A Dragon at Worlds' End (14 page)

At the fire Relkin found Lumbee and Norwul breaking up some huge mushrooms brought in by a pair of Ardu women. These mushrooms were delicious, especially when they were roasted on hot stones. In fact, it was essential to heat them thoroughly, since this also destroyed a poison that they carried that could blind or kill the unwary.

Relkin squatted down beside them. "Looks like it will really rain soon. Our time is getting short. We have to move much more quickly."

Lumbee introduced the two older females.

"These are Iuuns and Yuns. They are grandmothers of the Red Rock people. There are many Red Rock in the group."

Relkin nodded to the two Ardu females. Their hair had gone silvery, their faces bore lines and creases, and the fur on their tails had gone white.

"Among the Red Rock is old Tummpy. He is oldest man alive," said the one identified as Iuuns.

"And how old is that?"

"He is four tens of years… how you say it?"

"Forty."

"Old Tummpy cannot walk so fast. He isn't the only one who wants to slow down. Many need to rest. Since we escape slaver camp we move every day, move far, far. Let us rest."

"The rains are coming. We have to reach the other slaver camps and rescue the captives."

Iuuns and Yuns exchanged a long look.

"You want to go to another slaver camp?" Yuns asked.

Relkin sensed the sudden fear behind Yuns's words. "To free the slaves."

Iuuns pointed a long finger at him. "No. You want to make slaves of Ardu yourself. That is why you came here. Why would a no-tail free Ardu people unless that no-tail planned to make Ardu his own slaves?"

Relkin was stunned for a moment by this level of distrust.

Lumbee was embarrassed and looked down into the ground. Even Norwul grunted a loud dissent.

When Relkin looked back, Lumbee's cheeks were coloring.

"Relkin saved my life." She couldn't keep the anger out of her voice. "He and the dragon saved all of you. He isn't a slaver; he comes from the north. In fact he comes from far, far away, some magic place, Lumbee not really understand, but he not a slaver."

She said this with such intensity that the two women turned away in a huff.

Norwul grumbled to himself again.

Relkin stood up, mildly astonished.

"Don't leave, Relkin."

"No, I'm not leaving. We've got work to do, and not that much time to do it. The rains will come, very soon. The dragon thinks tonight."

"Rains come," said Iuuns. "Time for Ardu people to head north. We gather ankolu and yoberry in the north woods. We hunt for three-horns on the plain."

Norwul shook his head with a grimace. "This is difficult to think about. We always go to the plain at this time. Soon the ankolu will be finished. But we cannot go. Not yet. We have to free other Ardu."

"Bah," said Iuuns. "You are a fool. You will end up in a cage going down the river. You mark old Iuun's words, now."

Norwul swallowed heavily, then glared back defiantly. "Norwul trusts the no-tail."

"Out of your own mouth you say that," said Yuns.

"The spirits of the forest will turn away their hearts from the Ardu if they follow the no-tail," chimed in Iuuns.

"We have to split up the group," said Relkin, ignoring the women.

"See?" said Iuuns. "See what the tailless one proposes now?"

"We have to split up." Relkin was determined to be heard. "Most of the people will go north, but slowly, because of those who are having trouble. The men, perhaps some of the fittest females, will go south with me and the dragon. We go down the river, find slaver camp, and free the prisoners."

"How you know there is slaver camp to find?" snapped Yuns.

"There's more than one camp. Everyone says this."

"True," said Norwul.

Relkin pointed to the water. '"This river is wide and deep farther down—so I have heard."

Norwul nodded. "This is the Black Eel River. It get wide and deep on other side of the near ridge."

"They will have a camp there, I am sure of it."

"Then we must go there and free the captives." Norwul was final.

Iuuns gave an audible snort of anger. Then she and Yuns left the fire.

"There will be trouble," said Lumbee.

"I don't understand," said Relkin.

"They don't trust you. To them all tailless are evil. They have lived a long time and that is all they have known. When the tailless came, they killed and enslaved Ardu."

"So even if I freed them from the clutches of that gang of slavers, they can't accept that I might be trying to help them?"

"Males will go with you. We know we must find all the other camps that we can and free our people." Norwul got up and moved away.

That left Relkin and Lumbee alone, for the first time in days, it seemed.

"I miss the way things were," said Lumbee.

"Oh, yes, we didn't know we had life so good, did we?"

"Lumbee thought life was very good."

"Well, I did, too. By the gods, I miss that life." He hesitated a moment. "Lumbee, I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Ask what?"

"Well, maybe I should stay here, live with Lumbee, join the Ardu."

As he said this, a vision of Eilsa Ranardaughter crossed his mind and almost confounded his tongue.

"No, Relkin, we cannot be parents of children together. You are not Ardu. And anyway you are pledged to another. You have told me that many times."

"But I might not ever get back there alive. She may think I am dead and go ahead and marry within her clan. I wouldn't blame her."

Lumbee gave him a sharp look.

"No. You say these things, but Lumbee know that you will go."

"Well, perhaps Lumbee would come with me."

Lumbee laughed, her white teeth flashing in perfect curves.

"Lumbee go out into wide world? Oh, no, I would be the only real person, surrounded by nothing but no-tails. Everywhere, you say, nobody is like Lumbee, only like Relkin. Lumbee not like that idea."

She nodded vigorously. "But do like Relkin." Her smile was back.

"Well, perhaps I'll stay."

Lumbee smiled again, and there was something mysterious in her eyes. "Good."

Relkin laughed a moment, then sobered. There were still lots of eyes on them; they had to take things very slowly, with maximum care not to upset too many of the older, more powerful people in the group.

"Good indeed," he said quietly. "But first we've got to work fast. We have to free as many Ardu as we can from these horrible camps."

"You will go downriver with men and Bazil?"

"We will. We have to get some of those boats. We can make much better time if we have boats. Really put the fear of the forest god into these slavers."

"Lumbee will come, too."

Relkin knew that Lumbee's mother and father were still unaccounted for. Norwul, Palls, Ommi, and the others from Lumbee's kin group had been taken while out on a hunting expedition. Erris and Uys and the rest of the group had been taken in camp. That was where Lumbee was wounded but managed to escape in the canoe.

Relkin didn't even try to dissuade her. He knew that Lumbee would never be deterred from coming.

That night he went over the plan very carefully with Bazil and then with the Ardu men, all of whom wanted to come. Only two dozen were selected, however, all robust, mature males with missing family members. The rest would go north with the majority of the people. They would travel slowly. The small group going south would go as fast as possible. Five of the younger, fitter females would accompany them. There were protests against this, but the young women insisted. They had missing family, they would go! They would not necessarily fight, but they could find and prepare food. They were better at that than the males, anyway, who chiefly hunted and lived the ceremonial round through the year.

They divided the weapons. The assault force took most of them, including all the swords and metal hatchets. Some of the long metal spears and knives were left with the majority, for defense against pujish.

In the morning the rains began. Both groups set off after a hastily assembled meal under lowering skies with a steady continuous drizzle falling.

The war party had seven swords, twelve metal hatchets, six long knives, and six spears. The Ardu would practice with the new weapons whenever they could, but they were still clumsy, more used to club and arrow in fighting their occasional wars between kin groups. Since achieving freedom, each male had made for himself a new war club. The sharp steel edges of the knives were a marvel to men used to working with flint tools. Their new clubs were weighty and well carved.

The rains had really begun this time. The drizzle slowly swelled into a continuous, heavy downpour. The clouds grew very dark; the land was wreathed in mists. Once in a while, when the rains let up a little, the mists rose to cloak the world.

The marchers were as wet as the world they moved through. Yet the ground was still soaking up the rain, the going was firm, and they made fairly good progress. The slope of the land was a steady, gentle one. The river coursed down through a rocky valley and then opened out into a wider vale with rolling hills to the east.

Occasionally they saw huge beasts, na-pujish, looming through the wet forest. The beasts were intent on their own affairs and gave the band of humans hardly a glance. They took one look at Bazil and, warned by instinct, slipped away into the sheltering jungle.

The rain intensified as the day wore on, building to a maximum in the middle of the afternoon, though the sun had been invisible all day. The rain came down in torrents. And now the ground, soaked through, began to liquefy and turn into mud.

The rivers were starting to rise. The slaver captains would be watching carefully, and as soon as they thought there was sufficient flow in the rivers they'd be loading and shipping their precious cargoes downstream, to the great cities of the south and the auction block.

The small band began to slow in the mud. Every gully was running a frothing stream now. The bigger ones were filled with thundering torrents. Crossing these was hazardous and never easy. Fortunately, the presence of Bazil allowed for the easy movement of trees and other bridging materials set to hand. But despite their efforts they still barely made twelve miles that day and they did not find the slaver camp just over the ridge line.

They did not find it until the middle of the next day.

They moved downstream, crossing occasional creeks that had swollen to something close to flood status during the night. The mists were so thick it was hard to see more than a hundred feet in any direction. Thus it was no surprise that their noses first informed them that they were approaching a slave camp.

The sour, excremental odor reached them quite suddenly as they pushed through a tangled stretch of jungle. Their heads went up. Relkin saw Norwul's eyes water and his hair stand on end with the strength of his emotions. The Ardu had seen hard conditions during their imprisonment, and their memories were strongly charged.

The heavy, mephitic stench grew stronger with every stride. Cautiously, they slowed their pace through the dank forests. Soon they came upon a large clearing by the riverbank. In the center was a big stockade in the shape of a figure eight, protected on three sides by a ditch and stakes to keep pujish out. Along the water's edge was a row of boats, hauled up out of the rising river.

Ardu captives were packed into the same kind of long, low sheds that Bazil had ripped open at the original camp. The stench was now quite fantastic. Relkin found himself gagging every so often. The dragon complained, too, and began to get sulky. Wyverns were beasts of the clear air and the sea margin. Fortunately, dragons could shut out sensory impressions after a while. This made them legendarily impervious to pain.

The guards on the watchtowers were more active than those at the first camp. The word about the "forest god" pujish with the giant sword had traveled quickly on the forest streams. That season, there were eight slaver camps on the headwaters in the Ardu country, all in fairly constant communication by boat. The violent end of a successful camp and the loss of hundreds of Ardu slaves was the sort of news that would spread like wildfire. The nervous guards kept calling to each other and scanning the nearby jungle, alert to every twitch of a leaf.

But the Ardu, Relkin, and Bazil were all skilled at the art of remaining unseen. They crept through the forest, always in the shadows, out of sight of those on the towers. They examined the stockade and the boats and drew appropriate conclusions. Relkin had soon seen enough. He called the Ardu back from the fringes of the clearing. They met in a smaller glade, out of earshot of the camp.

The plan was discussed, variations were offered, but in the end it was agreed that the basic idea was the best. Then they went to work collecting rocks and other missiles, which were piled stealthily around the stockade.

While the piles of stones grew, a group of the robust males prepared the ram. They found a recently fallen conifer and stripped its branches. Bazil could not heft the whole tree, of course, but they fashioned a hefty ten-foot section that he could just manage to hold on to for a staggering run of perhaps fifty yards. That, they calculated, would be enough.

As before, they would attack during darkness, to disguise their lack of numbers. This time, Relkin knew, they would demonstrate far more effectively. If they were successful and it came to a fight, the slavers would need the protection of the Great Mother herself once these Ardu men got to close quarters with them. Relkin would not have wanted to be fighting against these Ardu males for any treasure under the sun. They burned, they seethed with the urge for revenge. But the numbers were against them. This camp was big—Relkin estimated there were sixty armed men inside, too many for the rescue party to take on in careless combat. Caution and tactical skill would be essential. He hoped they would have enough self-discipline to make tactics work.

Furthermore, the slavers were getting ready to depart. They had eight large boats tethered to the shore. If the attack failed, the slavers would leave with their victims immediately.