The Elder Gods (26 page)

They went on back to the stern of the
Seagull,
and Rabbit tapped lightly on the door of Sorgan’s old cabin.

“You can come in if you want, Bunny,” Eleria called, “but don’t forget to wipe your feet.”

Rabbit sighed, rolling his eyes upward.

“Does she say that very often?” Red-Beard asked.

“Every single time,” Rabbit said, opening the door.

As usual, Eleria was sitting on Longbow’s lap, but the tall man firmly put her down on the floor and stood up. “Has there been any trouble between the tribes?” he asked Red-Beard.

“Right at first I guess there was,” Red-Beard replied with a faint smile. “The younger men didn’t get along with each other too well—you know how that goes.”

“Oh, yes,” Longbow agreed with a note of resignation.

“Things had quieted down by the time I came back here with Skell’s fleet, though. My chief, White-Braid, and your chief, Old-Bear, spoke
very
firmly with the young ones of the two tribes, and everyone’s behaving now.”

“Does that sort of thing happen very often here in Dhrall?” Rabbit asked.

“All the time,” Red-Beard said with a shrug. “Young men seem to need the attention of others, and as soon as one of them says, ‘My tribe’s better than your tribe,’ the fights begin.”

“That has a familiar ring to it,” Rabbit said with a faint smile. “Tavern brawls over in Maag break out for almost exactly the same reason. I guess that the only good thing about being young is that you’ll get over it—eventually.”

“Where did Chief Old-Bear set up his lodge?” Longbow asked Red-Beard. “I should probably speak with him before too long.”

“His lodge is near the berm,” Red-Beard replied. “He spends quite a bit of his time with your tribe’s shaman, doesn’t he?”

Longbow nodded. “They get along with each other quite well. One-Who-Heals is very wise—and very practical. He explained many things to me before I went to the hunt.” He paused. Rabbit got the distinct impression that they were approaching a subject they weren’t supposed to mention in his presence. “There seems to be more snow on the ground than there was when we left,” Longbow continued quite smoothly. “How long did the storm last?”

“Ten days or so, actually,” Red-Beard said. “It was a very unusual kind of snowstorm, though. I can’t remember the last time I saw snow falling out of a clear blue sky.”

“That
would
be a bit peculiar, wouldn’t it?” Longbow agreed.

“Storms that come out of nowhere seem to be turning up fairly often here lately,” Rabbit observed.

The three of them looked inquiringly at Zelana.

“All right,” she said. “I cheat a little bit now and then. Don’t make a big issue of it. I just wanted to be sure that nothing serious got under way until Sorgan’s fleet reached Dhrall. Snow isn’t quite as cold as ice, but if there’s enough snow, it pretty much freezes everything in place.”

“Couldn’t we just leave all that snow up there in the mountains, Beloved?” Eleria suggested. “The bad things won’t be able to move until it melts, and if it never melts, they’ll have to stay right where they are.”

Zelana shook her head. “Father Earth wouldn’t permit that, Eleria. A year without a summer would kill too many plants and animals, and plants and animals are as dear to him as people are. We can keep that snow up there for a few weeks longer, but then we’ll have to let it melt off. If Veltan can get here before the snow melts, everything should be all right. If he’s delayed, things might start to get interesting.”

“Your brother’s bringing help?” Red-Beard asked.

Zelana nodded. “Trogite soldiers.”

“Trogites!” Rabbit exclaimed. “You expect Trogites to help Maags? That’s not very likely, you know. Trogites hate us like we were some kind of disease.”

“Veltan’s paying them
not
to hate you,” she told him. “You can go back to hating each other after the war’s over and you’ve all gone home.”

Rabbit shrugged. “It’s your war, Lady Zelana, so we’ll do things any way you want us to, but I think there might be trouble before the war’s over.”

“There’s all the trouble we’re likely to need camped up at the head of the ravine right now, Rabbit,” Red-Beard said.

“Did any of those rampaging sailors happen to find Lady Zelana’s cave?” Rabbit asked him.

“No,” Red-Beard answered. “Chief White-Braid told the young men to cover the cave mouth with bushes and tree limbs and then put a couple of huts in front of it. There were guards, but they weren’t too obvious.”

“I think it’s time for Eleria and me to go back to the cave,” Zelana decided.

“I’ll take you there,” Red-Beard offered.

“That would be nice,” Zelana said. “Rabbit, go tell Hook-Beak that he can have his cabin back now.”

“I’ll need to get my canoe out of the forward hold,” Longbow said to Zelana. “Do you want me to bring Rabbit to the cave?”

“I think so, yes. See what Sorgan has to say about it first, though. Let’s not ruffle Hook-Beak’s feathers if we don’t really have to.”

Rabbit was a bit surprised by Zelana’s decision to include him in the rather select society of the cave. Despite what had happened in Kweta, Rabbit still didn’t think of himself as one of any kind of inner circle. He gave it some thought as he went forward to the bow of the
Seagull.
“Lady Zelana’s going ashore now, Cap’n,” he reported. “She says you can have your cabin back now.”

“Well
finally,
” Sorgan said. “Things might go back to being normal now. Has she left yet?”

“She’s on the way, Cap’n. Red-Beard’s taking her and Eleria ashore in his canoe. Longbow’s hauling his canoe up out of the forward hold as well, so we’ll have the
Seagull
to ourselves for a change.”

“I think maybe you should go stay in that cave with Lady Zelana, Rabbit,” Sorgan said with a thoughtful squint. “She likes you, so keep her happy. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that a lot of the gold in that cave’s going to be ours when this is over. Make sure that it’s well guarded.”

“I’ll do the best I can, Cap’n,” Rabbit promised. Then he went back out on deck and helped Longbow lower his canoe into the water.

“Did he argue with you about it?” Longbow asked as they both settled into the canoe.

Rabbit grinned at his friend. “I didn’t even have to ask. He really,
really
wants somebody he knows near all that gold stacked up in the cave.”

Longbow nodded and then pushed his canoe away from the
Seagull
with his foot, picked up his paddle, and started them toward shore. “Lattash seems much larger than our village,” he observed as they approached the beach.

“Some of that’s probably because the people of your tribe moved here while we were off in Maag trying to pick up a lot of ships,” Rabbit suggested. Then something occurred to him. “You’ve never been down here, have you, Longbow?” he asked.

“We usually avoid the villages of other tribes, Rabbit,” Longbow explained. “The chieftains of the various tribes occasionally meet, but usually in open meadows, where there’s not much chance of surprises.”

“You folks here in Dhrall are kind of nervous, aren’t you?”

“Cautious, Rabbit, cautious. It’s very rare for the people of one tribe to completely trust the people of other tribes. Wars between the tribes are very common.” Longbow beached his canoe, the two of them pulled it up farther onto the sand, and then they trudged up toward the cave mouth.

Eleria was waiting near the front of one of the huts Red-Beard’s people had erected to conceal the cave mouth. “What kept you?” she asked. “We’ve got company. The Beloved’s big brother came here a little while ago, and they’re talking right now back in the cave.”

“Veltan again?” Rabbit asked her.

“No, Bunny, it’s Dahlaine. He’s the oldest one in the family, and he thinks he’s the most important creature in the whole world. He tries to order the Beloved to do things, but she doesn’t pay too much attention to him.” Eleria giggled. “That drives him absolutely wild.”

“You live with a very strange group of people, baby sister,” Rabbit said.

“I know, and it’s loads of fun.”

Rabbit and Longbow followed her through the empty hut and back into the cave, where Rabbit saw Zelana speaking with a large, burly fellow dressed in bearskins. He had piercing eyes and an iron grey beard.

“Veltan told me that he might be able to lend me some of his Trogite soldiers,” she was saying, “but I suppose that might depend on how soon he can get them here to Dhrall.”

“I’ll talk with him,” the grey-bearded man promised. “Veltan’s just a bit reticent sometimes. Are the Dhralls of your Domain gathering to meet the invaders?”

“Chief White-Braid was dealing with that while Eleria and I were busy over in Maag. I hate to admit this, Dahlaine, but I really should have paid more attention to what’s been going on here in the West. There are some very serious animosities between several tribes that I might have been able to smooth over if I hadn’t spent all those years swimming with my dolphins. Fortunately, when White-Braid and Old-Bear joined together, they were fairly intimidating. Some of the tribes here didn’t really want to join with the others, but they were prudent enough not to say so.”

“Have you told your Maags about the true nature of the servants of the Vlagh yet?” the bearded Dahlaine asked his sister.

“Do we really want to go into the details before Veltan’s Trogites arrive, Dahlaine?” she said a bit dubiously. “Once our outlander armies are here, we can keep them here, but if the word gets out too soon . . .” She left it hanging.

“You could be right, dear sister,” Dahlaine conceded. He looked sternly at Rabbit. “Can we trust this one?” he asked.

“I think so. He’s more clever than he appears to be, and he and Longbow are fairly close. There are still a few things he doesn’t need to know quite yet. Why don’t we let Longbow decide when to tell the outlanders what they’ll be coming up against?”

“I think we should let One-Who-Heals describe our enemies to the Maags and the Trogites,” Longbow suggested. “He knows much more about our enemies than anyone else. He trapped one of them when I was just a boy, and after it died, he boiled all the meat off so that only the bones were left. Then he showed me all of the creature’s peculiarities. They aren’t really very hard to kill, but one needs to be a bit cautious. I’ll be speaking with Chief Old-Bear soon, and I’ll ask him to speak with One-Who-Heals about this.”

“That might be the best way to handle this, Dahlaine,” Zelana said.

Rabbit looked at them suspiciously. There was something ominous about all this, and it was making him more than just a little uneasy.

Just then Red-Beard entered the cave. “You wanted to speak with me, Zelana?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I think you and Longbow should show the members of the other tribes your new arrowheads and give them a few demonstrations. Sometimes people object to new things. Show them how well the new arrowheads work. Rabbit, I want you to go tell Hook-Beak that I want every loose bit of iron on every ship in his fleet, and I’ll need the use of everybody who knows the least bit about working with iron. We’re going to need as many iron-tipped arrows as possible.”

Rabbit sighed. “Somehow I knew that something like this was going to turn up. Pounding out arrowheads day after day’s likely to get tedious after a while.”

“But you’re the expert, Bunny,” Eleria reminded him. “After you show the other iron-pounders how it’s done, you’ll spend all your time watching and telling them if they’re doing it wrong.”

“That’s true, I suppose. When you get right down to it, I’ll be the captain of the smiths, won’t I?” The notion of being able to
give
orders instead of taking them lit a warm little fire in his heart.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Zelana advised.

3

R
abbit set up his arrow shop on the beach near Zelana’s cave, and there was trouble right from the start. The smiths from the other Maag ships objected violently when Rabbit told them that they’d be required to contribute every scrap of iron on board their ships, and they really didn’t care much for the notion of working from dawn to dusk for weeks on end. A sea-going smith normally has life fairly easy. He might occasionally have to repair a pot for the ship’s cook, repair a broken pulley, or sharpen a few swords and axes, but that was usually the extent of his labor.

“I don’t see the point of this,” Hammer, the bull-shouldered smith from the
Shark,
the ship of Sorgan’s cousin Skell, declared. “We’re the ones who’ll do all the fighting, aren’t we? If these natives are too timid to fight their own wars, they won’t be of much use when the fighting starts.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Hammer,” one of the ironsmiths who’d been in the harbor of Kweta during Kajak’s failed attempt on the
Seagull
said. “I’ve seen what that tall one they call Longbow can do with arrows when he sets his mind to it, and every enemy the Dhralls kill from a long way off is one less that
we’ll
have to kill up close.”

“I still think it’s a waste of time and good iron,” Hammer declared stubbornly.

Longbow came out of the cave just then, and Rabbit saw a quick way to put an end to all the complaining. “Are you busy right now?” he asked his friend.

“Not really, Rabbit. Why?”

“Hammer here doesn’t quite see the point of what we’re doing. I think this might go smoother if you show him and some of the others what you can do with your bow. Why don’t you prove it to them?”

“No trouble at all,” Longbow agreed. He looked around the beach and then went down to the water’s edge and picked up a clamshell. Then he came back and handed it to Hammer. “Why don’t you take this on down the beach?” he said. “I’ll show you what a well-aimed arrow can do.”

“That’s a pretty small target,” Hammer said dubiously.

“I’ve got good eyes. Hold it up over your head as you go so that I can see it.”

Hammer grumbled a bit, but he started on down the beach holding the clamshell up over his head. “About here?” he called back after he’d gone a hundred paces.

“Farther,” Longbow replied.

Hammer kept walking “Here?” he called at two hundred paces.