Page 208 of Circle of Days
She slept in Dee’s arms that night in Stony Valley. Dawn brought the seventh day, and Joia was still on target to deliver nine stones in ten days.
Seft, supervising what was now a practiced routine, got stones seven and eight onto the sleds and away by early afternoon. The ninth and last stone was loaded by sundown, and would leave first thing tomorrow.
Next day Joia led the last march out of the valley and over the ridge.
At midmorning they passed between the two hills. From there the route rose and fell gently, with cattle on both sides of the track. They climbed a slope, and Joia called a rest stop on the other side of the ridge, providing a long downhill slope for the restart.
She heard Dee say: “Oh, no!”
She looked ahead.
She could see in the distance that the route was blocked. A crowd of about a hundred and fifty men stared angrily at the volunteers and the giant stone. It was undoubtedly the farmer army, and clearly they wanted a fight.
They had timed this carefully. This was the last stone: there was no one following, no reinforcements that could catch up.
Joia felt sick with disappointment and fear.
Jara was brisk. “I think we have the advantage,” she said. “They lost a lot of men in the moonlight battle.”
“This isn’t a game!” Joia protested. “If we fight, some of our people will die, even if we win!”
“Of course,” said Jara. “It’s a war. The only alternative is surrender.”
“I can’t accept that,” said Joia. “I will not be responsible for more deaths.”
Jara said skeptically: “So what is your plan?”
Joia did not have one, but she was not prepared to give in. “Let me think,” she said, and she walked away, leaving the track behind. A cow with a calf looked at her warily, and another grunted. What could she do? She could tell everyone to run away, leaving the stone; but that would be so dispiriting that she might never again be able to motivate volunteers. This project was farfetched: only her leadership had made people believe in it. If once it got labeled a failure, it would never be resuscitated.
On the other hand, even that downfall would be better than getting people killed.
She looked around the Great Plain, now occupied by a giant stone, two armies, and hundreds of cattle; and she realized she had another potential army: the herd.
A plan began to form in her mind.
She had heard about the stampede of the herd at the Break, when the beasts had been mad to get to the river and drink. She had not witnessed it herself, but someone who had was standing near her: Zad. He had managed the herd in the west of the plain for more than ten years, so he probably knew everything there was to know about cattle.
She said to him: “You and the other herders can make the beasts go where you want, can’t you?”
“Of course,” he said with his usual charming grin. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to move them to fresh pasture when necessary.”
“And you were present at the Break when they stampeded for the river.”
He looked embarrassed. “We tried to stop them, but we couldn’t.”
“Could you make this herd stampede?”
“Makethem stampede?” For a moment he looked nonplussed. “It’s never been done…” He was thinking, imagining it. “…but I don’t see why not.”
“Could you make them stampede the farmer army?”
He thought some more, and Joia kept quiet. Then he said: “We’d have to circle around the back of the herd from here, then down both sides so they don’t divert. It will take… I don’t know how many people… the more the better. And then… But yes, we can do that.”
She looked him in the eye. “Then do it, please,” she said.
He stared hard at her for a moment, as if making sure she was not mad; then he said: “Right.”
She watched him move through the crowd, speaking quietly to herder men and women, who nodded and followed him. She began to wonder whether she had done the right thing. A stampede was uncontrollable, wasn’t it? Otherwise it would not be a stampede. Had she started something that could turn bad? But Zad, though surprised, seemed confident.
