Chapter 32 Nashpa of the Mangars
Fortunately for Clay, the ride was brief. A mile down the road and in sight of the Farjan camp, the tabra turned to the right and went up into the mountains on a crumbling, disused road. For some time a ridge hid the Farjan camp until, on a cliff still far below the peaks, they stopped to survey the plain. Clay cautiously raised his dizzy head.
They had been seen and followed. The Farjans had korfy riders of their own, and scores of these cavalrymen were ascending by the same road the Mangars had just taken.
“I was hoping they wouldn’t consider us worth the trouble,” Nashpa shouted to the others. “We’ll rest our korfies until they’re close and then race down the northern descent to our right. They probably don’t know the abandoned mine above us has two roads leading to it, the one we just came up and the one we’ll go down. We’ll slip past them.”
All waited tensely while their korfies’ breathing slowed and the Farjan riders came closer. To Clay it seemed that the cavalrymen were deliberately taking their time, perhaps thinking that the Mangars were trapped, regardless. Or maybe the men were just poor riders. Their korfy-handling certainly looked clumsy compared to the Mangars’.
Clay began to notice the view, breathtaking to an Indiana boy: the plains, the walled city on their left, and the Farjan camp—itself large as a city—on their right. Suddenly, his attention was diverted as something like an explosion took place at Dowerkass. Clay could not be sure that he had heard anything, but above the city appeared what seemed to be a huge column of blue smoke. The Farjan riders below him pulled up their korfies and pointed. The Mangars became very excited.
“A Blue Flis! A Blue Flis!” Bafrel cried. “It’s a sign for our good fortune.”
“What is it?” said Clay. “It looks like—it’s not smoke, is it? Oh, Thoz, it looks like a giant!”
The thing was walking, actually stepping over the western wall of the city. Clay had seen something like this outside Quintus’ tomb in Kulismos.
“No time to explain now,” Nashpa said cheerily. “We’ll use the distraction to make our getaway. Come, tabra! Ride to the snow! A Blue Flis born in Dowerkass—who would have expected such fortune?”
Clay grabbed the harness tighter and again flattened himself to Velprew’s back as they rode away. Soon they came to an open space, a grassy bowl under a high cliff. At the base of the cliff was a great pile of stones nearly filling an opening. Clay guessed this must have once been an entrance to the abandoned mine Nashpa had spoken of. But Nashpa did not pause at all; he led on through a tiny grove of trees and down the other and more northerly way, a steep and washed-out road in even worse condition than the one they had ascended.
Clay held on in terror while Velprew bounced and hopped downward in great strides, her head high above him on a neck like a tree trunk. As she followed Nashpa’s korfy around a boulder that lay in the road, Clay was suddenly aware of Angfetu landing beside him, gripping with both talons the heavy net that held Velprew’s load in place.
“Not this way!” the Sarree piped. “Turn back, Your Eminence!”
“Why?” Clay gasped.
“Because I’ve seen the Farjans waiting for you in ambush below. More korfy riders.”
“Fly over and tell Nashpa.” Clay jerked his head toward the Mangar leader.
Angfetu did, and at once Nashpa halted the tabra.
“Ambush down below,” he announced. “Mountains can’t be scaled by our korfies. Riders still coming on behind us. I’m open to ideas.”
“Teach these birds to fly,” Bafrel shouted, but no one laughed except himself.
“Not down the slope,” said another Mangar. “Only half of us would make it, and the Emperor wouldn’t have a chance of keeping in his saddle.”
“Scatter,” said Ripel. “One or two of us will get through and bring back help for those captured.”
Angfetu’s voice rose high. “I’ll fetch Zendor! Wait here, I’ll get him.” He flapped away southward through the pines.
“Zendor?” said Nashpa to Clay. “Your friend was captured, you said; and what can he do anyway?”
Clay shrugged.
“Down we go on this road,” Nashpa said suddenly. “We know those behind us are too many to fight, but perhaps we can break through those ahead. Out weapons! Ride to the snow!”
Even Clay knew this was utter desperation, but the Mangars lifted lances and bows and plunged down the steep road. Long before they came to the bottom they saw half a hundred Farjan korfy riders waiting in ranks across their way.
“Tabra ebbi!” Nashpa commanded, and the korfies scrambled up the slope on their right. Clay was nearly thrown off, and even one or two of the Mangars had trouble keeping seated. Nashpa soon halted them in the shade of three fir trees where they turned their korfies to face downhill.
“We won’t go higher,” Nashpa said grimly. “We’d only exhaust the korfies without gaining any advantage. We’ll meet the humans here.”
Ripel fitted an arrow to the string of his short bow. “No scattering, I suppose?”
Nashpa shook his head. “The Emperor can’t ride. No, we defend him here.”
“I volunteer to ride for help,” Ripel said quickly.
Nashpa did not answer. Clay understood that Ripel was begging to escape the coming massacre. He wished the leader would let Ripel go.
The human riders who had followed them up the mountain had now passed the old mine entrance and were descending toward them. The riders below stayed where they were. It was to be hammer and anvil.
Zendor looked westward across the plain and saw, five hundred miles away in the wastes of the North, his brothers and sisters. A few moved lightning swift across the land. Most were standing still, each an immense pillar of blue. He saw their long, solemn faces, their folded wings, a suggestion of robes.
He would go to them, for he suffered as they did. Like them, he found his distance from Thoz was wide as the greatest sphere. He was like a cold stone slung outward, away from his Master. And this was just.
He would go west. But something like a gnat was buzzing about his head, crying out, speaking words as if from the ancient language he had known long ago.
“...in the mountains...danger to the Emperor...follow me and help...”
Zendor understood and his anguish deepened. This was the Lusetta he had once known, now wanting him to help the Emperor of the Fold. This he must do. But he knew that the exercise of his power would only remove him farther from Thoz. Though he felt a tormenting desire for the Spirit, he must feed on dust, on the very power he had desired when he had been an Unknown King. This second stage of the Blue Plague was far more cruel than the first.
Hopelessly, he followed Angfetu along the Titan Mountains until the Lusetta soared in circles over one spot. Below was a little knot of korfy riders: seven Mangars and the Emperor. Scores of other riders—humans—filled the road lower down the slope. These appeared to be forming for an attack, but at Zendor’s approach they lost control of their mounts. Faintly, he heard the lion-like roar of the great birds and the screams of the soldiers. Some fled up the road, others down, and yet others left the way entirely; and of these latter many fell from their korfies.
Zendor leaned down and brushed away the riders on the lower road, for that was the way the Emperor must go. This done, he straightened up and looked away west to the other Blue Flisses. Then he flashed away so quickly that, to the survivors of his visitation, he was at once only a cyclone-like image on the horizon.
General Pyrus was still burning with anger and mortification when the Priestess Zavira and the Lady Zeezur-Hytra were announced at his pavilion door. As they entered, he began raging aloud.
“The incompetent fools! Did you see how they ran because some huge, brainless flis went by? I accept no accountability for it, Priestess. You saw the cowardice: report it to the Council. Every one of them should be executed in the Fa
bian Colosseum. And a Blue Flis this far east! Of all the cursed luck. No Farjan commander has ever had to operate in the vicinity of a Blue Flis. It’s a freak occurrence, and I cannot take any accountability for it. I wash my hands of it.”
He paused, his handsome face red.
“Commander, I hold you personally responsible for what happened today,” croaked Zavira. “You will answer to the Council.”
“But Priestess—”
“I know that a light haired boy was seen among the cat folk. It was the Pretender. You will form a new plan to catch him now. How will you do it?”
His aide Demas had arrived with a message, so Pyrus used the excuse to turn away from Zavira. He read deliberately, giving himself a chance to calm down before returning to her.
“Your pardon, Priestess. The Pretender is as good as caught, to answer your question. I have hundreds of korfy riders following them. Some will spread westward, some will climb a little known pass away at the end of the mountains and so head them off if they should go round to the eastern side. That covers all possibilities. It’s an unbreakable net, and it will grow smaller with each passing hour. He’ll be taken alive in just a few days.”
“Days!” exclaimed Metuza with deep scorn. “Not hours?”
Pyrus forced a chivalrous smile. “No, Lady, not hours, unfortunately. It’s better, in such cases, to overcome the impulse to grab blindly. As the net shrinks, we’ll have him.”
“Failure is inexcusable,” said the Hag. “What if he passes through the mountains? What if the Ulrigs help him?”
“Hardly possible, Priestess. The Ulrigs here are few and reclusive; and the mountains—well, there is another pass nearer by, but we’ll hear soon that they’ve gone by it. They probably don’t even know about it.”
“They will go over that pass,” the Hag said with illogical certainty. “The cursed boy always finds the one loose bar in a cage. Order all of your army to follow him across.”
“That’s unnecessary, Priestess. The foot soldiers are ready to go home.”
“Order them! Go through the pass.”
“And invade Trans-Titan? Would you provoke a war? And all for a penniless pretender with no followers?”
“You will obey, Pyrus. I know you will, because you wish to retain your command. Now what is the message?”
Pyrus took a ragged breath. “Yes, Priestess, the message. A Lusetta was shot down by our archers. It may have belonged to the Pretender’s party. It’s still alive.”
“Keep it alive,” she said.
“Yes, Priestess, it may know something useful to our hunt.”
“Only if your prediction of catching the Pretender is a false boast. No, but it will know much about the Forest Obscure and my enemies there. I’ll question the filthy Sarr at my leisure when we return to Farja.”
“Why are we going north, anyway?” Clay asked. “I thought you wanted to take me west to where the other Mangars live.”
Three days out from Dowerkass, he and the seven Mangars were taking a rest, seated within the entrance of a cave in the foothills of the northern Titans. Nashpa took no offense, for he knew that it was mainly the continual jarring ride combined with lack of sleep that was making Clay querulous. The Mangar picked a flea from his fur and studiedly crushed it between two claw tips. He re-sheathed his claws.
“Because, Your Eminence, General Pyrus has undoubtedly sent a column of korfy riders to cut us off from doing just that. Now, we know that the riders pursuing us on this road have only just matched our speed, but the column on our left—”
“Which may or may not exist.”
“—that column may have pushed ahead faster, in which case a move west would run us straight into them.”
“Where are we going then, the Arctic zone?” Clay asked sarcastically.
“We may be forced east,” said Nashpa, “around the north end of these mountains. That would take us into Trans-Titan.”
Ripel now joined the conversation. “But the Trans-Titanites hate Sarrs. They hate us more than the Prowtsians do. They’d kill us on sight.”
“I wish Angfetu had continued with us,” said Bafrel. “He could have told us where the humans’ western column is.”
The Mangars were unsure of what had become of Angfetu three days before. They hoped he had simply kept his promise to seek out Simone across the Iron Valley.
“We musn’t enter Trans-Titan,” Ripel said again.
“If you can get me to the border of Trans-Titan, I’ll take it from there,” Clay said.
He was eager to escape korfy riding. Nashpa had told him that Velprew had accepted him, but to Clay the beast looked as ready as ever to eat him. As for directing her movements, well, he had tried. He had dug in his fingers at the pressure points on her neck that Nashpa had shown him (for Mangars do not direct korfies with short sticks as do humans), but with mixed results. Velprew seemed confused. Again and again, Nashpa had had to ride Velprew down and seize her lead chain. Clay was not embarrassed; he was beyond that—lost in weariness, frustration, and self pity.
“I say, just drop me off there,” he repeated, meeting no response.
Nashpa seemed lost in thought. This was typical. Despite their loyal adoption of him, Clay found the Mangars cold and remote. They stared at him with great almond eyes as alien as those of fishes in the depths of the sea. They shared their own talk of a life lived in places he had never been. When they spoke of riding, of hunting, or of eating, they appeared to be always thinking inscrutable things. In the midst of such talk, one of them would grow still, his eyes would film over, and he would appear to be pondering some matter of the greatest secrecy and complexity: perhaps, Clay thought, a plot to murder and devour the bothersome human among them.
Indeed, that was his objection to them, that they were not human. He felt that in a thousand years he could never trust them, never be at ease. True, neither were Fijats human, but Raspberry he had found warm and understanding, cuddly and small. Pet-like. These Mangars were bigger than he and could rip him limb from limb. They were sometimes merry, often sang, but never were warm and definitely never cuddly.
As they had progressed northward to where the trees grew shorter, one of them had fashioned Clay a long, hooded coat from some of their leftover pelts. This he now wore, looking part ancient Roman and part cave man. His thanks for the coat had met no response other than a cool stare and a slight, stiff bow.
Bafrel, who had been exploring the cave, now approached behind Clay and the others.
“Leader, I hear odd sounds back there. Come listen.”
Nashpa rose to follow and Clay went too. Bafrel led them over great stones and under stalactites till, to Clay’s eyes, they were nearly in total darkness. They paused to listen.
“Do you hear that squeaking?” Bafrel asked.
Nashpa did. Clay heard nothing.
Nashpa sent Bafrel to fetch a lantern, and when he returned, they followed the sound down a large, rough passage strewn with small boulders. As they went, even Clay began to imagine he could hear it. Something like mice. He said so.
“No, bats,” said Bafrel.
“Or some Ulrig trick,” said Nashpa. “And yet I see no sign of Ulrig habitation here. This cave is as rough and crude as if it had never been entered.”
The tunnel narrowed until the three were slipping through single file and then began to open out again. Clay, who came second, heard Nashpa hiss loudly and felt the Mangar’s tail whip against his legs. The Mangar held up the lantern to a confusing jumble of stony projections on the cave wall. All three came before the projections and stared in shocked fascination, for here, seemingly, were the most lifelike statues imaginable, statues of hideous winged beasts as big as men. The wings were folded and the statues tightly packed together, intertwined, and embedded in the walls. They were overhead, too. The things’ eyes were shut, their mouths slightly open.
The la
ntern rattled in Nashpa’s paw. “It’s the Vultlag,” he said, “the lost Vultlag that the Ulrigs tell of—where they’ve slept for—for how many hundreds of years?”
“Four hundred,” Bafrel supplied. “Their King Roset called them to it in 3865 N.R.”
“You don’t mean these things are alive?” Clay asked.
“As alive as you and me,” Nashpa said. “They sleep; but something has disturbed their sleep. What would that be? An earthquake couldn’t wake them, so it’s said. The first Vultlag lasted thousands of years until—” he turned and looked at Clay “—until the Emperor Kuley, your ancestor, woke them.”
“That’s it,” said Bafrel, catching Nashpa’s meaning. “They sensed that their Master is near and began calling. Perhaps they want to be wakened.”
“Oh, no,” Clay said, backing away. “I don’t want to mess with them. Besides, you’re probably all wrong. It isn’t me making them do this.”
“Try it, Your Eminence,” Nashpa said. “Only you have the authority. Call them awake!”
“Shhh! It’s stupid. Nothing would happen.”
“Only speak and see.”
Clay was eager to put this strange exploration behind him. However, he could not go back without a light, and his two carefully hoarded light sticks were in his bag back at the cave entrance. He decided to say something quickly and get out.
“Uh, wake up,” he said without enthusiasm. “Just wake up, I command you.” None of them stirred. “OK, let’s go,” he said to the others.
“No, please, not ‘OK’ yet,” said Bafrel. “Their squeaking is louder, they heard. Let’s stay and watch.”
Nashpa nodded as he moved the lantern back and forth, searching for signs of life. Where one of the Vult’s evil looking heads protruded, he steadied the light by a pointed ear. Unmistakably, the tip of the ear was twitching. Nashpa almost dropped the lantern. From down the passage came a distinct, audible sound of movement, faint but bone chilling. Mangars and human fled together. Back at the cave entrance, the tabra hastily packed up and rode away before any Vult had a chance to show itself.
In late afternoon of the fifth day out from Dowerkass, the tabra came to the end of the mountain range. By driving themselves hard, they had kept ahead of the Farjans, and now it was time to make a decision—east or west? Nashpa could not agree to simply ride into northern Trans-Titan and leave Clay there to fend for himself. For one thing, he asked the young Emperor, where would the Mangars go from there? The eastern humans would attack them if they stayed in Trans-Titan, and if instead they were to return westward, then why not do so now with Clay?
Nashpa felt ready to test how far north the imagined second column of Farjan korfy riders had come. For he boasted that no humans could stand the pace that his tabra had maintained for six days. A quick enough dash westward would put them beyond General Pyrus’ net. Then let the humans chase them for as many hundred miles as they liked, if they could keep up. At last, the tabra would come to the snow circled tent towns of the Rull Semu where ten thousand Mangar lances would be turned on any impertinent pink-skins still following. He ordered the tabra westward.
As they rode, he looked with some pride on the young Emperor, who had begun to steer his own korfy. The boy’s fingernails had grown out since he had left Dowerkass, and he had at Nashpa’s direction trimmed them to points. This had been enough to lessen Velprew’s confusion, for she had missed the feel of claw on her neck.
Some three miles after the tabra’s change of direction, Nashpa began to regret his decision. The wind was at their faces and carried with it a scent of human and korfy, many of them, and not far off. The second column had materialized and just where Nashpa did not want them to be. He halted the tabra and called them together. Yes, the others had smelled it, too. Without the Emperor, Nashpa’s decision would have been easy; that is, try to break through a weakness in the human’s line, and if unsuccessful, die gloriously. But the Emperor would probably be taken prisoner and treated dreadfully. The witch cult of Farja was not known for its warm hospitality. No, better to perish in the northern wastes. Better yet to revert to the Emperor’s wishes and go east, though where exactly in the East he did not stop to think.
“Tabra ebbi!” was the order. They formed into their diamond and went back the way they had come. Six lost miles, three going and three coming. Six miles more wear on the tired korfies, which had not had their usual amount of grazing. And how far would the first column of humans have advanced in the meantime? Nashpa began to worry again, and just in case, he determined to steer the tabra on a wider loop around little Droljel, the last mountain in the range. The Emperor, he noticed, had his far-seeing glasses out and was looking up at the mountains; and again Nashpa congratulated himself that Clay was riding upright and guiding Velprew with one hand. Since he rode beside Clay, he was close enough to ask him what he saw.
“Korfy riders!” Clay shouted. “They’re going over a saddle between two mountains. They’re going to be waiting for us on the other side of the range.”
“How many?” Nashpa shouted back as calmly as he could.
“Lots.”
“Are some of them coming straight north on this side?”
Clay moved the binoculars. “Yes, lots of dust there. But I think we’ll make it around Droljel before they see us.”
Nashpa tried to console himself with the thought that at this distance even the Farjans crossing the mountains might not have seen the tabra. His keen eyes certainly could not see them. But what now? Everything had depended on escaping around the mountains, and now they were being blocked that way, too. Under a pale gray sky, the net was tightening. After a few more miles they arrived opposite the northeast shoulder of Droljel and felt a wind coming up from the south, bounded by the eastern side of the range. Nashpa watched a rainstorm slowly move their way, dimming one peak and then another. He calculated that the Farjans would be under that storm when emerging from the mountains in a few minutes. To go toward them or stay still would mean being seen, rain or no rain. To continue east would mean traversing hundreds of miles of countryside inhabited by humans. They would never make it to the coast that way. The alarm would be raised, roads would be blocked, and farmers with bows would shoot them out of their saddles before they could ride halfway to Meschor. One possibility remained.