Longbow smiled. “Water’s very patient, my little friend,” he replied. “All it really wants to do is go downhill.”
They moved cautiously down the now-dry streambed and stopped a few feet back from the abrupt break.
“There’s a lot of the new sand right at the bottom of this cliff, Rabbit,” Torl said, carefully leaning out over the edge.
“How far down would you say it is?”
“Fifty—maybe sixty—feet is about all.”
“That had me just a bit worried,” Rabbit admitted. “We’d have all looked a little foolish if this rope was about three feet too short.” He sat down and took a piece of loosely woven cloth out from under his belt and gathered it up around his lodestone. Then he passed his knife over the makeshift bag.
The pouch jumped up and attached itself to the knife.
“It looks like we’re in business,” Rabbit said, carefully tying the cloth into a tight sack. Then he tied the end of the rope coil he’d brought along to the sack and carefully began to lower the bag to the sand below. When it reached the sand, he raised it and then lowered it several times to make certain that it would capture even more grains of the glittering sand. Then he carefully pulled the rope back up, took hold of the cloth sack, and held it up for Longbow and Torl to see. The little pouch was almost completely covered with glittering yellow flakes.
“It looks to me like she’s very hungry, Rabbit,” Torl said. “You really ought to feed her more often, you know.”
Rabbit grinned broadly. “She earned her keep today,” he said. “When Narasan and Cap’n Sorgan see this, they’ll know for certain that all that shiny yellow sand out there’s nothing but imitation gold. I think Longbow’s friend just won this war for us.”
It was about midafternoon when Longbow and his two friends came back down the steep west ridge into the grassy basin, and Zelana and Veltan were waiting for them near the geyser.
“Well?” Zelana asked.
Grinning broadly, Rabbit held up the pouch covered with flakes of imitation gold. “Does this answer that question?” he asked. “It’s pretty enough, but it’s sure not gold.”
“I think we’d better reconsider a few things, sister mine,” Veltan said. “I don’t see any advantage to the Vlagh in this hoax. If we stop pestering those Church soldiers and let them finish their ramp, they’ll go crazy when they see what appears to be gold stretching out as far as the eye can reach. They’ll rush on down the slope and trample the servants of the Vlagh into the ground just to get to something that isn’t really worth anything at all.”
Zelana’s expression became sort of rueful. “It seems that I’m trying to make a career out of jumping to conclusions,” she admitted. “The Vlagh isn’t the only deceiver in the world. This ‘imitation gold’ might just turn out to be worth more than the real thing. I think you’d better go have a talk with Narasan, baby brother. Tell him to send word to Padan. We definitely don’t want anybody to interfere with those Church soldiers. We want them up here.”
“Right!” Veltan agreed enthusiastically.
The sun had gone down—the real sun, Longbow reminded himself as Dahlaine’s toy sun grew brighter and brighter over the now glittering slope. Narasan had called them all together atop the central tower of Gunda’s wall to consider some options.
“Are you absolutely certain sure that it’s only iron, Rabbit?” Sorgan Hook-Beak asked in an almost plaintive tone.
“The lodestone sort of proved that, Cap’n,” Rabbit explained. “It loves iron, but gold doesn’t interest it one little bit.”
“It looks like I’ve blundered here, Veltan,” Narasan admitted. “I was so certain that those Church armies had come here to punish me that the notion that they might be here to help never occurred to me.”
“Punish?” Sorgan asked curiously.
“Some Church armies tricked us once down in the southern part of the Empire,” Gunda explained. “One of the commander’s relatives was killed, so he was very upset. Padan and I came up with a way to even things out, though, and the Church didn’t like it one little bit.”
“Just what was it that you did to make them willing to come this far to kick you around?”
Gunda shrugged. “We hired several professional murderers, and they filled a few graveyards with high-ranking churchmen and assorted Church army commanders.”
“Are there really people down in the Empire who make their living by killing people?” Sorgan seemed a bit surprised. “We usually do our own killing in the Land of Maag.”
“Professionals are much neater,” Gunda said, “and they’ll kill the ones you want to get rid of any way you want them to—either quick and quiet, or slow and noisy. There’s one murderer down in the Empire who’ll guarantee that it’ll take your enemy at least two days to finish dying. If the enemy dies any sooner, the murderer won’t take your money.”
“Now that’s what I’d call a real professional, cousin,” Torl said admiringly.
“I don’t think I’ve ever disliked anybody quite that much,” Sorgan said.
“Anyway,” Narasan continued, “whether they hate us or not, when they see all that imitation gold out there, that’s the only thing they’ll be able to think about.”
“I think the key word there is ‘when,’ Narasan,” Sorgan added. “Dropping boulders on them definitely slowed them down to a crawl. It could take them months to finish that ramp, and we’ll have to hold back the bug-people until the Church armies get up here to take over for us.”
“I know,” Narasan replied glumly. “I’d be more than happy to listen to any suggestions.”
“Maybe we should help them,” Omago the farmer said somewhat hesitantly.
“What exactly did you have in mind?” Veltan asked.
“Well, they’ll need a lot of big rocks to finish that ramp, but there aren’t really all that many boulders down there at the foot of the falls, because the river’s worn most of them down over the years. If our people kept on pushing boulders off the cliff, those people down below would think that we were still trying to stop them, but what we’ll really be doing will be providing them with exactly what they need to finish the job.”
“I like it!” Sorgan exclaimed. “They don’t know it, but those people down there are really our friends, and it’s always nice to help a friend—particularly if he’s going to do all the dying for us.”
“In line with that thought, I think we should modify Gunda’s wall here just a bit,” Longbow added.
“It’s a very good wall, Longbow,” Gunda protested.
“That’s the trouble, friend Gunda. It’s too good. When our friends from the south reach your wall, it’ll take them quite some time to get over it in enough numbers to do us very much good. I’d say that we’ll need a gap about a hundred feet wide for that many of them to charge through.”
“Why don’t you gentlemen let me take care of that?” Veltan suggested. “Leave Gunda’s wall right where it is until our new-found friends come rushing up here to grab all of that imitation gold out there. Then I’ll make a nice wide opening for them so that they can go on down and take over the dying for us.”
“And just how did you plan to do that, Veltan?” Gunda demanded.
“Are you sure you really want to know, Gunda?”
“Ah—now that you mention it, Veltan, I guess I really don’t—not too much, anyway.”
“Are you quite certain that the bug-people will continue the foolish business of going back home every evening when the real sun goes down?” Narasan asked Veltan and Zelana a bit later.
“They’re creatures of habit, Commander Narasan,” Zelana replied. “If they do something one way today, they’ll almost certainly repeat it tomorrow.”
“We saw that fairly often back in the ravine, Narasan,” Hook-Beak reminded his friend.
“They’re perhaps a bit brighter this time,” Veltan added, “but they still respond to the commands of the Vlagh, so if the Vlagh tells them to come home every eveni
ng, they’ll keep on doing that until the Vlagh tells them otherwise. Blind obedience is part of their nature.”
“All right, then,” Narasan continued. “We’ve come up with several ways to delay them to the point that they’re not just dashing up here to start kicking at Gunda’s wall. The bright light from Dahlaine’s little toy has more or less eliminated the bug-bats. The breastworks and poisoned stakes pretty much stop the oversized snake-men, and our catapulted fire generally eliminates the imitation turtles. We’ve got thirteen lines of breastworks down the slope from Gunda’s wall here. We don’t really have to totally eliminate these enemies. All we have to do is slow them down. Since they all go home after work, we’ll be able to rush on down and reoccupy the outermost breastworks tonight. Then, tomorrow night, we’ll pull back to the next breastworks. Then, on the third night, we’ll pull back one more again. That should give the Church soldiers almost two weeks to finish their ramp and see all that imitation gold out there. At that point, we’ll just politely tip our hats and walk away.”
“You can walk if you want to, Narasan,” Sorgan said, “but I think I’m going to run, and you’d better not get in my way.”
Longbow found a certain hard practicality in Narasan’s plan. If the servants of the Vlagh seemed to be making a certain amount of progress each day, the Vlagh quite probably would see no reason to dream up some new and unanticipated strategy. The servants of the Vlagh would continue to overrun one barricade each day, and if Omago’s suggestion worked as well as it should, the Church armies should finish their ramp at about the same time.
At least he’d finally managed to persuade Narasan and Sorgan that the voice which had haunted his sleep for the past several nights had been telling the truth. Of course, the sudden appearance of miles and miles of imitation gold had helped quite a bit.
“Maybe if I’m lucky, she’ll go pester somebody else tonight,” he muttered as he walked on back to the forest a mile or so to the south of Gunda’s wall. Although he now had several friends among the outlanders, Longbow still preferred solitude when the time came for him to sleep.
The trees in this forest were of an unfamiliar variety, quite probably because Veltan’s Domain was much farther to the south than Longbow’s original home, but they provided him shelter—although shelter wasn’t that important in the summer.
He lay down on his bed of leaves and drifted off to sleep.
“Thou hast done well, brave hunter,” the now-familiar voice intruded into his mind. “I shall trouble thee no more. Fare thee well, Longbow of Zelana’s Domain. In times yet to come, we may meet again.”
THE BRIDGE
1
Padan was more than a little dubious about Longbow’s notion that some “unknown friend” was sending help in the form of five Church armies. The Amarite church was based upon raw greed, of course, but so far as Padan knew, none of the Church soldiers, nor priests, nor even the brutal Regulators had seen the colorful alteration of the red sand stretching out over the Wasteland.
“It just doesn’t float,” Padan muttered to himself as he went back down along the wide, turbulent river toward the waterfall where his men were still dropping boulders on the roof that had been cleverly designed to protect the Church soldiers from the arrows of Longbow’s archers.
Narasan had accepted the idea, however, so now Padan was obliged to go along despite his doubts. Padan had always felt that to be one of the drawbacks of army life. Once the commander made up his mind, the officers who served under him were required to obey. Back in the days when Padan, Gunda, and Narasan had been cadets in the army compound, the sergeants who had trained them had made a habit of beating them over the head with that every time they turned around. “Just do as you’re told” had seemed to pop up thirty or forty times a day. It made a certain amount of sense, of course, but if the commander happened to be wrong, half the army could wind up dead.
When he reached the brink of the gorge the River Vash had carved on down through the mountains to the south, Padan called his officers together. “The plans have changed, gentlemen,” he told them. “Something new has come up, so stop dropping rocks on that makeshift roof down there. Our glorious leader wants us to help those half-wit Church soldiers down there instead of hindering them. From now on, roll the boulders off the edge so that they’ll come down in front of that ramp instead of on top of it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Padan,” one of the older officers protested.
“Narasan seems to like it,” Padan replied. He hesitated slightly, but then decided to let his officers know why they were changing the overall plan. “It would seem that we’ve got a friend out here who’s been playing some very interesting games,” he said. “We all know how the Amarite church feels about gold, and this friend of ours is using imitation gold as bait. When those Church armies finish their ramp and see miles and miles of what they think is the real thing, they’ll go crazy, don’t you think?”
“I know that it loosened my head up just a little when I first saw it,” another officer admitted.
“Let’s just hope that the church-boys feel the same way,” Padan said. “Our new ‘grand plan’ is to help the dear old churchies get up here where they can see all that glittery dirt out there. Then we’re supposed to just get out of the way and let them run on down the slope beyond Gunda’s wall and tramp all over the bug-men.”
“While the bug-men are poisoning everybody who comes their way?” another officer added dubiously.
“That’s sort of at the core of this new ‘grand plan,’” Padan agreed.
“You don’t really sound very convinced, Padan,” the first officer said.
“I don’t really have to be convinced,” Padan declared. “Narasan bought the idea, and that’s all we need to know. Get started, gentlemen. Move your men upriver a hundred yards or so and start dropping boulders ahead of that ramp instead of on top of it. Let’s find out how long it’s going to take those holy nitwits down there to realize that our boulders are as useful as the ones out in the middle of the river.” He paused. “If some of our boulders accidentally come down on top of a few dozen Church soldiers, I won’t be too upset,” he added.
Padan’s men chuckled and grinned at him in a wicked sort of way.
It was about noon on the following day when the clever little smith Rabbit came down from the north. “I’m supposed to tell you that there’s going to be another one of those get-togethers up near that waterspout.”
“What now?” Padan replied irritably. “I thought we’d pretty much covered everything yesterday.”
“They didn’t come right out and tell me what this is all about,” Rabbit said, “but I think Lady Zelana’s big brother wants to know more about that Church in your part of the world.” He hesitated, looking around to make sure that nobody was close enough to hear him. “I think that what’s really behind this has to do with just exactly who came up with this scheme. That ocean of fake gold that just popped out of nowhere has them all upset. I wouldn’t want to swear to it, but I think that was something that nobody in Lady Zelana’s family could have pulled off. Her older sister seems to be so upset about it that she could bite nails and spit rust.”
Padan laughed. “That’s a colorful way to put it, Rabbit.”
Rabbit shrugged and looked down into the gorge the water-fall had gouged out of the surrounding mountains. “That’s quite a drop,” he observed.
“You’ve got that right,” Padan agreed.
“It’s likely to take those people down there a long time to get up here, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s their problem, Rabbit, not mine. Let’s go on up to the geyser and find out what’s afoot.”
Rabbit shrugged. “That’s up to you, Padan. I just carry messages. I don’t make decisions.”
The towering geyser which was the ultimate source of the River Vash was a noisy sort of thing, blasting high up into the air as it was driven by some incomprehensible force far down in the bowels of the earth.
Padan conceded that it was a pretty thing, but the continual spray arcing out from the top of the geyser was very much like an endless spring shower.
Fortunately, Veltan’s elder brother was wise enough to select an area some distance away from the geyser for them all to gather. At least they wouldn’t get wet.
It seemed to Padan that almost everybody was there. “Who’s minding the store?” he quietly asked Narasan.
“The sergeants, mostly,” Narasan replied.
“Oh,” Padan said. “Things should go more smoothly, then.”
“I wouldn’t let that get out, Padan. If people find out who really runs the army, we might both have to go out and find honest work.”
“What’s this all about, Narasan? Did we leave something out yesterday?”
Narasan glanced about and lowered his voice. “Lady Zelana’s big brother seems to be very curious about the Amarite church and those Church armies,” he replied. “Things seem to be much more relaxed here in the Land of Dhrall than they are down in the Empire.”
The Treasured One: Book Two of The Dreamers Page 37