“Not anymore, he isn’t,” Zelana replied with a broad grin. “Andar gave him a rather extended lecture on the process of starving to death after Bersla said that he’d always have plenty to eat. He pointed out the fact that if the creatures of the Wasteland managed to occupy the farmland in Aracia’s Domain, they’d eat everything and leave nothing at all for Aracia’s priests. He even managed to raise the possibility of cannibalism. By the time he was done, ‘Holy Bersla’ was in a state of near-panic. Aracia was still ‘forbidding’ Lillabeth to tell us about her Dream, though, but Eleria jerked the ground out from under her.”
“Could you give us the gist of Lillabeth’s Dream?” Dahlaine asked.
“I can do better than that, big brother,” Zelana said with a broad smile. Then she looked at the children who’d been standing nearby. “Why don’t you tell him Lillabeth’s Dream?” she suggested to them.
“I have dreamed,” the children recited, speaking in unison, “and in my Dream the creatures of the Wasteland moved up through a deep valley lined with crystal toward the lands of the far North. Greatly troubled were the people of the North, for there were many signs that some of their friends were no longer loyal to the Elder God who holds dominion in the North. And there was a plague that was not a plague, and many, many in the North died. And for the first time, the servants of the Vlagh bore with them weapons which were not parts of their bodies. But in time, the creatures of the Wasteland that serve the Vlagh were consumed by a fire unlike any fire we have ever seen, and thus was the Dream ended, for victory was once more ours.”
“Any questions, big brother?” Zelana asked with a sly little smile, “or would you prefer to go into an extended oration about assorted impossibilities? What it all boils down to, Dahlaine, is the fact that the Dreamers will do exactly what they’re supposed to do, regardless of how hard any one of us—or all of us put together—might try to stop them.” Then she gave him a broad smile. “Isn’t that neat?” she said with almost childish enthusiasm.
They gathered in the central chamber of Dahlaine’s cave to consider Lillabeth’s Dream. Now that all doubts had been pushed aside, Omago was certain that they’d be able to find solutions, even as they had during the war near the Falls of Vash.
“I was fairly sure that Crystal Gorge would be the route the creatures of the Wasteland would follow when they decided to pay me a call,” Dahlaine said. “There are a few other passes that come up here from the Wasteland, but they’re crooked, and narrow, and very steep. Crystal Gorge isn’t really very wide, but it’s wider than any of the others. If the servants of the Vlagh decide to follow their usual practice of charging in masses, they’ll almost have to come up here through that gorge. I think that one of Narasan’s forts might be the best solution to the problem. We have archers and spearmen who’ll be able to defend that fort, and we’ll have the Malavi horsemen who’ll be able to deal with any invaders who try to sneak around behind us.”
“I think we might just be coming up on ‘lumpy map’ time,” Longbow suggested. “You know exactly what the ground looks like, Dahlaine, so maybe you should share it with the rest of us.”
“Does he always do that, Zelana?” Dahlaine asked his sister in a grouchy tone of voice.
“Almost always, yes. Longbow’s an extremely practical man, and he won’t put up with impracticality. Keep the peace in the family, big brother. Make a lumpy map. Then we’ll all be able to look at it and point out all the mistakes you’ve made.”
“Somehow I knew you’d say something like that, Zelana,” Dahlaine replied sourly.
“Then I haven’t disappointed you, have I? Make a map, Dahlaine. Show us how beautiful your land is, and then we’ll tell you what’s wrong with it.”
“Don’t let all those clever remarks disturb you, Dear Heart,” Ara said quietly to Omago. “In a peculiar sort of way this is how they express their love for each other. It’s a game they’ve been playing for a long, long time. They might grow up someday, but I wouldn’t count on it, if I were you.”
Dahlaine conjured up his “lumpy map” in a large chamber some distance away from the one where he and Ashad spent most of their time, and he borrowed Veltan’s idea and put a balcony around the chamber wall to give the people who were there to help defend his Domain a clearer view of the map. The map was much larger than the one in Veltan’s house, and right at first Omago thought that Veltan’s older brother might have been exaggerating just a bit in the somewhat childish hope that “bigger” might seem more impressive. The more Omago looked at the map, however, the more certain he became that it was fairly close to being an exact representation of Dahlaine’s part of the Land of Dhrall.
“That’s Crystal Gorge right there,” Dahlaine told them, pointing at the representation of the place that had been very significant in Lillabeth’s Dream.
“It looks to me like that might be a good place for one of Narasan’s forts,” Sorgan Hook-Beak suggested. “The one called Gunda is the expert on forts,” he added. “As soon as he gets here with Veltan and the horse-people, we’ll let him decide where we should build it, and then I’ll take my men down there, and we’ll construct a base so that when Narasan arrives, he’ll be able to put his men to work on the fort itself.” Then he looked at Dahlaine. “Can you give us any kind of guess about when the snake-men are likely to show up in that gorge?”
“I think we’ll have enough time, Sorgan,” Dahlaine replied. “It’s a goodly distance from Veltan’s Domain up here to mine, and the Vlagh’s going to have to replace all the servants that were drowned when that river changed direction.”
“Do the Matans hunt anywhere near that gorge?” Longbow asked. “I’m not trying to offend you, Dahlaine, but hunters pay very close attention to the terrain of the place where they hunt.”
Dahlaine shook his head. “The Matans wouldn’t hunt down there in those mountains,” he said. “They hunt bison, not deer, and the bison prefer open grassland.”
“I think I might know someone who could help us, uncle,” the little boy Ashad said. “Long-Claw spends a lot of time down there when the fish are running.”
“Who’s Long-Claw?” Eleria asked.
“He’s my brother,” Ashad replied.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to help you, Ashad,” Yaltar said a bit dubiously.
“I was talking about my other brother,” Ashad said. “He and I sort of grew up in Mama Broken-Tooth’s cave.”
“Who’s Mama Broken-Tooth?” Rabbit asked curiously.
“She’s the one who fed me when I was a baby.”
“One of the women from the local village, then?”
Ashad laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly call her a woman, Rabbit,” he said. “That might offend her, and you don’t really want to do that. She gets very bad-tempered sometimes, but that’s only natural, I suppose. Grouch is part of her nature.”
“Just exactly what is she?” Rabbit asked.
“A bear, of course,” Ashad said. “Bears are just about the best mothers in the whole world.”
“Were you crazy, Lord Dahlaine,” Sorgan Hook-Beak demanded in a shrill voice. “You actually handed a new-born infant off to a bear? You’re lucky she didn’t have him for breakfast.”
“Quite the contrary, Captain Hook-Beak,” Dahlaine said. “Ashad was right. Bears are very close to the best mothers in the world. Their milk is very rich, and they teach their cubs—or children—how to find berries to eat, and how to swat fish out of mountain streams, and, when the cubs misbehave, the mama bear spanks them to make them mind their manners. A mother bear will also tear anybody—or anything—apart if it tries to hurt her cubs. They’re extremely protective.”
“But Ashad wasn’t really her cub,” Sorgan protested.
“She thought he was, and that’s all that mattered to her. Look at it this way, Captain. If a human child has a mother who stands ten feet tall, weighs close to a thousand pounds, has claws that are long and sharp, and teeth that are even longer and sharper, that child
doesn’t have a thing in the world to worry about, wouldn’t you say?”
“It just seems so unnatural,” Sorgan protested.
“Don’t think about it, then.”
“I’ll go see if I can find Long-Claw, uncle,” Ashad said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to tell us all kinds of things about that Crystal Gorge place.” Then the boy turned and left the map-chamber.
“This ‘plague that’s not really a plague’ concerns me, my brother,” Zelana said after Dahlaine’s Dreamer had left. “That sort of suggests a poison of some kind, wouldn’t you say?”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Dahlaine conceded, “but wouldn’t that be just a bit sophisticated for the creatures of the Wasteland?”
“Using weapons that aren’t a part of their own bodies is sophisticated, Dahlaine,” Zelana reminded him. “The servants of the Vlagh are moving much faster than we’d expected, so we’d better start thinking fast, or they’ll outrun us. I’m also starting to catch a strong odor of ‘tampering’ again. If I understood what you told us earlier, the crazy man in Atazakan has started to do things that an ordinary crazy wouldn’t do. Ordinary crazies develop a certain routine, and it never changes. Going outside every morning and afternoon to give the sun her marching orders should fill his whole day, but quite suddenly he’s decided to invade his neighbors, and that doesn’t fit at all. Somebody—or something—is changing his obsession, wouldn’t you say?”
“Why don’t I have Ox sharpen his axe?” Sorgan suggested. “It sort of sounds to me like maybe it’s ‘whomp’ time again.”
“It probably would solve some problems, Dahlaine,” Zelana agreed, “and Ox is probably one of the best whompers available to us.”
“I think another problem just came through the door,” Sorgan’s cousin Torl said in an alarmed tone of voice.
Omago turned quickly and stared at the hairy animal that was shambling along beside Dahlaine’s Dreamer.
“This is my brother, Long-Claw,” Ashad announced. “He’s agreed to tell us everything he knows about that gully down in the mountains, and he won’t eat anybody here, so you don’t have to worry very much.”
The huge bear stood up on his hind feet, and Omago was stunned by the enormous size of the creature.
Ara, however, didn’t seem to be the least bit afraid of the monster. She strolled around the balcony and held out her hands to the shaggy animal.
Long-Claw sniffed at her hands, and then she rather fondly scratched the huge bear’s ears and petted him. He nuzzled at her in response. They seemed to be getting along quite well, but Omago wished that Ara wouldn’t stand quite so close to the huge beast.
Ashad began to make growling sounds, and the bear squinted down over the balcony railing at Dahlaine’s map. Then he shook his head and rumbled something to the little boy.
“He can’t see it well enough,” Ashad said. “His eyes aren’t very good, so I’ll have to take him on down there so that he can see it better.”
“We’ll watch from up here, Ashad,” Dahlaine said.
“It might be better that way, uncle. Long-Claw’s not really very comfortable around people.” He led his shaggy brother on out into the hall-like tunnel beyond the balcony, and in a few moments, the two of them came out onto the lumpy map below. They went on down to the part of the imitation where the mountains were and growled and rumbled at each other for quite some time.
“Uncle,” Ashad called, “Long-Claw tells me that this upper part of the streambed is sort of crumbly. I don’t think you’d want to build this fort-thing there.”
“Go on down a ways, Ashad,” Dahlaine called. “We’ll need solid ground if we’re going to build a fort.”
“Right,” Ashad agreed. Then he growled at his bear, and they went a ways farther on down the imitation valley. Then they stopped and growled at each other for a while.
“He says that this is just about the best place, uncle,” Ashad called. “This is his favorite place when he’s looking for fish to eat.”
“Mark it, Ashad,” Dahlaine called.
“Right,” Ashad agreed, pulling a clump of fur off the sleeve of his tunic and poking it into a narrow crack in one of the crystal rocks.
“Thank him for us, Ashad,” Zelana called, “and then tell him to go back to Mama’s cave.”
“I’ll do that, Auntie,” Ashad replied.
“Auntie?” Zelana asked her older brother.
“It’s one of those ‘in the family’ things, Zelana,” Dahlaine explained. “It’s sort of like Eleria’s ‘Beloved.’ Not quite as pretty, of course, but then what is?”
3
It was several days later when Veltan, Red-Beard, Gunda, and the horse-soldier Ekial arrived at Mount Shrak with a large number of mounted Malavi behind them. Everybody in Dahlaine’s cave went outside to look at the horse-creatures, and, naturally, the Malavi began to show off. Omago had never really understood just why warrior people always seemed to want to do that.
Their friend Red-Beard was also riding a horse that he called “Seven,” for some reason. Red-Beard was obviously not as skilled at horse-riding as the Malavi were, but he didn’t fall off his horse as it trotted along with the other horses, so it appeared that horses weren’t totally wild.
That raised a very interesting possibility for Omago. It seemed to him that with a bit of proper training, a horse—or several horses harnessed together—might be extremely useful. He decided that he might want to talk with Rabbit the smith about that. If Rabbit could devise the right tool, it might just make the shovel obsolete when the time came to prepare the ground for planting.
The Malavi set up a kind of camp near the foot of Mount Shrak. It was fairly obvious that camping inside Dahlaine’s cave wouldn’t have suited them at all. Omago was becoming a bit more accustomed to living inside Dahlaine’s hole-in-the-ground residence, but he was never really comfortable with the idea, so he understood the reluctance of the Malavi to even go inside Dahlaine’s cave-house.
Omago and the others had seen a few of the local people before the arrival of the Malavi, but now that Dahlaine’s hired warriors were here, Veltan’s older brother decided that it might be a good time to bring the local Matans into his cave so that the Matans, the Tonthakans, and the Malavi could become acquainted with each other.
And so it was that Dahlaine’s little boy Ashad went on down to a nearby village called Asmie, and he soon came back with a young villager called Tlingar, who was about the same age as Ashad, and was obviously Ashad’s close friend. There was another native with the two boys who was an older man with greying hair and was called Tlantar Two-Hands the Chief. Omago couldn’t quite understand why his people had added “Two-Hands” to their chief’s name.
“It’s because he doesn’t favor one hand over the other, Dear Heart,” Ara quietly advised her mate. “The members of his tribe started to call him ‘Two-Hands’ when he was just a boy. He can throw his spear with either hand, and he almost always makes his spear go exactly where he wants it to go. The members of his tribe are terribly proud of that, so they’ve added ‘Two-Hands’ to his name to impress other tribes.”
“How did you manage to pick that up, Ara?”
“I just happened to overhear one of the members of his tribe boasting about that when he was talking with somebody who belonged to a different tribe. It’s not very common, but it does show up every so often.”
Then there was a general sort of get-together in Dahlaine’s war-chamber where the various warrior people examined Dahlaine’s replica of Crystal Gorge, and discussed a number of possible ways to hold back the invasion of the creatures of the Wasteland.
Gunda, the Trogite fort-builder, picked a slightly different location for the fort that would be their main line of defense, and he patiently explained that higher ground would give them a certain advantage.
Then Ekial and Ariga pointed out several places that would be ideal for their standard “hit-and-run” tactics. It seemed to Omago that much of what they were say
ing to each other was fairly obvious, and it also seemed that they were all being excessively polite.
“It’s called ‘getting to know you,’ Dear Heart,” Ara told him. “They discuss very obvious things while they’re becoming better acquainted with the nature of the people who’ll be their allies in the coming war. It’s not all that uncommon, and if it makes them more comfortable with each other, it’s not really a total waste of time.”
“If I remember correctly, there was quite a bit of that going on in Veltan’s map-room back home before the outlanders went on up into the mountains.”
“We’re bringing a wide range of warrior people together in the same place, Omago,” Ara explained. “They don’t know each other very well at all, so everybody is stepping very carefully until they become more familiar.”
“There is something that’s likely to happen when we encounter these bug-people—or whatever they’re called,” the horse-soldier Ariga declared. “If these enemy creatures really do have snake-fangs like you’ve all mentioned, won’t they be able to kill our horses with just one little nip? We could all wind up walking before the first day of the war is over.”
“I think there might be a way to solve that problem,” Tlantar, the chief of the local tribe, said. “We hunt bison for the meat, of course, but we also make use of their hides. A robe made of bison hide is very thick, and the fur is dense enough to keep us warm through the coldest winters. If those robes can hold off the weather, isn’t it possible that they’d be thick enough to keep the snake-fangs from getting in deep enough to wound your horses?”
“It might take our horses a while to get used to wearing clothes,” Ekial said, “but if those animal skins will protect them, it might just solve the problem. The horses might not like wearing robes very much, but they don’t really have to like it, I guess. They’ll just have to do it.”
“Are plagues really all that common in this part of the world?” the young Trogite Keselo asked. “The Dream mentioned a ‘plague that was not a plague,’ and that has me a bit confused.”