Longbow conferred with the old healer of his tribe at some length, and the old man gathered a sizeable number of young men of both tribes and began to train them in the process of draining the venom from the bodies of the dead enemies that were beginning to pile up along the berm and the beach at the river mouth. The procedure was moderately revolting, but it produced dozens of jugs of the deadly venom. One-Who-Heals firmly instructed his pupils to smear lard on their hands before they went to work, and that seemed to provide enough protection.
The bonfires on the beach sent a thick cloud of black smoke up the ravine, and Rabbit was profoundly thankful that he wasn’t upriver at Skell’s fort.
Rabbit and Keselo stayed in Zelana’s cave for the next several days, periodically going down through the village to have a look at the water level. A wary sort of friendship began to grow between them as time inched its way along, and Rabbit came to understand the Trogites a bit better. They weren’t as rowdy as Maags, but then, who really was?
Longbow had gone up to the rim above the ravine to keep an eye on the flood, and time seemed almost to stand still as everyone waited for the flood to subside. That, of course, would be the signal to start.
“I need to talk with the cap’n,” Rabbit called up to Ham-Hand as he eased Red-Beard’s canoe up alongside the Seagull in the steel grey light of dawn several days later.
“He’s still asleep, Rabbit.”
“That’s too bad. I just got the word that it’s time to go to work. You want to toss that rope ladder over the side? I’d better wake him up myself. Longbow told me a few things that the cap’n needs to know about.”
Ham-Hand pushed the rolled-up rope ladder over the rail. “I hope Longbow knows what he’s talking about,” he said dubiously. “If another one of those big waves comes down the ravine, we could get washed on out to sea.”
“The Dhralls know a lot more about these spring floods than we do,” Rabbit replied, nimbly climbing the ladder, “and they’ve got a lot at stake here. Longbow’s not going to take any chances. You might want to hear this, too.”
“All right,” Ham-Hand agreed as they started aft. They went on into Sorgan’s cluttered cabin, and Ham-Hand touched the sleeping captain’s shoulder. “Rabbit’s here, Cap’n. He’s got some news for you.”
Sorgan sat up yawning. “What’s afoot?” he asked Rabbit.
“Longbow came back from up on the rim, Cap’n,” Rabbit replied. “He says that the water’s going down, and the benches on both sides are clear now, so it’ll be safe for us to start up the ravine. We’ll need to pick up our swords and spears before we go on upriver, but the Dhralls have dipped them all in that poison, so they’re ready to go now.”
“That still makes me go cold all over, Rabbit,” Ham-Hand complained. “I didn’t hire on to fight no wars with poison.”
“That wasn’t our idea to begin with, Ham-Hand,” Sorgan told him, “but if our enemy wants to play that way, we just about have to play along.” He looked over at Rabbit. “Has the river gone down enough for Skell’s people to get back into their fortifications?”
“Longbow said it’ll be another day or so before the river goes back to where it belongs, but he wants us to be in place on those benches on the off chance that the invaders realize that the benches would be the easiest way to come downriver. Zelana doesn’t think they’re that clever, but Longbow doesn’t want to risk it.”
“I’m with him on that,” Sorgan agreed, pulling on his boots. “You’d better send word to Narasan, Ham-Hand. Tell him that it’s time for us to go upriver.”
“Keselo’s already taken care of that, Cap’n,” Rabbit reported. “He stood on the beach waving a stick with a piece of cloth tied to it. He told me that the Trogites came up with that notion a long time ago. If two Trogites can see each other, no matter how far away they are, they can talk by waving flags at each other. He’ll be going up the north bench with us when we start up the ravine. Narasan thinks it might be a good idea if you two can talk to each other even if you’re on opposite sides of the ravine.”
“Them Trogites are just full of ideas, aren’t they?” Ham-Hand said.
“They spend a lot of time fighting wars,” Rabbit told him, “so they think about ways to make it easier. We sort of do the same thing by blowing horns, but I think their flag-waving might be quite a bit more complicated.”
“Do you and Keselo get along very well?” Hook-Beak asked with a speculative sort of look in his eyes.
“Pretty good, Cap’n. He’s sort of young, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders. He likes to talk, so I’m learning a lot more about the Trogites than he might realize he’s passing on to me.”
“Stay close to him, Rabbit,” Sorgan suggested. “See if you can learn this flag-waving language. Even if we never use it ourselves, it might be useful later on when we go back to robbing Trogite treasure ships for a living. Ham-Hand, go tell Ox to rouse the crew and get word to the other ships in the fleet. We want to hit the beach by sunup.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” Ham-Hand replied, turning and leaving the captain’s cabin.
“Did Longbow tell you anything about what the enemy’s up to, Rabbit?” Sorgan asked.
“From what he says, I guess they’re pretty confused, Cap’n. Of course, there aren’t too many of them left. They didn’t know about these spring floods, so most of them were down by the river when it came boiling down the ravine. Longbow says that it’ll take a while for them to replace the army that just got washed out to sea.”
“Is he certain that they won’t just give up?”
“He might not be, but Zelana is. Every now and then she lets something slip. I guess that this Vlagh thing out in the Wasteland has a longstanding grudge against Zelana’s family, so it’ll keep throwing armies at us until it runs out of people.”
“You’re just full of good cheer, aren’t you, Rabbit? Maybe I should have held out for more gold. Why do they keep calling this Vlagh a ‘thing’ instead of a chief or a king?”
“I’m not sure, Cap’n. Zelana and her kin never say ‘he’ or ‘she’ when they talk about the Vlagh. All they ever say is ‘it.’ Maybe it hasn’t decided what it really is yet. For all I know, it’s some kind of animal, or maybe even a bug. Whatever it is, as long as it’s still in the Wasteland, the Dhralls won’t be safe.”
“That’s where we come in, I guess,” Sorgan said.
THE RAVINE
1
Keselo of Kaldacin came from a distinguished Trogite family, and he was certain that his choice of a career in Narasan’s army had greatly disappointed his parents. His eldest brother was a member of the Palvanum, the ruling body of the Empire, and his next-to-eldest brother was a merchant who was well on his way to becoming the wealthiest man in Kaldacin. Keselo, however, had attended the University of Kaldacin, although he had felt no great longing to spend his time in the pursuit of knowledge. He admitted to himself that his years as a student were really nothing more than a convenient way to put off an unalterable career decision. His brothers, of course, knew exactly what he was doing, and their sneering condescension played no small part in his decision to choose a military career. After some grumbling, his father finally gave in and purchased him a commission in Commander Narasan’s army.
His childhood had taught him the value of keeping his thoughts and opinions to himself, and this had served him well during his first few years in Commander Narasan’s army. Many junior officers felt the need to assert themselves and to boast about their meager accomplishments. Keselo, however, preferred to do exactly as he was told without comment.
Commander Narasan, he discovered, approved of that. Evidently, a junior officer who knew how to keep his mouth shut was a rarity in the Trogite military.
Keselo had participated in a few military campaigns during his early years, and it was probably through sheer luck that he’d modestly distinguished himself. He seldom took chances, so very few of his men were seriously injured, and even fewer were killed. Commander
Narasan approved of that even more than he approved of Keselo’s lack of boasting, and Keselo’s men became very attached to him.
Then there had come the disastrous campaign in the south of the Empire, when Commander Narasan had seriously underestimated the size of the opposing army, and twelve cohorts had been slaughtered as a result. Commander Narasan, seized by despair, had cast off his uniform and taken to begging. To Keselo’s way of looking at things, this was an even greater blunder than that which had cost the army those twelve cohorts. Without Narasan to lead it, the army rapidly began to disintegrate.
And then, almost like a miracle, the Dhrall named Veltan had come to Kaldacin, banished Narasan’s guilt and shame, and restored order in the very teeth of chaos.
And so now they were in the Land of Dhrall, inappropriately joined with the pirates of Maag in what promised to be a hopeless war with an enemy the Dhralls called the Vlagh. Keselo determined that he would do whatever duty called upon him to do, but he had little hope that he—or anyone else in Narasan’s army—would survive.
As usual, though, he kept that opinion to himself.
Keselo was none too happy about his detachment from Commander Narasan’s army to serve as signalman for the pirate Hook-Beak, but he kept his discontent to himself. For some reason, his commander frequently found unusual things for Keselo to do—almost as if he were testing his junior officer to determine the limits of his capabilities. It was flattering, perhaps, but Keselo privately wished that the commander would go find someone else to test.
The weather had turned warm. It wasn’t summer by any stretch of the imagination, but it was most unlikely that there’d be any more snow in the mountains to the east of Lattash.
As the Maags began their march up the north bench, Keselo noticed that they weren’t really very well organized. Each ship captain commanded his own crew in a rough equivalent of a platoon, but there were no middle-grade officers to form a functioning chain of command. Keselo briefly considered making a few suggestions, but he decided against it. The Maags were temperamentally unsuited to rigid chains of command, apparently, so it would probably be better to just keep his mouth shut.
Keselo found the terrain of this river gorge a bit intimidating. There were mountains in the Empire, of course, but they didn’t even approach the size of the mountains here, and the trees growing on the sides of the ravine were enormous. Nothing had prepared Keselo for trees that were thirty feet through at the butt and rose a hundred and fifty feet into the air before sprouting any limbs. He moved through that day in a state of bemused awe.
Just before sunset, Sorgan squinted off to the west. “I think we’d better stop here for the night,” he decided. “If any of those snake-men survived the flood, they’ll probably be creeping around in the dark, so we’re going to have to fort up. Keselo, go signal your commander so that he knows that this is as far as we’re going today. I don’t think it’d be a good idea for him to get too far ahead of us.”
“Yes, sir,” Keselo replied, smartly straightening and clashing his fist against his iron breastplate. He was fairly certain that Hook-Beak found his strict adherence to military formality a bit irritating, but since this would probably be his last war, Keselo was determined to do everything strictly by the book.
He went to the edge of the bench, unfurled his red flag, and rapidly signaled to the Trogite force on the other side of the river.
His fellow Trogites halted and began to set up camp for the night, and Keselo rolled up his flag and returned to report to the pirate Sorgan.
“Did they get the message?” Sorgan inquired.
“Yes, sir. They’re starting to set up camp.”
“Good. Ham-Hand, grab some of the closer ship crews and put them to work setting up a good stout barricade across this bench, and then put out a night watch. We don’t want any surprises after the sun goes down.”
Rabbit went over to the edge of the rocky bench and looked down at the river. “She’s back in her banks, Cap’n,” he reported. “I’d say that Skell’s most likely back in his fort now.”
“We’ll see,” Sorgan replied. “I want to be absolutely certain sure that Skell and Torl are in those forts before we go too much farther upriver. Longbow thinks that our poisoned spears are going to solve the problem, but I want to have a good safe place to fall back to if he happens to be wrong.”
Several crews of Maag sailors threw together a rough sort of barricade, and Sorgan’s army settled down for the night around large fires. The night passed quietly, and they were up at dawn to continue their march up the ravine.
By noon of that day, Keselo noticed that the ravine was narrowing significantly, and the sloping walls above the benches were growing steeper.
They rounded a bend late that afternoon, and Sorgan’s sour-faced cousin Skell was waiting for them. “What kept you, Sorgan?” he asked.
“Don’t try to be funny, Skell,” Sorgan told him. “Have you got your ship crews back down in your forts yet? I don’t want to go much farther upriver until those forts are finished.” He hesitated, but then went on. “There’s something you should know, Skell. As it turns out, the enemies we’re going to be coming up against aren’t quite as helpless as Lady Zelana led us to believe back in Maag. It seems that she somehow forgot to tell us that they’re part snake.”
“You said what?” Skell replied in a flat, unfriendly tone of voice.
“They don’t have swords or axes or bows, since they don’t need them. They’ve got poisoned fangs instead.”
“I think I’ll go home now, Sorgan.”
“Don’t get all worked up, cousin,” Sorgan told him. “Longbow gave us an easy way to deal with the problem. He’s been hunting them down and killing them for twenty years now. The slick part is that he uses their own poison to kill them. He dips the points of his arrows into the poison sacks of dead ones and then shoots poisoned arrows at any live ones he comes across. We talked it over, and we’re fairly sure that poisoned spears will do the job almost as good as poisoned arrows will—long spears, if you get my drift.”
“Where am I going to find any dead ones to get the poison from?”
Sorgan grinned at his cousin. “I just happen to have a fair supply of the poison, Skell. An awful lot of the snake-men got drowned during the flood, and the Dhralls down in Lattash fished the carcasses out of the river and leeched the poison out of them. We ended up with jugs and jugs full of it. Since you’re my cousin, I’ll only charge you half-price for a dozen or so jugs.”
“Quit trying to be funny, Sorgan. Did Torl manage to get here yet?”
“He hauled in right after the flood came down the ravine. He should be here by midmorning tomorrow.”
“Good. I’ll put him to work over on the south riverbank. How many more ship crews can you spare us?”
“Thirty, maybe,” Sorgan replied. “I don’t want to be shorthanded if we come up against a major enemy army.”
“Thirty should do it. I’d say that the forts down on the riverbanks will be pretty much complete by tomorrow evening. Then we’ll start expanding up from there to block off the benches. Give us another ten days and we’ll have a wall stretching all the way across. If the enemy gets past you, we’ll be here to stop him, and you’ll have a safe place to hide after the enemy bites half your men to death.”
“Very funny, Skell,” Sorgan said dryly.
“Just looking out for the family, Sorgan. Once Torl and I finish building this fort, nobody, and I do mean nobody, is going to go any farther down the ravine without my permission.”
“I’d say that you’re earning your pay, then. You’re going to be the anchor for this whole campaign, so make your forts as strong as you can and hold them at any cost.” Sorgan looked around. “We’ll camp here for the night. I need to hammer out a few details with Narasan. Have you bridged the river yet?”
“No, we just swim across,” Skell said sarcastically. “It isn’t too hard—unless the boulder you’re carrying weighs more than a ton or
so.”
“I wish you’d stop trying to make a joke out of this.”
“Stop asking stupid questions, then. Of course we’ve got a bridge, Sorgan. How do you think Torl and his people are going to get to the Trogite side to build his part of the fort?”
Sorgan let that pass. “We’ll probably move on up the ravine at first light tomorrow,” he said. “The Trogites and I’ll hold back any snake-men until your fortifications are all in place. As soon as you’re finished, send word upriver to Narasan and me. If this goes the way I think it’s going to, we’ll be in total control, so the enemy’s going to have to dance to our tune.” He turned his head. “Keselo, go signal Narasan. Tell him that we need to talk before we go any farther upriver.”
“Yes, sir!” Keselo replied smartly. He was a little surprised at the level of sophistication involved in Hook-Beak’s plan. The Maags seemed to be unthinking savages, but evidently they knew exactly what they were doing.
Captain Hook-Beak and Commander Narasan met just upstream from Skell’s partially completed fort early the following day. “Nice job,” the commander noted, “but won’t the river cause some problems on down the line?”
“Not for Skell, they won’t,” Sorgan replied. “If he and Torl do this right, this’ll be part fort and part dam. The snake-men don’t swim very well, and if there’s ten feet of water standing in front of the fort, they’ll have lots of trouble attacking. Torl should get here later today, and then things’ll go faster. Right now, there’s only about half a fort, but that turned out to be sort of lucky. That flood would have torn it to pieces if Skell’s men had finished. When Skell and Torl finish up down here, they’re going to extend the walls on both sides to block off the benches. Once that’s done, we’ll have a safe place to fall back to if things get wormy farther on up the ravine. I think our job’s going to involve holding back any enemy forces until Skell and Torl finish building this fort.”
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