The Elder Gods

by David Eddings

  “There’s at least one sailor on every Maag ship with a horn, Cap’n, and if I remember right, the Dhralls have horns, too. If Red-Beard and Longbow were to space out their horn-blowers up there on the rim of the ravine, they can blow their horns as soon as they hear ours blowing out in the bay. We could send Skell all the warning he’s likely to need by passing toots from the bay all the way up to the fort, and the toots will get there quite a while before the hot wind does. That’ll let Skell know that it’s time to pack up and get out of the ravine.”

  Skell gave Rabbit a hard, unfriendly look.

  “It sounds like a good idea to me,” Sorgan said.

  “Would you like to wade through hip-deep snow to get up there and tell the men at the fort to start listening for toots, Sorgan?” Skell demanded.

  “I couldn’t really do that, Skell,” Sorgan replied with mock seriousness. “They’re your men, after all, and it just wouldn’t be right if I ran up there and started ordering them around, would it?”

  The weather cleared off a couple of days later, and there was definitely a faint smell of spring in the air. Rabbit and the other Maag smiths were still hammering arrowheads from the last few scraps of iron they’d scavenged from Sorgan’s fleet, but Rabbit periodically set his hammer aside and walked away from the loud banging noise of the arrow shop to listen carefully for the sound of the horns which were to announce the approach of the warm wind. Just about everybody in Lattash was listening for the horns. They all wanted that wind to arrive, but there were still many things that needed to be done first, so they were of two minds about it.

  There was no sound of horns that day, but a fleet of lumbering Trogite ships sailed into the bay of Lattash about midafternoon. That definitely brightened Rabbit’s day. His supply of bronze had finally arrived.

  The Trogite Commander Narasan went down to the beach to greet his army, and after a bit of discussion he came back up the beach accompanied by four other armored Trogites. They were quite a bit shorter than the Maags Rabbit was more familiar with, and like Commander Narasan, they all wore tight-fitting black leather clothing, iron vests, and helmets. Their heavy swords were belted to their waists, and their boots were sturdy and well made.

  Narasan paused as the Trogite delegation passed the arrow shop. “Would you like to join us, Rabbit?” he asked. “We’re going to discuss our strategy with Sorgan and the others, and you may have some contributions to make.”

  “I’ll sit in if you want,” Rabbit agreed, “but I don’t know too much about strategy and the like.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping, Rabbit,” Narasan replied. “Professionals tend to have their concepts locked in stone, so we overlook possibilities that might occur to a clever but inexperienced fellow like you.”

  Rabbit was a little dubious, but he joined the Trogite soldiers walking toward Zelana’s cave.

  “I don’t want to be offensive,” a very young and sincere-sounding Trogite soldier said to Rabbit, “but aren’t you just a bit small for a Maag? I’ve never encountered Maags before, but I’ve heard that most of them are about seven feet tall.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how many other people have noticed the same thing,” Rabbit replied sourly.

  “My name’s Keselo, by the way,” the young fellow introduced himself. “Is your name really Rabbit?”

  “That’s what they call me. I don’t like it all that much, but up until a little while ago, the name served its purpose. My main goal in life was to sort of stay out of sight. Then Longbow came along and spoiled everything.”

  “Longbow?”

  “He’s a Dhrall archer who’s so good with his bow that if we gave him enough arrows, he could probably win this war all by himself.”

  “You’re joking, of course.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Rabbit replied.

  Rabbit and Keselo followed Narasan and the three other Trogites into the cave, where Hook-Beak, Ox, and Ham-Hand were waiting.

  “My men have finally arrived, Sorgan,” Narasan said. “This bulky one who’s going bald is Gunda. His lanky friend is Padan, the thin one is Jalkan, and the boy is Keselo. Gunda, Jalkan, and Padan have been with my army quite a while, and Keselo’s sort of an apprentice.”

  “Gentlemen,” Sorgan said with a brief nod, “this is my first mate, Ox, and the other one’s my second mate, Kryda Ham-Hand.”

  “Colorful names,” Padan observed.

  “It’s a Maag peculiarity, Padan,” Narasan said. “Their names tend to be descriptive.”

  “Ah,” Padan said. “My friends, Hairless Gunda, Scrawny Jalkan, and I are pleased to make your acquaintance, gentlemen.”

  “Watch your mouth, Padan,” Gunda growled.

  “I’m glad your people made it, Narasan,” Sorgan said. “The weather could turn just about any time now, and once the snow melts off, things are likely to get exciting up in that ravine. I wouldn’t want them to miss any of the fun.”

  “Did your cousin manage to get back up to where his people are building that fort?” Narasan asked.

  “He hasn’t sent word back yet, but he’s probably there. Once Skell sets his mind to something, he usually manages to pull it off. He’s stubborn and bad-tempered, but I can always count on him to do what he’s supposed to do. Something came to me last night that we might want to think about. You and I are professionals, Narasan, and when we’re working for money, we don’t let old dislikes get in the way. Some of our people get excited when they come across traditional enemies, though—the younger fellows for the most part. I think it’s one of those things a man has to outgrow. If we’re going to move up the ravine along those benches on either side of the river, I think maybe I’d better take one side, and you should take the other. That’ll put the river between us. The young fellows can shout curses at each other, but that’s about all.”

  “I get your point, Sorgan,” Narasan agreed. “Which bench do you want? North or south?”

  “I’m going to move my ships away from yours anyway,” Sorgan replied. “We don’t want them to be anchored side by side for the same reason that we don’t want our armies on the same side of the river. That’ll put me closer to the north bench, so I’ll take that one, if it’s all right with you.”

  “Quite appropriate, Sorgan. Maags are Northmen, and we Trogites are Southerners.”

  “You know, I’ve noticed the same thing myself,” Sorgan said.

  5

  The day was cloudy and calm, and the smiths were busy melting down Trogite bronze to cast more arrowheads in the clay molds. It was about midafternoon when Longbow came out of Zelana’s cave. “I think you’d better come inside, Rabbit,” he said. “There’s something you should probably know about.”

  “Is it important? I’m sort of busy right now.”

  “Your friends here know what they’re doing. You don’t have to stand over them. This is a matter of some seriousness.”

  “Hammer,” Rabbit called out to the smith of Skell’s ship, the Shark, “take over here. Lady Zelana needs to talk with me.”

  “If you say so, Rabbit,” Hammer agreed.

  Hammer’s obedient attitude gave Rabbit a warm little glow. He knew that it was sort of childish, but his recent elevation among the ranks of the Maags was very satisfying for some reason. “What’s afoot?” he asked Longbow as the two of them went toward the mouth of Zelana’s cave.

  Longbow smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for you, my little friend.”

  “Why do you always have to be that way?”

  “For the fun of it, I suppose.”

  “You’ve been spending way too much time with baby sister, Longbow,” Rabbit said sourly.

  There seemed to be quite a crowd of people in Zelana’s cave. Most of them were fairly important, and that suggested to Rabbit that there might be some sort of crisis in the wind. The two chiefs, White-Braid and Old-Bear, were standing off to one side, along with the thin old man who seemed to have quite a bit of authority in Old-Bea
r’s tribe. Sorgan and Narasan, along with several other Maags and Trogites, were also there, and Zelana, her two brothers, and her older sister were at the back of the large chamber where Zelana spent most of her time. Eleria was there as well, along with three other children.

  “I guess we’d better get started,” Zelana said. “Perhaps I should apologize, but I’m not really very good at that, so I don’t think I’ll bother. The spring flood that’s going to come down the ravine almost any day now will probably take the servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh completely by surprise, and most of them in the ravine right now aren’t very likely to survive. That-Called-the-Vlagh has many, many servants, though, so after the flood subsides, the Vlagh will just send more. Sooner or later, our friends from the Land of Maag and the Trogite Empire will begin to encounter the creatures of the Wasteland, and those creatures have certain peculiarities that our friends need to be aware of, and that’s why we’re here today.”

  “Get to the point, Zelana,” her bearded older brother told her.

  “Do you want to do this, Dahlaine?” she asked tartly.

  “It’s your Domain, Zelana,” he gave up. “Do it any way you want to.”

  “Thank you.” Her tone was flat, even unfriendly. There seemed to be quite a few tensions in Zelana’s family. “Now, then,” she continued, “when Veltan and I first spoke with our outlander friends, we may have glossed over a few things they should probably know about now that they’re here.”

  “Oh?” Sorgan said. “We know that the enemies are fairly primitive, but it won’t hurt if we know a little bit more about them. Do they happen to have some sort of exotic weapons or something?”

  “Well . . . sort of,” Zelana replied. She looked at Longbow. “Perhaps you should introduce them to One-Who-Heals,” she suggested.

  He shrugged. “If you wish,” he replied. He gestured at the thin old Dhrall standing near Chief Old-Bear. “That is our shaman, One-Who-Heals,” he told them. “As some of you know, I’ve been hunting and killing the servants of the Vlagh for twenty years now, but before I began, One-Who-Heals told me many things about those I wanted to kill.” There was a flat, unemotional quality to Longbow’s voice that sent chills through Rabbit. “I have spoken with our shaman, and he has agreed to tell you things you should know before you meet our enemies.”

  “I will do the best I can, Longbow,” the old man replied. He squinted at the Maags and Trogites a bit dubiously. “What I am about to tell you may seem quite strange and unlikely,” he told them, “but it would be wise of you to take what I say very seriously. That-Called-the-Vlagh holds dominion over the Wasteland, and it tampers with its servants in many peculiar ways so that they may better serve it. They who rightfully hold dominion over the Land of Dhrall—East and West, North and South—do not tamper with living creatures as does That-Called-the-Vlagh, so we have become what we are in response to the world around us. Life has many forms, and each form remains true to its origins. That-Called-the-Vlagh, however, crosses the boundaries between the various forms of life, mingling characteristics to build creatures which often have most unnatural capabilities. When you see one, it will look very much like a small man wearing a hooded garment made of cloth. That is not what it is, however. It is only partially a man, and its garment is spun out from its own body, even as the web of a spider is.”

  “Are you saying that they’re part bug?” Gunda exclaimed.

  One-Who-Heals nodded. “But they are also part man and part reptile. That-Called-the-Vlagh, it would seem, ignores the boundaries which separate the various creatures in the Wasteland, and it joins them in ways which are most unnatural, to make them more suitable for their tasks. Those which we have seen here in the Domain of Zelana have snakelike fangs in their mouths and insectlike stingers above their wrists. They have no weapons of the kinds we carry, because they have no need for them. Their weapons are a part of their own bodies, because their fangs and stingers are venomous, and their venom kills almost instantly.”

  “You seem to have neglected to tell us about this, Veltan,” the Trogite commander observed in a cool, unfriendly voice.

  “If you take some care, it’s not really a serious problem,” Longbow said calmly. “I’ve been killing them by the hundreds for twenty years now.”

  “Naturally,” Sorgan said, “but not too many of us are good enough with a bow to stick arrows into somebody who’s a half mile away.”

  Longbow shrugged. “It’s not that big a problem, Sorgan. The venom in their fangs and stings will kill anything—even others of their own kind. I’ve had quite a bit of success by simply sticking my arrowheads into the venom sacks of those I’ve already killed. The enemy has to be close enough to bite or sting you. A long spear with its point dipped in venom should keep you fairly safe.”

  “That’s very interesting, Longbow,” Sorgan said, “but just where are we going to be able to get our hands on that much poison?”

  “In just a few days a flood should be coming down the ravine, Sorgan,” Longbow reminded Rabbit’s captain. “It’ll carry all sorts of things down the river: trees, branches, old logs, dead enemies, bushes, and twigs. If we fish the dead enemies out of the river and drain their venom sacks, we should have more than enough poison to treat every spear, sword, and arrowhead we’ll be using to kill the servants of the Vlagh.”

  “Well, maybe,” Sorgan said dubiously.

  Rabbit suddenly remembered something. “That strange-looking little fellow you killed with one of your old stone arrows back in Kweta was one of the things we’re going to have to fight, wasn’t it?”

  “Of course,” Longbow replied. “That’s why I used one of my old arrows. They’d already been dipped in poison.”

  “I think we’ll have to fort up, Commander,” Gunda suggested. “We don’t want to get too close to those things, do we? If they have to climb a wall to get to us, we should be able to poke them off that wall with poisoned spears, and after a while they’ll get the point and go play someplace else.”

  “They will not do that,” One-Who-Heals disagreed. “Once they have been told to attack, they will keep coming at you until they swarm over you or until the last one has been killed—and they will come at you in numbers beyond counting. They are not intelligent enough to be afraid.”

  Narasan was frowning. “I think this changes quite a few things, Sorgan. We’d better take a long, hard look at our plans. If this spring flood clears the ravine of all the enemies, we should probably hurry right along and get to the head of the ravine just as quickly as we can and build a strong fort up there to hold the rest back.”

  “What if they don’t all get drowned?” Sorgan asked.

  “We might have to just go up as far as your cousin’s fort and stop there. If we start getting involved in little hand-to-hand skirmishes, we could lose half of our men, and neither of us would like that very much, would we?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Sorgan agreed. He scratched at his cheek. “Now that I’ve had a bit of time to digest this business of the snake-men, I don’t know that it really changes all that much. All we really have to do is stay a little ways away from them. If we do most of our fighting with long spears, the snake-people won’t get close enough to bite us, and since they don’t have any weapons except their teeth and those stingers along the sides of their arms, they should be fairly easy to defeat, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You’ve got a point there, Sorgan,” Narasan conceded. “And if we can gather up enough of the venom to poison all of our spear tips, all that our people really need to do is scratch a charging enemy or give him a little poke with the spear to kill him right there in his tracks. He’ll be too busy dying to come any closer. This might just turn out to be an easy war after all.”

  “And the nice part of it is that the enemy supplies us with the poison we’ll use to defeat him,” Sorgan added.

  “I know,” Narasan said with a broad grin. “I think that’s terribly generous of him, don’t you?”

  “Wake
up, Bunny. It’s time to toot.”

  Rabbit struggled up out of sleep to stare at the strange chubby little girl who’d just roused him. “You’re Lillabeth, aren’t you?” he asked. “The little girl who came here with Zelana’s sister, Aracia?”

  “That’s me,” the dark-haired little girl replied. “Zelana asked me to wake you. You’re supposed to go outside and blow your horn.”

  “I don’t understand.” Rabbit was still only about half awake, and his mind seemed a little foggy.

  “It’s very simple, Bunny. Take up your horn, go outside, pucker up, and blow.” She pointed at the cave mouth. “Go! Now!”

  Rabbit didn’t care much for her attitude, but he struggled to his feet, took up his horn, and went out into the night. He was getting a little tired of having everybody tell him what to do.

  The wind blowing in from the bay was quite warm, and it seemed that every Maag with a horn in the fleet out there in the bay was responding to a signal from farther out. This was obviously the day they’d all been waiting for. Rabbit climbed up to the shoulder of the hill above the cave’s mouth to make sure that the sound of his horn would carry up to the rim of the ravine. Then he raised his horn and blew a long, mellow-sounding note. He stood listening intently for a response. After a few moments, a mournful-sounding reply came down from out of the mountains above Lattash. The reply was coming from some distance off, and the echoes resounded from the nearby hills and crags. A few moments later, Rabbit heard yet another reply, which was much fainter but nonetheless stirred its own echoes. Fainter and fainter responses, each trailing echoes, faded back up into the mountains. “That should do it,” Rabbit muttered to himself. “I hope somebody’s awake in Skell’s fort.” He turned and went on back down the hill.

  When he reentered the cave, he found that Zelana’s relatives and the children were all there. The young Trogite, Keselo, was standing somewhat behind Veltan with a look of absolute bafflement on his face.

  Everybody in the cave was watching Eleria intently as she lay sleeping on a fur robe near the fire with what appeared to be a pink ball in her hand.