Jango (3 page)

So time passed.

When at last the great Nom bell sounded noon, the new teacher spoke.

"My name is Miriander," she said. Her voice was low, but they heard every word. "It is my task and my duty to teach you true strength."

She met their eyes one by one, giving no more time to one than to another, but causing each of them to feel he or she was the object of her special interest.

"Please prepare yourselves. In order to find your true strength, you will be stripped of everything that protects you."

The bell's last deep boom sounded, and the vibrations slowly faded into the hiss of the rain. Through the high windows, the ocean mist was closing in.

"This," she said, "will hurt."

T
HERE WAS A STRANGE NEW SOUND IN THE FOREST, A
distant rustling and throbbing, coming from the west.

"Wagon train," said Sander Kittle, swinging idly from his branch. "Wagons on the road."

"It's not just the road," said his sister Echo. "Listen. It's all over. It's like a wind."

"So, why aren't the treetops blowing?"

"Maybe it's a ground wind."

"Ground wind?" snorted Sander. "Whoever heard of a ground wind?"

"Orvin has," said Echo. "Haven't you, Orvin?"

This was unkind of Echo, but she was annoyed that Orvin had joined them there, high in the branches of the old beech tree. This was Echo's own special place, and Orvin should have allowed her some privacy. Also he had such a long face and such a gloomy way of gaping at her that sometimes it made her want to scream.

"Yes," said Orvin. "I've heard of a ground wind."

"Orvin doesn't count," said Sander. "He'd say up's down if you told him to."

Orvin was known to be sweet on Echo. In this he was not unusual. Echo Kittle, seventeen years old, pale, slender, and beautiful, filled the dreams of most young men in the great forest called the Glimmen. But it was Orvin Chipe her parents encouraged, with the result that Orvin Chipe was the one admirer of them all that Echo found the most tiresome.

"You wouldn't say up is down, would you, Orvin?"

"No," said Orvin.

"But it is, you know. Up is down." She swung round on her branch so that she hung by her legs with her head dangling, long blond hair flying. "See. Up is down. Say up is down, Orvin."

"All right. Up is down. I don't mind."

Hanging there, feeling that she wanted to pull Orvin's nose till he squealed, Echo heard the strange sound again. It was coming nearer.

She swung herself back onto the branch.

"Let's go and see," she said. "Race you to the road."

Sander grinned. A recent light rain still clung to the leaves and branches, creating just the perfect slickness for sliding down. Echo was older than him by two years, but they were evenly matched when it came to tree racing. Orvin, however, was slow and clumsy. This was Echo's way of getting away from him.

"Ready when you are."

"Go!"

Off they went, swinging from branch to branch, and Orvin made no attempt to follow. They sprang from tree to tree, sliding down poles placed there for the purpose, scampering up notched stairways, running along bouncing rope walks. The dark network of high branches that stretched for miles in every direction was their familiar home, and their slight and slender forms slipped as effortlessly through the trees as fish swim in the sea. They raced past the homes of other Glimmeners, clusters of timber huts perched high in the branches, where friends and neighbors were to be glimpsed as they flashed by. They raced on into the uninhabited regions of the forest, some way apart now, seeking any and every advantage to overtake each other. Echo found a springer and, using the branch's bounce, sprang up high into the next tree, catching at fronds of leaves to guide her landing. Now she was sure she was above Sander—in tree racing, height gave critical advantage—but she didn't stop to look. The race was too close.

On they hurtled from tree to tree at breakneck speed, leaving behind a trail of flying spray and tumbling pine-cones, racing each other through the permanent twilight of the Glimmen towards the wide cut of the road. They had both forgotten their original purpose and were entirely caught up in their contest.

Echo lost sight of Sander in a pine grove, but as she came out on the far side, she reckoned she was a whole tree's reach in front of him. Ahead she saw the brighter light, where the high road wound through the forest and the trees were cut back to let the pale winter light fall on its stony ruts. She slowed herself down and swung panting into a high fork in an old yew, directly above the road. Here she braced herself and looked back, face glowing with triumph. But there was no sign of Sander. She looked all round and finally caught a slight movement ahead. It was Sander, dropping into the hide position, a good two trees in front of her. Somehow he had overtaken her. But there was no time to find out how. In the same moment she saw him, she heard once more the strange sound that now filled the whole forest.

Not wagons. Not a wind. It was a low thundering roar, like the rolling of the sea.

Echo hugged close to the yew trunk, also adopting the hide position. Then, barely moving, she shifted her head and shoulders until she could see round the trunk and into the road. She saw only trees, and the pools of light between the trees. But that sound! Ever closer, ever louder—she focused her attention and was sure she could hear the beating of many hooves. Could it be a bullock team? Only a thousand bullock teams could make such a roar. Whatever it was must be very close now, but the spreading foliage below prevented her from seeing clearly.

She glanced ahead at Sander, guessing that his nearer perch would give him a better view. Sander had his eyes fixed on the road. On his face was a look that Echo had never seen before. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. It was a look of wonder.

Echo turned her own gaze back to the road. Now it was her eyes that opened wide.

A strange and beautiful creature came prancing into view down the track. On its back rode a thickset man with long dark hair, wearing a silver fur jacket and glinting armor. But the girl's eyes were not on the rider: they were on his mount. This was no bullock. It was a pale ginger color, its long neck fringed with strands of sandy hair, its prominent eyes set wide on a long narrow head. Its slender and muscular legs rose and fell in a prancing dancing rhythm that was beautiful to watch. From time to time the creature lifted up its elegant head and flared its wide fragile nostrils and made a sound like the wind in long grass. This, Echo thought, was how the wind would sound if it could talk. And as if to prove her right, there came from farther back down the road an answering sound, and another, and another. And all the while the great beating roar drew nearer.

The rider did not look up. He was an outlander, that much the watching girl knew, and one who was clearly unaware that there might be people living in the trees above. Echo risked a quick silent swing from her tree to the tree where Sander was hiding.

"What is it?" whispered Sander, his voice trembling.

"I don't know. But I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life."

The roar of sound was taking on a recognizable shape now, the sound of many hooves drumming on the worn stone of the road and on the softer ground between the trees, mingled with the strange breathy cries of the beautiful beasts. They caught sight of a second making its way between the trees, some way from the road. It was followed by a third, and then two more, and then many more. In a short time they had lost count. There were hundreds of riders advancing through the forest. Soon they had filled the road, in a stream of bobbing forms; and on either side, as far as the hidden watchers could see, there were riders swarming through the trees.

They carried weapons in their belts: swords and coiled whips. They rode in orderly files, one behind the other. These were not travellers. They were warriors.

As the riders advanced eastward along the road, Echo and Sander followed them, keeping pace in the trees above, fascinated by the immense array of beautiful animals on which the warriors rode.

Then a new sound drew their attention. It was the tramp of a column of marching people, coming from the east. The marchers sang as they came. Echo recognized the sound.

"It's the axers," she whispered. "They're going to get a surprise."

Every week for many months now a band of axers had come marching through the forest, escorting a column of pilgrims dressed in white robes. They marched through the Glimmen and on out the other side, and there vanished into the region of mist known as the land cloud. What they did there no one knew; but they had never been seen coming back.

It was the pilgrims who were singing now. The words of their song became audible, though they were not yet in sight.

"
Take me up into the harvest!
Take me up into the harvest!
Take me up into the harvest!
To live for evermore!
"

The riders also heard the sound of the singing. Those in the lead slowed their mounts to a stop. Their hands went to their sides and untied the whips that were coiled there.

The approaching column of singers now rounded the bend of the road and came into view. There were about thirty of them, both men and women, their hands reached up above their heads, waving from side to side as they sang.

"
Take me up into the harvest!
To live for evermore!
"

On every face was the same look of ecstatic hope. Before them, and on either side, marched their escort of axers, tall men in heavy armor, the enforcers of the rich and cruel empire of Radiance. These giant guardians carried spiked chains, looped in their right hands, ready at a moment's notice to snake out and swing with devastating force. Echo and Sander kept very still in the high branches. Like all Glimmeners, they feared the axers, and Radiance, and its priests, and its worship of the sun.

Now both the white-robed pilgrims and the axers saw the mounted warriors massing before them, and they came to a shambling surprised stop. The axers stood with their legs apart and their chains at the ready, staring through the visors of their helmets. The pilgrims fell silent. All were speechless at the sight of the unfamiliar beasts.

Then the chief axer, recalling that his heavy armor and his immense strength made him invulnerable, boomed out through the slit in his helmet.

"Give way, in the name of our Radiant Leader!"

The mounted warriors made no answer. Their mounts frisked and capered, wanting to be moving forward.

"Clear the road!" boomed the axer. "Get your skinny cattle out of our way!"

Still the mounted warriors said nothing. The chief axer then loosed his chain with a jerk of his arm, which sent it hissing through the air into the space between them, at knee height. Echo gasped, in the tree above, terrified that the heavy iron links would snap the fine-boned legs of the fragile beasts. Instead, in a swift smooth movement, one of the mounted warriors slipped over the side of his mount and sent his whip curling at ground level to wind round the axer's ankles. A single tug, and the axer and his chain came crashing to the ground. The whip curled, snaking back to its owner, even as he was righting himself on his mount.

The other axers, seeing their chief felled, gave out a roar of rage and loosed their own chains. The mounted warriors responded with a flurry of movement and a snapping of whips. Shortly every one of the escorting axers was sprawled on the ground.

The white-robed men and women looked on in dismay.

"Who are you?"

"We are Orlans!" The lead warrior spoke in a harsh voice, in an accent they had never heard before. "We are the masters now."

The boldest pilgrim spoke up.

"We must go on down the road," he said. "We are the chosen ones."

The felled axers were now climbing back to their feet and grimly drawing their long-handled axes. The invaders were not big people, nor were the beasts they rode much larger than calves, and the axers towered over them. But Echo, watching from above, knew now that the beautiful beasts were in no danger. They were too fast and too skillful.

The leading axer plowed into the middle of the mounted army, swinging his weapon, but wherever he struck, all he hit was air. The Orlans danced round him like children taunting an aged bear. Their whips caught him round the helmet and the wrists and the ankles, and without quite knowing how it had happened he found himself on his knees, by the side of the road, his axe tossed far out of reach.

"Now you kneel!" cried the Orlan. "All men kneel before the Great Jahan!"

Mounted Orlans on every side loosed their whips and snapped them in the air.

"Kneel!" they cried.

The other axers and the white-robed pilgrims, awed by this display of power, dropped fearfully to their knees.

All the time that this confrontation had been taking place, more and more Orlans had been riding up, massing in a dense array of mounted warriors that stretched back through the trees as far as the eye could see. Now the ranks were parting, and a new sound was heard: the blare of trumpets, the beat of drums, the shrilling of pipes, and the clash of steel on steel. There came a flashing of lights from among the mass of the men, and the sound of cheering, and a ripple of movement as riders dismounted.

Echo, peering down through the foliage, saw the adoring faces of the riders as they fell to their knees; but she could not yet see the object of their adoration. She heard the beat of the music and saw the kneeling riders take up their swords and beat in time on their breastplates, and she heard them cry out.

"Jahan! Jahan! Jahan!"

The Orlans who had overpowered the axers now themselves dismounted and knelt, and joined in the chant. The white-robed singers, already on their knees, looked on in awe and terror.

"Jahan! Jahan! Jahan!"

The music was loud now, a pealing, clashing fanfare of praise, augmented by every man in earshot striking his sword against his breastplate. The flashing lights dappled the tall trees on either side. The warriors closest to their leader cheered wildly as he passed.