

  For one moment the other Gnorrls stood silent and aghast, their snarls frozen on their gross lips. In that moment a loud yell rang from on high. Hok sprang erect on the bluff, waving his javelin.

  “Rivv!” he trumpeted. “Riw, brother of Oloana 1 Run 1 Climb here! ”

  As if jerked into motion, Rivv ran. So, a breath later, did the entire squat- ting-place. Rivv dodged through his ring of captors and headed for the height.

  “Climb!” yelled Hok again, at the top of his lungs. Rivv climbed.

  He was active, but the rock was steep. He had barely mounted six times his own height when the first of the pursuing Gnorrls had reached the foot of the ascent. Stones and sticks of wood rained about Rivv, but by some unbelievable fortune none of them hit. He gained a great open crack in the face of the bluff, and swarmed up more swiftly. The Gnorrls were after him, scrambling like monkeys for all their bulk. But Hok, falling at full length above, reached' down a great hand, caught Rivv’s shoulder and dragged him up by sheer strength.

  “Who are you?” panted Rivv, staring at his rescuer.

  Instead of answering, Hok carefully kicked a great mass of stone and gravel down upon the climbing Gnorrls. To the accompaniment of fearsome howls, both men turned and ran.

  It was a splendid dash, on deer-swift feet given the further impetus of danger behind. Nor did it cease until, long after dark, Hok and Rivv came to the edge of the swamp and there made a fire. They talked long, and before they slept they touched hands, shyly but honestly, in friendship.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Alliance

  THE midsummer dusk was thickening, and the half-moon of open space in front of Hok’s cave was filled —with skin tents along the curve of rock, with cooking fires, and with men and women and children. Most of them were strangers, quiet but suspicious, dark of hair and sallow of skin in contrast to the tawniness and ruddiness of Hok’s brothers and sisters.

  At a central blaze, small so that men might draw close, sat three grave figures. Hok, the host, was youngest and largest and most at ease. Opposite him, his long fingers smoothing his beard, was stationed Zorr, Oloana’s father, who had last viewed Hok as his prisoner. The third man was the heavy, grizzed Nukl, head of the clan from which Kaga and Dwil had come.

  “This meeting is a strange thing,” said Zorr weightily. “It has never happened before that peoples who hate each other have met and eaten food and talked together.”

  “Yet it must be,” rejoined Hok, very slow and definite in his defense of the new idea. “I sent your son, Rivv, back to you with the word to come. He and I are friends. He vouches for you. This is good hunting ground, as you yourself have seen.”

  “I think the meeting is good,” chimed in Nukl. “Kaga and Dwil came from you to say that you were a true man, Hok. They said that there would be country and game enough for all of us.”

  “Why do you do this?” Zorr demanded. “It is not usual that a hunter gives away part of his good country for nothing.”

  “There are the Gnorrls to fight,” said Hok.

  Every ear within sound of his voice pricked up. Men, women and children paused at eating or chattering, to listen.

  “I have told you about the Gnorrls, and of how Rivv and I saw that they intended to return and eat us up,” went on Hok. “My people have killed many, but there are more Gnorrls than we have javelins. You, Zorr, bring four men with you, and Nukl has five, counting Kaga. My three brothers, whom I sent north to spy on the Gnorrls, and I myself make four. With the women and boys who can throw spears, we number three tens. That is enough to fight and beat the Gnorrls.”

  He felt less sure than he sounded, and perhaps Zorr guessed this. The southern chief pointed out that his own people came from the south, where Gnorrls were not a danger.

  “But too many hunters live there,” argued Nukl on Hok’s side. “The game is scarce. You, Zorr, know that. Once or twice your young men and mine have fought over wounded deer.”

  “There will be no reason to fight for food here,” added Hok. “Men need not kill each other. If anyone wants to fight, there will be Gnorrls.”

  “The Gnorrls never troubled us,” reiterated Zorr.

  “But if they come and eat my people up, will they stop here?” asked Hok. “They have learned that man’s flesh is good, and they may come into your forests, looking for more.”

  Nukl sighed. “I think that I will have to stay. Zhik, the young man who is scouting up north, is going to take Dwil, the daughter of my brother Kaga. Kaga wants to stay, and I should help him if he is in danger.” His eyes shone in the fire light. “Anyway, the Gnorrls have killed two of my people. I want some of their blood for that.”

  “That makes the southern forest less crowded,” pointed out Zorr. “Plenty of room and game for my people.”

  But Hok had gained inspiration from what Nukl had said. “Zorr,” he replied, “your son, Rivv, has asked for my sister, Eowi. She wants him to have her. I shall give her to him—if he remains with me.”

  Zorr stiffened, almost rose. He muttered something like a dismayed curse. Hok continued serenely:

  “Two of your children will be here when the Gnorrls come. Also, if Olo- ana is spared, there may be a son, a child of your child—”

  “I shall help you against the Gnorrls,” interrupted Zorr, savage but honest in his capitulation. “When does the fighting begin?”

  “When Zhik warns us,” replied Hok gravely. “It may be many days yet.”

  AND the remainder of the summer went in peace. Hok and his new allies hunted successfully and ate well. Once a lone Gnorrl ventured close, to be speared and exhibited to the strangers as an example of what they must face sooner or later. The greatest item of preparation was the fashioning, by every person in the three parties of new javelins—sheafs and faggots of javelins, some with tips of flint, others armed with whittled and sharpened bone.

  With the first chill of autumn, Zhik and his two younger brothers came loping into camp, dirty but sound. With them they brought the news that Hok had long awaited with mixed attitudes of anxiety and determination.

  The Gnorrls were on the march. Up north in their country a blizzard had come, and it had nipped the brutal race into action. They were advancing slowly but steadily into their old haunts in the south.

  “We are ready to meet them here,” said Zorr at once, but Hok had another idea.

  “N
o, not here. A day’s march toward them is the best place.”

  Quickly he gave orders. Only the children remained at the camp before the cave. Barp and Unn were ordered to take charge there, but teased and begged until at the last moment Hok included them in the expeditionary force that numbered full thirty men, women and boys. In the morning they set out northward.

  Hok, pausing at a certain damlike heap of stones, lifted his palm to signal a halt. Then he gazed as if for the first time at the rocky slope beyond the narrow level between it and the swift waters.

  “We shall fight the Gnorrls here,” he said definitely, and almost added that he was sure of winning.

  Zorr and Nukl moved forward from their own groups, coming up at Hok’s elbows. They, too, studied the ground that Hok was choosing for battle. “How shall we fight them if there are so many?” Nukl asked.

  Hok pointed at the slope. “That leads to the top of a bluff,” he said. “The Gnorrls will come from the north side, and will not climb, but will enter the pass between it and the river. They can come upon us only a few at a time, and we will have these rocks for a protection.”

  “How do you know that they will choose the pass?” was Zorr’s question.

  “They may go to the west, and through those trees.”

  Hok shook his head. “Before they come, we will set the trees afire—the sap is almost out of them. And the Gnorrls will go east, into the pass.” Zorr and Nukl glanced at each other, and nodded. Then Zorr addressed Hok again: “It sounds like a good plan, better than any other. What shall we do?” “Zhik says that there are more than ten tens of Gnorrls. A few of us shall meet them on the plain beyond here, and make them angry. Then those few will run and draw them into the pass. After that, it will be as I say.”

  He gestured toward the crown of the slope. “You, Zorr, shall be the leader there, with most of the men, to throw javelins upon the Gnorrls when they are close together and rushing into the narrow pass.”