by Angus Wells
He came up from the plains into the redrock country, where the land broke into barrens and all the comforting timber and grass gave way to wind-washed pines and dry bare stone that supported only moss and sorry grass that his horse complained to eat, and the streams ran rusty with the color of the soil. He pushed the animal and himself onward, both of them thinned, lean with travel, and passed through the redrock to the edge of the Meeting Ground.
Kinder country, in a way; and in another unkind, for it reminded him of all that had gone wrong at that Matakwa. He let his horse graze there, where the grass grew lush under the day’s sun and the thin light of the fading moon painted the stream silver. He could see where the Council fires had scorched the earth and the lodges of the People had stood, all of them together, and wondered if he had seen the last Gathering. He prayed it not be, but that the Maker grant him insight and the People come back to the Ahsa-tye-Patiko and live again in harmony.
He got no answer and wondered if he was only vain in his quest.
“And if I am,” he said, prompting the paint horse to glance up a moment from its grazing, “then I suppose I shall pay the price. I suppose I shall go up there and die.”
He looked to where the Maker’s Mountain loomed amongst the lesser peaks and could not decide whether it was promise of fulfillment or death. It seemed larger without the company of the People around him, a vast, stark pinnacle that stabbed the sky and dared him to climb its flanks. It would be hard going: he knew he could not take the horse much farther and must ascend that height alone and afoot. He might tumble down into a ravine, or fall beneath a rockslide.
“Or starve,” he told himself aloud. “Or freeze, must I wait so long. But …” He made obeisance to the Maker. “Wait I shall, for the one thing or the other.”
He felt no other choice.
Five days he waited on the edge of the lonely Meeting Ground. The horse fattened and he had deer meat and rabbits to sustain him. Then he mounted the horse and rode it as far as it could climb into the foothills. He thought the Grannach likely knew easier trails, but he lacked their help and must find his own way, up where none of the People—save, perhaps, Rannach and Arrhyna—had gone before. Then, where rock tumbled down like frozen stone water, and precipitous slopes of treacherous shale spilled loose from cliffs fragmented by time, he took the saddle off the horse, and the bridle, and turned the animal loose.
He felt sorry to part with the beast, and hoped it find its way back down to the good grazing. He shouldered it round to face the down-slope and slapped its rump. The horse snorted in surprise and kicked a little, then swung its head to study him. The dark eyes seemed to accuse him.
He said, “I am sorry. You’ve served me faithfully, and I wish you well; but now I must go where you cannot. So …”
He slapped its rump again. The horse squealed and danced some few steps away, then halted again, looking at him. He took a shard of rock from amongst the shale and threw it.
The horse snickered and shook its head, then trotted off.
Morrhyn watched it go, a second piece of stone ready in his hand, but the horse appeared to have accepted its freedom and did not look back again. It went on down the narrow trail until it disappeared around a curving wall of reddish sunlit rock.
He felt very alone then. It seemed the breeze blew louder, whistling amongst the cliffs and crags, taunting him. He studied the heights above, and they seemed to radiate back a challenge. He felt small and afraid, and picked up those things he thought he could carry: a bearskin and his blanket, a weight of meat, a lariat; not much else. The saddle was useless now, and he left it, together with the bow and the quiver of arrows. Then he slung his makeshift pack across his back, secured it in place, and he began to climb.
Dusk caught him like a fly on a sheer rockface and he felt a terrible dread that he must lose his grip and fall, but he thought he had seen a cleft above and he willed himself to reach it, promising himself it be there.
It was, and that night he lay uncomfortable between narrow cliffs listening to the nightwind sing its sad song. He chewed on meat not quite properly cured and drank a little water. He wondered if he had slept when the sun touched his face, and crawled deeper into the cleft, seeking a path upward. He heard ravens calling overhead and wondered if they spoke to one another of the fool who dared the mountains alone, whose flesh they would soon pick. He found a place where stone had cracked and afforded him handholds, and climbed out onto a flank of the mountains where the sun warmed him and the wind blew out his hair and he looked out across a place where crag rose above crag and the Maker’s Mountain lofted over all. He bowed to that monument and made obeisance to the Maker and then fixed his gaze on the pinnacle and went on.
He clambered like some atavistic thing that knew only its progress toward its goal, like a blind crawling creature seeking the source of heat, or a newborn pup mewling and struggling toward the bitch’s teat, aware only of hunger’s imperative. His hands grew bloodied, but he ignored the pain as he ignored the aching of his muscles and the nails that broke, or the sharp stones that stabbed him. He climbed: up cliffs and down slopes that set his head to spinning. He stumbled across ravines and over slides of shale that moved and shifted loose as the water of the streams he waded, too numb to know their chill. He fell and was bruised, and paid the aches no heed. He saw desolations of ravens swoop overhead, and lofty eagles spin circles in the sky. Sometimes he saw bighorn sheep watching him, their progress far surer than his across the rock. He slept by fires when he could find wood and cold when he could not. He became aware his supply of meat dwindled, and that the Moon of Cherries Ripening gave way to the Moon of Ripe Berries. His shirt and breeches grew tattered as his skin. Only resolution remained: the Maker’s Mountain stood before him and he would reach it.
Almost, he forgot why; but always that peak stood proud against the sky and he went on, cold and hungry and blindly, until he had conquered the lesser obstacles and stood on the downslopes of his goal.
He looked up then and thought he must, truly, be mad.
The mountain rose majestic. Pristine, it touched the sky, and from where he rested he could not see its topmost heights, which were all lost in union with the heavens. He could only wince, his eyes dazzled by the great sweeping flanks of snow-clad rock that shone and glittered under the sun.
He crouched, shivering and small, awed by the mountain and what he thought to dare. No man could brave that: vanity and pride had driven him to this lost quest. Dreamless, he had sunk into insanity, attempting what no man had any right to attempt. He was less than an insect under that height: he was a presumption, insulting the Maker with his sorry presence.
But he was there, he had come thus far; so he began to climb again. And on the second day, when he felt no longer any pain or the absolute chill that pervaded his bones down to the marrow and he thought his teeth must break and shard for the drum-rattle chattering of his jaw, he found a cave.
He could scarce believe it, even as he crawled inside. It was a deep hole running back smooth-walled into the mountain. Moss grew on the walls and glowed as the sun went down and twilight overtook the slopes. It was warmed by a spring that bubbled up from a natural well, the water hot and pungent to the taste. He drank and thanked the Maker for the refuge, then spread his blanket and drew his bearskin over him and settled to sleep.
And that night he dreamed.
21 Terrible, Swift Sword
Colun rested his weight on the ax’s haft as Baran chanted the wyrd. He felt mightily tired, as much in his soul as in his bones, and the golan’s droning song sounded almost a lullaby. It would be a fine thing, he thought, to lie down and close his eyes, to sleep awhile. But there was likely no time for that, save he sleep forever. The strangeling invaders pressed too hard, and for all the golans’ labors, there would be fresh battles ere long. Baran might close this tunnel, but it was not the only passage, and there were passes, clefts, and ravines the invaders would surely find and look to cross. Already they
penetrated deeper into the Grannach fastnesses than any had believed possible, and did they reach the heartland … He grunted, rejecting that horrid contemplation. They must not! It was simple as that. It should be a turning of the world on its head, all topsy-turvy, and the Maker, surely, would not allow that.
Save … Was the natural order not already become disorder? Was the balance of the world not already thrown awry? These creatures had appeared from nowhere to conquer the Whaztaye, and now they broached the Grannach fastnesses, the sacred hills, like floodwater gushing into every cavity and channel of the mountains, seeping ever deeper, relentless as passing time or the grinding of stone. Could anything halt them?
He knew they could die—his bloody, blunted ax was proof of that—but hard, and they were so many; and the forces they wielded, the strangeling creatures they commanded … He spat rock dust at the memory and pushed it away. They could be slain: that was the important thing. And the Grannach were chosen by the Maker to keep the hills, and would not abandon that trust.
He shook his head, denying fatigue, and raised himself, lifting his ax to study the blade. The edge was dented, the clean metal fouled with the blood of beasts and men—if these invaders were men—and he took a cloth and spat and began to wipe away the foulness before taking out a whetstone and honing back a killing edge.
He achieved a satisfactory sharpness before he realized Baran’s chant had ceased and rose quickly as the golan came running back. A wave of sound trailed the Stone Shaper, and Colun shook his head as pressure throbbed against his ears. Baran went past him and he began to trot after the Shaper, unable to resist a swift backward glance. There was a terrible rumbling, a wash of dust from which emerged a brief tongue of darting fire, then more solid, sharper fragments of the mountain hurled down the tunnel and the air was thick and filled with roiling darkness as the passage filled with all the mountain’s terrible weight of stone.
The two Grannach crouched in the lee of a turn, their backs to the dusty, missile-filled gust, both deaf awhile as the mountain fell on the invaders. When the air was a little cleared they ventured out, and behind them stood a wall of solid rock. From it, like a questing hand, thrust a clawed, scaled paw all set with knifelike talons.
“Ha!” Baran grinned, wiping dirt from his beard, spitting dust and fragments of rock. “Some few died there, eh? That’ll teach them!”
“Them perhaps,” Colun allowed. “But the rest?”
Baran grunted, slapping at his tunic so that more dust rose. “The Maker knows.” He shrugged. “I do what I can. Like you.”
Colun spat dirt from his mouth. “Some say I delivered this.” Curious, he walked back to the rockfall to study the scaled paw. “That bringing Rannach and Arrhyna to the mountains was defiance of the Order.”
“I know, and I say—sheepshit!” Baran spoke thickly, a finger inserted in his mouth to scrub out the dirt of his rockfall. “No Javitz says such a thing, and the rest are fools. Whatever these creatures are, they came against us before that. And what difference can two flatlanders make?”
Colun shrugged, answerless.
“These creatures”—Baran leant closer to study the paw extending from the rockfall—“looked to our hills before you brought our guests. What they are, I’ve no idea—nor any other golan—but I tell you, you’re not to blame for their coming. Those two in the valley are refugees. What difference can they make save we renege our duty to the Maker by refusing them sanctuary?”
“I don’t know.”
Baran wiped his hand against his tunic as if contact with the massive paw might have befouled him, and clapped Colun on the shoulder. “The world turns strange, my friend; and when that happens, folk look for easy answers. Blame this one, they say; blame that one. If Colun had not brought the flatlanders to our mountains, we’d be safe. Pah! Perhaps if Kratz had not lured Danske’s daughter away, we’d be safe. Perhaps if Ogen had not fought Kyr, we’d be safe. Perhaps if the Maker had not put us down here, we’d be safe. Forget them and their foolish talk! What is is; and we must deal with what comes against us sooner than look for folk to blame.”
Colun smiled. “But still some speak of sending the flatlanders back,” he said. “And that should mean Rannach’s death. I’d not see that: he’s Racharran’s son, and I’ve a certain fondness for him.”
“No Javitz speaks so,” Baran said. “And they live in a Javitz valley, no?”
“Yes,” Colun said, and glanced back, toward the rockfall. “But how long shall they be safe there?”
“So long as we are safe in our mountains,” Baran replied, and chuckled. “Hopefully long enough they can brew this tiswin you speak of. I’d taste that brew.”
“You shall,” Colun promised. And then, softer: “If there’s time for its brewing.”
Baran nodded, not speaking, and they went back along the quickhewn tunnel to where it emerged on a face of precipitous stone, the egress so low only a Grannach might pass easily through. Beyond was a narrow shelf without a wall, rounded and sloped about its edges, the drop so deep it should hopefully break and destroy even the invaders’ weirdling beasts; and if not, then the base was all set with jagged boulders.
The golans had worked hard since first the invaders entered the secret ways. All the Grannach had worked hard: they were the defenders, the wardens of the boundaries the Maker set about the world.
Below was a ravine walled tall at either end with tumbled stone, high shelves above all piled with boulders that might be pushed down on any strangelings trapped in the gulch. It was bright now, the sun directly overhead, spilling mellow light down the rockfaces so that they shone all warm as winter blankets.
Save, Colun thought, that they were blankets layered over sharp teeth that would bite and snag the unwary.
He followed Baran down the precipitous stairway that wound leftward of the shelf: more of the golans’ hurried work and none too smooth, but surely too narrow for the invaders’ beasts to find a footing there. It ran steep awhile, then curved beneath a ledge and ended on a tunnel. They went inside.
Like all the golans’ workings, the passage was lit by the stone magic, the rock itself glowing, curving, and turning with spurs like jagged daggers thrusting out so that even the two Grannach must duck and weave to avoid the serrated nubs and thrusts of the mountains’ intestines. Colun could not imagine how any of the invaders’ great beasts might pass such a maze, but neither could he resist thinking of the high passes and the lofty valleys, the wider tunnels. He felt a terrible dread that somehow none of these defenses should prove enough, and the stragelings come through the hills like floodwater remorselessly seeking out all the small and indefensible crannies and cracks until it spills through and drowns all before it.
He shook off the feeling as the passage turned upward and curved and then ran down and curved again, emerging on a ledge above the Javitz home-cavern. The shelf there was walled, and warded. Young Grannach stood guardians about the entrance, armored and armed with axes, hook-billed pikes, and long spears, proud in their shining new armor. Not one had yet seen an invader, and all were eager to fight. Colun felt a terrible pride and a terrible sadness as he answered their salutes.
“They’re young,” Baran whispered as they went down the winding stairway, “and you’re their creddan. They’d join you in battle, in honor. The young are like that—all brave and bloodthirsty. Were you not the same when you were young?”
“Ach!” Colun shook his head, sighing. “Was I? I cannot remember.”
“You fought hard enough against the Kraj,” Baran said. “At least, as best I remember. When Janzi brought his men against us …”
Colun silenced his friend with a weary hand. “That was then and, yes, I was young: I thought battle was glorious and honorable. Now I know better. And I know we face no such enemy as Janzi, but something worse. Far worse.” He halted, resting his hands on the parapet of the descending stairway so that he might look out across the vast cavern below. “Look; what do you see?”
&n
bsp; Baran said, “Home. The Javitz caves. Brave folk, worth defending.”
“Yes.” Colun nodded, then reached up to unlatch his helm. He dropped it at his feet and ran weary hands through his thatched and sweaty hair. “Brave folk: my folk, and yours. I am their creddan; they follow me. Sometimes I think they follow me like sheep, and perhaps even to the slaughter.”
Baran frowned and asked, “What do you say?”
Colun shook his head. “I’m not sure. I know that these strangelings come against us and I am vowed to fight them. But the Kraj say that I bring the invaders on us because I side with the flatlanders. The Genji agree and the rest stand aloof.”
“The Kraj would claim that,” Baran said, “and the Genji? They are like mating worms, all wound together. But they still fight the invaders. As do the rest.”
“Because the invaders trespass on our mountains.” Colun’s arm swept wide, indicating the vast cavern below, the mountains above. “But if they went by? If they passed through our lands into Ket-Ta-Witko and left us alone? I think some would allow that.”
“No!” Baran shook his head, vigorous enough dust flew loose in a could, and chips of stone. “Perhaps the Kraj, the Genji, because of the old memories, but surely not the Basanga or the Katjen.”
“Perhaps not.” Colun set his elbows on the parapet and rested his chin on his hands, staring morosely at the cavern, at the serried ranks of houses that climbed the walls like honeycombs to where the topmost curvature of the vast cave swung over like some rocky sky to meet the rising houses on the farther side, the roadways between climbing up the walls and dangling in the moss-lit air between like spiderweb ladders. And down the middle, where the cave flattened, a stream there all boundaried with chuckling children and women washing. “But I thought that of the flatlanders. I thought that when I brought them news of the invaders they’d surely rally, but what happened? They fell to fighting amongst themselves!”
