by David Drake
"Basilisk!" Merota shouted. She flung an apple at the creature. It bounced harmlessly away. The rest of the harvest fell to the ground.
Chalcus rolled to his feet. The creature leaped backward. The sailor was still off-balance so his sword notched the frill instead of skewering the long snake neck.
"My pardon!" the creature cried. It leaped onto a limb of the walnut tree; the stubby legs were as powerful as a frog's. "My pardon, I didn't realize you were Princes! The One hasn't added new Princes in an age of ages!"
Chalcus jumped upward, his sword flickering left to right. The creature sprang over the hedge and into the aisle beyond.
"I beg your pardon, fellow Princes…," it called, its voice trailing off behind its hidden flight.
"It was a basilisk!" Merota said, staring at the scars the creature's claws had left in the bark.
"What did it mean by calling us Princes?" Ilna said, trying not to gasp.
Chalcus shot his sword and dagger home in their sheaths. He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees to breathe deeply.
"What I'd like to know…," he said to the ground in front of him. "Is who the One is?"
***
It was so dark that Garric couldn't see his own hand at arm's length, but he knew they were being stalked. He didn't hear the predator, but changes in the sounds other marsh creatures made showed that something was disturbing them.
"Donria," Garric said quietly. He slid the axe out from under the sash that was his only garment for the time being. He hoped that mud he'd splashed on the grip wouldn't make it slippery. "Something's moving up on us from behind. I want you to take the lead, but don't make a fuss about it."
"You'd have made a good scout, lad," Carus whispered in his mind.
Perhaps, but what Garric had been was a shepherd. He'd learned to absorb his surroundings: the color of the sky and the sea, the way light fell on the leaves or the swirls of fog over the creek on cool mornings. Garric didn't exactly look for dangers. He simply noticed things that were different a few minutes ago or yesterday or last year.
He'd heard a shift in the pattern of trills, chirps and clicking. The little animals he and Donria'd disturbed were remaining silent after they were well past. Previously the chorus of frogs and insects had resumed as soon as they went on.
'There's a human following us, Garric," said the Bird. "His name is Metz, but you think of him as Scar. He's been lying in wait on the route Torag used to attack Wandalo's village twice in the past."
Garric stopped and straightened. He couldn't see a thing. Besides darkness, the rain was falling as it had more hours than not during the day. He and Donria'd been moving since they broke out of Torag's keep, and fatigue was taking a toll of him.
"Metz!" he called. "Scar! This is Garric! I've escaped from the Coerli and I'm here to help you!"
He'd come back to join Wandalo and his people, at any rate. He might or might not be able to help, but he was going to try.
Nothing happened for a moment; then Metz sloshed up from the darkness and came forward. He held what'd started as a fishing spear. A single hardwood spike now replaced the springy twin points intended to clamp a fish between them.
"How did you learn to speak our language?" he asked, obviously doubtful. Then, frowning in real concern he added, "And how did you see me? Nobody could've spotted me, not at night!"
"I listened to the frogs," Garric said. "I've spent a lot of time outdoors too."
He didn't say that he'd been a shepherd. That wouldn't have meant anything to Metz, since the only large animals he'd seen here were humans and their dogs.
The Bird landed on Garric's shoulder. Its feet were solid pressures, but the glittering creature didn't seem toweigh anything. "I am helping you speak to one another, but I can speak to you as well."
"Master Garric?" said Donria, "is this man the chief of the village?"
"No, the chief's named Wandalo," Garric said. "This is the man who found me when I came here from my own land."
"Wandalo's dead," Metz said. It was too dark for Garric to be sure of the hunter's features, but his voice sounded tired and worn. "Nobody's really chief now."
He turned to look back in the direction Garric had come from. "My uncles and I decided we'd better watch the way the Coerli came from," he continued. "Nobody else was willing to. If we don't have any warning, they'll keep snatching us up until nobody's left. I said I'd watch nights; I'm better at it than Abay or Horst."
Garric had thought a club hung from Metz' belt; it was actually a wooden trumpet. Garric looked at it and looked up at the man again. Metz might be able to hide from a raiding party as long as he kept silent, but as soon as he blew a warning on that trumpet the Coerli were going to kill him. Unless they captured him to torture at leisure at their keep.
"Well, what else could I do?" Metz said angrily. "Somebody had to watch!"
You could've done what the rest of the villagers did, Garric thought. Hide in your hut like a frightened rabbit till the cat men came to wring your neck for dinner.
Aloud he said, "The village must be close, then. We'll go there and call a town meeting. There's a way to deal with the Coerli if we stay together and work fast."
"Torag won't be coming tonight," the Bird said. "Nor tomorrow night, I think; but soon he will come. Garric will act before then."
Metz led the way sure-footedly through the marsh to the village gate. Donria had never been this way before, but she had less trouble with the slick wood rods of the catwalk than Garric did.
"Marzan said he was summoning a hero to destroy the Coerli," Metz said. "That's why my uncles and I were waiting for you-Marzan told us where you'd come. He's a great wizard. But you didn't seem…"
"I can't do much about the Coerli by myself," Garric said quietly. "With your help-the help of everybody in the village-I think there's an answer."
The village walls loomed up before them. Metz lifted the trumpet to his lips and blew a surprisingly musical tone, clear and wistful.
"Open the gates, Tenris," he called. "I've brought friends back with me."
"Is that you, Metz?" called a man from the gate platform. There'd been no sign that the guard had been aware of their presence, even though Garric thought he'd been slipping and splashing enough to wake the dead. "All right, I'm opening the gate."
"And call the villagers to assemble!" the Bird said in what would've been a tone of command if the words were audible. "We must prepare immediately."
"Who's that?" cried the guard in sudden alarm.
"Never mind, Tenris, it's a friend," Metz snapped. "And do as he says. The Bright Spirit knows we need all the friends we can get in these times."
Wood squealed on the platform and the bar shifted on the inside of the gate. There was apparently a lever and cord, a large-scale equivalent of the ordinary latch string. Metz pushed open one of the gate leaves, then lifted his trumpet and blew it again in harmony with the three blasts of the guard's deeper horn.
Lights, dim and yellow, began to wink through the fog. Villagers were lighting oil lamps from embers on their hearths. Garric heard a woman begin to wail in high-pitched despair.
"There is no danger," said the Bird, dropping down from the stockade to perch on Garric's shoulder. "You are not being attacked. You must assemble and do as Garric orders, because the Bright Spirit has sent him to save you."
Garric frowned and started to turn his head, but the Bird was too close for him to focus on it with both eyes. He faced front again and said quietly, "How many of the people in the village can hear you?"
"All of them," said the Bird with a hint of satisfaction. "Every one of them. But they will not follow me, Garric. They will followyou ."
That remains to be seen, Garric thought, but cynicism didn't suit him. Natural optimism lifted his spirits as he saw villagers coming toward the gate with whatever weapons had come to their hands. Just maybe…
The sky had brightened from pitch black to dark gray. That'd make it easier to addre
ss the villagers, though he still wasn't clear about what he was going to say. He grinned: maybe he could claim his arrival at dawn was a good omen.
"Get up on the platform where they can see you," Carus directed. "And make sure Metz comes with you. It'll work, lad."
It would or it wouldn't, but Garric was going to try regardless. "Come along, Metz," he said to the hunter. "We're going to tell them how to defeat the Coerli."
"How are we going to dothat?" Metz muttered, but he looked up and called, "Get down from there, Tenris. Me and the hero who Marzan brought us need the room."
Tenris dropped from the platform with real enthusiasm. "There's no chief," Metz had said; because nobody wanted the job in the face of inevitable disaster. The villagers were terrified, so anybody could become chief just by saying he wanted to lead.
Which was different from saying anybody would follow him; but maybe…
The ladder and platform were lightly built, but they weren't as flimsy as Garric had expected. The Grass People lacked arts that everybody in the Isles took for granted, but they had very highly developed skills nonetheless. Woodworking, including the ability to weave withies into solid structures, was among the latter.
"What's going on, Metz?" called one of a pair of husky men in the growing assembly below. It wasn't bright enough yet for Garric to be sure of faces, but the voice sounded like one of the men who'd met him-captured him-with Metz when he arrived in this land.
"Garric escaped from the Coerli," Metz said. "Nobody's ever done that. He's going to talk to us."
"He's the hero I summoned to save us!" cried Marzan. A girl of seventeen or so had been helping him along the path from his house, but now the old wizard stood with only his staff to support him. The feathered crown waggled on his head. "See how my foresight has been repaid?"
Well, not yet, thought Garric, but that was a good opening for him. In a loud voice he said, "People of the village. Fellow humans!"
That was a nice touch. He'd given enough speeches by now that he was getting the feel of the task.
"The Coerli can be defeated!" he said. "My return proves that. But we, the rightful owners of this world must act together and we must actnow. We must arm ourselves. I'll teach you the tactics I've used to kill cat men already. Instead of waiting for them to attack again, we'll go to them. Tomorrow evening we'll set out for Torag's keep, the chief who's been raiding you, so that we arrive at dawn. We will destroy Torag and free his human captives!"
"You're a demon, sent to destroy us all!" cried a woman. "Metz, come down here now! Better yet, throw that madman off the walls and close the gate!"
"That is Opann," said the Bird; to Garric alone, he supposed, though there was no way of telling. "She is Metz's wife. Her father was chief before Wandalo."
"The chief of my village was Paltin!" called Donria from the base of the ladder. "I am Donria who was Paltin's wife. Torag and his warriors came to us, snatching folk from the fields by day and entering our walls at night. At first they took a handful, then another handful. At the end wewere only a handful, and they took all of us but those they slew. Listen to Lord Garric!"
"Metz Scarface!" Opann said. "Get down here at once! The madman lies, and the foreign slut lies as well. Our only safety is to hide behind our walls. The cat men can't be killed!"
"I've killed them myself!" Garric said. "I killed two warriors the night they raided this village, and-"
He brandished the axe he'd taken from the Corl guard.
"-I killed another when I escaped to come here. Join me and together we can-"
"He lies!" Opann said. Was she simply frightened, or was she ignoring the Coerli threat in her concern about Garric becoming her husband's rival for leadership of the village? "No human can kill a cat man!"
"Some of you saw me do it!" Garric said. That probably isn't true in the darkness and confusion of the raid. And the Coerli carried off their dead… "Together we can-"
"You lie!" said Opann. "I-uhh!"
Donria stepped away from her. Opann fell forward as though her joints had all given way. The hilt of a knife projected from just beneath her rib cage. From the angle, it'd been driven upward through her left kidney. Wooden knives couldn't cut very well, but they'd take enough of a point to be good poignards…
"Duzi!" said Garric aloud. "Donria killed her!"
"What?" said Metz. Garric put his hand on his shoulder, but Metz didn't seem so much angry as confused. "What? Did that really happen?"
"Our only safety lies with Lord Garric," Donria called in a ringing voice. "He will save us if we give him complete obedience. He tore his way alone out of captivity, bearing me on his shoulders, and with our help he will destroy the monsters entirely."
"I, Marzan the Great, brought the hero from the far future to save us!" the wizard said. "My power and the hero's power will join to rout the cat men."
The old man's cracked voice wasn't loud, but the words were vivid and compelling in Garric's mind. He didn't doubt that the Bird was projecting them to the villagers as well.
"You are correct, Garric," the Bird said, adding an audible cluck of laughter.
"Abay?" Metz said. "You and Horst, you're with me, right?"
"Why, sure, Metz," one of the bulky men said. "You've always been able to see as far into a mudbank as the next fellow."
"Right," said Metz with satisfaction. "Idway, Mone, Granta? You men trust me too, don't you?"
"Well, I guess," a man said. "If you want to be chief, I'll back you, but yesterday you said you didn't. Didn't you?"
"Idon't want to be chief, that's right," Metz said. "But I want Garric here to be chief. He knows how to fight the Coerli and I sure don't. Does anybody want to argue that?"
The uncle who'd spoken before, Horst or Abay, turned to look back at the crowd. "You're arguing with me if you do," he said in a tone of low menace.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Unexpectedly Donria's clear voice called, "Chief Garric, I have a boon to ask of you. Grant me to your deputy Metz, the greatest of our warriors except yourself!"
Garric froze with his mouth open. Then he cried, "To Metz, the first of my warriors, I give Donria, a wife fit for a warrior and a chief. May they be happy together!"
Very quietly he added, "Metz, you may not always thank me, but you're better off with her than you'd be against her."
"And that," said the laughing ghost in Garric's mind, "is the truth if truth was ever spoken!"
***
Three-wick oil lamps hung from stands to Sharina's right and left. Before her on the long table spread reports and petitions. These ranged from a ribbon-tied parchment scroll in which the high priest of the Temple of the Plowing Lady objected in perfect calligraphy to the destruction of a shrine to the Lady by lime-burners, to a note scratched by those same lime-burners on a potsherd. The shrine's walls were brick and useless for their purpose, but the roof beams and the wooden statue itself had provided fuel to reduce lumps of limestone to fiery quicklime.
Sharina tossed the parchment to a clerk. The Temple of the Plowing Lady was on the spine of hills in the middle of the island. It, rather than one of the temples in Mona, was the head of the cult on First Atara.
"Request that they send a formal statement of damages to Lord Tadai for examination," she said. "Add the usual language about sacrifices in this hour of the kingdom's need."
Sharina slid the potsherd to a second clerk. "Noted and approved," she said, then paused to rub her eyes.
About a hundred documents remained. Long before she'd worked through them, messengers'd bring in that many more new ones. This was her third trio of clerks, but all they and the earlier shifts did was to transmit the decisions Princess Sharina alone could make. Sharina knew what Liane was doing now was necessary, but she remembered with wonder the smooth way in which this sort of task had vanished when Liane attended to it.
Lord Attaper had been talking with a messenger at the door of Sharina's suite. "Lady Liane's back, your highness," he sa
id quietly.
"Lady, you have blessed your servant," Sharina whispered. The prayer was heartfelt and spontaneous. Then, louder, "Send her in please, milord."
She knew that Liane would be as tired as she was, but at least they could talk for a moment. The thing Sharina missed most in being regent was the chance to chat with equals. Garric was gone and Cashel was gone; and Ilna as well, though Sharina'd always felt restraint with Ilna.
With Ilna you were always aware that you were talking to someone who judged herself by standards harsher than those of the most inexorable God. Sharina had to suspect that Ilna in her heart of hearts applied the same standards to everybody else as well, no matter how good friends they were.
Liane looked worn. Her clothes were smudged and wrinkled, and the suggestion of fatigue in her posture would've been visible a bowshot away.
Sharina embraced her friend, feeling a rush of sympathy. She was embarrassed to've complained-even silently-about the stream of work she herself faced.
"The plants retreated to the plain as the sun set," Liane said. "They'd carried the first line of earthworks and were starting to fill them in, but now they're just standing in a circle. Waldron's going to attack when the moon rises."
She slumped into a straight-backed chair beside the door. It was one of a set of four whose ornate bronze frames matched that of the bed. Sharina'd thought the chairs looked terribly uncomfortable. Perhaps they were, but Liane was too tired to mind.
"More of them came from the sea after you left, Sharina," she said. She pressed her fingertips together, then straightened with a noticeable effort of will. "More hellplants. Still, Waldron's hopeful that tonight's attack will destroy those already ashore, and if more appear tomorrow we should have the artillery with quicklime projectiles in position. So long as they become torpid at night, we should be able to contain the attacks for the time being."
Till the kingdom runs out of soldiers, Sharina translated silently. That would happen eventually, but not soon. Not for the time being.
She'd planned to ask Liane to help with the petitions, but that was obviously impractical. Though Liane would try, she was sure.
