Authors: Christopher Stasheff
“I
have not heard of them before this.” Ohaern frowned. “Are they a southern
people?”
“They
are a
new
people—at least, in this part of the world. They tell me they
have come from the Vanyar homeland, which is to the south and far to the east,
in the plains that view a mountain range a thousand leagues and more from here.”
“A
thousand leagues!” Lucoyo sat bolt upright. “They have come a long distance in
a little time!”
“Not
so little as that, for these tribesmen told me they have never seen their
homeland—only one among them had, and he was very, very old. He was determined
to return, but no others were, at least not from anything more than curiosity.
They
wanted new lands in the west, with new peoples for slaves, so that each of them
might live like a king.”
Ohaern
snorted. “They have little humility, have they?”
“They
are supremely confident, and claim that they will prevail against every enemy,
for the source of their strength is Ulahane himself.”
Ohaern
and Lucoyo sat very still. Then the half-elf said, “Poor hosts they must have
been, indeed! Did they seek to murder you in your sleep, or only to rob you?”
Brevoro
gave him a thin smile. “Neither one, though they might have done both if their
smith had not had the foresight to realize he would want our trade not just
this year, but next year, too. As it was, we kept a vigilant guard day and
night. None threatened us, though many gave us cold stares, and covetous
glances to our goods. In truth, we did not know how strongly their chief held
them leashed, the more so since every man among them is proud and overbearing—so
we felt that our lives were in danger every minute, and did not truly breathe
easily until we had been two days on the road again, with no offer to injure
us.” He gave a hard smile. “I should not say ‘no offer,’ for after we had left
their camp and were about to rest at midday, we saw a dust cloud. One of our
party climbed a tree and saw a raiding party following us.”
“Did
their chief know?” Ohaern demanded.
Brevoro
shrugged. “Perhaps—or perhaps he might have punished them if they had slain us.
It would not have helped us then.”
“You
did not rest, I gather,” Lucoyo said.
“Oh,
we did—but deeply buried in thickets and high in trees, with slings ready. The
Vanyar rode right past us, for they are steppe riders and know little of
woodcraft, whereas we had been careful to cover our tracks. No, we stayed where
we were for an hour and more, then moved through the wood away from the path.
When we came out into open land, we saw them against the sky, returning. We hid
again, for we did not wish to go back to their camp—in pieces.”
“Are
they so vicious, then?” Lucoyo asked.
“Vicious
and fierce, to judge from the fights that broke out among them during the day
and the night of our sojourn there—and cruel indeed, to judge from the country
we traversed, where they had been. We saw villages in ashes, bodies of men
ripped asunder and left for the crows, and bodies of old women violated,
maimed, and left for the jackals. They had a host of captives in their camp,
women and children and hamstrung men, who served them with faces haunted by
fear—as well they might, for even work well-done was rewarded with kicks, and
poor work punished with beatings.”
Ohaern
reared back as if at an offensive odor. “Have they no law? Has each of them no
moral teachings within?”
“Only
for themselves,” Brevoro said, “only for other Vanyar. Anyone not of their
nation is outside their law, and fair game for any who wish to abuse him—or
her. The Vanyar geid the few male warriors they do not slay out of hand but
save for slaves. Perhaps what they do to women is as bad as that.”
“What
manner of people were these slaves?” Ohaern’s eyes were lost in the shadows
under his brows.
“People
of many nations, even some that we traders did not know.”
“Biriae?”
“Even
Biriae,” Brevoro admitted with a sigh, “though not so many of them.”
“Aye;
most of my people dwell in the west.”
“The
Vanyar will come to them, have no doubt.”
Ohaern
tensed with the urge to rise. “We must bring word to them!”
“But
not tonight.” Lucoyo stayed him with a hand. “And perhaps not at all.”
Ohaern
rounded on Lucoyo. “Are you not concerned for your own nomad tribe, they who
reared you and sheltered you?”
“What,
they who bade me draw their water and carry their wood?” Lucoyo gave him a wolf’s
grin. “They who heaped shame on my mother and tormented me without mercy? Let
the Vanyar have them, and welcome! If they keep the invaders from your people
for a week or two more, they will have finally served some purpose! As to our
course, is it not more important to eliminate the source of this menace than
the menace itself?”
Ohaern
sank back, his scowl dark and heavy. “There is something in that.”
“Never
fear, we will take word to your tribesmen,” Brevoro assured him. “But how is
this? How can you ‘eliminate the source’? You cannot think that two men alone
can destroy all the Vanyar!”
“Two
men can gather more men,” Lucoyo said quickly, before Ohaern could forget
himself and tell whom they truly meant. “Will not the Vanyar be a year or more
coming to the lands of the Biriae?”
“They
may,” Brevoro allowed, “but that depends far more on the ferocity of the
peoples between than on the marching speed of the Vanyar. They ride in boxes on
circles, look you—they call the circles ‘wheels’; and the boxes are ‘chariots’
if they are small and light and meant for war, and ‘wagons’ if they are big and
heavy and meant for carrying loads. All are drawn by horses—they have found
uses for them other than meat and hides. With these contrivances, their war
parties can move as far in a day as most tribes would go in a week.”
“They
might come to Biriae lands quickly, then.” Ohaern tensed again—and again Lucoyo
laid a hand on his arm. “They might,” he agreed, “but the Klaja block their
way.”
Brevoro
frowned. “What are the ‘Klaja’?”
“They
are another of Ulahane’s fabrications,” Lucoyo told him. “They are half jackal,
half human. Have they not come from your part of the world?”
“Not
that I have seen,” Brevoro answered. “The Ulin must have loosed them in the
north first. But do not jackals follow a lion?”
“An
Ulharl, in this case,” the half-elf answered. “I had never seen one before, and
could manage quite well if I never did again.”
Brevoro
shuddered. “I, too! I have never seen either Ulin or Ulharl, and I pray to
Lomallin I never do! What has sent these half-beasts into movement?”
Lucoyo
shrugged. “Ulahane himself, with his Ulharls whipping them on, I would guess.
Is it anything else that has loosed the Vanyar?”
“There
was some talk of strange monsters who were half bald yellow men and half
pony—surely not big enough for a horse—who struck like lightning, with complete
and utter cruelty, striking down every living being before them. I did not
place much credence in that, though, since there was also talk of there being
too many Vanyar for the herds, even the huge herds of aurochs that they
followed. No, they are hungry for land, these chariot-riding barbarians with
their double-edged axes; there were far too many of them for their ancestral
lands, so they began raiding and conquering, and have overrun the steppe lands north
of the Land Between the Rivers.”
“I
have heard of that land.” Ohaern frowned. “They say the plain between those
rivers is rich beyond belief, so much so that people live in the same place
year after year and do not hunt, but only push seeds into the ground.”
“It
is true, and those villages have grown mightily, so that the plain is thronged
with cities, from Merusu at its northern edge to Kuru at its most southern.”
“Surely
the Vanyar dare not challenge the might of those cities!”
“Surely
they do, though they have sent one wing of their horde to make sure these
northern lands will send no armies against their rear when they turn south.”
“Only
one wing?” Lucoyo stared, aghast. “There are
more
of them?”
“Three
times as many, at least—and their elders speak of cousins who rode south and
east, instead of here into the west. No, it is three-quarters of their host who
will ride south. They learned of the wealth and luxury of the cities from their
newly conquered slaves, and decided to capture and loot them. Their first
target is to be Cashalo, a rich city on the eastern shore of a strait between
two inland seas, a strait that opens out to become a tiny sea in its own right.”
“A
city west of Merusu?” Ohaern asked.
“There
are several along the eastern shore of the Middle Sea. They are the homes of
seafaring trader folk.” Brevoro grinned. “I would resent their competition if I
did not know that they only trade with seacoast towns, whereas my people trade
with river villages and those inland, wherever there are roads, or even paths.”
He took a small flask and three beakers from his pack. “This is the wine of
Cashalo. Will you drink to my hope that they will withstand the Vanyar?”
“Aye,
right gladly!” Lucoyo said.
“Pay
him no mind,” said Ohaern. “He will drink to anything.” He took up a beaker. “Is
their situation hopeless, then?”
Brevoro
shrugged as he poured. “I have not heard of the Vanyar attacking a city yet—but
I had not heard of the Vanyar at all, until this last month.” He shook his head
sadly. “We traders feel saddened by the doom coming on Cashalo, for the people
there are good—hospitable to traders, and fair, though hard in their
bargaining.”
Ohaern
stared. “City dwellers who are
good
? Are they not all like those of
Kuru?”
“No,
not really. It is a matter of which god a city worships—in their hearts, even
more than with their mouths.
Kuru
worships Ulahane, heart and lips and soul. But Cashalo holds the Scarlet One in
disdain.”
Ohaern
sat still, numbed by amazement. He had met the soldiers of Byleo, and Manalo
had cautioned them to wariness with regard to the people of Cashalo. But the
notion that there might be city dwellers who were really good disturbed him in
some deep way that he could not fathom. He felt a sudden, almost angry desire
to see these people of Cashalo for himself, that he might judge whether they
were truly good, or merely not as evil as those of Kuru.
“It
is a shame to see good folk despoiled and debauched,” Brevoro sighed, “and
worse to think of them maimed and slain—but what can a man do?”
“Exactly.”
Ohaern bent a stern gaze on Lucoyo. “What
can
a man do?”
“At
the least,” Lucoyo said slowly, “a man might bring them word of their peril, so
that they might have time to prepare for the onslaught.” He turned to Brevoro. “Are
the pleasures of the cities everything they say?”
“Well,
the streets are not paved with gold,” Brevoro said, nor even paved at all, for
the most part—but the most important streets are paved with stone.”
“What
is a ‘street’?”
“Like
a road, only it runs between houses. And the people of Cashalo are clean—each
sweeps the street in front of his house every day, and they bury their wastes.
In some cities they let the wastes mound up, to harbor flies and their maggots,
and fill the air with stench.”
“But
the women,” Lucoyo pressed, with a glint in his eye. “Are they as willing as
rumor says?”
Ohaern
stared at his companion, shocked. Could he truly have been wallowing in grief
over the death of his beloved Elluaera only days before?
Then
he realized that Lucoyo was one of those men who bury their grief in soft flesh
and smother it with caresses. If he were sorely injured in a fight, he would
not even wait for his wound to be fully healed before he would be off to battle
again. In fact, Ohaern realized, that was what Lucoyo
had
done.
“Rumor
speaks falsely,” Brevoro said slowly, “or at least builds a fruit of illusion
around a kernel of truth.”
“Fruits
are delicious, and I am fond of kernels, if there are enough of them. What is
this one?”
“Cashalo
holds Lomallin and his ally, the goddess Rahani, in highest reverence,” Brevoro
explained, “but the people there worship many gods, Handradin among them. She
is a goddess devoted only to erotic pleasures, and on her feast day the women
of her cult will give themselves to any man who asks, for thus, they believe,
they will gain merit in her eyes.”
“Then
I cheer for Handradin! When is her feast day?”
“In
a month’s time.” Brevoro frowned, looking from the one to the other. “Are you
bound for Cashalo, then?”
“We
are
now,”
said Ohaern.
The
next morning they bade farewell to the traders and set off for the south—or, at
least, for the Mashra, the river that ran south, past Byleo and down to the sea
whose waves lapped the docks of Cashalo. It was less than a day’s march, so
they were able to cut the saplings for Ohaern’s coracle before nightfall. In
the morning, they stretched the skins over the bent poles, set it in the river
by a shelf that jutted out into hip-deep water, and began to paddle. Lucoyo was
nervous; the swaying and dipping of the fragile craft still bothered him; but
he had a bit more confidence than he’d had on his last ride and was able to
master his fear well enough to take a hand with a paddle himself. He was sure
they could have gone twice as far in the time it took Ohaern to teach him how
to propel the craft, so he vowed silently to make up that distance, and more,
by having two paddles drive the craft instead of one. Of course, Ohaern had to
caution him not to paddle so hard.
Down
the river they went in the dawn, with the mist rising off the waters and the
newly wakened sun setting the ripples and wavelets to dancing gold. Lucoyo took
a deep breath of chill air, amazed at the beauty around him, at the broad
expanse of water and the distant green mounding of the forest, amazed even more
that his soul seemed to swell and rise in response. He gave his head an angry
shake; next he would be as much a believer in the goodness of Lomallin as was
Manalo himself!