by Phil Tucker
CHAPTER NINE
Tharok regarded the Red River kragh whom he had invited to join the war council. A few steps away, the fire leapt and burned and spat cinders into the air.
"You threatened to kill Nakrok of the Crokuk," said Kharsh at last. "Our ally and leader of five hundred kragh who are camped in a circle around us."
"Yes," said Tharok.
"If you had killed him," said Barok, "and his kragh, then the Crokuk would have attacked us."
"Yes," said Tharok. "Eventually."
"Five hundred male warriors against two hundred Red River males, women and children."
"I would not have stood passively by until they attacked," said Tharok. "But there is no need to go into my back-up plans. I was correct. They weren't necessary."
"What is to stop Nakrok from attacking us now?" asked Rabo, who was staring into the fire.
"Nakrok is more intelligent than he looks," said Tharok. "We have provoked his curiosity. First we angered him, then we tired his kragh, then he came to our fire, where we established our dominance. More importantly, we gave him new information for him to digest. That is why he was quiet and pensive when he left. He'll not attack. He will think, and then will either leave in the morning or follow us. To attack in the dark when our kragh stand armed and prepared invites only senseless slaughter."
"And you think he will follow us," said Kharsh in disbelief.
"I do," said Maur. She was standing with her hands on her hips, relaxed and statuesque, the firelight limning her muscled frame and smoldering in her eyes. "We have shown him our true enemy. He's impressed now, like it or not, by Tharok's insight and cunning. He'll come with us if only to see what happens next."
"And he may yet betray us," said Rabo quietly, taking up a stick and drawing a circle in the sand. "As soon as it stands to his advantage."
"True," said Tharok. "He may yet betray us. But I'm not done with changing his mind. There is more for Nakrok to learn."
"More secrets," said Kharsh.
"Not secrets," said Tharok. "But rather a deeper appreciation for the words I spoke tonight. When he sees the Tragon bend knee and join the Red River, when he sees our numbers swell by the thousands, only then will he truly understand what I have told him."
"So, you have no more secrets from us," said Kharsh. "You have told us absolutely all."
"Not all," said Tharok, and then he raised a hand to forestall the other's protest. "We will call a Grand Convocation by the Dragon's Tear before we engage the Tragon. We invite all the other highland tribes to join us at the Shattered Temple."
There was a stunned silence, then Kharsh laughed. "You? Call a Grand Convocation? You who have been a warlord for but a week? None will come!"
"No," said Rabo. He tossed his stick into the fire and rose fluidly to his feet. "Some will come. Tharok and the Red River return with five hundred lowland warriors at our back, and promise war on the Tragon. That will draw some."
"But not enough," said Kharsh. "Few will attend."
"I know this," said Tharok. "And those who don't will have given me permission to attack them."
"You would kill highland kragh?" asked Kharsh, voice sharp with outrage.
"No, fool," said Maur, throwing up her hands. "Did you not listen to anything that was said to the Crokuk?"
"Then... you would force them to join the Red River?"
Tharok smiled grimly, his fangs gleaming in the firelight. "Kharsh, mark my words. By the end of this, every tribe will have joined us. This is just the beginning." He looked from one to the other. "The time of dissension and killing kragh is over. We have one true enemy. One opponent who keeps us weak and divided. The humans. Everything I do is to overthrow them. To destroy their empire, and to show them we are not beasts or children to be manipulated at their pleasure."
His voice swelled with power and conviction. All eyes were on him. "We shall descend upon the human city of Abythos like an unstoppable tide. We shall sweep through their portal and into their empire. We shall choke their great cities in smoke and break their armies. We shall harvest their gold and take all their shaman stone. The time, my tribemates, of human dominion is coming to an end."
Silence followed his words. Confidence thrilled him, elation had him by the throat. This was his time. This was his moment. These were his kragh, and nothing could stop them. Barok crouched down and pounded his first into the dirt. Rabo did the same, and finally even Kharsh followed suite. The kragh sign of approval. Tharok gave a feral grunt from deep in his chest, pounded his own fist against the ground, and then strode away into the dark.
Tharok awoke in the pre-dawn darkness. The air was chill, and from where he lay he could see that a thin layer of icy rime had formed along the inside of his canvas hut. He had pulled a thick goat skin over him, but even so he could feel the cold fighting to sink deep into his body, to penetrate and quell the fearsome burning vitality that kept him going.
The Red River camp around his hut was silent. He could hear the faint sound of the mountain goats moving restlessly where they were tied together, yearning for the higher slopes and the sweet roots of the cliffside shoots. He could hear the distant tread of sentries, even the sound of somebody walking between tents nearby, stumbling back to their bed after a moment outside to relieve themselves. What he could not hear was the sound of the human slave, Shaya, breathing.
He arose, pushing aside the goat skin, and made his way across the dark hut to where she lay on the ground, wrapped in the few furs that he had given her. Kneeling down by her side, he reached out and touched her bare shoulder. She lay still, as if she were dead. Her skin was cold, but he saw that she was breathing shallowly. He pressed his fingers against her throat. There he felt a heartbeat, tenuous and fluttering, like a songbird caught between cupped hands. Growling, he scooped up her frail form and deposited her in his bed, then pulled the skins over her.
She looked pale in the gloom, her skin wan and smooth as candle wax, her lips almost blue, her white hair spread about her small head like moonlight fanning out over the Dragon's Tear. Tharok watched her intently. Her condition wasn't changing. If anything, it was growing worse.
Cursing, he stormed out of the hut, thrusting aside the hanging skin and stepping out into the cold. The sun had yet to rise, and everything was painted in shades of slate and deep purple. Moving quickly to conserve body heat, Tharok strode toward the mountain goats where they stood shoulder to shoulder, their eyes fixed on him as he waded amongst them. He reached down and grabbed hold of a fat little kid, which began to bleat and wriggle in his arms. He cupped a hand over its head, covering its eyes, and it quieted.
He carried it back between the huts into his own. There he pulled back the blankets and tucked the goat in next to the human, and turned her body so that her arms curled around the little animal. It began to buck and thrash, and Tharok dealt it a sharp blow to the head, knocking it limp. The goat was nearly as large as the human's torso, amply furred and radiating heat. Shaya moaned and snuggled closer to it. Tharok pulled the blankets over them both and watched a while longer.
Either she would live, or she would die.
When he wandered back out into the pre-dawn air, the sky had lightened, the highest peaks beginning to gleam with the hints of the morning sun. Tharok rubbed his face vigorously, feeling stiff and sluggish, and made his way to last night's central fire. A few kragh were gathered around it, having just come off their patrol shifts, and sat gazing into the flames. Krilla from the Women's Circle was stirring a long spoon around and around a great pot of grain and mush.
Golden Crow was there too, seated to one side, chin sunk to his chest, wrapped in the ratty, worn furs of a black bear so that he seemed swollen to twice his size, a mannequin with a tiny, shriveled head. Tharok nodded to those who looked up at him and took a seat at the old shaman's side.
For a long while neither of them spoke, both watching Krilla's broad back as she stirred and occasionally tipped in herbs and spices from pouches arraye
d by the rocks at her feet. The log on which Tharok was sitting was cold and damp with dew, and the dirt on its surface was chalky and stuck to the underside of his thighs.
"Kharsh told me of your war council last night," said Golden Crow at last.
Tharok grunted, but did not comment.
"He said you will hold the Convocation in the Shattered Temple."
This time Tharok didn't even grunt.
"Do you seek to return us to the old ways? When we offered up our own as sacrifices to the medusa?" The scorn was there, riding the edge of the shaman's voice.
"There are no more medusa." Tharok glanced at the old kragh out of the corner of his eye. "And I don't want to return to the old ways. I bring change. What better place to convince the tribes to adopt new ways then in the grave of our oldest beliefs?"
"Kharsh was not pleased," continued the shaman, pretending not to have heard. "He spoke long and with great emotion."
"Kharsh does not like change," said Tharok.
Sounds were beginning to emerge from the huts about them. Kragh were moving within the confines of their homes, voices lowered to grumbles and mutters. There was a sudden cry of pain, and from a hut emerged a small kragh child, running naked across the iron earth, tears streaming down his face. He did not wail, but rather ran and was gone from sight.
"It is not the change that Kharsh dislikes," said Golden Crow. "It is how the changes are made. And what they say of your opinion of the Red River."
Tharok frowned and stuck out his lower lip so that it rode up his tusks a little. "I am the warlord. I command."
"You are the warlord," agreed Golden Crow affably. "And you may command all you like. But none here are forced to follow you. If they begin to feel discontent, they will drift away. Clan by clan, till the Red River Tribe is broken."
Tharok absorbed that, scowling deeper yet, and finally nodded. There was truth in the old shaman's words.
"You do not consult with the Women's Circle," said Golden Crow. "Though Maur supports you still. All kragh know the wisdom and intelligence of our women, yet you disdain their advice. You do not speak with the old warriors to question them on strategy. You do not come to me to ask what the spirits feel. You stand alone, distant from us all, telling us where to go, and do not give reason or explanation. You treat us as children. I heard that just last night you threatened to kill Nakrok. That you beat him, mocked him, and then set him running back to his camp. Nakrok is a respected warlord, lowlander though he may be. That is not how one treats an ally."
Tharok wanted to protest, but forced himself to remain silent.
Krilla reached over and seized a great branch, which she then snapped over her knee with ease. She eased both halves into the flames beneath her pot.
"You are right, Golden Crow, you are right," Tharok said. "I have been seized by dreams of glory, inspired by Ogri no doubt, but --"
"Enough," said Golden Crow. "You can drop your lies about Ogri. I know that he has not come to you, that he never showed you anything. Enough with your lies."
Tharok gaped at the old kragh and tried to rethink his approach. "What do you mean?"
"I am a shaman, young warlord. Do you think that means nothing? I have spoken with the spirits for longer than you have climbed these peaks. I was blinded by the great Unodrok himself when I was but six years old, by the shore of the Dragon's Tear, and spent two weeks there visited by every great spirit and kragh shaman that ever lived. I spoke and saw them all, all but Ogri himself. I have since spoken with other shamans, and they have told me the same story. No shaman has ever met or seen or heard of Ogri's spirit, for one simple reason. There is lore that you do not know. Lore that I was taught after I was made shaman. Lore that all shamans know, and that will ultimately be your downfall if you continue to lie about Ogri blessing you."
"What lore?" asked Tharok, sitting on the edge of his log. "Tell me!"
The old man turned his sightless holes to the warlord and grinned a near-toothless grin. "Poor Tharok. He thinks himself so wise. Lying and manipulating us as if he alone knows the ways of the world. But he doesn't know everything. Ogri was cursed. Do you know why the Uniter fled the Great Tribe that he himself created? Do you know the end of his saga?"
Tharok thought hard. The tales of Ogri dwelt on his unification of the tribes, with his leading them to smash the human empires and beginning a golden age for the kragh. "I have heard it said that he grew tired of his conquests, and mounted his dragon Jaemungdr and flew up to join the gods in the Valley of the Dead, high up in the Five Peaks. I know this to be true, for that is where I found his corpse."
"Ogri was cursed," said Golden Crow. "He united the Tribes, but in doing so lost his spirit. It was consumed. By the end of his reign he was a monster, a mad thing, depraved and no better than an animal. None could stand against him and World Breaker, so the shamans gathered to give him truth, to pull his spirit back into his body, if only for a moment. The greatest shamans gathered by the Dragon's Tear, and there they enacted such a ritual as had never been done before or since, calling Ogri's spirit from the void to which it had gone and placing it within his body once more. They say that for a moment Ogri was himself again, that he saw the world with the eyes of a normal kragh, and then he went mad. He mounted his dragon, Jaemungdr, and flew away, never to be seen again."
Tharok felt a chill pass through him. "But you said that his spirit was summoned from the void. He had a spirit, then. It wasn't gone."
"The void, boy, not the Valley of the Dead. For each star in the Sky Father's realm, there are a thousand more points of darkness. The void lurks between the stars, and should your soul go deep into that blackness, it passes beyond the realm of the spirits and is gone and undone. That the shamans called back Ogri's spirit from the void is a sign of how powerful they were. But it would have returned there after his death. Ogri was cursed. His spirit was destroyed, and it would have been better if he had never lived."
Tharok stared numbly at Krilla. She was spooning great amounts of the grain soup with its chunks of goat into bowls, and Tharok saw that the light of dawn was painting the thin wisps of cloud into glorious beige and cream.
"What happened to Ogri that he should be cursed and lose his soul?"
"Nobody knows, boy. But mark my words. If you wish to follow his steps, you had best be careful. Your wish may be granted."
Golden Crow placed his hands on his bony knees and heaved himself to his feet. "You are our warlord because we choose to follow you. Displease us, offend us, forget who you are, and you will find yourself alone with none to lead. Do you understand?"
Tharok, chilled, could only nod, but that was enough for the blind shaman. Golden Crow turned and shuffled over to Krilla, who handed him a bowl before he even asked for it, then drifted away from the fire.
Tharok rose, knees popping, and shook his head. Troubled, he took two bowls, thanked Krilla and returned to his hut. Others were emerging now, stretching and snapping their jaws, and he saw that many did not meet his eye, and the few who did gave him only cautious nods.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed aside the goat skin and entered his hut. The sound of breathing was stronger. He moved around to the bed and sat on its edge. The small goat had woken, but it lay still, great liquid eyes open in the dark, breathing tremulously in the human's arms. Tharok set down the bowls of food, then reached out to touch her neck. Her pulse was stronger, and some color had come into her face.
"Shaya," he growled, but there was no response.
He grabbed hold of the kid's front leg and hauled it from the bed. It bleated and thrashed anew as it fell to the ground, then scrambled to its feet and ran out of the hut, indignant and scared.
Tharok took hold of the human's chin, moved her head from side to side, and then gave her cheek a gentle slap. Her eyes fluttered and then finally opened.
"Shaya," he said again, and took hold of her shoulder and sat her up. She moaned, drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms about them and began t
o shiver. "By the peaks," muttered Tharok. He drew the skins up and around her once more. "You humans. Here, pull these about you."
She reached out, took hold of the skins and drew them tight, then turned to look at him. "Cold," she said. "S-so cold."
"Yes, yes. Eat this." He took one of the wooden bowls and tried to hand it to her. Some steam yet rose from its lumpen surface. Shivering, she tried to take the bowl, but her hands were shaking too much. "Here, no, hold it steady, steady!" Tharok gritted his teeth and took the shallow spoon. "Fine. Open your mouth, and I'll slop this inside you as if you were my child." He took a large spoonful of the hot mush and forced it into her mouth. She immediately choked and reached for her throat, shoulders hitching.
"Here," said a voice, and Tharok looked around to see Nok standing in the entrance. "I'll do that if you wish."
"Good," said Tharok. He rose in impatience and disgust. "She's as useless and weak as a baby."
He handed Nok the bowl and stepped aside so that the larger kragh could take his place by the side of the bed. Shaya was trying to choke down the food Tharok had given her, her mouth open as she sought to let the grains cool before they scalded her further.
Tharok, brooding and angry now, moved to the far side of the hut and watched as Nok stirred the bowl's contents, then filled the spoon only halfway and held it up to the human's lips. She finally regained her senses, looked at him and then darted a quick look at Tharok. She pulled the furs tighter about her shoulders, then allowed Nok to carefully tip the spoon into her mouth.
For some ten minutes, Tharok watched. It took that long for Nok to get the contents of the bowl inside the human, for she could only eat in small pecks like a baby bird. He eventually sank into a crouch and wrapped his arms around his shins, his eyes on the pair of them. The larger kragh spoke to the human softly in an alien tongue, and when she had finally finished eating she sank back onto the bed, eyes closing, and Nok set the bowl aside and pulled the furs up to tuck her in.