Then their pack-mates surrounded the hunters and stabbed from all sides, drawing back bloody spears as more and more Klaja poured out of the wood.
But the villagers set up an ululation of their own, high and vibrant, as they drew the new iron swords Ohaern had forged for them, cut through the Klaja spear shafts and sliced through fur as Cordran bellowed, “To me! Women and children inside! Form the circle!”
The circle was the shape sacred to Lomallin, and now it proved its strength. Warriors herded women and children into the center and took up posts about them, parrying and slashing, each easily a match for his half-furred opponent, each slaying and slaying as iron sword bested bronze spearheads and wooden shafts. But for each Klaja that died or fell wounded, two more sprang up in its place.
Suddenly, Biriae warriors burst from the forest, bolting quickly back from the hunt, and fell on the rear of the Klaja clustered around the villagers. They did not roar their battle cry until their swords had bitten deep; then they cried indeed, loud and hard. The Klaja screamed with fright, bounding away— and old Cordran shouted, “To the trees!”
The Biriae circle began to back away toward the trunks. Emboldened by the sight of retreat, the Klaja surged back with renewed vigor, howling for blood—then falling back and choking on it, choking on their own.
“Surround them! Engulf them! Do not let them escape!” thundered a huge voice, and a human shape lumbered from the wood—human, but ten feet tall and three feet wide, its face handsome, but with a brutish gleam to its eyes. It wore a tore—a collar of metal about its throat—and the draped cloth, bare legs, and sandals of the south. There was a sigil in his tore, an emblem of inlaid stone—a stylized jackal’s head—and the sigil also gleamed in the band about his curly hair, hair as red as blood. “Slay them!” he bellowed. “Blood for Ulahane!”
He drove the Klaja nearest him with blows of a huge whip, and they howled in fright and turned upon the humans in their rage. The circle backed closer and closer to the trees, gathering stray villagers as it went—chanting praises to Lomallin as the warriors’ arms grew heavy.
Suddenly, the Klaja found that only a few of them could come at the circle at any time—and those few died, and those who came after them died, again and again. What they did not see was the groups of Biriae, five at a time, who were sprinting from the circle to the shelter of the huge evergreens and climbing into their branches, nor the women who wore swords across their backs and perched on lower branches, watching, waiting ...
Then Cordran barked, and suddenly the circle burst apart, the warriors leaping back into thickets and dodging behind trunks. Amazed, the Klaja stood for minutes staring, for now there were no more Biriae to be seen.
Then the giant roared in anger and waded in among the trees, showering the Klaja with blows. He could not bring his whip into play among the trunks, so he struck with a huge fist, and the Klaja dodged out of his way, but the slower ones slammed back against bark and slid to the ground, crushed. The others turned, noses to the ground, and began to sniff.
In a while they had all joined together on one common trail, and were off to follow it. The giant caught a dozen of them, slapped them back toward the village and barked commands in a language the Biriae could not understand. The Klaja ran from him, ran to obey him, back to the village—and within minutes the houses burst into flame. Then there were a few more human shrieks, but only a few, before the only sounds were of fire and wind.
The pursuing Klaja passed out of sight toward the south. Then the trees rained Biriae, who landed lightly and fled, off to the east.
But the clan had been split apart, and Ohaern’s infant son was not in this band.
Now, two days later, Ohaern had mastered anger and grief enough to ask, “Who laid the false trail?”
“Borin,” Cordran answered. “What befell him and the men who went with him, we cannot tell—but be sure the trail faded after a league or so, and the Klaja floundered in frustrated rage.”
“So Borin and his men are likely well, but just as much wanderers upon the earth as you are,” Ohaern summarized.
“More,” said Cordran, “for they were only a handful, and we are a hundred. But the village is lost to us, and a quarter of the clan with it.”
“This must call up a strong revenge,” Ohaern said darkly.
Manalo raised a cautioning hand. “He who thinks of revenge, Ohaern, blinds himself to tomorrow. Let yesterday be as if it had never been; think only of how you and your clan-mates may survive to see another sunset, then another and another.”
“Is there to be no justice?” Ohaern demanded.
“There will be,” Manalo assured him, “though it may be long in coming. In any case, if you wait to see it, you will waste your life.”
Cordran spoke from anger then. “Is Lomallin so much weaker than Ulahane that he cannot give justice?”
“The Creator’s power is stronger in Lomallin than in Ulahane,” Manalo answered, “and by itself will act as a wall, witholding Ulahane’s malice from humankind. But human wickedness and perversity can breach that wall and give Ulahane a way in, to harass people and make them suffer. Then humankind can magnify Ulahane’s power, so that his strength is balanced against Lomallin’s—and human beings must determine the balance according to where they throw their weight.”
“Fair words,” Cordran scoffed, “but where was the human wickedness that breached the wall of virtue that guarded our village?”
“Far away from you,” Manalo told him, “far to the south and the east, where nomad tribes with too many children became greedy for their neighbors’ lands and the crops of the farmers, and offered maidens in sacrifice to Ulahane. From those poor girls, and the jackals who follow corrupted meats, he wove these depraved beings and sent them against you.”
“Then the fault was not ours! Why therefore are we punished?”
“You are not punished, you are assaulted. Cleave to Lomallin and bring as many other human folk with you as you can, and Lomallin will gain strength to prevail against Ulahane.”
“But how can he,” Ohaern demanded, “if the Ulin are equal to one another in strength?”
“By dying,” Manalo said, “and ask me no more than that, for I do not understand it. An Ulin bard, inspired by the Creator, spoke that prophecy in a trance, and all the Ulin have shuddered to hear it—for how can one gain strength by dying?”
“Surely you must have gained some notion,” Glabur protested.
Manalo shrugged. “Only a guess—and I have told it to you. If enough mortal beings put their trust in Lomallin, no matter how badly he fares against Ulahane, the strength of their faith will magnify his spirit even after death—and having died once, he can die no more, and will be invulnerable to Ulahane’s assaults.”
“So,” Ohaern said, frowning, “Ulahane dares not slay Lomallin, for fear he will become greater in death.”
“You are quick to perceive,” Manalo told him, eyes glowing with pride, “and yes, that is so—though if he thinks he has turned all but a handful of human folk against Lomallin, I think Ulahane will risk the fight.”
“But how if it is not human belief that will strengthen Lomallin?”
“Then,” Manalo said softly, “Ulahane will have a very nasty surprise.”
“Surely Lomallin dares not slay Ulahane,” Cordran objected, “for if one Ulin will gain strength by dying, will not another?”
“Oh, no,” Manalo said, very quietly. “Lomallin would quite willingly die if it would rid the world of Ulahane.”
“But how if it did not? How if Ulahane gained strength after his death?”
“The prophecy spoke not of that,” Manalo told him.
Ohaern frowned. “Strange that Lomallin should gain strength after death, when Ulahane will not.”
“Perhaps,” Manalo said, “or perhaps it is only that Lomallin seeks union with the Creator, while Ulahane seeks to overthrow Him.”
The Biriae were silent, appalled at the audacity and arrogance
the statement implied. Then, finally, a woman gasped, “Surely he dare not!”
“Ulahane dares anything,” Manalo told them, “and right and wrong have nothing to do with it, nor even wisdom and folly Therein lies his eventual doom.”
“Eventual,” Ohaern said, with a sardonic smile. “It shall not come soon enough to save us.”
“Who was the giant, O Sage?” another woman asked, and shuddered at the memory of that handsome, brutal face.
“He was an Ulharl,” Manalo answered, “half human, half Ulin. Which one, I cannot say—but by the sigil in his tore, it is clear he was one of Ulahane’s.”
“One of his own bastard sons, then?”
“In all likelihood,” Manalo said, “though since the Ulin do not marry, the term ‘bastard’ has little meaning among them. What is more to the point is that Ulahane’s by-blows are almost without exception the children of rape. It is for that, and for his harshness to them, that they hate their father—but since the other Ulin despise them and will injure them if they can, Ulahane’s progeny are dependent on him for their safety.”
“So they hate him, but must serve him,” Cordran said.
“All except Kadura, the first of them,” Manalo answered, “for he was the child of seduction, not rape, and his mother was honored among humankind, those who followed Ulahane. So was her son—until she died and Ulahane took back his own.”
“He cannot love his father!”
“No, for Ulahane has dealt as cruelly with him as with any. Still, he is the strongest of the Ulharl, and will gladly discipline any who grow rebellious.”
“Would not their father’s death free them?” Ohaern demanded.
“In some measure,” Manalo said slowly, “though all know they would instantly war upon one another, to see who would win command—and it is not certain that Kadura would rise from the chaos, for his siblings are like to league against him before they fall to warring upon one another.”
“What a sweet family,” a woman said bitterly.
“Are they not? And Ulahane would have us believe that this is the natural order of things—for the son’s hand to be turned against the father, the father’s against the mother, and all the children’s against one another.”
“It is to our advantage, then, to see Ulahane dead,” Ohaern said judiciously.
All held still in shocked silence. Some of the Biriae glanced nervously over their shoulders, as though to see if Ulahane had been listening—but Manalo nodded, unperturbed. “It is so,” he said, “and therefore is it apt for you to give your allegiance to Lomallin, and to persuade all you meet to do so, for only an Ulin can slay another Ulin.”
“But from what you say, it is Ulahane’s worshipers who grow in number, not Lomallin’s,” Lrylla said.
“It is even so,” Manalo agreed, “for your village is unique in that three quarters escaped. Only imagine the lot of those who lose!”
The villagers, wide-eyed, exchanged looks of mingled dread and fascination.
Chapter 10
Manalo gave them time to recover, though, time to tend their wounds and begin to heal in spirit as well as body, before he told them the fate of those tribes who had not died fighting. The next day, Ohaern put the question to him after the evening meal, and Manalo replied, “The Ulharl bade their subject peoples turn to the worship of Ulahane and serve the Klaja— who served Ulahane—for all their days, by laboring to grow crops in the fields, by building his temples, and doing any other work they were given.”
The Biriae rambled, and a woman demanded, “This was a boon?”
“To the Ulharl’s way of thinking,” Manalo said, “yes. Those who served the scarlet god long and well, with full devotion, might one day win the right to wear his tore of honor, such as the Ulharl wore.”
An ugly mutter sprang up among the Biriae, and one of them growled, “What honor is this, to wear a dog’s collar?”
“The Ulharl counted it so, as it was the sign of their rank—so it would likewise be a sign of rank and authority among the humans who worshiped the Scarlet One.”
“How if they did not wish to serve Ulahane?” Cordran demanded.
“Then they would serve him with their deaths, on his altar.”
“Sacrificed?” a woman cried in horror, eyes wide.
“Even so,” Manalo said, “and it is from just such a fate that Ohaern and his band saved me—though perhaps the price was too great, for surely Ulahane knew when they departed, knew the time was best for striking down your village when the strongest of its warriors were gone.”
Again, an ugly murmur, and here and there a woman muttered to another that the men should have fulfilled their greatest responsibility and stayed at home to protect kin and kind—but none could bring themselves to say it aloud, realizing that Manalo then would have gone to Ulahane’s altar, and not as an acolyte.
But the sage had excellent ears, or else knew their thoughts. “I regret the loss of your village, my friends, and of your kinsmen. If I had known, I would have bade Ohaern and his men stay at home, for surely my life is not worth your fifty dead, nor the loss of your homes.”
The Biriae were silent for a moment; then Cordran said, “You gave us much, Teacher, and it was a debt that we needed to repay. There was no question of Ohaern staying at home.”
The tribesmen rumbled agreement, and the women, too. Manalo smiled, warmed by their support—but it was a sad smile, too, for he knew their loss.
“If it is the price of freedom,” a woman cried, “we will pay it! Would that I had died, rather than my sister!”
“What of those other tribes given the choice?” a man asked. “Did any convert?”
“Most,” Manalo said, lips thin.
There was a babble of consternation. Cordran summed it up. “Free hunters and warriors, accepting slavery to the scarlet god?”
“The sacrificing was not merely death, look you,” Manalo told them, “but death by torture!”
“Even so,” a woman cried, “they were free hunters!”
“Some,” Manalo agreed, “though some were free nomads, and there were tribes of several nations who were taken. But most chose the side of the one whom they thought must be the stronger god, for they valued winning above all else—and some chose slavery rather than death in agony. Do not censure these last, I beg you, my friends, for you have not stood where they stood. If you had heard the screams from the temple of Ulahane, as I have, you would not be at all quick to blame.”
The Biriae shuddered and exchanged looks of dismay.
Lucoyo came limping out of the thicket that had been his temporary sickroom, leaning on the arm of Elluaera, his self-appointed nurse. He pretended disdain, but occasionally stared at her for a moment, as if he could not believe she really existed. Whenever she caught one of those stares, she gave him a roguish glance, then turned her gaze away with a toss of her head.
But the words of the people by the campfire electrified Lucoyo, making him turn all his attention to Manalo.
“What of the Kuruites?” a woman demanded. “Were they conquered, and did they turn away from their ancestral gods to the Scarlet One?”
“They turned their backs on their parents’ gods, yes, and embraced the worship of Ulahane,” Manalo told her, “but they were not captured. No, they were seduced by Ulahane’s promises borne by the Ulharl—promises of wealth and power, of dominion over all the ‘barbarians’—”
“The word is infuriating,” Cordran said, “and I have heard traders, and now an Ulharl, use it as an insult. I know that we are barbarians, but—”
“Not really, no,” said Manalo. “You are savages—that means, ‘wild,’ which is to say that you are hunters who are not ruled by the king of a foreign nation. Barbarians are folks who drive the great herds—”
“Like me!” Lucoyo cried.
“Yes, like Lucoyo and the tribe that reared him.” Manalo turned to the half-elf with a nod. “The Kuruites, on the other hand, deem themselves to be ‘civilized’
—but that word, taken strictly, means only the ways and customs of people who live in cities.”
Cordran spat. “That for the cities! If that is the meaning of the words, Teacher, I will be a savage, and proud of it!”
“Even so,” Manalo said, amused, “but when folk speak of civilization, they generally mean that such customs are more cultured, and their behavior less brutal, than that of folk who do not live in cities.”
“Not to judge by the Kuruites,” a woman sneered.
“Quite so,” Manalo said, “quite so. In fact, I have met many savages and barbarians who are more civilized than the people of Kuru.”
“So, then,” Lucoyo said, “Ulahane may be a god of cities, but he is not a god of civilized ways.”
But Manalo shook his head. “He is not a god of cities alone, for the Klaja are wild, and so are the Vanyar, the nation of tribes who are swarming over these western lands to beat them into subjugation for Ulahane—you met them on the river, and I promise you that, though they be foolish in boats, they are very clever indeed with horses.”
Lucoyo snorted. “Their arrows fall short.”
“But on land they will be much closer to you,” Manalo reminded him. “They, like the Kuruites, have been won over by Ulahane’s promises—but they seek land and slaves, where the Kuruites seek empire.”
“And the Klaja?” asked Ohaern.
“They seek to stay alive.”
“So we face the Kuruites, the Klaja, and the Vanyar,” Lucoyo summarized. “Which of these is worst?”
“All,” Manalo said grimly, “though if I had to choose one who is even more my enemy than the others, I would choose the Kuruites, for they have been seduced so thoroughly, and won over so completely, that their city of Kuru is virtually Ulahane’s capital.”
Ohaern tensed. “Is that his seat?”
“There he dwells,” Manalo confirmed, “for in Kuru is his largest and most luxurious temple—and there it is that a human man or woman is sacrificed to him every single day, not once a year or once a month, as is the case in his other temples.”
“Never a Kuruite, of course,” Lucoyo said with irony—and to his amazement, the people laughed.
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