THE BATTLE OF THE BRANDS
I
Now for two years had the remnants of the tribe been settled in the
Valley of Fire. They had prospered exceedingly. The caves were
swarming with strong children; for at the Chief's orders every warrior
had taken to himself either two or three wives, so that none of the
widows had been left unmated. Grom alone remained with but one wife,
although his position in the tribe, second only to that of Bawr
himself, would have entitled him to as many as he might choose.
Singularly happy with the girl A-ya, Grom had been unwilling to
receive other women into their little grotto, which branched off from
the high arched entrance of the main cave. He might, however, have
yielded, from policy and for the sake of the tribe, to pressure from
the Chief, but for a look of startled anguish which he had seen leap
into A-ya's eyes when he mentioned the matter to her. This had
surprised him at the moment, but it had also thrilled him curiously.
And as the girl made no objection to a step so absolutely in
accordance with the tribal customs, Grom thought about it a good deal.
A few days later he excused himself to the Chief, saying that other
women in his cave would be a nuisance, and would interfere with those
studies of the Shining One which had proved so beneficial to the
tribe. Bawr had accepted the excuse, though somewhat perplexed by it,
and had accommodatingly taken the extra wives himself--a solution
which had seemed to meet with the unqualified approval of A-ya.
The first winter in the Valley of Fire had been a wonderful one to the
tribe, thanks to the fierce but beneficent element ever shining,
dancing and whispering in its mysterious tongue before the cave doors.
Bleak winds and driving, icy rains out of the north had no longer any
power to distress them.
But when the storm was violent, with drenching and persistent rain,
then it was found necessary to feed the fires before the cave-mouths
lavishly with dry fuel from the stores which Grom's forethought had
caused to be accumulated under shelter. These contests between fire
and rain were sagaciously represented by Bawr (who had by now to his
authority as Chief added the subtle sanctions of High Priest) as the
fight of the Shining One in protection of the tribe, his children.
On more than one occasion of torrential downpour the struggle had
almost seemed to hang for a while in doubt. But the Shining One lost
no prestige, thereby, for always, down there across the valley-mouth,
kept leaping and dancing those unquenchable flames of scarlet, amber
and violet, fed by the volcanic gases from within the crevice, and
utterly regardless of whatever floods the sky might loose upon them.
This was evidence conclusive that the Shining One was master of the
storm, no less than of the monsters which fled so terror-stricken
before him.
In the early spring, the girl A-ya bore a child to Grom; a big-limbed,
vigorous boy, with shapely head and spacious brow. In this event, and
in the mother's happiness about it (a happiness that seemed to the
rest of the women to savor of foolish extravagance), Grom felt a
gladness which dignity forbade him to betray.
But pondering over the little one with bent brows, and with deep eyes
full of visions, he conceived such an ambition as had perhaps never
before entered into the heart of man. It was that this child might
grow up to achieve some wonderful thing, as he himself had done, for
the advancement of his people. Of this baby, child of the woman toward
whom he felt emotions so new and so profound, he had a premonition
that new and incalculable things would come.
One day Grom was following the trail of a deer some distance up the
valley. Skilled hunter that he was, he could read in the trail that
his quarry was not far ahead, and also that it had not yet taken
alarm. He followed cautiously, up the wind, noiseless as a leopard,
his sagacious eyes taking note of every detail about him.
Presently he came to a spot where the trail was broken. There was a
twenty-foot gap to the next hoofprints, and these went off at right
angles to the direction which the quarry had hitherto been pursuing.
Grom halted abruptly, slipped behind a tree, crouched, and peered
about him with the tense vigilance of a startled fox. He knew that
something had frightened the deer, and frightened it badly. It
behooved him to find out what that something was.
For some minutes he stood motionless as the trunk against which he
leant, searching every bush and thicket with his keen gaze, and
sniffing the air with expert nostrils. There was nothing perceptible
to explain that sudden fright of the deer. He was on the point of
slipping around the trunk to investigate from another angle. But stop!
There on a patch of soil where some bear had been grubbing for tubers
he detected a strange footprint. Instantly, he sank to the ground, and
wormed his way over, silently as a snake, to examine it.
It was a human footprint, but much larger than his own, or those of
his tribe; and Grom's beard, and the stiff hairs on the nape of his
corded neck, bristled with hostility at the sight of it.
The toes of this portentous print were immensely long and muscular,
the heel protruded grotesquely far behind the arch of the foot, which
was low and flat. The pressure was very marked along all the outer
edge, as if the author of the print had walked on the outer sides of
his feet. To Grom, who was an adept in the signs of the trail, it
needed no second look to be informed that one of the Bow-legs had been
here. And the trail was not five minutes old.
Grom slipped under the nearest bushes, and writhed forward with
amazing speed in the direction indicated by the strange footprint,
pausing every other second to look, sniff the air, and listen. The
trail was as clear as daylight to him. Suddenly he heard voices,
several of them, guttural and squealing, and stopped again as if
turned to stone. Then another voice, at which he started in amazement.
It was Mawg's, speaking quietly and confidentially. Mawg, then, had
gone over to the Bow-legs! Grom's forehead wrinkled. A-ya had been
right. He ought to have killed the traitor. He writhed himself into a
dense covert, and presently, over the broken brink of a vine-draped
ledge, was able to command a view of the speakers.
They were five in number, and grouped almost immediately below him.
Four were of the Bow-legs, squat, huge in the shoulder, long-armed,
flat-skulled, of a yellowish clay color, with protruding jaws, and
gaping, pit-like, upturned nostrils to their wide, bridgeless noses.
Grom's own nose wrinkled in disgust as the sour taint of them breathed
up to him.
They were all armed with spears and stone-headed clubs, such as their
people had been unacquainted with up to the time of their attack upon
the Tribe of the Little Hills. It was apparent to Grom that the
renegade Mawg, who towered among them arrogantly, had been teaching
them what he knew of effective weapons.
Having no remotest comprehension of the language of the Bow-legs--which
Mawg was speaking with them--Grom could get little clue to the drift of
their talk. They gesticulated frequently toward the east, and then
again toward the caves at the valley-mouth, so Grom guessed readily
enough that they were planning something against his people.
It was clear, also, that this was but a little scouting party which
the renegade had led in to spy upon the weakness of the tribe. This
was as far as he could premise with any certainty. The obvious
conclusion was that these spies would return to their own country, to
lead back such an invasion as should blot the Children of the Shining
One out of existence.
Grom was quick to realize that to listen any longer was to waste
invaluable time. All that it was possible for him to learn, he had
learned. Writhing softly back till he had gained what he considered a
safe distance from the spies, he rose to his feet and ran, at first
noiselessly, and crouching as he went, then at the top of that speed
for which he was famous in the tribe. Reaching the Caves, he laid the
matter hurriedly before the Chief, and within five minutes they were
leading a dozen warriors up the trail.
Besides their customary weapons, both Grom and the Chief carried
fire-sticks, tubes of thick, green bark, tied round with a raw hide,
filled with smouldering punk, and perforated with a number of holes
toward the upper end. This was one of Grom's inventions, of proved
efficacy against saber-tooth and bear. By cramming a handful of dry
fiber and twigs into the mouth of the tube, and then whirling it
around his head, he was able to obtain a sudden and most unexpected
burst of flame which no beast ever dared to face, and which never
failed to compel the awe and wonder of his followers.
Like shadows the little band went gliding in single file through the
thickets and under the drooping branches, their passage marked only by
the occasional upspringing of a startled bird or the frightened
crashing flight of some timorous beast surprised by their swift and
noiseless approach. Arriving near the hollow under the ledge, they
sank flat and wormed their way forward like weasels till they had
gained the post of observation behind the vine-clad rock.
But the strangers had vanished. An examination of their footprints
showed that they had fled in haste; and to Grom's chagrin it looked as
if he had himself given them the alarm. The problem was solved in a
few minutes by the discovery that Mawg--easily detected by his finer
footprints--had scaled the ledge and come upon the place where Grom
had lain hidden to watch them. Seeing that they were discovered, and
that their discoverer had evidently gone to arouse the tribe, they had
realized that, the Bow-legs being slow runners, their only hope lay in
instant flight. From the direction which they had taken it was evident
that they were fleeing back to their own country.
The Chief ordered instant pursuit. To this Grom demurred, not only
because the fugitives had obtained such a start--as was shown by the
state of the trail--but because he dreaded to leave the Caves so long
unguarded. He foresaw the possibility of another band of invaders
surprising the Caves during the absence of this most efficient
fighting force. But the Chief overruled him.
For several hours was the pursuit kept up; and from the trail it
appeared, not only that Mawg was leading his followers cleverly, but
also that the Bow-legs were making no mean speed. The pursuers were
come by now to near the head of the valley, a region with which they
were little familiar. It was a broken country and well fitted for
ambuscade, where a lesser force, well posted and driven to bay, might
well secure a deadly advantage. The tribe was too weak to risk its few
fighting men in any uncertain contest; and the Chief, yielding slowly
to Grom's arguments, was on the point of giving the order to turn
back, when a harsh scream of terror from just ahead, beyond a shoulder
of rock, brought the line to a halt.
Waving their followers into concealment on either side of the trail,
the Chief and Grom stole forward and peered cautiously around the
turn.
Straight before them fell away a steep and rugged slope. Midway of the
descent, with his back to a rock, crouched one of the Bow-legs,
battling frantically with his club to keep off the attack of a pair of
leopards. The man was kneeling upon one knee, with the other leg
trailed awkwardly behind him. It seemed an altogether difficult and
disadvantageous position in which to do battle.
"The fool!" said Bawr. "He doesn't know how to fight a leopard."
"He's hurt. His leg is broken!" said Grom. And straightway, a novel
purpose flashing into his far-seeing brain, he ran leaping down the
slope to the rescue, waving his fire-stick to a blaze as he went.
The Chief looked puzzled for a moment, wondering why the deliberate
Grom should trouble to do what it was plain the leopards would do for
him most effectually. But he dreaded the chance of an ambuscade.
Shouting to the men behind to come on, he waved his own fire-stick to
a blaze, and followed Grom.
One of the leopards had already succeeded in closing in upon the
wounded Bow-leg; but at the sight of Grom and the Chief leaping down
upon them they sprang back snarling and scurried off among the
thickets like frightened cats. The Bow-leg lifted wild eyes to learn
the meaning of his deliverance. But when he saw those two tall forms
rushing at him with flame and smoke circling about their heads, he
gave a groan and fell forward upon his face.
Grom stood over him, staring down upon the misshapen and bleeding form
with thoughtful eyes; while the Chief looked on, striving to fathom
his purpose. The warriors came up, shouting savage delight at having
at last got one of their dreaded enemies into their hands alive. They
would have fallen upon him at once and torn him to pieces. But Grom
waved them back sternly. They growled with indignation, and one,
sufficiently prominent in the tribal counsels to dare Grom's
displeasure, protested hotly against this favor to so venomous a foe.
"I demand this fellow, Bawr, as my captive!" said Grom.
"It was you who took him," answered the Chief. "He is yours." He was
about to add, "though I can't see what you want of him"; but it was a
part of his policy never to seem in doubt or ignorance about anything
that another might perhaps know. So, instead, he sternly told his
followers to obey the law of the tribe and respect Grom's capture.
Then Grom stepped close beside him and said at his ear: "Many things
which we need to know will Bawr learn from this fellow presently, as
to the dangers which are like to come upon us."
At this the Chief, being ready of wit, comprehended Grom's purpose;
and, to the amazement of his followers, he looked down upon the
hideous prisoner with a smile of satisfaction.
"Well have I called you the Chief's Right Hand," he answered. "I shall
also have to call you the Chief's Wisdom, for in saving this fellow's
life you have shown more forethought than I."
The captive's wounds having been dressed with astringent herbs, and
his broken leg put into splints in accordance with the rude but not
ineffective surgery of the time, he was placed on a rough litter of
interlaced branches and carried back by the reluctant warriors to the
Caves.
None of the warriors were advanced enough to have understood the
policy of their leaders, so no effort was made by either the Chief or
Grom to explain it. The Chief, doubly secure in his dominance by
reason of Grom's loyal support, cared little whether his followers
were content or not, and he took no heed of their ill-humor so long as
they did not allow it to become articulate.
But when, after an hour's sullen tramping, they suddenly grew merry at
their task, and fell to marching with a child-like cheer under their
repulsive and groaning burden, he was surprised, and made inquiry as
to the reason for this sudden complaisance. It turned out that one of
the warriors, accounted more discerning than his fellows, had
suggested that the captive was to be nursed back to health in order
that he might be made an acceptable sacrifice to the Shining One. As
this notion seemed to meet with such hearty approval, the wise Chief
did not think it worth while to cast any doubt upon it. In fact, as he
thought, such a solution might very well arrive, in the end, in case
Grom's design should fail to come up to his expectations.
To the presence of the hideous and repulsive stranger in her dwelling,
A-ya, as was natural, raised warm objection. But when Grom had
explained his purpose to her, and the imminence of the peril that
threatened, she yielded readily enough, the dread of Mawg being yet
vivid in her imagination. She lent herself cheerfully to the duty of
caring for the captive's wounds and of helping Grom to teach him the
simple speech of the tribe.
As for the captive, for some days he was possessed by a morose
anticipation of being brained at any moment--an anticipation, however,
which did not seem to interfere with his appetite. He would clutch
eagerly all the food offered him, and crouch, huddled over it, with
his face to the rock-wall, while he devoured it with frantic haste and
bestial noises. But as he found himself treated with invariable
kindness, he began to develop an anxious gratitude and docility. On
A-ya's tall form his little round eyes, shy and fierce at the same
time, came to rest with an adoring awe. The smell of him being
extremely offensive to all this cleanly tribe, and especially to A-ya
and Grom, who were more fastidious than their fellows, A-ya had taken
advantage of her office as priestess of the Shining One to establish a
little fire within the precincts of her own dwelling, and by the
judicious use of aromatic barks upon the blaze she was able to scent
the place to her taste. And the Bow-leg, seeing her mastery of the
mysterious and dreadful scarlet tongues which licked upwards from the
hollow on their rocky pedestal, regarded her less as a woman than as a
goddess--a being who, for her own unknown reasons, chose to be
beneficent toward him, but who plainly could become destructive if he
should in any way transgress. Toward Grom--who regarded him altogether
impersonally as a means to an end, a pawn to be played prudently in a
game of vast import--his attitude was that of the submitted slave, his
fate lying in the hollow of his master's hand. Toward the rest of the
tribe--who, till their curiosity was sated, kept crowding in to stare
and jeer and curse--he displayed the savage fear and hate of a lynx at
bay.
But the babe on A-ya's arm seemed to him something peculiarly
precious. It was not only the son of Grom, his grave and distant
master, but also of that wonderful, beautiful, enigmatic deity, his
mistress, the fashioner and controller of the flames. The adoration
which soon grew up in his heart for A-ya's beauty, but which his awe
of her did not suffer him even to realize to himself, was turned upon
the babe, and speedily took the form of a passionate and dog-like
devotion. A-ya, with her mother instinct, was quick to understand
this, and also to realize the possible value to her child of such a
devotion, in some future emergency. Moreover, it softened her heart
toward the hideous captive, so that she busied herself not only to
help Grom teach him their language, but also to reform his manners and
make him somewhat less unpleasant an associate. His wounds soon
healed, thanks to the vitality of his youthful stock; and the bones of
the broken leg soon knit themselves securely. But Grom's surgery
having been hasty and something less than exact, the leg remained so
crooked that its owner could do no more than hobble about with a
laborious, dragging gait. It being obvious that he could not run away,
there was no guard set upon him.
But it soon became equally obvious that nothing would induce him to
remove himself from the neighborhood of A-ya's baby. He was like a
gigantic watchdog squatting at Grom's doorway, chained to it by links
stronger than any that hands could fashion. And those of the tribe who
had been hoping to do honor to the Shining One, as well as to the
spirits of their slain kinsmen back in the barrow on the windy hills,
by a great and bloody sacrifice, began to realize with discontent that
their hopes were like enough to be disappointed.
II
The captive said his name was Ook-ootsk--a clicking guttural which
none but A-ya was able to master. When he had learned to make himself
understood, he proved eager to repay Grom's protection by giving all
the information that he possessed. Simple-minded, but with much of a
child's shrewdness, he quickly came to regard himself as of some
importance when both the Chief and Grom would spend hours in
interrogating him. His own people he repudiated with bitterness,
because, when he had fallen among the rocks and shattered his leg, his
party had refused to burden their flight by helping him. It became his
pride to identify himself with the interests of his master, and to
call himself the slave of his master's baby.
The information which he was able to give was such as to cause the
Chief and Grom the most profound disquietude. It appeared that the
Bow-legs, having gradually recovered from the panic of their appalling
defeat in the Pass of the Little Hills, had made up their minds that
the disaster must be avenged. But no longer did they hold their
opponents cheap on account of their scanty numbers. They realized that
if they would hope to succeed in their next attack they must organize,
and prepare themselves by learning how to employ their forces better.
To this end, therefore, when Mawg and his fellow-renegades fell into
their hands, instead of tearing them to pieces in bestial sport, they
had spared them, and made much of them, and set themselves diligently
to learn all that the strangers could teach. And Mawg, seeing here his
opportunity both for vengeance on Grom and for the gratification of
that mad passion for A-ya which had so long obsessed him, had gone
about the business with shrewd foresight and a convincing zeal.
It was apparent from the accounts which Ook-ootsk was able to give
that the invasion would take place as soon as possible after their
hordes were adequately armed with the new weapons. This, said
Ook-ootsk, would be soon after the dry season had set in. In any case,
he said, the hordes were bound to wait for the dry season, because the
way from their country to the Valley of Fire lay through a region of
swamps which became impassable for any large body of migrants during
the month of rains.
As the dry season was already close upon them, Bawr and Grom now set
themselves feverishly to the arrangement of their defenses. Counting
the older boys who had grown into sizable youths since the last great
battle and all the able-bodied women and girls, they could muster no
more than about six score of actual combatants. They knew that defeat
would mean nothing less than instant annihilation for the tribe, and
for the women a foul captivity and a loathsome mating. But they knew
also that a mere successful defense would avail them only for the
moment. Unless they could inflict upon the invaders such a defeat as
would amount to a paralyzing catastrophe, they would soon be worn down
by mere force of numbers, or starved to death in their caves. It was
not only for defense, therefore, but for wholesale attack--the attack
of six score upon as many thousand--that Bawr planned his strategy and
Grom wove unheard-of devices.
Of the two great caves occupied by the tribe one was now abandoned, as
not lending itself easily to defense. To Bawr's battle-trained eyes it
revealed itself as rather a trap than a refuge, because from the
heights behind it an enemy could roll down rocks enough to effectively
block its mouth. But the cliff in which the other cave was hollowed
was practically inaccessible, and hung beetling far over the
entrance.
Into this natural fortress the tribe--with an infinite deal of
grumbling--was removed. Store of roots and dried flesh was gathered
within; and every one was set to the collection of dry and half-dry fuel.
The light stuff, with an immense number of short, highly-inflammable
faggots, was piled inside the doorway where no rain could reach it. And
the heavy wood was stacked outside, to right and left, in such a fashion
as to form practical ramparts for the innermost line of defense.
Directly in front of the cave spread a small fan-shaped plateau
several hundred square yards in area. On the right a narrow path, wide
enough for but one wayfarer at a time, descended between perpendicular
boulders to the second cave. On the left the plateau was bordered by
broken ground, a jumble of serrated rocks, to be traversed only with
difficulty. In front there was a steep but shallow dip, from which the
land sloped gently up the valley, clothed with high bush and deep
thickets intersected with innumerable narrow trails.
Directly in front of the cave, and about the center of the plateau,
burned always, night and day, the sacred fire, tended in turn by the
members of the little band appointed to this distinguished service by
the Chief. Under the Chief's direction the whole of the plateau was
now cleared of underbrush and grass, and then along its brink was laid
a chain of small fires, some ten or twelve feet apart, and all ready
for lighting.
Meanwhile, Grom was busy preparing the device on which, according to
his plan of campaign, the ultimate issue was to hang. For days the
tribe was kept on the stretch collecting dry and leafy brushwood from
the other side of the valley, and bundles of dead grass from the rich
savannahs beyond the valley-mouth, on the other side of the dancing
flames. All this inflammable stuff Grom distributed lavishly through
the thickets before the plateau, to a distance of nearly a mile up the
slope, till the whole space was in reality one vast bonfire laid ready
for the torch.
While these preparations were being rushed--somewhat to the perplexity
of the tribe, who could not fathom the tactics of stuffing the
landscape with rubbish--Bawr was keeping a little band of scouts on
guard at the far-off head of the valley. They were chosen from the
swift runners of the tribe; and Bawr, who was a far-seeing general,
had them relieved twice in twenty-four hours, that they might not grow
weary and fail in vigilance.
When all was ready came a time of trying suspense. As day after day
rolled by without event, cloudless and hot, the country became as dry
as tinder; and the tribe, seeing that nothing unusual happened, began
to doubt or to forget the danger that hung over them. There were
murmurs over the strain of ceaseless watching, murmurs which Bawr
suppressed with small ceremony. But the lame Ook-ootsk, squatting
misshapen in Grom's doorway with A-ya's baby in his ape-like arms grew
more and more anxious. As he conveyed to Grom, the longer the delay
the greater the force which was being gathered for the assault.
Having no inkling of Grom's larger designs, he looked with distrust on
the little heaps of wood that were to be fires along the edge of the
plateau, and wished them to be piled much bigger, intimating that his
people, though they would be terribly afraid of the Shining One, would
be forced on from behind by sheer numbers and would trample the small
fires out. The confidence of the Chief and Grom, and of A-ya as well,
in the face of the awful peril which hung over them, filled him with
amazement.
Then, at last, one evening just in the dying flush of the sunset, came
the scouts, running breathlessly, and one with a ragged spear-wound in
his shoulder. Their eyes were wide as they told of the countless
myriads of the Bow-legs who were pouring into the head of the valley,
led by Mawg and a gigantic black-faced chief as tall as Bawr himself.
"Are they as many," asked Grom, "as they who came against us in the
Little Hills?"
But the panting men threw up their hands.
"As a swarm of locusts to a flock of starlings," they replied.
To their astonishment the Chief smiled with grim satisfaction at this
appalling news.
"It is well," said he. Mounting a rock by the cave-door, he gazed up
the valley, striving to make out the vanguard of the approaching
hordes; while Grom, marshalling the servitors of the fire, stationed
them by the range of piles, ready to set light to them on the given
word.
It was nearly an hour--so swift had been the terror of the scouts--before
a low, terrible sound of crashings and mutterings announced that the hordes
were drawing near. It was now twilight, with the first stars appearing in
a pallid violet sky; and up the valley could be discerned an obscurely
rolling confusion among the thickets. Bawr gave orders, rapid and concise;
and the combatants lined out in a double rank along the front of the
plateau some three or four paces behind the piles of wood.
They were armed with stone-headed clubs, large or small, according to
personal taste, and each carried at least three flint-tipped spears.
At the head of the narrow path leading up from the lower cave were
stationed half a dozen women, similarly armed. Bawr had chosen these
women because each of them had one or more young children in the cave
behind her; and he knew that no adventurous foe would get up that path
alive. But A-ya was not among these six wild mothers, for her place
was at the service of the fires.
The ominous roar and that obscure confusion rolled swiftly nearer, and
Bawr, with a swing of his huge club, sprang down from his post of
observation and strode to the front. Grom shouted an order, and light
was set to all the crescent of fires. They flared up briskly; and at
the same time the big central fire, which had been allowed to sink to
a heap of glowing coals, was heaped with dry stuff which sent up an
instant column of flame. The sudden wide illumination, shed some
hundreds of yards up the valley, revealed the front ranks of the
Bow-legs swarming in the brush, their hideous yellow faces, gaping
nostrils and pig-like eyes all turned up in awe towards the glare.
The advance of the front ranks came to an instant halt, and the low
muttering rose to a chorus of harsh cries. Then the tall figure of
Mawg sprang to the front, followed, after a moment of wondering
hesitation, by that of the head chief of the hordes, a massive
creature of the true Bow-leg type, but as tall as Bawr himself, and in
color almost black. This giant and Mawg, refusing to be awed by the
tremendous phenomenon of the fire, went leaping along the lines of
their followers, urging them forward, and pointing out that their
enemies stood close beside the flames and took no hurt.
On the front ranks themselves this reasoning seemed, at first, to
produce little effect. But to those just behind it appeared more
cogent, seconded as it was by a consuming curiosity. Moreover, the
masses in the rear were rolling down, and their pressure presently
became irresistible. All at once the front ranks realized that they
had no choice in the matter. They sagged forward, surged obstinately
back again, then gave like a bursting dam and poured, yelling and
leaping, straight onward toward the crescent of fires.
As soon as the rush was fairly begun, both Mawg and the Black Chief
cleverly extricated themselves from it, running aside to the higher,
broken ground at the left of the plateau whence they could see and
direct the attack. It was plain enough that they accounted the front
ranks doomed, and were depending on sheer weight of numbers for the
inevitable victory.
Standing grim, silent, immovable between their fires, the Chief and
Grom awaited the dreadful onset. In all the tribe not a voice was
raised, not a fighter, man or woman, quailed. But many hearts stood
still, for it looked as if that living flood could never be stayed.
Presently from all along its front came a cloud of spears. But they
fell short, not more than half a dozen reaching the edge of the
plateau. In instant response came a deep-chested shout from Bawr,
followed by a discharge of spears from behind the line of fire.
These spears, driven with free arm and practised skill, went clean
home in the packed ranks of the foe, but they caused no more than a
second's wavering, as the dead went down and their fellows crowded on
straight over them. A second volley from the grimly silent fighters on
the plateau had somewhat more effect. Driven low, and at shorter
range, every jagged flint-point found its mark, and the screaming
victims hampered those behind. But after a moment the mad flood came
on again, till it was within some thirty paces of the edge of the
plateau.
Then came a long shout from Grom, a signal which had been anxiously
awaited by the front line of his fighters. Each fire had been laid, on
the inner side, with dry faggots of a resinous wood which not only
blazed freely but held the flame tenaciously. These faggots had been
placed with only their tips in the fire. Seizing them by their
unlighted ends, the warriors hurled them, blazing, full into the
gaping faces before them.
The brutal, gaping faces screeched with pain and terror, and the whole
front rank, beating frantically at the strange missiles, wheeled about
and clawed at the rank behind, battling to force its way through. But
the rolling masses were not to be denied. After a brief, terrible
struggle, the would-be fugitives were borne down and trodden
underfoot. The new-comers were greeted with a second discharge of the
blazing brands, and the dreadful scene repeated itself. But now there
was a difference. For many of the assailants, realizing that there was
no chance of retreat, came straight on, heedless of brand or spear,
with the deadly, uncalculating fury of a beast at bay.
For some seconds, under the specific directions of the Chief on the
right center and of Grom far to the left, many of the blazing brands
had been thrown, not into the faces of the front rank, but far over
their heads, to fall among the tinder-dry brushwood. Long tongues of
flame leaped up at once, here, there, everywhere, curling and licking
savagely. Screeches of horror arose, which brought all the hordes to a
halt as far back as they could be heard. A light wind was blowing up
the valley, and almost at once the scattered flames, gathering volume,
came together with a roar. The hordes, smitten with the blindest
madness of panic, turned to flee, springing upon and tearing at each
other in the desperate struggle to escape.
Shouting triumph and derision, the defenders bounded forward, down
over the edge of the plateau, and fell upon the huddled ranks before
them. But these, with all escape cut off, and far outnumbering their
exultant adversaries, now fought like rats in a pit. And the men of
the caves found themselves locked in a struggle to the death just when
they had thought the fight was done.
A-ya, no longer needed at the fires, was just about to follow Grom
down into the thick of the reeking battle, when a scream from the
cave-mouth made her whip round. She was just in time to see Ook-ootsk
hurl his spear at the tall figure of Mawg, leaping down upon him from
the broken slope on the left. A half score of the Bow-legs were
following hard upon Mawg's heels. With a scream of warning to Grom she
rushed back to the cave. But Grom did not hear her. He had been pulled
down, struck senseless and buried under a writhing heap of foes.
Her long hair streaming behind her, her eyes like those of a tigress
protecting her cubs, A-ya darted to the cave-door. But she did not
reach it. Just outside the threshold a club descended upon her head,
and she dropped. Instantly she was pounced upon, and bound. A moment
later three Bow-legs, followed by Mawg, streaming with blood, came
running out of the cave. Mawg swung the limp form across his shoulder
with a grin of satisfaction, and the party beat a hurried retreat up
the slopes.
In a few minutes that last death-grapple along the front of the
plateau came to an end, and Bawr, leaving nearly a third of his
followers slain with the slain Bow-legs, led the exultant survivors
back to the cave. It had been a costly victory for the Children of
the Shining One; but for the invaders it was little less than
annihilation. The flames were raging for a mile up the valley,
wherever they were not choked by the piles and windrows of the dead
or dying Bow-legs. The lurid night was shaken with the incessant
rising and falling chorus of shrieks, and far off under the glare
rolled that awful receding wave of fugitives, with the flames
leaping upon them and slaying them as they fled. Leaning upon his
club and gazing thoughtfully across the scene of incredible
destruction, Bawr told himself that never again, so long as the
memory of this night survived, would the Bow-legs dare to come
against his people.
Then wild lamentation from the women drew the Chief into the cave.
Here he found that half the little ones had been killed in that swift
incursion of Mawg, and that nearly all the old men and women had been
slaughtered in defending their charges. Across Grom's doorway,
crouching on his face and with his great teeth buried in the throat of
a dead Bow-leg, lay the lame captive, Ook-ootsk. Seeing that he still
breathed, and marking the fury with which he had fought in defense of
their little ones, the warriors lifted him aside gently. Beneath him,
and safely guarded in the crook of his shaggy arm, they found Grom's
baby, without a hurt. The women defending the head of the path on the
right having seen the rape of A-ya, Bawr handed the babe to one of his
own wives to cherish.
Then search was made for Grom. At first the Chief imagined that he had
followed the captors of A-ya, in a desperate hope of effecting her
rescue alone. But they found him under a heap of dead, so nearly dead
himself that they despaired of him. Realizing that it was he who had
saved the tribe, they began over him that great keening lamentation
hitherto reserved strictly for the funeral of the supreme Chief
himself. But Bawr, his massive features furrowed with solicitude,
stopped them, vowing that Grom should not die. And lifting the hero in
his arms he bore him into the cave.
Grom's wounds proved to be deep, but not fatal to one of these
clean-blooded sons of the open and the wind. It was some days before
it was clearly borne in upon him that A-ya had been carried off alive
by the Bow-legs. Then, with a great cry, he sprang to his feet. The
blood spouted afresh from his wounds, and he fell back in a swoon.
When he came to himself again, for days he would speak to no one, and
it looked as if he would die, not of his wounds so much as of the
insufficient will to live. But a chance word of the captive Ook-ootsk,
who was being nursed back to life beside him, reminded him that there
was vengeance to be lived for, and he roused himself a little. Then
Bawr, ever subtle in the reading of his people's hearts, suggested to
him that even such a feat as the rescue of the girl A-ya might not be
impossible to the subjugator of the fire and the slayer of a whole
people.
And from that moment Grom began climbing steadily back to life.