Plumas National Forest (Photo: Anne Yost/USDA )
A story in 6 parts.
If you would like to read it all in one (7500 words) click here.
Read On Tarryoh (Part 1) - In the Forest here.
Your feedback would be greatly appreciated to improve this story. Thanks!
On Tarryoh
2 Into the West
Ranks of guardians lined the town square
and surrounded the stage. They stood stiffly to attention. Ashleen was amongst
them in her full uniform and helmet.
Darby smiled at her in
the distance but she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. All boys and girls
received martial arts training. It was said no Tarryoh woman would submit to an
attacker without a fight, or, as the joke went among the men, several cups of
elderberry wine. Those girls who showed an aptitude for archery, horse riding
or hand to hand combat, and a suitable temperament, were offered a position in
the guardians. It was a small permanent army, the most Tarryoh could afford to
maintain.
The militia, on the
other hand, were local units consisting of all the able bodied men in the
district. They received enough training to be able to defend their village or
town if Tarryoh was threatened. The founders considered this a suitable and
necessary channel for their strength and propensity for violence. At other
times these traits were directed into hard work and at weeks end, a variety of
vigorous and entertaining sports, many involving the pursuit of various pigskin
covered balls.
The leader rose and
stood in the centre of the platform. Her grey-streaked black hair was coiled up
and decorated with blue stones. The left side of her face was scarred with a
crimson sulfur burn. She had once worked in a Guardian weapons factree. Darby
had heard about her scar but had not seen this leader in person before. The
leaders, generals, and other formal positions of power were regularly rotated
and had limits on how long one could serve. Like many things in Tarryoh, the
customs were designed to avoid a repetition of the mistakes of the past, and
prevent new ones occurring.
“People of Tarryoh, brave
guardians, militiamen, Preservers, and Interpreters of Earth&Sky. Since the time of our founders, history has taught
us this lesson, to enjoy peace we must be willing to fight. The nomads are
decedents of the fencers who divided up the south lands and ran their cattle
until the soil was gone, who exploited the air, the land, the water, and the
minerals beneath and left the earth a wasteland. We fear their desire is to find
a new promised land just as their ancestors did, so they can do it over again.”
“No! No!” shouted the
crowd.
“We do not seek to
expand our territory, to take over what is not ours, not if that means others
must move or perish. But we will defend the forests and lands that sustain us.
Our town walls, our guardians and militia, our knowledge of the forests, all of
these we use to maintain the safety of the Tarryoh and the balance of nature.”
She paused and surveyed
the hushed crowd. “We will meet the visitors from afar and determine whether
their intentions are friendly or not. If they are then we can deal with them in
peace. If not, then your courage and skill may be tested. May Earth&Sky protect you and all of Tarryoh.”
She raised her arms, the scar on her face flushed bright red. “On Tarryoh!”
“On Tarryoh!” the crowd
roared back in unison and fists punched the air.
Darby shouted and raised
his arm. His chest swelled with pride. He was going with them. He grew up in a
house inside the earth and wood palisade walls that surrounded the town. But he
and his brother, like their classmates, had spent many days tracking and
hunting in the forest. He was going as a scout.
Just two days before Darby
had ridden slowly with the injured Arden Royd into Waldeen town, past fields
nestled in the valleys between expanses of forest, some with corn stalks
standing bare after the harvest, others grazing sheep, cattle and horses after
their crops of beans, potatoes, oats, had been laid into storage or transported
to the capital. Some fields lay fallow, one in four left to restore its life
giving properties as the Interpreters of Earth&Sky
decreed was the way of nature.
As they rode Royd had
told him some of his brother’s story. Several years ago, a small group of
militia leaders argued in the consultative chambers and outside it that Tarryoh
needed a bigger army to defend itself, and ensure sufficient resources. There
were often shortages of something or other. With the strength to enforce trade
with those territories that had what they needed Tarryoh would be wealthier and
more secure. They were opposed in the district chambers and in the six monthly
debates by the representatives in the capital. Growth and expansion were the
sins of the old times. The guardians and the Preservers together made sure that
nothing too radical or dangerous was allowed to happen.
The militiamen’s plan
was defeated but their determination was not dimmed. Royd had said that he and Locke
were initially sympathetic to the militiamen’s plans. Their scouting mission
had been a front to ingratiate themselves with the nomads and plan attacks to permanently
mobilise the militia.
Darby had recoiled at
the idea that his brother would have been part of such a plot. Royd had told him
they only wanted what was best for the countree. But their plans changed when
they learned that the militia officers’ aim was merely to seize wealth and
power for themselves, as warlords dividing Tarryoh among them. As time went on it
had become clear that the nomads too were untrustworthy and would kill the militia
rebels once they had taken control. Locke and Royd stayed with them and feigned
allegiance, while they schemed ways to ensure they did not succeed. They told
them enough about Tarryoh to earn their trust. Hence the invaders knew about
the autumn work camps and planned their invasion for the time when many able
bodied men would be away from the border.
When the plan was set in
motion Royd decided it was time to warn Tarryoh. He was shot as he escaped and
barely managed to outride the nomad fighters and hide in the forest. His horse went
lame and he walked for several days before arriving at the waterfall, weak and exhausted
from his wound.
After the leader’s speech
Ashleen joined Darby. Her face was impassive but she grasped his hand and
whispered. “Don’t go.”
He shook his head. “It’s
an envoy mission. There won’t be any trouble.”
“That’s not what I am
worried about.”
He pretended not to
understand her meaning. “I know the forest and I can be useful as a scout.” He smiled
at her. “And anyway, I have this. He lifted his arm to display the braided
leather bracelet made of coloured leather strips she had made for him. “This
will keep me safe. You said so.”
Saleesha and Bernee
stood nearby. Saleesha’s eyes were red. The militia call up had begun and more
Guardian units were arriving by the hour. “I want you to stay too Bernee. It’s
too dangerous.”
He sucked in his stomach
and puffed out his chest. “It is my duty. When I come back I will be hero and
you will love me even more.”
Darby raised an eyebrow
at Ashleen. Hardly likely. But then again, Saleesha did seem to like him more
than any of the previous ones. Ashleen looked down and suppressed a grin but when
she raised her eyes to his again he saw the worry there.
Saleesha turned to him.
“I’m surprised they let you go since your brother is a traitor.”
“I don’t believe that.” said
Darby.
“That’s what I heard.
Who knows, maybe you are too?”
Ashleen bristled. “Saleesha.
Stop it. You are barking up the wrong tree.”
Darby cast a sideways glance
at Saleesha as he bent and kissed Ashleen on the cheek. “I have to go and get
ready.”
Saleesha watched him go.
She turned to Ashleen. “I think he means to find his brother.” She crossed her
arms over her billowing linen blouse and smirked. “And I know for sure that
there’s something else he’s not telling you.”
Later Ashleen searched
out Darby at the militia compound. Her face was flushed. “Darby…I know you want
to find your brother but…” She looked him square in the eye. “Please stay. For
me.”
He squirmed under her
gaze. “Ash. There is nothing I want more than to be with you. But my brother is
alive. I have to find him.” He reached out to hold her but she pushed him away.
“Go then.” she said and
spun on her heel.
He watched her walk across
the compound. Maybe she was right. He was not much of a fighter. It was only his
insistence that he should be allowed to at least try and identify his brother if he was there, and Royd’s
support, that had persuaded them to let him accompany the envoys. He was just
an apprentice. He had completed elementree school and then the three years of
high school simply because he loved the stories he was able to read. Like the
famous tale of the Gecko of Wall Stream. The greedy gecko stole food from his
neighbours and gorged himself on insects until he was too fat to move when the
birds came pecking. It was so he could make more of the books that he so enjoyed
that he decided to join the paper making and printing co-operative.
Making paper from wood
was a difficult and smelly process, with its boiling chemicals and water wheels
to power machines that pounded the fibres. Now after two years of that he was a
senior apprentice and had finally started to learn the printing trade. His
mentor had introduced him to some of the old philosophers, the gaians who were
the forerunners of the Interpreters of Earth&Sky,
and some crazies who were obsessed with space and aliens. One even insisted men
and woman were from different planets.
But all that was no use
now. He was heading into an entirely different neck of the woods.
********
Read On Tarryoh (Part 3) A Foot in Two Camps, here.
You can find more post industrial stories here or at the tab above.
No comments:
Post a Comment