Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

carrying it. Tuan, who was the smallest, only just managed to lift it clear of the ground. One after another, breathless and intent, until there was only Drem left to try.
    ‘Drem! Hai! Drem, wake up!’
    Drem woke up. He had hung back to the last, which was not his way; and suddenly his heart was pounding as he stepped to the great war shield. He thrust his sound arm through the straps, and setting his teeth, lurched up again. The weight bore down on his shoulder, as he stood to face the others. The war spear that each of them had taken in turn lay in the brown bracken at his foot; he felt it there. And it had already dawned on him that he could not take it up.
    It dawned on the others at the same moment. They were all round him, watching him with sudden speculation. Then Luga pointed down at the spear and his face was alight with malice. ‘Aren’t you going to take up your spear? A warrior must needs carry a spear as well as a shield; do you forget that?’
    Drem faced him, faced them all. ‘Na,’ he said. ‘I do not forget that. But it is in my mind that a warrior might do well enough carrying only his spear and not a shield at all! I took up the shield to try its weight as you have all done. No more.’
    ‘Ya-ee! Hark to Drem One-arm!’ Luga cried. ‘Drem One-arm cannot carry his spear and his shield together; he wouldmake only half a warrior—and what use is half a warrior to the Men’s side?’
    Drem was sharply aware of the silence all about him, and in the silence the spattering rain on the thatch and the distant scolding of a woman. He did not move, he was too proud to move before them, even though his arm and shoulder were beginning to tremble under the weight of bronze and bull’s-hide; but if he had been a hound, the hair would have risen on his neck. The others were still staring at him, not hostile as yet—though that was coming—but somehow no longer strange with each other, bonded together under Luga’s leadership; and
he
was the only stranger. He understood about Luga; Luga had never forgiven him for the matter of Whitethroat and the swan; that was simple. The rest was less simple; but something far down in Drem that had nothing to do with thinking, understood that too. All their lives they had run together in one pack; a mingled pack of children and hounds from the Clan and Half People alike; but now it was different, now Erp and his dark brothers must follow their own ways, and the Clan and the Half People were no longer one. This was the Boys’ House; this was the beginning of the Men’s side, the Spear Brotherhood, the beginning of the question whether Drem’s place was inside with the Spear Brotherhood or outside with the Half People.
    ‘Let you go and learn to weave with the women,’ Luga said, bright-eyed and taunting, and there was a splurge of laughter.
    ‘But you’d need two arms for that, too,’ Gault squealed in sudden excitement; and—he was a great one for playing the fool—he began to jig up and down, making the gestures of a woman working at an upright loom. They were crowding in on Drem, beginning to jostle him. It was more than half in jest at first, but the jest was an ugly one, and wearing thin over what lay underneath. ‘Ye-ee! Drem One-arm—Drem One-arm!’
    It must be Luga or himself, Drem thought, and the only thing he could do was to fight, and if need be go down fighting.He did not stand the faintest chance, of course, but that made no difference. He let go the great shield. It fell with a ringing clash and crash against the edge of the hearth stone, momentarily scattering the little fierce knot, and in the same instant, with the life still tingling back into his arm, he hit Luga fair between the eyes, with all the strength that was in his body behind the blow. And he cried out on a shrill note of challenge, ‘One arm is enough to hit with!’
    Luga staggered backward, shaking his head, as though for the moment he was not at all sure what had hit him. Then