Page 88 of Circle of Days

The farmer leader had a club in one hand and a flint knife in the other.

He swung the club at Seft’s head and readied the knife for a stab.

But Seft was quick and stepped back. Troon’s club swept through the air without hitting anything, and Troon staggered.

Seft raised his axe—but his dream came back, and suddenly Troon had the face of Seft’s father.

Seft hesitated. In that moment another farmer stepped in and swung at Seft with a stone hammer.

Seft brought the axe down on his assailant a moment before the hammer struck his left ribs.

The assailant fell, spurting blood from his neck.

Seft spun around, looking for Troon, but he had vanished.

Suddenly the moon was obscured by a cloud, and the scene went dim. Now it became even more difficult to know whether the dark figure in front of you was an enemy or a friend. There was a lull. Tem reappeared at Seft’s side. “The farmers are walking backward,” he said. “Are we winning?”

Walking turned to running, and Seft heard a voice that sounded like Troon’s shouting: “Retreat! Retreat!”

Seft’s heart lifted. The herders had won.

Some chased after the fleeing farmers, felling every one they could catch; but Seft did not have the heart for that. He put his arm around Tem’s shoulders. “Let me lean on you,” he said. “My ribs hurt.”

After a while the herders gave up the chase and came back, shouting and laughing, thrilled with their victory and glad still to be alive.

Joia was stunned, terrified, and exhausted. She stared at the corpses on the ground, knowing she had to do something about them, she had to take charge again. The volunteers gathered around the stones, rejoicing.

Joia came to her senses and her instinct for order returned. She set the volunteers to dealing with the dead. “There’s no time to burn them all,” she said. “We must dispatch them in the way of the ancients—sky burial.”

Some of them knew about sky burial, others did not. “We must build a platform, higher than a man, wide enough for all the bodies,” she said. “Seft will show us how. Then we will sing the song of the dead and leave them to the birds.” Dealing with a practical problem restored her.

Some of the older volunteers had a little knowledge of healing, and they attended to the injured herders, washing wounds, bandaging them with leaves, and tying the bandages with shoots.

Seft came to her. He was walking slowly and had one hand on his chest, as if it hurt.

However, he spoke with his usual confidence.

“Tem is building the platform,” he said.

“But there’s another problem. We have twenty dead and about the same number wounded too badly to continue to drag the stone.

We’ve also sacrificed people to guarding the route.

We’ve got the fourth and fifth stone here, but we haven’t enough people to move them both. ”

Joia said: “Shall we take people from the fifth stone to make up the team on the fourth?”

“Yes.”

“But what do we do about the fifth stone?”

“The team pulling the first stone should have arrived at the Monument yesterday—a day behind schedule because of the vandalized track. If they leave again this morning, they will be here by early afternoon. Some of them can make up the depleted team on the fifth stone.”

“Good,” said Joia.

“The track has been damaged by the battle, but not as much as I feared,” Seft said. “Most of the fighting took place to the west of the stones. I’ll set Tem and a few men to checking and repairing it.”

The work took until daybreak. Then everyone gathered around the funeral platform.

Joia and Dee stood side by side and looked at the bodies. Joia said quietly: “I did this.”

Dee protested: “The farmers did this!”

Joia took no notice of that. “I brought all the volunteers together,” she said.

“I led them on the march, made sure they were fed, and persuaded them to haul giant stones. If it were not for me, they would be at home now, with their families, having breakfast. But they’re dead, and they’re dead because they did what I asked them to do. ”

She recited the service for the dead with tears streaming down her face, then she led the singing.

She had never before heard the song for the dead sung by so many voices, more than three hundred.

The singing changed everyone’s mood. The music rang out over the Great Plain, and Joia’s spirits rose with the sound.

She shook off her melancholy, and her determination revived.

When the song came to an end, she raised her voice and said: “Now, everyone—let’s take these stones to the Monument! ”

Early in the evening of the fifth day, Joia arrived at the Monument with the fourth stone.

She was greeted by a wildly enthusiastic crowd.

They rejoiced in her triumph. She was closely followed by the teams pulling the fifth and sixth stones.

All the stones were parked outside the Monument.

They would be trimmed there, then dragged to their assigned places later.

Looking at the six huge stones, Joia shared the astonished delight of the crowd. Six of the nine stones had been brought here in five days, despite everything that had happened.

She was less euphoric when she thought about tomorrow. She needed three teams to walk back to Stony Valley and do the same thing all over again for the last three stones. They were tired and they had suffered a violent attack. Would they be willing to carry on?

She had talked to some of them on the last leg of the journey, as they pulled the stone alongside East River, and she had been pleasantly surprised at how many of them said they were more determined than ever to finish the job, if only to defy the farmers, whom they now hated.

A tribal spirit had set in. Others, however, did not say much about what they would do next, and she concluded that they would not be in the party returning to Stony Valley.

Now, looking at the volunteers, she realized that some had already vanished.

She was dismayed, but she could hardly blame them.

Offered a fun challenge, they had found themselves fighting for their lives.

It was understandable that some had quit.

But she needed only six hundred, half the original number, to move the last three stones. It could still be done.

Dee said: “You should speak to them.”

“Of course. But what do I say about the risk that the farmer army is not yet defeated and may attack again?”

“Tell the truth. You never do anything else.”

“They may walk away.”

“In that case, so be it.”

That was wise, Joia reflected grimly.

Dee added: “But the sun is setting. You need to do it now, while they’re all here.”

“You’re right,” said Joia. “Let’s fetch the climbing pole.”

They placed the pole against the stone they had brought last summer. The sun was now a low, dark-red circle in the west, turning the grey rock to a soft pale pink. When she reached the top and stood up, its rays made her glow.

She did not make her usual triumphant gesture, but they cheered her all the same. She was still a hero.

She began: “I’m tired.”

They laughed and clapped and shouted that they were tired too.

Then she said: “But I’m going back.”

They cheered.

“I’m going back tomorrow. We haven’t finished the job, but I have to give you a warning.”

The noise died down. This was not how Joia usually spoke.

“Yesterday some of our friends were killed. And when we bring the last three stones to the Monument, we may be attacked again, and more of us may be killed. So I must say to you: there will be no disgrace, no shame, for those who decide not to return with me to Stony Valley tomorrow morning. No one will reproach you. Your life is your own, and no one has the right to give it away.”

They remained quiet, subdued.

“Speaking for myself, I want to finish the job. I want to defeat the farmers.”

There was a cheer for that.

“I’m going back—whatever the danger.”

The cheers became louder.

“If you want to finish the job—if you’re willing to risk your life—then come with me.”

They roared their approval, and she raised her voice to a shout. “We leave at sunrise!”

She climbed down. Dee was waiting. “You did it!” she said, amazed. “You told them their lives would be at risk, and they cheered!”

“Good,” said Joia. “But let’s see how many show up in the morning.”

Joia watched them in the dawn light, streaming into the Monument in hundreds, but there were fewer than before. They chewed their salt pork and chatted excitedly, and more and more came in.

When the sun rose, she calculated that she had just over six hundred, slightly more than she needed. She breathed a sigh of relief and led them out of the Monument and across the plain toward the East River. Jara marched by her side.

Seft had roped the now-empty sleds ready for the volunteers to drag them back to Stony Valley. Though very solid and heavy, they were light by comparison with the stones, and people bent to the task cheerfully.

Their mood was good but Joia felt she was pushing them as far as they would go. In future years she would avoid this level of intensity. Never again would she promise to move nine stones in ten days.

They all had weapons. Joia carried a bradawl, a flint tool with a very narrow point, used by carpenters to make holes in wood.

However, they walked to Stony Valley without encountering the enemy.

The track was in good repair all the way.

Once again Joia entertained the hope that the farmers had given up and gone home.

Once again she suspected that was wishful thinking.

She slept in Dee’s arms that night in Stony Valley. Dawn brought the seventh day, and Joia was still on target to deliver nine stones in ten days.