The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  Sitting in the Laughing Fish Tavern brought on a host of memories for Thru, and he found himself contrasting the difference in the times.

  Dronned had received full warning. The city's own folk had fled, while mots from all over the Land had gathered for the King's muster.

  Toshak was finishing his mug of hot tea when a message was brought to him. He showed Thru and Hob the royal seal before he broke it, all three heartened to know that King Belit was awake to the need for haste.

  Before this, Thru had only viewed the exterior wall of the royal palace of Dronned. Now he was welcomed through the huge black double doors and ushered down a very large passageway by a brilby wearing the royal colors. More doors opened, and they entered a large room carpeted in green, with a great tapestry depicting the founding of Dronned covering the walls. At the far end on a dais sat the throne under a banner bearing the four black crows of Dronned. The King, however, was sitting at a table in the corner poring over maps of the border regions between Dronned, Sonf, and Tamf. Still in his night robe and slippers, King Belit sipped a cup of guezme tea. On a bench nearby sat an Assenzi, dressed in black. Thru guessed that this was Melidofulo, the resident Assenzi of Dronned.

  The King was apprised of Toshak's arrival by a young secretary. The King whirled around and raised his arms in welcome.

  "Ah, very good. Welcome back to Dronned, noble Toshak."

  Toshak stepped forward and bowed, then handed the King a message.

  "From King Rolf, Your Majesty."

  King Belit nodded with a frown.

  "Thank you for coming so quickly." The King broke the seal and scanned the message, then handed it to the secretary.

  "I will reply. Bring quill and scroll."

  Belit turned back to Toshak and the others.

  "And let me welcome your companions, Hob there, the fellow who catches Nuza the acrobat. I've marveled at your catches many a time."

  Hob bowed, obviously pleased to have been recognized. The King turned to Thru.

  "And you are Seventy-seven-Run Thru Gillo. I saw you play for your village team some years ago, defeating the Laughing Fish for the championship. You were good with the bat that day."

  "Your Majesty, you are very kind. That was a grand day, and I will always treasure it."

  "Yes, indeed, such glory comes to few of us." He sighed and laid a hand on Thru's shoulder. "But these days are very different and we have a war to win. Unfortunately we have never fought a war before. If it was a ball game, then I would have far more confidence, especially with Seventy-seven-Run Thru Gillo in our ranks."

  The King turned back to Toshak. "Yes, my friends, I understand well what we will have to do. But Melidofulo is not so sure."

  They all turned to the Assenzi, who rose from his bench and approached them. As he came Thru felt a wave of calmness go through him. Those eyes, so huge, so wise, they must hold some answer to this madness.

  "You come from Tamf?" he said after a little nod to each of them.

  "Tamf has been destroyed. What's left is being dismantled by the men."

  "Ah, the men," said Melidofulo, ignoring Toshak's news of Tamf. "Can we be sure that these creatures are really men?"

  They exchanged a look. Indeed, what evidence did they possess, other than old Haloiko's firmly voiced opinion? There had been no communication with the raiders, that was for sure.

  "We can only go by what they looked like," said Toshak. "They conform to everything we have been taught. They have long hair, and long fur on their faces. They are not mots or brilbies and certainly not kobs."

  "You have seen them yourselves?"

  "Yes, we fought them at the barricade and in the streets."

  "Ah," Melidofulo looked down, his jaws moved angrily. "You admit there has been fighting?"

  "Oh yes, Melidofulo, fighting and much slaughter. First, at Bilauk, on the Creton coast, we found the entire population dead. Their bodies gone, their heads piled on the jetty."

  Melidofulo looked at them, and for a moment Thru saw blank confusion in that face. The Assenzi was unable to accept their words.

  "Have any of these creatures been killed?"

  "Oh yes, we have killed them. They bleed and die just as we do."

  Melidofulo's small mouth pursed in distaste. "Three days ago a bird brought a message from King Rolf claiming that Tamf was under attack. I found it hard to believe."

  Toshak's eyes took on a glint. His voice was husky with emotion. "Tamf has been burned to the ground."

  King Belit spoke up quickly to head off a clash. "I ordered the Muster of the Land at once. So far we have more than fifteen hundred names on the roll, and more are coming in all the time."

  "A thousand mots from Tamf will be following us today and tomorrow."

  "Excellent. Our only problem will be feeding everyone."

  "Your Majesty, has a message been sent to Sulmo?"

  "Indeed, it was sent yesterday, but it will take time to get there."

  Melidofulo still studied them with pursed lips. Thru could tell that the ancient being had not fully accepted their story.

  "What do you advise, Toshak?" said the King.

  "We must raise an army and train it to fight in a disciplined manner."

  "You seem very sure of this," said the Assenzi doubtfully.

  "Master Melidofulo, you do not seem to understand. We have witnessed the beginnings of a great invasion of the Land. They are men, and they are here to destroy us."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  "Halloo!" Thru's voice echoed in the empty lanes of Warkeen Village. A raven flapped off the roof of the tavern with a melancholy caw. Thru watched it fly off inland, still cawing. The village seemed quite deserted. For the first time since leaving Dronned he wondered if he'd undertaken a fool's errand coming up to the village. But there'd been nothing for him to do in the city. Toshak was always busy with the organization of the new army, and Thru had been left pretty much to his own devices after the initial meeting with King Belit and his advisors. So he'd decided to make a quick visit to Warkeen, just to assure himself that all was well. Now he found the place completely empty.

  He made his way through the familiar streets to his own house, but there was no smoke in the chimney there, either.

  He knew that at the first word of the danger the females and young would have been sent inland, along with the elderly, but he hadn't expected to find the whole place totally deserted. For a few minutes he wondered if he was entering one of those nightmares he'd had so often. Soon he'd come around a corner, and there would be the pile of heads.

  He found the door locked and the windows shuttered and barred. Without much hope he called "Hallooo!" a few times, while he climbed the fence into the backyard. Here, he found evidence of recent visits, for the yard had been swept recently.

  Hopes renewed, he tried the back door and found it bolted top and bottom. So Ware had gone out the front door and locked it. The back windows were all shuttered, too. He went back to the lane and headed toward the tavern.

  "Halloooo!" he called once more, and this time was rewarded with a faint "Hellooo!" back.

  He saw a figure in the distance and started to run. Halfway there he saw it was Ware, and he ran harder. When they met they almost knocked each other down. They embraced for a few moments. Ware had tears of joy on his cheeks.

  "My son, you live, you live!"

  "Father..."

  "So much to say," said Ware happily as he put a hand to his son's face. "Thanks be to the Spirit that you are brought back to us."

  Still blinking back the tears, they stumbled over to the steps of the tavern, where they sat down and haltingly asked and answered many questions. Ware had the key to the tavern, which was being used by the small group of mots who had stayed in the town. So after a while they went inside.

  "Everyone and everything has gone inland, my son. They're building a wall around Meever's, would you believe? I'm only here with the weed squad. We weed the polder for a few days every week. M
ost of the younger mots have gone to Dronned for the King's muster."

  "The whole Land is rising, Father."

  They made tea, and Ware fixed some bushpod-flour biscuits, which they ate with butter and curds. Thru worked up the fire and got it good and hot. At least one chimney in the village was still warm.

  As they worked they talked, and Thru was pleased to hear that Snejet was well, and waiting for her baby's arrival. They were all up at Juno Village, except for Gil, who'd set off for Dronned and the muster.

  "Everyone's up there, even Aunt Paidi. The chooks, too, of course, although some of them have been slipping back down here to go over the fields."

  "How is it with the folk of Juno?"

  "Well, it's crowded, and there are disagreements, but everyone knows why it has to be that way for now. Until these attackers are defeated, we have to keep away from the coast."

  The biscuits were great. Thru realized his stomach was growling with hunger. He tucked in with a will. He ate so heartily that Ware worked up another batch.

  "The word came first from Dronned, and many didn't believe. You know how folk are: They don't care to be moved out of their ways too much. And this all sounded completely outlandish. Then a fishing boat put in and said they'd been chased by a huge ship. Then two of our own boats didn't return, on a clear day with little wind. Then we heard about Tamf."

  Thru dipped biscuits in hot butter and ate.

  "Did the fishing boats come back later?"

  "No. We had the funeral and said the rites for them on the beach."

  Thru shivered, ate silently for a while, then told Ware some of what he'd seen on the coast of Creton. The piles of heads on the jetties, the stench of smoke overhanging the Land.

  "We fought them at Harfield, but they were too strong for us. We have to learn discipline, Toshak says."

  Ware's eyes dropped to the floor, and he rubbed his hands together anxiously, fretful. There was absolutely no doubt now.

  "It is Man, truly Man?"

  "None other, Father. They are exactly like the description in the hymns. 'Man of the beard, brown beard, red blood, they carry the shield, they wield the sword!' They kill us for food, Father. They kill every chook, every donkey, every animal they can find. All they leave behind are the heads."

  Ware put his head in his hands for a moment and composed himself. The future seemed stark and terrifying.

  "May the Spirit help us to defeat them."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The bell was tolling again. Simona dimly heard the splash as the body, wound in a sheet and weighted with rocks, was tossed over the side. Another bell was tolling farther off elsewhere in the fleet.

  The Anvil moved sluggishly, her sails slack.

  Simona was soaked, clammy, suddenly cold under nothing but a single sheet. She struggled to move. Her mouth was so dry, so hot.

  Her eyes opened, for the first time in days she could see.

  Filek was sitting beside her on a chair pulled up against the door of the little cabin. There was a jar of water and a ladle beside him.

  At the sight of it her thirst became overpowering.

  "Father," she croaked.

  His snores stopped.

  "Father."

  His eyes popped open.

  "My daughter speaks!"

  The water was so cool, so wonderful, she thought she had never tasted anything better in her entire life.

  "Will I live, Father?"

  "Yes, daughter of my heart, you will live. Just about everyone who has recovered by the sixth day has lived."

  "Mother?"

  Filek's mouth tightened, and Simona felt her heart melting inside. Chiknulba had died of the plague. In this she had not been alone, not by a long shot. On every ship the fever had taken them, without pattern or discrimination. In the end one in three had gone, and many survivors were never the same again.

  It had begun in the work crews ashore, and spread to the ships all at once. For two weeks it had raged until virtually everyone had come down with it. The disease had a remarkably simple, but virulent set of symptoms. First and foremost the fever, rising higher and higher until the victims often went into a coma before death. Then there was the bloody flux and violent coughing that afflicted a small percentage.

  "Did the admiral live?" she said.

  "Yes. His wife died."

  "Juguba? Oh, no."

  "Don't worry," Filek squeezed her hand. "Our position is much stronger now. The admiral is the commander of the whole fleet."

  Her eyes widened. In which case Filek would have risen, too.

  "And what of the Scion?"

  "He will never walk without crutches."

  So Nebbeggebben had survived, but only just.

  "And how are you, Daddy?" She tried to squeeze him back, but was barely able to.

  "I am still here. Count me among the lucky ones who were resistant to this fever. Losing my Chikki has been the worst thing. I am lost without her, my darling, I feel so alone, now."

  "You aren't alone, Daddy. I am here."

  He smiled at her, held her in his arms, and rocked her back and forth, just as he had when she was a little girl.

  "That's right, my darling daughter is still here."

  "It'll be all right now, Daddy, won't it?"

  "Of course. We will mourn her, we will always mourn her, but we will live on. And yet I wish sometime that I had gone and she was still here."

  Filek's eyes squeezed shut; his body shook with sobs.

  "Ah, my lovely little wife, I miss you!"

  "Daddy, where did the plague come from?"

  "I think it came from the monkeys. Probably something that is endemic to them, like the itchypox is to us. Perhaps we will give them that and wipe them out."

  She lay back with her head swimming. Mother was dead! Oh Mother, Mother, Mother, her cries echoed within her, and her tears ran freely.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  After three days in Juno Village with his family, Thru returned to Dronned, despite their protests. He knew that soon Toshak would have work for him to do, and he could not shrug that call aside.

  On his return to Dronned, he found the city bustling. There were camps set up in the fields on either side of the road leading into the city, and Thru saw groups of mots armed with newly made spears and shields practicing the arts of war. Even to Thru's untutored eye they seemed crude and unskilled, especially when he recalled the fluid movements of the men with their spears and shields.

  The folk had much to learn, but they would do it. He felt his determination harden inside him.

  At the Laughing Fish Tavern he found that there were no rooms available, but his personal belongings had been stowed safely away. The city was jammed with the several thousand mots and brilbies that had now flocked to the Royal Muster.

  A very welcome letter was waiting for him from Nuza. She had received his last letter just before writing her own. She offered prayers that his family was as well as hers. All went well in Lushtan, but they were all working very hard on the new emergency farms. The town was crowded, but folk were making do, coming together in order to resist, and such a spirit had built up that she knew they would overcome.

  Thru had felt something just like that in Juno. Everyone understood now that Tamf had been burned and huge slaughters made of the folk of Creton. Mots everywhere spoke of taking the sword to the enemy.

  Thru took a scrub down in the Laughing Fish pump room, then found another message waiting for him, this time a scrap of paper folded and sealed with the Royal Seal in red wax.

  He was welcomed back, and asked to come at once to a meeting in the palace of the army command.

  Army? Toshak clearly hadn't wasted any time.

  Thru grabbed a drink and some bread and ate on the run. The meeting was well along by the time he entered the small room behind the throne room that served as the King's private office and changing room.

  The big throne room was buzzing with a crowd of courtiers and fun
ctionaries, all waiting on word from the small room behind the throne. Thru had to work his way through the throng, many of whom stared at him with aristocratic disfavor as he pressed on.

  At length he reached the door, and the guards let him pass in.

  Around a table he found the King, Toshak, and Melidofulo. Sitting on benches along the wall were several mots and Hob. A scribe worked at a lectern, hurriedly scribbling messages on command, which were then passed out the door.

  Toshak looked as if he hadn't slept in days. His eyebrow tufts were drooping.

  Then Thru realized that one of the figures seated along the wall was the Grys Norvory! He stiffened as he saw again the face of he who had stolen his "Chooks and Beetles." Then he pulled himself away. Toshak was signaling to him to approach the table.

  "Thru Gillo is back," he announced.

  Thru went up to the head of the table. King Belit stamped his seal onto another message. A runner took it at once.

  "Hello, Thru Gillo, welcome back. You have been chosen to be one of the first new regimental colonels of the Army for the Defense of the Land. How do you plead to that?"

  Thru bowed. "I will accept, Your Majesty, and endeavor to do the best that I can in such a position."

  "Good, you will join the others, then." The King nodded to the three rows of mots and brilbies sitting on the benches. Thru realized that the infant army officer corps was being assembled there.

  "How are our subjects in the Dristen Valley?"

  "They are well, Your Majesty. The coastal villages have emptied, everyone has gone inland. Villages are building walls and defensive works. They ask for more weapons. You hear that from everyone. And they're training with what they have."

  "Yes, yes, that is what I hear from all quarters. Well, we are working to increase our capacity to smelt iron and work steel. That was the first thing we heard from Highnoth! Make more steel at once. Toshak has been pressing forward with that for several days."

  As Thru took a seat he recognized another face.

  "Meu!" he said in surprise, seeing his friend from Highnoth.

  "Thru, I was wondering if you'd see me."