Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

Bantumeh turned toward Iyjiia "May Aakva clean its waste with your cowardly tongue!" The ruler of the Mavedah faced Uhe. "I would see which of us Aakva favors with the stones!"

The challenge to ordeal was ended by the hiss of a hunter’s spear. The pointed shaft entered Bantumeh’s chest, and Bantumeh looked at it as though surprised. Up at the hunters went Bantumeh’s gaze. "One has chosen for all," it said, then Bantumeh fell and was still.

Those who surrounded Bantumeh’s still body felt the breath of Aakva’s tabu against murder upon their necks. But no one looked to see who was missing its spear. And no one pulled the spear from Bantumeh’s body to see whose mark the spear carried.

As the food preparers closed on Bantumeh’s body, Uhe pulled the spear from it and held the shaft over its head as it faced around the circle. "See you all that Aakva has spoken." And then Uhe threw the spear into the fire. If there was indeed a mortal’s sign upon the spear’s shaft, it went black before their eyes. And it was said that the shaft carried Aakva’s own sign.

One hunter began the cheer, and then all the hunters cheered until their sound pushed the death drums from the night sky. All swore their obedience to Uhe and Aakva’s new Law of War. The masters left the fire to convey Aakva’s new law to their clans, and the hunters left to begin their preparations for the fighting to come.

As the beat of the death drums again filled the night air, the food preparers brought Bantumeh’s stripped and split bones and placed them in the flames of the masters' fire. Uhe was left alone at the fire, save for a hunter named Conseh who squatted next to the flames. Conseh’s hands were clasped because it carried no spear. The hunter’s face betrayed no feelings.

"Uhe, I have a question."

"Ask, Conseh."

"When Aakva talks to you, Uhe, do you hear it through your head, your womb, or your belly?"

Uhe studied the hunter. It seemed to the servant that Aakva’s tabus had taken ghostly forms and were dancing above the hunter’s head.

"Conseh, you are impertinent."

The hunter stood and the images vanished. "My peace demands an answer, Uhe. Aakva’s new law speaks to most of us through the womb and belly."

"Do you dispute the new law, Conseh?"

The hunter waved its hands at the servant of Aakva. "I would not dispute you, for the God of the Day Light’s new law speaks to us all, and with a voice that cannot be stilled." Conseh looked at the masters' fire where the spear was all but consumed among Bantumeh’s blackening bones. "But it is a law that any one of us could have made."

The servant of Aakva looked toward the fire. The shape of the murderer’s spear was indistinguishable from the fire’s sticks. "I have no answer for you, Conseh."

Conseh looked toward the backs of its fellow hunters as they moved into the night to prepare for war. "It is my wonder what the hunters will do, Uhe, once Aakva stops speaking to their wombs and bellies and begins again to speak to their heads."

The hunter left the fire. And to Uhe the hunter left both a question and a truth.

The call of the Law of War went over the Madah. On the beginning of the first day, Uhe greeted the first light prone over the ashes of the masters' fire. Iyjiia came upon Uhe and heard the new ruler of the masters of the Mavedah begging the bones of Bantumeh for forgiveness. The chief of Aakva’s servants said to Uhe:

"Why do you ask this of Bantumeh? We all saw the spear that killed Bantumeh, and that your hand was not on it."

Uhe pushed itself up slowly from the ashes. When it was to its knees, it faced the first glow of the God of the Day Light coming from behind the back of the distant Akkujah.

"Iyjiia, why are you not bringing the Law of War to your people?"

"I have already done so. My people now move to the southern Akkujah. I have returned as is my place as one of your masters. Why do you ask Bantumeh’s forgiveness?"

Uhe looked down at the ashes. "My hand was upon that spear, Iyjiia, as was yours."

Iyjiia’s face grew dark with anger. "My hand bears no such stain! Nor does yours. Has the hunger taken your mind?"

Uhe stood. "Go back to your people, Iyjiia. To enforce the Law of War I need better than the masters of the Mavedah. I will make my own masters, and they will be masters of war."

"And, Uhe, why may I not be one of your masters of war?"

The light of Aakva crossed the crest of the Akkujah and touched the eyes of Uhe.

"Iyjiia, my warmasters must have the strength of youth, the wisdom of the old hunter, courage beyond self, and eyes that can see only truth.

"You are old and weak, Iyjiia. You have never run the hunt. You have no courage beyond your own skin, and your eyes see only what they choose to see."

With that, Uhe walked from the ashes of Bantumeh’s fire toward the light of Aakva.

At the beginning of the ninth day, half of the clans of the Mavedah were gathered near the foothills of the southern Akkujah, near the Yellow Sea. Camps were made, and as they waited for the rest of the clans, the hunters went into the sea but could take no food from the poisonous waters. Those who entered the waters sickened and died.

The Mavedah continued to eat the dead and beat the drums of death.

And Uhe called to its tent the hunter Conseh, saying to it: "Conseh, you will be my first warmaster."

Conseh’s eyes were sunken and dark with thought, but they narrowed at Uhe’s words. "And why would you have me as your warmaster?"

"You are a respected hunter. You understand the difference between killing game and killing Sindie. You know something of the cost of our enterprise. I believe you will see that we get full value, Conseh."

"Uhe, you speak of our enterprise. Is not the Law of War the invention of Aakva?"

Uhe made no response to Conseh’s words, and the hunter continued. "You would use grief and guilt to serve your ends. Aakva’s new law is a strange one for a god of honor, peace, and justice."

"I serve the Mavedah. Conseh, I will use what is necessary to save the Mavedah. The old peace and tabus of Aakva stand in the way of that salvation. Now I shall make a bargain with you."

"What is your bargain, Uhe?"

"Keep your sarcasms regarding my service to Aakva to yourself. In exchange I will forget whose sign it was I saw on the spearshaft in Bantumeh’s chest."

Conseh’s skin paled as the hunter reached to its stone knife and whispered, "I could buy your silence at a lower price, Uhe."

"If you murder me, Conseh, your first murder would have been for nothing." Uhe turned from the hunter and faced the tent’s wall where a map of the southern Akkujah had been drawn.

"Conseh, we must enter these mountains, cross them, and strike the Irrvedah with more force than they can understand. They are not hunters, but they think of themselves as fighters protected by Aakva. There we will obtain food and make a place for our children for when we strike at the Diruvedah."

"The Diruvedah are skilled hunters," cautioned Conseh.

"Yes, but hunters are not warriors. So we must meet them with both form and intention that they cannot comprehend until it is too late for an effective response. We must meet them as warriors."

Uhe moved to another portion of the tent wall where was drawn blocks made of tiny circles. Uhe pointed at the drawing. "You will search among the hunters and bring for my approval five more. The six of you will become my masters of war. Each warmaster will then find six hunters who will be undermasters. They must choose only those that they know to be strong, obedient, and dependable. In each warmaster’s group, the undermasters will in turn search among the hunters and find six more hunters that they know to be trustworthy."

Uhe swept its hand down the length of the drawing. "And so the whole of the Mavedah will be organized."