Piers Anthony: Var the Stick

But as the coolness of night came, the man revived somewhat.

He cleaned himself up with agonized motions but did not eat. He climbed into his bag and lost consciousness.

In the morning the man seemed alert, but stumbled when he attempted to stand. He could not walk. The boy gave him a stem to chew on, and he chewed, not seeming to be aware of his action.

The food in the pack ran out on the following day, and the boy went foraging. Certain fruits were ripening, certain wild tubers swelling. He plucked and dug these and bound them in the jacket he no longer wore and loped with the bpndle back to their enforced camp. In this manner he sustained them both.

On the fourth day the man began bleeding from the skin. Some parts of his body were as hard as wood and did not bleed; but where the skin was natural, it hemorrhaged. The man touched himself with dismay, but could not hold on to consciousness.

The boy took cloth from the pack and soaked it in water and bathed the blood away. But when more blood cam; appearing as if magically on the surface though there was no abrasion, he let it collect and cake. This slowed the flow. He knew that blood had to be kept inside the body, for he had bled copiously once when wounded and had felt very weak for many days. And when animals bled too much, they died.

Whenever the man revived, the boy gave him fruit and the special stems to eat, and whatever water he could accept without choking. When he sank again into stupor, the boy packed the moist leaves tightly about him. When it grew cold, he covered the man with the bag he slept in, and lay beside him, shielding him from the worst of the night wind.

The dog crawled away and died.

Days passed. The sick man burned up his own flesh, becoming gaunt, and the contours of his body were bizarre. It was as though he wore stones and boards under the skin, so that no point could penetrate; but with the supportive flesh melting away, the armor hung loosely. It hampered his breathing, his elimination. But perhaps it had also stopped some of the radiation, for the boy knew that physical substance could do this to a certain extent.

The man was near death, but he refused to die. The boy watched, aware that he was spectator to a greater courage battling a more horrible antagonist than any man could hope to conquer. The boy's own father and brothers had yielded up their lives far more readily. Blood and sweat and urine matted the leaves, and dirt and debris covered the man, but still he fought.

And finally he began to mend. His fever passed, the bleeding stopped, some of his strength returned and he ate-at first tentatively, then with huge appetite. He looked at the boy with renewed comprehension, and he smiled.

There was a bond between them now. Man and boy were friends.

CHAPTER FOUR

The warriors gathered around the central circle. Tyl of Two Weapons supervised the ceremony. "Who is there would claim the honor of manhood and take a name this day?" he inquired somewhat perfunctorily. He had been doing this every month for eight years, and it bored him.

Several youths stepped up: gangling adolescents who seemed hardly to know how to hang on to their weapons. Every year the crop seemed younger and gawkier. Tyl longed for the old days, when he had first served Sol of All-Weapons. Then men had been men, and the leader had been a leader, and great things had been in the making. Now-weaklings and inertia.

It was no effort to put the ritual scorn into his voice. "You will fight each other," he told them. "I will pair you off, man to man in the circle. He who retains the circle shall be deemed warrior, and be entitled to name and band and weapon with honor. The other.. ."

He did not bother to finish. No one could be called a warrior unless he won at least once in the circle. Some hopefuls failed again and again, and some eventually gave up and went to the crazies or the mountain. Most went to other tribes and tried again.

"You, club," Tyl said, picking out a chubby would-be clubber. "You, staff," selecting an angular hopeful staffer.

The two youths, visibly nervous, stepped gingerly into the circle. They began to fight, the clubber making huge clumsy swings, the staffer countering ineptly. By and by the club smashed one of the staffer's misplaced hands, and the staff fell to the ground.

That was enough for the staffer. He bounced out of the circle. It made Tyl sick-not for the fact of victory and defeat, but for the sheer incompetence of it. How could such dolts ever become proper warriors? What good would a winner such as this clubber be for the tribe, whose decisive blow had been sheer fortune?

But it was never possible to be certain, he reflected. Some of the very poorest prospects that he sent along to Sav the Staff's training camp emerged as formidable warriors. The real mark of a man was how he responded to training. That had been the lesson that earlier weaponless man had taught, the one that never fought in the circle. What was his name-Sos. Sos had stayed with the tribe a year and established the system, then departed for ever. Except for some brief thing about a rope. Not much of a man, but a good mind. Yes-it was best to incorporate the clubber into the tribe and send him to Sav; good might even come of it. If not-no loss.

Next were a pair of daggers. This fight was bloody, but at least the victor looked like a potential man.

Then a sworder took on a sticker. Tyl watched this contest with interest, for his own two weapons were sword and sticks, and he wished he had more of each in his tribe. The sticks were useful for discipline, the sword for conquest.

The sticker-novice seemed to have some promise. His hands were swift, his aim sure. The sworder was strong but slow; he laid about himself crudely.

The sticker caught his opponent on the side of the head, and followed up the telling blow with a series to the neck and shoulders. So doing, he let slip his guard-and the keen blade-edge caught him at the throat, and he was dead.

Tyl closed his eyes in pain. Such folly! The one youngster with token promise had let his enthusiasm run away with him, and had walked into a slash that any idiot could have avoided. Was there any hope for this generation?

One youth remained-a rare Momingstar. It took courage to select such a weapon, and a certain morbidity, for it was devastating and unstable. Tyl had left him until last because he wanted to match him against an experienced warrior. That would greatly decrease the star's chance of success, but would correspondingly increase his chance of survival. If he looked good, Tyl would arrange to match him next month with an easy mark, and take him into the tribe as soon as he had his band and name.

One of the perimeter sentries came up. "Strangers, Chief-man and woman. He's ugly as hell; she must be, too."

Still irritated by the loss of the promising sticker, Tyl snapped back: "Is your bracelet so worn you can't tell an ugly woman by sight?"

"She's veiled."

Tyl became interested. 'What woman would cover her face?"

The sentry shrugged. "Do you want me to bring them here?'

Tyl nodded.

As the man departed, he returned to the problem of the star. A veteran staffer would be best, for the Morningstar could maim or kill the wielders of other weapons, even in the hands of a novice. He summoned a man who bad had experience with the star in the circle, and began giving him instructions.

Before the test commenced, the strangers arrived. The man was indeed ugly: somewhat hunchbacked, with hands grossly gnarled, and large patches of discolored skin on limbs and torso. Because of his stoop, his eyes peered out from below shaggy brows, oddly impressive. He moved gracefully despite some peculiarity of gait; there was something wrong with his fóet. His aspect was feral.