“You’re teasing me, aren’t you, Longbow?”
“I wouldn’t even consider doing something like that, holy Zelana,” he replied with an absolutely straight face. “I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and I don’t think we’ll want to bring this to Sorgan’s attention. Rabbit and I can deal with it by ourselves, and Sorgan would just be in the way.”
“You’ve been in the Land of Maag too long. You seem to have picked up their habit of boasting. You don’t really believe that you and Rabbit can attend to Kajak all by yourselves, do you?”
“Kajak’s only got five ships, Zelana. That shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
“He said that as if he really believes it, Beloved,” Eleria noted.
“I know. And that’s starting to worry me.”
Sorgan’s cousin Skell was finishing his preparations to set sail for the Land of Dhrall with the Maag ships that had been gathered so far, and Longbow spoke privately with Red-Beard. “It’s not a matter of any great concern,” he told his friend. “I’ll see to it that Kajak doesn’t live to see the sun come up on the morning after he comes to visit the Seagull. One or two of his kinsmen may see that things aren’t going very well, and they might decide to leave here in a hurry. If they should happen to try to join Skell’s fleet, you might want to let Skell know what they tried to do here in the harbor of Kweta. I don’t think Skell’s going to want people like that in his fleet.”
“I’ll do that,” Red-Beard promised. “Should I warn Skell that the servants of the Vlagh are venomous?”
Longbow considered it. “Probably not until his fleet reaches Lattash,” he decided. “Let’s get him there before we tell him the whole truth. The Maags are much bigger than the creatures of the Wasteland, so they have a much longer reach. Their swords and spears should give them an advantage when the fighting starts.”
“We’ll do it that way, then,” Red-Beard agreed. “Do you want me to carry some message to your chief, Old-Bear?”
“If you happen to be near him at any time after you return to Dhrall, you might tell him that I’m well, that I’ll rejoin the tribe before the snow grows too deep, and that we’re now almost ready to fight a war.”
“I’ll do that, friend Longbow.”
“You’re a very dependable man, friend Red-Beard, and much, much wiser than your humorous behavior makes you appear.”
“It’s paid off many times, friend Longbow,” Red-Beard replied with a broad smile. “When people are laughing, they’ll usually do what you want them to do.”
“You’re even more clever than I’d thought, friend Red-Beard.” Longbow smiled faintly. “These are very unusual times, aren’t they? I’ve never called a man of another tribe my friend before.”
“It’s a very rare thing,” Red-Beard agreed. Then he flashed a quick grin at Longbow. “Fun, though,” he added in an imitation of one of Eleria’s favorite expressions.
Longbow burst out laughing, and the two of them clasped hands in an age-old gesture of friendship.
7
How can you be so certain that it’s going to rain, Longbow?” Rabbit asked as the two of them crouched well out of sight near the bow of the Seagull watching as the five skiffs approached the ships of Sorgan’s kinsmen.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Rabbit,” Longbow replied. “It’ll rain when it’s necessary, and the ships guarding the Seagull won’t burn. Now, then, this is the way we’re going to do this. I want you to stay low and hand me arrows just as fast as you can. My right hand’s going to stay in one place—very close to the bowstring—and you’re going to put the arrows right between my fingers. If we do it like that, we’ll be able to put out twice as many arrows as I could shoot without your help.”
“There’s going to be five shiploads of unfriendly people out there, Longbow. No matter how fast you can shoot, that’s still an awful lot of people to kill off.”
“We don’t have to kill them all, Rabbit,” Longbow patiently explained. “A ship won’t go where its captain wants it to go unless there’s somebody at the tiller to point it in the right direction. You and I’ll only have five targets to shoot at, and between us, we can have five arrows in the air all at the same time.”
“So that’s why you’re so convinced that you and I can do this all by ourselves, isn’t it? A ship without a steersman at the tiller’s likely to wander around all over the harbor for the rest of the night.” Rabbit squinted across the dark water. “That’s going to take some pretty fancy shooting, Longbow,” he observed.
“No more difficult than shooting geese out of the sky, my little friend,” Longbow said. It occurred to him that he’d been calling a goodly number of people “friend” here lately. It seemed appropriate, but it was very odd. Longbow hadn’t called anyone “friend” for at least a half-dozen years.
Can you hear me, Longbow? he heard what seemed to be a whisper in his left ear.
Very clearly, he soundlessly replied.
I’ll need to know exactly when those people throw the torches at the ships around us. I don’t want to worry you, so you should know that this rainstorm won’t be very big. It’ll rain on those ships, but it won’t rain anyplace else, and it’s only going to rain long enough to put out the fire coming from the torches. We don’t want the crews of those five ships hiding from the rain in the cabin or down in the hold. They need to be where they can protect their own ships.
Right, Longbow silently agreed.
“If you’re going to do a rain dance or something, you’d better start now,” Rabbit said urgently. “The men in those skiffs just fired up their torches.”
“The rain’s going to start after they throw the torches, Rabbit,” Longbow told him. “We’ll want to be sure that they’ve thrown every torch they have before we bring down the rain.”
“You’re cutting it a little fine, Longbow,” Rabbit said in a worried tone.
“Trust me.”
“I hate it when somebody says that to me,” Rabbit complained. “Do you want me to blow out that lantern at the bow?”
“Why?”
“So that your arrows will be coming out of the dark. I’ve seen how fast you can shoot arrows, and if between the two of us we can put out twice as many arrows as that, those people out there won’t have any idea of how many people are shooting at them. That’ll probably scare them silly, and maybe they’ll just give up and run away.”
“Not a bad idea, Rabbit,” Longbow conceded. “If they run, we won’t have to waste arrows killing so many. Go blow out that lantern.”
Rabbit scampered forward and extinguished the lantern at the Seagull’s bow. “There go the torches, Longbow!” he called in a hoarse whisper, running back to his place.
Rain, Zelana! Rain! Longbow’s thought crackled.
I thought you’d never ask, she replied mildly.
There was a sudden flash of lightning and a sharp crack of thunder, immediately followed by a roaring downpour of rain.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had begun, but Longbow was certain that nothing would be able to set fire to the five ships now, since water was pouring down their sides in rushing sheets.
“Now, Rabbit!” Longbow said sharply, and he began loosing arrows as fast as he could, dropping the Maags in the skiffs first and then concentrating on the steersmen of each of Kajak’s vessels.
There was much dimly heard shouting coming from the five floundering ships. The oarsmen were in place, of course, but with no one at the tillers, the five ships wandered about the harbor like lost puppies, and every time someone was brave enough—or foolish enough—to rush to the tiller, an arrow came out of the darkness to welcome him. Longbow felt a certain grim amusement when the seamen aboard those ships chose to leap over the sides rather than rush to take the tillers when the captains commanded them to.
It was most probably the terror inspired by silent arrows coming out of the darkness with deadly accuracy that ultimately sent the seamen aboard five ships over the sides to sw
im through the chill, choppy waters of the harbor to the safety of the beach, and Longbow added to that terror by placing his arrows where they would be very visible. An arrow in the heart will kill a man, certainly, but in most cases few men will see the fatal arrow protruding from the dead man’s body. Longbow, therefore, carefully took aim at foreheads rather than chests, and of course he never missed. Three or four dead men with arrows protruding from their foreheads convey a message too clear to be misunderstood.
Rabbit, crouched low in the darkness, fed arrow after arrow into his friend’s right hand, and Longbow fed arrow after arrow to the men of Kajak’s ships.
Finally, all hope aboard the five ships fluttered and died when Kajak, screaming orders and curses, broke off quite suddenly when his forehead sprouted a single quivering arrow. Everybody went over the sides of the ships at that point.
“We won!” Rabbit exclaimed. “We actually won!”
“Not quite yet,” Longbow said, carefully taking up one of his old stone-tipped arrows. He rose to his feet, his eyes searching the beach. “There,” he said, drawing his bow and loosing his arrow all in a single move.
The arrow arched high over the dark water of the bay, and it unerringly found the grey-hooded figure which had been howling in frustration since the rain had extinguished the fires on the five ships surrounding the Seagull.
The hooded figure shrieked in agony as the venom-tainted arrow buried itself in its chest. Then it fell writhing on the sand, stiffened, and went limp.
“What was that all about?” Rabbit demanded.
“That one was the true enemy, my little friend,” Longbow replied. “It’s gone now, though, so we don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
“There were enough enemies out here to suit me, Longbow,” Rabbit said. “I can’t believe that we actually came out on top. There were only two of us, so I wasn’t about to place any large bets on this. Why did you shoot everybody in the forehead like that?”
“I wanted the ones who were still alive to realize just exactly what to expect. An arrow in the chest might not be visible if the dead man falls forward. An arrow in the head’s almost always right out in plain sight.”
“I still can’t hardly believe that only two people could win a fight with the crews of five ships.”
“The fight wasn’t really all that serious, Rabbit. Our arrows were coming out of the dark, so no one on Kajak’s ships could be certain just exactly where we were, and as long as nobody was steering the ships of the man who used to be called Kajak, the Seagull was in no real danger.”
“You’ve got a very peculiar way of looking at the world, Longbow. If they used to call him Kajak, what do they call him now?”
Longbow shrugged. “‘Dead,’ probably,” he replied.
“The one on the beach isn’t laughing anymore,” Longbow briefly advised Zelana and Eleria a short while later.
“Good,” Zelana replied. “I told you that those iron arrowheads would be better than the stone ones.”
“Perhaps,” Longbow admitted, “but I saved a few of the old ones for special occasions.”
“Whatever for?” Eleria asked.
“My stone arrows had all been dipped in venom,” Longbow explained. “It seemed proper to me that the creature of the Wasteland who was behind what happened here tonight receive something special.”
“I’m sure it appreciated that,” Zelana said dryly.
“The shouts it was making after my arrow reached it were not exactly shouts of joy, Zelana,” Longbow said with a faint smile.
Then Sorgan, Ox, and Ham-Hand came bursting into Zelana’s cabin. They all seemed to be agitated. “Why didn’t you tell us what Kajak was up to, Longbow?” Sorgan demanded. His voice was just a bit shrill.
“It wasn’t necessary,” Longbow replied. “Rabbit and I were able to deal with it. It’s always best in such situations to use as few warriors as possible. The more that we involve, the more confusion’s likely to turn up.”
“But Rabbit?” Ox exclaimed. “Rabbit’s never been any good in a fight. He’s too small.”
“He did what was necessary,” Longbow pointed out. “He’s as quick with his hands as he is with his feet. He passed arrows to me faster than any other man on the Seagull could have, and that’s what I needed. I didn’t need to kill all the men on those ships, only the ones manning the tillers. Rabbit and I were able to do that without any help. Everything came out the way we wanted it to, so why are you all so excited now that it’s over?”
“You’re a cold one, Longbow,” Sorgan observed. “Nothing rattles you at all, does it?”
“I’m a hunter, Sorgan. A hunter who gets excited at the wrong time doesn’t eat regularly.”
“About all that saved us was that freak rainstorm,” Ham-Hand declared accusingly. “If that hadn’t come along, we’d have been in a lot of trouble. How did you know it was coming?”
Longbow touched his nose. “I smelled it,” he lied glibly. “Have you been at sea for all these years without learning how to recognize the smell of approaching rain?”
Sorgan looked directly at Zelana. “If you’ve got an army of men like Longbow working for you, why do you need us?” he demanded.
“Because I don’t have that many Longbows, Sorgan,” she replied. “He’s unique. There’s nobody else like him in the whole world. He shoots arrows very fast, but he thinks even faster. The time will come—before very long, I believe—when he’ll make certain suggestions. If you want to go on living, pay very close attention to what he says, and do exactly what he tells you to do.”
Eleria came to where Longbow was sitting and held out her arms to him. He picked her up and seated her on his lap. “I’d do as the Beloved tells you to do, Hook-Big,” she said.
“That’s Hook-Beak,” he absently corrected her again.
She shrugged. “Whatever. Longbow’s the best in the world, and the Beloved says that he’s mine, so you’d better be awfully nice to me, don’t you think?”
“Every time I turn around, somebody else is trying to give me orders,” Sorgan complained.
“It does seem to be working out that way, doesn’t it?” Eleria said, yawning. “If we’ve said everything that needs to be said, I think I’ll take a little nap. I didn’t get much sleep last night because of all the shouting and running back and forth. Do me a favor and try to fight quieter battles, Hook-Big. I really need my rest.” Then she kissed Longbow, snuggled down in his arms, and immediately went to sleep.
THE JOURNEY OF VELTAN
1
Charity?” the ragged beggar said in a tentative sort of voice as Veltan of the South passed him on a quiet street near the forum of the Trogite city of Kaldacin on a blustery winter morning.
“Of course,” Veltan replied, fumbling around for his purse. Veltan was still having some problems with the concept of money. He had to admit that it was much more convenient than barter, but he kept losing track of the relative value of coins made from different metals. He gave the beggar a few brass coins and continued down the street toward the forum.
It was winter now, and Veltan didn’t care much for winter, since his Domain in the Land of Dhrall was largely given over to farming, and farmers much prefer spring and summer. The winter sky was perpetually overcast, the bare trees all seemed dead, and there were no flowers. The Trogites of Kaldacin, however, appeared to be immune to the innate melancholy of the season. Trogites in general had very high opinions of themselves, no matter what part of the Empire they called home, but the Trogites of Kaldacin seemed to believe that their city was the very center of the universe, and that simply living inside its walls automatically elevated them far above not only the people of other lands, but also above those Trogites unfortunate enough to live in some other city or village.
The city itself was magnificent, of course. Quite obviously, an unimaginable amount of labor had gone into its construction, but Veltan could not quite grasp the “why” of the entire thing. Nobody really needed houses tha
t big. The towering walls around the city might possibly have been necessary— assuming that there were enemies in the vicinity—but Veltan had a strong suspicion that the walls were merely for show.
The Trogites favored stone for their houses and other buildings, and that certainly made sense to Veltan. Wood burns, but stone usually doesn’t. The marble sheathing was decorative, certainly, but hadn’t the Trogites of Kaldacin had anything better to do with their time?
The “public buildings” made no sense whatsoever at first, but as Veltan had come to know the Trogites a bit better, he had begun to realize that they all seemed to desperately need grand displays to prove to others (and probably to themselves even more) that they were very important. Any hint of a lack of importance seemed to gnaw at the very soul of the average Trogite.
Thus it was that there were enormous marble-sheathed palaces, meeting halls, temples, and mercantile establishments, usually perched atop the hills within the city walls.
Grandest of all, of course, was the imperial palace, the home of the glorious Emperor Gacian. The palace teemed with assorted servants, counselors, and other miscellaneous hangers-on, all vying for the exalted emperor’s attention. After a few hints, Veltan managed to buy his way into an audience with His Imperial Majesty, but the exalted Gacian turned out to be a brainless incompetent with little or no understanding of the meaning of the word army.
“You’re wasting your time here, you know,” an elderly, mantle-clad counselor in the palace of Gacian had advised Veltan after the two of them had become acquainted. “The real authority here in Kaldacin lies in the hands of the Palvanum. They make the laws and decide what course the Empire will take.”
“And where will I find them?” Veltan asked.
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