Was I supposed to let myself be upstaged by a pair of creaking dotards? I'm the King and Battlemaster!
A very paragon of nerve and jisum ... men!
Plesiosaurs don't look to be as dangerous as the crocodiles. I could have taken that one back there in the swamp with a dud tableknife.
Well, you're for it now. And I have uncomfortable premonitions that Aiken Drum planned it this way!
Any treachery would be certain to take place while I was distracted by the beast. You and Medor must monitor the litde gold bastard's PK output every second. At the least diminution—the least hint that he might drop me in the water—ad of you combine to blast him out of the sky. Even if we ad lose our lives in the fracas to follow, we'd die with our racial honor intact.
Té save you, dear fool! You know what I think of this honor!
Yes. But you'd do as I say nevertheless. Now be silent.
"I have discovered a suitable sea monster, Battlemaster," said Culluket to Aiken.
"We're off!" cried the Shining One. The cavalcade, like a pyrotechnic arrow, plunged toward the moonlit sea. "Is he on the surface, Cull?"
"Basking," the Interrogator confirmed, "but alert. We'd better go invisible—save for the royal antagonist."
Thirteen members of the Hunt vanished, leaving only Sharn and his mount plummeting like a dark meteor, sustained in flight by the psychokinesis of Aiken Drum.
The farspoken thought of the trickster came to the mind of the Firvulag King:
We standby above! Gogethim! Neckchop besthope. Slonshal BigBoy!
Sharn drew his sword. He reined in his mount to come nearly to a halt just above the water, and drifted toward an indistinct gleaming mass that lounged amid waves that were thinly crested with white. The neck of the plesiosaur was down, extended in graceful S-curves, and its slender tad was undulating. It was a gigantic thing, nearly the length of the sperm whales of the Anversian Sea, at least half again as large as the mating pair they had seen back in the swamp.
Sharn approached the creature almost at wavetop, from directly behind the head. He prayed that its peripheral vision was poor, that its rubbery skin was insensitive to aerial vibrations, and that the wind would not shift, carrying his scent.
The plesiosaur began to scud with its paddles as well as its slow-moving tad. Sharn followed, a bejeweled ogre with an upraised crystal sword, biding his time until the beast should be directly upwind of him and the neck in a favorable posture.
The wind shifted. The monster caught his scent. Sharn's heels drove into the barrel of the chaliko and it hurtled forward. An incredible neck curled up, flinging sheets of water. It snapped back like a whip and the jaws opened. Sharn gave the chaliko a violent crossrein and it heeled over at a full gallop, not a meter above the tossing waves, with the monstrous head snaking after it.
In a sudden convulsion of terror, Sham felt something grip his armored left calf. The chaliko was wrenched to a halt and both rider and mount cried out But even in his extremity, the King felt constrained by the rules of the Hunt Instead of blasting the creature, he stabbed at it awkwardly with his sword. The jaws let go, the chaliko gave an explosive grunt as the hold on its rider eased, and Hunter and prey were flung wide apart. Sham urged the chaliko aloft and it responded as it had been trained to do, racing through air as easily as it might have pounded across the steppes. Sham turned it and sent it speeding back down. Fury had raised a high-pitched singing sound in his brain. The Lowlife usurper had planned this! He and the Torturer knew this plesiosaur's wiliness and savage courage of old, and they had led the Hunt directly to its territory. And now waited for it to kill him.
The monster darted up from the water in lightning lunges, champing and foaming, writhing like a nightmare python. The head was not large but the teeth were recurved and razor sharp—and at least one had already penetrated a chink in his hinder jambeau, for there was a trickling at the back of his leg, although he felt no pain.
Oh, you would, would you?
As he dived at it he shouted the ancient battle-curse of the Little People, the one passed down from his grandsire's grandsire, who had contended with Bright Lugonn at the Ship's Grave and wielded the immortal Sword.
"Ylahayll!" roared King Sharn-Mes. "Ylahayll Tanu! Ylahayll Aiken Drum!"
The coiling neck shot at him, jaws wide, on a perfect trajectory to catch him if he missed. He cried again, "Ylahayll!" And struck.
The head of the monster tumbled into the sea.
Up above, the members of the Hunt flared in multicolored light circling like angels on a merry-go-round. Sham retrieved the floating head and flung it aloft with all of his titanic strength straight at Aiken Drum. The head blazed green and the teeth in the open jaws were wickedly aglitter.
"This time," Sham called out to his host "the trophy is for you."
12
AT DAWN on the last day of April the Grand Loving of Firvulag commenced its preliminary events.
From their encampment on the Field of Gold streamed thousands upon thousands of Litde People, ad dressed in their finest clothes. The boys and girls of marriageable age carried beribboned wreaths of vervain and St. John's-wort, species deemed to resemble most closely certain fertility herbs native to lost Duat. The matrons were burdened with armloads of precious gifts wrapped in embroidered linen, and their menfolk toted trumpets, shawms, fifes, cymbals, tam-tams, and sixteen varieties of drum. Trailing after came a great herd of little children wearing surcoats and caps of green leaves, carrying baskets of colored eggs and waving noisemaker rattles.
Making a musical din, the throng marched to the ramp of the Nionel suspension bridge, where it was met by a mounted delegation from the city, headed by Sugoll. The Lord of the Howlers, all in white and adorned with a magnificent illusory body, bade his kinfolk follow him a-Maying, and led them over the bridge. The suspension cables fluttered with rainbow-colored banners, and garlands of greenery decorated the rads.
On the opposite shore of the river, reborn Nionel waited with its gates wide open. The industrious goblin citizenry had burnished forty years of verdigris from its toadstool-domes and bulbous cupolas, and now they shone like gold in the sunrise. Golden, too, were the freshly plastered wads of the houses, the sanded streets, and the sweeping expanse of the grand plaza where the celebration was to take place. Nionel's fountains and lamp-standards and sidewalk furniture had ad been brightly gilded. And the new Pavilion of the Great Ones had pillars of green serpentine twined with yellow roses, and a cloth-of-gold awning. Ad around the plaza's perimeter was a greenbelt of lawns and blooming trees. The surrounding buildings were hung with effigy-pennons and swags of brilliant flowers.
The Howlers of Nionel, dressed even more sumptuously than their nonmutant cousins, crowded balconies and windows, thronged dozens-deep in the peripheral arcades, and overflowed into the side streets, cheering as the benevolent invasion poured into the square to the accompaniment of the Grand Loving Madrigal:
Come unto these yellow sands
All those who seek a lover.
Dance ten times around the flowering tree,
Choose your sweetheart and pay the price.
But beware of love-thieves!
And beware the disguised Foe!
Shun mama's-boys and shrewish maids
And potential in-laws with empty pokes!
O King and Queen of May, reign generously.
Kind Goddess, bless this time of joy and wooing.
Let the two tall fires be kindled at midnight,
And grant to those who pass between eternal love.
Sugoll and his party came to the Pavilion of the Great Ones, where the Howler lord dismounted and ascended to his throne. Katlinel, who would play Queen of the May to Sugoll's King, waited with the gorgeous crowd of Firvulag nobility, headed by the Great Captain Galbor Redcap and his wife Habetrot, and the legendary artisan-mates Finoderee and Mabino Dreamspinner. King Sharn and Queen Ayfa and most of the Gnomish Council were away in Goriah at the Tanu festivity. But
they were hardly missed, so great was the excitement among the Little People at having the Loving in Nionel again.
Two full generations had passed since the last Maying in the city. During the time of the Tanu ascendancy, the Firvulag, for sorrow and hurt pride, had let their Grand Loving degenerate into scattered local observances. Nionel had been a site to shun rather than cherish when it seemed that the Field of Gold would never again host the Games. But now all that was changed. As the new arrivals took their places, they were buzzing about the splendid renovation job the mutants had done. (Truth to tell, the dear old town had never looked better.) What with Brede's successor having solved the sticky problem of the Loathly Brides—why, it seemed that this would truly be a May Day to remember.
***
"Next, they'll crown Sugoll and Katy with flowers," Crazy Greggy said to Chief Burke. "And then they'll issue their first official command and the riot will start!" He tittered with antic glee.
"Surely not a literal riot," said Sister Amerie Roccaro, setting down her cup of coffee. They were all securely ensconced in a side wing of the pavilion—the thirty-three sidetracked adventurers bound for Hidden Springs and their impromptu festival guide, Greg-Donnet Genetics Master. The mob of nearly a thousand bareneck refugees that they had shepherded to Nionel from the Lacc de Bresse was dispersed among the local populace for the holiday. Dressed in borrowed Howler finery, the human émigrés were virtually indistinguishable from medium-sized members of the Firvulag race.
Greggy said, "You just keep a sharp eye out, Sister. Sugoll briefed me on what happens next. See? Here comes the Litde Green Army now!"
The flock of children dressed in leaves approached the thrones of Sugoll and Katlinel. The King of the May lifted his flowery sceptre.
"O valiant Greenfolk, defend our sacred festival from the Foe! Search every hiding place, every mousehole and secret cranny, lest foul interlopers invade our Grand Loving and steal away the precious brides and grooms."
A piercing shriek went up from the elfin host. They scattered pell-mell into the crowd of adults, impudently lifting petticoats and rooting through bundles. The adults responded with yells and swats and used their musical instruments to set up a deafening clamor. The urchins were not at all discouraged. They ranged out among the Howler celebrants, concentrating on the east side of the square where the eating establishments were situated, clambering over tables, upsetting the sunshades, and stealing whatever food was insufficiently defended.
"No Tanu ever show up as clandestine participants, of course," Greggy said. "Fm afraid that the Little People have rather an inflated opinion of their own desirability! But just to keep the fun going, a few adolescents from Nionel are tricked out in fake glass armor to play boogieman. And—whoops! Here they come!"
A squad of mock invaders, armed with big soft balloon-cudgels, dashed into the plaza from a side street. Squealing, the Little Green Army converged and produced its own weaponry. In a moment the air was idled with flying colored eggs. Some were stuffed with confetti and some contained heavily perfumed dye-water. There were eggs stuffed with sneezy fungus spores, with feathers, and with honey. A few were unblown and fresh from the nest, and the less principled among the children flung missiles that were hard-boiled or even addled. When the "Tanu" were struck, they retaliated with ferocious wallops from their balloons and momentary glimpses of some hideous phantom aspect. The leaf-clad imps were unfazed. Scores of them leaped at the faltering, besmutched Foemen and pulled them down to the yellow sand. The enemy expired to the tune of lugubrious groans, exploding balloons, and the crackle and crunch of a few leftover eggs. Then ropes were brought and lashed to the glass-armored ankles, and the victorious Greenfolk hauled their captives away while the adults laughed uproariously, relaxed, and settled down to enjoy a long picnic breakfast.
"The little nippers have a beanfeast of their own in another part of town after they peel off their leaves and wash up," Greggy said. "For the rest of the festival, they'll have their own separate entertainment. Puppet shows, games, and the like. That way the grownups won't be inhibited in their own merrymaking."
"The leaf-clad army was weirdly evocative of parts of Frazer's Golden Bough," remarked Basil Wimborne. "The banishing of malevolent influences before the start of the fertility rites! One wonders what the original, more violent aspect of the ritual might have been in primitive days on their home planet?"
"Please, colleague," Greggy protested. "I'm eating." He licked strawberry jam from his fingers and went back to the lavish buffet, where the privileged human guests mingled with exotic nobility, gorging themselves on pastries, tongue toast, scrambled eggs with morels, grilled antelope sausages, barbecued kid, and fresh fruit-cup spumanti slathered with honeyed whipped cream. "However, if you fancy a really first-rate piece of euhemeristic speculation, consider the ceremony involving our innocent King and Queen of May and the maypole—"
"Putting your naughty interpretations on our folklore again, Greggy?" Sugoll was standing there, tall and splendid, crowned with red and white lilies. The Genetics Master had the grace to look sheepish. Sugoll turned to Basil and Chief Burke. "And your companions. Are they enjoying the spectacle thus far?"
"It's a welcome diversion, Lord Sugoll," Burke said. "We've had a long, hard winter. And then to be saddled with that crowd of poor starving wretches when we thought we were safely on the way to Hidden Springs..." The last of the Wallawallas shook his iron-gray head.
"Are you sure you can assimilate them?" the nun asked anxiously. "We still don't understand why Elizabeth told us to bring them to you. Some of them are quite hard-bitten, you know. They're mostly from the lowest bareneck stratum of Burask—or else Lowlife outlaws driven from their remote little settlements by your own Howler migration. Frankly, we've never come across such a wild and cranky bunch of humans before. Not during the Finiah war and not even during the evacuation from Muriah. We nearly went crazy riding herd on them. Gideon got a broken hand refereeing one fight, and some raggedyass brutes ambushed Ookpik and Nazir in retaliation for a punishment detail and roughed them up quite badly." She poured herself more coffee. "It was also rather tedious for Wang and Mr. Betsy and the Baroness and me, always having to fend off the odd slavering rapist."
Sugoll's smile blended humor and compassion. "Now I'm more than ever certain that Elizabeth did the right thing, sending these desperados to us. You'll see!" He lowered his voice. "We have a little time before the skill-contests and other entertainments begin. Sister, if you will excuse us, I'd take Basil and Chief Burke away to settle a matter relating to the Ship's Grave expedition."
Amerie nodded and went off to join Greggy, who was arguing mutagenics with Magnus and Thongsa, the expedition medics.
"This way," the Howler lord directed. He led Burke and Basil to a draped alcove where a well-dressed dwarf was waiting. "This is Kalipin, who has volunteered to be your guide into the eastern wilderness."
The little exotic shook hands. But even as Burke was uttering conventional pleasantries, the dwarf underwent a metamorphosis that froze the words in the big Native American jurist's throat.
Kalipin's body shrank. His torso became rounded and his limbs spindly. The grinning face compressed and sharpened until it was nearly birdlike, except for the flapping ears with their droopy upper margins. The eyes turned black and sank into grotesque pouches. The exotic's skin became greasy and his hair, falling in strands from beneath a smart green cap with a jeweled buckle, resembled a dirty mop.
"Well?" The bogle shifted his glance from one human to the other. "Still want to risk traveling to the Ship's Grave with me?"
"We know about the genetic misfortune of the Howler nation, old chap," said Basil gently. "We can't pretend that your—differences—don't exist. But I can't help wondering whether we humans don't look just as odd to you. Perhaps we can ad agree to ignore one another's peculiarities and simply get on with the job at hand. It's formidable enough."
"We must travel more than six hundred of your kilometer
s," Kalipin said. "During the first part of the journey, we may be in danger from the Firvulag if they suspect the purpose of the expedition. Sharn and Ayfa aren't fools. We'd do well to get beyond the Rhine before they return to High Vrazel."
"We have chalikos," Burke said. "Can you ride?"
The bogle grimaced. "Not those bloody great monsters! I can manage a hipparion. But mounts won't do you any good beyond the Rhine. You'll have to walk until we reach the Ystroll's source under the Feldberg. I hope your people are ad in good shape. The Black Forest trek is going to be rugged." Kalipin glared at the Native American. "I noticed that you limp."
"That I do," Burke sighed. "But it's pretty well decided that I'll stay behind at Hidden Springs while Basil takes charge of our tribe of daredevils. Elizabeth expects trouble around the iron mines this summer."
"Blood metal!" Kalipin shuddered. He shot a reproachful look at Sugoll. "Sometimes, Master, we simple ones despair of understanding why you insist that we ally ourselves with the Lowlives!"
"It is our only hope," said the ruler of the Howlers. "Some day you'll understand. Until then, obey me!"
For the briefest fraction of a second, the handsome figure in the white robe seemed overshadowed by another shape, hideous beyond belief. Burke and Basil gave involuntary gasps.
Sugoll's smile was melancholy. "You didn't know? But I am the greatest among my people in all things—even in physical abomination. As my guests, it was simple courtesy to spare you." He addressed the goblin guide. "And you, Kalipin. Use your goodly form when you are in the company of humans. We must not distress our friends unnecessarily."
The creature obediently transformed himself into a normal dwarf. "But all of us go back to our regular shapes when we're asleep," he told the men with wry satisfaction. "You'll just have to be brave at bedtime on the trail! Unless my Master orders me to sleep in a sack."
Sugoll laughed. "Impudent scoundrel. Just fulfill your mission faithfully. And now you are dismissed. Back to breakfast with you!"