A Son of the Ages: The Reincarnations and Adventures of Scar, the Link / A Story of Man From the Beginning

by Stanley Waterloo

Our own spring, by what was our mischance, lay at a distance from our village near to the border of the Chauci, of whom I have spoken, and was a vast temptation to them. Our village would assuredly have been built beside it but that the spring issued from a little rise of land within the edge of a great marsh, with a damp lowland all about, such location as might in no wise serve for a proper dwelling place. There was no shelter near, and the winds came harshly from the distant sea. Nevertheless, we builded a great shed beside the spring as a shelter in time of the salt-making, and raised a barricade of logs upon the forest side as some means of defense in case an enemy should make an onslaught. As often as we needed it the most accustomed of the tribe would make an encampment by the spring and there prepare the salt, though in a way unlike that of our ancestors, who had been accustomed to get the salt in a most curious manner, building a fire of logs and quenching the flames with the salt water, and when it was out, raking away the ashy crust found clinging to the embers. A better and far easier way was ours, for we now had the kettles in which to do the heating and condensing of the water into what we wanted. In autumn, when the time came for putting aside the fish and meat for the winter, a large company would go from the village to the salt-making, and the gathering was made almost a festival. There had always been sufficient force either with or of the workers, and no evil had ever come to them, though, at other times, the Chauci had once or twice invaded the spring and made salt there unknown to us. They also possessed a spring, but it was not as generous of flow as ours nor so convenient for those who lived the nearest to us. There had been murmurings and distrust over this intrusion of the Chauci, but there had followed no encounter, though the invasion was in violation of all tribal law, and though we had often come in conflict with the Chauci.

It has been a prosperous and pleasant summer for us, yet somewhat of a dull one, for there had been no conflicts and the older warriors were disposed to grumble at what they termed either indifference to honour or great slothfulness. Had not a band of the Harudes been seen hovering about our southeastern mark, and had not there been a disappearance of some scores of our half-wild cattle? Had not certain most promising bee trees toward the line of the Juthungi been cut down and despoiled, and was not either of these outrages sufficient to demand some sort of raiding in reprisal? It was true that the Juthungi had their home some distance from our borders and that we were not assured that our cattle were taken by the Harudes, but should such small lack of certainty prevent us from displaying our hardihood and prevent us also from acquiring such booty as might come in our way? Such chance, the seasoned veterans declared, would not have been neglected in their own fine youth. I know not why, but all this passed and there was no raiding, it may be because the dulness of the year was somewhat broken by the festivals in honor of the youth who had arrived at the dignity of fighting men, and by the consumption of much mead at these same festivals. A serious occasion, albeit an auspicious and a pleasant one, it was when the youth became of age to be counted among young warriors. This year there was near a score to be thus exalted, which gift of many was counted good as making the families stronger. The youth were trained in warlike exercises, and happy the father who could boast most sons. They were taught a contempt for death and that the tie of kinship was ever to be observed. So strong, indeed, was the need and the desire for kin, that when one lacked a family he sought blood-brotherhood with some other, and, when this was agreed upon, each would cut the palm of the hand and let the blood from the wound run into a little hollow in the ground, so that from the blood commingled might be pledged the brotherhood for life, to which they swore with clasped hands. Kinship and brotherhood meant greater strength, and so it was not strange that when new youth entered the elder ranks there was rejoicing and much ceremony in the bestowal of arms, and afterward much feasting. So it chanced that in this year of which I speak, with many youth to be initiated, the ceremony over one almost overlapped that of another, and that most of the warriors, drinking deeply and boasting of fights which had been and would be, were somewhat careless of the present. I know only that we had been at peace for all the summer, and that, though I had found good hunting and had fortune in the finding and marking of bee trees, I had myself a sense that time was beginning to move with somewhat laggard feet. Moreover, there were certain weapons which I desired renewed for my equipment and which I could not get within the tribe. Yet I held my peace in the debates, well knowing that after the initiation of the various youth the warrior would be restless.

It is of these same youth that there is something curious to tell, a thing beginning in mere love of the young for any wild performance and the doing of that which the elders might look upon as childish or unmanly, but which here had, in the end, a great result. I have said that we had horses as well as horned cattle, but the horses, like the cattle, were for food, and were rarely mounted, since the forest was scarce the place in which they might be used with freedom. It was counted almost effeminate in a man to ride when his strong legs should be equal to any journey. The youth took small account of this; lightly they held to elder views, and so a company of some score or more of them had contrived to capture and tame to riding a number of horses, performing some fine exploits with them in a broad clearing at a safe distance from the village and from all surveillance. They rode well, guiding the horses with their thonged bridles and flourishing their long spears, as they had heard did the horsemen of the Gauls, and I, who, because I had no family of my own, was somewhat of a friend and, it may be, a too lenient mentor to them, felt a certain pride in their performance and had no notion of betraying them. Indeed, I felt that I somewhat aided and abetted them, and of this last I had no regret.

So drifted we up to the time of the first falling of the leaves. The days passed and the autumn grew and the hunters were out and the boatmen were on the rivers, fishing them even to the coast with their nets of woven marsh grass, and soon we would have great store of meat and fish for storing. It was time for the yearly salt making, so a small company of the youth were sent ahead to the spring by the marshes to prepare for the coming of such older ones as should direct the boiling and other labour to be done. All were engaged in the preparation, and the band departed shoutingly at dawn, for to the spring it was a full half day’s journey.

That night the hunters came from the chase vaunting and heavy laden, for they had met with great good fortune, having surrounded and slain an aurochs of huge size, so adding at once no little meat for the salting. Never was clan in better mood than was ours on that night of much eating and drinking by the tired though noisy hunters. Well into the night the revelry continued, when there came that which changed the nature of the feasters. There were short, dull cries from the outside, and then staggered into hall two of the youth who had gone with the little company to the salt spring. One was bloody of head and face, and each was, at first, too scant of breath to tell his tale. It soon came, however, and was such as to make each warrior seize upon and brandish aloft his weapons and swear an oath as to what would be the deadly happenings of the morrow!

The Chauci had seized upon our salt spring, defying us at last, and had done the deed most cruelly. Scarce had the youth reached the spring and begun the cleaning of the boiling shed from its bed of drifted leaves, and to make ready the places for the fires, when there appeared from the nearby wood a band of Chauci who rushed upon them, casting their spears and chasing swiftly with their other weapons. The youth, brave enough but far outnumbered, fled into the marsh and across the neck of it and so gained refuge in the forest at a point some distance from the spring, but not before two had been slain. Hardly had they reached the forest’s edge when they saw a larger force come from the wood and join the first band of Chauci at the spring. Of these the two youth judged there were at least three hundred. The fugitives had fled straightway homeward, and deemed that the others who had escaped should soon be with us, though of this they were not fully assured, since they had scattered themselves for safety’s sake, and it was possible that the Chauci might have pursued and captured or slain more of them. Happily this was not so. The remaining fugitives came in before the morning broke, all wearied from the long run and the hiding, and three of them wounded by the thrown lances.

There was no more wassail, but, in its stead, swift and stern preparation for what was soon to come. We of the elder warriors spent little time in council or the devising of any plan, for we knew that it could be only a stubborn grapple of almost equal forces, with no advantage of ambush or surprise to either side. We could rally as many of our clan as there were of the invading Chauci, and for more we cared not. We would ask no aid from other villages of the Cherusci, though, should we be beaten in the fight, there would doubtless follow a war between the whole tribes, for blood is thick and the Chauci had now been transgressors boldly; but, should we win, the matter would doubtless end with that, since we would have had our vengeance and, perchance, some booty with it. There were some who counselled marching at once upon our foes, but it was decided by those among us who had the leadership that the attack should be made in daylight, and so it rested. All night, all through the village could be heard the sounds of the sharpening of swords and spears and axes, and the pattering of hammers studding and fastening more securely the leather on the linden shields. The sun had scarcely risen before we had eaten and were set out on our grim march. No able man in the village but was of that avenging company, save some score of the riding youth of whom I have already told and who, because I spoke for them, were allowed to march apart, that they might, as their leader pleaded, come in upon the Chauci from an unexpected side and by their sudden charge do more, if might be, than if they marched and fought with all the rest. At first this was denied them, but I had some dim reasoning that these reckless ones had in mind what might avail exceedingly, and my earnest counsel and demand that they be given the chance to show us what stuff for warriors was within them at last prevailed.

No sign of the Chauci saw we until we came close upon what we knew must be the battlefield. They were not ranged about the spring, but were massed, as I had reasoned well they would be, in the thick wood near to it, where they would have some measure of protection and where we must attack them at a disadvantage, for the wood there, though dense and heavy, was apart from the main forest, and could be reached only by passing across a wide open space where we would be exposed to their spear throwing and their arrow flights. Nevertheless we drew together, holding our shields before us and so launched ourselves across the open space.

It was a grim and furious charge and no man failed, but our foe had the advantage. We gained the forest’s edge, but our spears and arrows were turned aside by the close set trees and brush, while upon us in the open rained such flight of weapons as could not be avoided or long withstood, and not a few of the Cherusci fell. We had suffered grievously when, with a blind and desperate rush, we entered the wood fairly and there, though engaged now on more even terms, found little better fortune. The Chauci, well knowing what must follow their defeat, fought like savage beasts at bay, and most skilfully as well, keeping together and meeting us with stroke and thrust as heavy and in a rage as fearful as our own. Back and forth we swung together in that dark killing-place, and, for a time, even the shouting and the threatening ceased and there was only the harsh sound of weapons. We fought unflinching, as Cherusci should, but were the more wearied of the two forces, for we had marched far, and had now lost some of our best warriors and, finally, there came a little yielding. Strive hardly as we might, it did not cease, and soon, though with our mass unbroken, we were forced into the field again, the Chauci pressing fiercely with yells of triumph, until they, too, were in the open. Then followed such fighting as had not been often seen or had been told of in the feast hall!

Face to face, we stood in opposing ranks, Cherusci against Chauci, and no man thought of aught save killing. We were now the lesser force, but none gave that a thought. There were the Chauci, and they must be slain! As for me, I had gone stark mad with the battle lust. Man after man went down and another took his place, but we had the lesser weight, they were as desperate as we, and we were driven back, though slowly. Then came the sudden and amazing end!