“I seem to be catching a faint smell of tampering here, big brother,” Zelana said. “Somebody appears to be just a little bit unhappy with your ‘nation’ concept.” She frowned. “I’d almost suggest that it might be one of the servants of the Vlagh, but wouldn’t that be just a little complicated for them?”
“I wouldn’t swear to that, sister. They’re developing much faster than any of us thought was possible. If they can somehow manage to stir up some intertribal wars, they might be able to use that to their advantage. I’m not going to discard any possibilities at this point.”
“I think maybe I’ll drift on up to that part of your Domain, brother mine, and see what I can pick up.”
“That’s my responsibility, Zelana,” Dahlaine objected.
“It’s mine as well, Dahlaine,” she said, “and I can move around more quietly than you can. I’m sure that your pet thunderbolt is very nice and terribly impressive, but she’s noisy. I’ll ride the wind, and none of the people up there will even know that I’m around.”
“You’re going to insist, I take it.”
“How terribly perceptive of you, dear brother,” she said, fondly patting his cheek.
And then she was gone.
“It’s something Rabbit came up with during the war in Zelana’s Domain last spring,” Longbow explained to Athlan and Kathlak. “Sorgan Hook-Beak called it ‘a lumpy map,’ and it turned out to be very useful. Red-Beard had been hunting in that ravine for years, and he knew exactly where every streambed and outcropping of rock was located. It saved a lot of lives.”
“Where did you come up with that idea, Rabbit?” Athlan asked curiously.
“I’d been making molds for arrowheads out of clay,” Rabbit explained, “and when Red-Beard told the cap’n and Commander Narasan that a flat map didn’t have enough details, I suggested that he could add the details he thought we’d need if he carved the map out of clay instead of drawing it with a pen. That’s when Red-Beard started building a little duplicate of the ravine. It showed us exactly where everything was up there—how steep the slopes were, how wide the river was, and all sorts of other things. We all studied it, so we knew almost as much as Red-Beard did about that ravine. Things went pretty well—right up to the time when we found out that the bug-people had been burrowing tunnels in that area for centuries. That really worried us, but it turned out to be their mistake instead of ours. The fire-mountains filled those tunnels with boiling rock, and that cooked thousands of our enemies.”
“I’ve heard about ‘fire-mountains’ a few times,” Kathlak said. “Do they really spout liquid rock hundreds of feet up into the air like some people told me?”
“I’d say that ‘hundreds of feet’ doesn’t even come close,” Longbow said with a slight smile. “Five miles would be more accurate.”
“I’ve never seen one of them,” Kathlak admitted.
“You’ve been lucky, then,” Rabbit told him. “It’s one of those things that you don’t want to see—particularly when it’s uphill from the place where you’re standing.”
“Did fire help you win the second war as well?” Athlan asked curiously.
“Not all that much,” Longbow said. “Water was more important in that war. The first war was fairly simple. The second one was very complicated.”
“You won, though, didn’t you?”
“I’m not really sure,” Longbow replied. “Our main job that time involved getting out of the way. It seems that we have a friend who can make very peculiar things happen.”
“What’s your friend’s name, Longbow?” Kathlak asked.
“I really don’t know, but when she says ‘get out of the way,’ you’d better start running.”
“It’s a woman?” Kathlak sounded startled. “Can a woman actually do things like that?”
“You might have to change your way of looking at the world, my friend,” Longbow told him. “Zelana is a woman, and she can do things that you wouldn’t believe. Then, too, our enemies are also females. There aren’t really very many males in the world of bugs.”
“But women are weak!”
“Not in the world of bugs, they aren’t. A female bug can pick up something that weighs ten times more than she does, and then she can carry it all day without even working up a sweat. You’re going to have to change the way you look at the world, Kathlak, and your life could very well depend on how fast you can make that change.”
Zelana returned to the village of Statha the following morning. “This is very nice country you have up here, Dahlaine,” she said to her brother. “I passed over a birch forest that was absolutely glorious.”
“Did you find out just why the northern tribes are behaving so peculiarly, Zelana?”
“No, actually, I didn’t. Of course, they don’t know, either. They think that the southern tribes insulted them in some way, but they can’t quite remember just exactly what the insult was all about—but they’re positive that it was just awful. I’d say that we’ve encountered ‘tampering’ again. It’s not quite as extreme as ‘the sea of gold’ or the ‘Kajak affair,’ but it comes close. I browsed around just a bit, and the men of the northern tribes are outraged by the insult, but they have no memory of it.”
“It’s nothing but a hoax, then?” Dahlaine asked.
“I thought I just said that. I’d say that the servants of the Vlagh have come up with a way to set off certain emotions in your people without providing them with details. The emotions are very primitive, and they’re without any justification, but they have set off this war. If it continues the way it’s going right now, you won’t have any Tonthakan warriors available when the creatures of the Wasteland attack. I’d say that right now you’d better concentrate on exposing these hoaxers before this war goes much further. You’re going to need these bowmen, and right now I don’t think you can count on having them when the time comes.”
“You’re all sweetness and light, baby sister,” Dahlaine growled at her sourly.
“Just trying to brighten up your day, big brother,” she said with a sly little smirk.
TONTHAKAN
1
Athlan of Tonthakan was born in the village of Statha near the southern edge of the Tonthakan Nation, and he was a member of one of the eight “Deer Hunter Tribes.” The seven “Reindeer Hunter Tribes” lived farther to the north, and the five reckless “Bear Hunter Tribes” lived in the mountains to the east which formed the natural boundary between the Tonthakan and Matakan nations.
Athlan’s father, Athaban, was a highly skilled archer, and he began his son’s training quite early. It soon became evident that Athlan would probably grow up to be one of the finest archers in all of the Statha tribe, a prediction that was verified when the boy took his first deer when he was only seven years old with a running shot at a hundred paces.
“This boy will go far,” Dalthak, the tribal chieftain, predicted when the hunters who had witnessed Athlan’s phenomenal accuracy described the near-impossible shot.
The other boys of Athlan’s age viewed him as something in the nature of a hero, but the older boys of the tribe sneered and tried to shrug the shot off as “pure luck.”
Athlan took that to be something in the nature of a challenge, so he took three more deer in rapid succession and threw “pure luck” right back in the teeth of the older boys.
The sneers began to wither just a bit after that.
As Athlan grew older, he began to pick up some hints of discontent among the tribal elders about Dahlaine’s decision to unify the twenty tribes of Tonthakan into what he chose to call a “Nation.” It seemed that the elders felt that the unification was unnatural, and even offensive. The Deer Hunter Tribes had always viewed the Reindeer Hunters and Bear Hunters as their natural enemies, and they devoutly wished that Dahlaine would discard the “Nation” absurdity and let them go back to “the good old days,” when arrows were made for killing enemies as well as deer.
As Athlan grew older, he noticed that others were a
lso aging, but it appeared that age fell much more heavily on those who were already carrying a heavy burden of years. Chief Dalthak’s hair moved from grey to white, and his once-powerful voice turned squeaky. The members of the tribe of Statha began to refer to their chief as “Ancient Dalthak,” a term which was supposedly one of profound respect. Athlan, however, was quite sure that he wouldn’t like “Ancient” attached to his name. It seemed to him that “Ancient” carried strong overtones of crumbling, decaying, and wasting away, but the elders seemed to think that it was just splendid. Of course, Chief Dalthak wasn’t too spry, and he tended to fall asleep in the middle of a speech—even when he was the one who was talking. By the time that Athlan had reached his tenth year, old Chief Dalthak’s son Kathlak had more or less assumed his father’s duties. To maintain appearances, Kathlak would go into his father’s lodge “to consult with our chief.” And when he emerged, he’d announce that “our chief says this,” and that technically justified any orders he might give to the members of the tribe. It was fairly obvious to Athlan that Kathlak himself was issuing all the commands, but his little game maintained his father’s dignity, and his own reputation quieted any objections.
When Dahlaine had decided to unify the tribes of Tonthakan into one Nation, the Deer Hunter Tribes had chosen to designate the village of Statha as the site for the Nation Lodges of the southern tribes. Many men in the tribe viewed that as a great honor, but Athlan caught a few hints that the more sensible tribe members saw it as a great inconvenience. The tribe had been obliged to build the oversized lodges and to maintain them, and, of course, they had to provide food and shelter for the visitors during those meetings. There were annual meetings of the Deer Hunter Tribes, and they were always rather informal, but when Athlan reached his twelfth year, the “Nation Meeting” took place in Statha, and it seemed to Athlan that it positively drooled formality. Kathlak gathered the boys of the tribe some days before the event, and he sternly laid down some arbitrary rules—“No laughing, no smiling, and no talking during the meetings. The various chieftains of the twenty tribes will make speeches—long speeches. Do not go to sleep during those speeches. Pretend to be interested. Sit up straight and nod your heads once in a while. The meeting will last for three days, and then everybody will go back home.”
“Does this happen every five years?” Athlan asked.
“Yes,” Kathlak replied, “but the next meeting will take place in Bear Hunter territory, and the one after that will be in Reindeer Hunter land.”
“Is anything important likely to happen?”
“No, not really.”
“Why bother with it, then?”
“It keeps Dahlaine happy.”
“Oh. I guess that sort of makes it all right.”
“I’ll let him know that you approve, Athlan,” Kathlak said with no hint of a smile.
“Ah—I don’t know if you need to bother him with that, Kathlak,” Athlan said a bit anxiously. “He’s probably busy right now with other things. Why don’t we all just forget that I said anything at all about this?”
“I suppose that if you really want us to do that, we’ll just let it lie, Athlan, but if you think that your opinion is really important, I’ll bring it to his attention the next time I see him.”
Athlan was squirming by then, but he had learned a few things that were quite important during their little exchange. First of all, it might not be a bad idea to think things through before he started making suggestions, but even more important, he’d learned never to cross Chief Dalthak’s grim son Kathlak if he could possibly avoid it.
By the time Athlan reached his fourteenth year, his growing reputation began to attract the attention of the fathers of young, eligible girls in the tribe, and those fathers spoke frequently with Athlan’s father, Athaban, about certain “interesting possibilities.”
Athlan took to the woods at that point. His mother had died when he’d been very young, and he’d become quite comfortable living with only his father. Someday, perhaps, mating might be appropriate, but for right now he chose freedom instead. He roamed out in the forest alone with only trees and animals for company, and that suited him right down to the ground. His skills as a hunter increased tremendously during those years, and he found that if he moved slowly and quietly through the forest, the animals didn’t even notice him.
It was about midmorning on a glorious summer day when Athlan was moving through the forest near the coast when he saw a stranger smoothly paddling a canoe northward some distance out from the beach. The stranger was quite obviously not a member of one of the Deer Hunter Tribes. There was no fringe on the sleeves of his buckskin shirt, and no beads sewn to its front. Athlan was quite certain that he was out of sight, but the stranger laid his paddle down and held up his hands to show Athlan that he was not holding his bow.
Athlan was curious enough not to just fade back into the forest. He slung his bow over his shoulder and held out his hands to show the stranger that he wasn’t feeling hostile, and walked on down to the edge of the water. “I am Athlan of the tribe of Dalthak,” he called to introduce himself as the stranger paddled in closer.
“And I am Longbow of the tribe of Old-Bear,” the stranger replied in a quiet voice. “I come here in peace, and I have no hostile intent.”
“Welcome, then, to the Domain of Dahlaine of the North,” Athlan greeted the quiet stranger.
“I am from the Domain of Zelana of the West, and I thank you, Athlan of the North.”
“Do you think we’ve managed to pile up enough formality yet?” Athlan asked.
“I think we’ve covered the requirements of stuffy,” Longbow agreed with a faint smile.
“Come ashore, then, and we can talk about the weather or something.”
Longbow smoothly drove his canoe up onto the sandy beach and stepped out.
“Are you just exploring, or did you want to have words with one of the local chieftains?” Athlan asked.
“I think you might be the one I came up here to see. You’re a hunter, aren’t you?”
Athlan shrugged. “It gives me something to do when I’m not busy sleeping or eating. Was there something you wanted to know about?”
“Have the creatures of the Wasteland been nosing around in your territory at all?”
“I’ve heard about them occasionally, but I’ve never actually seen one,” Athlan replied. “Let’s get your canoe out of sight and then go back into the forest a ways. Standing right out in the open like this makes me just a bit fidgety.”
“Oh? Is there somebody you don’t want to encounter?”
“I’m not in trouble or anything like that. It’s just that I’m not ready to settle down just yet. I’m a fairly good hunter, and there are some older men in the tribe who think I’d be suitable to mate with their daughters so that I could provide food for their families while they just relax and let me do all the work.”
“That does seem to crop up now and then,” Longbow agreed with a wry smile as he took hold of the front of his canoe.
They pulled the canoe into a patch of bushes and then went on back under the trees. “Now, then,” Athlan said, “what is it about the creatures of the Wasteland that concerns you? From what I’ve heard, they’re nothing but midgets that go sneaking around in the woods—probably looking for things to steal.”
“It goes just a bit further, Athlan. What they’re really looking for is information, and they don’t want us to know that they’re intruding into our territory. They may look like nothing but people, but they’re not people at all. Actually, they’re servants of the Vlagh.”
“I’ve heard about that one, but I thought that it was just a story that somebody made up to frighten children.”
“It’s not a story, Athlan. There really is a thing called the Vlagh, and it wants to rule the world. That’s why it’s sending the little ones into our lands to find out if we have any way to resist when it sends its warriors here to conquer us.”
“How did you happen to fi
nd out about all this?” Athlan asked a bit skeptically.
“They killed she who was to be my mate, so now I kill them every time I encounter them. If you ever happen to come across one of them, be very careful. If you let them get too close to you, they’ll bite you, and you’ll die. They have venomous fangs, and their venom is deadly—even if they happen to bite one of their own friends. The shaman of our tribe has studied them for quite a while and he showed me how to take the venom from dead ones and anoint my arrowheads with it. The tiniest scratch from one of my arrows kills them instantly.”
“Would it kill a deer in the same way?” Athlan asked.
“I’m sure it would.”
But then Athlan realized that his clever idea might not be quite as clever as he’d thought at first. “It could be a very easy way to hunt deer,” he said a bit ruefully, “but there might just be a bit of a problem there. The poison would kill the deer immediately, but it might just make the deer meat poisonous as well. What do you think, Longbow?”
“I’m not really sure,” Longbow admitted. “Cooking the meat might neutralize the poison, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on ‘might,’ would you?”
“We could always feed some of the meat to a dog, I suppose,” Athlan mused. “If the dog’s still alive the next day, that would mean that the meat’s safe to eat.”
“Does your tribe have many dogs?”
“Lots of them. When we’re snowbound in the dead of winter, the dogs give us something to eat. Dog meat doesn’t taste very good, but it’s better than tree meat.” Then Athlan looked off toward the west where a rosy sunset was lying low over the face of the sea. “I’d say that it’s just about time to set up a camp for the night, and then maybe tomorrow we can go hunting—deer, not the creatures of the Wasteland.” Then he hesitated. “You do have some arrows that haven’t been dipped in poison, don’t you?”
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