Young Warriors: Stories of Strength by Sherman Josepha & Pierce Tamora

Author:Sherman, Josepha & Pierce, Tamora [Sherman, Josepha & Pierce, Tamora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult, Historical, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies
ISBN: 9780307434128
Amazon: 0307434125
Goodreads: 9000224
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Published: 2005-10-11T07:00:00+00:00

SERPENT’S ROCK

Laura Anne Gilman

GULPILIL STOOD IN THE middle of the red-rock canyon and wondered how long it would take him to die.

“I stand against you, my brother, not because I wish you harm, but because you and I cannot be in the same place at this same time. I stand against you, my brother, not because I wish you to be no more, but because I wish to continue.

“In the Long-Ago Time you knew your place and I knew mine. But you walk across your place and into mine, and therefore,my brother, I must stand against you.”

He was repeating himself. Knowing you were going to die might do that, he supposed, but it made his telling weaker, and that was no good. The shaft of his spear was slick and useless in his hands. He almost dropped it, but what then would he hold?

Not that weapons would matter, in the end.

Across the rocks, the shadows crept closer. When the shadows overtook him, it would be time.

Four days earlier, the Great Serpent had shifted deep underground, and the earth had moved. Busy with fishing, the people thought little of it for three days after.

“Marwai!” Jinabu collapsed to his knees at the outskirts of the fish camp. “Marwai!” His skin was shiny-dark with sweat, and his thick black hair was matted against his neck.

Gulpilil was the first to reach him. Jinabu had taken Gulpilil’s sister Malle back with him, last Gathering Time. Gulpilil had not seen them since then. But Jinabu had no time for the teenager, his gaze restlessly searching the growing crowd until the elder came forward, the others parting to give him room.

Marwai was ancient—some said as ancient as the sand— and there was nothing he did not know, no story he could not recite. Whatever had so driven Jinabu to a frenzy, Marwai would set right. Gulpilil knew that this was so.

The others began to drift away, back to bringing in the heavy stone traps, rebaiting them, and casting them into the shallow waters. Redshell did not keep well, but it was good in season. The dingoes would eat whatever the people did not, and make their coats glossy and their bellies firm until it was time to hunt the quick-leapers again.

Gulpilil’s skill lay not in setting traps or in hunting the quick-leapers, but in fixing the traps and honing the spearheads. Stone moved under his hands as it had for the All-Father, they said. But Jinabu’s anguish drew him, and so instead he followed the men to the stone overhang where Marwai built his fire, and spoke to those who came to him.

“You, boy, go back to your work.” Dundalli blocked his way. Dundalli was tall and strong, and his skin was covered in clay dust, making him look like a First Man only just carved from the red river-rock.

“I need—” Gulpilil did not know what he needed, only that he needed.

“You have other work to do. Someday you too will sit by the fire and listen to the stories others will tell.

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