As suddenly as it had come, the rain left.
Several boats, upside down or rightside up, floated by. Tadoku, the scribe, and the bard swam by, and Hadon plunged into the water to help them. Tadoku made it by himself, but the scribe and the bard might not have gotten to safety without Hadon’s aid. All three were battered, bruised, and bleeding.
Hadon waded out again, waist-deep, and grabbed the Klemqaba priestess and pulled her in. Some more dugouts floated by, one with the Klemqaba sergeant and a Klemklakor private clinging to it. Five more men succeeded in getting ashore; they said that their two boats had stayed unhurt until they had gone over the falls. Their fellows must have drowned after striking the bottom at the foot of the falls.
Hadon thought that that was to be expected. The cataract was about fifty feet high.
He dived in again and pulled a man ashore, but the fellow was dead. That one seemed to be the last they would see. The others were either whirling around in the turmoil below the falls or had been carried along under the surface past them. Of the fifty-six who had left the outpost above Mukha, only twelve were alive. Except for Paga’s ax and the knives they wore in their scabbards, they were weaponless.
“I did not think that even the river godling could defeat Kwasin,” the bard said. “Surely he could not have drowned. That is too commonplace a death for such a hero. If he is to die, it must be with the corpses of his enemies piled high around him, himself and his club bloody, and Sisisken hovering above him, waiting to take his ghost off to the garden reserved for the greatest of heroes.”
Paga, who was now standing, though weakly, snorted with disbelief.
“He is, though a giant, only a man,” he said, “and a river is no respecter of men.”
He looked upward at Hadon and said, with a strange smile, “I am your slave now, Hadon. You have saved my life. Once Wi saved my life, and I became, as is the custom of our people, his property.”
“You are not among your people now,” Hadon said.
Paga spat and said, “That is true. Nor do my people exist anymore. I alone survive, I, Paga, the ugly one-eyed manling, the rejected. But I choose to observe the custom, Hadon, and I am yours. Though I hope that I bring you more luck than I brought Wi. However, I am also Lalila’s, which might become embarrassing if I should have to choose between you two.”
“If I had my way, she and I would become one,” Hadon said.
The statement surprised him, but it seemed to surprise Lalila even more. She gasped and looked with an undecipherable expression at him.
“So that is the way it is,” Paga said. “It is to be expected, however.”
Lalila did not speak. Hadon, feeling foolish, turned away. At that moment the others shouted. Hadon looked toward where they were pointing and saw the massive dark head of Kwasin appear out of the boiling water and spray below the cataract. He swam slowly toward them, and when he stood up in the shallows, blood from a deep gash streamed from his side.
Kwasin paid it no attention. His face was twisted and black with fury. “I lost my club!” he roared. “My precious club! It fell from my hand when I was forced to cling to a rock! Then I dived for it, but the river was too strong even for such as I, and I was swept away! Where is the godling of the river? I would seize him and choke him until he gave it back to me!”
“Brave words,” Paga said, sneering.
Kwasin stared at the manling and then said, “I may step on you and press you into the mud as if you were a loathsome lizard, ugly one. Do not anger me, for I am eager to kill someone. Someone must pay for my loss!”
Paga got to his feet and began untying the knot that bound the thong to his wrist.
“This was almost the death of me,” he said. “It was the death of Wi. I do not think that those yellow-haired men would have chased us so eagerly if it had not been the desire to get this ax, though perhaps they were equally eager to get Lalila. In any event, I am convinced that the Ax of Victory, as I sometimes call it, brings victory for a while to its owner, and then death.”
He finished the untying and held the ax out to Kwasin.
“Here, giant, is a gift from a dwarf. Take it and use it well. Wi, some days before he died, told me that I should have it if he died. I told him I did not want it as my property. I would carry it only until I came across someone who deserved to wield it. You are that one, since I doubt that there is on earth a mightier. But I warn you. Its luck lasts only a short time.”
Kwasin took the haft in his right hand and swung the ax.
“Ha, that is a mighty weapon! With it I could crush battalions!”
“And no doubt will,” Paga said. “But he who loves killing must in the end be killed.”
“What do I care for your savage superstitions!” Kwasin bellowed. “However, I thank you, manling, though you must not expect me to love you for it!”
“Gifts don’t bring love to giver or taker, giant,” Paga said. “Besides, I love Lalila and Abeth, and, I believe, Hadon. I don’t have any more love to go around. As for your love, you love only yourself.”
“Careful, manling, or you will become the first victim of your own gift!”
“The elephant trumpets when he sees a mouse,” Paga said.
The ax was indeed a curious one, one which Hadon might have coveted if he had not been a swordsman. Its head was massive, so heavy that only a very strong man could use it effectively. It was crudely fashioned from a lump of iron and some other metal, but it had a sharp edge. The handle, according to Paga, had been made from the solid lower leg bone of some kind of antelope* that was found only in the northern part of the lands beyond the Ringing Sea. This beast was twice as big as an eland. It did not have horns but had some kind of bony growth from its head which spread out into many points. Paga had dug it out of a bog, where it had been so long that it had half-turned to stone. He had worked out a deep slot at one end for receipt of the neck of the ax, and he had bound it with strips from the hide of a creature something like the giant antelope but smaller.** After the haft and the ax had been lashed together with these, he had knotted the ends and poured the resin of heated amber over the lashings. The bone haft was also lashed with strips of hide. At the other end of the bone, which was as hard as elephant ivory, was a knob, the knuckle joint. Paga had rubbed this down to make a smooth sphere.
*The giant Irish elk.
**The reindeer.
“Have you forgotten that you are wounded?” Hadon said to Kwasin.
Kwasin looked down in amazement at his side and said, “I must attend to it,” and he hurried off to see what the Klemqaba woman could do for him.
They stayed the rest of the day below the rapids, fashioning spears for those who had lost them. They found some quartzlike rocks which Paga chipped for them into points, he being the only one who knew this art. Hadon watched him closely, since he might someday again be in a situation requiring the working of stone into weapons.
Finally he decided that watching wasn’t enough. He asked Paga to teach him, and after painfully banging and bloodying his fingers, he managed to knock off a “mother,” as Paga called it, a section of a rock from which he had to knock off the “daughters.” These he ruined, but on his second round of attempts, he worked a spearhead that Paga said was satisfactory though not praiseworthy.
“But this knowledge may save your life someday,” Paga said.
He did not sleep well that night, because of the pains in his side where he had struck the rocks of the rapids and because of a swelled thumb from the stone-working. When he finally did sleep, he dreamed that Awineth came to him, first reproaching him for unfaithfulness and then warning him of great danger. He awoke with all asleep around him except for two guards under trees nearby. A ghostly owl floated over them, making him wonder if it was an omen sent by Kho. But what good were omens if he did not know what they meant?
Nevertheless, he kept awakening the rest of the night, each time thinking that something dreadful had happened. Once he saw Lalila sit up a
nd look at him. The moon was bright, and she was near enough so that he could see that same unreadable expression. For a moment he thought about talking to her, but she lay back down, and he drifted off again.
15
They rose stiffly at dawn. An hour’s gathering in the jungle brought in enough berries and nuts to fill their bellies, and they set out again. They had not gone more than two miles when Hadon saw two dugouts caught against a fallen tree by the other shore. One was turned over; the other was upright. Unfortunately, there were crocodiles nearby. As the river was a quarter of a mile broad at this point, Hadon did not believe that it was wise to swim to the boats. Yet there might be weapons in them, secured under the seats. Also, he had a faint hope that one of them carried his sword.
“If we can get the boats, Kwasin can chop us another out of a tree, and we’ll have swift transportation again,” Hadon said. “So we’ll create a diversion. We’ll give the saurians some tempting food a little downstream.”
That was easier said than done. They spread out into the jungle to hunt an animal whose carcass would be large enough to attract all the great reptiles. Lalila, the child, and Paga stayed behind, guarded by two soldiers.
Near dusk, hungry, tired, and frustrated, the hunters reassembled on the shore. No one had caught anything large, though two had stoned three monkeys. But there, drawn up on the mud, was a dugout with Paga grinning beside it.
Hadon asked Paga how he had done it, though he knew before the manling told his tale. He cursed himself for his lack of wits. Paga had walked upstream until he came to a place where there did not seem to be any crocodiles. He had swum across, walked back down, and with a branch managed to paddle one of the dugouts back. He had been carried downstream about a mile, but then he had walked back in the shallows, shoving the boat ahead of him.
Paga leaned into the boat and drew out something that brought a cry of joy from Hadon. It was Karken, his sword.
“I seem to be a dispenser of weapons,” Paga said.
Kwasin said, “You are not as useless as your size would indicate, manling.”
“The sea dog seems clumsy on the land, but in the ocean he is swift and graceful,” Paga said. “My ocean is my intelligence, giant. You would drown there.”
“If you had not given me this ax, little one, I would crack open your ocean.”
“So much for gratitude,” Paga said.
“Kwasin, put your ax and your arm to use and spare us your tongue,” Hadon said. “Fashion some paddles, so we may cross to the other boat. And after that, chop down a tree so we may fashion out of it another dugout.”
“The ax is getting dull,” Kwasin said. “Nor am I a carpenter.”
But he obeyed, and when Hadon and Tadoku paddled across, they heard behind them the lusty blows of his ax against the trunk of a tree.
Three days later they set out once again. This time Hadon determined that if they came to a canyon, they would retreat upstream at once and walk along its side. The river, however, wandered back and forth across a land only slightly higher than itself. Except for the flies in the day and the mosquitoes at night, their life was almost idyllic. Even the giant Kwasin lapsed into a decent human being for a while, though Hadon was afraid that the strain would eventually result in an explosion of temper. Kwasin had, however, talked the Klemqaba woman into marrying him, and this seemed to pacify him somewhat. Her other husbands were not happy about it. They complained that he had ruined her for them. Hadon paid them no attention. What the woman did with her mates was up to her, as long as it did not interfere with discipline.
At the end of fifteen days they came to a large lake alive with many thousands of ducks, geese, herons, cranes, pink flamingos, and a giant blue-and-black flamingo unknown to Khokarsa.
They paddled across the lake to the other side, searched along its shore, and concluded that it had no outlet. Reluctantly they abandoned their dugouts and set out on foot. And then, after weeks of walking through the lion-yellow grass, they saw the first peaks of a vast mountain range, some of which were snow-capped.
“According to my calculations, that should be the Saasares,” Hinokly said. “If we can find the pass that leads to Miklemres, we can proceed south, and our journey is ended. If we can’t, we’ll have to go eastward until we can round their end and then go south to Qethruth.”
“I never thought we’d get this far,” Kebiwabes said. “How far have we gone, Hinokly?”
“It’s a year and one month since we left Mukha,” the scribe said. “If we find the pass, it shouldn’t take more than two months to get to Miklemres. Less, if we can find the pass at once.”
And in a year much can happen in Khokarsa, Hadon thought. Has Awineth given me up for dead and chosen another husband?
Unsurprisingly, he found himself hoping that she had. He would be free to ask Lalila if she would accept him as her mate. It was not easy to give up the desire for the throne, but she would be worth it. However, so far she had given no indication other than a warm friendliness that she was thinking favorably of him. He would have asked her how she felt long ago if he had not been the queen’s affianced. What if Lalila said yes and when he got to Khokarsa he found that Awineth was still waiting for him? She might—no, would—have him and Lalila killed. Well, he would die, but surely Awineth would not dare touch one who was under the protection of Sahhindar.
When they came to the foothills, Mumona, the Klemqaba woman, drew out the carved goat’s teeth from the pouch dangling from her belt. She chanted while whirling widdershins and then cast the teeth into the ashes of their campfire. After studying the pattern they formed, she announced that they should go west. After a few days’ journey, they would come across the military outpost that guarded the entrance to the pass. And, sure enough, after walking for five days, they saw its walls and sentinel towers, built of oak logs.
The sentinels saw them long before they had toiled up the slope of the great hill to it, and the wanderers could hear drums and brazen trumpets far off. Presently a troop of soldiers, their bronze armor and spearheads bright in the sun, trotted toward them. Hadon explained to the officer who they were, and a runner was sent to speed the news to the commandant. Thus they entered with a fanfare of trumpets and were greeted warmly. They were bathed in warm water and animal-fat soap and anointed with olive oil. Hadon, Tadoku, Kwasin, the scribe, the bard, and the three from the far north were invited to eat with the commandant and the fort’s priestess. The others were sent to the barracks to eat with the soldiers, but Hadon insisted that Mumona must sit with them.
“But she is a Klemqaba!” Major Bohami said.
“She is also our priestess,” Hadon said. “Without her, we would have no spiritual guidance. And she has been of great help in taking care of the physical needs of my men. Without her, I myself might have died of swamp fever.”
“What do you say, Mineqo?” the major said.
The fort’s priestess was of ancient stock, as were many who came from the northern shores of the Kemu. She was tall, blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful despite a hawkish nose and thin lips. She wore a bonnet of the tail feathers of eagles, indicating that she was a priestess of Wuwos, goddess of the red-headed female eagle. Around her neck was a chain of eagle bones from which hung a tiny figure of Wuwos carved from an eagle’s leg bone. Around her waist was a belt of eagle skin, and below that a kilt of skin covered with eagle feathers. On a stand near her was a giant eagless, chained, glaring at the party as if she would like to eat them. But she was not hungry; she was fed living hares and snakes.
“If she is a priestess and has done all that Hadon says, then she will sit with us,” Mineqo said. “But if she eats disgustingly, as I understand the Klemqaba do, then she will leave.”
“I have trained her not to blow her nose or relieve herself while eating with others,” Hadon said.
The Klemqaba was summoned and sat quietly through the meal, saying nothing unless she was addressed, which was not often. The meal was delicious. Hadon forgot his
usual abstinence and ate of tender partridge stuffed with emmer bread, sweet pomegranates, domestic buffalo steaks covered with hare gravy, mowometh berries (the sweetest thing in the world), okra soup in which duck giblets floated, and fried termite queens, a rare delicacy. He also indulged too much in the mead, which was cooled with ice brought down from the mountains. This was the first time in his life that he had experienced iced drinks, though if he became king he could have such every day.
Kwasin ate three times as much as the others, gobbling, smacking, and grunting, and when he finished, belched loudly. The priestess frowned and said, “Hadon, your bear-man has cruder manners than the Klemqaba.”
Kwasin stared, his face becoming red, and said, “Priestess, if you were not a holy woman I would eat you too. You look good enough to eat.”
“He has been out in the Wild Lands a long time,” Hadon said hastily. “I am sure that he did not mean to offend you. Isn’t that so, Kwasin?”
“I have been gone a long time,” Kwasin said. “And I would not offend the first beautiful woman I’ve seen, Lalila excepted, since I began my wanderings so many years ago.”
“Kwasin? Kwasin?” the priestess said. “Now, where have I heard that name before?”
“What?” Kwasin bellowed, spraying mead down his beard. “You haven’t heard of Kwasin? Have you been in the sticks all your life?”
“I was born here,” Mineqo said icily. “I have been to Miklemres twice, once for five years to attend the College of the Priestesses and once to attend the coronation of the high priestess of that city. But no, savage, I have never heard of you.”
“I thought you knew,” Major Bohami murmured.
She turned to him fiercely and said, “Knew what?”
“This is the giant that ravished the priestess of Kho in Dythbeth and killed her guards,” he said weakly. “Instead of being castrated and flung to the pigs, he was exiled. The Voice of Kho Herself decreed that sentence.”
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