The Blessing Stone by Barbara Wood

lush green savanna teeming with wildlife, and then more invaders, swarming like ants over the western hills until Alawa’s people were overwhelmed. Pushed north, they had encountered other settlements—kinsmen whom they saw at the annual gathering of the clans: Crocodile Clan, which Bellek had come from many seasons ago, and Egret Clan, which had been Doron’s. There, with the help of kinsmen, Alawa’s people had tried to stop and fight. But the invaders, stronger and in greater numbers, had kept up their assault, unwilling to share the abundant valley.
    Little Hinto, child of Alawa’s daughter, seized by an arm and flung into the air to come down on an invader’s spear. Istaqa, Keeper of the Moon-hut, turning to throw a spear at a pursuer, to be struck by a rock in her face with such force that it split her skull open. The blood running into the earth. The screams of the stricken. The moans of the dying. Blind fear and panic. Old Alawa running for her life, her feet pounding in cadence with her thumping heart. Young Doron and the hunters staying behind to protect the women and the elders .
    Perhaps they should perform the silent-sitting now, Alawa thought as she rose to her feet, her ancient joints creaking. Perhaps that would appease the unhappy ghosts who were haunting their dreams. But there was a problem: to perform the ritual meant speaking the names of the dead, and to do so would be to break the most powerful taboo in the clan.
    She looked at the children and felt an immense sadness sweep over her. So many of them were orphans, their mothers having been killed during the battles with the invaders. And then there was little Gowron, son of her daughter’s daughter, playing with a frog he had found. Alawa herself had pierced his little nose with the egret bone that prevented evil spirits from entering his body through his nostrils. It pained Alawa’s heart to know he must die.
    She turned her attention to Bellek, bent and wheezing as he explored the surrounding tamarisk thickets for signs and omens. He had to find the moon and so it was crucial that he concentrate and pay attention to every little detail. One mistake could spell disaster for them.
    Even back on their ancestral land the people had lived in constant fear of the world around them. Death came often, swiftly, and brutally so that even there, among familiar rocks and trees and river, there was enough to be afraid of. The people had been constantly on the alert not to offend any spirits, constantly speaking the spells, carrying the right amulets, making the appropriate gestures that they had all learned since earliest childhood. But one of the problems they faced in this strange place was not knowing the names of things. They saw unfamiliar flowers and trees, birds with new plumage, fish they had never encountered before. What to call them? How to make sure no harm came to the survivors of the Gazelle Clan?
    As Alawa watched the withered old shaman go about his readings, crouching to inspect a pebble, sniffing a flower, running dirt through his fingers, she wondered how he was going to react to her news. It occurred to her that Bellek might not like having to kill the children, even if it meant the survival of the clan.
    It also occurred to her that Bellek was past usefulness.
    Alawa had always been contemptuous of men anyway since they didn’t create life, and she had often wondered why the moon even made male children. Perhaps back in their river valley the men had been good for bringing home rhinoceros and hippopotamus meat, work too heavy for women, thus feeding the clan for weeks. But this new place was filled with food for the picking. Hunters were no longer necessary. Was this why her dreams and the magic stones were telling her to sacrifice the children? As a way of cleansing the clan?
    Alawa returned her attention to the children as they ate and played and tugged at mothers’ breasts. She especially watched the boys, who ranged in age from