Chapter 3

The morning dawned clear and bright. Mak started to eat a hurried breakfast, eager to visit the traders' booths and see what kinds of goods they had brought with them from faraway lands.

"Before you rush off," his father interrupted Mak's morning meal, "tell me what you found out by talking to the traders last night."

Once more Mak detailed the events of the previous evening, ending with his return across the village's palisade.

"And that was when you ran into your socalled friends?"

"What do you mean, socalled?" Mak looked up at his father, surprised at his choice of words. "They're the only friends I've got."

"Just that. You don't have any interests in common, or at least that is what you always claim. Els has decided that she isn't one bit interested in becoming the wife of a woodsrunner..."

"You heard her say that?"

"I rather think that this whole end of the village heard her," Chamur laughed. "And maybe some who aren't that close. She was getting rather shrill, right about then. So, what will you do now?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll see what the councillors have to say before I decide. I suppose that you also heard that they want to see me after the noon meal."

"I heard, and I'm not surprised. I just hope that you keep your mouth shut better when you're out hunting than you do here in the village. You seem to want to make enemies among the villagers. Oh, well. I suppose that one of these days you'll finish growing up."

Mak couldn't think of a ready answer to his father's criticism. Not one that he could say out loud without getting knocked sideways, anyway. Damn it, he was twentyfive. He was grown up! Or, anyway, he'd thought that he was before today. Now he wasn't quite so sure. He silently finished his hurried breakfast, thinking dark thoughts to himself, and was at last free to leave. At least there would be no work in the fields for anyone this day.

Joining other villagers who were eager to get the first look at their wares, he wandered along the row of booths that the traders were setting up just outside the village gate. He hardly knew what to look at first. The treasures that were displayed! This caravan was richer by far than any Mak had ever heard of, following the forest trails to Village Wallen.

There were fine smooth lumps of flint for chipping, of far better quality than the poor stuff that was to be found in the hills close by. Many of the booths also showed pieces of the rare and beautiful obsidian, brought all the way from the shores of the tideless sea that legend said lay somewhere far to the south. Most of the obsidian was the commoner kind that was so easily crafted into small tools and arrow points, a glassy black or brown, but some showed stripes and bands of different colors. A few of the larger pieces were even of the precious spotted kind, beloved of the village artisans for making ornaments and ceremonial bowls.

The blackskinned woman, Jewel, presided over the largest booth. Her central display was the one that really drew Mak's eyes. A border of rough iron lumps alternating with nuggets of gleaming copper was arranged on a square of bright blue cloth, framing an even dozen fine, keen iron arrow points. Their smoothly polished edges caught the rays of the morning sun, seeming to give off a dazzle of fiery sparks in the golden light.

Other villagers crowded around, attracted by more mundane items such as iron plow points and daggers of hardened bronze, but to Mak the arrow points were the most desirable things he had ever seen. Oh, to have arrow points that would not shatter or bend when they tore through the tough hide of a wild boar, or sought the heart of the shaggy woods bison! No wolf's fangs would be a match for his biting arrows, and even the bear would fear his sting. The homemade bow that hung by his sleeping mat suddenly seemed small and crude, his flinttipped arrows weak and ineffective. Even the giant auroch, or the mighty elk with his spreading antlers might fall to these weapons.

Jewel smiled, noticing his longing gaze. "Good morning, Mak. What do you have that you would like to trade for my wares?"

"Certainly nothing fine enough to trade for even one of those arrow points. The few good furs and such that I had stored from last winter have been taken by the Elders. They will be used by our artisans to purchase materials for tools and arrow heads to see us through another winter."

He looked longingly once more at the display of shining treasure, then turned to look at the rest of her display. "But I might take one of those small bronze daggers to replace my old flint one. What kind of a price are you asking?"

They settled down to an enjoyable bargaining session. Mak eventually parted with a bundle of small furs and a pair of tiny sunmetal nuggets, taking a bonehandled bronze knife in return. The plain bone gave a good grip, and could be carved with intricate designs on long winter evenings. The heavy bronze blade would hold a sharp edge, though not nearly as well as a blade of iron.

He wandered along the line of booths, seeing one or two men and women he recognized from the night before. Many of the village women were parting with quantities of dried foods in return for household implements, exotic spices, glittering beads, and scraps of brightly patterned cloth. The men were more interested in tools for farming. Mak was surprised at how highly these traders prized the sunmetal, gold. The villagers had very few nuggets, most of them gotten by trade in years past from villages nearer to the mountains.

The flamehaired girl smiled at him from her booth where she was measuring out lengths of gaily striped and patterned cloth. He was tempted to stop and talk, but he didn't really know what he would say to her and by now it was time for the noon meal. Mak didn't feel very hungry, knowing that in just a little while he would have to face the Council. He had long been aware that several of the Elders did not care for his foresttrained ease of manner. The last time he had been before them, more than one old woman had argued for a harsher punishment than just a week spent tending the fields.

He felt sticky with dust and sweat under his short leather kilt, and he longed for the cool peace of the deep woods. There he could plunge into the pools of a stream that wound through leafy glades, far from the bustle and dust of the village and its fields. True, there was danger out there, death sudden or slow lurking in the form of accident or wild beast, but there was also a freedom unknown to those who dwelt within the crowded confines of Wallen Village.

He ate little, hardly tasting what was put before him, and replied with grunted monosyllables to his father's wellmeant advice. He was wiping the grease from his face when the oxhorn called the village to Council. The sacred Meeting Oak stood in the center of a clear area near the middle of the village. As long as the weather was fair, this was where meetings had always been held. Mak was surprised to see the trader Nurm and a few of his men sitting on a bench off to one side of the clearing, and he wondered briefly what had brought them to the meeting. Vorkan called down a brief blessing on the village before Corb, the village Eldest, stood holding up one hand for silence.

"The Council of Elders of the Village of Wallen is now met. Any man may come forward and have his say." Her cracked, high pitched voice, still retaining some of the power and clarity of her youth in spite of a mouth that held only a few stained and crooked teeth, intoned the ancient formula.

"We have strangers with us this day," she announced. "Travelers who would ask for our favors. The trader Nurm will speak to us of what they desire."

Nurm stood and walked with quiet confidence to the base of the giant oak. "Men and women of the Village of Wallen. We have come to you from the faraway shore of the salty sea, walking through dense forests, crossing mighty rivers and climbing high mountains to bring you our precious goods. Many were the empty spaces we came upon where ancient records spoke of thriving villages and towns. Other traders have told us of routes now too sparsely peopled to bring a profit, of abandoned trading centers that no longer exist to send out caravans to faroff places. We have heard tales of places farther to the east where it is rumored that men cluster more closely together and have more goods to trade. We seek these lands.

"On this, the first part of our journey we were guided by old maps and older stories, but beyond these villages the very shape of the land is unknown to us. We need someone who is familiar with these forests to guide us on our way. We are willing to pay such a man well, and will leave gifts with his village in return for his services."

Nurm gazed out over the silent villagers, almost as though he expected to read the answer to his request in the faces ranked before him, but his speech was met only by a dull, uncaring silence. Then he turned and resumed his seat on the bench. The Elders conferred among themselves for only a few brief moments before Corb spoke.

"Much of what you say is known to us already. We have seen the traders appear less and less often, and have noted the dwindling numbers of people in other villages." Corb's smile was sour, almost spiteful. "The smooth skinned Tall Ones like yourselves are indeed becoming fewer, but the villages of the True Folk are not dying out! There are three other villages of our people within a moon's journey. All are doing well. You Tall Ones are welcome to come as friends. We are glad enough to see your trade goods, but we do not have to have them. We can live to ourselves if need be. Too much trade might bring more of you to rebuild the empty towns, bringing change and troubling our lives. This is not our decision alone, but one that has been reached by the councils of all nearby villages. We will not hinder you in your quest, and you are free to trade, but we will not help you on your way."

So, that was what the messengers had been about, Mak realized, but wisely kept his mouth shut. His father must be interested, hearing this. Not that Chamur could do anything about it, though he and Terrilda did still have some influence with their friends among the older villagers.

The traders rose from their seats and left the meeting, returning to their booths to wait for the council session to end so that trading could continue. Mak thought that they concealed their disappointment well, nor could he see any trace of surprise on their impassive faces. This decision taken care of, the Council turned its attention to more pressing matters. Several disputes over field boundaries and work agreements were settled, taking up most of the afternoon, and then;

"The matter before us is that of the continued disgraceful conduct of one of our younger villagers. Mak, come forward and stand before us." Pushing his way through the massed villagers, he advanced to the base of the oak tree. He stood facing the Council of Elders, his plain leather kilt a marked contrast to the more elaborate dress of the council members. "Mak the Hunter, son of Chamur the Strong, listen and listen well. You have long been a troublemaker. You are still a troublemaker! You have been guilty in the past of fighting with your fellow villagers, and of being a disruptive influence upon them. You have criticized our ways, even daring to mock our most sacred beliefs. We had hoped that time spent in the soothing practice of cultivating our crops would teach you to appreciate a more tranquil approach to life. As we feared, however, you have learned nothing from the past. Only drastic action can mold you into an asset to our village, a comfort and support to your aging parents. Have you anything to say for yourself before we decide on what must be done?"

Mak stood silent, at a loss for a moment to put into words his deep longing for the quiet, dangerous life of a hunter, his distaste for anything even resembling farming. He shook his head in resignation, discarding the set speech that he had prepared.

"I can think of nothing to say that would change your minds. You have already decided that a hunter is of less account than a tiller of the soil. When all of the hunters have become farmers, when none remember the use of bow and spear, who will then bring in the sweet red meat of the deer, the fat of the bear, the warm furs to comfort our little ones when snow is on the ground? Who will know the ways of the fierce gray wolf, and how to drive him from our walls when he hungers for our animals, our selves? You have discouraged the young men of our village from coming to me to learn the ways of the forest. I could hunt better if I had others who would roam the forests with me, but even by myself I more than earn my own way. I am a hunter, just as the rest of my friends are farmers. I can live as a farmer no more than Chok, there, could trap the wild boar or the forest elk. A village needs hunters, just as it needs traders to bring us the things that cannot be raised in our own fields."