Part One
WAR COMES
DULL KNIFE
The sun caught up to us. It had
been riding behind us since we started off into the sunset, and we were heading
west, towards the glistening red clouds off in the distance. Riding in the
darkness was the best and only way to escape our fate, to be captured or
killed, our families to die with us. We knew they were coming, and we were not
willing to become a part of their war. Better to leave off now with our heads
and our lives intact.
Our generation is one with
knowledge. We knew that the world was once so much more sophisticated than it
is now. We have been in a dark age for a millennia, cities overgrown with trees
and grass and wildlife flourishing where once mechanical vehicles roamed. The
towns and cities all but vanished in the breakdown of a lost civilization,
thousands of thousands dead – some say thousands of thousands of thousands. I
have never known more than 500 people in my life time – our tribe and those we
traded with. But these people approaching on the horizon, they were not
friends. They were not friendly. Their way was the way of the gun, the way of
the sword, the way of blood and of pain, the ways of lies. We would have none
of that. They could keep our fields, and they could keep our homes. They would
not have us.
Our people are people of the
book, we have letters, we can speak words written. Not all have that luxury. We
have pages from the past. We have pictures that no man’s hand could draw. We
have texts so small as to fit in your pocket, and some so heavy they cannot be
carried but by two people. Those writing machines are long lost. We have only
our pens and our hands now. We are fortunate, we know how to make paper and
ink. We know how to share our knowledge with people not yet born. We have
words, and we know that some words are stories, some words are truths, and some
words are lies. We are cautious of the lies.
Many a trader would offer us one
thing and deliver another. We are cautious people. We make lists. We make
notes. We can communicate from a distance where none other might. Dull Knife,
my brother was the most recent to become aware of the lies. He was so trusting,
so giving. They sent him to the neighboring village to the East with a letter
from their elders, offering us a trade of ten horses for two of our children,
that they might grow strong as hunters, and we might continue to breed our own
with a different stock, making a stronger generation of horses meant for the
plough. Their offer was generous, ten for two. The children would be clothed,
fed and sheltered, and be made into powerful warriors. They would be given
wives or husbands when their age came, and they would be given places of honor.
My brother was proud to take the two children, a boy and a girl, to the village
in trade. They did not know that he could read. They were not aware that we all
were given our letters as children, a skill most villages reserved only for
their elders and merchants. After they celebrated the arrival and the trade,
they sent Dull Knife on his way, requesting that he first stop to deliver a
message to the tribe North of our valley. The elders there gave him 10 horses and
three cases of whiskey, with a private paper letter to be delivered to our
neighbors to the North, whom we have had a strained, and often difficult
history with, but recently a rough peace between us. This new letter read,
“This man: kill him or keep him as a slave. These ten horses, and three cases
of whiskey are our thanks. Take his tongue, and put his hands to labour, or
kill him as it pleases you. Keep the horses, and drink the whiskey with our
thanks. As promised to your elders, we ride to the valley to your South in
three days to take their women and their fields. With your silence, and a
promise of peace between us, their men shall fail to our greater numbers, and
you shall have a strong neighbour with which to trade, who owes you many
thanks.”
Our warning came only through our
willingness to share the gift of reading with all of our people, not merely the
ruling few. Most would not give the skill of reading letters to their workers
and the builders, thinking them not important enough. Most would keep them only
for those who needed them for commerce. Our village had little in the way of
warriors. Our valley was one of farmers and healers and hunters and breeders,
and all of these men and women were scholars, readers, and collectors of
ancient knowledge. Our warriors were few, keeping the peace amongst our own, and keeping to the
ways of war only inasmuch as we needed to protect our fields from wandering
thieves and wolves.
Our failing, perhaps, was that we
are a peaceful, but wealthy people. We do not raid our neighboring tribes, and
prefer sharing our knowledge with each other, finding solutions to problems and
educating our young. Our valley was a valley filled with people of the book. No
more, now, for our words are buried deep in the hills, and covered over with
stones, so that they cannot be found easily. And the warriors from the East
will find only empty houses and barren fields. For the present, our people have
moved Westward, towards the mountains, towards more friendly lands. 480 of us
travelled in this little caravan, there are nearly twenty families in our
tribes little village. All of us readers. But this count was short, there were
several more who stayed behind, hidden in caverns below the earth,
waiting.
We are readers. And we have
secrets that only readers could keep. We have many more secrets. The neighbours
to the East do not know them. We will return. But for now, peace. The valley
will remain, with its treasure buried deep beneath it. We will return, and the
warriors from the East will have no blood to sate their palates. We leave with
our lives, our beasts of the field, and our horses. We leave with what food we
could carry, and the remainder hidden in places that no other could find. We
leave, and they will have nothing to feast on, except three cases of tainted
whiskey to share amongst their men. Three cases of tainted whiskey on which to
choke on.