For answer Hawkon lifted his spear. He knew now what he must do. He knew, but he did not even now know that this for many days had been the intention buried deep in his heart. In one instant of time the seed of his ambition burst, thrust through the darkness, budded and flamed into a bright terrible flower. Its beauty enchanted him and he had eyes for nothing else. Koor was old and feeble and ugly: Koor must give place to his conqueror. Nor did he know—such flights were far beyond him—that even as Koor was now, so he Hawkon would one day be.
The spear of Hawkon pierced his father’s throat. The figures in Koor’s fantasy loomed for the last time in the dying brain. The bull charged, and was caught by its horns. It snorted fire on its captor. I am the great bull and the king of bulls, thought Koor . . .
Hawkon retrieved his spear and held it high.
‘I am the Koor,’ he cried.
‘You are the Koor, great Hawkon,’ quavered Nigh, shrinking away from sight of his dying master.
‘The gods have spoken again,’ wailed Hasta. ‘They tell me that Hawkon is the Koor.’
But the young men were in a frenzy, Hawkon having the only cool head amongst them. All their long suppressed hatred of these elders found vent in violence. The stroke of an axe silenced Hasta’s wailing, and a dozen spears leaped to transfix the Tale-Bearer. Hawkon’s voice quelled the riot, and all drew back in fear from their work. And no one noticed that Ogo was no longer in their midst; no one had seen him—in the very moment of Koor’s death—slip through into the inner room, the sacred secret place where the women sat shuddering together. If to Hawkon this killing of the Old One was triumph, to Ogo it was deliverance. And the screaming of the women at sight of him gave him no check. ‘The Old One is slain,’ he said, ‘and Hawkon is the Koor.’ He spoke to distract their attention from himself; and his eyes searched among them. He sought and found Wooma. A little apart from the others (for was she not dedicated to death?), she lay in a languid trance. She, like himself, was unfettered: being young and desirable, she could be safely entrusted to the custody of her fellow-women. ‘Come!’ he said. The women, disregarding him, were crowded at the moot door. ‘Come, Wooma. Here’s Ogo.’ She stared, screamed, jumped to her feet. But Ogo did not wait to look at her again: he was scratching and tearing, like a dog, at a small aperture in the wall. Some of the women, eager to fawn at the feet of their new lord, were filtering through into the death-chamber; and the others, staring in frightened wonder at the intruder Ogo, could do nothing to thwart his impious design. He was strong, and he was sib to them: they dared not touch him.
In the hall of doom Hawkon raised his spear again, commanding silence. And when all voices had ceased, he fell on his knees at the feet of the three corpses. ‘O Koor, I have slain you, but I am your friend henceforth. In life you were mighty, and we your sons will praise you wherever we go. Visit us not in anger, O Old One, but go far from this place, or stay where we leave you. And you, Hasta, and you, Nigh, remember us kindly, and do us no harm, for we are your friends too. You three, you mighty ones, shall have this house to live in for ever.’ He rose and turned to his brothers. ‘We will pile great stones upon them. We will fill this place with great stones, and close it up with the greatest of all, so that their demons will be comfortable and not trouble us.’
The young men ran to do his bidding. Stare alone lingered.
‘O Koor, O Hawkon,’ said Stare, with profound respect, ‘what of Ogo and the woman who have sinned together, being sib?’
The wailing of the women was no longer to be ignored. They wailed not for the death of the Old One, but because Ogo had broken into their sanctuary and snatched Wooma from them, where she lay awaiting the time of sacrifice. Sin had gone unpunished; the vengeance of the gods must fall on all the sons and daughters of Koor. . . . And so in after days, though the tribe flourished with Hawkon at its head, every misfortune that visited them was laid to Ogo’s account; many conflicting tales were told of how the sinners, perishing in the wild, were pursued for ever by the curse of their sin; and the suffering voices of Ogo and Wooma were heard in every wailing wind. The sinners themselves, in their squat by the distant river, knew nothing of these tales and heard no such voices. Strangely forgetful of the past they lived to a ripe age, and their sons made many boats.