They’d been at it for more than two weeks when on a sunny afternoon a crash of thunder shook the ground and Veltan was there. “What are we doing here, Omago?” he asked.
“It sort of came to me that my knife needed a longer handle,” Omago explained, “so I tied it to a long pole, and it started to look more like a weapon than just a tool. The other farmers thought that was very interesting, and we’re hoping that the outlanders might give us more of these knives.” He looked around to make sure that none of the other farmers were close enough to hear him. “I cheated just a little,” he said quietly. “After you told me that our enemies were part bug, I started calling them ‘bug-men.’ Farmers get very belligerent when somebody says ‘bug,’ and when word got out, they all came running to join the fight. Then Nanton and the shepherds joined us with their slings. I think the outlanders might be a little surprised when they find out that we’re not quite as helpless as they might have thought we were.”
“Very good, Omago,” Veltan said. “As soon as Rabbit gets here, I think I’ll be able to persuade him to make regular spear-points for our farmers. They work better than just tying a knife to the end of a pole.”
“Who’s Rabbit?”
“He’s a little Maag who works with metal. Once your men have metal spear-points—and venom—I don’t think any of the enemies will be able to get past you.”
“What’s venom?”
“Poison. The creatures of the Wasteland are part snake, and their fangs are venomous. Up in my sister Zelana’s Domain, all her hired soldiers dipped the points of their weapons in that venom. It killed hundreds of the servants of the Vlagh. Anyway, Dahlaine’s Dreamer, Ashad, had one of ‘those’ dreams, and the enemies are definitely coming this way. I don’t think we need to worry much, though. The outlanders will almost certainly be here in time to help us hold off our enemies.”
“I hope so,” Omago said. “The farmers and shepherds here are getting better, but I don’t think we’re quite ready to fight this war all by ourselves.”
“We’ll see, Omago,” Veltan said. “I’ll go see if I can hurry the Maags along.”
Now that the planting was done, more and more farmers were drifting in, drawn by the stories that had been going around. As Omago was fairly certain would be the case, the visiting farmers were all extremely curious about the iron knife Veltan had given him, and terribly disappointed when he couldn’t tell them where they could find what Veltan had called “metal.” Quite a few of them just turned around and went home at that point, but enough of them remained to expand Omago’s growing army. Training the newcomers was very tedious, but Omago was fairly sure that it’d be worth the trouble, so he stuck with it for the next several weeks.
Then, early one morning, the familiar crash of thunder announced that Veltan had come home again.
Omago dressed himself, and then he and Ara went up the hill to Veltan’s oversized house to ask him how the war in the West had turned out.
“Everything turned out even better than we’d expected,” Veltan told them. “We lost the village of Lattash, unfortunately, but I guess that was a small price to pay for our victory. The Maags and Trogites are coming here to help us now. If things turn out as well here in the South as they did in the West, we’ll win this war too, and that might persuade the creatures of the Wasteland to go back where they came from.”
“Wishful thinking, dear Veltan,” Ara said. “Bugs aren’t really that clever.”
“When do you think the outlanders will get here?” Omago asked. He wasn’t very comfortable with the notion of having alien helpers in the upcoming war.
“Probably within the next day or so,” Veltan replied. “Zelana’s been tampering a bit, so the winds are being very cooperative.” He frowned slightly. “You might want to warn the womenfolk, Ara. Narasan has his soldiers pretty well under control, but Sorgan’s Maags are sort of rowdy, and they get ideas when they see young women.”
“I’ll pass that along,” Ara promised.
“How long do you think it’s going to take for us to get our hands on more of these metal knives?” Omago asked.
“We’ll talk with Rabbit as soon as he arrives,” Veltan replied. “Don’t lock the notion of ‘knife’ in stone, though. I’ve noticed that Rabbit can be very creative. If you tell him what you want the weapon to do, he’ll come up with the best form to get the job done. The metal arrowheads he made for Longbow and the other archers were much more advanced than the flint ones they’d used in the past.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Omago said.
4
Did you want me to take my men on down to the beach before the outlanders arrive tomorrow, Veltan?” Omago asked just a bit dubiously.
“I gather that you’re not very enthusiastic about it,” Veltan observed.
“Well, not really,” Omago conceded. “These strangers are professionals, and when you get right down to it, my men are still stumbling quite a bit. The outlanders might laugh when they see us pretending to be soldiers, and I’d probably lose half of my men right then and there. Wouldn’t it be better if you had a chance to talk this over with the strangers first?”
“I see your point, Omago. All right, then. You and I’ll go down to the beach by ourselves.”
“Ara wants to go too. She hasn’t seen Yaltar for quite some time, and she misses him.”
“Good idea. I want her to meet my sister anyway.”
“When do you think we should leave?”
“After you’ve had breakfast should be soon enough. Zelana advised me that the fleet won’t arrive until about midmorning, and it’s only about two miles to the beach.” Veltan squinted for a moment. “Now that I’ve had some time to think my way through this, I’m having some second thoughts about bringing those entire armies here. I’ll need to bring a few of the officers, but I think maybe we should leave the rest of the outlanders on board their ships until we decide to march them on up to the Falls of Vash. Let’s keep the possibility of unpleasant confrontation to a minimum if we can.”
“Whatever you think best, Veltan,” Omago agreed.
The first hint of the approaching fleet was the mass of sails along the horizon, and the sheer numbers indicated by those billowing sails stunned Omago. Ara, who stood at his side, however, didn’t appear to be overly impressed. Ara’s reactions to things were sometimes very peculiar.
As the fleet drew closer in the golden summer sunlight, Omago noticed certain differences. Some of the ships appeared to be very fat, while others were as skinny as saplings. “They don’t seem very much alike, do they?” he said to Veltan.
“They were built with different purposes in mind,” Veltan explained. “The wide, slow ones were built to carry large numbers of people or cargo. The slender ones were built to go fast so that they can catch the slow ones and rob them.”
“Wouldn’t that make them enemies, dear Veltan?” Ara asked.
“They didn’t get along too well right at first,” Veltan conceded, “but the threat of the creatures of the Wasteland sort of united them.”
There was a much smaller boat that was moving rapidly toward the beach, and Veltan looked at it with a certain affection. “That’s my sloop,” he told Omago and Ara. “She moves right along, doesn’t she?”
“What was that one built for, dear Veltan?” Ara asked. “It doesn’t seem to fit in with the others.”
“She moves very fast,” Veltan said proudly. “I use her when I want to go someplace in a hurry.”
“Isn’t that what your lightning bolt’s supposed to do?”
“My pet’s fast, but she’s very noisy. Sometimes quiet is more important than fast.”
There were four men on the sloop. One of them seemed quite small, another was medium-sized, and the last two were fairly tall and were dressed in leather clothes.
“The little one’s that Maag named Rabbit that I’ve told you about, Omago,” Veltan said. “The young fellow’s a Trogite soldier named Keselo, and the two other
s are Longbow and Red-Beard, archers from Zelana’s domain.”
“They’re hunters, aren’t they?” Omago asked.
Veltan nodded. “Very good hunters,” he said. “Red-Beard’s not quite as good as Longbow, but then, nobody’s as good as Longbow is. As far as I know, he’s never missed. His arrow always goes where he wants it to go.”
Omago smiled faintly. “When I was a boy, I used to dream about being a hunter. It must be a very exciting life.”
“I suppose it is, Omago, but Longbow isn’t just an ordinary hunter. His war with the creatures of the Wasteland started a long time ago. He hates them, and he kills every one he sees. Technically, I suppose he’s working for my sister Zelana, but he doesn’t take orders very well. Eleria’s about the only one he really listens to, and he’ll even jerk her up short every now and then.”
“Doesn’t that make your sister angry?” Ara asked.
“Not really. Zelana knows that he’s loyal and that he’s doing his best to help her, but he does things his own way.” Veltan shrugged. “It’s the results that really matter. The method isn’t all that important.”
“Where’s Yaltar?” Omago asked.
“He’s traveling with Zelana and Eleria on the Seagull—that’s the ship of Sorgan Hook-Beak, the commander of the Maags,” Veltan replied. “Someday I suppose I’ll take him for a ride on my pet thunderbolt, but he might be a little young for that right now.”
“Much too young,” Ara said firmly.
The small ship Veltan had called a “sloop” came ashore somewhat in advance of the rest of the fleet, and Veltan introduced Omago and Ara to the men who’d been on board. “This is the one I’ve been telling you about, Omago,” Veltan said, putting his hand on Rabbit’s shoulder. “If you tell him what you need, I’m sure he’ll be able to hammer whatever it is out of metal.”
“I hope so,” Omago replied, looking at the little man Veltan called Rabbit. “Veltan came by a while back,” he told the Maag, “and he told me what was happening in his sister’s Domain. Then he gave me a knife to show me what he was talking about when he used the word ‘metal.’ I got to thinking about it, and it seemed to me that if I lashed the knife to the front end of a long pole, it might make a fairly useful tool when we come up against the creatures of the Wasteland.”
“We call those tools ‘spears,’ Omago,” Rabbit said, “and they’ve been around for a long, long time.”
“Really? I sort of thought that I’d come up with the idea all by myself. We don’t know all that much about wars, though.”
“This one’s very quick, Rabbit,” the young Trogite Keselo said. “If he’s never seen a spear or even heard about one, it seems that he invented it right on the spot.”
“It does sort of look that way, doesn’t it?” Rabbit agreed with a slight frown. “If you come up with any more of these ideas, Omago, describe them to me. Then I’ll hammer one out and we’ll see how it works. How did the idea of the spear come to you?”
Omago shrugged. “I’ve got an extensive orchard, and I use a long pole with a cross-piece tied to the tip to pull down the higher limbs so that I can pick the fruit without climbing up the tree. I was standing there with the knife in one hand and the pole in the other, and the notion of putting them together sort of popped into my head.”
“Any time you hear one of those ‘pops,’ let me know about it,” Rabbit said.
“Some skiffs are coming in,” the tall archer Longbow said. “Sorgan, Narasan, and a few of the others will be here soon.”
“Good,” Veltan said. “We’ve got work to do, and we haven’t got much time.”
Omago was more than a little surprised by the hulking Maags. He’d never seen people so tall before, and the assorted metal weapons they had hanging from their belts were quite intimidating. The Trogites were shorter and somewhat darker, but they were also well armed.
Then Omago saw Yaltar trailing somewhat to the rear with a beautiful lady who was almost certainly Veltan’s sister Zelana, and a perhaps even more beautiful little girl, who was obviously Zelana’s Dreamer Eleria.
Ara rushed down toward the water and embraced the boy, and Yaltar clung to her as if something terrible had recently happened.
“Nice country, Veltan,” a Trogite with silver-touched hair at his temples observed.
“Thank you, Narasan,” Veltan replied. “Where’s Gunda?”
“I sent him on back to Castano to bring the rest of the army here,” the Trogite replied. “I’m hoping that the open channel through the ice is still there.”
“It is,” Veltan assured him. “Did you run into any problems on the way here?”
“No, the only problems we encountered cropped up before we set sail. Red-Beard’s tribe wasn’t very happy when he told them that he’d be gone for a while. His elevation to the rank of chief was fairly recent, and he’s been quite open about his dislike for the whole idea. They’re convinced that he seized on the idea of sailing south as a means of escape. There’s a lady in his tribe named Planter, and she said some very uncomplimentary things to him before we left.”
“Just let it lie, Narasan,” the red-bearded fellow who’d come ashore from the sloop growled.
“Just trying to explain a few things, Red-Beard,” Narasan replied. “My employer has a right to know about these little squabbles, wouldn’t you say?”
Red-Beard turned and stalked away, muttering to himself.
“This is Omago, Commander,” Veltan said. “I’ve known him since he was a little boy, and the other farmers and the shepherds all seem to bring their problems to him.”
“He’s quite gifted, Commander,” Keselo reported. “Veltan brought him an iron knife to show him what the word ‘metal’ really means, and he turned right around and invented the spear.”
“The spear’s been around for centuries, Keselo,” a very thin Trogite scoffed.
“Not around here, it hasn’t, Jalkan. The farmers around here don’t even know what the word ‘war’ means, so they’ve never needed weapons of any kind. Omago refers to his spear as a ‘tool.’ That suggests an entirely different sort of mind, wouldn’t you say?”
“The other farmers were quite impressed when Omago showed them his spear, Commander Narasan,” Veltan said, “and they’d really like to have spears of their own.”
“What does a farmer need a spear for?” the thin Trogite Jalkan demanded with a faint sneer.
“That’s about enough of that, Jalkan,” Commander Narasan said firmly.
“It’s a legitimate question, Commander,” Veltan said. “I’d mentioned that our enemies are part bug, and some accounts of the war in Zelana’s Domain drifted across the border between our two Domains, and Omago heard a few references to ‘bug-men.’ Any time a farmer hears the word ‘bug,’ he starts to feel very belligerent. A swarm of locusts can devour a whole year’s crop in less than a day. After Omago had shown the other farmers his spear, they sort of volunteered to join us in the upcoming war.”
“If we showed them how to form a phalanx, they could be very useful, couldn’t they, Commander?” the young soldier Keselo suggested.
“They might at that,” Narasan agreed. “They’d need shields, though.”
“What’s a shield?” Omago asked the commander.
“It’s a metal plate we strap to our left arms. We use it to protect our bodies from enemy weapons.”
“Sorgan’s coming, sir,” Keselo advised.
“Good.” Narasan looked at Veltan. “Where do you think we should set up our camp?” he asked.
“That’s something I wanted to talk over with you, Commander,” Veltan replied. “I don’t want to offend you, but it seems to me that we might want to keep your army— and Sorgan’s as well—on board your ships. Your men are well disciplined, but Sorgan’s Maags—? Well, I’m sure you get my point.”
“It’s crystal clear, Veltan. Peacetime brings out the worst in the Maags.”
“We’ll be moving up to the Falls of Vash before long any
way,” Veltan continued, “so setting up a temporary camp would just be a waste of time and labor. My people have been gathering food for your armies, and I’ll have them bring it here to the beach. In the meantime, I’ll take you and Sorgan and some of the others to my house to have a look at my map. I filched Rabbit’s idea of a lumpy picture, so you’ll be able to get some idea of the terrain near the falls. My big brother’s Dreamer said that we’ll be fighting this war up there, so you’ll need to be familiar with the territory.”
The Treasured One: Book Two of The Dreamers Page 7