Star Axe

by Duncan McGeary

  As the night wore on, Balor began to fear that it would all come to naught. Perhaps, he thought, Kalese had already signaled the Qreq ship’s dash upriver. Perhaps his confused wanderings in the swamp had given them the time they needed. Perhaps they had blended into the battle and escaped notice after all. Or worse, perhaps Kalese never would signal, but linger lost—or dead—dead within the Tream. But he never once thought what the High Elder had implied, and Tolose had stated outright—that Kalese had failed his trust.

  He looked about him once more and saw that the High Elder was staring at him with a curious expression on his face. The night was ending, and even the troops were beginning to display little interest in the purpose of their vigil. Even Balor appeared to have lost his fascination to them. He forced himself to feign a calm confidence as the night grew late.

  Then, without warning, the Needle of Lahar was illuminated by the flash of a huge fire. Invisible only seconds before, the tall column now cast a shadow down upon the roofs of the Great Hall. The warriors scrambled into the boats and cast off, and Balor found himself in command of the lead ship. As they neared mid-river, he saw the beacon Kalese had set among the rushes. The swamp was ablaze with the light of its flames. Balor wondered how she had managed to kindle such a fire among the damp fen-trees and swamp reeds, while the rain continued to pour down heavily.

  In the bow of the ship, the archers deftly wrapped the points of their arrows with squares of cloth and smeared them with a thick sap. The arrows were lit in the hearth- pot and sent flying toward the eastern banks of the river. Their passage could be heard as a loud whispering hiss to those in the boats. Flight after flight of arrows were sent soaring upward and the night skies were filled with the fireworks.

  Balor’s eyes followed their fiery paths until they were extinguished, steaming into the river. Finally, one of the men cried out and pointed into the dark, at about amidships. Another archer carefully inserted a burning shaft into the heavy string of his bow, and every warrior watched the flaming arrow’s flight, until it briefly illuminated the dark hull of the enemy warship. The next flight of missiles scored three hits on the frame of the ship. They clung there, burning fitfully.

  The Qreq swiftly doused the flames, but it did not matter now. The fleet of Lahar had its bearings, and the ships sliced through the water like diving eagles, cutting the Qreq ship off far from the upriver camps of the Qreq army. Balor had only a little time to worry about how he could keep the enraged warriors from accidentally injuring one of the captives, or prevent the Qreq from purposely murdering them rather than allow them to be recaptured. Then he was in the fight and had no more time for thought.

  The custom of the House of Lahar was to keep out of the range of the Qreq spears, and harass the warships from a distance with the accurate fire of their archers. But this time, the attacking boats discarded that strategy and drove alongside the giant ship. Grapples flew into the air and over the bulwarks. Though warriors of all three attacking ships prepared to mount the looming sides of the warship, none were more eager than Balor, and he found himself the first up.

  By now the Qreq had recovered from their surprise, and at the top of the rope, where it strained against the bulwarks, Balor saw the Qreq sword flash down. The thick rope spiraled downward, cut through, but Balor desperately threw his hands above him. His fingers caught the railing of the ship’s sides. The Qreq had already moved on, to sever another of the grappling ropes, failing to notice the warrior dangling from the side of the ship.

  With a strength even Balor had not known he possessed, he hoisted himself over the side of the ship in one motion and bared his sword. For the next few seconds he was the only warrior on board, and the focus of a furious attack. Finally, other men of the Watch surmounted the bulwarks, and Balor was relieved of much of the pressure. The deck was a swirl with darting, lunging warriors, but Balor was oblivious to all others. His eyes were fixed on the closed lid of the hatch. Pressing forward, seeing and fighting only those foes that confronted him, he slowly neared the hatch.

  Two Qreq saw him approach, and moved to oppose him, but Balor was too near his goal now to be stopped. With a quick, deep thrust, one of the Qreq was felled. The second Qreq’s sword slashed downward over Balor’s extended arm. Balor abandoned his sword and leaped at the enemy. The Qreq was unable to bring his sword around before Balor’s hands closed around his throat.

  When Balor finally threw open the hatch, he expected to be met by a deluge of defenders, but there was no one in sight. Cautiously, he ventured down the companion-, way and explored the unfamiliar ship’s interior. He found himself in a womb of peace. He shook his head, puzzled by the absence of guards. All the Qreq seemed to be above on the deck! At every bulkhead he expected to meet an ambush by the Qreq, but there was no one lying in wait. With his heart filling with dread, he reached the after-cabins, deep within the bowels of the ship. Futilely retracing his steps, he scrutinized every inch of the ship in a furious search. There was no sign of the captives.

  Captain Tolose found him sitting on the steps of the companionway. “The Qreq will never attempt to sneak by the House of Lahar!” he said with satisfaction. Then he noticed Balor’s slumped shoulders and sightless gaze. “Where are the prisoners?” he asked anxiously. “Have they been killed?”

  Balor shook his head. “They are not here,” he whispered.

  Captain Tolose sat down heavily onto the next step to Balor, as if his knees had been weakened by the news. “It appears that your friend let you down after all,” he said.

  Balor started at the warrior’s words, alive once more to his surroundings. “You are unfair,” he said. “How could she have known? How could any of us know that they were not aboard?” His voice trailed off. He had realized suddenly that he had forgotten Kalese and the Lashitu.

  Hurrying onto the deck, Balor looked to the shore. The giant blaze set by Kalese was still flickering on the banks. He looked around for his crew. The last Qreq bodies were being unceremoniously dumped overboard, for there had been no quarter. Balor shouted for his crew to follow him onto one of the boats. The shock of not finding Jonla and Sanra had not quite left him. It was hard to accept that things had gone amiss again. All he could think of right now was of finding Kalese. Surely she would know!

  As they neared the shore, the warriors in the boat saw a thin figure leaping frantically, outlined in the weak flames of the fire. The profile looked so much like a Qreq that all but Balor held their weapons in readiness. Balor, however, quickly recognized the skinny figure. He leaped from the prow of the boat, as the keel plowed into the sandy beach, and ran toward the Lashitu. The shaman greeted him excitedly, thanking the gods loudly that he had been saved. Balor looked for Kalese, but all he saw was the burnt-out hulks of the fen-trees, the smoldering ashes of the low brush.

  “Where is Kalese?” he demanded. “Why is she not here with you?”

  “That is what I have been trying to tell you!” the shaman said, aggrieved by the lack of attention Balor was paying him. “She left me here—alone.”

  I can see that she is not here,” Balor replied impatiently. “Where is she?”

  “She is a clever girl,” the Lashitu said, refusing to acknowledge Balor’s questions. He seemed annoyed that Balor was not concerned with his sufferings, and determined that the warrior would hear him out. “She started this inferno. The fire seared so hot I thought we would surely burn up! I had to wade into the river to escape the heat.”

  Balor grabbed the Lashitu’s cloak. “Where did she go?”

  “The Qreq tricked us,” the Lashitu said. “They took the prisoners off the ship and slipped by you. The ship was a decoy while they went around by land. After the swampgirl lit the fire, and you did not come, she told me to wait for you. She told me to tell you to follow her.” Balor was not very surprised by the account of the ruse, for it was what he had suspected ever since he had found the ship empty. He had been more foolish than the Qreq to believe that they would try to pass—saf
ely—on the warship. Even the Qreq had apparently thought they could not. What he hadn’t expected was that Kalese would go after the Qreq alone.

  “Why did she not wait for me?” he asked, half to the Lashitu, and half to himself. For once, the Lashitu could not answer. How was he to find her in the Tream? Balor thought. There was nothing he could do but follow her—immediately. “Get into the boat,” he ordered the Lashitu. “We are going after her.”

  “Are we not going to the House of Lahar first?” the Lashitu asked in a horrified voice.

  Balor hesitated—he did not want to delay a minute. * But the crew would probably not go with him without permission. He commanded then, with an urgency that had them jumping for the snails, to return to the House of Lahar. The little boat glided through the water at full sail in response.

  They arrived at the pier at the same moment as the captured warship. A reception by the Council of Elders, the Healer Coron, and many of the family awaited them on the docks. The Healer Coron smiled at the sight of his former student, but Balor was in no mood for greetings. “They were not on board,” he said glumly.

  “We have been told,” the High Elders said. “We also have tidings that the Qreq fleet is retreating upriver. The siege is lifted.” The crowd, unaware that the capture of the Qreq warship had been anything but a great victory, cheered at this news.

  “They have what they came for,” the Healer Coron said grimly in a low voice that only those near him could hear. “The fall of the House of Lahar will be a simple matter once the Warlord is master of the Star Axe.” “Then we must go after them,” Balor insisted, keeping his hope and belief that Kenlahar was not among the prisoners to himself. He suspected that the Council of Elders would not seek to rescue a woman, or even a captured Captain of the Watch. The Lashitu also did not correct the Elders of the misapprehension that Kenlahar was a captive. Balor was not about to ask the shaman for his, no doubt mysterious, reasons for staying silent, but was thankful for the favor. The Healer Coron was looking at him strangely, and Balor wondered if it was amused skepticism he saw in the old man’s face. But Coron said nothing.

  “This is not a matter to discuss in the open,” one of the Elders reproached Balor.

  “We do not have the time to discuss it anywhere else,” Balor retorted hotly.

  “Such an undertaking must be thought on, Balor,” the High Elder said gently. “If we are to send men into the Warlord’s Haven, then the matter must be weighed carefully. But do not worry, Balor. We will not let them escape. To forsake Kenlahar, would be to forsake the House of Lahar itself.”

  Despite Balor’s worries a forum was quickly assembled in the Chambre. But his worst fears were realized when an opposition formed among the warriors to any kind of rescue mission.

  “We should not send our fleet—no, not even one boat, on such a hopeless quest,” one warrior insisted, implying rebellion in his firm stand. Balor knew that even the Elders could not overrule a consensus of the Watch. “Would you have us storm the Warlord’s Haven?” another of the warriors shouted. “The Qreq will someday return, and if you strip us of man and weapons, the House of Lahar shall be defenseless to their attack.”

  “If Toraq possesses Alcress then all your men and all your boats will be of no avail,” the Healer Coron said angrily, seeing that the warriors of the Watch would not budget from their defiance.

  But none of Coron’s arguments or pleading would change their minds. The Axe-Kith had seen no evidence of the Star Axe’s power, they asserted loudly. They had fought without it for a hundred generations, and they could fight without it for another hundred generations. If Alcress was as all-powerful as legend maintained, then Kenlahar would need no help from the Axe-Kith.

  Balor saw that he had been wrong. They would not follow him as a Companion, even to rescue the Axe- bearer himself. He began to make plans to go alone if need be. If he could help Kenlahar in no other way, he could at least keep his promise to look after Sanra. He had failed so far, but he could not now forsake his friends: Sanra, the quiet self-assured girl who had been the first, after Balor, to understand Kenlahar; Jonla, the confident, skilled scout, who had begun to teach Balor all he knew; Kalese, the girl of the swamps, who would be willing to give her life for his, and, most of all, Kenlahar, his first and strongest friend, and bearer of Alcress.

  “Captain Tolose,” he shouted. “I will not abandon the Axe-bearer and his Companions! I ask now, before all this company, for history to attend, and for Lahar to see—will you help me or no?”

  The Captain of the Watch seemed ashamed at that moment, but Balor saw that the answer would be no.

  The High Elder finally chose to speak. “You have a new addition to your fleet, Captain Tolose,” he said mildly. “Surely you will not object to yielding that?”

  “The Qreq warship?” Captain Tolose said in disbelief. But the disbelief quickly changed to relief as he saw a way to compromise. “The ship is so ponderous I would not have it among our fleet!” he said with scorn. The other warriors reluctantly agreed.

  “Then it will sail in the morning,” the High Elder decided. “The Companions will yet be reunited! In command I will place Balor, who has proven his steadfastness. The Lashitu, one of the last of the Companions, will go also. May Lahar give you good fortune!”

  The Council of Elders rose and filed off the dais—the audience was ended. The warriors of the Watch had no time to make any more objections to the expedition, and Balor made no attempt to ask for more help. At that moment, he was grateful for any aid.

  The next morning he glumly watched the loading onto the Qreq ship of a meager supply of provisions. He had been granted a skeleton crew to the man the giant vessel, and Balor suspected that he had been given the weakest of troops. Captain of the Watch Tolose had been right, Balor thought, as he surveyed his crew. It was foolish to send this token army into the Warlord’s Haven. There would be no escaping from Toraq’s wrath.

  The Healer Coron, who emerged from the House of Lahar just in time to see them off, interrupted his gloomy thoughts. “Do not despair, Balor!” the old man said, as if he had been reading Balor’s mind. “It is a noble quest, even if it fails. After all, the Warlord must not be allowed all the initiatives.”

  “It might be better if I went alone,” Balor said, having second thoughts.

  “Toraq will not believe that anyone would sail so boldly into his Haven. From what you have not told me of Kenlahar, I suspect the Warlord will be looking elsewhere.” The old man looked at Balor quizzically. “In this irony I find hope!”

  Balor regarded the old man, wondering—not for the first time—what he knew. Only the Healer Coron had showed to see them off. Balor had never before realized the lack of faith the family had in the prophecy of the Star Axe. Apparently, the Axedelve was no more than a meaningless ritual to most of them. But because of the Healer Coron’s teachings, Balor and Kenlahar had always believed wholeheartedly in all the legends.

  The loading had ended at last and there was no excuse for waiting any longer. Balor shrugged his shoulders and clasped the old man’s arm silently. Then he boarded the gangplank, shouting the orders to sail for Warlord’s Haven.

  CHAPTER X

  It was early morning, about a month after Kenlahar had reached Swamp’s End. The first snow of winter had fallen silently during the night. He reluctantly rose from his warm bed and hustled to the brick stove, which stood in the center of the small hut. Shivering, he sacrificed the last chips of wood. While he warmed himself, he glanced around the one room of the dwelling. Along the walls hung the Hermit’s dried herbs. Scattered about the room were the bowls and baskets with which the Hermit gathered and stripped the herbs. Mortar and pestle ground the leaves into a powder. Some was mixed into potions, and most was put into bottles. The fluids were contained in huge, earthenware pots along one floor against the walls.

  The Hermit would sit in a rickety, uncomfortable chair in the comer, surrounded by his paraphernalia and concocting his medicines. B
y now the floor was covered with a thousand different leaves and flowers, crushed under foot. The aroma of one plant would fill the room with pungent sweetness, another with bitterness, and others with odors hard to identify.

  The Hermit was finally asleep, after a long feverish night. He lay, tousled among the gatherings of blankets that Kenlahar had placed over him. The room heated up quickly, thanks to the solid layer of snow insulating the cabin. Kenlahar set about fixing himself a small meal of cheese and bread. The Hermit had recovered for a while after reaching his home, but had then fallen ill again.

  Kenlahar felt that he owed the Hermit his life. The Hermit had saved him when he was cold and hungry, and now it seemed that it was Kenlahar’s turn. So he stayed to attend the old Hermit until he was well. He was sure now that the Hermit, an ancient man, was dying. Nevertheless, Kenlahar was continuing to learn the language, and with the help of the Hermit, was learning even more of the art of healing with the use of herbs and roots. If the Hermit died, the world would lose its most knowledgeable herbalist, Kenlahar thought.

  Every day, for many years, the peasants who lived in this wild border country had come to the Hermit for the healing of almost any hurt or illness. Kenlahar had replaced the Hermit as best he could. Both had been able to teach the other new cures, but Kenlahar benefited most from the Hermit’s instructions from his sick bed. After having been chased across the Tream, the four rickety walls of the Hermit’s home gave Kenlahar a sense of security he was reluctant to leave behind. He was content to hold from his travels for a little while.

  This morning there were no patients to heal, and Kenlahar decided to do those chores he had been unable to do before. He grabbed a bucket from its hold in the wall and went out to gather water from the small spring a few hundred yards away. As he stepped onto the porch, he stretched in the illusory warmth of the winter sun. Looking over the small clearing, he felt peace in the stillness of the scene. Snow lay pure and unbroken from the stoop on into the horizon.