Page 89 of Circle of Days

Seft, supervising what was now a practiced routine, got stones seven and eight onto the sleds and away by early afternoon. The ninth and last stone was loaded by sundown, and would leave first thing tomorrow.

Next day Joia led the last march out of the valley and over the ridge.

At midmorning they passed between the two hills. From there the route rose and fell gently, with cattle on both sides of the track. They climbed a slope, and Joia called a rest stop on the other side of the ridge, providing a long downhill slope for the restart.

She heard Dee say: “Oh, no!”

She looked ahead.

She could see in the distance that the route was blocked. A crowd of about a hundred and fifty men stared angrily at the volunteers and the giant stone. It was undoubtedly the farmer army, and clearly they wanted a fight.

They had timed this carefully. This was the last stone: there was no one following, no reinforcements that could catch up.

Joia felt sick with disappointment and fear.

Jara was brisk. “I think we have the advantage,” she said. “They lost a lot of men in the moonlight battle.”

“This isn’t a game!” Joia protested. “If we fight, some of our people will die, even if we win!”

“Of course,” said Jara. “It’s a war. The only alternative is surrender.”

“I can’t accept that,” said Joia. “I will not be responsible for more deaths.”

Jara said skeptically: “So what is your plan?”

Joia did not have one, but she was not prepared to give in.

“Let me think,” she said, and she walked away, leaving the track behind.

A cow with a calf looked at her warily, and another grunted.

What could she do? She could tell everyone to run away, leaving the stone; but that would be so dispiriting that she might never again be able to motivate volunteers.

This project was farfetched: only her leadership had made people believe in it.

If once it got labeled a failure, it would never be resuscitated.

On the other hand, even that downfall would be better than getting people killed.

She looked around the Great Plain, now occupied by a giant stone, two armies, and hundreds of cattle; and she realized she had another potential army: the herd.

A plan began to form in her mind.

She had heard about the stampede of the herd at the Break, when the beasts had been mad to get to the river and drink.

She had not witnessed it herself, but someone who had was standing near her: Zad.

He had managed the herd in the west of the plain for more than ten years, so he probably knew everything there was to know about cattle.

She said to him: “You and the other herders can make the beasts go where you want, can’t you?”

“Of course,” he said with his usual charming grin. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to move them to fresh pasture when necessary.”

“And you were present at the Break when they stampeded for the river.”

He looked embarrassed. “We tried to stop them, but we couldn’t.”

“Could you make this herd stampede?”

“ Make them stampede?” For a moment he looked nonplussed. “It’s never been done…” He was thinking, imagining it. “…but I don’t see why not.”

“Could you make them stampede the farmer army?”

He thought some more, and Joia kept quiet. Then he said: “We’d have to circle around the back of the herd from here, then down both sides so they don’t divert. It will take… I don’t know how many people… the more the better. And then… But yes, we can do that.”

She looked him in the eye. “Then do it, please,” she said.

He stared hard at her for a moment, as if making sure she was not mad; then he said: “Right.”

She watched him move through the crowd, speaking quietly to herder men and women, who nodded and followed him.

She began to wonder whether she had done the right thing.

A stampede was uncontrollable, wasn’t it?

Otherwise it would not be a stampede. Had she started something that could turn bad?

But Zad, though surprised, seemed confident.

Joia looked south across the plain at the farmers. Something about the way they moved made her think they might be getting ready to advance. If so, she hoped they would not get here before Zad could start the stampede. She wished he would hurry.

He gathered thirty or forty people around him at the north end of the herd, then deployed them so that they formed a rough half circle around the cattle, leaving the southern end open.

Some of them had picked up sticks or cut branches to use as whips or prods.

The other volunteers could see that something was happening and they watched with puzzled looks, no doubt wondering what was the point of this exercise.

Joia looked again at the farmers and saw that they were coming, brandishing their weapons.

Then she noticed that the cattle around her were drifting south.

It was beginning.

The smell of the herd became stronger, perhaps a sign that the beasts were anxious.

The cattle continued to move south and began to walk faster. The herders were prodding and smacking them with their sticks, heading them toward the farmers, and at the same time keeping them closely massed, preventing them from spreading out east or west.

Joia said to Dee: “Oh, gods, I hope this works.”

She looked ahead, over the cattle, to the farmers.

They had halted their advance and were staring at the herd, apparently puzzled.

Any moment now, they would realize their peril.

But where would they go? They could not escape to east or west because the herd was too big.

If they went backward, the herd would catch them.

Some of them might climb a tree but there were not many trees.

The herders began to beat the cattle with their sticks while whooping and yelling, and the beasts panicked and started to run. Their hooves thundered and kicked up dust from the dry summer ground. The farmers ran in all directions. Joia imagined the carnage that was about to happen, and felt sick.

The volunteers around her were not so sensitive. They cheered and yelled and ran after the herd with their weapons. Joia grasped her pointed bradawl hard and ran with them.

Ahead, the herd met the terrified farmers and ran over them like a wave.

Some tried to dodge through the herd; some climbed trees; several stood in a pond and watched the herd divide around them.

The cattle pounded on, leaving a bloody litter of dead and mangled bodies on the ground.

The volunteers fell on the few survivors, and there was a fierce though one-sided battle.

Joia saw with dismay that many of the smashed bodies lying on the ground were not lifeless. Some struggled to move, bleeding into the grass; others moaned in pain and cried out for water. A calf lay on its side, bleating, crippled and abandoned.

Joia heard someone say: “Bitch.”

She knew that voice, and her heart missed a beat.

She looked around and saw the small dark eyes and familiar scowl of Troon.

For a moment she was scared, then she saw that he was too badly injured to be a danger to her or anyone.

One arm and one leg lay unmoving in positions that showed they were broken, and there was blood on his face.

Joia had no sympathy. He was a cruel and violent man, and everyone on the Great Plain—farmers, herders, and woodlanders—would breathe easier when he was gone.

The farmer army was no more. The farmer community would be hard-hit. Their able-bodied men now lay on the Great Plain. How would they manage? The women would have to run the place.

There was an irony. Joia almost smiled.

Troon moaned and said: “Water. Give me water.”

Joia knelt over him, her knee pinning his one good arm.

He said: “Have mercy.”

That plea maddened her. “Mercy?” she cried. “Han was my brother!” And she thrust her bradawl into his throat, leaning on it so that it penetrated skin and flesh and went deep into his neck.

When she pulled it out, blood fountained from his throat and splashed on her arms. Then it abruptly slowed to a trickle, and Troon stared at the sky with lifeless eyes.

Joia stood up and looked around. The fighting was over. The volunteers stood around waiting for her to tell them what to do next.

The herd had come to a halt not far away, and had resumed cropping the grass.