The Elder Gods Page 9

  “I’m a hunter, One-Who-Heals,” Longbow reminded the shaman. “Nothing in the forest can hide itself from me. The servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh have been sent into our lands because the Vlagh hungers for information. I think it will be my lifelong task to make certain that the Vlagh’s hunger remains unsatisfied, for I will kill all servants it sends here and deliver their heads to Misty-Water’s grave as gifts to her spirit, as a sign that I love her still.”

  “And will you now go to the hunt, my son?” Chief Old-Bear asked.

  “If it pleases you, my father.”

  “It pleases me very much, Longbow.”

  And so it was that Longbow of the tribe of Old-Bear vanished into the forest to seek out the venomous servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh. It was rumored over the next decades that the Vlagh sent many of its servants into the lands of the tribe, but few if any of its servants returned, for Longbow had become one with the forest, and the creatures of the Wasteland could neither see nor hear him, nor could they even catch his scent as death sprang upon them from his bow.

  The return of the legendary Zelana of the West stirred great excitement in all the tribes of her Domain, and the people of Old-Bear’s tribe felt greatly honored when word reached them that she would soon come to visit. Longbow, however, had felt no great need to meet with her, and so it was that when word of her approach reached the village of Old-Bear, Longbow simply faded back into the forest to continue his hunt.

  She had sought him out, however, and he had found that to be disturbing. He had been certain that no one could find him in the forest if he did not wish to be found, but Zelana had unerringly come to the place where he was to ask him for his aid.

  “I’m not really interested, Zelana,” he had told her bluntly. “I have a responsibility of my own right now. I think you’d better choose someone else.”

  “This is very important,” she had pressed.

  “Not to me, it isn’t. There’s only one thing that’s important to me, and it’s what I’m doing right now.”

  “You don’t like us very much, do you, Longbow?” the little girl who’d accompanied Zelana had asked shrewdly. “You don’t really like anybody, do you? You don’t have any room inside you for ‘like,’ because you’re all filled up with ‘don’t like,’ aren’t you?”

  “It goes quite a bit further than ‘don’t like,’ little one,” Longbow had told her, his voice softening slightly. “The servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh killed she who was to become my mate, so now I kill them.”

  “That sounds fair to me,” the little girl had said. “How many of them have you killed so far?”

  He had shrugged. “Hundreds, I suppose. I don’t really keep count anymore. I’ve been doing this for twenty years now.”

  “If that’s all that really matters to you, we know how you can kill thousands, don’t we, Beloved?”

  “Perhaps even more than that, Eleria,” Zelana had replied. Then she looked Longbow straight in the face. “We hate the creatures of the Wasteland almost as much as you do, Longbow, and if this turns out the way I want it to, we’ll kill them all, and then we’ll go into the Wasteland and kill That-Called-the-Vlagh. How does that sound to you?”

  “It’s interesting enough to make me want to hear more,” he had conceded.

  He was just a bit puzzled by these two. Zelana had been very arbitrary, demanding that he obey her commands. Eleria, however, appeared to have seen right to the core of his abrupt refusal to accept Zelana’s command, and had cleverly waved “kill them by the thousands” in front of him almost like waving bait before a fish.

  Longbow ruefully admitted to himself that he’d taken Eleria’s bait almost without thinking. “Maybe I’d better keep a very close eye on that little one,” he murmured to himself. “There’s much more going on here than seemed right at first.”

  Longbow had been a bit dubious when Zelana had assured him that the ship of the Maag called Hook-Beak would come across the face of Mother Sea to the Land of Dhrall, and even more skeptical when she’d told him that the Maags would do anything for gold, but when the long, narrow ship of Hook-Beak arrived at the village of Old-Bear almost exactly when she’d told him that it would, Longbow’s skepticism began to fade. Moreover, Sorgan Hook-Beak had responded to the word gold even as Zelana had suggested that he would.

  Zelana had been right twice so far, and if the Maags would be as useful as she seemed to believe, the long voyage to their homeland could be worth the time and trouble.

  Longbow had not killed a servant of the Vlagh for many days now, and that made him a bit ashamed. Misty-Water had always been patient, though, so he was fairly sure that her spirit would be willing to wait while he gave Zelana of the West the assistance she needed to bring the men of Maag to the Land of Dhrall to help Longbow kill all the servants of the Vlagh—and ultimately, of course, the Vlagh itself.

  Longbow was quite certain that the spirit of Misty-Water would be quite pleased when he brought the head of the Vlagh to her grave and laid it there as a present for her.

  2

  The Seagull returned to Old-Bear’s village late one blustery afternoon, announced somewhat in advance by the booming sound of her sail. Longbow immediately saw the advantage of the sail, but when the wind was just right, a sail could be very noisy.

  “Will you leave now, Longbow, my son?” Chief Old-Bear asked when the Maag ship hove to a short way out from the pebbled beach.

  “It may be that it will be in the best interest of the tribe, my father,” Longbow replied. “Zelana of the West has told me that the Maags can show us ways to kill more of the creatures of the Wasteland, and that may please the spirit of your daughter Misty-Water.”

  “Then it is proper for you to go, my son,” Old-Bear agreed. “Do not be concerned about your absence. I myself will attend to the grave of Misty-Water while you are gone.”

  “I would appreciate that, my father,” Longbow said. “It may be that in time you and I will be able to bring the head of the Vlagh itself to the grave of your daughter, and that should please her spirit.”

  “I know that it will please mine,” Old-Bear said approvingly. “Go, then, my son, and may the spirit of Misty-Water watch over you.”

  “It shall be as you have said, my father,” Longbow said quite formally. He went on down through the village to the pebbled beach, pushed his canoe out from the shore, and took up his paddle to cross the choppy water to the Seagull. The village and his forest were fading behind him, but he didn’t look back.

  “Nice little skiff you got there, friend,” a fellow with enormous hands observed, leaning over the rail of the Seagull.

  “Skiff?” Longbow was puzzled by the word.

  “That skinny little boat you got there. It goes real fast, don’t it?”

  “It takes me where I want it to go.”

  “You want we should bring it on board?”

  “It might be best. I don’t know the tribe of the Seagull as yet, and if it happens that I don’t get along very well with them, I might need the canoe to take me back to where I belong.”

  The man with the big hands laughed. “There’s been a few times when maybe I could have used a skiff of my own for the same reason. I’ve been at sea for most of my life now, and every so often I’ve had trouble my very own self getting along with my shipmates. You’re Longbow, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what they call me.”

  “They call me Ham-Hand,” the man at the rail said. “It’s not much of a name, but I guess I’m stuck with it now. Come on board, Longbow. The cap’n wants to see you. I’ll take care of your canoe for you.”

  “I should tell Zelana of the West that I’m here,” Longbow said.

  “She’s with the cap’n in the cabin back at the stern,” Ham-Hand advised. “She took his cabin away from him back at the place called Lattash. He wasn’t none to happy about that, but she’s the one who’s paying us, so he didn’t argue with her. He still uses the cabin for business during the daytime,
but he bunks with me and Ox after the sun goes down.”

  Longbow handed the braided thong attached to the front of his canoe to Ham-Hand and climbed smoothly aboard the Maag ship. “Just exactly where’s the stern?” he asked.

  “The back end of the ship,” Ham-Hand explained.

  “Who’s this one you call ‘Cap’n’?” Longbow asked. “I’m not familiar with that word.”

  “You talked with him the last time we passed through here,” Ham-Hand replied. “His name’s Sorgan Hook-Beak, and he owns the Seagull here.”

  “That clears things up a bit. We Dhralls would probably call him ‘the chief.’ I’ll talk with him and let Zelana know that I’m here.”

  “I’m not sure you should take that there bow with you,” Ham-Hand said dubiously. “It might just make the cap’n a little nervous.”

  “It goes any place where I go,” Longbow said curtly. “If that bothers the people here on the Seagull, I’ll go back to the forest where I belong.”

  “Don’t get excited,” Ham-Hand told him. “We’re all on the same side here.”

  Longbow grunted and walked on back toward the stern of the ship.

  There was a burly Dhrall with a flaming red beard leaning against the low structure at the rear of the boat. “I am Red-Beard of the tribe of White-Braid,” he introduced himself rather formally.

  “And I am Longbow of the tribe of Old-Bear. I was told that Sorgan Hook-Beak wished to speak with me and that Zelana of the West is with him.”

  “They are in there, Longbow of Old-Bear’s tribe,” Red-Beard said, pointing at a rectangular opening in the front of the low-roofed structure.

  “We will speak again, Red-Beard of White-Braid’s tribe,” Longbow said. The formalities might fade as he and Red-Beard became better acquainted, but for right now formality was probably the more proper way to go.

  The child Eleria leaned through the opening Red-Beard had indicated. “He’s here, Beloved,” she called back over her shoulder. “It’s that one who spends all his time killing those he doesn’t like.”

  “It’s not right for you to say that, child,” Longbow chided her.

  “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps, but it isn’t polite to come right out and say so.”

  “Oh, poo,” she said. Then she held her arms out to him. “Carry me,” she said.

  “Did you forget how to walk?”

  “No, but I like to be carried, that’s all.”

  Longbow smiled faintly, picked her up, and carried her into the place that smelled of tar and had a low roof.

  “Welcome, Longbow,” Zelana said. “Why are you carrying Eleria?”

  “She wanted me to,” Longbow replied, “and it didn’t particularly bother me.”

  “He’s very nice, Beloved,” Eleria said. “He didn’t object in the least little bit to carrying me.” Then she kissed Longbow’s cheek. “You can put me down now,” she said.

  “He’s not a dolphin, Eleria,” Zelana chided.

  “I know,” Eleria agreed, “but he’ll do until we go back home. I need to kiss things every now and then. You know that.”

  Zelana sighed, rolling her eyes upward. “Oh, yes,” she said. “This is Sorgan Hook-Beak of the Land of Maag, Longbow. I believe you’ve met him before.”

  “Yes,” Longbow replied. He looked at Sorgan. “The man called Ham-Hand told me that you wanted to speak with me,” he said.

  “It’s not really all that important, Longbow,” Sorgan said. “I just wanted to let you know that we’ll make you as comfortable as we can during our voyage. Is there anything you’ll need?”

  Longbow shrugged. “A little time every day to fish, is about all. I get hungry now and then.”

  “You can eat with the crew, Longbow. We can talk more later. Right now I’d better go get us under way.” Sorgan rose to his feet and went out.

  “He isn’t speaking in our language, is he, Zelana?” Longbow asked.

  She blinked. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “His lips are not shaping the words which are coming from his mouth. Something seems to be changing the language he speaks into ours even while he talks.”

  Zelana laughed with obvious delight. “This will embarrass my brother to no end,” she chuckled. “I probably should have noticed that myself. You’re very observant, Longbow.”

  “Isn’t that why we have eyes?”

  “You’re going to take a bit of getting used to. Do you always jump right to the point like this when you speak?”

  He shrugged. “It saves time. Now, will you tell me exactly why you sought me out to come with you? What is it that I’m supposed to do to help you persuade the Maags to come to the Land of Dhrall to kill the servants of the Vlagh for us?”

  “I want you to shoot arrows, Longbow.”

  “Who or what do you want me to kill?”

  “I don’t really need to have you kill anything just yet, Longbow,” she replied. “We’re going to the Land of Maag to fetch warriors to help us fight the creatures of the Wasteland. I want you to shoot arrows at things which are a long way away from where you’re standing, and to hit as many of them as you can. The Maags need to know that the warriors of Dhrall can be as dangerous as the warriors of Maag are. We need their help, but we also need their respect.”

  Longbow considered it. “Geese, I think,” he suggested.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “People always seem to be startled when they see geese falling down out of the sky with arrows sticking out of them,” Longbow explained. “They don’t seem to realize that arrows can hit things up in the air as well as down on the ground.”

  “Can you actually do that, Longbow?” Eleria exclaimed. “I mean, can you really bring geese down from way up in the sky with your bow?”

  “It’s not really very difficult, little one,” Longbow said. “Geese fly in straight lines, so it’s easy to know where they’ll be when your arrow reaches them. They’re good to eat, too, so I won’t be killing them for no reason. It’s not right to do that.”

  “I think we should keep this one, Beloved,” Eleria said. “And if you don’t want him, can I have him?”

  That startled Longbow just a bit.

  3

  Red-Beard sleeps with the Maags Sorgan calls ‘the crew,’” Zelana told Longbow later that afternoon. “He’s a jovial sort of fellow, but he’s very observant. We need to know more about the Maags, so Red-Beard’s taking care of that for us. I think you should sleep in here with Eleria and me, though. We’ll tell the Maags that you’re here to guard me so that nobody gets any improper ideas. The real reason is that I’d like to keep you just a bit separate from the Maags, if possible. In a little while, you’ll be doing some fairly spectacular things with your bow, and it might be useful if the Maags of the Seagull have a certain amount of awe in their voices when they tell other Maags about you.”

  Longbow shrugged. “Whatever seems best to you,” he replied. “How long is this task likely to take?”

  “Not too long,” she replied. “Sorgan’s bringing quite a bit of gold back to Maag with him. When he starts showing it to the other Maags, they’ll probably flock to him like vultures.” She frowned. “That didn’t come out exactly right, did it?” she said.

  “It’s a possibility we should keep in mind, though,” Longbow suggested. “I’ll watch them. If they seem to be getting too hungry, there are ways to persuade them to go eat somebody else.”

  Longbow arose at first light the following morning, and he was a bit surprised to find that Zelana was awake. “You don’t sleep very much, do you?” he asked her.

  “It isn’t really necessary for me, Longbow,” she replied. “Why are you up so early?”

  “I thought it might be useful for me to get to know these Maags a bit better. The more a hunter knows about the creatures he hunts, the more successful he is.”

  “You aren’t here to kill them, Longbow,” she chided.

  “No,” he agre
ed, “but capture is sometimes more difficult than kill, isn’t it?” He took up his bow and went out into the grey light of morning.

  There was only the faintest hint of a breeze, but there was enough to tell Longbow that it was coming from the east, and that was very unusual for this time of year. Evidently, Zelana was tampering with things.

  There was a faint ringing sound coming from the front of the Seagull, and Longbow went forward to see if he could determine the source of that sound.

  A small Maag was standing near the front of the Seagull, and he was pounding on something that glowed almost as if it had fire deep inside of it.

  “What is that,” Longbow asked curiously, “and why are you pounding on it?”

  “It’s called iron,” the little Maag replied, “and I’m shaping it with my hammer. Ham-Hand broke his knife the other day, and he wants me to make him a new one. He’s sort of clumsy, so he breaks things all the time.”

  “Where is it that you find this iron?”

  “I haven’t got no idea at all where it comes from, but all I have to do is work with it. I don’t have to go out and find it. You’re the one called Longbow, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what they tell me. Does this iron glow like that all the time?”

  “No. I have to heat it up in my fire first. That makes it soft and easier to work with. They call me Rabbit, by the way—probably because I forgot to grow up some time way back when. Anyway, we make all our tools and weapons out of iron. One of my chores here on the Seagull is hammering fishhooks out of iron. I’m glad you came along, though. The cap’n told me that maybe I ought to hammer out some arrowheads for you.”

  “Stone arrowheads are customary in the Land of Dhrall,” Longbow told him. “They’ve worked well for us in the past. I don’t see any reason to change.”

  “Could I see one of your arrows?”

  “Of course.” Longbow took an arrow from his quiver and handed it to the small man.

  Rabbit carefully examined the arrow. “Do you make these your very own self?” he asked.