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The Sage

Page 37

by Christopher Stasheff

The high priest shouted encouragement to his pet. The snake seemed not to hear him, though, for slowly, ever so slowly, its fangs folded as its mouth closed. So did those of its mates.

  Lua's dance became more sinuous, her voice building heat. Yocote began to move to her rhythm very slightly, the sweat rolling down his face, and the look in his eyes was hunger and yearning. The snakes began to show something of the same appetite themselves, two of them turning to gaze at the third.

  Suddenly, Kitishane understood. Two of the snakes were male, the other female! And Lua's voice was becoming heavy with desire. Kitishane blinked; surely she must be wrong, she thought. Surely there was not really a faint green haze surrounding the little woman!

  But the snakes seemed to lose interest in her as they gained interest in one another. The males undulated toward the female.

  The high priest shouted, nearly screeching.

  Suddenly, the two males seemed to see each other. Mouths yawned, emitting long hisses. They poised to spring—

  Lua sang more loudly, and the aura about her deepened, becoming more blue than green, then blue indeed.

  The snakes' eyes glazed; their fangs folded again, their mouths closed. They appeared to forget one another and turned back to the female.

  The female had begun to writhe, undulating slowly in time to Lua's music. Her curving grew, and the males slid up next to her, one to either side, matching her undulations and her rhythms.

  The priest screamed in rage; his assistants joined him. They came striding down to their erstwhile staves, raising their hands and chanting. The companions could understand only the repeated name, “Bolenkar!”

  A red aura sprang up about the three snakes. They stilled, then turned cold eyes on Lua.

  Yocote grasped his dagger and braced himself. Kitishane raised her bow.

  But Lua's chant deepened; they heard her call, “Rahani!” Other than that, her sounds seemed hardly words at all, but she called again, “Rahani!”

  The blue aura seemed to stream from her, from her and out to envelope the snakes. Sparks shot as it touched the red aura; then the two mingled, deepened, becoming a purple that lightened to lavender.

  The snakes began to twine about one another.

  The high priest howled and drew a long and curving knife. He swung it high ...

  Kitishane shouted.

  The priests looked up—and saw an arrow pointed at their chief. Beside the archer stood Culaehra, panting, but lifting his sword, the sword that had fought Singorot to a draw.

  The curving knife froze, poised.

  Lua's voice thickened with passion. The snakes wrapped about one another so tightly that they seemed to be only one writhing, interlocked mass.

  Face dark with anger, the high priest bellowed a chant. His assistants joined in.

  The three snakes turned back into wood.

  Lua stopped dancing and glared accusation at the priest. He snarled in return and leaped at her, the curved knife sweeping down.

  Chapter 28

  Yocote shouted, leaping forward; Kitishane loosed her arrow; but Lua was faster than them all, streaking forward to catch up the huge triple staff, which must surely have weighed twice as much as she herself, and the green aura glowed about her again as she whirled to strike the high priest on the side of the head with the huge, knobbed, triple head.

  The man dropped like a stone as Kitishane's arrow caught one of the younger priests in the hip. The other stood, staring in shock, as Lua dropped the staff, beholding the dead priest. She stood trembling, eyes unreadable behind her goggles, then fell to her knees, face in her hands, sobbing.

  Yocote was at her side in an instant, folding her in his arms.

  Kitishane stepped up behind the two, glaring defiance at the whole Vanyar horde, another arrow nocked and ready.

  The two remaining priests fell to their knees, the one groaning and the other crying out, but both with the same words. Masana turned to the companions, smiling, and spoke.

  “She says they will turn away from Bolenkar,” Yusev translated. “He is weaker than Lomallin and Rahani. She says they call Lomallin to protect them.”

  Culaehra nodded. “Thank you, Yusev.” He stepped forward, sheathing his sword and holding up his hand, palm open, toward Singorot. After a moment the Vanyar chieftain pressed his own palm against Culaehra's.

  * * *

  Fortunately, the Darians had some spare knives of excellent workmanship that made ideal goodwill gifts for the Vanyar. The barbarians, not to be outdone, pressed several battle-axes on the nomads. They parted with declarations of goodwill.

  “We will carry word of these events to all the Vanyar,” Masana told them. It was no promise, but only a statement of fact. “We shall turn the Vanyar from their mission of death to the worship of life.” She smiled. “I thank you for all of this.”

  “We thank you, for your courage and persistence,” Kitishane returned. “May we meet again, as allies.”

  “May we meet again,” Masana echoed, and turned away to mount a wagon that carried women and household goods. She turned back to raise a hand in farewell, and so did most of the dozen other women in the wagon.

  Culaehra noted that. As they rode away he asked Kitishane, “You and Lua have been busy talking among the women, have you not?”

  “It was not so hard,” Kitishane said breezily. “Lua taught me the words to say, and they answered one another's questions.”

  Yusev lowered his hand from a farewell wave, then turned to Culaehra with a knot of nomad warriors behind him. In the patois they had developed, he accused, “We saw, Culaehra! We saw you aim your blade at his hip, not his head! We know the sharpness of your blade, we know that it could have shorn his sword at the hilt!”

  “We have seen you move with twice, three times the speed you showed him!” a warrior claimed.

  “Aye,” another said, “and strike with two and three times that force, too!”

  “Speak truly, Culaehra,” Yusev said. “You could have slain that Vanyar in a matter of minutes, could you not?”

  “Yes, but do not let it be noised abroad.” Culaehra kept his voice low, as if Singorot were ten feet away. “None knows this except yourselves—and Singorot, of course.”

  “You mean that his tribesmen know it not? Of course, but why did you do it?”

  “If I had killed him, we would have had a blood-feud on our hands, and they never would have turned away from Bolenkar. Have I not won a greater victory this way?”

  “Yes, I see,” Yusev admitted, though Culaehra could tell the words had a bad taste in his mouth. “What lasting good will it do, though? Will not Bolenkar simply have this whole tribe slain for treachery?”

  But Yocote stepped up, shaking his head. “Be sure they are not such great fools as to send an emissary to Bolenkar to tell him they abjure his worship.”

  “But he will know when he does not hear them pray! He will know when he feels that a priest of his is dead!”

  “Bolenkar is not a god, to know such things without being told,” Yocote said severely. “I do not doubt that a few of these Vanyar will stay loyal to him, or that they will send one of their number to another high priest, who will send report to Bolenkar—but by that time the new ideas I have told Masana will have passed from mouth to mouth, not through this tribe alone, but through many other Vanyar tribes.”

  “I see.” Yusev's eyes widened. “Once the truth has spread so far as that, Bolenkar will never be able to stop it, no matter how many he slays!”

  “And if he does slay many in trying to stanch it,” Kitishane said, “the Vanyar will know him for the tyrant he is.”

  “Yes, yes! But not all the Vanyar will accept this news and turn from Bolenkar.”

  “True,” Yocote said, “and that will cause fighting within the ranks, Vanyar against Vanyar.”

  “Which will weaken them further, and make them less able to fight! Most excellent, Yocote!”

  “At the very least, none of our folk have been slain or e
ven wounded,” Culaehra explained, “and our strength is still full, to meet whatever foe we next encounter.”

  Yusev turned to Culaehra again. “But you did not think of all that when you drew out the fight and refrained from slaying that slogger, did you?”

  “No,” Culaehra admitted, “though I suspect that Kitishane did.”

  “Kitishane! You withheld your hand only because she told you to?”

  Culaehra looked into their eyes and saw that their opinion of him wavered in the balance, for how could they respect a chieftain who only took orders from another? “Who among you will not heed the words of your shaman?” he asked.

  Their heads snapped up; furtive glances sought out Yusev, who frowned and returned the glances.

  “Is Kitishane a shaman, then?” one warrior asked.

  “No, but she has a kind of magic all her own,” Culaehra told them. “I have never known her to give bad counsel. I did as she advised, not only because I trusted her, but also because I sought to avoid as much bloodshed as possible.”

  “You, the hero, thought of avoiding bloodshed?” a warrior demanded. So did the others.

  “Oh, yes,” Culaehra said softly. “Be assured, if I call upon you to risk your lives in battle, it will be because I see no other way.”

  Onward they marched, eastward still. They encountered other tribes; some they fought; with others they were able to parley or bargain. Yocote conferred with their shamans, and from almost every tribe they gained at least a dozen recruits. Where they were able to succor those who were threatened by other tribes of Vanyar, they gained whole clans, who traveled with them as much for protection as to aid in battle.

  They bypassed the cities of the Land Between the Rivers where they could, and fought the armies of those who sought to stop them. There were no shamans here to listen to word of Lomallin and Rahani; they had been slain by Bolenkar's priests, and only the raven-masked ones counseled their people. Culaehra fought three more duels, but with no hope of winning new friends. When they had chased the city-folk back behind their walls, though, many of the farm-folk who dwelled around the city came to join them. These Yocote and Yusev interrogated sharply, wary of spies—but as Kitishane pointed out, it mattered little; surely Bolenkar was aware of their coming.

  They passed beyond the eastern river, where the land rose to a high plateau. Now they began to meet monsters, giant misbegotten mixtures of animal and reptile, of insect and even plant. They dealt with them easily, for they never traveled in numbers— but they lost a few warriors.

  They replaced them, though, from the villagers who toiled under the lash of Bolenkar's soldiers. Those troops were never great in numbers; the allies defeated them easily, and villagers thronged to swell their ranks—in gratitude and, frequently, in search of revenge. Many shamans joined them, closely coordinated by Yocote with Lua by his side; oddly, the shamans seemed to feel there was no loss of face in hearkening to gnomes, since everyone knew they were too weak to be able to rule. The two developed amazing persuasive abilities. Together, the shamans called game small and large to their armies every night—game that had to travel for days to come to them. Others planted grain each evening, chanting spells; in the morning it was ready to harvest. Thus they traveled through the land without despoiling it and came to the eastern mountains without arousing the enmity of the people who dwelled in the plateau.

  So by the time they began to climb the winding trails up into the foothills of the eastern mountains, their army was nearly ten thousand strong. Soldiers appeared to roll boulders down upon them, but the massed shamans caused the huge rocks to swerve around the army or, in many cases, to roll back upon those who sought to push them. Bolenkar's priests appeared, chanting spells to bring down the hillside in an avalanche—but Lua set her hands against the earth and, with her gnome's magic, bade it remain still. Thus they climbed higher and higher, chopping their way through skirmish parties and monsters, always wary at every turn of the path, until they finally came out at the top of the ridge. There, they looked down upon a valley with a hill rising from it, and upon that hill, Bolenkar's citadel, Vildordis. But they also discovered the reason Bolenkar's army had not fought them in force before, for monsters roamed the hillsides, and the valley floor was filled with campfires and tents.

  “Bolenkar has summoned all the Vanyar here to stop us!” Yocote cried, staring down in horror.

  “All the Vanyar, yes,” Kitishane returned. “Perhaps Masana is among them.”

  Yocote looked up, startled at the thought. Then he began to smile.

  Yusev called out something in his own language, and a young woman hurried up next to him. He asked a question; she frowned, staring down at the horde in the valley below, then answered. Yusev smiled and reported, “She says she sees knots of people sitting around campfires, each listening to someone who gestures often. She also sees other knots of men who argue fiercely.”

  “No knots of women arguing with each other?”

  “None.”

  “I am not surprised.” Kitishane turned to Lua. “Would any woman choose Bolenkar's way over Lomallin's, sister?”

  “Not freely, no,” Lua replied.

  “Masana has been as good as her word,” Yocote said, grinning. “She has converted many of her tribe, and they have gone among the other Vanyar to preach.”

  “How many will fight for Bolenkar?” Culaehra asked.

  “All, if his monsters and his soldiers stand ready to slay any who turn back.” Yocote stepped up atop a rock. “Let us see if we can forestall that.” He spread his hands and began to chant. Yusev looked up in surprise, then grinned and spread his hands, too, chanting in unison with Yocote.

  “See two men argue angry,” the Darian woman said, her accent so strong it was barely understandable. “See one hit other. Other hit back. Them fight.”

  She went on to report the events. Here and there throughout the horde fighting broke out. The men around the fighters took sides, then began to join the fight. The fighting grew and grew, spreading out like ripples in a pond.

  Yocote lowered his arms and jumped down off the boulder. “Let it work, like yeast in beer.” His eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

  But Kitishane frowned. “Bolenkar cannot ignore this.”

  “He never could,” Yocote replied. “It has only escaped his notice till now.”

  “What will he do when his spies bear him word?”

  The answer came quickly. The monsters on the hillsides turned, roaring, and started to descend. The gates of the citadel opened, and a hundred more came loping and flapping down—came lopards and manticores, harpies and chimeras, dire wolves and other monsters too bizarre to name. They descended on the Vanyar, roaring, and tore into the rear of the horde even as their kindred were running down the valley sides. Vanyar screamed as huge claws ripped them apart, roared in anger of their own just before serrated teeth tore them apart.

  Then the whole horde jolted into realization—with help from Yocote's and Yusev's spells, of course. They stopped their fighting, staring in horror.

  Then, with a vast shout, they turned on the monsters. Battle-axes waved, rose, and fell as a hundred humans fell upon each monster, and the shouting took form, becoming words: “Lomallin! Rahani! Lomallin! Rahani!”

  Culaehra sucked in his breath. “I must give these Vanyar their due. They are brave.”

  The monsters began to retreat. A score of them lay dead.

  The gates of the citadel opened again, and soldiers poured out.

  Down the hill they came and struck into the churning mass of Vanyar, straight between two monsters and the men who fought them. Some stopped to attack the men from the back; the Vanyar turned with howls of rage and struck. Most of the soldiers, though, plowed on into the Vanyar horde as far as they could.

  They neared the center before they bogged down. There they spread out, slashing and hacking, leaving a sort of channel behind, walled by soldiers fighting Vanyar. More soldiers came running into that channel and joi
ned in; the pool of fighting spread and spread again.

  “The fools, to set themselves to be surrounded!” Culaehra cried.

  “The better for us,” Yusev told him. “We need only watch, and battle with whatever is left.”

  “Stand ready for that,” Lua told him, and caught Yocote's hand. “Come, shaman! If that castle stands on a hill, surely there must be a way to it through the earth!”

  Yocote frowned, then knelt and set his hands to the ground, beginning to chant. Lua knelt by him, singing a song of her own. The only familiar word was a name: Graxingorok.

  “Behind you!” Kitishane gasped.

  “What moves?” Yocote asked, then went back to chanting.

  “A stone! It rolls . . . There is a cave! Something moves within that cave! It is a stone, but it walks!”

  Yocote whipped about.

  The “stone” stood twice his height, almost to Culaehra's belt, but its arms were long and thickly banded with muscle, as was all its body. Its skin was gray and rough, as if it were stone indeed, but its beard and hair were almost black. “Who calls by the name of my kinsman?” it asked in a voice like the rattle of falling pebbles. “Who calls by Earth?”

  “Yocote of the gnome-folk, O Dwarf,” the little shaman replied.

  “Are you he who aided Graxingorok?”

  “I am,” Yocote answered. “We all are.”

  “Then ask. We owe. I am Tegringax.”

  “I am Yocote; these are Lua, Kitishane, and Culaehra.” Yocote indicated his companions with a sweep of his hand. “We seek your help in fighting those who hold that keep yonder.” He pointed to Bolenkar's castle.

  The dwarf frowned, not even bothering to look. “Is there any true chance you might slay them?”

  “Step forward, Culaehra,” Yocote commanded. “Touch his sword, O Tegringax.”

  Culaehra did as he was bade, frowning in puzzlement. The dwarf set his stony hand on Corotrovir. His eyes flew open in astonishment. “This sword was forged by Ohaern!”

  “Forged by Ohaern, for the purpose of killing Bolenkar,” Yocote agreed. “Touch his armor.”

 

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