Kiteman of Karanga (18 page)

"Karl, I never thought I'd see you again," Lars said as he embraced his older brother.

"I didn't think so either," Karl replied with tears in his eyes. "Where's Father?"

"He's over there. He knows you helped save our village, but he still wouldn't come to see you."

"Then I won't go look for him now," Karl said sadly. "Tell me what you've been doing since I left, Lars. Have you learned to fly yet?"

"Yes," Lars answered almost bashfully. "In the village they say that I have your gift. But it's not really true. I learned a lot watching you, Karl."

As the two brothers continued to talk, the constellations moved slowly, and after what seemed like only minutes to Karl, the Lizard had set in the west. It was dawn, and the sun had started climbing into Karanga's blue sky when Karl was called by the chiefs.

Karl advanced toward the council. As the spokesman stood up, Karl saw the ritual blade used only for executions in his hand. Though his limbs wanted to tremble, Karl held himself steady.

"Karl," began the spokesman, "we have considered your story and the danger facing Karanga. First, because you broke your banishment, we hereby sentence you to death."

The light seemed to go out of Karl's eyes. He felt plunged in a dismay and grief more awful than any death the chiefs could deal him. Didn't they realize what he had done to help them? Didn't they see the tremendous danger of the Hrithdon? Were they so trapped in their code that they couldn't change?

As Karl waited for the stab of the ritual knife, he wanted to cry out to them one last time, but stopped short. The chiefs would see it only as a final act of cowardice. But as he waited, nothing happened. The speaker had not finished.

"We will commute that sentence on one condition. You must lead a Karanga force to destroy the oja fields. You must also achieve peace with the Hrithdon. Do you accept these conditions?"

"And my banishment?" Karl heard himself asking.

"When the death sentence is commuted, your banishment will be commuted too, and you will be restored to your full rights as a Karangan."

"Then I accept," Karl answered.

A few days later, Karl sat in Koron's house making plans with Rika, Zanzu, and his brother, Lars. Karl had asked that two flyers from each tribe join the Karangan force, and already more than half the flyers had assembled. Karl set them to work sewing water sacks and making thin lengths of terry leather rope in preparation for their desert crossing.

That night Rika, Zanzu, and Lars departed with the lizards. At midmorning the next day Karl gathered his flyers on the rooftops of the Amonte village. Forty strong, they were a proud representation of the boldest and most daring Karangan hunters. All of them had brought wings that seemed aflame with color. Their faces were as fierce as hawks as they talked confidently about their exploits to come.

"Kitemen," Karl began nervously, "we'll be leaving shortly, and our journey is going to be a long one and a hard one. And once we are across the desert, our task there will be difficult and dangerous. We must attack and destroy the Hrithdon oja fields and force the Hrithdon to a peace parley. As Zanzu said, if we destroy enough oja quickly enough, they will
want
peace. I have no doubt that we can do this. In addition, there is one other point to remember. As we embark we are no longer tribesmen—Iskars, Unzi, Vantars, and so forth. Instead, we are Karangans, and we are fighting together for the survival of all Karanga."

His speech finished, Karl divided the flyers into three groups. The first group he would lead himself, and he put two Kandan brothers, Mycar and Muroc, strong and fearless men whom Zanzu had pointed out, in charge of the other two groups. Then they departed. The forty colorful kitewings against the blue sky were a magnificent sight, and the Amonte villagers gave them a rousing goodbye cheer. Spiraling upward together in a large thermal, the Karangan force proceeded westward. At noon they passed over Rika, Zanzu, and Lars and started out across the desert.

For the next ten days the flyers played leapfrog with the three lizard riders as they all progressed on their journey. Each morning, as the sun grew hot, the lizards were used to launch the flyers. Then Rika, Zanzu, Lars, and the lizards slept through the day and traveled the next night to catch up with the flyers, who avoided getting too far ahead of their companions on the ground. When they reached the mountains of Eftah, they prepared to separate.

"By the Lizard, we made it this far!" exclaimed Zanzu as he readied his mount for a dash to Ithdon.

"If only Murthdur knew we were here," said Karl, "he'd sweat and tremble."

"He'll know as soon as I get to Ithdon," Zanzu promised. "I'll have a message sent at once. Remember, white banners with yellow and blue streamers mean he's ready to talk peace. Good luck to
all
of you." Zanzu's glance took in the forty kitemen, who had grown to admire the smuggler during their ten-day desert crossing. Giving Karl and Rika a quick embrace, Zanzu started his lizard down the slope and disappeared into a forest of scrub.

With Zanzu gone, Karl turned back to his kitemen. It was time to plan their tactics and divide the force.

On a clear autumn morning, Karl sat with Rika on a mountaintop pinnacle overlooking the nut-brown oja fields far below. Nearby, Karl's third of the force had finished making dozens of torches out of pine branches and pitch. To the east and west the two Kandan brothers, Mycar and Muroc, had positioned their groups. Karl watched the sky. Very soon the sun would be high enough for the attack to begin. He hoped their plan would work. It had seemed so simple and foolproof when they had first thought about it. But he knew a lot more about the Hrithdon now, and he realized how many unforeseen things could happen.

"Its a good plan," said Rika, sensing Karl's doubts. "It has a better chance of succeeding than anything else we've thought of."

Rika's reassurance was helpful, but Karl still felt his fear rising, the same old fear that he'd known for so long. It would bother him, he knew, but he just would not let it stop him from doing what he must do.

Karl stood up. "It's time!" he shouted to his flyers. "Get ready."

His heart pounded. The future of Karanga and Eftah depended on what they did now. Strapping himself into his wing, Karl looked toward Rika and caught her eye. Her fierce determination helped him to be steady. Taking a pine torch and lighting it at the fire, Karl launched. Rika and Lars and the other flyers followed, but two men stayed at the rocky stronghold to keep the fire burning and watch for the Hrithdon.

Down, down the sunlit slopes Karl dropped with dizzying speed. He maneuvered around a rocky outcrop, skimmed across the pine forest, and soared out over the farmland that lay between their mountaintop retreat and Ithdon to the south. Now Karl saw their first target, a cluster of oja fields at the base of the mountain. As he glanced at Rika, Lars, and the others, they spread out over the target area and when he signaled by dipping his wing, they all loosed their firebrands.

Karl watched his own torch. At first he saw nothing, only a puff of dust at the spot where his torch hit. Then a circle of flame appeared around it. It grew and grew until suddenly, with a great sucking whoosh, it enveloped the field. In a few seconds the entire cluster of fields was ablaze with a light more brilliant than the noontime sun. Karl turned to lead his flyers away from the flames, but as he looked back to make sure they were all following, he saw that the flyers in the rear were being drawn back into the flames, even though they were diving full speed forward. Horrified, Karl watched as three of his kitemen were sucked into the fire. Turning quickly, Karl led his remaining flyers away as fast as they could go and landed them high on the side of the mountain valley.

They all stood on the mountainside watching the unbelievable spectacle before them. Higher and higher rose the roaring cloud of flame and smoke. To Karl the sight was both fascinating and horrible. The conflagration continued with unimaginable fury and brilliance. He watched the Hrithdon flee in confusion as their lizards rushed headlong into the dazzling wall of flames.

"What's wrong with them?" Lars shouted.

"The fire's so bright and they're so close that it's blinding them," Rika answered. "I feel sorry for them, even if they are Hrithdon."

A breeze that very soon became a wind pushed at their backs, and Karl was thankful that he had thought to land on the side of the mountain. They sat down to keep the wind from pulling so strongly at their wings.

"It's starting a thermal," cried Lars.

"A giant thermal," cried Karl. "Look up." The beginnings of a towering cumulus cloud rolled with smoke and water vapor far, far above them.

Soon, as the oja was consumed, the fire went out, leaving the ground blackened and hot. The wind tapered off to a steady breeze.

"I wonder if we could fly in that thermal now," Lars asked.

"It's too hot. It will turn you to charcoal," Karl answered.

"If it's too hot, I'll turn out," said Lars. "It might be a thermal we can use at night or even in the rain. If it is, we need to know it."

Before Karl could say no, Lars launched away from the side of the valley. Alarmed, Karl observed his brother approach the rising column of superheated air. Lars wing dipped, then straightened, seemed to tremble, and all at once he was drawn upward with amazing speed. One, two, three turns, and he was at the base of the cloud, thousands of feet above them. They all watched spellbound as Lars flew out of the artificial thermal and spiraled back down. A few minutes later he landed near them, his face flushed.

"What a thermal!" he cried. "It's hot, but not much hotter than the desert at noon. These oja fields make thermals when they burn. As long as we wait for the smoke to clear, there's no reason we can't use them, even at night."

"Let's try it," Karl said. "We should get back to our camp and prepare for our next attack, and this oja thermal might save us some time. Come on."

Karl launched straight for the fields where the hot ground continued to heat the air. As he entered the thermal his wing was rocked and buffeted by the turbulence. Then he was inside the thermal, and with breathtaking speed the hot rising air buoyed him aloft. Karl had never experienced anything like it. Three turns later, he turned out higher than the mountain they had left an hour before.

Flying much higher for safety now, Karl, Rika, Lars, and the others made sortie after sortie over the oja fields. By late in the afternoon a hundred fields were either blackened or blazing. As the sun set through the smoke it made the valley look like a land of desolation. To the east and west, clouds of smoke and vapor towered above the horizon, signs that the Kandan brothers were doing well. Red-faced, coughing, and tired, they ate standing, while the two flyers who manned their pinnacle lit new torches for them. One of the lookouts spied a small column of Hrithdon moving swiftly along the center of the valley, toward Ithdon.

"They may not want to negotiate," said Karl, "but if they wait too long, they won't have an oja harvest either."

"I think they're confused," said Rika. "It will take time for reports to reach Murthdur, and more time for his answer to get back. They'll either try to catch us or they'll negotiate."

"How could they catch us?" Lars asked.

"They might think of something were not prepared for," Karl answered. "Zanzu warned me never to underestimate the Hrithdon. So we've got to press on with the attack tonight and force them to negotiate now!"

Just after the moon was up, Karl took another torch and pushed off into the darkness. One by one the others followed, and a line of lights moved across the sky. Their starting point was high enough so that they could glide straight to the center of the valley. They had also discovered that the thermals created by the burned oja fields lasted for several hours. This made it possible for them to continue the attack at night.

Karl maneuvered toward the faintly silver luster of an area of unburned oja fields below. Then they dropped their torches, which sputtered and sparked as they fell through the blackness. A few moments later the stars had all but disappeared, and they could see each other clearly in the near daylight of the newly blazing fields.

All through the night Karl exhorted his weary group to greater effort. Field after field they ignited, and the night sky was lit up as never before. In the distance the horizon flickered and glowed with yellow luminescence, proof that the Kandan brothers were also pressing their attack. At first light, one more flyer had been lost to the oja fireballs, and the rest were burned and blistered by the dripping pitch from their torches. After eighteen hours of unceasing toil, they were hungry, dirty, and groggy with fatigue. Some of the Karangans were becoming erratic in their flying, so Karl declared a rest period at dawn. Within minutes, all except the two lookouts were deep in a slumber of exhaustion.

"Hrithdon! Hrithdon!" came a cry from the lookouts that brought Karl awake. "Hrithdon! Hrithdon!"

Karl jumped up and ran to the edge of the precipice. The noon sun blinded him as he looked out over the smoldering wasteland that had been ripe oja fields the day before. Then he saw the column of Hrithdon traveling up the road from Ithdon at full tilt. At the head of the column a guardsman carried a white banner with yellow and blue streamers attached. Karl turned around to the others.

"Rika! Lars! Kitemen, we've done it!" he shouted hoarsely. "That's the sign Murthdur wants peace." He hugged Rika and Lars and clapped his tired kinsmen on the back.

After dispatching two kitemen to fly over the Hrithdon column and acknowledge their sign, and sending two more kitemen to Mycar and Muroc to stop the attack, Karl and Rika prepared to meet Zanzu.

"Remember," Karl said to Lars when he and Rika were ready to go, "if Rika and I are not back here in four days, burn every oja field in the Hrithdon Empire."

Giving his brother a farewell embrace, Karl climbed back into his battered wing, and Rika climbed into the faithful Asti. Together they took off over the familiar yet much changed landscape and turned toward Ithdon.