Narasan came back up the stairs. “Trogite soldiers spend more time building fortifications than they do fighting, Sorgan. If your men tear the stairway apart and carry the blocks up to the gap, my men can put the fort together in short order. Our advance forces should be joining us before the day’s out, so we’ve got time to work out the details.”
Something occurred to Keselo. “Excuse me,” he said politely. “Wouldn’t it be better if the enemies down below can’t see what we’re doing up here?”
“Do all the work at night, you mean?” Sorgan asked.
“Well, no, not really,” Keselo replied. “The prevailing wind comes up the ravine from the west, and smoke goes where the wind takes it. A few bonfires with fresh evergreen boughs piled on top of them would put out enough smoke to conceal us from the enemy down below, wouldn’t you say?”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” Hook-Beak mused. “This is a very clever young man you’ve got here, Narasan.”
“He earns his pay,” Narasan agreed.
“It comes with being a sailor,” Rabbit explained the next morning when Keselo noted how smoothly the Maags were taking the top of the stairway apart and passing the stone blocks from man to man. “A ship’s crew learns early that they’ve got to cooperate. We row the ship when the wind’s not right, and the ship won’t go anywhere if the oars aren’t working in unison, and when we raise the sail, we have to pull together.” He looked down at the Maags working just below the gap and then over at the steadily growing stacks of building blocks behind the gap. “If every Maag working on this just picked up a block and carried it all the way to those stacks, they’d be falling all over each other.”
“They would, wouldn’t they?” Keselo agreed.
It was about midafternoon when Ox came up the center portion of the stairway the Maags were leaving intact to facilitate the chore of passing the stone blocks up to the gap. “You want we should put on a fresh crew and work on through the night, Cap’n?” he called up to Hook-Beak. “Those bonfires should put out a fair amount of light, so we’ll be able to see what we’re doing after it gets dark.”
“We might as well, I guess,” Hook-Beak agreed. “The sooner we get all those blocks up here, the sooner the Trogites can start building the front wall of the fort.”
“Do you people actually work after the sun goes down?” the balding Gunda demanded incredulously.
“When you’re out at sea, you almost have to keep working,” Sorgan replied. “The tides and wind don’t stop just because the sun goes down.” He looked over at Narasan. “It’s something to think about, you know,” he said. “The rest of our people—both yours and mine—should be joining us tomorrow, so we’ll have fresh men to take over the chores. If we both put fresh men to work on this even after it gets dark, we’ll be able to finish up in half the time it’d take if we only work when the sun’s out.”
“Good point,” Narasan agreed. “About how much longer do you think it’ll take your men to finish?”
“If they stick right with it, I’d be willing to bet that they’ll have that top fifty feet cleared away by noon tomorrow,” Hook-Beak replied. “Then the rest is up to you. My people tear things apart. Your people have to build things.”
“You’re all heart, Sorgan,” Commander Narasan replied sardonically.
Keselo was fairly sure he’d just be in the way if he stood watching the Maags dismantling the top of the stairway, so he went back through the gap to the little glade at the top of the ravine. The bulky Dhrall known as Red-Beard was seated beside a small fire near the sparkling little brook that seemed to be the source of the river that had carved out the ravine.
“Maybe you can explain something for me, Red-Beard,” Keselo said.
“If I happen to understand it myself, maybe,” Red-Beard said, scratching his hairy cheek.
“Did your tribe live up here in the ravine at some time in the past? When we were coming up the north bench, Rabbit and I saw several abandoned villages over on your side of the river.”
“They’re not really important. As far as we know, nobody’s lived in them since long before our tribe came to this part of Zelana’s Domain.”
“Is that why you left them out when you were building your map back in Zelana’s cave?”
“Not entirely,” Red-Beard conceded. “Those places make the old men of the tribe edgy for some reason. Chief White-Braid didn’t come right out and tell me not to put them in my model, but I know him well enough to be fairly sure it wouldn’t have made him too happy if I had.”
“Is there something about them that frightens him?”
“I’m not sure if ‘frightened’ is the right word, Keselo. Maybe it’s just some old superstition. Those of us who live here in the Land of Dhrall take our superstitions very seriously. We avoid graveyards, and we always apologize to any animals we kill during the hunt. I’m not sure if it does any good, but it’s the polite thing to do, and it doesn’t cost anything. The cliff villages were here when our tribe first came to this part of Dhrall. Whoever built them was obviously not of our tribe. We don’t build our lodges out of stone, and we choose places that’re more convenient. Why all this sudden interest?”
“Curiosity, I guess,” Keselo admitted. “We have many ancient ruins down in the Empire, but they’re usually located on land more suitable for farming. Have you ever explored one of those villages?”
Red-Beard laughed. “Why would I want to do that? I’m a hunter, and I’m supposed to chase animals—or fish—to keep the tribe eating regularly. I don’t waste my time wandering around in ancient, empty villages or in the caves that crawl off in all directions under these mountains.”
“You have caves here as well?” Keselo was a bit startled about that.
“
All
mountains have caves, Keselo,” Red-Beard told him with a faint smile. “Everybody knows that. I have a theory, if you want to hear it.”
“Of course.”
“Mountains could be what happens when Father Earth eats something that doesn’t agree with him. When he burps, mountains pop up.”
“That’s absurd,” Keselo said, trying not to laugh.
“If you’ve got a better theory, I’d be happy to hear it,” Red-Beard said mildly. “Anyway, a burp isn’t anything but air that boils up out of a man’s stomach, so Father Earth’s mountains have chunks of empty air in the middle of them—burps that didn’t quite manage to make it to the surface, you understand.”
“Would you please be serious, Red-Beard?”
“‘Serious’ isn’t really very much fun, Keselo. All right, then, if you’re going to insist, the old men of the tribe tell us that those old villages are cursed and that we’re not supposed to go near them or even talk about them. Old men get very peculiar sometimes. Whoever it was that built them or lived in them isn’t around anymore. Either they all died or they just packed up and left. If they died, the villages are probably haunted, and if they ran away, something quite awful must have frightened them off. In either case, the old men of our tribe seem to think that staying away from the ruins might not be a bad idea.” He shrugged. “There’s probably nothing in them that’s worth very much anyway, so I don’t waste my time exploring. I’ve got better things to do with my time.” He squinted on down the ravine. “Most of us in the tribe more or less go along with what the old men tell us, but every now and then, somebody gets an overpowering urge to snoop around in the ruins, and he almost never comes back again.”
“Doesn’t that sort of suggest that the old men of your tribe might know what they’re talking about?” Keselo suggested.
“Not necessarily,” Red-Beard disagreed. “Our tribe’s been at Lattash for hundreds of years, and even places made of stone start falling apart after that long. Walls fall down, ceilings collapse, and for all I know, whole villages that used to be there fell down into those burp-holes under the mountains. It’s not always ghosts or curses that kill the snoopers, Keselo. It’s more likely that it’s just natural decay.”
“Are the villages only on the south side?” Keselo asked. “Rabbit and I didn’t see any of them on the north side as we were coming up here.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Red-Beard told him. “It’s always seemed to me that those old villages were built in places where they couldn’t be seen from the bench on the same side of the ravine. The people who used to live in the village probably did that on purpose. There were most likely unfriendly people back in those days too. Unfriendliness has been around for a long, long time. The closest one of those villages is only a few miles back down on the north side of the ravine. It wouldn’t be hard to find if you were on the north bench. There’s an old dead tree snag just above it on the rim of the ravine, and that snag sticks out so much that if you happened to be on the north bench, it should be clearly visible.”
“Maybe if there’s a lull in this war, I’ll go on down and have a look,” Keselo mused.
“What for? There won’t be anything there but some tumbled-down old buildings, and it might be very dangerous.”
“Curiosity again,” Keselo confessed. “It’s a failing of mine.”
Work continued on through the night, and by morning the Maags had quite nearly removed all the stone blocks on either side of the steadily narrowing central stairway.
Keselo and Rabbit were standing unobtrusively off to one side when Narasan joined Sorgan at the front of the gap. “I’d say that’s about enough,” he said to Hook-Beak. “I think it’s time to start building the fort, don’t you agree?”
“I’ll go along with you there,” Sorgan agreed. “If the snake-men down below start charging up the stairway now, we won’t be ready for them, so you’d better get your people to work on that fort.” He peered through the smoke at the work crews below. “Ho, Ox!” he shouted.
The bullnecked Maag who was supervising the work crews climbed up one of the dozen or more rope ladders Sorgan’s men used to stay clear of the increasingly crowded central stairway. “Aye, Cap’n?” he responded when he was about halfway up the ladder.
“The Trogites have all the building blocks they need,” Sorgan told him. “Call in the lookouts, and send most of the men on up here. Then tear what’s left of the stairway apart. Throw the blocks on down the slope. If the snake-men are trying to sneak up through the smoke, that might just make them a little nervous.”
“We’ll do ’er that way, Cap’n,” Ox called back with an evil grin.
“What do you think?” Hook-Beak asked Commander Narasan. “Should we let those bonfires go out?”
“Why don’t we keep them going until the fort’s finished?” Commander Narasan replied. He smiled faintly. “It’s an old Trogite saying: ‘Don’t let the customer see the product until it’s finished.’”
“I’m hoping that the customer won’t care much for the looks of our product, Narasan. Then maybe he’ll go shopping someplace else.”
“Let’s go find Longbow,” Rabbit suggested to Keselo. “We should probably let him know that the Maags have finished tearing the stairway apart and that Narasan’s people are starting on the fort.”
“Good idea,” Keselo agreed.
Longbow was coming down from the north rim, and Keselo and Rabbit went on up to meet him. “The Maags have finished, Longbow,” Rabbit told his friend. “Now Narasan’s people can start on the fort.”
“Good,” Longbow said. “Will they let the fires go out now?”
“Not until the fort’s finished,” Keselo replied. “Commander Narasan wants to hide what we’re doing from the enemy.”
“It works both ways, Keselo. They can’t see us, but we can’t see them either.”
“We’ve noticed that too, Longbow,” Rabbit agreed, “but the cap’n didn’t want to argue with Narasan about it. When you’ve got Maags and Trogites living together in the same camp, everybody needs to walk softly. Oh, I almost forgot. The cap’n sent word to his cousins, and Skell and Torl should be joining us in a few days.”
“That might not be such a good idea, Rabbit,” Longbow said dubiously. “If the creatures of the Wasteland find some way to get around us, the Domain of Zelana will lie unprotected.”
“You really think a lot of her, don’t you?” Keselo suggested.
“This is my home, Keselo, and I live but to serve Zelana. When I was younger, I thought I could avoid her and spend my life in the hunt for the creatures of the Wasteland, but when she called, I found that I couldn’t refuse her.”
“She seems to have that effect on people,” Keselo agreed.
“Some people rule by force, but Zelana rules by love. Love can be crueler than force, but it works better,” Longbow observed.
“I’ve noticed,” Rabbit added, “and the little girl’s even worse.”
Longbow smiled. “Oh, yes,” he agreed, “but delightful still, isn’t she? How long’s the building of the fort likely to take?”
“I can’t say for sure, Longbow,” Keselo replied, “but I’d guess that they’ll probably be finished by late tomorrow afternoon if they work on through the night. Then we can let the fires go out, and come morning on the day after tomorrow, the enemies will be able to see what we’ve done up here, and I don’t think they’ll like it very much.”
Gunda, Jalkan, and Padan supervised the construction of the fort, and, as was his habit, Jalkan bullied the soldiers under his command outrageously. When he wasn’t cursing them, he was slashing at them with a limber switch.
“That one wouldn’t last a week on board a Maag ship,” Rabbit told Keselo. “The crew would probably band up and feed him to the sharks.”
“Unfortunately, sharks are a little hard to find out on dry land,” Keselo replied.
“What is it that makes him so unpleasant? His men are working as hard as all the rest are.”
“He used to be a priest,” Keselo explained, “and the priests of Amar seem to enjoy flogging those who are beneath them.”
“If he was having so much fun as a priest, why did he join the army?”
“It’s a long story,” Keselo said shortly.
“We’ve got all kinds of time right now, Keselo,” Rabbit said. “That Jalkan fellow sort of rubs me the wrong way. If he started switching me the way he’s doing to those soldiers under him, he’d get a knife in his belly. Why does your commander let him get away with that?”
“I don’t think Jalkan will be with us much longer,” Keselo said. “Commander Narasan’s reprimanded him a few times already. Jalkan’s family was once quite prominent in Kaldacin, but they eventually became very corrupt. Jalkan couldn’t bear the idea of doing honest work, so he eventually joined the priesthood of the Amarite faith—the last refuge of the scoundrel. He won’t talk about his years in the church, but there are a few rumors floating about. If those rumors come anywhere close to what he was
really
up to, he should have been imprisoned—or even executed. Evidently, he became involved with some professional criminals, and he was making tons of money. When the head of the church found out about his little enterprise—
and
about the fact that Jalkan wasn’t sharing his profits with the church—the ‘most holy one’ expelled him from the church and even went through the Damnation Ceremony. That put Jalkan back out on the street again, and he used the last of his profits to buy himself a commission in Commander Narasan’s army. We’d all be much happier if he’d move on, but he doesn’t seem to want to leave.”