The Days of the Deer

by Liliana Bodoc

Overview

The first in an epic, highly acclaimed trilogy from an Argentinian fantasist

It is known that the strangers will sail from some part of the Ancient Lands and will cross the Yentru Sea. All our predictions and sacred books clearly say the same thing. The rest is all shadows. Shadows that prevent us from seeing the faces of those who are coming.

In the House of Stars, the Astronomers of the Open Air read contradictory omens. A fleet is coming to the shores of the Remote Realm. But are these the long-awaited Northmen, returned triumphant from the war in the Ancient Lands? Or the emissaries of the Son of Death come to wage a last battle against life itself? From every village of the seven tribes, a representative is called to a Great Council. One representative will not survive the journey. Some will be willing to sacrifice their lives, others their people, but one thing is certain: the era of light is at an end.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782390169
Publisher:	Atlantic Books
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Series:	Saga of the Borderlands , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	318
File size:	546 KB

About the Author

Liliana Bodoc is an Argentinian writer whose narrative works, including the fantasy trilogy Los saga de los Confines, became bestsellers in Latin America.

Read an Excerpt

The Days of the Deer

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By Liliana Bodoc, Nick Caistor, Lucia Caistor Arendar

Atlantic Books Ltd

Copyright © 2000 Liliana Bodoc
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84887-027-7

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CHAPTER 1

THE RETURN OF THE RAINS

* * *

'It will be tomorrow,' Old Mother Kush said softly when she heard the first peals of thunder. She laid down the yarn she was spinning and went to the window to look out into the forest. She was not worried, because in her house everything had been properly prepared.

A few days earlier, her son and grandsons had finished sealing the roof with pine resin. The house was stocked with sweet and savoury four, and with huge mountains of squashes. The baskets were filled with dried fruits and seeds. There were enough logs in the woodshed to burn through a whole winter. She and the girls had also woven thick woollen blankets that were now heaped, a colourful labour of love, in a corner of the hut.

As had happened every winter in living memory, another long season of rains was returning to the land of the Husihuilkes. The storms came from the southern seas, brought by a wind that spread heavy clouds over the Ends of the Earth and left them there until they had exhausted themselves.

The season began with showers that the birds watched from the mouths of their nests, the hares from their burrow entrances, and the Husihuilkes from their low houses. By the time the downpours began in earnest, no being was outside its refuge. The lairs of puma and vixen, nests in the trees or on the mountain tops, underground caves, dens hidden in the bushes, even worm holes were protected. So too were the Husihuilkes' houses, thanks to a store of knowledge that taught them how to make the best use of all the forest and the sea could offer. Here at the Ends of the Earth, the Creatures faced the wind and rain with strategies almost as old as the elements themselves.

'The rains will start tomorrow,' Kush repeated. She began to hum a farewell song. Kuy-Kuyen and Wilkilén crept closer to the old woman's warmth.

'Start again so that we can join in,' the eldest of her granddaughters begged her.

Kush hugged the girls, pulling them towards her. Together they began to sing again the song the Husihuilkes chanted whenever the rainy season returned. This was the warm, broken voice of the southern people; a voice unaware that soon the ones who were to bring these bountiful years to an end would be putting to sea.

The women sang as they waited for the men to appear along the path from the forest, loaded with the last provisions. Old Mother Kush and Kuy-Kuyen sang as one, never making a mistake. Wilkilén, who had only lived through five rainy seasons, had trouble keeping up with the words. She looked gravely at her grandmother, as though promising to do better the next time. The Husihuilke women sang:

Until we meet again, deer of the forest.
Until then, run and hide!
Fly far away, bumblebee, rain is on its way.

Father Hawk, make sure
That you protect your young.

Friends, beloved forest,
We will meet again when the sun
Shines on our house once more.

The three faces peering out of the hut had dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes.

The Husihuilke people had been forged in battle. That was why their men were so tough; and the long periods of waiting had made their women caring and patient. The only decoration they wore was sea coral threaded into their plaits and headbands, or fashioned into arm-bands and necklaces. Their garments were light-coloured tunics reaching below the knee, sandals, and cotton or warm woollen shawls depending on the season. This was how the grandmother and her two granddaughters looked now, generous with the beauty of their people.

'The lukus! There are the lukus!' shouted Wilkilén. 'Old Mother Kush, look at the lukus!'

'Where can you see them, Wilkilén?' her grandmother asked.

'There, over there!' she said, pointing straight at a huge walnut tree growing halfway between their house and the forest.

Kush followed her gaze. It was true: two bright tails were curling and uncurling round the tree trunk, as if seeking attention. One was red, the other a faint yellow. Their colour was a sign of their age: the older they became, the whiter their tails shone.

Kush was not surprised. The lukus were coming for honey and squash cakes, just as they had done every evening during the dry season since the day of Shampalwe's death. Kush put two fresh cakes in a basket, left the hut and headed for the walnut tree to leave them their cakes and then return. The lukus never spoke to her; they had never done so in all the five years they had been visiting.

They never made friends with mankind, and whenever possible avoided them. They would sink down onto their four legs and run away as fast as they could. But if they were caught by surprise deep inside the forest, they would remain completely still, heads tucked down and claws gripping the earth, until the human being passed by. Yet despite this reluctance, it was the lukus who had brought Shampalwe back to the house, already close to death from the snake bite, and it was they who had laid her gently under the walnut tree. That was the first time Kush had seen a luku's eyes from close to. 'There was nothing we could do for her,' the eyes had told her. Now Old Mother Kush was about to see a similar expression on their faces.

The old woman had put the basket down on the ground and was about to go back to the girls when a whisper from one of the lukus kept her there. Recovering from her astonishment, she whirled round, thinking she was being ambushed. Instead, she found herself staring into the eyes of the yellow-tailed luku, who was gazing at her in exactly the same way as the other one had the day Shampalwe died. Realizing that sorrow was on its way to them once more, she faced it with the calmness learnt from her people.

'What is going to happen now?' she asked.

The luku remained silent, its huge eyes filled with foreboding.

'Talk to me, brother luku,' Kush implored it. 'Tell me what you know. Perhaps there is still time to remedy things.'

In reply, the luku turned back towards the forest, and leapt away on all fours. Oblivious to the preoccupations of its elders, the younger one was not going to let the feast go to waste. It was only after he had scooped up both the cakes in the basket that he sped off to join his companion.

Kush walked very slowly back along the path to the hut. As she walked, that day long ago when Shampalwe died and Wilkilén was born flashed through her saddened mind.

Shampalwe had married Dulkancellin shortly after the Festival of the Sun. She was from Wilú-Wilú, a village close to the Maduinas Mountains. Her heart was the sweetest of all those that beat at the Ends of the Earth.

'When she sings you can see the pumpkins grow,' people who knew her would say.

After the wedding came the good years. Dulkancellin went hunting with the village men. He took part in all the border patrols and came back safely from two battles against other clans. Kush and Shampalwe shared the household tasks. Children were born. Shampalwe and Dulkancellin had five of them; all were a delight to Old Mother Kush. First came two boys: Thungür and Kume. Soon afterwards, Kuy-Kuyen was born. Then Piukemán, the third boy. Then at the height of summer, Wilkilén was born. Kush liked to look at each of them in turn, because in one way or another they all reminded her of Shampalwe's beauty and grace.

On the day Wilkilén was born, Shampalwe left the children in their grandmother's care and set out for Butterfly Lake. She wanted to bathe in its waters, renowned for helping new mothers recover strength in their bodies and serenity of mind. It was from there that the lukus brought her, with still just enough life left in her to kiss her children and beg Kush to look after them on her behalf. Shampalwe did not breathe her last until Dulkancellin returned from hunting fresh meat to celebrate the new birth. In the mouth of a lakeside cave, a grey serpent of a kind not seen for years in those parts had bitten Shampalwe on the ankle. She had been picking flowers, and still had them in her hands when the lukus found her.

'Flowers that did not grow from any seed,' muttered Kupuka the Wizard.

The Earth Wizard tried to bring her back to life with remedies he had found in forest and mountain. But neither Kupuka's medicines, Shampalwe's youth, nor the pleas of a man who had never pleaded before were able to save her. She died that same day, as the sun was setting over the Ends of the Earth.

That was why Kush had asked the lukus to come and receive a gift at sunset whenever it was possible to venture out.

'That is how we can show them our gratitude, and it will help you remember your mother,' she told her grandchildren.

The lukus had left. Kupuka left as well. Dulkancellin fired his arrows at the stars. And, under Kush's protection, the children grew.

The old woman heard distant laughter. Kuy-Kuyen and Wilkilén were laughing at her because she was so absorbed by her memories that she had come to a halt a few feet from the house door, her arm stretched out in front of her.

'That's enough ... there's more work to do,' Kush said as she walked into the house. She was pretending to be angry, but the children were not fooled.

'What happened with the lukus?' asked Kuy-Kuyen, who had inherited her grandmother's ability to see beneath the surface of things.

'What could have happened?' she answered, trying to convince herself. 'Nothing ... nothing.'

Wilkilén spoke in her own way:

'I think they sang you their song, grandmother Kush. The song of the lukus ... I can sing it too.' She tried to whistle like them, hopping from one foot to the other. Little Wilkilén had inherited the gift of happiness from her mother.

Before their grandmother could tell them to get back to their weaving, they heard familiar voices approaching the hut. Dulkancellin and his sons were returning from the forest. With them they brought more firewood, aromatic herbs to burn in the long nights of story-telling, and the last hare of the season, which they would eat as soon as Kush could prepare it.

The men did not head straight for the house. First they stacked the new logs on the pile, sorting them according to size. Then they went over to a low circular stone building. This was where they washed and rubbed a light oil over the scratches they had got in the forest.

The first to enter the hut was Dulkancellin, followed by his three sons.

Outside, night closed in. The tall trees drove their roots into the ground. The wind started to blow, bringing with it a flock of crows, and everything turned dark.

Cooked in broth, the hare lay steaming on a stretched animal hide. Hare with herbs, corn bread and cabbage was that day's meal for the warrior and his family.

In the firelight their seven faces looked dream-like. The Husihuilkes ate in silence. It was only once they had all finished that Dulkancellin spoke:

'Today in the forest we heard Kupuka's drum calling to his brothers. We also heard the reply they sent. I could not understand what their message was, but the Wizards' drums sounded very strange.'

The name of Kupuka always intrigued the elder children and silenced the younger ones.

'Which direction did the sound come from?' Kush asked her son.

'Kupuka's drum came from the volcano. The other one sounded fainter. Perhaps it came from ...'

'The island of the lukus,' said Kush.

'Did you all hear it too?' Dulkancellin's question remained unanswered because Old Mother Kush was once more recalling the look on the face of the yellow-tailed luku.

'Kush!' her son called to her. 'I'm asking you if you heard the drum here too.'

The old woman came out of her sombre reflections and apologized, but she did not want to tell Dulkancellin what had happened earlier that evening.

'We didn't hear anything,' she said, quickly adding: 'I like to guess what the future may hold.'

'Tomorrow I will go and visit Kupuka in the Valley of the Ancestors. I'll talk to him,' said Dulkancellin, signalling that the conversation was at an end.

Each year, just before the rains started, the Husihuilkes assembled in the Valley of the Ancestors to say farewell to the living and the dead. It was an occasion to eat, sing, and dance. Above all, it was an opportunity to barter their surplus goods for anything they did not have enough of, so that they would get through the rainy season. A day for exchanging abundance and scarcity so that everyone would have all they needed.

Within a short space of time they would be separated by the sodden earth, the winds, and the cold. There would be no chance to hunt, sow crops, or to fight. All communication between them would be reduced to the bare essentials.

CHAPTER 2

THE WARRIOR'S NIGHT

* * *

Even though the night was calm and a multitude of stars persisted in the last clear gaps in the sky, Dulkancellin could not sleep. Life at the Ends of the Earth lay curled up on itself; even the distant rumble of the storm was another kind of silence.

The warrior closed his eyes, waiting for sleep. He turned towards the wall facing the forest, the wall where his axe was leaning. He did not want to think about that day's events, and yet much later he found he was still puzzling over the meaning of the drums. Dulkancellin remembered what Kush always said: that sleep never came when it was pursued, but always when it was ignored. Trying to disregard it, he concentrated on the breathing of each of the other six people sleeping in the hut. Before he could discover whether Old Mother Kush was right or not, he heard noises that seemed to come from near the walnut tree. He leapt silently to his feet, and was outside the hut in an instant, axe in one hand and shield in the other. He stood stock still outside the door until he could be sure no one was close enough to slip inside while he went to discover what was going on. Then he stole noiselessly towards one end of the building. When he had almost reached it, he jumped round the corner. For once, though, the Husihuilke warrior was taken completely by surprise.

Between the house and the forest, dozens of lukus were spinning round apparently aimlessly, their luminous tails flailing through the air. From the expression on their faces, it seemed as if they were all whistling, but Dulkancellin could hear no sound. He took a few steps forward so that they could see him. As soon as the lukus caught sight of him, they all rushed to the bottom of the nearest trees, and soon were no more than a host of yellow, unblinking eyes. One very old luku ventured towards him. Considering the distance and the darkness between them, the warrior could see him far too clearly. The creature from the island stretched a thin arm towards the west. Dulkancellin followed his direction. From their house, the Lalafke Sea was only visible on clear, summer days; even then it was no more than a line that appeared on the horizon and then disappeared in an instant. But now when the Husihuilke warrior looked, he saw the sea blocking out the sky, crashing down on his house, his forest, his life. Dulkancellin gave a mighty cry, and instinctively raised his shield. All at once, the giant wave paused, then flowed round the house like a furrow in Kush's vegetable garden. Crushing everything beneath their feet, along the furrow came pale-faced men mounted on huge animals with manes. They were both near and far, and their garments did not flap as they ran. For the first and last time in his life, the warrior drew back. By now the lukus' whistling was almost unbearably shrill. Beyond the pale-faced men Dulkancellin could see a landscape of death: a few fayed deer were wandering among the ashes. The poisoned fruit of the orange trees fell to the ground. Kupuka was walking towards him, his hands amputated. Somewhere Wilkilén was crying, making the sound of a bird. And Kuy-Kuyen, her skin covered in red blotches, was peering from behind a dust-storm.

The warrior woke with a start. Once again Kush's words had proved true. The axe was still leaning against the wall. Everything was still silent.

Dulkancellin remembered it was a day of celebration. It would soon be dawn, and even sooner his mother would be up to light the fire and begin her daytime tasks.

Wrapped in a fur cloak, Dulkancellin left the hut, feeling as if this were the second time he had done so that night. The world outside was the same as ever: the warrior took a deep breath. A dull grey light spread through the darkness. To the south, another grey that was as solid as the mountains began to cover the landscape.

Dulkancellin's hair was tied back by a band across his forehead: the way the Husihuilkes always wore it before going off to war or when they were training their bodies.

The forest was far enough away for him to sing the song that only the warriors knew. Each time they sang they promised that every day they would honour the blood that had lain down at night, and begged to be allowed to die fighting.

When Dulkancellin reached the tall trees, he took off his cloak and left it on the roots of a tree. Flexing his body like a young cane, he ran through the undergrowth, leapt like a jaguar, climbed to impossible heights, and finally hung suspended from a branch until the pain made him drop. On his way back to the hut, he recovered his cloak and picked some seeds to chew on.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Days of the Deer by Liliana Bodoc, Nick Caistor, Lucia Caistor Arendar. Copyright © 2000 Liliana Bodoc. Excerpted by permission of Atlantic Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction,
Part One,
1 The Return of the Rains,
2 The Warrior's Night,
3 Where Is Kupuka?,
4 A Traveller,
5 Two Visitors,
6 An Important Conversation,
7 'I Can Still Hear the Rain Before You!',
8 The Prisoner's Song,
9 From Minstrel to Messenger,
10 Ancient Events,
11 Farewell!,
Part Two,
12 Heading North,
13 The Carpet on the Sand,
14 Taken Prisoner,
15 The Day the Ships Set Sail,
16 In a Strange House,
17 The Meeting of the Great Council,
18 The Sideresians,
19 The Feet of the Deer,
20 The Return of Kupuka,
21 The Mark of Their Footsteps,
22 Along the Paths of the Fertile Lands,
23 The Awakening,
Part Three,
24 The Deer and the Fire,
25 The Plumed One,
26 The Blood of the Deer,
27 The Son,
28 The Brotherhood of the Open Air,
29 Cacao,
30 In Human Tongues,

Editorial Reviews

"When asked who I admire within my genre, I can only think of one name: Liliana Bodoc."  —Ursula Le Guin

"The amazing Saga of the Borderlands trilogy rivals J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Ursula K. Le Guin's Books of Earthsea."  —Página/12

"A breath of fresh air in fantasy writing." —El País

From the Publisher