by Zach Hughes
He allowed them to rest well before entering the land of fires, and they fed on the pulpy stuff of the succulent fixed brothers of that place. Only one was lost in the land of the fires, an old female who stumbled and rolled down, down a cindery slope into a lake of fire, there to disappear in a puff of smoke.
The departure had been timed well. Du's warmth made it not simple, but not fatal, to cross the melting snow fields, to wade the muddy bogs of the tundra. They saw the first signs of fixed brothers while Du's face was growing warmer, and there were no storms as they entered the land of tall brothers and, for the first time, the old ones saw the life that awaited them, heard the whispers, called the fixed ones brother. There, since there was still time, a few chose to stay. They had crossed the tundra with the last of their strength and they chose to go back to the earth there, in that northern place.
Since there was time, and since the event was a significant one, Duwan called a rest, and they watched with wondering eyes as Du revealed his power and his mercy, for the newly planted ones showed alterations within hours of their plantings. Skin that had been hardening and flaking away hardened even faster, but clung closely to limbs and spread and soon it was not possible to see, except in bulging places, where there had been arms. The frondlike hair grew rapidly and became branches and when it became necessary for Duwan to lead the mobile ones away, the planted ones looked, from a distance, like that which they were becoming, fixed brothers.
"Farewell, farewell," came the whispers, clearly heard. Dagner, the old warrior, walked beside Duwan. "As long as there is rain and sun you will be remembered," he said.
Duwan was silent, a bit embarrassed.
"And when we others go back to the earth we, too, will sing your praises," Dagner said.
"My friend," Duwan said, "you will not harden for many cycles. You will be active long enough to help us kill the Enemy."
Dagner laughed. "You joke, trying to cheer me, when I need no cheering. But, yes, I would kill a few of the Enemy before I find my spot." To Duwan's surprise, for there had been no Devourer settlements so far north before, he and Dagner walked directly into a clearing and stood face to face with more than a dozen of the Enemy. A nearby pongpen was crowded with slaves.
"You wanted a chance to kill Enemy," Duwan said, drawing his weapons. "You now have it."
Dagner sprang forward with a shout.
"Father," Duwan yelled, "forward with care." He, too, leaped forward. The surprised Devourers met their rush with longswords and fell back before the onslaught of four swords wielded by as many hands, and then Duwan the Elder was among them, stroking and slashing mightily. By the time others of the older warriors came forward it was over and twelve of the Devourers lay dead.
Dagner, breathing hard, cleaned his swords on the tunic of a fallen enemy. "Praise Du," he said, "that I have had this opportunity to avenge, if only in a minor way, the past."
Duwan was looking at the thin, starved slaves in the pen. "These are Drinkers?" he asked.
"Judge them by the pores in the bottom of their feet," Duwan said. He walked toward the pens. As he neared, the pongs began to fall to their knees and bow.
"Master," one of them said, cringing, as if expecting a blow. "Is it you?
Is it you who was foretold by the holy man, Tambol?"
"Tambol, holy?" Jai asked. She'd come running forward, but too late to get in on the action.
"He teaches us," the pong said. "He tells of us a wise and big hearted one who will return from the north to free us. Are you he?"
"You are free," Duwan said. "I am no Drinker's master."
"With these you would make an army?" Duwan the Elder asked.
"Teach us, Master," the pong begged. "Teach us how to be free."
"On your feet, all of you," Duwan said, and the pongs leaped up. "Now, how did this settlement come to be so far north?"
"Master," the spokesman said, "the Devourers came here to extend the hunting range for the city of Kooh."
"Are there other settlements in these northern forests?" Duwan asked.
"This is the northernmost," the pong said. "There are others. We were many when we left Kooh, and many dropped off along the way to clear land and build way stations."
Duwan was thinking, So, it is now time for us to angle off to the west, lest we encounter other Devourers.
"How are we to be free, Master," asked a gaunt, half naked slave female.
"It is said that you freed one female, and made her your follower. I would follow you, as well."
"Teach us the use of the Devourer's arms," cried a male.
"Tell us of eternal life," said another.
"Take down the bars from the fence that makes you a slave," Duwan said. He stooped and plucked a life organ from a fixed brother. "Then begin to feed yourself, thus, in the way of Drinkers so that you will be strong and then we will speak of teaching you the way of arms." With a crack of wood the fence gave way. The ragged female who had been brave enough to speak fell to her knees in front of Duwan and plucked life organs from the low growing fixed brothers and stuffed them into her mouth.
"Bless this green, Master, so that I will live," she cried.
"Expose your skin to the healing, nourishing goodness of Du," Duwan said.
A few of them pushed back their hoods. One male bared his chest and looked fearfully up.
"Eat," Duwan roared. "If you won't eat of the sweet, growing goodness of the earth take yourself back into the pongpen there to remain a slave." The female, her mouth full of green, her jaws working, tried to kiss Duwan's foot. He stepped back. "I am no one's master," he said. "I am Drinker. You are Drinker. And if you are to be free you must think and act like Drinkers."
"Teach us, teach us," came the cries.
Duwan made camp in the clearing. The pongs, stomachs bulging with green food, gathered fearfully around his fire. They eyed him expectantly.
"They will fight for you," Jai said.
"I don't want them to fight for me. I want them to fight for themselves, for their people, for their mates, for their sprouts."
"But they must have a leader, Duwan," she said. "Look at them. They are adoring you with their eyes."
"I am not a du," Duwan said.
"Speak to them," she insisted.
He rose. "One of you mentioned Tambol. Who spoke of Tambol?" A gaunt male, his stomach looking almost comical, so distended was it with food, rose and bowed low. "I have heard the holy man, Tambol, with these ears, Master."
"And of what did he speak?"
"Of you, Master. Is it not true that you came to this land before, that you saw, and judged, and went back to the far north for your army?"
"My army," Duwan said, under his breath, looking around at the remaining old ones. "I came, I saw, and I went back to my home in the north. But you cannot expect a large army to fight for your freedom. If you would be free of the Devourers, you, yourselves, must fight."
"We will fight, Master," said the ragged female, "if you will teach us, and if you will fight at our sides."
"Go," Duwan said. "Sleep. Rest. Tomorrow I will speak with you again." Duwan awoke late. Jai had guarded him, keeping others away, keeping it quiet in the vicinity of his fire. She gave him water and freshly plucked green things. As he ate, Dagner approached. He was panting.
"I've been working with some of these pongs, or whatever you call them, Duwan," he said. "They're puny and weak, but they're willing. I think when we fatten them up a bit—they're going to strip the life organs from every fixed brother around here if we don't teach them the proper way to gather food— they might just make warriors of a sort."
Other old warriors were showing pongs the proper way to hold a weapon, using the swords taken from the Devourers. Duwan strolled among them, Jai at his side. His mother and grandmother joined them.
"Starving in the midst of plenty," his mother said. "We cannot allow this to continue."
"Look," Jai said, "that one has a wicked thrust." A pong lunged awkwardly
at one of the old warriors and the thrust was easily parried.
"We go to the west," Duwan said.
"And these?" his grandmother asked, indicating the pongs.
"They can go with us if they choose."
"Shall we not free the others, the ones in the way stations to the south?" Jai asked.
"So, my warrior mate is now bloodthirsty," Duwan asked.
"Look at them," Jai said. "Look at them. They're free. They're fighting."
"An Enemy sprout could take all of them, one at a time," he said.
"Give them a chance. We can work with them as we move south. As they get stronger, eating and drinking Du, they will learn."
"And how do you feel about our new army, father?" Duwan asked, as he approached Duwan the Elder, who was showing a pong how to counter with the shorts word.
"I have looked, as you suggested, at the feet of many of them," his father said. "They are Drinkers, Duwan."
"It will take someone wiser and more patient and more skilled than I, even more so than Belran, himself, to train them."
"I have done some training myself," his father said.
"So be it," Duwan said, with misgivings.
At the next settlement ten more of the enemy died, two of them killed by pongs. Six of the pongs lay on the earth when the swift fight was over, however. More pongs replaced them from the pens, and the straggling, noisy, chomping, belching ragtag army moved southward to clear the forests of the new Devourer settlements. Duwan talked to his growing following nightly. He warned them to forage carefully, to spread out when they were eating, to take sparsely of the life organs of all fixed brothers, lest they take sacred life and, more immediately important to them, leave a trail that a Devourer army could follow.
He now found himself in familiar territory. The wide, deep canyon where he had wintered with Jai was not far ahead. They were in a climate zone, he knew, where the length of summer equaled that of winter, and the summer rays of Du were strong. With Devourer expansion to the north, it was important that he find a safe place for his grandmother to return to the earth, for the old female was failing rapidly now, and she spent all her time on the march looking for a suitable place for her return to the earth. Others among the oldsters were in the same situation, near the final, total hardening, and they, having seen the miracle of rebirth as a fixed brother, longed for the rest, the peace, the eternal satisfaction. Duwan still had his doubts about the growing army of pongs, so he left them in the care of his father and Dagner, who now had no intention of returning to the earth until his blades had tasted much more Enemy blood, and Duwan led Jai and a group of twenty-one hardening oldsters toward the hidden canyon, being careful to cover his trail so that not even one of the supposedly loyal pongs could follow.
The canyon was in its peak of new green. The stream that had carved it and then diminished to a bright, sparkling, lively run over colorful stones was sweet. There was evidence, in the health of the green, growing things, that the canyon received plenty of sun, plenty of rain. Nowhere had Duwan seen such impressively tall brothers, boles as thick through as he was long, and healthy, and giving shade, and whispering, whispering.
"Yes," his grandmother said, when he showed her a little glade near the stream. "Oh, yes."
There was no prescribed ceremony for the return to the earth. Duwan planted his grandmother himself, kissed her, watched as her eyes closed.
"I feel it, Duwan," the old female whispered. "I can feel the tendrils growing from my feet. I can taste the richness of this earth. You have kept your promise."
There was, in their cave, still signs of their occupation, rotting beds, dead embers. They refreshed the beds, slept by a bright, cozy fire, and spent the next day watching the swift, miraculous transformation of the twenty-one they had brought to the canyon. The newly planted could no longer speak, but there were, in their minds, sighs of contentment, and,
"Farewell, farewell, thank you."
Voices blended into the background of the whispering brothers, none distinguishable until, after several days and nights—it was so pleasant to be alone that Duwan was in no hurry to rejoin the others, and he felt that he owed it to his grandmother and himself to stay with her until the transformation was complete—he went to the new grove of twenty-one growing brothers and squatted beside the thing, the tree, the brother, that had been his grandmother.
"It is a state not to be despised."
The statement came to him so clearly that he looked up to see if it had been Jai who spoke, but she was down at the crystal creek, bathing.
"In the time of the snows it is quiet and peaceful."
"Grandmother?"
"Yes, Grandson. You have chosen a place beyond compare for me to spend eternity. My peace will be complete—although I exact no promise, knowing that it might prove to be impossible for you to keep—if, when the time of my daughter and my son comes you would bring them here, and then, after a long, long time, yourself and your mate. It's peaceful and quiet in the winter and good in the summer. I drink the goodness, grandson, and I revel in it. I am one with the earth, and with all others."
"How is it that you speak with me so clearly?"
"It is my desire."
"And the others?"
"We are here, Duwan," came another voice in his head.
"The ancient ones. The wisdom of the ancient ones. Is it available to you?" Duwan asked.
"Some here were planted before the coming of the Enemy. The Drinker lands were far to the south. This has been a quiet, isolated place. Some remember. Others choose not to, to feel only the wind, the sun, to dance in the winds and commune with Du."
"And the tall brothers at a great distance? Can you communicate with them?"
"A feeling," came the voice. "Nothing more. I sense, far off, that there is pain, and death, and evil."
"Grandmother, try to communicate with those distant ones. It would be very helpful."
"I will. Now you must go. Come back to me, Grandson."
"Yes," he said. "I will come. In this canyon I first began to understand the meaning of love, Grandmother. We will come when we can, Jai and I, and you will be in our thoughts when we are far away."
"Farewell, farewell, farewell."
Chapter Four
For the first time in his life, Duwan delivered a blow to a living entity who was not the enemy. Another Devourer settlement had been destroyed, leaving more enemy dead. Now ex-slaves had seen their former masters vanquished. They had seen that the Devourers bled and died, just as pongs could bleed and die. There was noisy jubilation. Fires dotted the clearing and the surrounding forest. There was a babble of voices, for all the patience and authority of the valley Drinkers had not yet tamed a rabble of slaves into an organized force.
Duwan's surviving cadre of oldsters now numbered just under two hundred, and he never ceased to be pleased and surprised at the way the old Drinkers had risen to the occasion. Many of them, he would have bet at the beginning of the journey, could not have possibly survived the trip, much less survived to grow stronger and fight. It was, he suspected, the goodness of Du, for Drinkers marched and worked and fought as nearly naked as possible, the males clad only in a loincloth, to allow Du's kind and strengthening rays to caress every possible small area of old, hardening hide. He had broken the freed pongs up into groups, assigning them to the care of valley Drinkers, and training went on at all hours. The weapons captured from the enemy were meted out to the more promising pong males—and a few females who seemed capable of emulating Jai—and it had been discovered that there were a few workers in wood among the pongs so that these skilled craftsmen were now being instructed in the art of making bows, of finding straight shafts for arrows and rounding them true.
According to the pongs, two settlements, each one larger than those already taken, lay between Duwan's force and the northernmost city, Kooh. Duwan hesitated to move on the settlements, although he was being urged to do so by Jai and others. He knew a rabble when he saw it. He'd
never fought in nor had he even seen a pitched battle, but he knew the legends. He knew that a well ordered force of only a few men, such as the royal guards he'd seen in Arutan, could rout his slave army, and he did not want to discourage his own people and the slaves by suffering a defeat. The way ahead was long, and would require much patience.
He was making the rounds of the various camps, consulting with his sub-leaders, seeing with some satisfaction that a few of the pongs were beginning to show some little skill with the bow. As he walked through a dense copse of tall brothers his nostril hairs quivered at an unpleasant stench, and he detoured to come upon a group of pongs in a small clearing, ten of them, male and female. They had taken a cook pot from a Devourer hut and a part of the stench that insulted Duwan's nose was coming from it.
It was the scent of cooking flesh.
He was not seen, for it was growing dark and he moved silently, and he stood in the edge of the clearing just long enough to see a pong male butchering a Devourer female's body and tossing bits of flesh into the pot. The female's haunch was roasting on a spit over the coals of the fire, and from that piece of burning flesh came the worst of the stench. He had traveled far, and he had had many disappointments. He had lost his first love—-although that no longer mattered, for Jai had become his mate in every way—and he had been deserted by his own people. His hope of achieving his goals rested on his own good sword arms, his father, a relatively small number of aged Drinkers, and a rabble. And now Drinkers, people of his own race, where flaunting Devourer evil in the midst of his blood, the stench of their unholy feast floating to the noses of his mother, his mate, his father.