“But my bottom will, I take it.”
Ariga shrugged. “Nothing comes free, Red-Beard.”
The deep forest on the Tonthakan side of the mountain range bothered all of the Malavi quite a bit. “We aren’t used to seeing trees that big, Red-Beard,” Ariga said. “The trees down in our part of the world aren’t nearly so tall, and they have leaves that fall off when winter arrives.”
“The trees up here in Dahlaine’s territory are probably the biggest ones in the whole world,” Red-Beard agreed, nudging Seven along with his heels. “I always thought that the trees in Zelana’s Domain were the biggest, but they don’t even come close to these monsters. A tree that’s three hundred feet tall gives a man something to think about, doesn’t it? Can you imagine how old those things are?”
“They seem to be aging quite well, though,” Ariga added. “Their limbs aren’t turning grey, and they don’t seem to need canes to keep them standing upright.”
“I don’t think trees get old, Ariga,” Red-Beard said. “If nothing goes wrong—a forest fire or a windstorm—they’ll just stand there forever. If we looked around, we could probably find a tree up here that’s a million years old—give or take a month or two.”
“Very funny, Red-Beard.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” Red-Beard said. “Wait!” he hissed.
“What?”
“Deer on up ahead. Let’s find out if I can shoot arrows when I’m sitting on old Seven here.” He carefully took up his bow and pulled an arrow out of his quiver. “Stay right here,” he whispered. “I don’t think this will take too long.” He lightly nudged Seven with his heels and the weary old horse plodded forward toward the deer that was feeding on a low bush.
The deer raised his head, his ears flickering a bit. Then he went back to eating.
Red-Beard took aim and loosed his arrow.
The arrow took the deer high in his neck, and the deer staggered off a few yards and then collapsed.
“Meat in the pot!” Red-Beard shouted triumphantly.
Ariga rode forward. “You’re very good with your bow, Red-Beard,” he said.
“Lots of practice, my friend,” Red-Beard said. “Now you’ll be able to taste real meat. Venison’s richer than beef, and a meal of deer meat will keep you going. I don’t want to offend you, Ariga, but beef is a little bland, you know.”
“It’s never bothered me all that much,” Ariga said, “and the Trogites pay good money for cow meat.”
“Trogites will eat almost anything,” Red-Beard said, sliding out of his saddle with a knife in his hand. “I’ll dress this one out and then sort of snoop around and see if I can find any others nearby. We’re coming up on feeding-time here in the woods.”
“You don’t have to tell Red-Beard that I said this,” Ariga told his friend Ekial, “but that deer meat didn’t set too well with me.”
“It was just a bit gamey, wasn’t it?” Ekial agreed. “I definitely prefer beef, but let’s not make an issue of it. We don’t want to offend Red-Beard if we can avoid it.”
They rode on up into the mountains that stood to the east of the Tonthakan country, and Ariga was somewhat awed by these rugged peaks. This wouldn’t be a good place to fight a war on horseback.
When they reached the summit, however, Ariga and the other Malavi stared off to the east at what was probably the most beautiful meadowland any of them had ever seen. It stretched unbroken from the east side of the mountains to the far horizon, almost like a golden sea. “Now that is our kind of country, isn’t it, Ekial?” Ariga said to his friend.
“Truly,” Ekial agreed in an awed voice. “We could raise cows by the millions out there.”
They rode on down the east slope of the mountains, and there was a native of the region waiting for them in the shade of a small grove of trees.
“Which one of you is Veltan?” the solid-looking native asked when they approached him.
“That’s me,” Dahlaine’s brother said, nudging his horse closer.
“Your big brother wanted me to tell you a few things,” the native said. “My name is Tlatan, and I am of the tribe of Tlantar. I’m supposed to warn you and your people that there’s a pestilence roaming around killing people off to the north and that the Atazakans have invaded the lands of the Matans.”
“You said what?” Veltan exclaimed.
“We’ve got a pestilence and an invasion,” Tlatan replied. “You really should learn to listen more carefully.”
“Let’s set the pestilence aside for now and concentrate on the invasion. Why are the Atazakans invading?”
“Probably because their high chief is crazy,” Tlatan said with a shrug. “I thought everybody knew that Azakan is crazy.”
“When did this invasion start?”
“Sometime last week, I think. We haven’t received too many details yet. Your big brother’s quite concerned about it. You might want to hurry on down to Mount Shrak and talk with Dahlaine. He can probably give you more in the way of details.”
“I want to thank you, Tlatan,” Veltan said.
The native shrugged. “I’m just doing what I was told to do.” He looked around at the mounted Malavi. “Do these people always sit on the animals they’re going to eat for supper?” he asked, curious.
“They’re called bison, Ariga,” Veltan said. “The Matans hunt them—for food, primarily, but I understand that their hides are also useful.”
“They’re quite a bit bigger than cows,” Ariga observed, “and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal with horns that are all one solid piece like that.”
“Dahlaine says that the bulls are quite aggressive. They don’t just run away when something—or someone—attacks the herd. The bulls fight back, and they’re very bad-tempered.”
“That might take a lot of the fun out of hunting them. They look very shaggy, don’t they?”
“That’s why the Matans value their hides so much. It gets very cold up here in the winter, and shaggy garments keep the Matans warm and dry when winter arrives.”
“If it wasn’t for that cold weather, this would be a great place to raise cows,” Ariga suggested.
“Not really, Ariga. There are wolves up here in Dahlaine’s country, and I’m fairly sure that the wolves would eat all your profit.”
“I’ve heard about wolves, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.”
“If you’re lucky, you never will. They’re very clever animals, and they hunt in packs. If a dozen or so wolves decide that you might taste good, they’ll probably have you for supper.”
“They’d have to catch me first, and I’m fairly sure that my horse could outrun them without too much trouble.”
“Possibly so, Ariga, but how long can your horse run?”
“All day, if it’s necessary.”
“That wouldn’t be quite long enough, I’m afraid. A pack of wolves could make your horse run as fast as he possibly could for two or three days—and nights. Sooner or later, your horse would collapse, and then the wolves would eat him, and have you for dessert.”
Ariga shuddered. “Do you suppose we could talk about something else, Veltan?” he asked.
“Of course, Ariga. The weather maybe?”
Mount Shrak was one of those solitary peaks, much like some of those in the southern reaches of the Land of the Malavi. Most mountains had family members clustered around them, but every now and then, a lone peak would stand off all by itself—possibly because it didn’t get along with its brothers and sisters. Ariga found the notion of a grumpy mountain stalking away from its family in a huff rather amusing.
Veltan spoke briefly with Ekial and then went to a large cave-mouth in the side of the lonely peak to talk with Dahlaine and with the most beautiful woman Ariga had ever seen.
“She did what?” Veltan exclaimed in an astonished tone of voice.
“She was trying her very best to hide Lillabeth’s Dream from the rest of us, baby brother,” the beautiful woman said. “She wanted everybody
in the world to run on down to her Domain to protect her ‘Holy Temple,’ but I jerked the rug out from under her. Now she’s all alone down there with nobody to protect her except for several thousand fat, lazy priests who couldn’t tell one end of a knife from the other. I think we’ll let her sweat for a while before we send her any help. It might be good for her.”
Than a large man with a broken nose came out of the cave with a bleak-faced native beside him. “Did I hear you right, Lady Zelana?” the bulky man asked. “Is Narasan on his way up here?”
“He and his men were boarding their ships when I left, Sorgan,” the lady replied. “It’s going to take them a while to sail up the east coast, and then they’ll have to march the rest of the way here from the beach.”
“I really need him here, Lady Zelana,” Sorgan declared. “I went down and had a look at the canyon called ‘Crystal Gorge,’ and we’ll need a good strong fort to hold back the bug-men when they begin their attack, and Narasan’s men make better forts than my men can.”
“I think you might just be overlooking something, Captain Hook-Beak,” Veltan said with a faint smile. “I just happen to have Sub-Commander Gunda in my party, and Gunda’s the best fort-builder in the entire Trogite Empire. That wall he built down in my Domain will probably still be there a thousand years from now. If your men can follow his instructions, the creatures of the Wasteland will never get out of Crystal Gorge.”
“Unless they decide to take up flying again,” the bleak-faced native added.
“Why do you always have to do that, Longbow?” the one called Sorgan demanded.
“It keeps you on your toes, Sorgan. Always expect the worst. If it doesn’t come along, it’ll brighten your whole day.”
“I don’t think you’ll be involved in the building of the fort, Captain Hook-Beak,” Dahlaine said. “I think it might be a good idea for you and Prince Ekial to get to know each other. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ekial’s horse-soldiers will radically change the way we’ll be fighting wars from here on, and the servants of the Vlagh are going to be getting some very nasty surprises before we finish up this time.”
THE WAR CHAMBER
1
There was an alien quality about the Domain of Veltan’s older brother that Omago found to be just a bit disturbing. The huge evergreen trees in the Tonthakan region filled Omago with awe, and that might have had something to do with his problem, but the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that it was people rather than the trees or mountains that concerned him so much. It seemed to Omago that they didn’t behave the way that people were supposed to. He knew that Longbow and Red-Beard were hunters rather than farmers, but after a while he’d grown accustomed to their peculiarities, and they’d actually become fairly close friends. The outlanders were very different, but that was to be expected. They came from different parts of the world, after all. Even so, Omago found that there were several of the Trogites and Maags that he thought of as friends.
The natives of the Domain of Veltan’s older brother, however, baffled Omago. There was a belligerence about them that seemed most unnatural, and it appeared that the slightest disagreement could start a war up here.
As it turned out, however, that belligerence had been the result of what Veltan had always referred to as “tampering.” Veltan himself was a master tamperer. He altered many things, usually to make the lives of the people of his Domain more pleasant. The tampering up in that part of Dahlaine’s Domain called Tonthakan, however, had evidently been the work of their enemies, and it had obviously been designed to stir up conflict between the various tribes, and thereby to reduce the size of the force that would be needed to hold back the invasion of the creatures of the Wasteland.
All had turned out very well in Tonthakan, but it appeared that their enemies were far more clever than they’d been in the earlier wars in the Domains of Veltan and his sister Zelana. Omago remembered something that Veltan had told him when he’d been just a boy. Most creatures, Veltan had said, developed very slowly, and a minor change could take thousands of years to become common in all members of that species. The creatures of the Wasteland, however, could change significantly almost overnight. It was that peculiarity which made the servants of the Vlagh so dangerous.
After Sorgan’s friend Ox had eliminated the two creatures who’d been causing the dissension in Tonthakan, things went much more smoothly, and Veltan’s older brother decided that they should all go on down to his home in a place called “Mount Shrak.” They left the village of Statha and crossed the mountains that the archer Athlan called “Bear Hunter Territory” and came to the lands of Matakan.
The vast prairie-land of Matakan filled Omago with awe. The tall yellow grass strongly suggested that the soil was very fertile, and Dahlaine told them that the grain-fields to the north were extensive. The Matans of this southern region, however, concentrated on hunting the huge bison that grazed here and were the primary meat source in the lands of the Matans.
Omago had a bit of trouble with that idea, of course. There had always been a certain amount of trouble in the Domain of Veltan because of the grazing habits of sheep. A herd of hungry sheep could devour vast stretches of wheat and other crops in the space of just a few days, and Omago was quite sure that a herd of bison, an animal that appeared to be ten times larger than a sheep, could strip away an entire season’s worth of hard work almost overnight. That probably caused a lot of problems.
It took them a couple more days to reach Dahlaine’s home under the towering Mount Shrak. The notion of sleeping in a hole in the ground disturbed Omago more than a little. Hadn’t Dahlaine ever seen a house?
As usual, however, Ara took everything in stride—right up until they reached Dahlaine’s main underground chamber and she saw Dahlaine’s rudimentary kitchen. She spoke with Veltan’s older brother at some length about stoves and ovens, pots, pans, plates, cups, spoons, and other utensils.
Omago had to cover his mouth with one hand to keep Dahlaine from seeing his broad grin as Ara continued to scold him.
It was early on the following morning when Zelana’s little girl Eleria came out into the main chamber of Dahlaine’s cave looking for her “Beloved.” Omago saw a certain charm in the child’s use of that term, but he’d had just a bit of trouble with Zelana’s explanation that the word had been derived from the term used by her pet pink dolphins. The concept of talking animals disturbed Omago more than just a little. If dolphins could talk, that probably meant that they could also think. And if they could think—? Omago shuddered back from that possibility.
Both Zelana and Dahlaine seemed to be quite troubled when Eleria advised them that the children “shared” their Dreams with each other. The notion that the children were able to step over vast distances with their minds didn’t really seem all that remarkable to Omago. They were brothers and sisters, after all, and, given their importance in the current situation here in the Land of Dhrall, communication between them could very well be absolutely essential. Yaltar had never quite come right out and told Omago and Ara that he’d known exactly what his sister Eleria had seen in one of “those” Dreams, but he’d quite obviously been aware of the more significant details.
It was the decision of their sister Aracia to conceal Lillabeth’s Dream from the other members of her family that outraged Dahlaine and Zelana the most, however. In their eyes this was an out-and-out betrayal. Omago wasn’t really all that surprised, however; Aracia’s arrogant, self-centered behavior during the war in Veltan’s Domain quite strongly suggested that she devoutly believed that she was by far the most important creature in the entire world, and that her brothers and sister were not really all that significant.
Omago found that to be moderately offensive.
Zelana’s immediate reaction was anything but moderate, however; Omago was quite certain that “divine” Aracia was likely to have a very bad day when Zelana confronted her.
“Don’t concern yourself, dear heart,” Ara said with
a faint smile. “I’m quite sure that Zelana’s just about to go turn her sister’s world upside down, and then everything should be all right again.”
“If you say so, dear,” Omago said, but he did have a few doubts.
2
I’m not too sure that the idiocy down there was entirely Aracia’s fault, Dahlaine,” Zelana told her brother after she and Eleria had returned to the cavern later that day. “There’s a priest down there who’s almost as fat—and dishonest—as Adnari Estarg of the Trogite Church was, and he has our sister neatly wrapped around his finger. His main goal in life is to make sure that he’s protected from honest work—and living in luxury, of course. Once he starts talking, Aracia’s mind goes to sleep. She adores being adored, and Takal Bersla piles adoration on her for all he’s worth for hours and hours every day. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that our dear sister ‘just happened’ to tell him about Aracia’s Dream, and then he could very well have been the one who persuaded her to try to hide it from the rest of us.” Then she laughed. “Do you happen to remember that fellow in Narasan’s army who goes by the name of Andar? The one with the deep voice?”
“I think so, yes,” Dahlaine replied.
“After Narasan and his army reached Aracia’s temple down there and discovered that ‘Temple City’ was completely indefensible, they tried to persuade our sister that they should determine the invasion route the bug-people would most likely follow and then block it off with their standard fortifications. Holy Bersla violently objected and announced that the temple was the only place in our sister’s Domain that needed protection. As far as he was concerned, the rest of Aracia’s Domain wasn’t at all significant.”
“Is he really that stupid?” Dahlaine asked with a certain astonishment.