by Zach Hughes
"Rise," Duwan ordered. "There is no need to kneel to me." The tall one rose, stepped forward. "Master, we wish no harm to you, nor to anyone."
The newcomers had no weapons other than the obviously inferior bows.
"Who are you?" Duwan asked.
"We are free runners. I am Tambol, called The Hunter, for the accuracy and strength of my bow."
"Let me see the bottom of your foot." Duwan said, stepping closer, both hands still filled with his bloodied weapons.
Tambol did not look surprised. He stood on one leg and lifted his left foot. Duwan saw the telltale pores. "Are the others like this?"
"How, Lord?"
"With the small, dark pores, thus," Duwan said, brushing the sole of Tambol's foot with the tip of his longsword.
"I—I—don't know," Tambol said.
"Have them sit upon the ground and lift their feet," Duwan ordered, and it was done, and he saw the pores on all and then stood, facing them.
"You have escaped the slave pens of the enemy?"
"Only a few living have," Tambol answered. "Most are sons of those who escaped long ago."
"Are you many?" Duwan asked.
"No, not many, Master," Tambol said.
"And do you kill the Enemy?"
Tambol shivered. "No, Master. In fact, we must run from this place, but first we must bury the masters, and their sniffers, hoping that they will never be found, for to kill a master brings the army of Farko. This has not happened in my lifetime, but once it did, and only a few free runners survived."
Duwan looked thoughtfully at the sky. Du was nearing the midpoint.
"Do it, then," he said. He walked to the slope and called up to Jai, who descended nervously. The runners were busying themselves in digging. Tambol, seeing Jai, came hurrying to bow before Duwan and cast suspicious glances at the female.
"This is a pong female, Master," Tambol said.
"This is a Drinker female," Duwan said.
"She was being chased by the masters with sniffers," Tambol said. "We are in great danger. We must run, and we will have to abandon our homes to flee farther into the west."
"I escaped long ago," Jai said. "Those whom my master killed were not chasing me, but him."
"Master," Tambol said, "I know not who you are. Now I think you are Devourer, and again not. You are mighty, and I beg your mercy. There are those among us who fear that you are a pong-catcher, and that your actions are designed to trick us, to influence us to lead you to our homes so that all free runners may be taken to be peeled on the stakes of Farko."
"He came from the earth," Jai said, "as in the prophesy of old." Tambol's eyes widened.
"It is true," Jai said. "For as he grew from the earth like a divine flower I guarded him, and even kept him from being devoured by a farl. Is this not true, master?"
Duwan hid a smile. "It is true."
Tambol bowed low. As the digging to hide the bodies of the Devourers had begun, he had received much whispered advice. "We must kill him," he'd been told. "Obviously he is a Devourer," another had said. "That he has not killed us means nothing. He waits to ensnare all, our females, our young."
"And who will face one who can kill four masters with such ease?" Tambol had asked.
"All will leap upon him at once," someone said.
"And many will die," Tambol had said.
Now the bodies were buried, branches had been used to erase tracks and the signs of struggle, and the free runners were moving uneasily toward the point where Duwan and Jai faced Tambol. Tambol turned to face his fellows. "We will run swiftly now," he said, "to put distance between us and this place of death."
Duwan and Jai found it easy to keep the pace set by Tambol. Behind them, however, the weaker members began to straggle, so that when Tambol called a halt, in a hidden valley where there was water, it took some time for all twenty of the free runners to join the main group.
"Now I will speak to you," Duwan said, standing on a rock beside the stream. "You need not fear me. I am Drinker, and I come from far to the north. There we, too, are free. I am not of the Enemy." He lifted one foot.
"Look. See the small, black pores that mark the Drinker, then examine your own feet. We are of a blood, you and I. There are secrets I will tell you, secrets hidden from you by your masters, the Enemy. Listen to me, and hear me with an open mind, and you will no longer be hungry. Listen to me and it may be that in the future we, the Drinkers, will fight side by side with the free runners to take back this Land of Many Brothers that was once ours."
"Madness," someone muttered.
"I have learned much about you in this short time," Duwan said,
"merely by observation. You hunt in a pack of twenty for the small, helpless animals of the forests. You take life, and get in return only enough food to keep you weak, and thin, when you could be swollen with the goodness of the earth, of which you are, for which you are."
"Would you have us eat the green poisons?" Tambol asked.
"Only in your own minds are the good things of the earth poison," Duwan said. "For you have been told this by the enemy, with one intent, to keep you ignorant of the fact that you, Drinkers all, could live on the bounty of the land without depending upon the Devourer's seeds, and his cultivated fields, and his animal flesh."
A low moaning began and spread through the group. "Master," a quavering voice moaned, "if you mean death for us, make it swift, as you made it swift for the masters, not slow and painful from the poison."
"He has magic," Jai said. Duwan motioned for her to be still.
"Who will trust me?" Duwan asked. When there was no volunteer, he turned to Tambol. Tambol lowered his head and was silent. Duwan, frustrated, glared out at them. Jai whispered at his side. "Show them a magic, Lord, and they will believe."
"I have no magic," Duwan spat. He turned to Tambol. "Do you know nothing of your origin?"
"Yes Master," Tambol said. "We are children of an unholy union between Aang the Devourer and the animals of the fields, and we are called unclean, although we had no choice, for it was Aang, father of the devourers, who sinned and soiled the earth with his lust. It is the punishment of the dus that Aang lives atop the high mountains and looks down each day to see his unholy children working to atone for his original sin of lust."
"So you were told by the Enemy?" Duwan asked.
"So it is written," Tambol said.
It was evident that the free runners were as ignorant of the true nature of things as Jai. The Enemy had, indeed, done a skillful job of indoctrination. Further questioning revealed to Duwan that, as in Jai's case, all had been taught from childhood—in the case of the free runners not even by the Devourers but by their own parents, for so strong was the indoctrination that generations of free runners had perpetuated the myths—that to share the sweet food of the green brothers brought sure, painful death, that the rays of Du were harmful, and that the body was to be protected from the rays at all times.
Tambol and his fellows wore ragged, dirty garments that covered all portions of their bodies save hands and feet. A loose hood half-hid the face.
It was also evident to Duwan that he was not trusted. He saw fear and something else in the faces and eyes of those who stood before him.
"I will speak with your wise men," Duwan said, "your elders, your Predictor."
"So be it," Tambol said.
The free runners lived within the earth. In a narrow, hidden valley, accessible without great effort only through a narrow, steep-walled canyon from which flowed a small stream, they had burrowed into the hillsides like animals, concealing the openings to their caves with brush and stones. Males with bows that would have been almost useless against anything larger than a tree animal guarded the canyon. As the hunting party marched up the valley, heads appeared from the caves in the hillsides, and soon a crowd followed. The hunters carried only a few small, furry carcasses, and some females, seeing the scarcity of food, began to wail. A scuffle broke out as one hunter left the party to
join his female and his young and others tried to take his prize, one small, pathetic tree animal.
"We have done wrong in coming here, master," Jai whispered. "These live like animals."
Duwan kept his right hand on the hilt of his longsword. The runners were thin and weak, but they were many, and the presence of Duwan and Jai among the hunters left in their wake a buzz of talk.
Tambol, in silence, led them onward, as the other hunters dropped off one by one to be met with rejoicing or weeping depending on whether they carried flesh.
The way led to the head of the valley, where the stream dropped from high rocks to fall with a roar into a broad, clear pool. There, facing a sheer rock wall, Tambol halted. "I will inform the elders of your presence," he said, and then disappeared into a natural stone cave. Jai clung to Duwan's arm and looked around fearfully.
"Master," she whispered, as males began to drift up the valley toward them, bows in hand, "we can run. You are mighty, and you will have to kill only a few of them and then they will not try to stop us. We can go far away and live fatly upon the good green that you bless of its poison." Duwan did not answer. He, too, had noted the approaching males, and he feared their puny bows less than their numbers. If they were determined enough, if enough of them would die, they could overcome him by their sheer mass.
He heard a tapping sound from within the cave and tensed, thinking that perhaps attack would come from two sides, but an ancient one appeared, his eyelids massed into wrinkles, squinting at the sun, his hair long, sere, and his body stiffened with the hardening disease. The tapping had come from the walking stick he used. He seemed disoriented at first, his watery eyes looking everywhere but at Duwan. Behind him there appeared other oldsters and behind them Tambol.
"I am Farnee, Eldest of the free runners," the old one said. "Come closer, warrior, for I see you but dimly."
Jai held tight to Duwan's arm as he stepped closer. "I bring you greetings of the blood of the Drinkers from the far north," Duwan said.
"How?" Farnee asked, cupping a hand to his ear.
"He says he is from the far north," another of the old ones shouted into Farnee's ear.
Farnee nodded ponderously. "And yet we are told by Tambol that is it said you come from the earth."
"We are all of the earth and for the earth," Duwan said. "Perhaps, honored one, we could be seated, where you will be more comfortable." After that suggestion was imparted, in a shout, to Farnee, he nodded and, without speaking, turned and hobbled back into the cave. Duwan followed, and the others fell in behind him and Jai. Farnee seated himself on a stone covered with patched, stitched furs, leaned on his stick, and blinked in the dimness, lit by an open fire. The others ranged around the stone in a circle, surrounding Duwan and Jai.
"Now," Farnee said, "who has seen this one come from the earth?"
"I," Jai said defiantly.
"And you are?" Farnee asked, at last finding her with his eyes.
"I am Jai."
"You are not a free runner, by your dress, female," an elder said. "You expose your hide to the sun as the Devourers do."
"I escaped from the pongpens of the city of Arutan," Jai said, "many months past. I saw this lord, growing from the rich earth, a divine flower. I saw this with my eyes, and I have seen, since, his magic, for he eats, and makes it possible for me to eat, the green poisons and grow fat."
"Ha," someone grunted.
"Enough," Duwan said. "I am Duwan the Drinker and I have come from the far north, past the land of fires, through the lands of the iron cold and the snows. That is all you need know of me, except that I come in friendship to all who oppose our Enemy, who wrested this land of Many Brothers from us in the time of the Great Alon."
"Alon," someone whispered. "He speaks of the du."
"I speak of Alon, the Great Leader, who took our people to the north to escape the all-devouring enemy. I come to determine the strength of this enemy, to find those who would stand by our side as we reclaim our land." There was a buzz of talk among the seated elders. Farnee raised one hardened hand and made a sound in his throat and the elders fell silent.
"What do you know of our ancient legends, strange one?" Farnee asked.
"Enough to call ignorance and enemy lies by name when I am told that Drinkers are unholy offspring of a Devourer and animals of the field," Duwan said.
Farnee nodded gravely. "That is the teaching we allow our young to hear until they have reached an age of wisdom," he said. Behind the elders, Tambol stirred uneasily.
"Yes, my son," Farnee said, pointing his stick at Tambol, "you, too." He looked back at Duwan. "To tell the young the truth would inflame their spirits, and then there would be war and death, death for all free runners in a war we could not hope to win."
"And what is the age of wisdom?" Duwan asked.
"When the hide hardens, and the fires of youth are cooled," an elder said.
"That is to say when one has reached the age where fighting would be impossible," Duwan said, and Farnee nodded.
"If you have come to stir our young ones to war, we will not allow it," Farnee said.
"Father," said Tambol, moving to stand rather belligerently inside the circle of elders, "if we are not spawn of Aang, than what are we?"
"You see what you have done?" Farnee asked.
"All this land was once ours," Duwan said. "The Enemy came from the south, and we were a peaceable people, without skill in arms, so that by the time we learned we were overrun, and it was then, to save enough of the race to regenerate it, that the Great Alon led the Drinkers to the north, fighting a rearguard action all the way, losing many."
"Enough," Farnee said. "I will speak." He rose unsteadily and gazed at Tambol. "This is for your ears only, my son. I trust, although you are still young and your hide has not begun to harden, that you will have gained enough wisdom from me, your father, to heed my words after you hear." Farnee seated himself, gazed at the smoke-colored ceiling of the cave.
"It is as the strange one says," he said softly. "We were called, although I know not why, Drinkers. We were, the legends say, many. And we lived in peace and plenty. We could not stand against the invaders, for they had weapons of iron. But there were wise men among us, and those wise men sought peace, for it was better to live as pongs, they said, than to die on the sharp points of the masters' weapons. That is all. The rest, uttered by this strange one, is invention."
"But when this Duwan mentioned a name you knew it," Tambol said.
"This Alon?"
"One of the many minor dus," an elder said. "Du of death. An unpleasant du, and thus, largely forgotten."
"Hold," another elder said, rising. "Some things we have kept within the circle of elders, but we have never lied overtly to our young. I will not lie now."
"Be quiet," Farnee said.
"No," the standing elder said stoutly. "Tambol is soon to be a member of this circle and he will know then, so I think he should be told all now."
"Tell him," another elder said.
The standing elder looked directly into Duwan's eyes. The eider's eyes were pink with age, but still clear and alert. "We whisper this legend among ourselves, the elders. It speaks of the free Drinkers who fled the wrath of the masters, fighting, slaying the invincible, but being slain themselves. The legend has no name for a leader. You say Alon, and if that, indeed, was his name then it is understandable why he has come to be called a du of death, for the bodies of Drinker and Devourer littered the land leading northward."
The old man paused and looked around the circle. "When I was but a new mobile, in the pongpens of Arutan, my mother whispered this story to me. In the lands of ice, to the far north, there are free ones, fierce warriors, ones who escaped, and from them will come a new master, one of supernatural ability who will lead all pongs to freedom. You have all heard this legend."
"And more," said another elder, standing. "I note that this female maintains that the strange one came from the earth. All elders have heard this prophe
sy, for it, too, was whispered among the hopeless in the pongpens of old. He will come from the earth, from the deep, rich, sweet depths of the earth, and he will be mighty, and in his strength and wisdom he will teach us, and deliver us."
"He is mighty," Tambol said. "I saw him kill four Devourers. This I saw with these eyes." He faced Duwan. "Are you this new master, sent to deliver us?"
Duwan was slow to answer. He wished for opportunity to consult with his father, with Manoo the Predictor, with other wise ones among the Drinkers. But he was alone. He was beginning to get a picture of the state of things in the Land of Many Brothers, and he did not like what he saw. According to the free runners, the Enemy was many, was invincible, and yet he'd killed the Enemy without being sorely tested. He longed for home, longed for the welcome sight of the beautiful face of Alning, and the feel of his father's limbs entwining in greeting. He had information. Should he not ease the minds of these poor, deluded ex-slaves? Should he not assure them that they were best advised in keeping to their own meager lifestyle?
They would hunger, and grow old before their time, in the midst of plenty, but who was he to try to erase generations of superstition? That would best be left to older, wiser heads, if, after his return to the valley, it was decided to return to the Land of Many Brothers. And yet there was doubt in him. The Devourers were many, and lived in stone cities. The Drinkers of the North were few. He could not afford to risk the loss of potential allies.
"Are you this new master?" Tambol repeated.
"Only you have used the word 'master'," Duwan said.
"But did you come from the earth?" Tambol insisted.
"There is no simple answer to that question."
"Is it true that this female, Jai, saw you with feet and legs implanted, that you remained thus for weeks, that you then came from the earth when a farl attacked the female?"
"That is true," Duwan said.
"He is the Master," Jai blurted. "For he also speaks with the trees, as to the spirits of the departed."
This had to be repeated, loudly, for Farnee. Around the circle elders were whispering to each other.
