“And then?” Lucoyo demanded with a jaundiced eye.
“Then,” said Ohaern, “we shall go forth to summon all the bands of beings that will fight for Lomallin and the younger races. We shall summon them all as we march upon Kuru at last!”
“And challenge Ulahane himself,” Lucoyo finished, and sighed. “Well, at least I might as well die trying to accomplish something. But first I think I shall finish cooking my stew.”
Thus they came out of the cavern, a man, a half-elf, a Klaja, and a dwerg. Thus they came, and marched over the desert by night, the dwerg always leading them to the next pool of water, the Klaja leading them to one escaped and wandering camel after another, until they were all riding again. Thus they came up out of the Sand Sea, three of them riding and the Klaja loping along beside—for no camel would suffer him to ride. Thus they came, and the lone Biharu who saw them swell out of the line where the sand met the sky cried out in alarm.
Chapter 29
The Biharu came running up, swords drawn and ready, but when Ohaern waved, and as he came close enough for the nomads to see his face, Dariad cried out in joy—but in disbelief, too. “Ohaern, you live! Lucoyo! Klaja! Grakhinox! You walk, and are not ghosts!”
Ohaern drew rein beside the nomad and clapped him on the shoulder, grinning, “Aye, we live.”
“Why so amazed, Dariad?” The judge smiled, amused. “It was you who would not let us leave this barren camp, for no better reason than that the sage had said they would return.” And to Ohaern, “It is only Dariad’s faith in Manalo’s words that has kept us here.”
Dariad blushed, looking down at the sand. “That was simple constancy, O Judge, for a Biharu’s word must be kept.”
“But you did not believe I would truly come back?” Ohaern smiled. “The more praise for you then, Dariad, to have honored your promise!”
“You told us they would come,” one of his tribesmen objected.
“And I knew they would!” Dariad maintained stoutly. “It is just that ... I did not quite ... believe what I knew.” Then, as his tribesmen laughed, he lifted his head in indignation. “After all, it has been a month since they followed the sage into the Sand Sea!”
“Where is the sage?” asked the judge. “Where is Manalo?”
Ohaern grew somber. “In that, at least, you were right to doubt, O Biharu. The sage is dead.”
The tribesmen muttered in consternation, frowning and shaking their heads. Dariad, though, peered more closely at Ohaern and said, “There is something of him that has passed into you, O Smith. What is it?”
Ohaern stared in surprise, then said slowly, “Nothing that I am aware of. He taught me much, and I have his knowledge in my head and his compassion in my heart—but no more than that.”
“There is something different in you, though.” The judge agreed.
“There is,” Ohaern admitted. “I have become a shaman.”
Nothing was said; indeed, there was only the rustle of cloth as the wind blew through their robes, and perhaps it was that very silence, that and the upturned staring faces, that made Ohaern realize how much he had suddenly changed in their eyes.
“Tell us the manner of it,” the judge said.
Ohaern shook his head. “There is too little to tell, and too much to tell. I sought a vision and found it, as any shaman does. For the rest, I have learned what I was taught.”
Now there came a murmur as the Biharu exchanged comments with one another, excited, but fearful, too. Watching them, Ohaern felt a great sadness seize him as he realized that he could never again be just a man among friends, but would always be apart, though held in highest esteem.
Never a man among friends, except for Lucoyo. Ohaern resolved to take very good care of the half-elf henceforth.
“Why have we waited?” Dariad asked quietly.
As one, the Biharu turned their gazes toward the nomad, and Ohaern saw that if he had gained an immense amount of prestige by his sojourn in the desert, Dariad had gained almost as much by his simple steadfast faith and refusal to turn away from a promise given.
No, not at all—Dariad had gained prestige because events had proved him right.
“We must fight the Scarlet One,” Ohaern told them quietly.
The eyes swung back to him, and fear was written on every face—then instantly replaced by determination. Ohaern was struck by the courage and hardihood of these Biharu. If he had ordered them to march into a dragon’s lair and bring him its head, they would have done so, or died trying.
If he had ordered them . . .
For the first time in his life Ohaern realized just how deeply other people clung to his words and were swayed by his mere presence. He wondered if this was also the first time in his life that his presence had been so strong.
Dariad nodded gravely. “Why must we do so?”
“Because the Sand Sea is Ulahane’s work,” Ohaern replied. “As long as he lives, the drought will deepen and the Sand Sea will spread. Destroy him, and the drought will cease; the desert will gain oases and, in your grandchildren’s time, will become moist enough for grazing again. If Ulahane lives, your grandchildren will have to flee to other lands.”
“Then we shall do it,” Dariad said, and the tribe shouted agreement. Ohaern looked out upon them and smiled.
“How shall we destroy Ulahane?” Dariad asked. “How can a man kill an Ulin?”
“Remember that he is not a god,” Ohaern replied. “None of the Ulin are gods, only beings of an elder race, as you yourselves have told me.”
“That is true,” said the judge, “but they are nonetheless mighty, far more mighty than we ephemeral mites. How could a mortal man slay an Ulin?”
“Leave that to other Ulin,” Ohaern told him. “But to prevail against the Scarlet One, they must have minions withheld, so that they may give all their attention to Ulahane. It is to us to hale down Ulahane’s packs of monstrosities and the Ulharls who drive them.”
“Can Ulharls die?” a tribesman asked.
“They can,” Ohaern assured him. “They are half human, after all, and even an Ulin can be slain. How much more easily, then, their Ulharls?”
“If a man can do it, we shall!” cried a tribesman, and the rest shouted agreement.
“We shall,” Dariad agreed, “but how shall we go about it?”
“I must work magic,” Ohaern told him. “Do you break camp and load your camels while I do. Then we shall ride against Kuru!”
The Biharu roared approval, then turned and ran back to their tents.
“What magic is this you shall work?” Lucoyo asked nervously.
“The Call,” Ohaern answered. “When Manalo visited all the tribes, he gave each of them a call-sign, and when they saw it in the sky, they were to march toward Kuru.”
“But how do they know—oh, of course!” Lucoyo said in self-disgust. “Manalo told them in which direction to march.”
“And told them what obstacles lay in their path, I suspect,” Ohaern agreed. “He taught me the spell that will make all the signs appear—but it will take some minutes to work.”
A shrill shout of delight came from the camp.
“What is that?” the dwerg asked, staring.
“It is the women, the elders, and the children,” Lucoyo answered. “I suspect they have just learned that they may finally leave this place.”
Ohaern nodded. “None are sorry to strike camp.” He dismounted from his camel and began to trace designs in the sand with his camel stick. Lucoyo watched, frowning, and the dwerg and the Klaja came up to watch with him.
Ohaern finished the designs and began to move among them, chanting. His chant grew louder and more musical as his movements grew more fluid, more stylized, until he was dancing among images of his own making. Then the dance slowed, and Ohaern finished his chant with a slow turning in place, arms lifted toward each of the quarters of the world. Then he gave a shout and sank to his knees in the sand, panting.
Lucoyo ran to his friend. “Ohaern
! Are you well?”
“Aye ... well .. .” Ohaern panted. “But magic . .. takes effort . .. Lucoyo. Almost, I think ... more than battle.”
“Well then, you have done your fighting, and may rest.” Lucoyo took him by the arm and helped him to his feet.
Ohaern shook his head. “There is much to do, and not enough time for it all. As soon as the Biharu are packed, we must go!”
“So must we,” the dwerg said, coming up. “The Klaja and I have spoken and agree that we may serve you better by going to raise our own people against Kuru.”
Ohaern stared at the Klaja in dismay. “Your own kind will slay you—they, or the Ulharl who drives them!”
The Klaja shrugged and said, in his guttural voice, “It may be that they shall—but a life estranged from my own kind is no life. If I knew I could never know fellowship, or embrace a female, I would wish to die. Better to raise a dozen who hate the Ulharl enough to die fighting.”
Ohaern nodded gravely. “They will most likely die in any case, for they will be thrown into the forefront of the battle.
Very well, go and persuade—and I hope I shall see you again, with an army at your back.”
“I hope that you shall.” The Klaja grinned and clapped the shaman on the shoulder. “Do not mistake me for an enemy, Ohaern!”
“Well thought.” The shaman took off an armband and slipped it over the Klaja’s paw. “I shall know you by that token, even if I cannot see it. Never let it from your sight.”
“I shall not,” the Klaja promised, “and I shall see you again.” With that, he turned and trotted away.
Ohaern gazed after him, face creased with anxiety. “I hope he shall be well.” He turned to the dwerg. “Well, friend, I cannot bar you from going to your own kind—but I hope I shall see you again, too.”
“Be sure you shall,” Grakhinox promised, “but before you see us, you shall feel us—or our work, at least.” Then he stretched out his arms and began to pivot, turning about and about in place, faster and faster, until he sank down into the earth, like a drill into a stone—and into stone he must have gone, for the earth closed over his head and filled in the hole he had made.
Lucoyo and Ohaern stood staring at the small mound, which was all that was left to show their friend had stood there. Then the half-elf said, “What did he mean—that we would feel his works? Pray he did not mean that swords he made would cleave our skulls!”
“I cannot think that would be so,” Ohaern said slowly, “for we have been shield-mates, and we have saved him from bondage as surely as he has aided us. We are friends and comrades. Surely he would not!”
Lucoyo felt a bit reassured to discover that the new Ohaern did not know everything.
Dariad’s camel came loping up, and the nomad called down, “The women and children will travel to our summer grazing grounds, while our warriors are ready to march, Ohaern! Which way?”
“Toward the northeast,” the shaman answered. “There lies the city of Kuru!”
They marched for several days, the nomads singing with the sheer joy of having left the Sand Sea. But as they came out of the wasteland and the vegetation grew thicker about them, the Biharu quieted and began to grow nervous, as if the alien sight of fertile land made them apprehensive.
“What are all these green stalks in the fields about us, Ohaern?” Dariad asked. “Surely they cannot be grass!”
“A kind of grass,” Ohaern answered. “They are stalks of barley.”
“Barley! Is that where the grain comes from?” Ana Dariad stared, as astonished and awed as if he stood in the middle of a city and stared about at buildings four and five times his height.
Now and then they spied men working in the fields who looked up, saw them, and stared, as astonished at the sight of camels as the Biharu had been by the sight of barley. But here and there a man would turn and run.
“Do they fear us so?” Dariad asked.
“Perhaps,” Ohaern said, but privately he thought otherwise.
Unevenness on the horizon swelled into lumps as they rode, then grew into low mounds, purple with distance.
“Hills?” Dariad frowned. “And not of sand?”
“They are indeed hills,” Lucoyo answered, “and covered most thoroughly with trees and grass.”
“I have heard of trees,” Dariad said, gazing at the hills with wondering eyes.
“You shall see them,” Lucoyo said grimly, “but you may see more than you wish.”
Ohaern nodded in agreement. “On the other side of those hills, Dariad, begins the land Kuru claims as its own.”
Dariad looked up at him in surprise, and Lucoyo could see he was about to ask how Ohaern knew—but the nomad held his tongue, and Lucoyo nodded in approval. Ohaern, after all, had become a shaman. That did not mean he knew everything, of course—it only meant that no one would be surprised at what he did know.
But even the shaman had not foreseen that, when they emerged from the pass between two hills, they would see an army drawn up against them, an army clad in scarlet leather.
Their generals shouted commands. The whole army bellowed in return, lowered their spears, and charged.
The Biharu whooped and drew their swords, but Ohaern called, “Back! Back into the pass, and retreat!”
“Nay, Ohaern!” the judge called. “We have come to fight!”
“Not here, and not now!” Ohaern shouted back. “It will not help our human folk for us to die before such an onslaught! It is too soon to fight—we are too few! Withdraw!” But even as he moved backward on his camel, he raised his hands and chanted.
“Away!” Dariad cried, turning his camel and starting back the way they had come. “The shaman says it! Withdraw!”
Reluctantly, the Biharu began to retreat, and Ohaern retreated after them, chanting and gesturing—but where a Biharu moved back, he also stayed. At least, a likeness of him stayed, and as he moved farther back, he left another likeness, then another and another, till each Biharu had left ten simulacra behind.
“What are they, Ohaern?” Lucoyo asked, huge-eyed.
“They are illusions, waking dreams,” Ohaern answered. “But they are solid enough to busy Kuru’s soldiers for some little time. Retreat, and quickly!” He turned his camel and rode after Dariad.
Strangely heartened, the Biharu clucked to their camels and followed him at the beasts’ long-legged, loose-limbed run that seemed so much slower than it really was. Back down the pass they rode, while behind them echoed the shouts of war and the clash of weapons.
“What do ... their weapons ... clash against, Ohaern?” Lucoyo gasped.
“Those of their fellow soldiers,” Ohaern called back. “They strike the illusions from two sides, and their blades meet in the middle.”
The pass ended, the hillsides opening out, and the Biharu galloped straight into ...
An army of black men, wearing kilts and bearing short spears. They were advancing at a kind of trot, until they saw the Biharu. Then they jolted to a halt and raised their spears, shouting and fitting the spear butts into odd-looking sticks.
“Trapped!” Dariad drew his sword, not slackening his pace. “Cut through them or die!” And he broke into a strange sort of ululating cry. Behind him, his tribesmen took it up, till the hillsides resounded with it.
The black men responded with a hum that sprang from their throng and swelled until it filled the plain.
“Stop!” Ohaern yelled, in a voice far greater than any human being could ever have given. In sheer surprise the Biharu reined in; both uluation and hum broke off.
Ohaern recognized fellow hunters when he saw them. He called out a string of syllables. Dariad frowned and demanded of Lucoyo, “What does he say?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” the half-elf answered. Then his eyes widened and he pointed. “But the black men do!”
A voice from the center of the throng was shouting out an answering string of syllables, and the black men stepped aside to allow a shorter tribesman to come f
orward. He wore a headdress and was smeared with paint; his arms were adorned with beaded bands, his ankles with matching anklets. He pointed at Ohaern and called a question. Ohaern answered in the same tongue.
“Where did he learn their language?” Dariad asked, wide-eyed, but Lucoyo could only say, “In his trance. Which of us mere warriors can say what a shaman knows, or how?”
“Perhaps their shaman can,” the judge answered. “It is wise man to wise man, now.”
And so it seemed, for wizard to wizard they conferred. The black men gazed on impassively, but here and there Lucoyo caught a wrinkled brow, a narrowed eye, a drawn-down eyebrow, a frown. “I think,” he said softly, “that the black men do not understand what they say, either.”
Dariad stared. “You mean they talk in a secret shaman’s language?”
“Ohaern said something about a shaman’s land, a spirit realm where all the shamans go in their trances. Perhaps this is the language of that world?”
The black shaman nodded and turned away to his tribesmen, who gathered around him with a buzz of talk. Ohaern turned back to the Biharu and said, “We came near to making a fatal mistake. These are no creatures of Ulahane’s, but free tribesmen like ourselves, who have come in answer to Manalo’s call.” He frowned. “But they say that Manalo was black, like themselves ...”
“You mean he appears to each people in their own likeness?” Dariad asked in amazement.
It was Lucoyo who nodded. “He was a sage, after all.” He did not reveal the true reason why he knew that the figure they had all seen was not Manalo’s true form.
The wind blew them a distant roar echoing through the pass. Ohaern called out something in the shaman’s tongue, then said to Dariad, “We must ride, and quickly! The Kuruites have discovered my deception, and are doubtless running to catch us!”
“Let them come,” the nomad said with a grin of anticipation. “Surely with these black men, we are their equals!”
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