“It’s about fifty feet wide, I’d say,” Andar agreed.
“If that much,” Gunda replied. “It widens out just a bit when it gets up near the rim on either side, but that won’t be much of a problem.”
“How long would you say building a fort there is likely to take?” Andar asked.
Gunda shrugged. “Three days—maybe four. There’s plenty of granite lying around here. Squaring it off won’t take too long.” Gunda pursed his lips. “I think twenty feet high should do the job. When the main army gets up here, they’ll have those poisoned stakes. If we plant those to the front like we’ve done before, I don’t think very many bug-people will even reach the fort. We’ve got archers and spear-men—and those horse-soldiers as well. The Vlagh can send ten thousand or so bug-people here to attack the fort, but a dozen or so at most will actually reach it. Why don’t you drop back a mile or so and find a good place to build that second fort you mentioned. When you find it, let me know, and I’ll send you half of our men. We’ll see how our first two forts turn out, and then we might want to move on to four. Give us a couple of weeks and we’ll have at least a dozen forts blocking off this pass. That might just make poor old Vlagh feel sort of grouchy.”
“Poor baby,” Andar replied in mock sympathy.
“If you don’t have access to mortar, you keep things in place with weight,” Gunda was explaining to Keselo the following day. “The blocks should be squared off, of course, but it’s the sheer weight that’ll make your fort impregnable.”
“That’s a very useful thing to know, Sub-Commander,” Keselo replied with mock enthusiasm. Gunda was very proud of his reputation as a master fort-builder, and it didn’t really cost Keselo very much to heap praise on his superior.
“Now, then,” Gunda continued. “Every three or four layers you should connect the upper blocks to the lower ones with interlocking grooves.”
“I was wondering about that,” Keselo replied with a perfectly straight face. “My big problem, though, is how you can lock the battlements in place.”
“That does get a little tricky,” Gunda replied. “You’re picking this up quite rapidly, Keselo. Give me a little time and I’ll make a first-rate fort-builder out of you.”
Along with four or five professors of architecture at the University of Kaldacin, Keselo privately added.
“If you’re not busy with something else,” Gunda said then, “why don’t you drop on back down the pass and see how Andar’s fort is coming along. Andar and I should keep in touch.”
“I’ll go on down there immediately, sir,” Keselo replied, snapping to attention. Right now he’d be more than happy to get away from Gunda’s tedious lectures.
“I was just about to send somebody up to Gunda’s fort to fetch you, Keselo,” Sub-Commander Andar said. “A messenger just came up here from the main army. Commander Narasan wants to see you.”
“Am I in trouble?” Keselo asked.
“Not that I know of. The messenger wasn’t too specific, but I think Commander Narasan wants you to go on down to that silly temple to advise Sorgan that everything up here is pretty much the way we want it to be. The forts will be in place when the bug-people try to attack.”
Keselo frowned. “The commander could have sent somebody else down to the temple, and that messenger would have reached Sorgan long before I’ll be able to.”
Andar shrugged. “You know Sorgan much better than an ordinary messenger would have, and your rank would tell Sorgan that he’s significant to Commander Narasan. What Sorgan’s doing down there’s a little silly, maybe, but it will keep Veltan’s sister off our backs. I’m sure that the commander has things he wants Sorgan to know about, and Sorgan probably has information for the commander as well. They both trust you, Keselo, so I’ve got a sort of hunch that you’ll be doing a lot of traveling back and forth between the pass and the temple before this is all over. I’ll send word on up to Gunda to let him know that the commander’s got a job for you.”
“I’d appreciate that, sir,” Keselo said. Then he considered the distance he’d be traveling for the next several weeks. “I wonder if Ekial might lend me a horse,” he murmured to himself.
3
Commander Narasan’s tent had seen better days. It had been patched so many times that there were several areas where even the patches had been patched. Near the center there was a stove that put out small amounts of heat, but quite a bit of smoke. The commander was seated at a small table carefully examining a rudimentary map. “You made good time, Keselo,” he said when Keselo entered the tent. “I sent the messenger up the pass only two days ago.”
“Downhill is quite a bit easier than uphill, sir,” Keselo replied.
“How’s the fort coming along?”
“Which one, sir?”
Commander Narasan raised one eyebrow.
“Sub-Commanders Gunda and Andar talked things over after they’d seen how narrow the gap was at the head of the pass, sir,” Keselo explained. “They agreed that they had far more men than they needed to build the fort that’d block off that gap, so Sub-Commander Andar took half of the men a mile or so on down the pass, and he’s building a second fort. I wouldn’t exactly call it a race, but there is a certain amount of competitiveness involved.”
The commander smiled faintly. “That always seems to come floating to the surface when Gunda’s involved,” he said.
“He is a soldier, Commander,” Keselo replied. “He fights wars, and war is the ultimate competition, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re an extremely perceptive young man, Keselo. Now, then, how well do you and Sorgan get along?”
“He thinks I’m just a little stuffy, sir. That’s one of the drawbacks of an extensive education. The word ‘sir’ seems to offend him for some reason.”
“He does believe you when you tell him something, doesn’t he?”
“I believe so, yes, sir. I’ve never had any reason to lie to him.”
“I think you talked yourself into a lot of traveling, Keselo.”
“Sir?” Keselo was a bit confused.
“Sorgan and I will need to pass information back and forth to each other, and we both trust you to give us the absolute truth.”
“I’m honored that you feel that way about me, sir.”
“I’ve been in touch with one of the ship-captains in the bay at the mouth of this pass, and he has a small, swift sloop that’s been quite useful in the past. When you reach the bay, he’ll lend you the sloop and a couple of sailors who know how to use it. They’ll be able to deliver you to Sorgan in about a half a day. Then, after you’ve spoken with old Hook-Beak, you can come back and tell me anything he wants me to know. When you see him, tell him that Gunda’s fort—and Andar’s—are nearly complete. I’m sure that he’ll want to send word to me about how well his hoax is coming. Now, then, can you think of anything you might need to make these journeys a bit easier—and faster?”
“Yes, sir,” Keselo replied. “I think I can. It might take me a while to learn how to ride one of Prince Ekial’s horses, but we might want to consider that. There may be a few times when speed will be essential, and a horse is sort of a land version of that sloop, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say that you can think about twice as fast as anybody else in the army, Keselo. I’ll send word to Prince Ekial, and there will be a horse waiting for you on the beach when you return.”
“And a Malavi as well, sir?” Keselo added. “I’ll need somebody there to teach me how to ride a horse, because I don’t really know anything about horses.”
The swift little sloop the captain of the Triumph provided for Keselo’s trip down the coast to the harbor of Lady Aracia’s temple made the voyage in just over a half a day, and the two skilled sailors who’d rowed her south pulled alongside the Ascension in the early afternoon.
Keselo climbed up the rope ladder and spoke with the extremely tall Maag known as Tree-Top. “I’ve got some information for Captain Hook-Beak,” Keselo told th
e towering Maag. “I think it might be best if I spoke with him here on the Ascension rather than in the temple. I’m fairly sure that Commander Narasan and Captain Hook-Beak would prefer to keep the priests in Lady Aracia’s temple from finding out that they’re in contact with each other.”
“You’re probably right,” Tree-Top agreed. “I’ll get word to the cap’n that you’re here.”
“How have things been going down here?” Keselo asked.
Tree-Top laughed. “The cap’n seems to have got hisself on the good side of the crazy lady who owns this place. The other day she ordered all them fat priests of hers to go out to the west to lend the cap’n and his men some help. You could hear the screaming for miles when she said that. It quieted down some after the cap’n had several of them fat priests flogged, though.”
“Did Lady Aracia actually let him do that?” Keselo was more than a little startled.
“It looked to me like it made her real happy. I’ll send a man ashore to let the cap’n know that you’re here, and then maybe you can tell me what’s happening up there where the real war’s going on.”
Keselo was more than a little surprised that Sorgan had somehow managed to bring Lady Aracia over to his side. Before Veltan and Lady Zelana had pulled the Trogite army out of this temple-town, it had seemed that the priests had been making all the decisions here, and Lady Aracia had been little more than a figurehead. Sorgan had somehow managed to wake her up, though, and that might just change a lot of things.
“It was really a mistake that turned into something very useful, Captain Sorgan,” Keselo admitted. “None of us knew for certain just when the servants of the Vlagh would come rushing up out of the Wasteland—or how many there’d actually be. The commander wasn’t entirely sure that the Tonthakans, Matans, and the Malavi would be able to hold the bug-people off, so he sent ten thousand men up the pass with Sub-Commander Gunda—more for security than for fort-construction. When we reached the head of the pass, we saw that the opening was only fifty feet across—and the bug-people were still quite a long way out in the Wasteland. Sub-Commanders Gunda and Andar talked it over a bit, and they decided to build two forts instead of just one.”
“That’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Gunda,” Sub-Commander Padan, who was now sporting a beard, said.
“Actually, sir, it was Sub-Commander Andar who came up with the notion. Sub-Commander Gunda was too busy inventing new swear words about then. When I left, those two forts were almost finished, and Gunda and Andar were discussing the possibility of putting the construction crews to work on four new forts.”
He hesitated slightly. “When I first got here, Tree-Top was telling me that Lady Aracia might just be coming to her senses.”
“She’s starting to think,” Sorgan replied. “Her lazy priests just got themselves put to work, and they’re not too happy about that.” Then Captain Hook-Beak grinned rather slyly. “What’s really making them unhappy is what we’re feeding them. They’re used to fancy food, and beans don’t sit very well with them.”
“Did Lady Aracia actually accept the stories about bug-people here in the vicinity of her temple?” Keselo asked. “Nobody’s ever actually seen any of them, have they?”
“Veltan’s been lending us a hand,” Sorgan replied. “He’s been cooking up images for the entertainment of his sister and her chubby priests. I’ve got men out there pretending to fight off the bugs, and those priests—and even Lady Aracia herself—have been catching very brief glimpses of those images. That’s the thing that brought Aracia over to our side. She suddenly woke up and realized that her priests were almost totally worthless. You should have heard the speech she made to the priests. That lady can be a tiger when it’s necessary.”
“You’ve done something here that nobody else has ever been able to do, Captain Hook-Beak,” Keselo noted.
“I had Veltan’s help, Keselo,” Sorgan replied. “I’m positive that it was his images that brought her around.”
“Tree-Top told me that you had a few of the priests flogged.”
Sorgan nodded. “That definitely cut back all the complaining,” he said.
“Are those priests actually working alongside your men? Wouldn’t that suggest to some of them that what they’ve been hearing about, and catching a few glimpses of, is nothing but a hoax?”
Sorgan shook his head. “Rabbit came up with a story that sent the priests down to the south wall of the temple—bugs sneaking through the bushes and a few other all-out lies. Now the priests are tearing the southern buildings apart, and leaving my men alone here on the west side so that we can cook up more horror stories. Tell Narasan that we’ve got things pretty much under control down here, and you might want to tell him—and Lady Zelana and Lord Dahlaine—that Lady Aracia seems to be coming to her senses.”
“That might just be the best news they’ve had since last spring, Captain,” Keselo agreed.
Keselo was a bit startled when he saw that the Malavi waiting for him on the beach at the mouth of Long-Pass was Prince Ekial himself. The two of them had met during the war in Veltan’s Domain the preceding summer, and they’d gotten along with each other quite well, but Keselo was quite certain that Ekial had more serious matters to attend to.
The sailors who’d been rowing the scruffy little skiff pulled the bow of the skiff up onto the sandy beach, and Keselo stepped out onto the sand. “What are you doing down here, Prince Ekial?” Keselo asked.
Ekial shrugged. “Friend Narasan tells me that you’d like to learn how to ride a horse,” he replied. “I wasn’t doing anything important, so I thought I might as well come on down here and teach you myself.”
“I’m honored, Prince Ekial.”
“We’re friends, Keselo,” Ekial replied. “We don’t have to wave our titles in each other’s face like that. Actually, I was starting to get just a little bored up there watching Gunda and Andar building forts.”
“Have there been any signs of the Creatures of the Wasteland approaching the upper end of the pass yet?”
“A few,” Ekial replied. “I’d say that the ones we’ve seen so far are just scouts. Let’s get on with this, shall we? It’s likely to take you a few days to get used to sitting on a horse’s back, so we’d better get started.” He reached out and put his hand on the front shoulder of a rangy horse with a saber-scar across its nose. “This is Bent-Nose, and he’s a fairly sensible animal. He doesn’t bite very often, and he almost never kicks somebody who walks behind him. He’s old enough not to get excited every time somebody walks by, but he’s not so old that he’d rather rest than run. Now, the first thing you need to do is let the horse get to know you. I brought some apples along, and horses love apples. If you give a horse an apple, he’ll follow you for a day or so at least. Then you want to scratch his ears and pet his nose. He needs to be able to recognize your smell.”
“I didn’t realize that it was so complicated,” Keselo confessed. Then he remembered something. “If horses like apples, isn’t it possible that they’d like other sweet things as well?”
“They might, yes. What did you have in mind?”
Keselo reached into his pocket and took out several pieces of candy. “I’ve always had a sort of weakness for this,” he admitted. “It might be a sign that I never really grew up. Try one, and see what you think.”
Ekial took one of the lumps of candy and popped it into his mouth. “Oh, my goodness,” he said. “I think you might have just made a huge jump forward in the taming of horses, friend Keselo. Let’s see how Bent-Nose feels about this.”
Ekial held a piece of candy out to the horse. Bent-Nose sniffed at the candy, and his ears perked up. Then he rather carefully took the candy into his mouth.
It seemed to Keselo that the horse almost shivered with delight. Then he nuzzled at Keselo’s hand.
“You do have more, don’t you?” Ekial asked.
“A couple of pounds, I think,” Keselo replied. “I’ll check my pack, but I always keep plenty of cand
y.”
“I think you’re on to a winner, friend Keselo. If things go as fast as I think they will, you’ll be riding Bent-Nose before noon tomorrow.”
It took Keselo a while the following day to learn the rudiments of mounting and dismounting, but Bent-Nose was most cooperative, and then Ekial said that they might as well ride on up the pass to report in to the commander. Bent-Nose and Ekial’s horse Bright-Star moved on up the pass at a canter, and Keselo was quite pleased with how much easier it was to ride rather than walk—at least during the first morning of their journey. By the time they stopped for the night, however, Keselo realized that there were some drawbacks involved in riding.
“It takes a while for your backside to toughen up,” Ekial explained. “Walk around a little bit, and that should ease the pain in your backside. You might want to eat standing up for a few days, though.”
“How far would you say we came today?” Keselo asked.
“Forty miles or so,” Ekial replied. “We haven’t been pushing the horses very hard. Uphill is always a bit slower than downhill.”
“We should make it up to the top of the pass in two more days, then. Have Gunda and Andar finished their forts yet?”
“As closely as I could determine, yes. Of course I’m not really all that familiar with forts.”
“Have the Creatures of the Wasteland made any attacks?”
“They hadn’t when I left that end of the pass. The Tonthakan archers had pretty well cleared the rims on both sides of the pass, so I’m fairly sure that friend Narasan’s army has reached the top by now.”
“I’d say that we’re about as ready to meet the invaders as we’ll ever be, then.”
“They won’t get past us,” Ekial agreed. “We might have to sit up there for a few months, but eventually that thing called the Vlagh will run out of soldiers, and that’s what this is all about, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sorgan seems to think that your sister’s coming to her senses,” Keselo told Lady Zelana and Lord Dahlaine on the evening of the day when he and Ekial had reached the top of Long-Pass. “She’s begun to realize just how totally worthless her priests really are. Their so-called ‘adoration’ is nothing but a ruse to make their own lives easier, and their contempt for the common people really angered her. Sorgan’s clever mock invasion seems to have brought her face-to-face with reality, and she came down very hard on those who had elevated themselves to the priesthood. She ordered them to go to work helping Sorgan’s men build fortifications.” Keselo grinned then. “Quite a few of her priests refused, but after Sorgan had them flogged with whips, the refusals stopped. A good number of priests decided to run away along about then, but absurd though it might seem, that huge temple only has one door, and Sorgan put a hundred or so of his men at that door, so nobody’s leaving. Like it or not, Aracia’s priesthood will do honest work for a while.”
The Younger Gods Page 13