The Sage (21 page)

Love!
The word rattled Culaehra—but it amazed him even more that Lua could speak of
his loving another, and that without bitterness or anger.

“She
speaks wisely,” Yocote said stiffly. “We must trick the thing—it has proved we
cannot defeat it by force of arms alone.”

That
was the last thing Culaehra wanted to hear, but he slowed reluctantly, glaring
at the monster. It waited, impassive and patient—and ready.

“She
has shown you the way,” Yocote reminded him.

A
gleam came into Culaehra's eye, and slowly, clumsily, he began to mimic the
steps he had seen Kitishane execute. Slowly, yes, but faster and faster, his
steps wove her intricate pattern, making it wider and wider, taking him farther
and farther to each side. Warily, the fuchan began to imitate him, hopping out
the pattern as well as it could with its one foot. Culaehra began to move
forward and backward as well as from side to side, and each bend forward
brought him closer and closer to the fuchan.

Yocote
began to beat on his thigh and chest, making a rhythm to match Culaehra's
dance; Lua joined in, with a lilting, fluting, wordless tune. Faster and faster
the music went, faster and faster Culaehra danced, faster and faster the fuchan
hopped, growing more and more clumsy, trying frantically to keep up with
Culaehra. He began to leap high between steps, the fuchan leaped high—and
Culaehra lashed out with a kick, straight at its “hip.”

It
was a brave try, but fast though he was, the fuchan was faster. It hopped out
of the way, even as it swung its single foot high, kicking back in
imitation—and Culaehra, landing, caught that foot and shoved it higher. The
single arm flailed, the fuchan let out a caw of alarm and struggled to swing
its foot down—but Culaehra held it up, and the monster slammed down onto the
ground. Its head cracked against the stony path and it went limp.

“Foul
beast!” Culaehra growled, and stepped in to kick where it should have had a
groin—but Lua threw herself onto his leg, wrapping arms and legs about it,
crying, “No, Culaehra! Not for revenge! You have beaten it; that is enough!”

He
shook his leg, snarling, but she held on long enough for Kitishane to come up
and throw her arms about his chest. “Yes, enough and more, O Brave One! You
have rendered the poor thing unconscious; have pity on its empty life! Let us
pass it quickly now.”

Culaehra
stared down in amazement and saw only her eyes, huge and brown, staring up at
him. Then, a moment later, the whole of her face registered, seeming small and
fragile, chin little, forehead high, nose a temptation that he suddenly ached
to kiss, even more than the moist, full lips below .. .

She
saw her effect on him and smiled as she stepped away.

“Come,
then!” She held out a hand, even as she turned away to pass the fuchan.

She
did not see Lua's face, a strange mixture of sorrow and tenderness, tasting the
sweetness of seeing love begin as well as the bitterness of seeing one whom she
had loved now discovering another.

Yocote
saw, though; his face went hard, impassive, as he felt the blow of knowing she
loved another—but his love for her overcame the hurt, and he stepped to her,
saying softly, “Don't you dare tell them, Lua, or they'll say you're wrong and
start a fight just to prove it!”

She
turned to him in surprise, then managed to laugh even as her eyes filled with
tears. “Oh, Yocote! Must you taste all of life?”

For
a moment the longing was naked in his face, and he touched her hand. “All that
I can—but the sweetest is denied me.”

Lua
stared, then blushed and turned away. Yocote gazed after her a moment, face
somber, then pulled down his goggles and followed.

They
passed the prostrate fuchan, harmless now that it was unconscious. Lua almost
tarried to tend to it, but Illbane reached down and urged her along. When they
were a hundred feet farther along the pass, he let her pause to look back.

Kitishane
turned to gaze, too, and shivered. “It seems as if it should be so helpless,
yet it is lethal! You did amazingly to best it, Culaehra.”

“Only
because of the example you set me.” It was hard not to take all the credit, but
the hunter would have done that, so Culaehra did not. “Yours was the insight,
gentle one.”

Kitishane
stared at him, amazed, but he did not notice; he had turned to Yocote. “You
were right, gnome,” he said grudgingly. “We could never have defeated it by
force alone.”

Yocote
stared in surprise, but Illbane nodded, smiling in his beard. “Well said, and
very true, Culaehra! No one of you could have defeated the poor thing alone,
but together, you were easily a match for it.”

His
praise made Culaehra uncomfortable. He turned to glare at the old man. “Why did
you not aid us, Illbane?”

“Because,”
the sage said, “there was no need.”

Culaehra
stared at him, amazed, then whipped about to stare at his companions—and found
them all staring at him.

Illbane
saved them all from embarrassment. “It stirs, it wakes! Quickly, we must be out
of its sight, or it will pursue us!”

None
of them wanted that. They turned to hurry away. Culaehra stood staring at them
a minute, struggling with unfamiliar feelings, then realized that Kitishane had
recovered her sword, but Illbane had left his blade lying there in the path.
Culaehra scooped it up, feeling a surge of triumph and a great relief, stuck it
through his belt and hurried after them. Time enough to recover the scabbard
later.

As
he caught up, Kitishane was asking, “You called it a 'poor thing,' Illbane.”

“Would
not you call it poor,” the sage returned, “if you had no sex nor companionship,
and your whole life was spent in waiting to stop folk who might never happen
by?”

“Then
how did it come to be?” Yocote asked.

“I
shall tell you when we sit about the campfire, but let us first come to a place
where we may light one in safety! Hurry—the monster even now crawls to the rock
face to pull itself upright!”

Culaehra
glanced back, but they had begun to descend; the path sloped downward, and its
rising behind them hid the fuchan from sight. How could the old man know what
it did?

Illbane
called a halt when they were a mile farther down the path. By that time, it had
darkened enough so the gnomes led them, their goggles up. They chose a wide,
flat area with a rock face at its back, and small, stunted trees that yielded
enough dry cones for a fire—though Culaehra found himself wondering if Illbane
really needed wood for a blaze.

There
was little or no game so high up; dinner would be jerky, stewed to soften it,
and hard biscuit. As they waited for the water to boil, Illbane explained, “Bolenkar,
being an Ulharl, is half human and half Ulin, so he was born with magical powers,
though nowhere nearly as strong as those of his father Ulahane. The human-hater
taught all his halfling children the use of those powers, and they are strong
enough to work a great deal of mischief.”

“But
how could he make so warped a creature as this fuchan?” Yocote asked.

“Even
as you have said—by warping one that the Creator had made. In this case, he
took an unborn child, divided it in two, removed any glands that might have
given it desires of its own, and wiped its mind of all but the desire to please
him. When it was grown, he taught it fighting of a limited sort, then set it to
guard the pass, making sure the sole thought in its mind was to gain his
pleasure by stopping any who sought to come by.”

“And
that it would earn his displeasure if any came through?” Lua asked softly.

“Regrettably,
yes—but Bolenkar is no Ulin, and may not know.”

“If
he learns, we might have been kinder to slay the thing,” Culaehra grunted.

Lua
cried out in protest, but Kitishane seemed unsure.

Yocote,
however, had another question. “Why did Bolenkar wish to keep folk from coming
through that pass? It cannot be only to ensure that they would not escape the
Vanyar and the other marauders!”

“I
cannot say with any certainty,” Illbane said reluctantly.

“Certainty?”
Culaehra sat bolt upright in indignation. “Give us your best guess, then!
Surely we have earned that much— and your guess is so close to knowledge that
it makes little difference! Why did Bolenkar set a guard on that pass?”

Still
Illbane was silent, his lips pressed hard and thin as he stared at the fire.

It
was Yocote who asked it. “He knew we would be coming, did he not?”

“I
think so,” Illbane told him. “I think he has guessed that much, yes.”

There
was a numbed silence around that fire, so small in the vastness of the mountain
night.

At
last Lua asked, her voice small, “How can we be so important?”

“Because,”
Yocote answered, “it is Illbane who leads us.”

The
wind blew cold indeed around their shoulders.

Strangely,
they slept well that night—so well that Illbane's shout of warning yanked them
from so deep a sleep that they were all thick-headed as they leaped up, looking
about frantically, trying to clear the fog from their eyes. “What is it,
Illbane?”

“Where
is the danger?”

“What?”

“Into
the trees, quickly! An ogre comes!”

They
needed no chivvying. Lua and Yocote scrambled up the nearest oak while Culaehra
caught Kitishane about the waist and fairly threw her up to catch the lowest
branch of an elm. He ran around to clamber up the boughs of a large fir,
crying, “Stop him with your magic, sage!”

“He
works,” Yocote called, “but the defense could be as devastating as the attack!”

Sure
enough, Illbane stood by the fire, sawing the air with his hands and
chanting—but not quickly enough. A hand the size of a knapsack swung out of the
shadows and sent him careening into a tree. Culaehra almost shouted with rage,
but throttled it as the monster itself stepped into the firelight, grinning and
drooling. It stood ten feet tall or more with hunched shoulders that were balks
of muscle, arms like the limbs of a century-old oak, and legs like its trunk.
Its torso was blocky and lumpen, swag-bellied and hairy; its head was so
low-slung that it almost seemed to grow out of its broad, hairy chest. It was
so hairy that at first Culaehra thought it wore a tunic and leggings of fur.
Then the light flared up; he saw the moth-eaten hide that served it for a
loincloth, and could see how it contrasted with the creature's own pelt. Lua
gasped with horror at the sight, and the ogre turned its head to look up,
catching the firelight. Its head was like a huge melon with a gash of a mouth,
foul and with wide-spaced, blackened stubs of teeth, its nose scarcely more
than a shelf with nostrils beneath, its eyes small and glinting with malice
under a very low brow. Even Culaehra had to repress a shudder.

High
in his tree, Yocote gestured and mumbled with frantic haste.

The
ogre apparently decided the sound had come from a night bird or something
equally beneath its notice, for it turned to waddle to the campfire, yanking
the spit from the flames and running it through its mouth, cleaning off the
roasted fowls in one bite. It sniffed, following a scent to Kitishane's pack,
which it tore apart, jamming the store of rations into its maw, then caught up
the wineskins and tossed them in, too. It bit hard, swallowed, then spat out
the empty skins. After that, it battered down their tents and swatted packs
flying, grunting in disgust as it found no more food. Finally it turned to
go—but as it went, it bumped into the oak, and Kitishane let out a small cry as
she clung to her swaying branch in fright. The ogre looked up, saw her, and
grinned its widest. It reached up to pluck at her, but Kitishane clung all the
tighter, crying out. Culaehra shouted in alarm and scrambled down from his fir,
but the monster merely broke the limb off the tree and stripped Kitishane from
it as if she were a flower. She screamed as the ogre lifted her toward its
mouth.

Culaehra
hit the ground, bellowing, “Put her down, fiend! That morsel is mine to take or
leave!” He leaped high, lashing a kick into the monster's negligible buttocks.

Negligible,
but tender; the ogre howled like a whole pack of wolves, dropping Kitishane and
turning on the outlaw. Huge fists swung at Culaehra, so huge that he could have
seen them coming a mile away and had no trouble dodging. He sprang aside from
the left, then from the right; then both hands slapped the ground beside him,
and Culaehra jumped on one with his full weight. The ogre bellowed and tried to
swat him with the other hand, but Culaehra leaped aside, and the ogre roared as
he slapped his own hand. Thinking the monster was distracted, Culaehra leaped
high and grabbed hold of a huge ear. The ogre went on roaring, but one huge
hand swung up and knocked him away as if he were a gnat.

Culaehra
flew through the air, trying to somersault, to get his feet under him; but he
only succeeded in landing flat on his back. Pain wracked him; he could not
breathe, and he saw the ogre towering above him as it straightened up, then
turned toward him, lifting a huge foot—

An
arrow struck its nose, an arrow that bounced off but made the monster roar with
pain. He turned toward the source just as another arrow lanced up and struck
his forehead. Culaehra would have admired the marksmanship—it wasn't a very
large target—if the monster hadn't been advancing on the archer with blood in
its eye. And the archer was Kitishane! He scrambled to his feet and dove at a
huge knee.

He
struck behind it like a boulder, and the monster shouted with surprise and
fright as the leg folded under it. It sat down hard, and for a moment Culaehra
was squeezed so tight that he felt his head must burst—but the ogre fell onto
its side, and the pressure eased enough for Culaehra to wrestle himself free.