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amp-marshals, the ugly

brawls continued throughout the day, causing death and injury to both

sides.

Faced with a steadily deteriorating situation, a high-level meeting

proposed by the M'Waukee and C'Natti brought representatives of the

D'Troit and She-Kargo face to face in the bull-ring. But this too

failed to ease the tension. By prior agreement, neither Mr Snow nor

Prime-Cut was there but it was clear that the D'Troit were still angry

that their spokesman had been made to look like a prize asshole and

despite the mutual expressions of respect and willingness to reconcile

their differences by amicable and reasoned debate the meeting broke up

amidst angry recriminations from both sides.

The D'Troit, and to a lesser extent the C'Natti, were

clearly spoiling for a fight. And they had imported the muscle to

make sure they won it hands down.

The last major conflict in the history of the Plainfolk had been the

Battle of the Black Hills when two entire clans - the M'Calls and the

B'Nardinos from the D'Troit bloodline had fought each other to a finish

in a running encounter that lasted from sunrise to sunset.

Thunderbird, Clearwater's father, had fallen in that battle from which

the M'Calls emerged bloodied but unbowed - a victory which confirmed

their position as paramount clan of the She-Kargo.

But that was fifteen years ago. There had never been a clash of arms

on that scale before or since and, more important still, there had

never been any occasion where clans of the same, or competing bloodline

had submerged their traditional rivalry to stand shoulder to shoulder

against a common enemy. Until now. And having had less than 48 hours

in which to cobble together a temporary alliance and hammer out a

concerted plan of action, no one in the She-Kargo faction was sure how

long it would hold together.

The Mute warrior ethic was similar in many respects to that of the

samurai - the military class that ruled Ne-Issan - but there was one

important difference. The Mutes were gang-fighters, not battlefield

soldiers. Their skills, and the supremacy of the knife were derived

from their pre-Holocaust ancestors - the ghetto people who, by some

miracle, had emerged indelibly scarred but alive from the nuclear

blasts that levelled and torched America's great cities. Desperate,

impoverished individuals whose entire lives had been a struggle for

survival in the urban jungle. An underclass whose sense of right and

wrong had been warped by deprivation and injustice.

Whose moral nerve endings had been dulled by the callous exploitation

and dog-eat-dog indifference that was the hall-mark of the

pre-Holocaust era.

They had survived then by the quickness of their wits, feet and fists,

a combination of animal cunning and hair-trigger aggression, a

readiness born of desperation to take what they wanted: the very

qualities needed to survive the aftermath of a global nuclear war.

Abstract philosophizing, the art of debate, the intellectual flatulence

of the educated classes, the privileges of the mega-rich secured by

acres of prime real estate and Swiss bank accounts, the well-meaning

advocates of charity, compassion and the fellowship of man were buried

beneath the smouldering ashes. Literacy went up in smoke as the

unschooled burnt the remaining books to keep warm.

It was not the meek who inherited the earth but the traumatized

remnants of the bread-line poor, the muggers, pushers, the sewer-rats

and hoodlums, along with the Rambo-style, Soldier of Fortune gun-crazy

firepower freaks who had prepared for Armageddon in the backwoods of

America.

Stranded amid the wreckage of the 20th century, like flotsam and jetsam

left high and dry on an alien shore, this residue of humankind had

separated into their different ethnic groups, like snails of different

species placed together in a cage. At a time when everyone was a

potential predator, the only security was within a group sharing a

common language, customs and racial origin.

During the next nine centuries and through numberless generations, they

had gathered strength and multiplied.

Around countless camp-fires they had recreated the past, mixing fact

and fiction in the same way that jazz musicians improvise on a

well-known melody. Dimming memories of distant events had given birth

to a new mythology, a new identity; mutated genes had spawned a new,

mishapen but strangely gifted breed of humankind.

And when the grey curtain of clouds that brought the Great Ice-Dark

retreated, revealing the sun and stars in all their glory, the first of

a race of warrior clans emerged - the Southern Mutes and their northern