The Ancient Enemy (28 page)

The admiral awoke that evening, while Filek was in the ship's surgery removing a crushed foot. He hurried the work, then cleaned up and raced to the admiral's cabin.

The priests were already there. Red tops kept him away from the admiral. A yellow top was talking into the admiral's ear. Jarls was standing in the corner, rubbing his hands together with anxiety.

Then the admiral saw Filek and waved.

"Ah, my surgeon. Come here, Biswas, you did the trick. I am alive, alive!"

The priests all turned to glare at Filek.

The admiral gave a little shriek and then a whistle. "Damn me, but it hurts to move it."

"You must try not to for a few days. I will dose you with opium again, though not as heavily. It will keep the worst pain away."

"That's what I want to hear. Damned good work, Biswas. Dine with me. I feel as if I haven't eaten properly in a week."

Filek was happy to join the admiral, who dismissed the priests. Jarls followed them with a rare smile on his thin face.

Slaves brought in trenchers of sizzling meat. Filek insisted that the admiral also eat a salad of greens and bitter herbs. He complained but ate it anyway.

Later, he sipped a goblet of wine and belched contentedly.

"The monkey was excellent. What did you think, Biswas?"

"Oh, very good, sir."

"Tender and with a nice sweet taste. The cooks did well, I think."

Another gulp of wine.

"Good work, Biswas. You shall be rewarded."

"Thank you, Admiral."

They were interrupted by a messenger from the Imperial Scion, Nebbeggebben. Admiral Heuze read it and dictated a reply to Jarls, who hurried out to send it off.

"So Biswas, what can I do for you? A promotion, perhaps?"

"Well, sir, I have enemies..."

Admiral Heuze listened attentively as Filek told him about Captain Shuzt and Surgeon Zuik.

"I see. You will remain on my ship, and your women will be brought over at once. Biswas, I think you may be very useful to me."

And so, special orders went across to the
Growler
for a purdah boat to bring over the Lady Chiknulba and the Lady Simona, along with Filek's things, to the
Anvil
.

For three days and nights the ragged column of fugitives struggled inland toward the coal towns. Mount Nippiana grew steadily larger to their eyes until it loomed over them. On the second day the rooster chooks were sent out as scouts to find shelter when dark clouds billowed up from the south.

Chooks came back with word of a cave set behind an overhanging ledge of rock before the rain came down. Huddled together under the rock, they rode out the storm.

At one point when lightning was crackling down on the hills and the rain was falling very hard, someone said loudly that the storm had been sent by the Spirit of the Land, who was angered by the return of Man the Cruel. There would be war between the two, and Man would be destroyed once again.

Some of the older folk agreed with this idea, while old Haloiko, the survivor of Bilauk, gave a hoarse laugh and reminded everyone that the Spirit was exactly that, spirit, and thus not involved intimately in the workings of the material world. The subsequent discussion of the Spirit and its doctrines helped to take everyone's mind off their misery for a little while.

One thing about which there was no argument was that Toshak was their leader. Life had been peaceful for a long, long time in the Land. With his training at the Academy of Sulmo, he knew what little there was to know about war. They needed him.

The most immediate need was food, however. Nuza and the chooks had been out investigating from the moment the rain stopped.

"We gathered some wild corn, some crab apples, and some berries. But it will hardly feed the small children, let alone the rest of us," Nuza reported. "The chooks have found a few insects, but they too are growing weak from hunger."

"We have to get some food," said Renacles, the miller of Harfield, who had been helping the elderly folk. "Many of the old ones are reaching the end of their strength."

"How far is it to Uzon?" Toshak turned to Sand, the scout.

"Another day at least. It depends on how fast the old ones can walk tomorrow."

"How are they getting by?" Toshak turned back to Nuza and Renacles.

"They did very well today," said Renacles. "But without something to eat, they will be much reduced in strength tomorrow."

"We need food, then."

"There's a small village about ten miles farther on," said Renacles. "A small party will go and food can be sent back."

"Flour, milk, bushpod, anything they have, the need is very great."

Soon afterward a small group was dispatched down river to the village. It began to rain again soon afterward, and for a while the rain grew heavy. Thunder boomed in the distance.

They huddled about the smoky fires and slept pressed together for warmth. There was little talking. Their lives had been shattered, and they now lived in a new world filled with pain and suffering that they had never dreamed might come to them.

Worse was the feeling that their own legitimacy as a people, their right to exist, was challenged. For Man was the Ruler of the World; so it had been since the beginning. So it was said in the Book. They were merely the inheritors who came after the fall of Man. This had never mattered before, because they believed they were alone in the world. But now they were faced with the awful truth; Man lived, and meant to reclaim the world.

For many the initial stunning surprise of the raids had given way to a burning desire for revenge. Thru, for instance, was eager to fight again. He felt he'd learned a few things, just by surviving the battle at Harfield. Man the Cruel was not invulnerable. He could be killed just like any other living being.

For others, a terrible sense of despair had set in. Man the Ruler was returned, and he would crush them beneath his steel-shod shoes. Their own existence would vanish as if it had been no more than mist.

The storms finally passed after a long interlude when lightning flashed and flickered on Mount Nippiana and thunder boomed through the valleys. Beneath the overhang, the fugitives clutched one another for warmth and tried to find some kind of shelter from their thoughts. Several of the smaller chook chicks died in the night.

Scouts were sent out again at first light. Toshak was still anxious about a pursuit. If the men realized how slowly the column was moving, they might yet mount the effort to try and capture them. Those soldiers that had attacked Harfield would be easily capable of overhauling them.

There was nothing to eat, and nothing to do but get everyone on their feet and moving, slowly, wearily down the narrow track beside the river. Hungry bellies rumbled everywhere. Children wailed and were hushed by desperate mothers.

The scouts, however, brought word that no pursuit was visible. It looked as if the men had burned the village and then left.

The column struggled on. Some of the elderly lay down and declared they couldn't go on. Some more of the little chicks were dead. A baby mot was dying, too, and its mother's wails were heartrending to hear.

And then Toshak's prayers were answered. There were shouts from up ahead. A caravan of donkey carts was coming out of the woods. In the carts were sacks of wheat and bushpod, with dry wood and cauldrons on others.

The exhausted fugitives raised a cheer and hurried forward. Fires were built, water was brought from the river, and within half an hour cauldrons of wheat and bushpod mush were being dished out while chooks ate cracked wheat directly from the ground.

Being this hungry was something that few of the folk had ever known. In their comfortable lives within the Land they only knew hunger, if at all, in late winter after a poor harvest the previous year. The skillful husbandry of the Land's resources enabled them to exploit the plentiful wild areas when drought or hail affected the crops.

Now they ate with a peculiar intensity, sweeping up handfuls of mush from the cauldrons so as not to waste a bite.

That night in the village of Essifields, after most were bedded down, several young mots gathered at Toshak's fire. They'd reached the point where the urge for revenge had overcome the fear.

"Teach us, Toshak! Teach us how to fight."

Those who had seen Toshak whirling through the fighting knew they could stand against these men. The men were slower than mots. They were heavier, they were stronger perhaps, but they were slower. In that fact lay the folk's salvation. None of them might match Toshak with the blade in his hands, but they could all improve until they could kill men!

Toshak returned their enthusiasm as if from a mirror. He spoke with passion in his voice as he explained some of the most basic principles of war.

Never attack unless you have superior numbers.
Never be brought to battle on bad ground.
Keep the initiative if at all possible.

And most important, perhaps of all.

He who runs away lives to fight again another day.

Thru watched Toshak and felt his understanding of things grow large. The moment trembled with great potential. This was a beginning, a spark of the fire that would blaze up across the Land.

The mots and brilbies, kobs and chooks would not let themselves be slaughtered like sheep. They would fight. Before they went under Man's cruel knife, they would send many of their enemies to the dark halls of eternity.

The news of the catastrophe came to them while they were travelling through the coal country. They had left the folk of Harfield behind in Uzon and made their way up the valley through Big Seam and Little Seam to the town of Gabik. A runner came panting into the town just before dark.

He was in tears, soaked in mud.

"Tamf is burned! Monsters that some call men have destroyed the city. Many, many folk are dead."

Nuza sagged to the ground keening in agony. Kneeling there in the street she wept and could not be comforted. They spent a harrowing night in Gabik and left at first light and hurried northward. By noon they were on the main Creton-Tamf road and soon came upon crowds of refugees from the north.

Among the fugitives the troupe found friends, but no word of Nuza's family. They went on northward.

Again and again they were warned not to go near Tamf. Man was there, and he would kill them. They ignored the warnings and pushed up on Amble Pike, coming to the edge of the wide vale of Tamf. The land was empty. The villages were silent. No smoke rose from their chimneys. There was a strange kind of tension in the air. They saw occasional parties of chooks, hurrying south, and that was all.

When they came over Amble Rise the bay was visible ahead, stretched out wide and blue. In the bay were the ships, clearly visible, even at this distance of many miles.

"There are so many. I count thirty, thirty-five."

"There are forty," said Toshak, who was examining the fleet with his beautiful little telescope.

"They are so enormous, I don't understand why," muttered Thru.

"They had to be. They've come a very long way," said Toshak.

"How do you know?"

"Because we've never been troubled by them before. If we had, we'd have never forgotten it. So they must live somewhere so far away that even with ships like these they have never come this far."

"Then they aren't planning on going home."

"They are here to invade the Land and take it from us."

Toshak had voiced their common fear, growing steadily for days. Not just a raid—invasion. Unending.

"And for us?" said Gem. "What do they plan for us? We live here already."

"Extermination. They will destroy us completely."

The chill wind ran through them all, a wind off a mountain of empty skulls.

"The Assenzi, we must warn them! They will help us."

"I imagine they have already been warned," said Toshak, practically. "But what will they do?"

Finally, they came within sight of the town. The walls still stood, but that was all. Blackened ruins jutted up from the charred central area. Farther out the buildings were being demolished by men seeking to reuse wooden beams.

"Look!" said Gem, pointing down the shore to the west.

Large sheds were rising there, crude, boxy structures, of three and four stories in height.

"What are those?" said Hob in simple wonder.

"Those must be for the men. They have landed. They intend to stay," Nuza said in a sick voice.

"There is no one here. Let us head east," said Toshak.

"Get down," whispered Gem, pointing to a patrol of six men that had come into view far down the road.

They crouched low and moved off into the trees, retreating a ways into the undergrowth. The patrol moved up and went past, marching at an easy pace, carrying spears, with shields slung on their backs.

They waited until the patrol was gone before slipping across the road and turning east toward Sonf. The hamlets along the road were empty. Some had been looted and partially burned. By the end of the day they reached Sonf itself, and were out of the area touched by the raiders.

Nowhere had they seen a mot, a chook, a brilby, or anything else but a few wild birds. The whole world had come shuddering to a halt and every eye was wide-open while the ears listened with exaggerated care. Every living thing knew the feel of Man in its bones.

It was too dark to cross the River Songbird that night. They bedded down in West Sonf, and kept a careful watch throughout the night. In the morning the river was at low tide, and they walked across on the stepping-stones.

Now they began to see a few mot scouts, carrying bows and full quivers. They reported that King Rolf had retreated to Sonf, and was organizing his army there. This was the first news of any organized resistance, and they were further encouraged by the knowledge that mots from all over Tamf, Pelej, and Creton had flooded to the muster of the King's banner.

As they hurried east, Nuza asked everyone they met for news of the refugees. She heard all kinds of wild tales, mostly spun from exaggerated fears, but learned nothing of the fate of her parents and family. She found it hard to sleep at night, not knowing if they still lived. Thru's efforts at comforting her were not completely successful, either.