by Zach Hughes
"On my love, I promise," she whispered.
To Duwan's surprise, he slept. Around him those who had volunteered, who had begged to be allowed to fight at his side, slept or gazed at the fires, anticipating the morning. They were few, only enough to man the defensive positions in the very narrowest part of the canyon. Duwan awoke with a hand on his shoulder.
"Master, the sky lightens in the east."
He rose. He chewed tender life organs from a fixed brother, drank from the steam which, fortunately, came from the east and was, thus, not stinking with the blood and rot from the dead as it was farther down the canyon to the west. He saw to the positioning of his bowmen. They had the last of the arrows and they had been selected for their skill with both bow and sword, so that when their few arrows had been fired they could take up the blade and fill the gaps in Duwan's thin line.
Gradually the darkness faded. And then Du appeared over the eastern hills and from down the canyon they heard the grunted, guttural marching chant of the enemy. The bright uniforms of the enemy were soiled, but still impressive as the first elements emerged from a dense forest and passed near the young grove where Duwan's grandmother lived on. Then the enemy force began to be constricted as the canyon narrowed. Some marched in the shallow stream, slipping now and then on the rocks. Duwan stood, straight and proud. He had come to know the insignia of the various units of the enemy conqforce, and he recognized the markings of the elite Arutan home guard. It was Hata's own unit that was making the initial attack. He looked for Hata and saw him, near the center. More then once they had seen each other on the field, but had not, as yet, come face to face.
Shouted orders from Hata halted the unit at a distance calculated to tempt Duwan's archers into wasting arrows at extreme range. Duwan stood motionless. There was a brittle air of expectancy in the morning chill. No one moved. All was silence. When it became obvious that Duwan was not to be tricked into wasting arrows, there were more orders from Hata and enemy soldiers began to advance in staggered formation, running, swerving from side to side.
"Hold," Duwan ordered, lifting one hand toward his archers. He saw several of the archers notch arrows and half-draw the bow, and he kept his hand up, holding them back. "Swordsmen," he bellowed, "take these few. Archers, hold!"
The tactic had been used against him before, and he was ready for it on that last morning. He had positioned his archers high, so that they could fire over the heads of those engaged in sword to sword combat below them. His swordsmen met the running, weaving advance and the clash of iron on iron rang and echoed from the canyon walls. He did not hear, but saw Hata give the order for the main advance, as the enemy began to fall to the swords of his best bladesmen. He waited until the mass of Hata's force was in fatal range of the bows and then lowered his hand and saw the arrows flash darkly outward and heard the grunts, moans, screams of agony as they found their marks.
"Fall back to your positions," he shouted to the swordsmen engaging the first advance below him and his warriors disengaged and scrambled back to find their assigned places between trees, behind boulders, places chosen to make it impossible for more than one enemy at a time to face them. Duwan's usual place was at the center and he met the rush of an enemy with an almost casual thrust and then kicked the quivering body aside to make room for another. And then the morning became endless repetition. The clash of metal. The moans and screams of the dying. Duwan protected his position with a fierceness and rage that piled the dead in front of him, leaving, at times, a blank spot in the enemy line, since none cared to face him. He smelled the battle, the sweat, the blood, the acrid stench of fear, and he heard the thunder of the enemy captains'
voices, and the shoutings of his own leaders.
Sweat rolled into his eyes and he wiped it away with the top of his shortsword wrist while parrying a thrust by an enemy. Blood smeared from the contact, not his own. The enemy leaped forward as if eager to impale himself on Duwan's shortsword and was given his desire and then Duwan was moving to his left where a swordsman had fallen. Now the battle reached a peak. Hata's own unit was a prideful group, and for many days now they had been repelled by a force of pongs. They had come with Hata's harsh words burning in their ears, words of reproach and shame, and they were determined not to leave the field with a single pong standing.
One by one the defenders fell, and there were several times when Duwan felt that all was lost, when screaming guardsmen breached the line and threatened to fall on the defenders from behind. But each time his warriors rallied, threw themselves into the breach, pushed the enemy back.
The enemy pullback began at the center, where Duwan was the anchor, and spread until there was no longer the sound of sword on sword, only the moans and cries for aid from the fallen. Duwan saw Hata standing at a distance, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring hatred. Now was the time. Now was the time to pull his own remaining warriors back into the trees, to send them climbing up the steep walls, taking their last chance for escape and for life. Now it was time for him to follow them, to lose himself in those dense stands of tall brothers in the hills and slowly and carefully to make his way westward, there to rejoin his family and Jai. He looked across the body strewn battleground to see Hata still standing, still glaring at him, and at Hata's side there appeared Elnice of Arutan, dressed in a crimson copy of the guards' uniform. He looked at her for a moment, then turned to give his orders to begin to fade back into the trees. At that moment a shout of warning came from his rear and he ran back to see a sprinkling of color on the steep walls of the canyon. His heart leaped in alarm, not for himself, but for Jai, for his mother and father, for the enemy had come to his rear in force and were now sliding and slipping down the canyon walls. They had not tried that since the first days, when they had lost many men. To get into position to come at him from the rear they had had to move during the night. Had they known of his plans? Had they come upon the small groups who had left the canyon and destroyed them one by one? No, surely he would have heard had that happened. He could only hope that they had not started their movements until late at night, that his mother and father and Jai and the others were safely away.
Now he heard the battle chant of the enemy from his front. A few of his warriors were running to meet the enemy scrambling down the canyon walls. He lifted both his swords and shouted, "To me. Form on me." Except for isolated individuals already engaged with an enemy who had come down the steep walls, they came to him and he stood among them, so few of them now, and he said, "It is not Du's will that we escape this time, my friends. We make our stand here."
"It is better to die fighting than fall into the hands of the enemy," someone shouted, and Duwan nodded.
"Let us show them how Drinkers can fight," Duwan shouted, as the enemy began to reach the floor of the narrow canyon and advance and he heard the sound of the chant and the poundings of many feet. The guardsmen who had come down the walls fared rather badly, for they were winded by their march and their efforts. They found that pongs could fight well and they died, their bodies littering the ground. Then, from the west, Hata burst into the field at the head of fresh forces. Each one of the enemy came toward the concentrated melee with the words of their High Mistress ringing in their ears.
"Remember this well," she had told them, time and again, "I want their leader, this Duwan, alive. If he is killed not only will the one who killed him be peeled, but each surviving one in his unit."
Thus it was that Duwan had to seek engagements, and was surprised at the ease of his victories. Many, seeing him coming toward them, ran, often straight onto the sword of another Drinker. But one by one the Drinkers fell. Surrounded, in the open, the outcome was inevitable. At last he stood with the only other surviving defender, an ex-slave whose back was to Duwan's as a ring of enemy closed in them.
"Master," the one who was soon to die said, "we will meet again in Du's paradise."
A surge of guilt swept through Duwan. "Du," he prayed silently, as the enemy closed, swords ex
tended, "if I have used your name in vain, forgive me." For he knew that he had been presented by Tambol and Tambol's followers as, at the least, favored by Du, and, at best, as Du's own representative on the earth. It was true that he had often denied divine origin, but he had not been firm, had even, he guessed, as death closed on him, been willing to let the ex-slaves believe in him in order to make them fight better.
"Forgive me, Du," he said aloud, as he lashed out and his sword swept aside a blade and brought blood from an enemy who fell back, screaming. At his back he heard the clash of metal and felt his last companion lean suddenly against him, then slide to the ground.
"Come then," he shouted, "let me take a few of you with me." Surprisingly, the enemy backed away. He rushed toward them and they slipped out of his path, but always he was surrounded by a wall of uniformed, armed Devourers.
"Fight," he hissed, making a lunge that was avoided by an enemy officer who actually turned and ran into three soldiers, sending them sprawling.
"Fight, cowards," Duwan roared, as he stood, swords hanging down, panting with his efforts.
"It is over," he heard, and he spun around to see Captain Hata standing, sword in hand.
"We fought once, Hata, with padded weapons," Duwan said. "There is no pad on my blade now."
"Nothing would please me more," Hata said.
Duwan crouched and began to advance toward the captain, but he halted when Elnice pushed forward and stood by Hata's side.
"You will not find an easy death in battle, traitor," she said. She turned to Hata. "Take him."
"I have never killed a female," Duwan said, stalking toward Elnice and Hata, "but when she represents evil—"
"Will you take him, or will you let him walk forward and kill me?" Elnice asked, her voice calm.
"Take him," Hata thundered. "Take him alive, or, by the dus, you will all be peeled."
Hopelessly, the front ranks of the soldiers began to close on Duwan and his blades flashed and enemy died and then, lest they all die under his iron, they screamed and pushed forward without their weapons and in blood and screamings bore him down by sheer weight until his swords could flash no more, until his breath was forced out of his chest by their weight and he was helplessly screaming his rage and anger.
"Bring him, and any living wounded, to the camp," Elnice ordered. He was carried, tied well, by four of the enemy. He fought against his bonds until he was exhausted, and then he closed his eyes, prayed to his Du, and tried to commune with the tall brothers, but all was silence from them. They tied him to the bole of a tall brother in an area where all green had been ruthlessly cut away. From where he stood he could see the grove of his grandmother, and he prayed that the enemy would do what he was going to do and leave the canyon before harm came to those new immortals, who had grown rather impressively since the plantings and were no longer recognizable as Drinkers.
Elnice stood before him. She had changed into something more comfortable than her uniform, a loose, short gown that showed her bud point and the shape of her legs clearly.
"Not that it matters, traitor," she said, "for all your deluded followers are now dead, but I will know your thinking, your methods, your lies that you told to the those doomed pongs. Talk."
"I am Duwan the Drinker," he said. "Since I am not of you, how can I be a traitor?"
"You told me you were a wanderer," Elnice said. "But you were more. A Drinker? That is a word that means nothing. You are either pong or master. Which is it?"
"I drink of the sun, just as I have taught many to drink," Duwan said.
"He has exposed his head to the sun and it has addled him," someone said.
"Silence," Elnice said. She whirled to Hata. "Clear this area." Within moments only Duwan, the High Mistress, and Hata were in the clearing.
"How did you know that you could drink energy from the sun?" Elnice asked.
"By the grace of Du," Duwan said.
"And you eat of the green, growing things. How did you first know they were not, as you were taught, poisonous?"
Duwan started to answer, but he closed his mouth. He had led an army, had slain many foes, and the enemy was now alert and, perhaps, in spite of the victory, a bit frightened. He would not give this female enough information to alert her to a population of Drinkers in the far north. He doubted that Devourers could survive the journey, and find the way through the land of the fires, but he would say nothing to put his own people in the valley at risk.
"I asked you a question," Elnice said.
"I am tired of talking," Duwan said, with a little smile.
"They, the pongs we have peeled to get information, say that you came from the earth," Elnice said, "that you are a god, a new master. Did you come from the earth?"
It was safe to say, "We are all, we Drinkers, of the earth and for the earth."
"Don't prate superstition at me," Elnice snarled. "I can give you a quick death. That much I will do if you will tell me how you managed to convince pongs to bare themselves to the sun, to eat green."
"Death, fast or slow, produces the same end result," Duwan said. "I will say that you will have ample opportunity to study the problem, for something has started in this land that you will not be able to stop, Elnice. All pongs know the truth, now, and if some are still fearful, they will come to believe. They will drink of the sun and they will eat and grow strong and then they will drive you and all Devourers back to the southern jungles from whence you came."
Elnice leaped at him and slashed his cheek with her nails, leaving three welling streaks of blood. Then she turned to Hata. "Bring the wounded. Show him what he faces."
A wounded pong warrior was dragged to the clearing. He was peeled quickly. Skilled Devourers used sharp knives to make a circle around the pong's left arm, his uninjured arm, and then the hide of the arm was seized in powerful pincer tools and ripped off, leaving raw, unprotected flesh welling blood as the pong screamed in agony and became unconscious. The hide was like a glove, complete with fingers and thumbs. Elnice picked it up gingerly and slashed it wetly across Duwan's face.
"Your treatment will be slower," she said.
He closed his eyes as seven wounded were peeled, first the arms, then the legs, then, in strips, the hide from the back, belly, ribs, hips. Death and the smell of it surrounded him, and the moans of it, for careful peeling left a raw, bleeding mass of flesh that lived on, often for more than a day. Fortunately for those who had been peeled, many were near death from their battle wounds so soon only two lingered, screaming in pain.
"I will give you death," Elnice said, standing over one of the screaming masses with sword in hand. "Tell me of this Duwan."
"He is the Master," the dying pong gasped. "He came from the earth. He is the appointed one of Du, the one Du. He gave us magic to eat the green and to drink of the sun."
"How many eat of the green?" Elnice asked. That question had been asked many times before of dying pongs.
"Tens of thousands," the dying one said. "And more each day."
"Liar," Elnice screamed, bringing down the sword to finish the pong's agony. The last survivor died as she asked her first question. Duwan wept. Even in death the warrior had been loyal. "Tens of thousands," he had said, and it was, as Elnice had said, a lie, for there were mere hundreds, and no one knew how many of them would survive to reach the doubtful security of the western wilderness.
"I want this one peeled with the greatest of care," Elnice told the two guardsmen whose specialty was shown by the oddly shaped knives they carried. "He is strong. Peel him in tiny strips. I want him to live for a day, perhaps two. Then we will see if he has had enough talking, or if he will be eager to talk, will beg to be heard, in exchange for the release of death." A peeler came to stand beside Duwan, knife in hand, made a cut at Duwan's shoulder.
"No," Elnice said. "Start at his feet. You should know that he will last longer if you start there."
She sat in a chair beside the tree and watched with slitted eyes as Duwan's lef
t foot was lifted and the knife made an incision and the sole of his foot was peeled away. She looked up at Duwan's face, contorted in agony.
"Some find that screaming helps. It seems to use up energy and hasten death," she said. "Will you scream?"
He screamed, loudly and lustily, as the knife sliced and the hide was peeled from the arch of his foot and down off his horned toes. The clearing was now surrounded by soldiers. Some lay on the ground, heads cocked to see the show. Others sat, kneeled, stood. They drank their rations of wine and made wagers on how long Duwan would live once he'd been fully peeled.
It happened slowly, slowly. Little by little, strip by strip, his lower legs were bared. Flesh oozed blood. The pain of peeling made his senses reel. He screamed. And the peeled, exposed flesh burned with the slightest movement of wind, burned with a pain unlike any he had ever felt, a pain more severe than that he'd felt when the rock sucker was draining all his blood and he had cut off his own arm.
When he was without skin to mid-thigh he began to pray to Du for death. He didn't care if anyone heard him, he prayed aloud, almost screaming the name of his Du, and the High Mistress laughed.
"Pour wine on his exposed flesh and see if his du can stop the pain," she said.
Duwan screamed and writhed against his bonds as liquid fire attacked his exposed legs.
"Your du is not on duty today," Hata said, laughing.
"So he came from the earth," Elnice said. "Let us return him to the earth. Peel him to the waist and then plant him to mid-thigh in the earth. Let us see if that will awaken his du."
Jai, of course, had not obeyed Duwan's wishes. In the darkness of the night she had whispered to Duwan the Elder, "I go. Don't bother to follow me. Take care of your own." Then she was gone, and Duwan the Elder could only continue, for he had the responsibility of his mate and others on his hands.
Jai lay hidden high on the side of the canyon. She had, by sheer good fortune, chosen a place where no enemy came down, and she watched the last battle with wild, desperate tears. More than once she jerked, almost making the move that would send her down the wall of the canyon to join the dying remnants of the once great pong army, but, although she had broken part of her promise, she could not bring herself to betray Duwan's orders totally.
