Sundrinker

by Zach Hughes

"By Du," Belran roared, "no contact before the signal." But he was trying to hide a grin as the young warrior, stunned, was dragged away by two of his companions.

  "We need an opponent who knows the rules," Belran roared. Duwan stiffened as Noo, son of the Predictor, stepped forward, holding his swords out to be padded. "I know the rules," he said. The ceremony began anew. Then Jai was crouched, waiting for Noo's move. He came forward cautiously and made two formal thrusts. Noo had not, Duwan remembered, been one of the most skilled trainees. He watched Jai's tense, waiting form and whispered to himself, "Now, Jai," and as if she heard she leaped to the attack and delivered a smashing blow that was barely countered in time by Noo.

  Noo had more respect for the female now, and he fought carefully. Duwan started to worry, lest the bout go on so long that Jai's lesser strength began to work against her. He had seen three flaws in Noo's technique that would have been fatal had he himself been the warrior's opponent, and he was willing Jai to see them just as she lunged, feinted, slashed the padded tip of her longsword across Noo's chest and sent the shortsword stabbing into his belly. He sat down with a huff and it was over.

  "An impressive exhibition," said the elder who had questioned the fighting ability of slaves. "How long, Duwan, did you train this female?" Duwan would not lie, although he sensed the hostile intent of the question. "Through a winter."

  "And will we be given that much time to train our army in the south?"

  "Did you, during your stay in the south, influence a large number of slaves to join you?"

  "How many of the so-called free runners joined your cause?" The end of it became predictable. One by one, the chief elders of the villages rose and announced their decisions.

  "We will not risk our females and our young in such a venture."

  "Our home is here. We have been here for generations."

  "While we sorrow for those who are enslaved, we must remember that our ancestors did not accept slavery, but risked all in coming to this valley."

  "Our home is here."

  Duwan the Elder rose sadly. Only his own village had not voted. He looked around, and Duwan was near enough to see that he had tears in his eyes.

  "We are free," he said. "I respect your votes, while deploring your decision. I will not ask the people of my village to vote, for to take such a small number into the land of the enemy would be foolhardy. It has been decided by proper procedure that the Drinkers will not move south, will not retake the land of our ancestors. So be it."

  Duwan wandered alone in the dark, stunned. He found a spring and lay on the damp earth, feeling the heat of the steam, his heart aching, his mind confused. He heard a sound and then heard his name being called softly. He wanted to be alone, but it was Jai calling, and she was unfamiliar with the ground and could, in the dark, fall and injure herself.

  "Here," he called, and her form emerged, a shadow in shadows, and he took her hand and pulled her down beside him. Neither spoke for a long time.

  "This is a good place," Jai said, at last. "There is no cold. I hate the cold so."

  "There is no sun, no eternal life. They have voted to let the ancient victory of the enemy stand, and it is not just the pongs of the south who will continue to be punished, but we, ourselves, for we are denied the bounty of the land, the Du-given right to go back to the earth after our time as mobiles."

  "Don't try to contest their decision, Duwan," she whispered.

  "No. They are free, just as I am free to do what I choose to do."

  "What will that be?"

  He mused for a long time. "I told Tambol I would return."

  "He could well be dead by now," Jai said.

  "I gave my word. If you think this is a good place, stay."

  "I meant that it is a good place for you," she whispered.

  "And not for you?"

  "Your mother and your grandmother have been kind."

  "Have others been unkind?"

  She was reluctant to speak.

  "Speak," he ordered. "Who has been unkind to you?"

  "No one in particular. When I was with the young unmated females I made the mistake of exposing my bud point."

  "So?"

  "It's nothing," she said.

  "Something was said?"

  "You can imagine."

  He could. In this valley a female's budpoint was unopened until her first coloration. He could imagine the talk among the females, for the word would have spread throughout the valley that this Jai, this outsider, had grafted and had no proper mate. He rose and took her hand and led her back to the village, entered the house of his parents and spoke, his face stern. "This is my mate. I speak for her, and I take her." His mother leaped to her feet and embraced both of them. His father clasped Duwan's right arm with his own.

  "We will make the announcement," his mother said. "A celebration enlivens things so during the darkness."

  So it was done. The square blazed with light. Visitors came from several villages, as if eager to atone in some small way for the vote against going back to the Land of Many Brothers. Duwan moved unsmilingly through the ceremonies, spoke for Jai before many witnesses, and, to the cries and shouts and laughter of the gathering, carried his new mate into his father's house. Without light it was not possible to grow a new house, so they would occupy his old room until Du came again. He did not carry Jai to the room immediately. He waited until his parents and his grandmother came into the room and listened as the older women talked about the ceremony and the various people who had attended. When his father went off to bed his mother looked at him questioningly and he took Jai's hand and led her into the privacy of his room.

  She came to his bed displaying some new shyness and he moved over to give her room. She lay on her back beside him.

  "Wherever I am, if I am with you, I am happy," she said.

  "Ummra," he grunted.

  "Now I will be warm again as I sleep," she whispered, putting her arm across his chest.

  "They have as little shame, my people, as those who live in the pongpens, and those who call themselves free runners but do not have the courage to fight," Duwan said.

  "They fear the unknown," she told him. "Duwan, am I really your mate now?"

  "Yes, of course," he said.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  He felt her warmth against him and shuddered inwardly. His body warmed to her, begged him to relax, to turn to her and embrace her, but he was among civilized people now, and civilized people did not graft promiscuously as did the slaves and the enemy.

  She was quiet for a long, long time, until he thought that she had gone to sleep. But then she whispered, "Duwan, was I wrong, when I fought Noo, to give him such a blow to the belly?"

  "No, you were not wrong."

  "I did it for you," she said.

  "For me?"

  "Because he took Alning from you."

  "Uramm," he said.

  "If it was within my power I would give her to you."

  "Don't be stupid," he said.

  "I know. You Drinkers have your own odd ways, but I wish that I could give her to you, put her in your bed. I wouldn't mind being your slave, and slave to your mate, not if it would make you happy." He turned. There was total darkness in the room, but as his fingertips touched her cheeks he felt the wetness of tears.

  "I understand. She is so beautiful, and she was the love of your youth. Just let me stay with you, Duwan, and serve you. That's all I ask."

  "You ask too little, small fool," he said, for, suddenly, as if a cloud of steam had been wafted away by an errant breeze, leaving everything dearly visible, he felt the warmth and softness of her and drew her to him so fiercely that the breath was forced from her lungs. "You are more beautiful."

  By Du, it was true. Jai had longer legs, a more sweetly proportioned body, and her face—he pictured it in his mind, and it was smiling and sunny and so dear that he kissed it and kissed it until, forgive him, Du, they were one.

  Chapter Three

 
; Manoo the Predictor had said that the first feeble beams of Du would light the southern sky after a dozen more sleep periods. Duwan was at the forge, fashioning iron, barbed arrowheads. He looked up as someone entered, and nodded respectfully to his father.

  "You spend much time making weapons," the Elder said.

  "Yes."

  "You'll go with the first light of Du?"

  Duwan was surprised. He had not stated his intentions, not even to Jai.

  "Don't you think we have known this?" his father asked. "Did you not say that you gave your word to a friend?"

  Duwan tried to play it lightly. "Perhaps, if you try, father, you can talk me out of this foolishness."

  The elder man laughed. "Yes, your task must seem impossible." Duwan finished sharpening the point of an arrowhead and put it aside. He looked at his father. "If I go to my death I must go. Perhaps, after much time, I can train some few of them to fight."

  "We can but try," his father said.

  Duwan snapped his head around to look into his father's eyes. "We?"

  "There was a Duwan with the Great Alon, when he led the Drinkers into the snows. He, too, made a promise. He, too, promised to return. He made this promise to Alon, it is said, before the great one hardened, here in this lightless place. It is time a Duwan kept that promise, and I will not let you do it alone."

  "But mother—"

  "She will go with me, of course. Will not your mate go with you?" Duwan grasped his father's right arm. "We can go into the west," he said. "For I will not lead two Duwans to death." His father nodded.

  Four Drinkers, two of them females, would not be able to carry much. By the time the southern horizon was showing lightness at times, preparations were complete. Jai had accepted Duwan's decision without comment. She practiced her swordplay with Belran's young warriors. She had colored again, and they had, for the same reasons that had made sense during the last winter, abstained.

  Duwan felt that he was no longer a part of the Drinkers of the valley. Somehow, what he had done and what he had seen in the Land of Many Brothers had made him a different Drinker. His own people seemed as alien to him as the Enemy now, and although he did not enjoy that feeling, he accepted it. There had been times when he'd suffered through periods of self pity and of condemnation for the Drinkers. Now it no longer seemed to matter. Each Drinker was the master of his own fate, and he had chosen his. He had made up his mind, after his father's decision to join him, to avoid Enemy population centers, to travel into the relatively unpopulated areas of the mid-continent, and there to live out his life with Jai, no longer withholding himself from her during her fertile period. There he would see his mother and his father, when the time came, return to the earth, and he would live near them in their fixed, honorable, immortal state to protect them from any chance enemy.

  Only one thing troubled him, and that came to a head as Du's faint presence made a smear of light in the far south. His grandmother. He had promised her that he would personally plant her in a warm, sunny place in the south, and it was becoming more and more evident that she was entering the last stages of the hardening disease. She could not possibly make the hard, long journey to the south, or so at least Duwan thought. His grandmother had other ideas. She was not senseless, not yet. She noted the preparations, and she prepared her warmest garments and nothing else. Duwan saw her placing garments into a small, neat pack one day, as he and his father were making their last preparations, and his heart pounded. How could he tell her that she was to be left behind?

  "You made me a promise, Grandson," she told him, when she saw the look on his face. "I hold you to it."

  Duwan consulted his father about his grandmother's determination to accompany them. Duwan the Elder thought for a moment. "I have been anticipating this, and I think this way. Your mother's mother will soon harden, cease to be mobile, and then her heart will stop and she will be dead. It is true that the remaining time of her life could be spent in comfort here in this house, but when she hardened she would be just as dead as she will be if she perishes in the cold of the barrens or in the land of the fires."

  Duwan lowered his head in sadness. He was about to speak when there was a call at the door and his father invited Belran the Leader to enter. The warrior stood stiff and silent for a moment, looking around the workshop to see the newly forged arrow heads, the newly polished swords.

  "I had suspected that the younger Duwan would leave us again for the south," Belran said. "Now it appears that our chief elder is also contemplating a journey."

  "Old friend," the Elder said, "I was going to postpone that news as long as possible, but now I suppose it is time we talked. Yes, I will go with my son."

  "Then count my swords among your number," Belran said, holding his chin high.

  Duwan the Elder clasped Belran's right arm with his. "There is no Drinker I would rather have fighting by my side, but if you go who will lead these Drinkers who remain?"

  "Many of the young warriors will choose to go," Belran said.

  "And leave anarchy behind?" Duwan the Elder asked. "This one is my son, Belran, and he has given his word to those he left behind in the south. I, as you can see, must go, but you must stay. I know that it is much to ask, but both of us cannot throw over our responsibilities to our village. It is not yours to support the word of a son, as it is mine. You must stay, my friend, and, moreover, you must control your young warriors. If we bled off the strength of this village it would cease to function. It would be absorbed by the other villages. Can we be responsible for that?" Belran's chin lifted even higher. "You speak the truth, but it is painful."

  "I know," Duwan the Elder said.

  "I will stay." Belran turned to Duwan. "I see something in you that was not there when you first left us. I see, I suspect, the quality that makes a Drinker a leader, and perhaps something else. When you begin to train your slaves, remember the lessons of Belran. Neither push them too hard nor allow them to be slack. And remember that you train the mind as well as the arms."

  "I will, Leader," Duwan said.

  Belran shook, his head. "Two Drinkers to do the work of an army. I feel shame for my people."

  "No," Duwan said, "there is no shame. This is their world now, and change is difficult. Change comes usually by outside agencies, and not from within, although that is not as it should be." He clasped Belran's arm. "We will send word. When we have proven that we can free the Drinkers of the Land of Many Brothers, when we have forged an army of them and have begun to retake our lands, we will send word and then perhaps the elders will choose to join us."

  "I will wait with great impatience," Belran said. "My heart will be with you, and, some day, my swords."

  As it happened, Belran's desire to leave the valley, to accompany the two Duwans to the south, was shared by others, and that, too, presented a problem. On the day that the journey began, when the Duwans and their mates emerged, laden, into the square, they were awaited by what seemed to be every aged member of the village, over Fifty oldsters, and each of them was dressed warmly and carried a pack.

  Duwan felt his heart sink. He knew, from talking with his grandmother, what wild hope beat in the hearts of those old, hardening Drinkers, and he quailed at having to tell them that they could not possibly make the trip, that four younger Drinkers could not be expected to tend to the needs of so many feeble old ones. Before he could speak, however, an old Drinker pushed forward. He was a warrior of note, had once been a Leader.

  "Duwan the Elder, and Duwan the Son," the old Drinker said, "the mother of Sema, mate of Duwan the Elder, goes to the south to return to the blessed earth in the land of our fathers. We, too, will go." Duwan swallowed and looked at his father, who was silent. "Honored old ones," he said, "someday, the ones who grow old after you will have that right, or so I pray. Now—" He opened his hands and stood mute for a moment.

  "We take the responsibility for ourselves," the old one, Dagner, said.

  "We will not burden you. We realize that some o
f us will die in the barrens, some in the land of the fires, that not all of us will reach the lands of the south." He drew himself up. "However, unlike some here in this valley, we will die trying to reclaim our heritage." Duwan whispered to his father, "They are weak, old, and they will all die before we reach the land of the fires."

  "Death will find them, wherever they are," Duwan the Elder said. "Give them their hope, son."

  It was to become a matter of legend, a subject for the minstrels, how the two Duwans, elder and younger, led the slow, sometimes reeling procession from their native village, how the procession swelled as it passed through the countryside, and grew by multiples as it passed the villages and reached the narrow cleft leading out of the valley, how the first dead did not even make it out of the valley, but fell in the steams to return to the earth without hope, without eternal life.

  Duwan led the way out of the valley into the cold winds of the barrens. It was still winter there, but the thinking was that, fat and well fed, cells filled almost to bursting with nutrition and energy, it would be best to face iron cold at the beginning of the trip rather than face it, as Duwan had, in a weakened condition at the end of the trek. That decision was not altered for the old ones, and the cold took its toll, and the dead were left behind, to be buried by the last of the winter's snows.

  Duwan's mother, Sema, walked easily, strongly, always near the front of the procession. Her orange eyes seemed, almost, to glow in the dark. Beside her, struggling resolutely along, was Sema the elder, her mother, Duwan's grandmother, bundled into all her clothing, lifting her feet in the deep snow with difficulty, but always, at the end of a march, when they dug down and made a place to sit in the snow, with them.

  Jai and Duwan the Elder ranged from the front of the group back to the last straggler, encouraging, shouting, lifting some oldster to his or her feet. Oddly enough, the hardships seemed to put new life back into some of the old ones. By the time Du was a warming influence, and the smokes of the land of the fires could be seen occasionally, low on the southern horizon, Sema the elder was walking as if she were much, much younger, made more agile by having used up stored fat that seemed to accumulate under the hardening hides of the old ones. And some of the elderly warriors were now insisting on spelling Duwan in breaking a trail through deeper snow. It seemed that those who were going to die had died by the time the snow began to melt and they walked on the ash and hard rock and felt for the first time the warming influence of both Du and the land of fires. Duwan stood on a high place and looked back at the caravan. He saw his mother walking tirelessly, his grandmother at her side, walking stiffly but strongly. He saw Jai helping a female far to the rear and he hollered down to her. She waved. He worried that she was using too much of her energy helping the weak ones, but his father had said, "Her heart is great, Duwan."