Rabbit shrugged. “That’s what they’re paying me for,” he said. “I’ll need to see one of your spear-points before I set up shop, though. I’m quite sure that you’ll want the weight and size to be close to what your original stone points are.”
Tlantar nodded. “If the weight’s too much different, the spear won’t go where I want it to.” He handed his spear to the little Maag.
“It is much bigger—and heavier—than an arrow,” Rabbit said, “but the general shape’s the same, so it shouldn’t give me too many problems. Now, then, what’s this ‘spear-thrower’ thing that everybody keeps talking about?”
Tlantar held up his thrower. “We set the butt of the spear in this cup-shaped part of the thrower at the end, and then we whip the thrower forward. It takes quite a long time to learn how to aim the spear when you’re using the thrower, but once you’ve mastered that, you can whip the thrower forward, and the spear flies much faster—and harder—than it would if we just threw it with our hands. A faster spear hits harder, and it drives the spear-point in deeper.”
“Does it really work?” Rabbit asked a bit dubiously.
“We don’t go hungry very often,” Tlantar replied.
“Dahlaine told me that you’ve been killing the creatures of the Wasteland for most of your life,” Tlantar said to Longbow as they watched the little Maag known as Rabbit pound a piece of hot metal into a rough imitation of Tlantar’s stone spear-point. “He didn’t tell me exactly why, though. It’s really none of my concern, so if you’d rather not talk about it, just forget that I said anything.”
Longbow gave him a speculative look. “We’ll be working together before very long, Tlantar,” he said, “so we should know each other as well as possible, I suppose.” He sighed then. “When I was very young, there was a girl that I knew, and we’d decided that we should mate. On the day of our joining, she went out into the forest to bathe herself in a pool of clear water. The bug-people had been creeping through the forest near our village, and I guess they didn’t want us to know that they were there, so they killed her. Now I kill them.” He smiled faintly. “Word of what I’d been doing reached Zelana, and she decided that I might be useful, so she came up to our village to ask me to help her when the creatures of the Wasteland invaded her Domain. I told her no, but then the little girl who’d come with her reached out and snared me before I even knew what she was doing. If you ever come up against that little girl, be very, very careful. First she charms you, and then she grabs you.”
“He’s got that right, Tlantar,” Rabbit said. “If you’re ever in her vicinity, try to keep some distance away from her. Some people will try to make you go along with them by using threats. Eleria uses kisses instead, and she wins all the time.”
“I’d pay very close attention to what Rabbit just said, Tlantar,” Longbow advised. “Eleria always gets what she wants. Anyway, she saw immediately that I wanted to kill as many of the servants of the Vlagh as I possibly could, and she suggested that the Maags could probably kill more than I could, even if I lived for a thousand years. Then she went on to tell me that we might even be able to kill the Vlagh, and that’s all it took to persuade me to go along.”
“Who’s this Vlagh that everybody keeps talking about?” Tlantar asked.
Longbow looked a bit startled. “Hasn’t Dahlaine ever told you about her?” he asked.
“Not in any great detail,” Tlantar replied. “He mentions the name every now and then, and I sort of get the impression that he’s talking about the chief of the Wasteland, but that’s about as far as he’s ever gone.”
“That seems to crop up every now and then, doesn’t it, Longbow?” Rabbit said.
Longbow muttered something under his breath and then looked inquiringly at Tlantar. “How much do you know about bees—or ants?” he asked.
“Not really very much,” Tlantar replied. “I’ve heard that honey tastes good, but I’ve never tried it.”
“I think you’ve got a long way to go, Longbow,” Rabbit observed.
“Possibly so,” Longbow agreed. “All right, then, Tlantar. You’re familiar with bison, so you know about herd animals. In a certain sense, you might say that bees—and ants—are herd insects. Animals think for themselves to some degree, but in a herd of insects, the queen does all the thinking.”
“Queen?”
“The bee—or ant—that lays eggs. She’s the mother of all the others, and they’ll do anything she tells them to do—even if it is impossible. They only live for about six weeks or so, but the queen—or mother—constantly replaces them. Even if we kill a million of them, there’ll be another million coming toward us in about a week or so. The only way we’ll ever win this war will be to hunt down the Vlagh—the mother of all the creatures—and kill her. In most ways, the Vlagh is just another variety of insect, but she experiments, and that makes her unique—and extremely dangerous. When she sees a characteristic that might be useful, she duplicates it. That’s why we keep coming up against insects that look like people—or turtles, or spiders, or, for all I know, like bears or wolves.”
“What’s she after?” Tlantar asked. “I mean, what does she want that’s making her come out of the Wasteland to attack us?”
“She wants the land, Two-Hands—all of it in the entire Land of Dhrall. If she has more land, her servants can grow more food, and if there’s more to eat, she’ll be able to lay more eggs. If she succeeds, it won’t be long until the entire Land of Dhrall will be crawling with her children. Then she’ll move on to other parts of the world and take them as well. If she gets what she wants, it won’t be long before she’ll have the whole world.”
“What will she do with the people?”
“Eat them, probably,” Longbow replied with a shrug.
“We were closer, I think, than any other pair in the village,” Tlantar told them in a sorrowful voice. “Tleri wasn’t at all like the other women of our village. She did her own hunting, and that’s most unusual here in Dahlaine’s part of the Land of Dhrall. She hunted very well, and she cooked food even better. Then she died in childbirth, and I was alone again. The village elders told me that I should find a new mate, but I refused. Tleri had been my true mate, and I won’t offend her spirit by joining with some other woman. That part of my life died with her, so I’ll go on alone from now on.”
“I think that you and I will be friends, Tlantar,” Longbow said with a grave look on his face. “I’ve been gathering friends quite often lately, for some reason. Being alone is nice enough, I suppose, but you don’t have anybody to talk with when you’re alone.”
“You know, I’ve noticed that myself on occasion,” Tlantar replied. “Isn’t it odd that we’ve both made this peculiar discovery?” Then he looked at the little Maag called Rabbit. “Him too?” he asked Longbow.
“We might as well,” Longbow agreed. “He can be very useful every now and then, and he can be very funny when you need to laugh.”
5
Tlantar didn’t entirely understand the astonishment of Dahlaine when Zelana returned and told him that the children called the Dreamers shared their Dreams with each other. If the children could see the future, they could almost certainly do many other impossible things as well.
Keselo the scholar seemed very disturbed by the reference to “a plague that is not a plague” that had come up in the children’s recitation of the most recent Dream. “Are plagues really all that common in this part of the world?” he asked Tlantar when they’d all gathered in Dahlaine’s map-chamber the following day.
“I’ve heard a few things about this new disease,” Tlantar replied. “We have quite a few diseases roaming around here in Dahlaine’s part of the world. Most of them are probably the same all over the world, and they’re the diseases that children catch all the time. I came down with several of those when I was a child, and I’m still breathing. A runner came down here from north Matakan before you and your friends left Tonthakan, and from what he said, I’d say that the peop
le up there are terrified by this ailment—so terrified that they won’t let anybody, sick or well, get to within a hundred paces of them. I guess the thing that disturbs them the most is how fast this disease kills people. He told me that a man can be alive and well at breakfast time and stone cold dead when it’s time for lunch.”
“That can’t be true, Chief Two-Hands,” Keselo objected. “No disease moves that fast.”
“You could go on up north and tell the dead that they aren’t really dead, I suppose. I don’t think they’ll listen to you, though.”
“Since the little girl’s Dream mentioned this disease, wouldn’t that suggest that the bug-people are behind it?” Rabbit said. “If one of the Dreamers warns us about something, it usually has something to do with a scheme of the bug-people.”
“I think I’d better send some men up there to see if they can get some more details,” Tlantar said then. “We’ll need more information about this disease.”
“If it really is a disease,” Keselo added. “It might be something else entirely.”
“Such as what?” Rabbit asked.
“Some kind of poison, I’d say,” Keselo replied. “Diseases don’t really kill that fast, but poisons of various kinds can kill much, much faster.”
6
I don’t think they’ll believe you until you show them how well the spear-thrower works, Tlantar,” Dahlaine said a few days later when they were alone in his map-chamber.
Tlantar shrugged. “I’ll invite them to join us in a bison hunt then,” he said. “Three or four dead bison should persuade them that we Matans know exactly what we’re doing.”
“Don’t get any of our friends killed, though,” Dahlaine cautioned. “All sorts of things will fall apart if something that disastrous happens.”
“I do know what I’m doing, Dahlaine,” Tlantar replied. “I’ve been taking bison for more than thirty years now, and they haven’t killed me yet.”
He went on outside Dahlaine’s cave, and as luck had it, Longbow, Athlan, Keselo, and Rabbit were talking together just outside the mouth of the cave. “I think it’s time for us to clear something up,” he told the group of recent friends. “What are your feelings about a bit of hunting one of these days?”
“I’m always ready to go hunting,” Athlan said, “but from what I’ve heard, my arrows might not work very well on the bison you’ve got wandering around out here in the grassland.”
“They probably wouldn’t,” Tlantar agreed. “That’s why I’m inviting you all to join the hunt. You’ll need to see how effective the spear-thrower can be when the animal you want to kill is five or ten times as large as the deer you usually hunt. Until you see the spear-thrower kill several of our overgrown bison, you’ll probably be troubled about our weapon. After you’ve seen what we can do, you’ll probably sleep better.”
“We’ll probably sleep permanently if we happen to get trampled in one of those stampedes I’ve been hearing about,” Rabbit said.
“I know of a safe place where you can stand and watch without being in any danger,” Tlantar said then. “There’s a rock-pile that juts up out of the meadow near a place where several bison herds go to get water. Bison run across grassland without any difficulty. Climbing up a steep pile of rocks wouldn’t thrill them very much, though, and you’ll be able to see everything, but you won’t be in any danger.”
“This is fairly important to you, isn’t it, Two-Hands?” Longbow asked.
“I’ve always rather enjoyed teaching, friend Longbow,” Tlantar replied with a broad grin. “This time I’ll teach you and your friends not to worry so much. I’m sure you’ll sleep better if you’re not worrying.”
“Tomorrow morning, then?” Longbow asked.
“Was there something wrong with right now? Bison graze all day, probably because there aren’t any forests for them to hide in around here, so they’ll be right out there in the open. Shall we go?”
The midmorning sky was cloudy when Tlantar led his recent friends down to Asmie to pick up several more hunters. Tlantar took that to be a good sign. Bison sometimes grew fidgety when the bright sun was shining down on them. He’d once seen a herd bolt and turn when the shadow of a passing hawk flickered over them on a bright, sunny day. Over the many years Tlantar had spent hunting, he’d come to realize that bison will stampede sometimes for the smallest of reasons—a flickering shadow, a tiny noise, or nothing more than a shimmer of light. On one occasion, however, he’d seen a herd calmly grazing in the middle of a thunderstorm that was shaking the very earth.
Word of the planned hunt had evidently been spreading around, and that didn’t bother Tlantar at all. He was leading a group of the most experienced hunters in the village, so there wasn’t much likelihood of any serious mistakes. Their friends were going to be watching what promised to be a very successful hunt, and once they reported what they’d seen, the worrying should come to an abrupt halt.
“We’ll stop here,” he said quietly when they reached the pile of rocks near the sizeable creek that ran on up out of the mountain range lying to the south of Dahlaine’s part of the Land of Dhrall. “It might take you a while to climb up those rocks, but let’s find out if there are any bison in the immediate vicinity. I sent out a couple runners a while back, and they should be coming back quite soon. The bison usually go to water about this time of day, so the hunting should be good.”
“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to come with you, Tlantar,” Longbow said. He held up one hand when Tlantar started to object. “I think I’ll need to see them up close,” he said. Then he smiled. “Don’t worry, friend Tlantar. I do know how to run if it’s necessary, and I can run all day, if I really have to.”
“Why are you suddenly so curious about these bison, Longbow?” Rabbit asked his friend.
Longbow shrugged. “You never really know when something might turn out to be very useful, Rabbit. From what I’ve heard, quite a few bison hunters are trampled to death by these stampedes every year up here in the North. When the creatures of the Wasteland invade this part of the Land of Dhrall, a stampede by a few thousand frightened bison could thin our enemies out quite noticeably, wouldn’t you say? This is the native land of the bison, after all, so it’s their duty to help ward off the enemies, isn’t it?”
The young Trogite Keselo laughed. “Your mind is working all the time, Longbow. These bison might turn out to be almost as useful as those Church armies were during the war in Veltan’s Domain. If it turns out like that, we could very well spend another war just getting out of the way, couldn’t we?”
“The old ones are the best,” Longbow agreed.
Then one of Tlantar’s runners returned. “There’s a large herd coming to the creek from the east, My Chief,” he reported. “I’d say that they’ll be watering in about a quarter of an hour.”
“Good,” Tlantar said. “Go on up to the top of this rock-pile, my friends,” he told Rabbit, Keselo, and Athlan. “You should be able to see everything from up there. Then, when we go back to Dahlaine’s cave, you’ll be able to tell everybody just how good a well-thrown spear can be. Maybe they’ll all stop worrying so much then.”
Tlantar stayed close to Longbow as the party of hunters crept quietly around the rocky outcrop. “Have you had much experience with crawling, Longbow?” he whispered.
“Some,” Longbow quietly replied. “It’s not usually necessary in the forest, though. The trees hide us when we’re creeping up on a deer herd.”
“We don’t have that advantage here in the meadowland,” Tlantar whispered. “Grass isn’t as tall as trees are, so we spend a lot of time on our hands and knees when we’re trying to get within range of a bison herd.”
“How far will your thrower hurl a spear?”
“About a hundred paces is the limit. The spearhead has to be heavy enough to cut through the hair and hide of an adult bison, and that cuts down the range considerably. What’s the outer range of your bow?”
“I’ve taken deer at 250 pa
ces,” Longbow replied in a soft voice. “Tell me, where do you aim when you whip your spear-thrower toward a bison? Do you try for his head?”
“No. The horns of a bison are very thick and hard. Aiming at a bison’s head is a quick way to shatter a stone spearhead. This is my first hunt with a metal spearhead, so I might try for a head-shot just to see if it’ll work.”
“I’d wait until some other time, Two-Hands,” Longbow whispered. “Right now, you’re trying to impress people with the spear-thrower, so this wouldn’t be a good time for experiments. Do it the old way for now.”
“You’re probably right,” Tlantar softly agreed. He raised his head slowly and then sank back down. “About another twenty paces,” he murmured. “Then I’ll whistle, and we’ll all stand up at the same time and run toward the bison.”
“Run?”
“It adds speed to the spear if we’re moving when we cast, and the extra speed can make all the difference.”
“Ah. That makes sense, I guess.”
They crept on through the tall grass, and then Tlantar slowly raised his head again. “Close enough,” he muttered, and then he whistled.
The Matan spearmen rose up out of the grass in unison and started to run toward the bison who were drinking from the small stream. Then Tlantar gave another shrill whistle and the spearmen all launched their spears at the now-startled bison.
Several of the bison went down immediately, but a few of them staggered off quite a ways before they sank down into the grass. “I make it seven!” Tlantar cried out exultantly.
“Make that eight,” Longbow said, drawing back his bow. When he released the arrow, his bowstring made an almost musical “twang.” His arrow went straight and true and it struck a huge bison directly in the eye.
The bison dropped immediately.
“Did you do that on purpose?” Tlantar demanded in astonishment.
“Yes,” Longbow replied almost indifferently. “He wasn’t much more than seventy paces away, though, so it wasn’t really all that difficult.” His expression became just a bit apologetic. “Actually, friend Tlantar, it was an experiment of sorts. The bison’s horns protect his head—and what’s inside his head. The eye socket is an open path to the brain, though, so I thought it might be worth a try.”