Crystal Gorge Page 8

  Sorgan nodded. “Dahlaine gave me twenty-five yesterday too. You’ve got twice as many men as I have, though. You should have held out for more, don’t you think?”

  “I didn’t really feel like haggling with her, my friend. That shrill voice of hers sets my teeth on edge. How long do you think it’s going to take your fleet to get on north to Dahlaine’s part of the Land of Dhrall?”

  Sorgan shrugged. “Three—maybe three and a half weeks. It sort of depends on the weather. We’re getting fairly close to autumn, and the weather can turn sour without much warning. Anyway, we’ve both been through these wars a couple of times, so we know how to hold the bug-people back when it’s necessary, and we can count on some help from our employers. Once we know for sure which part of the Land of Dhrall the bug-people will hit next, we should be able to join forces before things get out of hand.”

  “Probably so, yes,” Commander Narasan agreed. “How’s your supply of that bug-venom holding out?”

  “We’ve got plenty, Narasan,” Sorgan replied. “That poison’s almost worth its weight in gold.”

  “I’ve noticed, yes.”

  “Did Veltan give you any kind of idea about how long it’s going to take him to deliver those animal riders that he’s bringing up there to help me?”

  “Horses, Sorgan,” Narasan said. “They call them horses.”

  Sorgan shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “I don’t really think they’ll be very useful when the bug-men attack.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Sorgan,” Narasan disagreed. “I’ve heard some stories about what happened over in the Land of the Malavi. The horse-soldiers’ speciality is surprise attacks. They whip in, kill about half of the foot-soldiers on the opposing side, and then they ride away—at a dead run. In many ways, they’re very much like you Maags. You both specialize in speed.”

  “I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” Sorgan conceded. “I’ll have to see them in action before I make any decisions. When do you think Veltan’s going to be able to get them up to the north country?”

  “He wasn’t very specific, Sorgan.” Narasan shrugged. “You know how he is sometimes. I don’t think he sees time in quite the same way as we do.”

  “That’s probably because that pet thunderbolt of his has fried his brains,” Sorgan said. “Try to keep Lady Zelana’s sister from flying apart, if you can. Oh, one other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Would it be all right if I borrow that young officer Keselo? He and Rabbit and Longbow make a good team, so we probably shouldn’t separate them.”

  Commander Narasan gave his friend a sly smile. “Of course, Sorgan,” he said. “We can talk about how much he’s going to cost you some other time, can’t we?”

  “You wouldn’t!” Sorgan exclaimed.

  “Fair is fair, Sorgan,” Commander Narasan said with mock seriousness.

  Commander Narasan prudently let the Maag fleet leave the harbor first. The Maags had a longer voyage ahead of them, of course, but Andar was fairly certain that the commander’s decision was based on something a bit more significant than simple courtesy. The Maags were fiercely competitive, and Andar had noticed that Sorgan’s control of the other ship-captains in his fleet was marginal at best. Andar was almost positive that if Commander Narasan had ordered the Trogite fleet to set sail, some—if not all—of the Maags would have taken that to be a challenge, and a boat-race right now was the last thing they needed.

  After the Maag ships had cleared the harbor, Commander Narasan ordered the Trogite fleet to set sail. The sun was well up now, and Andar was obliged to shade his eyes as the fleet came out of the harbor. That was the one thing about sailing that Andar didn’t like. There wasn’t any shade, and the sun always seemed to be just out in front of the ship upon which he was stationed. He turned then and walked on back to the stern of the Victory. The rest of the fleet was wallowing along behind, so Andar went to the main cabin to report the progress to the commander.

  Veltan’s older sister was in full voice as Andar entered the cabin. “Any fool can see that the creatures of the Wasteland will attack my Domain next,” she told Commander Narasan and Queen Trenicia in a shrill voice. “My older brother is just trying to assert his authority by robbing me of half the forces I’ll need before too much longer.”

  “Sorgan and I have been through this twice before, Lady Aracia,” the commander assured her. “We have ways to delay the enemy if it’s necessary. Maag ships are almost as fast as the wind. If the enemy attacks your Domain, my people will be able to hold them back until Sorgan joins us.” He turned to Andar. “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “The last of the ships have cleared the harbor, Commander,” Andar replied, “and we’ve got a favorable wind. I’m fairly sure that we’ll make good time today.”

  “Could you give me an estimate of just how long it’s going to take us to reach Lady Aracia’s temple?”

  Andar scratched his cheek. “If the wind holds, I’d say about ten or eleven days. If what we’ve been told about the bug-people is anywhere close to the truth, it’s going to take them at least twice that long to move a significant force into Lady Aracia’s Domain, and that should give us all the time we’ll need to build fortifications. Then, too, once our ships have unloaded our men, they’ll be free to sail on down to the Isle of Akalla and pick up Queen Trenicia’s army and bring it on up here. I’d say that Lady Aracia’s Domain’s going to be well-protected before the bug-people show up in any significant numbers.”

  “There you have it, Lady Aracia,” Narasan told their distraught employer. “If all goes well—and I’m sure it will—Sorgan’s Maags would just be redundant. We won’t really need them when we get right down to the point.”

  “Well—maybe,” Aracia reluctantly agreed. “Let Dahlaine keep those pirates. They aren’t real soldiers anyway, and that grubby country off to the north is all they’re really fit to defend. My Domain is the very heart of the Land of Dhrall, so it’s vital that we protect it from the incursions of the servants of the Vlagh.”

  “We’ll have it well covered, My Lady,” Andar assured her.

  “You gentlemen are busy,” Aracia said then. “If you encounter any problems, let me know about them. I’m sure I’ll be able to deal with them for you.” And then she left the cabin.

  “I think I’m in your debt, Andar,” Narasan said after Aracia had left. “That woman’s starting to irritate me with all that screaming, and you seem to have a gift for quieting her down.”

  Andar shrugged. “I have an older sister who’s at least as excitable as Aracia is,” he explained. “I learned ways to calm her early in life. As I recall, my father was most grateful.”

  “You people have very complicated societies,” Queen Trenicia of Akalla observed. “Things are much simpler on our island.”

  “Complications make life more interesting, Queen Trenicia,” Commander Narasan replied with a faint smile.

  “I much prefer simple, Lord Narasan,” the warrior queen replied with a broad smile.

  “Has Veltan’s older sister always been like this, Queen Trenicia?” Narasan asked.

  “I haven’t known her ‘always,’ Lord Narasan. She came to the Isle of Akalla last spring with bars of that yellow lead she calls ‘gold’ that everybody seems to think is valuable. I refused, of course, but then she offered diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. I’ll work for jewels, but not for yellow lead.”

  “I don’t want to offend you, Queen Trenicia,” Narasan said then, “but a society where women are the leaders—and the warriors—is most unusual. How did it happen to come about?”

  The warrior queen shrugged. “From our way of looking at things, societies dominated by men are the unusual ones. The men of the Isle of Akalla are useless—except as breeding stock. They spend hours sitting in front of mirrors trying to make themselves look pretty by painting their faces.”

  “You’re not serious!” Narasan exclaimed.

  “Oh, yes,�
� Trenicia replied. “In a certain way, looking pretty is their only way to stay alive. Ugly men don’t live very long on the Isle of Akalla.” Then she laughed. “I had a predecessor who ruled the isle several years ago who didn’t really care much for men. She mated with quite a few of them, but when she grew tired of one of them, she’d cut off his nose and push him out of her house. She had quite a collection of noses by the time she was killed in a war with the women from another part of the Isle.”

  Commander Narasan looked at her in horror.

  “Don’t worry, Narasan,” she said with a wicked little smile. “Your nose looks fine right where it is.”

  Andar swallowed hard. This was a very, very strange woman, and she seemed to spend a lot of her time looking at Commander Narasan. “Better him than me, I guess,” he muttered to himself.

  2

  As the Victory sailed along the east coast of the Land of Dhrall, Andar spent more and more of his time looking at the trees.

  “Are you having some thoughts about going into the lumber business, Andar?” his lean, dark-haired friend, Brigadier Danal, asked on their fourth day out from the harbor near Veltan’s house.

  “Not really,” Andar replied in his deep, rumbling voice. “What I’m really looking for is color. Autumn isn’t too far off, and the leaves of certain trees change color when autumn rolls around. Red leaves mean winter uniforms, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I hate those winter uniforms,” Danal replied. “That wool makes me itch all over.”

  “Itching’s better than freezing, isn’t it?”

  The boundary between Veltan’s Domain and Aracia’s wasn’t really clear, but after three or four days at sea, Andar was fairly certain that they were now in Aracia’s part of the Land of Dhrall.

  Aracia and her little girl, Lillabeth, came out on deck a few times, but they spent most of their time in the cabin near the bow of the Victory. Andar didn’t really miss Veltan’s older sister that much. Her superior attitude and shrill voice didn’t sit very well with him, so he tried to avoid her as much as possible.

  As the Victory and the rest of the fleet continued sailing in a generally northeasterly direction, Andar saw several farming villages and even a few small cities along the coast. The cities seemed sort of unfinished to Andar, largely because they didn’t have walls like cities should. Of course, the Land of Dhrall was generally peaceful, so walls weren’t really necessary, but still, that unfinished look made them appear incomplete, for some reason.

  The wheat fields appeared to have no boundaries, and that was something else that seemed most unusual. Property owners back in the Trogite Empire always marked the edges of their land with fences, but so far as Andar was able to determine, “mine” and “yours” didn’t really mean all that much to the people here. It seemed most unnatural to Andar, but it might just be that “ours” was the guiding principle here.

  It was approaching autumn now, and the endless wheat fields lay golden under the late-summer sun. The soil here must be quite a bit richer than the soil back in the empire, Andar concluded, since the wheat stalks stood almost twice as high as was normal back home. “It looks to me like they won’t run out of food around here,” he murmured.

  “That’s ridiculous, Narasan,” Padan protested when they were all gathered in Narasan’s cabin for their daily meeting a few days later. “The city has to have a name.”

  “I don’t think she sees it as a city, Padan,” Narasan disagreed. “She refers to it as ‘the temple.’ There are some shops there, I understand, but we’re still talking about a land without money, so what we might call a ‘business’ wouldn’t be exactly the same here. Anyway, Aracia’s temple is the only significant part of the town as far as she’s concerned. Maybe a few of you should nose around in the city outside the temple walls a bit after we get there. The word ‘temple’ suggests a priesthood, and sometimes priests haven’t got a very firm grip on reality. Let’s find out what the real people think. We’ll also need to know if there’s anything at all resembling an army in this part of the Land of Dhrall. Omago built a fair military in Veltan’s Domain, and Longbow’s archers did their share of the work in Zelana’s. There might just be some sort of defensive force here, but I don’t think Aracia would even be aware of it. She’s too busy being important to pay very much attention to what’s going on around her.”

  Andar was fairly sure that Narasan had been glossing over a goodly number of Aracia’s faults. Of course, if what they’d heard about the Elder Gods was anywhere close to being accurate, they were nearing the end of their cycle, and there was a distinct possibility that some ugly terms like “dotage,” “senility,” and “foolish” might apply, despite the fact that, with the exception of Dahlaine’s grey hair and beard, they showed none of the usual signs of extreme age—on the outside, at least.

  It was about midafternoon on the following day when the Victory led the fleet into what civilized people would call the “harbor” of Aracia’s temple-town. There were a couple of crudely constructed docks jutting out from the beach, but nothing at all resembling the piers of Castano. There were several small buildings above the tide-line, but the major structure in the town—if anyone could call it a town—was quite obviously the temple.

  “I don’t think letting the men go ashore here would be a very good idea,” Narasan told them as they gathered again in the large cabin near the stern of the Victory. “We know very little about the people of this part of the Land of Dhrall, so let’s not take any chances. Let’s keep things sort of formal until we get to know the people here a little better.”

  “Should we leave our swords behind, Commander?” Brigadier Danal asked a bit dubiously.

  “I don’t think so, no,” Narasan replied. “We are soldiers, after all, and we have been hired to fight a war. Just the presence of our swords should let everybody in the temple know why we’re here and what we’re capable of doing. No jokes or laughing, Padan. I’m sure it’ll hurt your face just a bit, but force yourself to look grim and bleak. We want the high-ranking people—priests, most likely—to know just exactly what we are and why we’re here.” He looked around at them. “Any questions?” he asked with one raised eyebrow.

  Nobody answered.

  “All right, then. Andar, would you be so good as to go advise ‘holy’ Aracia that we’ve arrived and that we’re ready to go ashore whenever she wants us to?”

  “I’ll see to it, Commander,” Andar replied a bit reluctantly. Then he went out onto the deck of the anchored Victory.

  He tapped on the door of Aracia’s cabin. “We’ve arrived at your temple-town, ma’am,” he called out. “Commander Narasan wants to know if you’d like us to escort you to your temple.”

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she replied through the door. “I’d better go on ahead and prepare my people to meet you. They aren’t used to seeing soldiers, so let’s not frighten them.”

  “Whatever you think best, Lady Aracia,” Andar said in a neutral tone. Then he went back to Narasan’s cabin. “She’s not ready for us to go ashore yet,” he reported. “She wants to prepare her people before we make our appearance.”

  “Or maybe clean house,” Padan suggested. “You know—mop the floors, dust the furniture, wash the windows, order the servants to put on clean clothes—all those important things a lady absolutely must do to impress the visitors.”

  “That’s absurd, Padan,” Danal scoffed.

  “I know,” Padan conceded, “but unfortunately, it might just come very close to being the truth.”

  It was almost noon on the following day when a rather awkward canoe approached the Victory. Unlike the canoes of Lady Zelana’s Domain, this one appeared to be a hollowed-out log with a dozen or so paddlers on each side. A grossly fat man wearing a black linen robe and an ornate miter was standing at the front—which didn’t seem to be a very good idea to Andar. Standing up in a canoe could be a very good way to get wet in a hurry.

  “Holy Aracia invites you to he
r temple, mighty warriors,” the man announced in an almost oratorical manner. “Welcome are you in her Domain in this time of crisis, forasmuch as we, her servants, are ill-prepared to meet the unholy invaders which most certainly even now are preparing to assault this precious land with evil intent, and though we would all joyfully die in her defense, beloved Aracia has most wisely chosen a different course, and you, O mighty warriors, have generously agreed to stand in our stead and to wreak destruction unimaginable upon our foes. Welcome, then, one and all, to the holy Domain of Divine Aracia, and at her command I have come here to advise you that she eagerly awaits your coming that you may speak with her of diverse crucial matters in preparation for the coming conflict.”

  Padan turned rather abruptly and hurried over to the other side of the Victory, and Andar heard his muffled laughter.

  “You may advise Holy Aracia that we shall come forthwith, revered sir,” Narasan said, accepting the invitation with no hint of a smile.

  “Most kind are you, mighty warrior,” the fat native replied, “and I shall most quickly return to Holy Aracia’s temple to advise her of your coming.” He signaled the men holding paddles, and the hollowed-out log boat turned awkwardly around and went back toward the beach.

  “Not a sound!” Commander Narasan hissed sharply. “I don’t want to hear so much as a giggle—at least not until that pompous fool gets out of earshot.”

  “Is it my imagination, or does it look to you like this town was built on some sort of mound?” Brigadier Danal asked Andar as they started up from the beach.

  “It does seem to be a bit higher than the rest of this coast,” Andar agreed. “It’s probably just a hill of some kind.”

  “You don’t see too many hills this close to a beach in flat country,” Danal reminded his friend. “I hate to say this, but isn’t it possible that it’s man-made?”