The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  "I have to say that you've come in time to save me from a very difficult situation. My support among the mots in the town is dwindling with each day. There are a lot of folk who want this woman dead."

  "No doubt. They have suffered grievously at the hands of Man."

  "So we shall have to make your exit a quiet one."

  "We could be on our way by first light."

  "That might not be soon enough."

  "Then we shall prepare to leave at once. Can you provide us with guides so we can take backcountry roads and paths?"

  "I can and I will. Let's get you on your way before the mob arrives. I'm sure that the news of your arrival will have spread beyond the guard at the gate. They will know why you're here, and they will not want her spirited away."

  Thru gulped a cup of hot guezme tea and went to inspect the prisoner. At the last moment he decided that he should go alone. There had been repeated mob scenes outside the Guild Hall in the past couple of days. She would be frightened enough at seeing a strange mot up close, let alone four of them. There was difficult work ahead; it would be best if she was cooperative. By daybreak Thru wanted to be ten miles from the city.

  Onu and the others went with Bafuti to plan their getaway. They would use a postern gate on the northern part of the wall. There was a private road that ran through a plantation just outside. A map of the city and its environs was rolled out on the big table in the Guild House.

  Thru was taken down a flight of stairs to an underground floor. A low-ceilinged corridor took him past a series of storerooms. At the end was a room that had been emptied for use as a cell. A pair of guards stood outside the door.

  Thru knocked, waited for a count of three, and went in.

  It was uncanny. In the lamplight he took her for a mor. She was wide-hipped and full-breasted in the same way, but her face was bare of fur and her skull was covered in long hair like a horse's tail.

  She was standing behind a small table, her hands pressed together in front of her body in a universal gesture of anxiety. Thru was thankful he'd come alone.

  He raised a hand out to her with the palm forward while keeping his other hand on his stomach. Being this close to a human made him shiver a little, and he tried not to let it show.

  Her eyebrows shot up momentarily, she blinked a few times, while he studied her with his eyes. Her nose was much longer than that of a mor and her eyes were wide-set and darker than those of his own folk. And still it was astonishing how much like a mor she was. All she lacked was the pale fur on her face.

  He pressed his fingers to his chest and gave his name, repeating it a couple of times. He hoped fervently that his voice didn't crack. This was an oddly emotional moment, and he was still fighting down his instinctive fear of her.

  Then to his surprise, she said, "Thru Gillo," and bowed to him. Then she raised her hands to him palms forward and pointed to her self.

  "Simona Gsekk," she said with another bob of her head and a little smile.

  Thru had never seen a man smile. The fear had lessened suddenly, and he saw again how wise Toshak had been to send him to rescue this woman. She would communicate with them. Now their very survival might depend on whether he could bring her safely to Dronned.

  He beckoned to her to approach. She did not hesitate, but came around to his side of the table. The clothes they'd given her didn't fit very well; the leggings were cut for a mot and were tight around her hips.

  "We have to leave, now," he said while gesturing to the door. She understood the gesture, even if she didn't understand his words.

  She walked out the door and he followed. The guards fell in on either side and escorted them back through the building to Bafuti's headquarters above. As they came up the stairs they heard angry voices shouting in the streets.

  At the sight of her the clerks stopped working. Every eye was on the woman.

  The word had gone all over Crozett by then. Mots from Dronned had come to take the woman away.

  Even Bafuti showed surprise on his face. He'd thought that the woman would surely be shackled in some way, but here she was completely unimpeded.

  "I'm afraid a crowd has gathered," he said. "Your arrival has upset the beehive here, I fear."

  "How many?"

  "At least fifty, and more coming all the time. It's the worst yet."

  "How many doors does the building have?"

  "Three, there are two doors leading onto the yard at the back."

  "Then I will talk to the angry ones while my companions escort the woman out the back."

  "Are you sure you should try and speak to them? They're very angry, probably been drinking, too."

  "I know, and I understand their anger, believe me. I saw Bilauk, and Hurves. I fought the men at Harfield and the Man-Place. I can tell them the best way to gain revenge."

  "Well, then. No fur off my neck though if they don't listen to you."

  Thru looked outside. The throng was gathered outside the big front doors of the Guild Hall, mots dressed in country boots and wool trousers, stout jackets and small square hats, brilbies in long coats and big wool hats. When they saw the movement at the shutters they erupted with a roar.

  Onu and the others clasped hands with Thru, then they led the woman out the back. Thru could see that she understood the situation. She heard the anger in that crowd and understood why it was there. Her eyes caught his again, eyebrows arched in question. He gestured for her to go with Onu. Then he pointed to his chest and then to the outside.

  Something like panic came into her eyes, then she was gone. He waited until they were at the back door, then he went out the front and onto the porch. The roar went up again and slowly subsided as he held up his arms for quiet. Eventually it was down to just an angry growl from here and there.

  "Who the hell are you?" said one brilby in the front.

  "My name is Thru Gillo, I came here on a command from the King of Dronned, whom I serve."

  "Dronned, huh? And what is Dronned's business here with us?"

  "The woman, of course. Right now the King is mustering an army in Dronned. He calls on anyone who wants to fight the men to come to Dronned now and join the army."

  "We are Creton, not Dronned."

  "That does not matter. We will have to come together to fight the men; only if we are united can we survive."

  "Since when does Creton go to fight for Dronned?"

  "Since now, because Dronned will come to Creton to fight if that is where the men are. Listen to my words. The men will land an army that numbers in the thousands. We have to meet them with an army that can hold its own against those numbers and defeat them."

  They digested this.

  "What do you know of men?"

  "I fought them at Harfield. I saw what they did at Bilauk. I have walked through Tamf. I fought them at the Man-Place when we took it back."

  Some of the mots gave a cheer at these last few words.

  Others were not satisfied.

  "What does that have to do with the woman? Why shouldn't she die? My wife is dead. So are my children. Why should I be denied revenge?"

  More angry shouts. Thru waved his hands.

  "For good reasons. We need to know a lot more about them."

  "Why do we need to know about them? We just want to kill them."

  "Yes, of course, but we need to know things like, where are they from? Where is their homeland?"

  "Hell is their homeland, of course, and we have to send them back there with a spearpoint in their guts!" shouted a fat mot in the second row.

  "Listen to me, people! These invaders came from somewhere on this ocean, or from another ocean beyond it. They came from land like ours. We need to know how far away that is. We need to know how big their land is, how many people it holds. It is vital to know everything about that land. Do you see?"

  "I see it all right," said the fat mot in the second row. "I see Dronned mots coming down here and trying to take our prisoner. You want a prisoner, you take your own.
This one is ours."

  There were angry shouts of assent at that. Thru put his hands up again for order.

  "And what are you planning to do with her? Kill her, that's what. And waste a precious asset that has fallen into our hands. Listen to me, will you? We're talking about our survival. When we took the Man-Place we captured men. Not one of them has ever given us anything but curses. So we learn nothing from them."

  "So? That is Dronned's problem, then."

  "You think it is only Dronned's problem? You intend to fight the men all alone? There are forty ships in the fleet, and they will land an army of thousands. What good will the walls of Crozett be then?"

  "They burned Tamf," said someone else.

  "King Rolf is dead," shouted someone at the back.

  "They burned Tamf because we do not remember how to fight. But in Dronned we are learning all over again, and the surviving mots of Tamf will fight alongside those of Dronned. Mots are coming to the muster in Dronned from every realm of the northland. The army will train at Dronned, but it will go wherever the men land and it will destroy them. It must. Or we are all doomed to die as meat."

  There was a silence.

  "The woman is different—I believe she will learn to talk to us. We can learn something of their language and of them. Then we will know what we are dealing with. And mark these words, we have to know where they come from, because then we will know if they're likely to be reinforced."

  After hearing these words the mob lost its edge. The anger was still there, but there was too much obvious sense in Thru's words. A few hotheads still called for the female's death, but they were unable to stir the rest of them.

  Thru answered questions about the muster in Dronned. Were mots from Creton welcome?

  "Of course. We need every mot who can lift a spear! If you want to gain revenge, then join the army in Dronned. The King will see to your weapons and your keep while you're in the army."

  Mots at the back of the crowd were leaving. The anger had gone out of the situation. A few called out that they were going to Dronned to join up. Others simply turned around and left. Thru noted a handful of angry faces muttering together to one side. They weren't safe yet, not by a long mark.

  Thru went back inside. Bafuti was looking at him with a degree of respect. So were the clerks. After a second or two, Bafuti found his voice.

  "I think there are still a few diehards out there. You had best be careful."

  "All the way to Dronned," said Thru as he went to the back door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The scarred one caught up to them after they'd been walking for about half an hour.

  By the time he reappeared they were on a muddy path that wound between clumps of trees and what appeared to be neatly kept vegetable plots. The light was poor and occasionally the big one, the one called Onu, would shine a beam from his dark lantern to show the way. Then she caught glimpses of the neat rows in the plots.

  They heard the sound of someone approaching from behind. Onu motioned them to stand back off the path, under some young trees. A figure came hurrying up the path, dimly visible. Onu stepped out and briefly flashed the light from his dark lantern. By that light she saw him. It was the one who'd come to her room, the one with the scars on his face, the one who'd stayed behind to confront the mob baying for her head.

  "Thru Gillo" was what he'd named himself. She had said it back to him, and he'd reacted with what seemed like both surprise and a spontaneous joy. For some reason her own hopes had soared when she'd seen his face light up like that.

  We can communicate, she thought. I am not alone among them.

  He was the first of the monkey-folk that she had met who seemed inclined to try to talk to her. The others had stared at her with wide-eyed expressions while talking among themselves in a ceaseless babble of incomprehensible sounds. To her ears their language seemed top-heavy with vowel sounds. But she had no doubt that it was a language. They were civilized. The priests had lied. The priests had ordered the extermination of the monkey-folk knowing they were a civilized, intelligent people.

  She shuddered inside at the thought of how the Shasht warriors had attacked these folk and slaughtered them as meat. She'd had this sickening understanding ever since that first strange, terrible moment when the fishing boat hove up beside her, just as her strength was leaving her. The faces that looked down at her were not exactly human. They were covered in fur, from chin to forehead, with only a patch around the nose, eyes, and lips that was bare. Their heads were covered in the same short fur, not in hair. Monkeys were well-known in dry, hot Shasht, where they were eaten like everything else that walked, flapped, flew, or crawled. But these were people, and she had eaten of their flesh.

  Thru Gillo exchanged words and handclasps with the other mots. Then he turned to her and said something in urgent words. His voice had a slightly triumphant note to it, and she understood that he was telling her that they had gotten away cleanly from the mob.

  "Thank you," she said in the tongue of Shasht. She sensed that he understood, he bobbed his head and turned back to the mots.

  They did not tarry, despite Thru's confidence in a clean getaway. They knew there would be pursuit from some of the remaining diehards. Several times they paused to listen carefully for sounds of pursuit.

  Then after a short conversation between Thru and Onu, sometimes with contributions from the other two, they would move on, still trying to keep up a very quick pace despite the darkness.

  Fortunately the muddy path soon came out onto a wider road that was paved with long slabs of stone. She marveled at the quality of this road, pale grey in the dimness as far as she could see.

  A breeze stirred the poplars above their heads.

  Onu and Thru set off again with a certainty that was reassuring, and Simona set to keeping up with them. There was no slackening of the pace. One of the others, the tall one, as she thought of him, loped off ahead and soon disappeared into the murk.

  They kept on down that road, the poplars rustling above them, and the miles soon slipped away. The road stretched ahead, beckoning Simona on into the utterly unknown. She was lost, but not in the land of the dead, not in the Kingdom of the Great God, but in the Land of the monkey-folk. She wondered, briefly, if her father was still grieving for her. He had betrayed the trust between father and daughter, now that he was the admiral's favorite and he had to "consider his own political position." It was the dismal end to her hopes and faith in him. Still, she hoped he grieved for his lost daughter, and not merely a marriageable pawn.

  They went through a stretch where the road was surrounded by garden walls, and then the rows of trees returned. Quite suddenly the tall one who'd gone ahead reappeared, stepping out of the shadows beside the road.

  There was a whispered conversation between the monkey-folk, and then they left the road and entered the trees. Progress became much more difficult as they worked their way through the woodlot. Simona tripped and fell, not once but several times. Each time she felt a small, strong hand grip her arm and help her to her feet. That encouraging voice said something in its unknown tongue, and she recovered. They went on.

  After a while they came out of the tangled trunks and roots onto another road, this one paved with small rough stones and rocks. Now and again they passed small stone walls leading off into flat fields of some sort. There was a dank, earthy smell in the air.

  They crossed several streams on stilt bridges. The water was slow-moving, dark beneath their feet. It was reassuring to regain solid land after each of those spindly bridges.

  Eventually they came to a crossing of roads. Her companions gathered to discuss their options. She gazed around. The clouds had thinned and let a little more moonlight onto the scene. She dimly perceived hills lying nearby to one side. A wood stretched along the road, a stream ran down on the other side. She could hear the water, catch a sparkle from its dark surface.

  They went straight on, through the crossroads and down into the woods th
at bordered the stream. They continued on for a while until suddenly there was a whistle in the air just above her head. A strangled cry came from Onu, and she saw an arrow suddenly jutting out of his chest.

  Thru grabbed her wrist and pulled her off the road, through some trees, and down to the waterside. He hissed something short and fierce in her ear and pushed her toward the water.

  There were cries and the sound of blows coming from the woods. Mots were there, mots who wanted to kill her.

  She took a few steps and dived into the stream, was shocked by how cold it seemed as she came to the surface. Then she struck out in a breaststroke, just as she'd learned it at Shesh Zob when she was a girl. She'd always been a good swimmer, and after kicking off the clogs they'd given her she moved out into the stream at a steady pace.

  She became aware of someone else in the water close to her, splashing toward her very quickly. A hand caught her hair and jerked her head back sharply, another hand pushed her down under the water. She struggled, broke free and came to the surface for a gasp of air.

  The hand caught her hair again and pulled her back. Another hand came up above the water. She saw a glint of metal. Instinctively she raised an arm to ward it off and felt something sharp bite into her flesh near the elbow.

  She screamed and flailed out in the water with her legs. Her shin collided sharply with someone's body and she kicked away furiously, then turned to swim. She could hear her enemy in pursuit. A few seconds later a hand grasped her shoulder and turned her; she ducked under and the knife missed her back. She surfaced and glimpsed a hand that landed on her face and thrust her down. She drove herself up, cannoned into him, and surfaced again. Her assailant took a stroke and reached out for her again when he was suddenly interrupted by another swimmer who pulled him around in the water. She caught the sound of a heavy blow.

  Another arm took her shoulder and she wheeled around in the water with a cry, but it was the scarred one, Thru, and he waved a hand at her for quiet. She stifled her cries and trod water, gasping for breath.