The Ancient Enemy (34 page)

"Then they might strike at Sulmo; that is the largest city in the Land."

"They might, but Sulmo is far south of here, and we know they didn't raid farther south than Bilauk. They moved steadily north after that, and after Tamf, Dronned is the next large city to the north."

"How will we face them?"

"We will have to meet them, shield to shield. If they do attack Dronned, we will give them a hot welcome."

Suddenly the door burst open and the King, himself, came hurrying in wearing nothing but a tunic, trousers, and yellow slippers.

"There you are, the two of you, both the fellows I wanted to talk to the most."

Melidofulo and Toshak looked at the King expectantly.

"Here," the King proffered a message. "There is marvelous news for you."

Toshak took the message, scanned it, and handed it to Melidofulo.

"A female?" said Toshak.

Melidofulo's eyes jumped wide open.

"Where?"

"Down in Creton."

"That is wo-man, the wife of Man."

"Woman," Toshak mouthed the unfamiliar word. "Excellent."

Thru Gillo hastened south to Creton that same day with three companions. They were all veterans of the assault on the Man-Place: Onu Hamf, Beremel Padjaster, and Dunni of Tamf.

Onu was a hefty young fellow and the others slimmer, but all were capable of a fast walk all day. Dunni was said to have extraordinary skill with the bow. Their mission was to bring the female, the wo-man, back to Dronned.

Creton was a federation of villages and small city-states, owing allegiance to no king. Still, Thru was sure the folk of Creton would honor the wishes of the King of Dronned in this time of emergency.

They made good time. The weather was fine, and they passed through the ruins of Tamf on the second day out. They planned to spend the night with the Watch on Tamf, who were camped a mile or two farther down the road.

Tamf was a strange sight. Very little remained except for stonework here and there. Most of the walled city had been burned or pulled down. Piles of rubble and partly burned wood had been pushed together at the street corners. Here and there were houses that had been miraculously spared heavy damage and stood like sentinels to the devastation of the rest.

The walls remained, of course, including the ancient watchtowers and the gatehouse, but they were blackened by soot.

The South Road, where he had lived the winter before, had had the misfortune to be on the side of Tamf nearest the Man-Place. Everything had been plundered for lumber for the huge Man barns. The laundry building where he had lived so happily had been torn down. Only the foundations remained.

The view up the road to the bridge was stark. There was just the city wall, the gate tower, and the bridge. All the graceful roofs and towers of old Tamf were gone.

Thru recalled the happy time he'd spent there, working during every scrap of daylight producing his best work. Those wonderful evenings with Nuza. Eating by the fire, making love on the big bed he built in the corner of the space.

Thinking of her brought on the pain of loss and separation and left him with a weird ache in his heart.

The walls of Tamf were all that was left of that time.

He looked down the road. Grey clouds were coming in. It would be best if they stopped the night here with the Watch on Tamf.

The camp was now a solidly built fort set on a bluff overlooking the Tam River. Most of the materials, former beams and rafters from Tamf, had come from the now-reclaimed Man-Place.

They were met with a warm welcome. Thru and the others were well-known to all the young mots in the current Watch force. The capture of the Man-Place had set off an explosion of activity in the Land. The terror had given way to the rage in the hearts of the folk of the Land.

There was sad news too. King Rolf of Tamf had finally succumbed to his wounds. In the woods of Sonf, he had breathed his last. The succession would pass to his son Sudu, who had already been anointed. The folk of Tamf, meanwhile, had evacuated the coastal regions. The mots there had gone to the muster in Dronned.

Thru and his companions made a quiet supper of bushpod and mealpuppies washed down with some thin beer. They slept in bunks like the rest of the Watch.

The next day they set out for Creton.

Wagons laden with building materials pulled from the Man-Place were rumbling slowly eastward into the interior as they went past. Tamf was going to be rebuilt, eventually. But for now, nothing was to be wasted in a place where the enemy might return. The coastal cities had emptied of valuables and furniture. Inland, in the towns along the edge of the Drakensberg, the price of storage for furniture had jumped fourfold overnight. And still the wagons were heading east.

Thru, on the other hand, was going west and south, out into Creton once more. Most of the folk had fled these parts, and at night the wolves howled after detecting the presence of Thru and his fellows.

Through the vale beneath Mount Nippi's grey peak they went, under the eaves of the gracious beeches along the Fwaan River. They found small villages abandoned, the polder still being tended by small groups of mots who camped in the woods. These mots were hungry for news of the world outside. The emergency had brought traffic on the roads through Creton to a complete halt, and most of the local folk had fled up into the Coal Mountains.

Thru and his party did their best to answer questions. The men had made no further landings. Meanwhile, there was a lot of training in progress. The army was quickly taking shape. Units had been formed up, officers appointed or merely confirmed in some already-existing units, and it was now fumbling its way through the process of learning to fight as an army. Indeed Thru had had to leave his own regiment just as they were beginning drills in line combat.

Everyone they spoke to had finally come to the realization that life as they had known it was over. War had come, and unless it were won, there would be no future for any of them.

The following day they came out into the coast country. In the afternoon they saw the sea and they had reached Meulumb, a town a little up the coast from Crozett by evening. There were two messages waiting there for Thru. One, dated three days before, was from Mies Aglit, the royal agent in Crozett. It urged Thru and his "force" to hurry to Crozett where the "woman" was being held prisoner. The second was dated the day before and urged Thru even more strongly to hurry his progress. Crozett had many angry refugees from the devastated villages, mots who had seen their families slain by men. There was a danger that the woman might be killed by a mob.

With the moon lost in cloudy skies there was very little light, so they rested, rose before dawn, ate a hurried breakfast and got on the road within minutes of the sun's breaking the eastern horizon. By late afternoon they were entering Crozett.

They couldn't fail to spot the changes. Crozett had a wall and guards now. Thru also noticed that the moat had been deepened and filled to the top. Crozett was not about to join Bilauk in the list of places taken by surprise.

The guard carefully perused Thru's documents, checked the Royal Seal, and sent them on at once to the Guild Hall.

Inside they found the town constable, Iras Bafuti, who was struggling with a thousand requests from refugees for help in looking after their houses or their polder while they were absent.

Bafuti rose from the table with a sigh of gratitude. His clerks continued to open messages and pile them up on the appropriate stack.

"Welcome to our city." Bafuti clasped each of them by the hand. "I take it you come on official business."

"Yes," said Thru, fumbling in his pack. "Here are letters Royal from King Belit describing us and our mission."

Bafuti wasted no time in opening and scanning the scroll.

"Ah hah! Yes, that would be a very good idea." He looked up at Thru.

"You will be taking the prisoner back with you. You will need guards, I think. There are many very angry mots in the town. They want to kill her."

"What is her physical condition?"

"She seems well. We have fed her buttered oatmeal, and she takes some seaweed and podwater. She is kept in a guarded room, but she is no longer kept in bonds. She hasn't shown the slightest trace of violence toward us."

"That is good news," said Thru, who had been hoping that the female version of Man would be more tractable than the males.

"I have to say that you've come in time to save me from a very difficult situation. My support among the mots in the town is dwindling with each day. There are a lot of folk who want this woman dead."

"No doubt. They have suffered grievously at the hands of Man."

"So we shall have to make your exit a quiet one."

"We could be on our way by first light."

"That might not be soon enough."

"Then we shall prepare to leave at once. Can you provide us with guides so we can take backcountry roads and paths?"

"I can and I will. Let's get you on your way before the mob arrives. I'm sure that the news of your arrival will have spread beyond the guard at the gate. They will know why you're here, and they will not want her spirited away."

Thru gulped a cup of hot guezme tea and went to inspect the prisoner. At the last moment he decided that he should go alone. There had been repeated mob scenes outside the Guild Hall in the past couple of days. She would be frightened enough at seeing a strange mot up close, let alone four of them. There was difficult work ahead; it would be best if she was cooperative. By daybreak Thru wanted to be ten miles from the city.

Onu and the others went with Bafuti to plan their getaway. They would use a postern gate on the northern part of the wall. There was a private road that ran through a plantation just outside. A map of the city and its environs was rolled out on the big table in the Guild House.

Thru was taken down a flight of stairs to an underground floor. A low-ceilinged corridor took him past a series of storerooms. At the end was a room that had been emptied for use as a cell. A pair of guards stood outside the door.

Thru knocked, waited for a count of three, and went in.

It was uncanny. In the lamplight he took her for a mor. She was wide-hipped and full-breasted in the same way, but her face was bare of fur and her skull was covered in long hair like a horse's tail.

She was standing behind a small table, her hands pressed together in front of her body in a universal gesture of anxiety. Thru was thankful he'd come alone.

He raised a hand out to her with the palm forward while keeping his other hand on his stomach. Being this close to a human made him shiver a little, and he tried not to let it show.

Her eyebrows shot up momentarily, she blinked a few times, while he studied her with his eyes. Her nose was much longer than that of a mor and her eyes were wide-set and darker than those of his own folk. And still it was astonishing how much like a mor she was. All she lacked was the pale fur on her face.

He pressed his fingers to his chest and gave his name, repeating it a couple of times. He hoped fervently that his voice didn't crack. This was an oddly emotional moment, and he was still fighting down his instinctive fear of her.

Then to his surprise, she said, "Thru Gillo," and bowed to him. Then she raised her hands to him palms forward and pointed to her self.

"Simona Gsekk," she said with another bob of her head and a little smile.

Thru had never seen a man smile. The fear had lessened suddenly, and he saw again how wise Toshak had been to send him to rescue this woman. She would communicate with them. Now their very survival might depend on whether he could bring her safely to Dronned.

He beckoned to her to approach. She did not hesitate, but came around to his side of the table. The clothes they'd given her didn't fit very well; the leggings were cut for a mot and were tight around her hips.

"We have to leave, now," he said while gesturing to the door. She understood the gesture, even if she didn't understand his words.

She walked out the door and he followed. The guards fell in on either side and escorted them back through the building to Bafuti's headquarters above. As they came up the stairs they heard angry voices shouting in the streets.

At the sight of her the clerks stopped working. Every eye was on the woman.

The word had gone all over Crozett by then. Mots from Dronned had come to take the woman away.

Even Bafuti showed surprise on his face. He'd thought that the woman would surely be shackled in some way, but here she was completely unimpeded.

"I'm afraid a crowd has gathered," he said. "Your arrival has upset the beehive here, I fear."

"How many?"

"At least fifty, and more coming all the time. It's the worst yet."

"How many doors does the building have?"

"Three, there are two doors leading onto the yard at the back."

"Then I will talk to the angry ones while my companions escort the woman out the back."

"Are you sure you should try and speak to them? They're very angry, probably been drinking, too."

"I know, and I understand their anger, believe me. I saw Bilauk, and Hurves. I fought the men at Harfield and the Man-Place. I can tell them the best way to gain revenge."

"Well, then. No fur off my neck though if they don't listen to you."

Thru looked outside. The throng was gathered outside the big front doors of the Guild Hall, mots dressed in country boots and wool trousers, stout jackets and small square hats, brilbies in long coats and big wool hats. When they saw the movement at the shutters they erupted with a roar.

Onu and the others clasped hands with Thru, then they led the woman out the back. Thru could see that she understood the situation. She heard the anger in that crowd and understood why it was there. Her eyes caught his again, eyebrows arched in question. He gestured for her to go with Onu. Then he pointed to his chest and then to the outside.

Something like panic came into her eyes, then she was gone. He waited until they were at the back door, then he went out the front and onto the porch. The roar went up again and slowly subsided as he held up his arms for quiet. Eventually it was down to just an angry growl from here and there.