“That’s all that really matters, I suppose,” Zelana said.
Just then Sorgan and Narasan came out of Dahlaine’s cave. “Don’t worry about a thing, Narasan,” Sorgan was saying. “I’ll keep Lady Zelana’s sister so busy that the notion of causing you any problems won’t even cross her mind.”
“I appreciate that, my friend,” Narasan replied. “If I never see Lady Zelana’s sister again, it’ll be about six weeks too soon.”
Sorgan grinned. “The nice part of this is that she’s going to pay me to keep her out of your hair.”
Then Eleria’s adult person came out of the cave with the warrior queen Trenicia. “Are we almost ready, Beloved?” Balacenia asked Zelana.
“Beloved?” Zelana asked, slightly startled.
“A lot of Eleria’s been rubbing off on me,” Balacenia replied.
“She’s good at that.”
Trenicia had joined Narasan and Sorgan, and Balacenia stepped closer to Zelana. “I’ve been catching a few hints that Trenicia’s becoming very attached to Narasan,” she said quietly.
“She wants him,” Zelana replied. “I spoke with her about that after she and Narasan walked out on Aracia. In many ways Trenicia doesn’t think—or behave—like a woman. I made a few suggestions, and she seems to be following them.”
“Do you really think she’ll catch him?”
“Probably. She can be quite charming when she sets her mind to it.” Zelana smiled. “It might sound a bit peculiar, but I’ve noticed over the years that women who want to catch a man use themselves as bait. I don’t know if Trenicia’s managed to hook Narasan yet, but it probably won’t take her much longer.” Then Zelana yawned. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m getting to the point that I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“I’m sure that this silly war will end very soon,” Balacenia said, “and when it does, Eleria and I’ll take you home and put you to bed.” Then she paused and her expression suddenly became very, very familiar. “Won’t that be neat?” she said, using one of Eleria’s favorite remarks.
Zelana laughed and took her alternate in her arms. “Eleria calls this a ‘hug,’” she explained.
“Yes,” Balacenia agreed, “and now I see why she likes them so much. Any time you feel like hugging, Beloved, I’ll be right here.”
Zelana laughed, and then she yawned again.
THE
JOURNEY
1
Sub-Commander Andar was more than a little grateful that Chief Two-Hands of the Matan Nation had given him one of the thickly furred bison-hide cloaks as Commander Narasan’s army began the march from Mount Shrak to the east coast of the Land of Dhrall. It was early winter now, and it was bitterly cold in the grassland of Matakan. Andar had grown up in Kaldacin, the capital city of the Trogite Empire, and sometimes during the winter months there it grew chilly enough to put a thin layer of ice on the nearby ponds, but Andar had never before seen a lake or pond that had been frozen solid from the surface all the way down to the bottom in a huge block of solid ice. “How do you people find water to drink when it’s this cold, Tlindan?” he asked one of the nearby Matans.
“There’s quite a bit of water in that pond,” Tlindan replied.
“It’s frozen solid,” Andar pointed out.
“You’d have to melt it,” Tlindan said. “Most of the time we melt snow when we need water, but ice will melt if you’re really thirsty and there’s no snow nearby.” The fur-cloaked Matan squinted across the browned grass toward the horizon. “We don’t usually spend much time outdoors during the winter. We sort of hole up in our lodges instead. If a man inside his lodge keeps his fire going, it’s fairly warm inside, and a pot-full of snow will melt down in an hour or so. Ice takes longer, but it will melt—eventually. Most of us don’t care all that much for ice. It takes quite a while to melt, even if the lodge is very warm.”
“How do you melt it when you’re out in the open and it’s very cold?”
“The best way I’ve found is to chip the ice with a hand-axe. If you tried to use an axe with a handle, you’d probably break it up into small pieces. You want very tiny chips of ice, since bigger ones take longer to melt. Then, when you’ve got what looks like enough, you scoop them into a pot. Then you scrape together a fair-sized heap of dried grass, put your pot in the middle of the heap, and then set fire to the grass. You’ll have water to drink in almost no time at all.”
“Isn’t the water a bit hot for drinking?”
Tlindan shrugged. “Add some more ice to cool it down. In the wintertime, I sort of like to drink warm water. Your stomach will spread the warmth around, and you’ll feel better all over—except for your feet, of course. Everybody’s feet are cold in the winter.”
“How can anybody live in a place like this?”
Tlindan spread out his hands. “The hunting’s very good, and winter doesn’t really last all that long. We don’t usually spend much time out of our lodges in the wintertime. It’s a very good time to catch up on your sleep. Twelve-hour naps are sort of nice when there’s nothing going on outside. A man who takes twelve-hour naps feels all rested when spring arrives.”
Andar looked up at the grey clouds rolling off toward the east. “Is it cloudy like this all winter long?” he asked the native.
“Fairly often, yes. Dahlaine’s playing with the clouds this year, though. Usually we get blizzards here during the winter season.”
“Blizzards?”
“Heavy snowstorms. A good blizzard can put twelve feet of snow down in about a day and a half. When that happens, nobody goes outside. They’re not really bad things, though. When the snow melts off in the spring, the grass gets lots of water, and it grows very fast. That gives the bison herds plenty to eat, and they’re nice and fat when we go hunting. Weather works for you, if you know how to get along with it.” Then he squinted up at the sky. “We’ll probably have to stop and set up camp fairly soon. It’ll be dark before much longer.”
“It’s just barely past noon,” Andar protested.
“That’s one of the things you should know about the north country. In the wintertime up here, the days are only six or seven hours long, and nighttime comes very fast.”
Andar frowned. “We can talk more later,” he said. “I think I’d better go warn Commander Narasan that night’s almost here.” He walked rapidly toward the front of the column. “I think we might have a bit of a problem, Commander,” he said.
“Now what?” Narasan demanded in a peevish-sounding voice.
“It’s going to start getting dark before long. One of the Matans warned me about that. We aren’t going to have daylight for much longer.”
“It’s only a few hours past noon, Andar.”
“The Matan told me that there’s no more than six or seven hours of daylight up here in the wintertime.”
Narasan scowled. “I think we’d better go have a chat with Lord Dahlaine, Andar. We’ve got a long way to go to reach the east coast, and we’re going to need longer days—or it’ll be summer before we reach the coast.”
“It’s not really all that much of a problem, Narasan,” Dahlaine said. “I’m sure you remember my toy sun. She—and sister Zelana’s fog-bank—helped us quite a bit down in Veltan’s Domain.”
“I should have remembered that,” Narasan said. “How many extra hours a day would you say she’ll be able to give us?”
“How many do you want? She enjoys putting out light, so she’ll give you as many extra hours of light as you want.”
Narasan squinted across the frozen grassland. “She puts out heat as well as light, doesn’t she?”
“She kept the inside of my cave warm and cozy when Ashad was just a baby.”
“That might even be more valuable than light,” Narasan said. Then he looked at Dahlaine. “This isn’t really any of my business,” he said, “but you don’t feel hot and cold in the same way that we do, do you?”
“I know that they exist,” Dahlaine replied. “I think I see where you’re go
ing with this, Narasan. It’s not a bad idea, now that you mention it. If my pet gives you and your men light and heat, you’ll be able to go much farther each day, won’t you?”
“I’d say at least an extra five miles,” Narasan estimated. “Possibly even an extra seven or eight.” Then he winced. “That might just disturb my men quite a bit, though.”
“I didn’t quite follow you there, Narasan.”
“Ten miles a day is one of the articles of faith in a Trogite army, Lord Dahlaine. Individual soldiers could exceed that, I’m sure, but when they’re marching together, ten miles is the limit. Anything any farther is viewed as an abomination. It’s a custom, and we Trogites are big on customs.” He shrugged. “It actually grows out of the inevitable delays that keep cropping up when you’re moving a hundred thousand men.”
“Wouldn’t you say that ‘rest time’ has something to do with the ten-miles-a-day limitation, Commander?” Andar suggested.
“Rest time?” Dahlaine asked.
“Another custom, Lord Dahlaine,” Narasan explained. “We’re expected to give our men a quarter of each hour spent marching to catch their breath. It makes a certain amount of sense in mountain country, but it’s a bit foolish on flat land.” His eyes hardened. “I think it might just be time to abolish that foolishness. If we can add an extra few miles to each day’s march, we’ll almost certainly reach the east coast of your Domain several days earlier than we’d originally planned. I’d say that it’s worth a try. Then too, if it’s warmer, we won’t have to worry too much about blizzards, will we?”
Dahlaine grinned. “It might make them a little sulky,” he said, “but I think I’ll be able to make them quit pouting. Let’s see how far my pet can go. I don’t think we’ll want mid-summer, but early autumn might be sort of nice.”
“Whatever you think best, Lord Dahlaine,” Narasan said.
“You’re very good at putting all sorts of things together, Narasan,” Dahlaine observed.
“That’s what an army-commander is supposed to do, Lord Dahlaine. Our people come up with all kinds of ideas, and we’re supposed to fit them together to construct a plan that might work. There are many people in my army who are much more clever than I am, but that doesn’t hurt my feelings very much. My job involves putting their assorted ideas together to come up with something that’ll work and won’t get too many of my men killed.”
“Aren’t you just a little bit out of uniform, Padan?” Andar asked his friend as they set out early the following day.
“I’m supposed to look like a Maag,” Padan explained. “Narasan suggested it to Sorgan. The Maags aren’t too good at defending cities—burning, yes; defending, no. I’ll stay in the background so Aracia’s priesthood won’t recognize me, and I’ll give Sorgan details when he needs them. The idea is to have us put something together that’ll look enough like a fort to deceive the priests into believing that we’ve come up with something impregnable. I’m not as good as Gunda when it comes to building forts, but I should be able to come up with something that looks like a fort.”
“Right up until the wind starts blowing,” Andar said.
“Be nice,” Padan said. Then he scratched at his cheek.
“Problems?” Andar asked.
“Sorgan suggested that I should let my whiskers grow. He said that most Maags wear beards, and if I want to look Maagish, I should get a bit more shaggy. He didn’t bother to tell me that the thing itches all the time.”
“Maags might not notice that, Padan,” Andar replied with a faint smile. “You’d think that people who live out at sea would bathe more often. I’d almost be willing to bet that the Maags are the native home of fleas and lice.”
“You’re in a grumpy sort of mood today, Andar.”
“Homesick, I suppose,” Andar admitted. “I miss Kaldacin. It’s corrupt and it doesn’t smell too good, but it is home.”
“If Lord Dahlaine’s correct, this will be the last war here in the Land of Dhrall. There’s only one path left open to the Creatures of the Wasteland. Once this last one’s closed off, we’ll all be able to go on back home and sit around counting all the lovely money we’ve picked up here.”
“It’ll be a lot cleaner now that the Church of Amar has been eliminated,” Andar added. “I don’t know if you noticed the similarities between the priests of ‘Holy Aracia’ and the high-ranking clergymen of the Church of Amar.”
“They’re all fat, if that’s what you mean,” Padan agreed. “Did I ever get around to congratulating you for that horror story you foisted off on the fat priest called Bersla?”
“There was a certain amount of truth involved, Padan,” Andar protested. “We’ve all heard stories about the famines that show up every so often. When people are starving, they do sometimes revert to cannibalism—except that they’ll eat people who are already dead. I was fairly sure that the prospect of being eaten alive might frighten Bersla enough that he’d start paying attention to what was happening out in the real world.”
“The fact that his hair was standing straight up and his eyes were bulging out of their sockets sort of hints that he was getting your point.”
“We can hope, I suppose. His sense of his own superiority rubbed me the wrong way. He behaves as if the common people of Aracia’s Domain were nothing more than cattle whose only purpose in life is to feed him, and Aracia’s mind has slipped so far that she believes just about anything he ever tells her.”
“I hate to admit this—again—” Padan said, “but I think Keselo’s scheme might be the best one any of us will ever come up with. If Sorgan sends out scouts and they report back that the bug-people are coming and that they’re awful, I’m fairly sure that all those fat priests will try to take cover, and they’ll all be so far down in the basement that they won’t have any idea of what’s really happening. If they’re all busy hiding, they won’t even know that Sorgan’s been tearing down certain parts of the temple to build that wall.”
Now that Dahlaine’s little toy sun was giving them much more daylight—as well as warmer weather—the combined armies were making much better time than they’d made during that first dreadful day, so they reached the low mountain range off to the east much sooner than any of them had thought possible.
The worn-down range of mountains had a familiar quality that Andar found rather pleasant. In many ways they were very much like the mountains off to the south of Kaldacin, so Andar found them to be quite beautiful. They weren’t as rugged and imposing as the mountains in the Domains of Zelana, Veltan, and Dahlaine had been. The young scholar, Keselo, had told them that mountains were much like people. As they grew older, their rough edges were worn down by the passing years, and they were much gentler.
“I think this is far enough for today,” Commander Narasan announced. “Put the men to work setting up camp. We’ll be splitting up tomorrow, so it might not be a bad idea to talk things over before we’re separated.”
“Good idea,” Dahlaine agreed. “Longbow told us that he was going to lead the Tonthakans, Matans, and the Malavi horse-soldiers south along this mountain range to the upper end of Long-Pass while the Trogites and Maags go over to the coast to sail south. That’s the way we decided to do this back at Mount Shrak, and I don’t see any reason to change things.”
“You didn’t tell him, I take it,” Ekial the Malavi said to the bleak-faced Longbow.
“I didn’t really want to alarm him—or his sister, Zelana,” Longbow replied.
“Alarm?” Zelana asked the archer. “What are you up to now?”
“I will be leading the others, Zelana,” Longbow replied, “but I’ll be quite some distance ahead of them. Kathlak, Ekial, and Two-Hands know where they’re going, so they won’t need me around to keep pointing them south. I’ll go on ahead and make sure that the Creatures of the Wasteland haven’t reached these mountains yet. Then I’ll go on down Long-Pass to the sea. I’ll probably be there when the ships arrive, and I’ll be able to pass along anything I’ve seen to our
friends.”
“That’s too much of a risk,” Zelana declared. “You can’t just run around by yourself like that.”
“You can come along, if you’d like,” Longbow told her with a faint smile. “Somebody has to go ahead—somebody who knows enough about the servants of the Vlagh to know what he’s looking for. That means me, Zelana. I know more about the Creatures of the Wasteland than anybody else does, and I know exactly what I’ll have to do to stay out of their sight. I’ve been doing this for a long, long time, Zelana, so I won’t be in any real danger.”
“You’re going to insist, I take it?” Zelana said.
“I thought I just did. You worry too much, Zelana. It’ll make you old if you’re not careful.”
“I’m already old,” she snapped.
“But you don’t want it to show, now do you? I’ll be just fine, Zelana. I know what has to be done and how to do it. Nobody else does, so I’ll have to do it myself.” He looked around at the others. “I know that many of you would like to help, but you’d just be in my way. I’ll see you down at the mouth of Long-Pass in a few days, my friends,” he said, and then he turned and ran smoothly off to the south. Andar was quite certain that Longbow’s decision had grown perhaps more out of his desire to be alone. Longbow didn’t really like—or need—other people around him. He was definitely the most solitary man Andar had ever encountered.
2
Andar had been careful to keep his opinion of the warrior queen Trenicia strictly to himself, of course, but she was always there when he needed to speak with the commander. It wasn’t that she ever interfered or anything like that, but just her presence made Andar uncomfortable.
It might have been the massive sword she had belted to her waist that disturbed Andar so much. Women were not supposed to carry weapons like that. Women were supposed to be soft and gentle—and subservient, of course. It seemed to Andar that Trenicia’s very existence was a violation of some natural law dating back to the beginning of time.
The Younger Gods Page 4