Sundrinker

BOOK TWO

Chapter One

Duwan struggled through deep snow, his arms laden with choice, tender needles from tall brothers. He had tired of dried foods, and had ventured into the dim sun of the short, cold, winter day to gather greens. He noted, as he neared the cave, that Jai, too, had ventured out, and he was concerned until he saw that there were two sets of her tracks, the second leading back to the cave. He entered, placed the tender green needles on a rock ledge where the food was stored, and then stood in puzzlement watching Jai using freshly gathered boughs to prepare a bed on the opposite side of the fire from the bed they shared.

"Tonight, and for some nights to come, I will sleep here," she said matter-of-factly, as she patted the boughs into place.

"I think we will both be cold," he said, still not understanding.

"It is necessary," she said.

"Perhaps you will find time, since much of the winter is ahead of us, to explain why it is necessary."

She turned to face him and laughed. Her full face, in laughter, was a thing of great beauty to him. He remembered her as he'd first seen her, thin to starvation, hair unhealthy and lank. She looked the proper Drinker female now, full and fat, even on winter fodder, and the thought of not having his arms around her at night was painful to him.

"You really don't know?" she asked.

"I am but a simple male."

She opened her outer garment, pulled up the undersmock. He gasped. Her bud point had bloomed overnight. The fleshy petals had swollen and colored so that that most intimate part of her flared, gleaming in hues of the rainbow.

"Hold," he said, as she started to cover herself. He had never seen a female in full bloom, and the wonder of it awed him. "Come to me." She walked toward him, her eyes downcast. "We have a long journey ahead," she said, "and although I would be honored to bear your young I will not burden you in your journey with a female with a fat stomach and, perhaps before we arrive, a new young."

He knelt, held back her clothing. From her flowering came a perfume that made him dizzy. He felt his own body began to change, felt his heart beat faster, and felt a swelling beginning far inside him.

"Beautiful, so beautiful," he whispered.

"The air is cold, even with the fire," she said, but she was smiling.

"Lie with me, let me see this wonder," he said, and she went with him to the bed, lay down, allowed him to arrange her clothing until she was fully exposed. He stared for a long time, unable to get his fill of the beauty of that flower of femininity.

"Stop," she whispered weakly, "or you will color, too, and then—"

"I think I color already," he said, pulling at his garments. It was true; he was pink, and the petals were expanding, and his bud was exposed, and even as they both watched, and Jai giggled delightedly, the color reddened to a flame and his breath was short and quick.

"I am going to run to the other side of the cave," she said, pulling away,

"and I'd suggest that you go roll in the snow." She smiled wistfully. "Unless you want me to bear your seed, Duwan?"

"It would be my honor," he whispered, and, almost, he was ready to graft with her and take the consequences. However, good sense prevailed. The journey ahead was long and hard. Only he knew just how hard. He would not, under any circumstances, weaken her with the extra weight of a growing seed. He covered her with a sigh and hid himself, but would not let her go. "You will not sleep across the fire. We will sleep here, but you will sleep with your back to me."

"As you will," she said.

It was by far the most difficult thing he'd ever done, keeping himself from entering that flower of rainbow hues, that perfume-scented orifice to bliss. But he held her and talked to her. He tortured himself by uncovering her during the short days, when the dim light of Du helped illuminate the cave, and even as his eyes and nose loved her, he talked, and she talked, and told him of her young days in the pongpens, and how a master had forced her when she was still unopened, and how, after that, until she became gaunt and thin as she grew, more than one of the masters used her. And of the pain. And as she spoke he clenched his fists and hated.

"And of our kind?" he asked. "Have there been many?" She clung to him. "Not many. Nights are long and cold in the pens. We sleep together for warmth, and it happens sometimes."

"You've never been fertilized," he stated, hoping for the answer he wanted, wanting not to think of her carrying another's seed.

"No, the masters who owned me did not want young, and I would fight pongs when I was flowering."

"If, someday, you could grow my seed—"

"I want that."

He was moodily silent, and guilty, for his thoughts went to Alning, for whom he had spoken, conditionally, if he returned within two cycles of the time of long light. He would. Their journey would begin with the first warm days and he would be in the valley before Du retreated to the south again.

"I hate it when you leave me like this," Jai said.

"Leave you?"

"You are far away in your thoughts."

"I admit it."

"You were thinking of her, of the female you left behind."

"True, Jai. That is true. It troubles me. I am a mere male and although I have erred here in this land of the enemy, I like to think that I am an honorable male. Yet I don't feel that it is wrong to graft with you. How is that? And how is it that I can love two females?"

She cupped his face between her hands and kissed him. "It is not love you feel for me, but the love of pleasure, and that is good, and natural, at least in the world as we know it. In an ideal time, perhaps, the code your people follow is good. But pong females are forced, quite young, and used without reservation by any master who desires it, and the pleasure we get with other pongs is the only pleasure in our lives. How can you love two? I have loved not many, but several, and yet I chose no mate, lest I love too deeply and he be taken from me by the Devourers, sold or traded away. The only love you have is the love for your Alning. Don't be concerned. When we arrive in your valley I will be your loyal slave, nothing more." He did not see, in the dark, that tears were wetting her cheeks. "I will always count myself blessed that I have had you for this little time, and if, later, you choose to give me a seed that I may nourish it and grow it and love it, and raise it in the freedom that you will give to all our people, then I will thank that Du of yours, and all the other dus."

"There is only one Du," Duwan said.

"As you will. I will thank him, and demand nothing more." In his desperation, but with good sense still overcoming nature's strongest urge, the urge to graft when two Drinkers colored together, he found that the perfume of her flower tasted like nectar and that his mouth gave her exquisite pleasure, and then the coloration was gone and she was his.

Drinker does not live by love alone, and in the long months remaining he taught her everything he knew about Drinker history, and she taught him the language of the Devourers, and then the snow began to melt and they marched northward, sometimes sinking up to their knees in mud, swimming cold, swollen rivers, finding, as they slept in whispering groves, that Jai was now more sensitive to the whisperings.

One day they encountered two of the Devourers, males, and, being challenged, Duwan killed both with ease. They took fresh clothing and Jai took weapons, a longsword and a shortsword.

"Teach me," she said, brandishing the weapons rather dangerously near Duwan's head.

He laughed and said, "First lesson, don't decapitate your teacher." She insisted, and in the light of campfires he taught her the basic strokes and thrusts. She was good with the shortsword, her left hand being quite nimble, but rather weak with the longsword. However, as the long trek continued, as they passed out of the land of the tall brothers into the marshy, grassy, seemingly endless tundra where flowers brightened the dull landscape as the strength of Du moved northward, following them, her right arm began to develop muscle so that she could truly swing the longsword. She was now dressed in male clothing, taken from the dead Enemy, and he called her his warrior maiden.

The time of the long light had come when Duwan finally saw the smokes of the land of fires in the distance, and it was passing as he led a frightened Jai through the seemingly deadly fields of molten rock. He was eager now, and he set a pace that left them both exhausted at the end of the long days. Ahead were the barrens. He began to recognize landmarks, and, after an extremely long and tiring march, saw the rock formations that told him the valley was but a day's march ahead.

He slept fitfully. If Jai noticed that he seemed bemused and distant she did not remark on it, nor did she try for closeness as he slept on his back, not touching her.

Chapter Two

Belran the Leader had always taken his role seriously, but since Duwan had departed he had intensified the training of the young warriors to the point where no Drinker of fighting age was without bruises. Belran had awaited the coming of the second period of long light eagerly, and, as the beautiful time came, and lengthened, he found occasion often to go to the lower end of the valley, climb the narrow vent, and gaze out over the barrens.

It was pleasant to be alone for a change, away from the respectful but exuberant, young, would-be warriors. He stood on a high, rounded boulder and looked away across the barren landscape to the south. Du was growing weaker, sinking ever lower in the sky, and soon the long darkness would begin and the Drinkers would accept the limitations put upon their activities by the long winter, made bearable only by the many hot, flowing springs that warmed the valley with their steams. The think vines would be directed to close in, to make the houses airtight with their closely locked bodies and cold-resistant life organs, and during that long darkness a few new ones would be sprouted to be entrusted to the good earth in the steam-filled young houses.

There was no sign of movement within his eyesight. Du's dimming light gave the bare stones and pockets of sterile sand a melancholy aspect, and he turned away sadly. He'd been fond of Duwan, who had been one of the most promising young warriors he'd ever taught, but it was not only the thought of Duwan being dead that made him sad. With Duwan died hope, even that weak, reluctantly rekindled hope that had come when, at last, one of the Drinkers traveled to the south. He thought of going south himself. Perhaps it had been too much to expect that a youth with only one arm should be able to overcome the vast distances and the unknown dangers and return.

Soon the long darkness would end all hope, and then—

He was not willing to face the people feeling as he did. He felt a sense of guilt as he walked into the valley, chose a spot near a spring where Du touched the hungry earth and lay down, exposing his chest to the sun. He felt warm and languorous with Du feeding him, and his eyes closed. He awoke with a jerk, his ears searching for the sound that had awakened him. His sword seemed to materialize in his hand as he leaped to his feet to face the ragged, bundled apparition that stood before him, longsword pointed at his belly.

"Greetings, Belran," the apparition said, "I have come to have a rematch of the test."

"Duwan?" The Leader peered into the darkness under the stranger's hood, saw the gleam of orange eyes, let his eyes fall to the newcomer's left side to see, to his disappointment, only emptiness.

Duwan pushed back his hood, smiling broadly. "Well, Leader, may I have my test?"

Belran felt like weeping. So the legend of renewal was false. If that part of the old tales was false, how could any of it be true?

"The longsword is no match for two," Belran said.

"Then we will make the odds even," Duwan said, sweeping his shortsword out from behind his back.

Belran's eyes went wide and he whooped. He dropped his own sword heedlessly—and this action told Duwan more than anything else that Belran was pleased to see him—and slipped between Duwan's swords to embrace him. Duwan was laughing.

"Did you meet the Enemy?" Belran asked, pushing himself out of the twining of arms.

"I have met him," Duwan said. "The challenge is great, but the opportunities are greater."

"And does Du shine all year long? Are there many brothers? Is the Enemy strong? How does he fight?"

"Hold," Duwan laughed. "I have much to tell, and I don't want to have to tell it many times."

"You are right," Belran said, his hands feeling the hard muscles in Duwan's left arm. "Come, we must spread this news rapidly. We will have a gathering before Du slips below the horizon to the south."

"My father and mother?" Duwan asked.

"Well," Belran said. "Your grandmother hardens, but is also well."

"And the young one called Alning?"

Belran turned his face away. "She blossoms, and is well," he said. It was at that moment that Jai chose to emerge from behind boulders and Belran's hand went to his sword.

"This is Jai, Drinker, once a slave to the enemy," Duwan said. "She, too, has much information to impart."

They spread the news through the villages as they walked the length of the valley. A growing entourage shouted, laughed, sang behind them. Minstrels flanked the moving mass of people, adding new verses of triumph to the Song of Duwan, for it had become a popular story since Duwan's leaving.

Duwan had known pain, the fear of death, wonder, sadness, the joy of grafting, but the emotions that came to him when he entwined arms with his father and then clasped his mother and the hard, old shell of his grandmother were the most powerful emotions of his young life. He was weeping shamelessly. Even his father's eyes were moist, and tears appeared, clear as dew, on his father's age-coloring cheeks. His mother and his grandmother swept Jai away, leaving Duwan to accept the admiration and the questions of the growing number of warriors. The village square was soon filled, and still they came, from all parts of the valley. Now and then Duwan had a chance to look around, and he had not yet caught sight of the face that he wanted most to see. When the last of the elders from neighboring villages were seated, forming a circle around Duwan and his father, with warriors massed behind the elders, Duwan rose and began his story. He told it quickly and simply, neither emphasizing nor playing down the dangers of the long trek to the south. He presented the Enemy as he had seen him, a potentially dangerous force grown weak with overconfidence and wealth. He spoke of the Enemy's evil, of death and murder and the eating of young, and hardened warriors shuddered and muttered. When he was finished with his story he paused, looked around, caught the eye of Belran the Leader.

"Only a handful of the Enemy, the royal guards, could make a contest of arms with even the youngest of our warriors," he said. "The time has come for us to reclaim our land. Under the wise guidance of our Leaders, such as my father and Belran, we can sweep down from the north and invest the northern cities and the settlements, capturing weapons that will then be distributed to the Drinkers, the slaves, of that land. As we use our training methods to teach our southern brothers the art of warfare, we will move southward and when the capital city falls, the land will be ours, and there will be only a matter of mopping up scattered points of resistance in the other Devourer cities."

A shout of excitement came from the younger warriors. So intent was Duwan on telling his tale that he did not see the shaking heads of some of the elders. During the feasting that followed Duwan was occupied in exchanging greetings with friends and then the visitors began to drift away. Still he had not seen Alning. He was about to sneak away when his mother came to him and took his left arm, feeling it, smiling, and weeping at the same time. "Now I claim your time," she said, pulling him toward the house. Inside, she guided him into the sleep room that she shared with his father. Jai and his grandmother were sitting in front of the fireplace, heads close together, the old one's ear close to Jai's mouth.

"While you were in your rightful place with the warriors," his mother said, "I have learned much from this female you have brought."

"There is much to learn about the Land of Many Brothers," he said. "It is a sweet and wonderful land, mother. It is our rightful land." His mother waved one hand. "Oh, I am interested enough in this land to the south," she said, "but I am more interested, at the moment, in the glow that comes into the eyes of this female when she speaks of you." Duwan felt his face grow hot.

"She has not spoken secrets to me, Duwan." Duwan swallowed hard, fearing that he had caught her meaning.

"She is a strong, young female," his mother said. "I would not object to calling her my own."

Alarm jerked Duwan's head up so that his eyes met hers.

"You are my son," she said, "but you are not the same person who left here almost two cycles of the long light past. You have changed, and now you are warrior, mature, a son to give me pride, and to put the light in your father's eyes. But, Duwan, you are not the only one who has changed."

"What are you telling me, mother?" He leaned back, forced himself to give the impression of relaxation. "I think you're speaking indirectly of Alning."

"I take it that you have not seen her."

"No."

The look of feminine condemnation on his mother's face told him, but he chose not to believe.

"I don't doubt that she'd be reluctant to appear before you," his mother said. "You will find her in the new house, last on the northern side of the square before the yellow spring."

He rose. His heart seemed about to burst out of his chest. "I will see for myself," he said.

He walked slowly at first, lifting his hands in greeting. A group of small, young males surrounded him, clamored questions at him, and he told them that he'd repeat his story for them later. Then he found himself walking faster and faster until the bulk of the village was behind him and a new house, think vines showing an interesting design, appeared to him amid the mists of the yellow spring. He halted at the entrance and announced himself.

Her face sent a shiver of appreciation through him.

"Alning," he said.

No smile greeted him. Her face was as if frozen by the cold of the land of tall brothers.

"Not quite two times of the long light have passed," he said. "I have returned, and I am whole." He showed her his left arm.

"They said you would never return," she whispered.

"You listened to bad counsel."

"It is true."

"But now I am back," he said, wondering why she showed him only her face and did not ask him to enter.

"I am very happy for you," she said.

It was time to face facts. He knew, but he just wasn't ready to admit that it was true. He bent, entered the house. She moved away, her back to him. In the light of the fire and the light vents left by the think vines she seemed different, more mature, but that was natural, for she would have filled out, especially during the time of long light when food was plentiful.

"Two cycles is a long time, Duwan," she said.

"True."

She turned slowly. In profile her stomach protruded mightily, suggesting that, perhaps, she carried twins. She had not even waited until the beginning of the second time of long light, much less the end, which had not yet come. Duwan felt a knife stab from the inside, and almost bent with the pain.

"Who?" he asked, his voice a croak.

"Noo," she said.

"A good match. Son of Manoo the Predictor."

"Oh, Duwan—" She took one step toward him, her legs wide to balance the front-heavy bulk of her body. She halted when there was movement behind them and a well built young male entered.

"Greetings, Duwan," said Noo, son of the Predictor. "I was moved by the recitation of your adventures."

"I have given my greeting to an old friend, a female that I tended in the young house," Duwan said. "I ask your understanding and forgiveness for entering your house in your absence."

Noo made a gesture of negation. "You are welcome as a friend of the family, and as our most famous warrior."

"May they be twins," Duwan said, nodding at Alning.

"The midwife thinks so," Noo said. He smiled. "A good way to start a family, is it not?"

Duwan walked north, skirted springs, found himself under the cliffs where, at a time that seemed both far distant and most recent, he had climbed into the rays of Du to thrust his left arm into the concealed maw of the rock sucker. He started climbing, soon felt the weak light as he clambered recklessly to the very top of the cliffs. At the top, with a cold wind sweeping across the barrens, he looked down on the steam and green of the valley and wept.

"Du," he said, "if this is punishment for my errant ways when I was among the enemy, then it is deserved." But, ah, it hurt. It hurt more than he had hurt when he'd lopped off his left arm to save his own life. It hurt so much that he remembered the story his grandmother had told him about the son who had leaped, or fallen, from the cliffs. It was tempting, for a moment. Then he looked again at the valley, saw the villages, the movement of Drinkers in the squares, remembered the intoxicating heat of Du in the far south. He had his duty.

He found Belran at the forge of a metal worker, stripped to the waist, wielding a hammer himself, forming a sweetly designed blade. He watched. That blade would taste enemy blood and help to return the stolen heritage of his people. Why, then, did he not exult?

"The fires of the forges will burn all winter," Belran said, as he dipped the glowing blade to the accompaniment of a hissing and metallic smelling steam. "There, that is all for today. We will let the spirit of the metal rest for a time." He wiped his hands on his garment and buckled on his weapons. "This royal guardsman you fought," he said. "Did you note well his technique?"

"Quite well," Duwan said. "He was the best I'd seen."

"Show me."

There was no audience. Longswords were padded. Duwan played the part of Captain Hata. His sword hissed and thudded against Belran's padded weapon. He felt the sweat begin to form, and the closest thing he would ever know to joy—or so, at least, did he think at the time—filled him as he faced a sword as skilled, possibly more skilled, than his own and demonstrated Hata's offensive techniques. Then he stepped back.

"I shifted to the left hand," he said, "after studying all his techniques. He was susceptible to a low, rising sweep, but he managed to counter it." Belran came at him, and he found it more difficult to counter the left-handed blows. It ended, oddly enough, as his duel with Hata had ended. He felt the impact of Belran's sword on his head, was dazed, but felt the solid impact of his padded blade on Belran's toughened stomach at the same instant. He rose, shaking his head, and helped Belran to his feet. The older warrior was panting.

"Of course, the killing blow to the stomach would have been countered with the shortsword," Belran said.

"When we go south we will not fight by the Enemy's rules," Duwan agreed. "He is an abomination to the light of Du, Belran. It is given to us Drinkers to rid the land of him, to end the eating of Drinker young and the sacrifice of living entities of all brotherhoods, to bring freedom to the enslaved."

Belran clasped right arms with him, showed his teeth in a fierce grin.

"It makes my flesh crawl to think of the Enemy's evil," he said. "We will fight side by side, warrior."

Why did being accepted by the great Belran as an equal not give him joy?

He ate with his family, hiding his heartbreak. Jai wanted to serve, but his mother insisted that she sit with the family and eat. His grandmother sat by his side.

"Thanks to you, my son," the old female said, as she toyed with her food, "I will become one with the earth when you lead us to our homeland."

"So be it, Grandmother," he said.

"To have eternal peace and warmth and to feed and grow on the goodness of the earth," she said.

"It is good," he said.

"You have heard the whispering?"

"Yes. Most of the time it is muddled, confused by many voices, Grandmother."

"This female, your Jai, says that she, in the end, could also hear the whisperings," his grandmother said.

He glanced at Jai almost guiltily. He had not given her one thought, much less a look, or a smile, since returning from the house of Alning and Noo. "She is, after all, Drinker," he said.

"Duwan, help me to survive the coming darkness," the old woman asked, pleading in her voice. "Promise me that you will not let me harden. Promise me that you will plant me yourself in some warm, rich spot blessed by the full rays of Du."

"I promise," Duwan said, taking her hand only to be surprised by the rigid, hard feel of her.

"There is much to be done," his father said. "I have called a gathering of elders. We must make our plans and our preparations. I have advised that all fertile grafting be discontinued during the coming darkness, so that we will have no new young to impede our journey."

"An excellent idea," Duwan said.

"I have spoken with Belran and the other village elders," his father said.

"You will command the people of our village during the trek." Duwan nodded, taking the responsibility not with joy but with a sense of duty settling upon his shoulders.

"Now you should rest, my son," his mother said. "You've been long on the march, and long awake."

When he awoke, the elders of all the villages were already gathering in the square. He was summoned by his father and went forth to see them, all the wise men of the Drinkers, seated on the good earth, looking up at him as he strode to the speaker's mound.

"My son knows the way to the south," his father said. "I and my village elders have put him in command for the duration of the trip. I ask that all other villages follow suit."

There were no objections.

"Now here is our chief warrior, Belran the Leader," Duwan's father said, "to make suggestions as to our preparations." Belran took the speaker's mound. "I do not underestimate the difficulty of the journey. Duwan will tell us more, again and again, so that it can be implanted in our minds, as we prepare during the long darkness. When we leave, we must travel light. We will not be able, for example, to take our forges and anvils. Our loads must be weapons, food, water, clothing. When we have reached the lands of the south we must have spare weapons, the extra ones we will carry. We must, during the winter, have our metal workers convert all surplus iron into weapons. We will put emphasis on arrowheads, for our bows will be of great advantage to us. Duwan has told us that the bow is well known by the Enemy, but that it has fallen into disfavor. Since our supply of good wood for bows and arrows is limited here, we must carry only the pre-made heads, to be fitted to arrows made from the plentiful wood to the south."

An elder from a neighboring village stood and Belran politely stopped talking. "You are a respected warrior, Belran, but I think you presume too much," the elder said. "Our village has not yet voted." Before the astounded Belran could speak, Duwan leaped to the speaker's mound. "Vote?" he howled. "This is not a matter of village politics. This is the destiny of our people."

He felt his father's hand on his arm and allowed himself to be pulled off the mound. His father spoke.

"Duwan is young, and he has seen the horrors done to living things by the Enemy." He nodded. "Yes, it is proper that we all vote." The standing elder spoke. "The fires burn brightly in the young," he said. "Duwan fought well and slew the Enemy—a very few Enemy. Our questions are about the Enemy's vast numbers, his stone-walled cities that will be easily defended. We are few. They are many."

"And yet the population of enslaved Drinkers outnumbers their masters," Belran said.

Another elder stood. "We feel, in my village, that Drinkers who would allow themselves to be enslaved would make poor allies." Duwan was at first amazed, then angered, then saddened, as objection after objection was voiced by the elders. It was pointed out that Duwan was the only living Drinker who had actually seen the land of the south, and that he was young, and, perhaps, incapable of accurate observation, that he based his case on having killed a few unskilled Enemy and one padded sword bout with a royal guard.

Alone with his father and Belran, Duwan was speechless.

"Duwan," Belran said. "You must take it upon yourself to visit each village, to speak personally to the elders and to anyone who will listen. Take the female with you. Let her exhibit the lash marks on her back. Let her tell of the sufferings not only of Drinkers, but of animal and fixed brothers."

Jai, although she was growing fond of Duwan's mother and

grandmother, was more than eager to get away. She wore the neat winter garb of the valley, for Du had passed below the southern cliffs to be seen no more for long, cold, dark months. By firelight in village squares Duwan stated his case and then Jai told of life in the slave pens, causing gasps of fear and anger among those who listened. Making the round of the villages took time, and, meanwhile, nothing was being done in preparation for leaving the valley at the dawn of Du in the new beginning. Properly, when spending sleep periods in the villages, Duwan bedded down with young warriors and Jai with unmated females. While walking from village to village, Duwan could not bring himself to be easy with Jai, for his heart still ached. While he was away Alning gave her mate, Noo, a pair of twin males, who were, with great ceremony (twins being quite rare) given to the earth in the village young house.

A dark period gathering was unusual. The call went out from Duwan the Elder, and from Belran the Leader, and the elders of the valley made their way through the darkness to the well lighted square of Duwan's village.

"If we are to move south with the new coming of Du," Duwan the Elder told the gathered wise ones, "we must begin our preparations. I have been told that many of you have voted. If it is your pleasure, we would know the results."

An elder from the village nearest the southern end of the valley rose.

"First, know our reasons," he said. "We have heard Duwan, and we have heard the female, Jai. We listened closely to Duwan's plans which, we feel, rely too heavily on recruiting an army from the enslaved ones in the south. And yet, according to Duwan himself, and to the female, no slave rises against his masters, making us doubt their fighting ability." Duwan, although his father tried to stop him, took the speaker's mound. "Before we proceed further, let me demonstrate that slaves can be taught to fight."

"If this can be demonstrated—although I see not how—we will be interested," the standing elder said.

"Jai, come," Duwan yelled and Jai, who'd been listening from the shadows outside the fires, came striding into the circle of light, weapons buckled at her waist.

"This is a female," someone cried.

"Yes," Duwan said, "and a slave, until she escaped." He drew his weapons and stepped into an open area. "At me, Jai," he said. "Show them how you have learned the swords."

"Hold," a voice cried. "Bare blades and the one who, obviously, taught her, and thus knows her every move will not be a test, but an exhibition."

"Do you call for a test?" Belran the Leader asked, and was answered by affirmative calls.

"We need an opponent," Belran said.

"You," someone cried.

"We will be fair," Belran said. "A young warrior newly trained." A young male stepped into the light of the fires. "I," he said, "although I feel shamed to duel a female."

"Forget that I am female," Jai said, and she did not speak in the cringing tones of a slave. "Look on me as the Enemy." Swords were padded and checked. Belran was to officiate. He stood between the male and Jai and, as was the custom for a test, stated the rules. As he stepped back, the young warrior spanked Jai across the backside with his longsword, chuckling, showing his contempt for a female opponent, and Belran started to bellow that he had broken the rules, making contact with the opponent before the proper signal, but the words were punctuated with a solid thud as Jai's longsword whistled, even with its padding, and landed against the young warrior's head.

"By Du," Belran roared, "no contact before the signal." But he was trying to hide a grin as the young warrior, stunned, was dragged away by two of his companions.

"We need an opponent who knows the rules," Belran roared. Duwan stiffened as Noo, son of the Predictor, stepped forward, holding his swords out to be padded. "I know the rules," he said. The ceremony began anew. Then Jai was crouched, waiting for Noo's move. He came forward cautiously and made two formal thrusts. Noo had not, Duwan remembered, been one of the most skilled trainees. He watched Jai's tense, waiting form and whispered to himself, "Now, Jai," and as if she heard she leaped to the attack and delivered a smashing blow that was barely countered in time by Noo.

Noo had more respect for the female now, and he fought carefully. Duwan started to worry, lest the bout go on so long that Jai's lesser strength began to work against her. He had seen three flaws in Noo's technique that would have been fatal had he himself been the warrior's opponent, and he was willing Jai to see them just as she lunged, feinted, slashed the padded tip of her longsword across Noo's chest and sent the shortsword stabbing into his belly. He sat down with a huff and it was over.

"An impressive exhibition," said the elder who had questioned the fighting ability of slaves. "How long, Duwan, did you train this female?" Duwan would not lie, although he sensed the hostile intent of the question. "Through a winter."

"And will we be given that much time to train our army in the south?"

"Did you, during your stay in the south, influence a large number of slaves to join you?"

"How many of the so-called free runners joined your cause?" The end of it became predictable. One by one, the chief elders of the villages rose and announced their decisions.

"We will not risk our females and our young in such a venture."

"Our home is here. We have been here for generations."

"While we sorrow for those who are enslaved, we must remember that our ancestors did not accept slavery, but risked all in coming to this valley."

"Our home is here."

Duwan the Elder rose sadly. Only his own village had not voted. He looked around, and Duwan was near enough to see that he had tears in his eyes.

"We are free," he said. "I respect your votes, while deploring your decision. I will not ask the people of my village to vote, for to take such a small number into the land of the enemy would be foolhardy. It has been decided by proper procedure that the Drinkers will not move south, will not retake the land of our ancestors. So be it."

Duwan wandered alone in the dark, stunned. He found a spring and lay on the damp earth, feeling the heat of the steam, his heart aching, his mind confused. He heard a sound and then heard his name being called softly. He wanted to be alone, but it was Jai calling, and she was unfamiliar with the ground and could, in the dark, fall and injure herself.

"Here," he called, and her form emerged, a shadow in shadows, and he took her hand and pulled her down beside him. Neither spoke for a long time.

"This is a good place," Jai said, at last. "There is no cold. I hate the cold so."

"There is no sun, no eternal life. They have voted to let the ancient victory of the enemy stand, and it is not just the pongs of the south who will continue to be punished, but we, ourselves, for we are denied the bounty of the land, the Du-given right to go back to the earth after our time as mobiles."

"Don't try to contest their decision, Duwan," she whispered.

"No. They are free, just as I am free to do what I choose to do."

"What will that be?"

He mused for a long time. "I told Tambol I would return."

"He could well be dead by now," Jai said.

"I gave my word. If you think this is a good place, stay."

"I meant that it is a good place for you," she whispered.

"And not for you?"

"Your mother and your grandmother have been kind."

"Have others been unkind?"

She was reluctant to speak.

"Speak," he ordered. "Who has been unkind to you?"

"No one in particular. When I was with the young unmated females I made the mistake of exposing my bud point."

"So?"

"It's nothing," she said.

"Something was said?"

"You can imagine."

He could. In this valley a female's budpoint was unopened until her first coloration. He could imagine the talk among the females, for the word would have spread throughout the valley that this Jai, this outsider, had grafted and had no proper mate. He rose and took her hand and led her back to the village, entered the house of his parents and spoke, his face stern. "This is my mate. I speak for her, and I take her." His mother leaped to her feet and embraced both of them. His father clasped Duwan's right arm with his own.

"We will make the announcement," his mother said. "A celebration enlivens things so during the darkness."

So it was done. The square blazed with light. Visitors came from several villages, as if eager to atone in some small way for the vote against going back to the Land of Many Brothers. Duwan moved unsmilingly through the ceremonies, spoke for Jai before many witnesses, and, to the cries and shouts and laughter of the gathering, carried his new mate into his father's house. Without light it was not possible to grow a new house, so they would occupy his old room until Du came again. He did not carry Jai to the room immediately. He waited until his parents and his grandmother came into the room and listened as the older women talked about the ceremony and the various people who had attended. When his father went off to bed his mother looked at him questioningly and he took Jai's hand and led her into the privacy of his room.

She came to his bed displaying some new shyness and he moved over to give her room. She lay on her back beside him.

"Wherever I am, if I am with you, I am happy," she said.

"Ummra," he grunted.

"Now I will be warm again as I sleep," she whispered, putting her arm across his chest.

"They have as little shame, my people, as those who live in the pongpens, and those who call themselves free runners but do not have the courage to fight," Duwan said.

"They fear the unknown," she told him. "Duwan, am I really your mate now?"

"Yes, of course," he said.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He felt her warmth against him and shuddered inwardly. His body warmed to her, begged him to relax, to turn to her and embrace her, but he was among civilized people now, and civilized people did not graft promiscuously as did the slaves and the enemy.

She was quiet for a long, long time, until he thought that she had gone to sleep. But then she whispered, "Duwan, was I wrong, when I fought Noo, to give him such a blow to the belly?"

"No, you were not wrong."

"I did it for you," she said.

"For me?"

"Because he took Alning from you."

"Uramm," he said.

"If it was within my power I would give her to you."

"Don't be stupid," he said.

"I know. You Drinkers have your own odd ways, but I wish that I could give her to you, put her in your bed. I wouldn't mind being your slave, and slave to your mate, not if it would make you happy." He turned. There was total darkness in the room, but as his fingertips touched her cheeks he felt the wetness of tears.

"I understand. She is so beautiful, and she was the love of your youth. Just let me stay with you, Duwan, and serve you. That's all I ask."

"You ask too little, small fool," he said, for, suddenly, as if a cloud of steam had been wafted away by an errant breeze, leaving everything dearly visible, he felt the warmth and softness of her and drew her to him so fiercely that the breath was forced from her lungs. "You are more beautiful."

By Du, it was true. Jai had longer legs, a more sweetly proportioned body, and her face—he pictured it in his mind, and it was smiling and sunny and so dear that he kissed it and kissed it until, forgive him, Du, they were one.

Chapter Three

Manoo the Predictor had said that the first feeble beams of Du would light the southern sky after a dozen more sleep periods. Duwan was at the forge, fashioning iron, barbed arrowheads. He looked up as someone entered, and nodded respectfully to his father.

"You spend much time making weapons," the Elder said.

"Yes."

"You'll go with the first light of Du?"

Duwan was surprised. He had not stated his intentions, not even to Jai.

"Don't you think we have known this?" his father asked. "Did you not say that you gave your word to a friend?"

Duwan tried to play it lightly. "Perhaps, if you try, father, you can talk me out of this foolishness."

The elder man laughed. "Yes, your task must seem impossible." Duwan finished sharpening the point of an arrowhead and put it aside. He looked at his father. "If I go to my death I must go. Perhaps, after much time, I can train some few of them to fight."

"We can but try," his father said.

Duwan snapped his head around to look into his father's eyes. "We?"

"There was a Duwan with the Great Alon, when he led the Drinkers into the snows. He, too, made a promise. He, too, promised to return. He made this promise to Alon, it is said, before the great one hardened, here in this lightless place. It is time a Duwan kept that promise, and I will not let you do it alone."

"But mother—"

"She will go with me, of course. Will not your mate go with you?" Duwan grasped his father's right arm. "We can go into the west," he said. "For I will not lead two Duwans to death." His father nodded.

Four Drinkers, two of them females, would not be able to carry much. By the time the southern horizon was showing lightness at times, preparations were complete. Jai had accepted Duwan's decision without comment. She practiced her swordplay with Belran's young warriors. She had colored again, and they had, for the same reasons that had made sense during the last winter, abstained.

Duwan felt that he was no longer a part of the Drinkers of the valley. Somehow, what he had done and what he had seen in the Land of Many Brothers had made him a different Drinker. His own people seemed as alien to him as the Enemy now, and although he did not enjoy that feeling, he accepted it. There had been times when he'd suffered through periods of self pity and of condemnation for the Drinkers. Now it no longer seemed to matter. Each Drinker was the master of his own fate, and he had chosen his. He had made up his mind, after his father's decision to join him, to avoid Enemy population centers, to travel into the relatively unpopulated areas of the mid-continent, and there to live out his life with Jai, no longer withholding himself from her during her fertile period. There he would see his mother and his father, when the time came, return to the earth, and he would live near them in their fixed, honorable, immortal state to protect them from any chance enemy.

Only one thing troubled him, and that came to a head as Du's faint presence made a smear of light in the far south. His grandmother. He had promised her that he would personally plant her in a warm, sunny place in the south, and it was becoming more and more evident that she was entering the last stages of the hardening disease. She could not possibly make the hard, long journey to the south, or so at least Duwan thought. His grandmother had other ideas. She was not senseless, not yet. She noted the preparations, and she prepared her warmest garments and nothing else. Duwan saw her placing garments into a small, neat pack one day, as he and his father were making their last preparations, and his heart pounded. How could he tell her that she was to be left behind?

"You made me a promise, Grandson," she told him, when she saw the look on his face. "I hold you to it."

Duwan consulted his father about his grandmother's determination to accompany them. Duwan the Elder thought for a moment. "I have been anticipating this, and I think this way. Your mother's mother will soon harden, cease to be mobile, and then her heart will stop and she will be dead. It is true that the remaining time of her life could be spent in comfort here in this house, but when she hardened she would be just as dead as she will be if she perishes in the cold of the barrens or in the land of the fires."

Duwan lowered his head in sadness. He was about to speak when there was a call at the door and his father invited Belran the Leader to enter. The warrior stood stiff and silent for a moment, looking around the workshop to see the newly forged arrow heads, the newly polished swords.

"I had suspected that the younger Duwan would leave us again for the south," Belran said. "Now it appears that our chief elder is also contemplating a journey."

"Old friend," the Elder said, "I was going to postpone that news as long as possible, but now I suppose it is time we talked. Yes, I will go with my son."

"Then count my swords among your number," Belran said, holding his chin high.

Duwan the Elder clasped Belran's right arm with his. "There is no Drinker I would rather have fighting by my side, but if you go who will lead these Drinkers who remain?"

"Many of the young warriors will choose to go," Belran said.

"And leave anarchy behind?" Duwan the Elder asked. "This one is my son, Belran, and he has given his word to those he left behind in the south. I, as you can see, must go, but you must stay. I know that it is much to ask, but both of us cannot throw over our responsibilities to our village. It is not yours to support the word of a son, as it is mine. You must stay, my friend, and, moreover, you must control your young warriors. If we bled off the strength of this village it would cease to function. It would be absorbed by the other villages. Can we be responsible for that?" Belran's chin lifted even higher. "You speak the truth, but it is painful."

"I know," Duwan the Elder said.

"I will stay." Belran turned to Duwan. "I see something in you that was not there when you first left us. I see, I suspect, the quality that makes a Drinker a leader, and perhaps something else. When you begin to train your slaves, remember the lessons of Belran. Neither push them too hard nor allow them to be slack. And remember that you train the mind as well as the arms."

"I will, Leader," Duwan said.

Belran shook, his head. "Two Drinkers to do the work of an army. I feel shame for my people."

"No," Duwan said, "there is no shame. This is their world now, and change is difficult. Change comes usually by outside agencies, and not from within, although that is not as it should be." He clasped Belran's arm. "We will send word. When we have proven that we can free the Drinkers of the Land of Many Brothers, when we have forged an army of them and have begun to retake our lands, we will send word and then perhaps the elders will choose to join us."

"I will wait with great impatience," Belran said. "My heart will be with you, and, some day, my swords."

As it happened, Belran's desire to leave the valley, to accompany the two Duwans to the south, was shared by others, and that, too, presented a problem. On the day that the journey began, when the Duwans and their mates emerged, laden, into the square, they were awaited by what seemed to be every aged member of the village, over Fifty oldsters, and each of them was dressed warmly and carried a pack.

Duwan felt his heart sink. He knew, from talking with his grandmother, what wild hope beat in the hearts of those old, hardening Drinkers, and he quailed at having to tell them that they could not possibly make the trip, that four younger Drinkers could not be expected to tend to the needs of so many feeble old ones. Before he could speak, however, an old Drinker pushed forward. He was a warrior of note, had once been a Leader.

"Duwan the Elder, and Duwan the Son," the old Drinker said, "the mother of Sema, mate of Duwan the Elder, goes to the south to return to the blessed earth in the land of our fathers. We, too, will go." Duwan swallowed and looked at his father, who was silent. "Honored old ones," he said, "someday, the ones who grow old after you will have that right, or so I pray. Now—" He opened his hands and stood mute for a moment.

"We take the responsibility for ourselves," the old one, Dagner, said.

"We will not burden you. We realize that some of us will die in the barrens, some in the land of the fires, that not all of us will reach the lands of the south." He drew himself up. "However, unlike some here in this valley, we will die trying to reclaim our heritage." Duwan whispered to his father, "They are weak, old, and they will all die before we reach the land of the fires."

"Death will find them, wherever they are," Duwan the Elder said. "Give them their hope, son."

It was to become a matter of legend, a subject for the minstrels, how the two Duwans, elder and younger, led the slow, sometimes reeling procession from their native village, how the procession swelled as it passed through the countryside, and grew by multiples as it passed the villages and reached the narrow cleft leading out of the valley, how the first dead did not even make it out of the valley, but fell in the steams to return to the earth without hope, without eternal life.

Duwan led the way out of the valley into the cold winds of the barrens. It was still winter there, but the thinking was that, fat and well fed, cells filled almost to bursting with nutrition and energy, it would be best to face iron cold at the beginning of the trip rather than face it, as Duwan had, in a weakened condition at the end of the trek. That decision was not altered for the old ones, and the cold took its toll, and the dead were left behind, to be buried by the last of the winter's snows.

Duwan's mother, Sema, walked easily, strongly, always near the front of the procession. Her orange eyes seemed, almost, to glow in the dark. Beside her, struggling resolutely along, was Sema the elder, her mother, Duwan's grandmother, bundled into all her clothing, lifting her feet in the deep snow with difficulty, but always, at the end of a march, when they dug down and made a place to sit in the snow, with them.

Jai and Duwan the Elder ranged from the front of the group back to the last straggler, encouraging, shouting, lifting some oldster to his or her feet. Oddly enough, the hardships seemed to put new life back into some of the old ones. By the time Du was a warming influence, and the smokes of the land of the fires could be seen occasionally, low on the southern horizon, Sema the elder was walking as if she were much, much younger, made more agile by having used up stored fat that seemed to accumulate under the hardening hides of the old ones. And some of the elderly warriors were now insisting on spelling Duwan in breaking a trail through deeper snow. It seemed that those who were going to die had died by the time the snow began to melt and they walked on the ash and hard rock and felt for the first time the warming influence of both Du and the land of fires. Duwan stood on a high place and looked back at the caravan. He saw his mother walking tirelessly, his grandmother at her side, walking stiffly but strongly. He saw Jai helping a female far to the rear and he hollered down to her. She waved. He worried that she was using too much of her energy helping the weak ones, but his father had said, "Her heart is great, Duwan."

He allowed them to rest well before entering the land of fires, and they fed on the pulpy stuff of the succulent fixed brothers of that place. Only one was lost in the land of the fires, an old female who stumbled and rolled down, down a cindery slope into a lake of fire, there to disappear in a puff of smoke.

The departure had been timed well. Du's warmth made it not simple, but not fatal, to cross the melting snow fields, to wade the muddy bogs of the tundra. They saw the first signs of fixed brothers while Du's face was growing warmer, and there were no storms as they entered the land of tall brothers and, for the first time, the old ones saw the life that awaited them, heard the whispers, called the fixed ones brother. There, since there was still time, a few chose to stay. They had crossed the tundra with the last of their strength and they chose to go back to the earth there, in that northern place.

Since there was time, and since the event was a significant one, Duwan called a rest, and they watched with wondering eyes as Du revealed his power and his mercy, for the newly planted ones showed alterations within hours of their plantings. Skin that had been hardening and flaking away hardened even faster, but clung closely to limbs and spread and soon it was not possible to see, except in bulging places, where there had been arms. The frondlike hair grew rapidly and became branches and when it became necessary for Duwan to lead the mobile ones away, the planted ones looked, from a distance, like that which they were becoming, fixed brothers.

"Farewell, farewell," came the whispers, clearly heard. Dagner, the old warrior, walked beside Duwan. "As long as there is rain and sun you will be remembered," he said.

Duwan was silent, a bit embarrassed.

"And when we others go back to the earth we, too, will sing your praises," Dagner said.

"My friend," Duwan said, "you will not harden for many cycles. You will be active long enough to help us kill the Enemy."

Dagner laughed. "You joke, trying to cheer me, when I need no cheering. But, yes, I would kill a few of the Enemy before I find my spot." To Duwan's surprise, for there had been no Devourer settlements so far north before, he and Dagner walked directly into a clearing and stood face to face with more than a dozen of the Enemy. A nearby pongpen was crowded with slaves.

"You wanted a chance to kill Enemy," Duwan said, drawing his weapons. "You now have it."

Dagner sprang forward with a shout.

"Father," Duwan yelled, "forward with care." He, too, leaped forward. The surprised Devourers met their rush with longswords and fell back before the onslaught of four swords wielded by as many hands, and then Duwan the Elder was among them, stroking and slashing mightily. By the time others of the older warriors came forward it was over and twelve of the Devourers lay dead.

Dagner, breathing hard, cleaned his swords on the tunic of a fallen enemy. "Praise Du," he said, "that I have had this opportunity to avenge, if only in a minor way, the past."

Duwan was looking at the thin, starved slaves in the pen. "These are Drinkers?" he asked.

"Judge them by the pores in the bottom of their feet," Duwan said. He walked toward the pens. As he neared, the pongs began to fall to their knees and bow.

"Master," one of them said, cringing, as if expecting a blow. "Is it you?

Is it you who was foretold by the holy man, Tambol?"

"Tambol, holy?" Jai asked. She'd come running forward, but too late to get in on the action.

"He teaches us," the pong said. "He tells of us a wise and big hearted one who will return from the north to free us. Are you he?"

"You are free," Duwan said. "I am no Drinker's master."

"With these you would make an army?" Duwan the Elder asked.

"Teach us, Master," the pong begged. "Teach us how to be free."

"On your feet, all of you," Duwan said, and the pongs leaped up. "Now, how did this settlement come to be so far north?"

"Master," the spokesman said, "the Devourers came here to extend the hunting range for the city of Kooh."

"Are there other settlements in these northern forests?" Duwan asked.

"This is the northernmost," the pong said. "There are others. We were many when we left Kooh, and many dropped off along the way to clear land and build way stations."

Duwan was thinking, So, it is now time for us to angle off to the west, lest we encounter other Devourers.

"How are we to be free, Master," asked a gaunt, half naked slave female.

"It is said that you freed one female, and made her your follower. I would follow you, as well."

"Teach us the use of the Devourer's arms," cried a male.

"Tell us of eternal life," said another.

"Take down the bars from the fence that makes you a slave," Duwan said. He stooped and plucked a life organ from a fixed brother. "Then begin to feed yourself, thus, in the way of Drinkers so that you will be strong and then we will speak of teaching you the way of arms." With a crack of wood the fence gave way. The ragged female who had been brave enough to speak fell to her knees in front of Duwan and plucked life organs from the low growing fixed brothers and stuffed them into her mouth.

"Bless this green, Master, so that I will live," she cried.

"Expose your skin to the healing, nourishing goodness of Du," Duwan said.

A few of them pushed back their hoods. One male bared his chest and looked fearfully up.

"Eat," Duwan roared. "If you won't eat of the sweet, growing goodness of the earth take yourself back into the pongpen there to remain a slave." The female, her mouth full of green, her jaws working, tried to kiss Duwan's foot. He stepped back. "I am no one's master," he said. "I am Drinker. You are Drinker. And if you are to be free you must think and act like Drinkers."

"Teach us, teach us," came the cries.

Duwan made camp in the clearing. The pongs, stomachs bulging with green food, gathered fearfully around his fire. They eyed him expectantly.

"They will fight for you," Jai said.

"I don't want them to fight for me. I want them to fight for themselves, for their people, for their mates, for their sprouts."

"But they must have a leader, Duwan," she said. "Look at them. They are adoring you with their eyes."

"I am not a du," Duwan said.

"Speak to them," she insisted.

He rose. "One of you mentioned Tambol. Who spoke of Tambol?" A gaunt male, his stomach looking almost comical, so distended was it with food, rose and bowed low. "I have heard the holy man, Tambol, with these ears, Master."

"And of what did he speak?"

"Of you, Master. Is it not true that you came to this land before, that you saw, and judged, and went back to the far north for your army?"

"My army," Duwan said, under his breath, looking around at the remaining old ones. "I came, I saw, and I went back to my home in the north. But you cannot expect a large army to fight for your freedom. If you would be free of the Devourers, you, yourselves, must fight."

"We will fight, Master," said the ragged female, "if you will teach us, and if you will fight at our sides."

"Go," Duwan said. "Sleep. Rest. Tomorrow I will speak with you again." Duwan awoke late. Jai had guarded him, keeping others away, keeping it quiet in the vicinity of his fire. She gave him water and freshly plucked green things. As he ate, Dagner approached. He was panting.

"I've been working with some of these pongs, or whatever you call them, Duwan," he said. "They're puny and weak, but they're willing. I think when we fatten them up a bit—they're going to strip the life organs from every fixed brother around here if we don't teach them the proper way to gather food— they might just make warriors of a sort."

Other old warriors were showing pongs the proper way to hold a weapon, using the swords taken from the Devourers. Duwan strolled among them, Jai at his side. His mother and grandmother joined them.

"Starving in the midst of plenty," his mother said. "We cannot allow this to continue."

"Look," Jai said, "that one has a wicked thrust." A pong lunged awkwardly at one of the old warriors and the thrust was easily parried.

"We go to the west," Duwan said.

"And these?" his grandmother asked, indicating the pongs.

"They can go with us if they choose."

"Shall we not free the others, the ones in the way stations to the south?" Jai asked.

"So, my warrior mate is now bloodthirsty," Duwan asked.

"Look at them," Jai said. "Look at them. They're free. They're fighting."

"An Enemy sprout could take all of them, one at a time," he said.

"Give them a chance. We can work with them as we move south. As they get stronger, eating and drinking Du, they will learn."

"And how do you feel about our new army, father?" Duwan asked, as he approached Duwan the Elder, who was showing a pong how to counter with the shorts word.

"I have looked, as you suggested, at the feet of many of them," his father said. "They are Drinkers, Duwan."

"It will take someone wiser and more patient and more skilled than I, even more so than Belran, himself, to train them."

"I have done some training myself," his father said.

"So be it," Duwan said, with misgivings.

At the next settlement ten more of the enemy died, two of them killed by pongs. Six of the pongs lay on the earth when the swift fight was over, however. More pongs replaced them from the pens, and the straggling, noisy, chomping, belching ragtag army moved southward to clear the forests of the new Devourer settlements. Duwan talked to his growing following nightly. He warned them to forage carefully, to spread out when they were eating, to take sparsely of the life organs of all fixed brothers, lest they take sacred life and, more immediately important to them, leave a trail that a Devourer army could follow.

He now found himself in familiar territory. The wide, deep canyon where he had wintered with Jai was not far ahead. They were in a climate zone, he knew, where the length of summer equaled that of winter, and the summer rays of Du were strong. With Devourer expansion to the north, it was important that he find a safe place for his grandmother to return to the earth, for the old female was failing rapidly now, and she spent all her time on the march looking for a suitable place for her return to the earth. Others among the oldsters were in the same situation, near the final, total hardening, and they, having seen the miracle of rebirth as a fixed brother, longed for the rest, the peace, the eternal satisfaction. Duwan still had his doubts about the growing army of pongs, so he left them in the care of his father and Dagner, who now had no intention of returning to the earth until his blades had tasted much more Enemy blood, and Duwan led Jai and a group of twenty-one hardening oldsters toward the hidden canyon, being careful to cover his trail so that not even one of the supposedly loyal pongs could follow.

The canyon was in its peak of new green. The stream that had carved it and then diminished to a bright, sparkling, lively run over colorful stones was sweet. There was evidence, in the health of the green, growing things, that the canyon received plenty of sun, plenty of rain. Nowhere had Duwan seen such impressively tall brothers, boles as thick through as he was long, and healthy, and giving shade, and whispering, whispering.

"Yes," his grandmother said, when he showed her a little glade near the stream. "Oh, yes."

There was no prescribed ceremony for the return to the earth. Duwan planted his grandmother himself, kissed her, watched as her eyes closed.

"I feel it, Duwan," the old female whispered. "I can feel the tendrils growing from my feet. I can taste the richness of this earth. You have kept your promise."

There was, in their cave, still signs of their occupation, rotting beds, dead embers. They refreshed the beds, slept by a bright, cozy fire, and spent the next day watching the swift, miraculous transformation of the twenty-one they had brought to the canyon. The newly planted could no longer speak, but there were, in their minds, sighs of contentment, and,

"Farewell, farewell, thank you."

Voices blended into the background of the whispering brothers, none distinguishable until, after several days and nights—it was so pleasant to be alone that Duwan was in no hurry to rejoin the others, and he felt that he owed it to his grandmother and himself to stay with her until the transformation was complete—he went to the new grove of twenty-one growing brothers and squatted beside the thing, the tree, the brother, that had been his grandmother.

"It is a state not to be despised."

The statement came to him so clearly that he looked up to see if it had been Jai who spoke, but she was down at the crystal creek, bathing.

"In the time of the snows it is quiet and peaceful."

"Grandmother?"

"Yes, Grandson. You have chosen a place beyond compare for me to spend eternity. My peace will be complete—although I exact no promise, knowing that it might prove to be impossible for you to keep—if, when the time of my daughter and my son comes you would bring them here, and then, after a long, long time, yourself and your mate. It's peaceful and quiet in the winter and good in the summer. I drink the goodness, grandson, and I revel in it. I am one with the earth, and with all others."

"How is it that you speak with me so clearly?"

"It is my desire."

"And the others?"

"We are here, Duwan," came another voice in his head.

"The ancient ones. The wisdom of the ancient ones. Is it available to you?" Duwan asked.

"Some here were planted before the coming of the Enemy. The Drinker lands were far to the south. This has been a quiet, isolated place. Some remember. Others choose not to, to feel only the wind, the sun, to dance in the winds and commune with Du."

"And the tall brothers at a great distance? Can you communicate with them?"

"A feeling," came the voice. "Nothing more. I sense, far off, that there is pain, and death, and evil."

"Grandmother, try to communicate with those distant ones. It would be very helpful."

"I will. Now you must go. Come back to me, Grandson."

"Yes," he said. "I will come. In this canyon I first began to understand the meaning of love, Grandmother. We will come when we can, Jai and I, and you will be in our thoughts when we are far away."

"Farewell, farewell, farewell."

Chapter Four

For the first time in his life, Duwan delivered a blow to a living entity who was not the enemy. Another Devourer settlement had been destroyed, leaving more enemy dead. Now ex-slaves had seen their former masters vanquished. They had seen that the Devourers bled and died, just as pongs could bleed and die. There was noisy jubilation. Fires dotted the clearing and the surrounding forest. There was a babble of voices, for all the patience and authority of the valley Drinkers had not yet tamed a rabble of slaves into an organized force.

Duwan's surviving cadre of oldsters now numbered just under two hundred, and he never ceased to be pleased and surprised at the way the old Drinkers had risen to the occasion. Many of them, he would have bet at the beginning of the journey, could not have possibly survived the trip, much less survived to grow stronger and fight. It was, he suspected, the goodness of Du, for Drinkers marched and worked and fought as nearly naked as possible, the males clad only in a loincloth, to allow Du's kind and strengthening rays to caress every possible small area of old, hardening hide. He had broken the freed pongs up into groups, assigning them to the care of valley Drinkers, and training went on at all hours. The weapons captured from the enemy were meted out to the more promising pong males—and a few females who seemed capable of emulating Jai—and it had been discovered that there were a few workers in wood among the pongs so that these skilled craftsmen were now being instructed in the art of making bows, of finding straight shafts for arrows and rounding them true.

According to the pongs, two settlements, each one larger than those already taken, lay between Duwan's force and the northernmost city, Kooh. Duwan hesitated to move on the settlements, although he was being urged to do so by Jai and others. He knew a rabble when he saw it. He'd never fought in nor had he even seen a pitched battle, but he knew the legends. He knew that a well ordered force of only a few men, such as the royal guards he'd seen in Arutan, could rout his slave army, and he did not want to discourage his own people and the slaves by suffering a defeat. The way ahead was long, and would require much patience.

He was making the rounds of the various camps, consulting with his sub-leaders, seeing with some satisfaction that a few of the pongs were beginning to show some little skill with the bow. As he walked through a dense copse of tall brothers his nostril hairs quivered at an unpleasant stench, and he detoured to come upon a group of pongs in a small clearing, ten of them, male and female. They had taken a cook pot from a Devourer hut and a part of the stench that insulted Duwan's nose was coming from it.

It was the scent of cooking flesh.

He was not seen, for it was growing dark and he moved silently, and he stood in the edge of the clearing just long enough to see a pong male butchering a Devourer female's body and tossing bits of flesh into the pot. The female's haunch was roasting on a spit over the coals of the fire, and from that piece of burning flesh came the worst of the stench. He had traveled far, and he had had many disappointments. He had lost his first love—-although that no longer mattered, for Jai had become his mate in every way—and he had been deserted by his own people. His hope of achieving his goals rested on his own good sword arms, his father, a relatively small number of aged Drinkers, and a rabble. And now Drinkers, people of his own race, where flaunting Devourer evil in the midst of his blood, the stench of their unholy feast floating to the noses of his mother, his mate, his father.

With a roar, with both swords in hand, he leaped into the firelight and kicked the cooking pot over, spilling boiling liquid and flesh onto the ground, and, still roaring his anger, his disgust, he began to flail around him with his weapons. He used the flat sides of the swords, leaving in his wake bloody heads, aching backsides.

"Fools," he roared, punctuating the roar with a blow here, a kick there, as the pongs scrambled to escape. "There will be no abominations in my camp," he yelled, as he kicked the backside of a wailing female, crawling for the cover of the forest.

He stood, alone, in the flickering light of the fire, his chest heaving, tears streaming down his face. He had now reached his adult height, and his body had filled out impressively. His strongly muscled arms hung at his sides, the tip of his longsword on the ground. His legs were parted, and his trunk-like thighs showed the muscles, the strength, that had carried him over so much of the good earth. And he wept. He lifted his face. Through the branches of the tall brothers he saw the twinkles of the sky's night lights.

"Du," he whispered, "help me. I cannot do it alone. It is too much for me, Du. Guide me, inspire me, tell me your will. Am I being arrogant in hoping that I, one Drinker, can make a difference, that I can change this evil that soils your land?" He sank to his knees. His tear-stained face was still lifted. Although Du was resting, and the sky was dark, he knew that he was heard. "I am tired, Du, and I despair. Is it your will that I lead those who are mine into the uninhabited areas to the west? I am sick of blood and death, Du, and I pray for your guidance."

At first he thought that it was the whispering of the tall brothers, the spirits of departed Drinkers, for the words were indistinct and came, seemingly, from a great distance. And then he began to hear, or feel, or sense, and a feeling of awe pushed his head low, until his forehead rested on the hilt of his shortsword, the sword's point on the earth.

"South. Go south. South. My people—" And in his mind were pictures of the sufferings of the enslaved, the stench of burning flesh was in his nostrils, and the roar of battle in his ears. A death scream pierced him, left him trembling, and his muscles quivered as if from great strain. And then, clearly, the voice of his grandmother, echoing in his head.

"You have come too far to turn away, Grandson."

"I hear," he said without speaking.

"Have patience with them, for they have suffered much." And that other voice, hollow, distant. "They are of me and for me and you are the chosen one."

"Who?" Duwan asked, aloud.

"Question not," his grandmother said. "Listen. A day's march to the south is another settlement. There are many Drinkers there. Free them. The settlement is but lightly guarded, and the Devourers are lax. From the southwest a stream will give you access to the settlement so that your approach will not be noted. Go swiftly. And tarry not there, but move immediately to the last, and southernmost settlement, where you will face your first severe test."

The other voice. "Let my people carry the load."

"Who, Grandmother?" Duwan asked.

"I know not. Farewell."

With the coming of the light, he gathered them, Drinkers and ex-slaves, and he stood on a rise and looked at them, seeing masses of rags, gauntness, only a few with weapons. They were whispering among themselves. He raised his right hand and there was silence, only the luffing breeze and the stir of the leaf organs of the nearby tall brothers breaking it.

"We are of a people," he said quietly, but his voice carried well. "Today we march to the south." A cheer went up and he waited for it to quiet.

"Today I give you a choice, for no longer can the Drinkers of the valley carry your load. Now you are free, as we are free. Do you value this freedom?"

A roar was his answer.

"Then here is what you must do," he said, his voice rising. "This is the law of Du. There is one Du and you will honor him, and obey his laws. You will live in brotherhood with all things, except the Enemy, who has dishonored Du and usurped his lands and his people. You will not take a brother's all, but will share only that of his substance that will not cause him harm. You will honor and obey those chosen by Du to lead you and instruct you, although you are free. You will eat of the green, growing brothers, and drink of Du and honor him by exposing your hides to his goodness."

He paused. There was a gentle murmur of sound from the assembled people. "Mark those laws well. You are a member of the Army of Du, and the breaking of Du's laws will bring punishment. If you choose not to abide by these laws, then now is the time to state so, and leave. You are free to go. Now. If you choose to leave us you will not be punished, nor condemned. Go, if that is your choice."

Again he paused. A growing sound of voices came to him. He watched, half expecting the crowd to melt away in front of him. Instead, they pressed closer, until he could smell them.

"So be it," he said. "Now, there are also rules of common sense. A clean body is a healthy body. Water washes away the sweat and soil of the day, and a scouring with sand cleanses all. Water also takes the stench from your garments, and does not harm them. When we march to the south I do not want to smell you."

Laughter.

"Nor do I want an enemy, downwind, to scent out our presence," he said, smiling, hearing more laughter.

"I want all bowmen to join my father there," he said, pointing. "You will be our shock force. You will have first crack at the enemy. Work hard, my friends. Hone your skills so that not a single arrow is wasted. Swordsmen, there," he pointed to another area. "This will be a day of practice, for you will finish what the bowmen start. The coming battles are yours. Will you be prepared?"

A roar told him of their eagerness, but he was still doubtful. He kept that doubt until, wearing freshly washed rags and smelling only of fresh sweat, pong bowmen cut down all exposed enemy, after approaching the settlement in the cover of the stream's swath, and pong swordsmen, with few losses, cleared the settlement of surviving enemies.

Night. Flickering firelight. Duwan sat, a robe over his shoulders, gazing into the fire. Jai and his mother were preparing food. His father and Dagner, who seemed to grow younger, rather than older, sat on either side of him.

"They fought well, my warriors," Dagner said. "And we recovered all but five arrows."

"They are in high spirits," Duwan the Elder said.

"Yes," Duwan agreed. "We move with the light."

"I will fight with them next time," Dagner said.

"No," Duwan told him.

"There is a garrison of soldiers at the next place," Dagner said.

"Conscripts," Duwan said.

"But well armed." Dagner pointed out.

"The conscripts have not much more training than our most experienced troops," Duwan said. "No, this is their fight."

"It seems to me," Dagner said, "that you test them, Duwan." He remembered the voice, the distant, hollow voice. "Yes, it will be the first test," he said.

"But—" Dagner began, and was silenced by the glare of Duwan's orange eyes on his.

"I know you want to fight with them, Dagner. You are still our finest warrior. But what if, by accident, you are taken from behind? Who, then, will train our new recruits? We Drinkers have the knowledge, the skills. We must survive, at all costs, to pass this knowledge and our skill along to an army. We have no more than two hundred, male and female, and to reclaim this land for Drinkers, all Drinkers, we must have multiples of that, thousands, hundreds of thousands. The enemy will always be better armed, for we have not metals, nor metal workers, nor mines. We must overwhelm him by numbers, and to have numbers we, Drinkers of the valley, must lead." He put his hand on Dagner's arm. "There will come the time, my friend, when you can wet your blades with Enemy blood again. Meantime, patience."

"At times I forget that that young, still green head of yours contains so much wisdom," Dagner said.

On the way south a northbound caravan fell to an advance party of Duwan's army, and there were more dead enemies, more weapons, and more pongs to be added to the army. Many of the pongs in that caravan were woodsmen, and their cutting tools were turned into weapons and distributed to pongs who had received some training. The sharp blades and long handles of the cutting tools made them effective in hand-to-hand fighting, even though they would be no match for the blade of a trained swordsman.

Duwan, with Jai at his side, scouted the last and largest settlement north of Kooh. They climbed the limbs of a tall brother and looked down over a makeshift stockade intended more to keep pongs in than any enemy out. Soon, Duwan knew, the news would trickle back to the Enemy cities that for the first time in generations there was sudden death for Devourers roaming the forests of the north, but, judging from the activity within the settlement's stockade, the Devourers suspected nothing as yet. The stockade was roughly circular, and covered a large, grassy area bounded on two sides by forest, and to the west and south by sparsely treed plains. The garrison, conscripts dressed in dull, plain uniforms, had huts surrounding a central compound. Pongpens lined the walls of the stockade. Two gates stood open. He estimated that there were no more than fifty soldiers, armed with longswords, but there were probably two hundred Devourers, male and female and young, living in the settlement.

"After this they will know," Jai said.

He looked at her with a frown. There were times when it seemed that she could get inside his head. He had been thinking the same thing. There were so many of them that it would be a miracle if, in the confusion of the attack, at least one did not escape to carry the news of warfare in the north to Kooh, and thence to the capital at Arutan.

"We will lose many here," she said.

He nodded grimly. "The first test," he said.

He planned the attack after consulting his father and Dagner. It began at dawn. Female pongs—Jai had become a powerful role model for the females, and they begged, insisted, that they be made a part of the Drinker Army—had crawled to lie against the stockade walls while it was still dark. Just before dawn they kindled fires at points opposite each other on the circular stockade, fanning them and adding dry material until the flames reached high and began to eat at the logs of the stockade. Inside the stockade an alarm was shouted and Devourers began to pour toward the fires. While their attention was on the fires, agile young Drinkers scaled the stockade wall, dropped inside, and opened the gates, and from two sides Drinkers ran silently, gained the gates without alarm, and spread out inside the compound.

Duwan ached to be with them, but he knew that he and the less than two hundred oldsters were not going to be able to conquer the might of Arutan alone, that, in the final analysis, freedom for the Drinkers of the Land of Many Brothers depended upon the inhabitants of that land. He knew, as he watched from the same tall brother from whose limbs he had first scouted the stockaded settlement, that he was running a great risk. If his rabble—he could not yet call them an army—failed, if they were defeated, the word would spread and the pongs would hesitate to rebel at the risk of being peeled, would no longer seek to escape their masters and join him. But if they won—ah, then that word, too, would spread, and he would be in a position to send out a call to all pongs to rise, to escape, to join in the fight for freedom and the retaking of their lands. The first silent onslaught caught the Devourers inside the stockade totally by surprise. Many went down. Jai, clinging to a limb at his side, put her hand on his arm and felt him tense as he saw pong warriors slay females and young as willingly as they smote the Devourer males. An officer rallied the Devourer conscripts and about thirty of them formed a defensive square in the central compound. "Bowmen," Duwan muttered, although there was, of course, no chance of his being heard. But he had given his orders clearly, and the group leaders among the pongs began to shout their own orders so that a line of bowmen formed and the iron-tipped arrows began to take their toll of the Devourer soldiers. Then, with a screaming, wailing, nervous cry the swordsmen rushed forward and Duwan could hear the clash of iron on iron.

"They've done it," Jai said, blood-hunger making her voice hoarse.

"They've done it!"

Organized resistance was at an end. The pongs dispersed, each male seeking out hidden Devourers, and as females and young began to be dragged from huts, as fire was applied and the settlement began to burn, and the freed pongs from the pens were milling, shouting questions, some screaming in fear, Duwan turned his eyes away and began to climb down from the tall brother. He and Jai joined Dagner and Duwan the Elder, at the head of the reserve force, and marched into the burning settlement. Duwan was growing accustomed to speaking to newly freed slaves now, and he stood before the assembled pongs confidently, seeing that, as usual, they were emaciated and weak. He spoke the usual things to them, and, as always, he found that word of his coming had gone before him. Finished, he gazed at them, wondering if there would be among them a male of leadership quality, for that was his most desperate need now, pongs who could assume the role of sub-leaders.

"Well, you're a skinny bunch," he said, spreading his hands and smiling, "but Du's goodness and the sweet things of the earth will soon have you looking as fat and sleek as these." He waved his hand at a group of freed slaves from his forces who had been filling themselves for a long time on the things that were natural Drinker food.

"There is one here who is not skinny," a voice called out.

"Step forward," Duwan said.

A tall figure in dark, all-covering clothing stepped forward. It was a male, and he walked toward Duwan and fell to his knees.

"Master," he said.

Duwan pushed back the Drinker's hood and the fat one looked up, smiling, tears in his eyes.

"I knew you would come, Master," said Tambol, as Duwan pulled him to his feet and clasped arms with him and Jai ran to his side to join in the greeting.

Duwan sent scout parties, under the command of the more agile valley Drinkers, to the south, to try to capture or kill any who had escaped, for he still feared that word of the uprising would be carried south to Kooh, and then to Arutan. He called a conference of his Drinker leaders and sat Tambol at his side.

"This is the Drinker," he said, his hand on Tambol's shoulder, "who has been preparing the way for us. Tell us, Tambol, of the things you have done and the things you have learned and seen."

"Master, since you traveled to the north I have walked this land, and I have told of you in almost every village, every city."

"With some very inventive embellishments," Duwan said, with a smile.

"I have told only the truth as I have seen it and heard it," Tambol protested. "I have told them that you came from the earth, as it was foretold, and that you are mighty and have the blessings of the one Du."

"So be it," Jai said.

"I have made others believe," Tambol said, "and now they, too, spread the joyful news. There is not a pongpen in this land that does not have one who believes in you, Master, who constantly reminds all that you are to return, that freedom will be theirs, and plenty, and peace in the end."

"I'm sure this news has reached the ears of the Devourers," Duwan said.

"Without doubt, master," Tambol said. "But they, in their arrogance, do not believe. They look on the stories as the vain hopes of the pongs and laugh." He raised his stern face to the sky. "By Du," he said, "soon they will not be laughing."

"No signs of preparation?" Duwan asked.

"None, Master," Tambol said. "There has been no increase in the strength of the royal guards. Males are conscripted only to guard far-flung settlements, such as these that you have destroyed, and that not against any possible enemy, but merely to assure that there is an adequate guard force to prevent escape from the pens."

"So," Jai said, "if we now attack Kooh, they will not be expecting us?"

"Unless some escaped to carry the word they will be feeling snug and safe behind the walls of the city," Tambol said. "The new High Mistress is more concerned with her own pleasures than with any possible dangers."

"High Mistress?" Duwan asked.

"Yes, Master, the old High Master, Farko, is dead. His daughter, Elnice of Arutan, rules in his place, with the guards captain you once dueled at her side."

"This should make our task easier," Dagner said, "if this country is ruled by a female."

"Don't underestimate this one," Duwan said, "or she will feast on your bud."

"Du's face," Duwan the Elder said. "You jest."

"No," Duwan said. He turned to Tambol. "You have traveled much, and you seem to have access to the pens."

"Indeed, Master. I go disguised as a priest of the minor du, Tseeb, he of the clear skies, the du of hope for the pongs."

"Can you enter Kooh without endangering yourself?"

"I come and go as I please. The Devourers are delighted to have me teach the pongs that their role is to obey and to await their reward in Tseeb's clear-skied paradise after death."

"Go, then," Duwan said. "Return to us when you have determined whether or not word of our warfare here in the north has reached the city. We will be there." He pointed to the west. "I think you can track us by the swath we leave in the green."

"West?" Dagner asked.

"West," Duwan said.

"Kooh is to the south," Jai said.

"My warriors fought well today," Dagner said.

"Against a few conscripts, traders, females, and children," Duwan said.

"There is a small garrison of guards in Kooh, and there are the walls. We will march west, training our forces as we march, and only when we can field a disciplined force of at least two thousand will we attack Kooh."

"And if the enemy learns of us and brings more forces into Kooh?" Jai asked.

"Then Du will guide us," Duwan said.

On the westward march, the freed pongs of several villages swelled the ranks. The corps of bowmen was growing, with new weapons being made constantly. The great shortage was of swords. Dagner worked out a system of using axmen and swordsmen in a flying wedge, and, in theory, it was devastating. The freed pongs fattened on the bounty of Du and the earth. At last, Duwan called a halt and a camp was set up.

Now bow and arrow making was intensified. Now the training went on from the first to the last light of Du. The days were growing shorter, the change of season nearing. Jai and Dagner kept reminding Duwan that if Kooh was to be taken, it had to be soon, before the snows came and made marching difficult.

The nights were growing quite chill by the time Tambol returned. He came walking alone to find Duwan standing on a knoll watching the entire force of his army make a simulated attack on a walled city, the city represented by a rising wall of natural stone. Over a thousand pongs made the assault, using ladders of wood laced together by vines to climb the rocks. There were accidents. Pongs fell and were injured. Duwan was pleased with the progress of the training, but highly doubtful about the chances of this partially trained force against Kooh.

Tambol waited patiently until the exercise was over, the leaders had dismissed the various contingents of the army, and the evening campfires were beginning to make their smokes.

"Master," he said, "Kooh goes about its business. There is a garrison of a hundred guardsmen, and they are not the elite of the guards, but lesser ones, who consider the assignment in Kooh as exile from the pleasures of Arutan."

"Are you saying that none escaped the settlements to carry word?"

"To all appearances, yes," Tambol said. "There have been no alarms. No urgent messengers have left the city for the south. A pong who serves in the guards' barracks heard that, soon, a force will be sent north, to find out why the settlements there have not started sending flesh and hides to Kooh. There seemed to be no hurry about this. So, as it stands, an attack in the next few days would come as a surprise."

"We are ready," Dagner said, with an outthrusting of his hardening chin. "We must not lose the advantage of surprise, Duwan."

"There will be help from inside the city," Tambol said. "I spent several days and nights in the pens. At a signal, pongs will break down the fences and open the gates."

Duwan frowned. He still felt it was too soon. He had been thinking in terms of moving farther to the west, making winter camp and using the cold time for training and building his forces.

"Master," Tambol said, "they are waiting. They believe. They hunger for you."

"Pongs who have no training, who have never known freedom, they will risk peeling to open the gates?"

"Master, those who have heard me, and believed me, teach day and night. Yes, they will open the gates. And when we have Kooh!" He looked to the sky and muttered a prayer. "When we have Kooh the word will spread like wildfire when the rains fail. They will rise in Tshou, and in Arutan, and in the southern cities. We will march in triumph the length and breadth of this land!"

"I will think on this," Duwan said, rising. He walked away from the fires, left the camp behind him, scarcely noticing that Jai was following. He sought a high place, sat on a night-chilled rock, and searched the lights of the night sky for an answer. Jai, silent, sat with her back to his, giving him of her warmth, until, still without speaking, he rose and went down from the high place into a grove where there were whispers. He lay on the earth and opened his mind. The whispers were faint, massed together into a languorous murmur.

"Grandmother," he said without words. "Grandmother." But there were only the distant, meshed, indistinguishable whispers of the old brothers and no word came to him, no sign, no guidance. He prayed, listening for that odd, hollow, faraway voice, and there was only the silence and coolness of the night and the faint backwash of massed whispers.

This decision would be his and his alone.

"You say go," he stated to Jai.

"You are our leader," she said, "but my heart and my head say go."

"As say Dagner and others."

"We will obey, whatever you decide," she said. "But consider this. Even if we are repulsed at the walls, and I don't believe this will happen, we will have sent a message to all who are still in the pens. We will be saying, look, we are here. We are free. We are strong enough to threaten a Devourer city. Join us."

Duwan took her hand and led her back. Dagner, Duwan the Elder, others of the valley Drinkers and a few of the pong sub-leaders were listening to Tambol as he taught the miracle of Duwan, how he had come from the earth, how he had the ear of Du, himself.

Tambol fell silent when Duwan and Jai walked into the light of the fires. Duwan stood, tall, an imposing figure, the light gleaming redly on the hilts of his swords.

"We will go to Kooh," he said.

"Du has spoken," Tambol hissed, in awe.

"No," Duwan said, somewhat angrily, "Duwan has spoken, and he prays that he has not made a bad decision."

"The city is ours," Dagner said.

"We will go. We will take the city. We will destroy it. We will raze its buildings and its walls, and we will water the earth with the blood of Devourers," Duwan said. "And then we will march to the west, far to the west, and there we, ourselves, will establish a defensive position from which we will, after the snows have come and gone, raid the countryside, building our army. After, Kooh there will be no more surprises for the enemy, for he will know, and he will mobilize himself, and there will be no standing against him in open battle, not for a long, long time."

"We will send teachers to all cities, to the pongpens," Tambol said. "We will instruct the pongs to slow down their work, to do damage when they can do so without detection, and this unrest in the pens will force the Enemy to use more of his conscripts and order keepers to watch the pens. Each one detained in this manner will be one less we will face on the field of battle."

Duwan spent the next two days making his plans, remembering clearly the layout of Kooh, and its approaches. He went over and over his plan of attack. This time the various units would be led by their valley Drinker leaders. This time he, himself, would fight. The four gates of Kooh would be attacked by four strong units, Duwan with the force at the main, southern gate, Duwan the Elder at another, and Dagner at the third gate. The fourth gate, a lesser gate at the west, used mostly for entry by the gatherers of firewood, would be attacked by a smaller force, and that attack would come first, with a delay to pull the guards garrison toward the Wood Gate.

If all went well, the other three gates would be opened by pongs from the inside. The attack would come at first light, giving the night to move the army into position unseen.

Now with the scouts out front, the army was on the march. It moved through the western forests like a multi-segmented, long, deadly snake. It did not move in silence. Although there were many among the force who were becoming skilled with weapons, it was, Duwan knew, still more rabble than army. Ideally, his army would have been as well trained, as dedicated, as disciplined as the army of the great Alon. Alon had but to nod, said the legends, to send a fast moving strike unit into action, with all units coordinated as if by magic, but, actually, by training and discipline. Once more Tambol went into the city, moving ahead of the army as fast as he could walk. As Duwan positioned his forces for the final nighttime approach, Tambol found his way back to Duwan's camp to report that the pongs of the pens were ready, and that the gates would, surely, be opened from the inside.

"To be sure," Tambol said, "I am going back into the city. I will personally lead one group, the one to open the main gate, Master."

"You have risked enough, my friend," Duwan said.

"Then give me a sword and I will fight at your side."

"And how much training have you had with the sword?" Tambol lowered his head.

"My friend," Duwan said. "You have done more than any other. You have done your part. Thanks to you we have this army. Thanks to you there is hope for the enslaved. I would not lose you now, doing something for which you are not trained, for your leadership, and your teachings, will help us to multiply the size of this force. In that way your talents will be best utilized."

"As you will, Master," Tambol said.

The signal to those inside the city's walls that the attack was beginning had been arranged by Tambol, and it was a huge bonfire on a hill that was visible from within the city. The fire would be lighted when Du first showed the edge of his face over the eastern horizon, and by that time the four attacking forces had to be in position.

For once the army moved in silence. Duwan, with Jai at his side, positioned his group in the southern forest, a hard run from the main gate, and watched the signal hill. Since those on the hill were at a higher point, they saw Du first, and it was in predawn darkness that Duwan saw the first smoke, then the glow of fire, and heard, in response, the faraway shouts of the force attacking the western gate. He moved forward, hugging the earth, taking advantage of cover, getting near enough to the wall to hear shouts from inside, to know that his plan was working, for there were sounds of running, and shouted orders to tell him that the guards were moving to the Wood Gate. He stood and signaled Jai to give the order for the force to advance, and they began to emerge from the forest on the run, swordsmen first, then unarmed men carrying wooden ladders for use in case the gates were not opened from the inside.

As the first swordsmen drew near he heard sounds from behind the tall, strong, wooden gate and then a creaking as the gate began to open.

"Now we fight," he yelled to the first swordsmen to reach him. "Go, go, go!" They streamed past him, yelling, swords raised, pouring into the opening gates. He could hear faint shouting from the eastern gate, and he was elated, for it was going well. The crucial moment had come when his men ran toward the gate, exposing themselves, but the pongs from the pens inside had done as Tambol had promised, and now his army was pouring into the city and it was, for all practical purposes, his. Not even a trained unit of royal guards could stand against the human tide pouring through the gates.

Jai had run to his side. "Come," she said. "We will miss the killing."

"There will be enough blood for all," he said grimly. One third of his group had entered the gates and the rest were crowding, yelling, pushing to enter the relatively narrow opening when he saw the gleam of Du send light to flash from the bared swords of a running, silent mass of Devourers in the blue of the guards. They fell onto his force from the right rear, and they came in trained formation, each Devourer's flank protected by a companion in arms, and their blades began to bring havoc to the slave army.

"Turn, turn," Duwan began to shout, leaping into the melee of pongs pushing to enter the gate. "Turn and face your rear."

Chapter Five

Duwan was never to know the exact course of events that had resulted in a rear-flank attack on his main force before the gates of Kooh, but he had been prophetically right in warning others not to underestimate Elnice of Arutan. She had made a decision, in the face of some amusement from her male advisers, based on the report of one Devourer male. This one, a hunter, had been afield when the first northern settlement had been attacked. He had returned toward the settlement, laden with the pleasing results of a good day in the forest, to hear the screams of the dying. He came near enough to see, to his astonishment, that pongs could fight, and he was so traumatized that, for a day and a night, he hid near the destroyed settlement, then entered to walk among the bodies of the dead and to sift through the ashes of his hut.

Still in shock, he headed south, promptly became lost, and when he found his way again he arrived at the next settlement to the south in time, once more, to witness the bloody signals of a vast change. He saw females and children put to the blade and the fear sent him running to the south, bypassing all settlements, for he was convinced that the entire land swarmed with the bloodthirsty pongs. He lost his way again, discovered his approximate position when he was to the south of the coastal city, Tshou, and, walking on the last reserves of his strength and fear, reached the capital city and collapsed. It was days before he came to his senses again and began to try to get someone in authority to listen to him. When, at last, he was admitted to the presence of the High Mistress, he saw her dressed in a flimsy, clinging, ankle-length garment of the richest material, seated upon the throne of Arutan, a handsome, tall, well-built captain of the guards standing at her right side. Given permission to speak, his story began to be blurted out in sometimes almost incoherent half-sentences, so that the captain became impatient and told the guards to remove this idiot.

"Hold," the High Mistress said. "We will hear what he has to say." He told, tearfully, of finding the body of his female and his two children in the ruins of the settlement and then became involved in a confusing account of his arduous journey all the way from the northern settlement to Arutan.

Elnice listened patiently. She asked questions.

"Are you expecting us to believe," the captain asked, "that pongs killed swordsmen of the master race?"

"Hata," Elnice said harshly, "hold your tongue." When she had heard all, how this male had witnessed the total destruction of two major settlements, she dismissed him with instructions to put him in the care of the healers and keep him near for further questioning.

"He's mad," Hata said. "It is not unusual for the loneliness of frontier life to destroy reason."

"I have a report from Kooh that states that there has been no return, in the form of flesh and hides, from the northern settlements," Elnice said.

"I heard the report," Hata said. "It takes time to clear the virgin forests, to establish routes."

Elnice was silent for a time. "Have you also heard the reports of decreasing production from the pongs?"

"I ordered that their food allotments be reduced until the work begins to produce the usual results," Hata said.

"Have you heard, as well, the whispers of a new Master who will free all pongs?"

Hata laughed. "The teaching of the sect of Tseeb. Yes, I have heard. I, myself, spoke with a priest of Tseeb. He was a fatuous fool, wanting to spread his message in the pens of this city, and I gave him permission. To have hope of something in the not too definable future keeps the pongs working. To believe in a du of mercy, who will give them freedom and eternal life in the afterworld, allows them to endure their otherwise intolerable condition."

"I wonder," Elnice said. "Send a spy into the pens. Have him name two or three who seem most excited by these messages of hope. Have them peeled slowly, giving them plenty of time to talk. Meanwhile, activate all guard reserves, and conscript enough males to form a full conqforce."

"A conqforce?" Hata gasped. "High Mistress, there has been no army of that size in existence since the days of the conquest."

"If the male who came from the north is mad," Elnice said, "we will use the conqforce to sweep through the western mountains, to eradicate for all time any vestige of runaway pongs."

"It will be a severe drain on your treasury," Hata said. Elnice laughed. "You still have hopes, I see, that I will relent and make you my consort. Never fear, Hata, should I decide on that course, there will be enough left in the treasury to assure that you will live well." Elnice could not say, nor, being High Mistress, did she have to, what prompted her to march out of Arutan at the head of the largest force that had been gathered since the days immediately following the Devourer migration from the humid, hot lands of the far south. Perhaps it was nothing more than a desire to see some of the land that she ruled. Perhaps, deep down, not realized even by herself, there was uneasiness at the continued silence from the new northern settlements.

"We have invested good treasure in those settlements," she told Hata. "I think it is time we found out why we are not yet getting a return." She marched by easy stages to the north, spending a pleasant few days in the coastal city, giving her subjects there a chance to see her, her splendid body hinting of its beauty through her thin garments, giving the residents of that city a reason for pride with drills and reviews of the well trained conqforce. The change of season forced her to leave Tshou's pleasant beaches, for if she was going to travel past Kooh, to the first of the settlements, and return before the snows, she could not afford to waste any more time.

Actually, Hata found that being in command of a full conqforce was an exciting experience. He had no illusions, he felt, about a threat in the far north. Pongs were inferior, and incapable of fighting. But it was glorious to give commands to so large a force, and he took full advantage of the opportunity to exercise his military skills. He set problems for the traveling force, and sent out scouts just as if there was an enemy army lying in ambush in the vast northern forests. Thus it was that two of his scouts almost blundered head-on into Duwan's main force moving toward Kooh.

"Have you been at the cup?" Hata demanded, when the breathless scouts came to his tent and reported a large force of armed pongs moving toward the city. He felt first a chill of apprehension, then elation. No Devourer officer had faced combat in generations. All his life he had been a soldier, and aside from peeling a few pongs he had never had a chance to exercise his skills. He summoned the High Mistress and had the scouts repeat the story. Then he sent others and, during the night, reports came back that astounded him. Pour separate groups of armed pongs were closing on Kooh, the largest moving toward the main gate, the southern gate.

"We will attack at dawn," Elnice said. "Spread your forces, captain, to destroy all four of the forces that dare to threaten my city."

"Your forgiveness, High Mistress," Hata said. "One of the most fundamental rules of warfare is never to split your forces in the face of an enemy of unknown strength."

Elnice frowned. "Then what do you suggest?"

"We will first wipe out the larger force of enemy, the force that is getting into position in front of the south gate. Then we will move to destroy the others forces one by one."

"And if the other forces flee at the first appearance of our troops you will have to hunt them down one by one in the forests. Dus, Hata, these are pongs. Do you fear them?"

Hata drew himself up. "I bow to your wishes." He gave orders to split his forces, to have four separate groups move into position. He doubted that they could move fast enough to reach the eastern and northern gates before first light, but he had to admit that Elnice's reasoning was good. There could be no serious threat from pongs, and he didn't relish having to spend the winter chasing them one by one through the snows. When Duwan saw the advancing lines of enemy guardsmen, his heart leaped. He had not felt right about this attack, and now he had learned a lesson. He had learned to trust his intuition.

"Turn, turn," he shouted, leaping among the pongs who were rushing to enter the city through the southern gate. "Protect your rear." He managed to turn most of his force. As he faced south, he saw pongs dying. To his great pride they did not run. They turned from the walls and faced the lines of iron, giving forth their shrill battle cries, meeting iron with iron and not dying in vain, for guards died, too. But they were being forced back. Duwan began pushing his way forward. Jai was at his side.

"Go to the rear," he ordered. "Send messengers to my father and Dagner. Tell them to abandon the attack and form a defensive line just north of the city to give us a place to fall back upon."

"Duwan—" she began.

"Go," he roared.

He pushed his way into the front ranks, both hands filled with iron, and his swords began to take a toll. A group of his soldiers rallied around him and the advance of the guards, at that point, was halted, but to his left and his right the pongs continued to fall back.

"Give way," he shouted, "pass the word to give way slowly. Fall back. Pass the word for the men on our flanks to pull in toward us." His longsword split the helmet and the skull of a guardsman, and he took a few steps backward before another leaped forward to challenge his iron.

From a small rise Elnice and Hata watched the battle. "Look," Elnice said, pointing. "See that one with two swords who rallies them to his side." There was, she felt, something familiar about that figure.

"He anchors the line," Hata said. "We will account for him." He sent a group of his reserve to attack at the point where Duwan was rallying his troops. The fresh guardsmen began to push back the middle of Duwan's line. Seeing the situation, he passed orders to those near him to fall back, for the flanks to hold and then to slowly begin to fold in toward him.

"He gives ground," Hata said, laughing, as the center began to fade. Then he was screaming warnings as the flanks began to fold slowly in on his reserves, but it was too late. The fresh guardsmen were surrounded and, with Duwan leading, his two swords flashing, the pong army began to decimate the surrounded Devourers.

"Fall back, fall back," Hata was screaming. He sent a messenger to pass that information, but it was too late.

The small victory gave heart to Duwan's force, and he had difficulty in getting them to follow his orders. They wanted to pursue their advantage, but Duwan had seen ranks of guardsmen, their bright uniforms flashing through the forest, moving toward the site of battle. His orders were finally relayed and the pong army began to fall back, managed to disengage totally before the new force of guardsmen was in position. He found his father engaged in a heated little battle before the eastern gate, and his attack on the rear of the Devourer force resulted in many dead. Inside the city the pongs who had entered the gates were creating devastation, but the enemy inside had managed to stand, to hold the central square. Duwan sent messengers with orders to fall back. Many pongs inside the city did not get the orders. Left behind as Duwan moved to the north to join with Dagner's force, they perished as the enemy inside the city rallied.

The smaller force of pongs at the Wood Gate to the west had already begun to withdraw, with panic among some, and as Duwan retreated toward the north stragglers began to join him. He called a forced march. Rearguard scouts reported that the enemy forces were consolidating to the north of Kooh, and that there were many of them.

Duwan marched his troops for most of the night, called a halt, ordered a cold camp, and with the first light of Du was making the rounds of his various units, calling for an accounting. To his sadness, he estimated that a full third of his force had been lost, dead, too severely wounded to march, strayed, captured. He called his leaders together.

"Forgive us, Duwan," Dagner said. "We gave you bad advice."

"There is no blame," Duwan said. "The enemy will be counting their dead, too. Now we must march, and march fast, to the northwest."

"They will move to the west," Elnice said, her face grim as she listened to the various unit commanders report their losses.

"To the north," Hata said.

"Into the snows?"

"My High Mistress," Hata said. "I have spent my life studying military matters. I advised you not to split our forces, and we count many dead as a result. Had we had our entire force at the southern gate none would have escaped to join the others. I advise that we move north, and quickly. They are pongs and they cannot match the endurance of our trained soldiers. We can head them off by marching past them to the west and meeting them in the forests where their bows will be ineffective."

"Well, my military genius," Elnice said. "This time I will listen to you, although it seems to me that you were the one who told me that pongs could not fight."

The experienced guardsmen set a fast pace. Lashes were used to speed up the stragglers. It was true that the pong army could not match the pace of trained Devourers, not so much from physical conditioning— Duwan's forces had learned to fatten themselves off the land—but because of the superior organization of the Devourer force and the ruthless way that the officers drove their soldiers.

Scouts reported to Duwan, on the third day of the retreat, that the leading elements of the enemy army were to the west, blocking the route in that direction. Duwan, himself, went forward and saw the enemy moving in strength at a half-trot. To continue to the west would bring a head-on battle. He altered his route northward. Meanwhile, Hata's scouts had located Duwan's army, and Hata had ordered even more speed of movement, to put himself between the pongs and the great, dense, northern forests.

The chase continued for days. A captured Devourer scout, tortured without Duwan's knowledge by pongs, gave him a word for the enemy army. Conqforce. Conquering Force. An army, the invincible formation that had driven the Great Alon from the Land of Many Brothers. Thousands strong, the enemy seemed tireless, and as the days passed the Devourer force spread out in a long line to the west, with the lead elements forcing Duwan's course into a northeasterly direction. If that continued he would be pinned against the sea.

Now the destroyed settlements were being passed, and the sight of the devastation gave new strength to the enemy. Hata marched his guardsmen and the conscripts past the settlements, giving them time to see the decaying remains of those who had died. "No prisoners," he said, and this order was issued until every guard and conscript muttered it under his breath as the settlements were passed.

Duwan knew that the snows would fly soon, and his plan was to use the snow as cover to move his force into the deep forests. He was in familiar territory. Ahead was the wide, sheltered canyon where he and Jai had wintered, where he had planted his grandmother and the other oldsters. He had mixed emotions. He knew that the valley would be a fine place to make a stand, and it was becoming apparent that he could not continue to outdistance the enemy.

And yet to fight in the valley would risk the death of the relatively newly planted old ones.

It was the enemy who made the decision for him. A fast moving column crossed the head of the canyon to the west and positioned itself to the north. To the east the canyon tapered off and ended in high hills.

"Here we will stand," he told his leaders. "If we hold them until the snows come, they will be exposed, while our forces will have the shelter of the canyon. A winter siege will favor us, for we have food in the canyon, while they will have to hunt for theirs, or have it transported from the south."

He set up his headquarters in the cave where he had spent such a wonderful winter with Jai. The enemy could come at him from only one direction, the west. He positioned his bowmen behind tall brothers, behind boulders, with orders to fire and fall back to join the main force in defensive positions in front of the small grove where his grandmother lived on. In the following days, the enemy engaged them in probing actions. Devourers came down the steep sides of the canyon in small groups and were killed or forced to scramble up for their lives. A large force probed toward the east to find that the narrow confines of the canyon there, the steep, almost impassible hills, favored the defenders too greatly.

"There is only one way in," Hata told Elnice of Arutan. "Up the canyon from the west. The one who leads the pongs has chosen well. He can match our numbers in the confined floor of the canyon, but we will wear him down by repeated attacks."

Hata, himself, led the first probe directly up the canyon and he came face to face with the tall leader he'd watched at the battle before the gate of Kooh. He tried to fight his way to where Duwan was holding, a stack of dead guardsmen before him, and got close enough to see the face of his adversary.

"You will be interested to know that an old friend of yours anchors the center of the pong line," he told Elnice, after he'd ordered a withdrawal, leaving more of his own dead on the field than he liked to admit.

"A traitor?" Elnice snarled.

"Tomorrow, when we attack, you will see for yourself." Elnice, surrounded by her personal bodyguard, made her way near enough to the battle line to catch a glimpse of the powerful warrior who anchored the pong line and killed her soldiers with dismaying regularity. She again felt that he was familiar, so she pushed closer. She was in no danger, for the pongs made no attempt to advance. They had established positions where the bowmen could take a toll, and the swordsmen could fight from the advantage of a small rise in the canyon floor.

"Duwan," she gasped, when she finally got a glimpse of his face in a moment of violence, as he threw back his head to avoid a thrust and then lunged forward to slay still another of her guardsmen.

"I want him taken alive," she told Hata, that night, when, once again, many dead littered the field of battle. "I took him into my bed and now he betrays me. He will be peeled so slowly that he will howl for mercy." Next day the line gave, but did not break. Little by little, the enemy pushed it back, back, until a new set of defensive positions were reached and hidden bowmen caused a temporary panic among the enemy, a panic that was halted by officers cutting off the heads of a few fleeing conscripts and lashing the others back toward the line of battle. And so it went for ten days, then fifteen.

Each day was the same. The attack began shortly after first light and continued as wave after wave of fresh troops replaced those who had taken their losses in attacking Duwan's positions. At Duwan's back, now, was the grove, the young grove of growing brothers where his grandmother lived. His losses had been severe. Each day saw fewer experienced swordsmen at the line. Worse, the supply of arrows was running out, for it was impossible to retrieve more than a handful after each battle. Pongs had died trying to retrieve arrows, for Hata had noted the arrow gathering activity after each battle and had taken steps to stop it, placing fresh troops behind the battle line to ambush the arrow gatherers. Duwan knew that defeat was inevitable. He prayed for the snows. He tried to communicate with the tall brothers, and his grandmother, but it was as if the presence of the enemy in the valley muted the whispers. He was still alone, and the hard fighting had not only depleted the pongs, it had taken its toll among the old valley Drinkers, as well. Males he had known from his first mobile days had been buried, or lay, unrecoverable, on the field of battle.

After a long, hard day of fighting he called his surviving leaders into council.

"The snows are tardy, and even if they come now it is too late," he said.

"Our only choice is to try to salvage a portion of our remaining forces. They have fought well. They can become a cadre to form other fighting groups. It will avail us nothing if we all die here. With us will die all hope." He outlined his plan, and, as she heard, Jai felt her heart pound painfully. Dagner protested. Duwan the Elder rose, his face grim.

"I see the wisdom of your plan, my son," Duwan the Elder said. "I question only one aspect of it. I will stand at your side."

"Father," Duwan said. "You must protect my mother. You must do as I say, or we have fought and died for nothing. Dagner, you have regained youth here in this land, and you must use your skills to train other fighters. You must all trust me. Many will die tomorrow, and perhaps I will be among the fallen, but I will die with my heart at ease knowing that you have obeyed my wishes, that the hope will not die with us who remain on the field of battle."

"Do not ask me to desert you," Jai said.

"I don't ask, my love, I order," Duwan said. "And if you don't obey me I will have you tied hand and foot and carried."

"Duwan," she wailed.

"No more," he said, and she was silent until, with the ordered movements made during the night, she lay by his side with the lights in the night sky putting a dim glow on his face.

"Let me stay," she begged.

He held her closely. "I do not plan to die. I will hold until you are safe among the hills, and then I will follow."

"Let me stay. Life without you would be more pain than pleasure."

"And to know that you die at my side, would that give me pleasure?" She wept silently.

Chapter Six

With the coming of darkness Duwan's army began to dissolve. Small groups began to make the difficult ascent of the steep walls of the canyon at its narrow, eastern end. There were quiet but tearful leavetakings, promises to meet again in the west, in the land of the free runners. The groups had been assembled carefully, with a male of fighting experience in each.

Duwan made the rounds of his camp, speaking to as many as he could.

"On you rests the hope of tomorrow," he told them. "You have faced the enemy and you know that in his veins runs blood, and that that blood can be spilled. You must be my cadre, my teachers, until I can rejoin you. You must spread the word that Drinkers can and will drive the enemy from this land."

He found Tambol speaking to a large group of males and females and he halted in the darkness, outside the glow of the campfires, to listen.

"Of you, much is asked," Tambol was saying. "I, myself, shudder to think of going back among the enemy, but I will go and if it is your desire, you will go. There you will spread the word. Be cautious, my friends. Speak in whispers and in the protection of the darkness in the settlements, in the cities, anywhere you can find a slave to listen, and tell him of his true heritage. Tell him of the Master. Say that our battle here was not a defeat, but a victory, a victory marked by hundreds of enemy dead, a demonstration of what we can do if we all stand together." When Tambol was alone Duwan approached and was greeted with an arm clasp and sudden tears from Tambol.

"I had counted on you to consolidate them in the west," Duwan said.

"Yet I hear you speak of going back into the cities."

"I will do as you wish, Master."

"Then guide a group to the west," Duwan said. He'd given up on trying to prevent Tambol's using the exalted title in addressing him. "Tramp the hills. Gather the scattered elements together. Be my voice, Tambol, and gather others to you until the army numbers in the tens of thousands. Tell them to listen to the valley Drinkers, to my father, to Dagner, and the others, and to learn their lessons well before making another attempt to meet the enemy head-on. He is warned now, and he will be prepared."

"Master," Tambol said tearfully, "it is you they follow, you who gives them the strength to die. Let me fight the holding action. You go and lead them into the west."

Duwan smiled and put his hand on Tambol's shoulder. "My friend, I have seen you with a sword. Your tongue is your weapon. Use it well." Duwan climbed with his mother and father and the small group chosen to accompany them to stand on a high place and look down on the camp. The few who were left were kept busy adding wood to the hundreds of fires that were kept burning to prevent the enemy from suspecting the mass escape from the canyon. He saw Jai working among the others and his heart filled. For one painful moment he considered going to get her, taking her and fleeing with the others.

"Don't stay too long," Duwan the Elder said. "We will have the hours of the night. It is the enemy custom, as you well know, to attack at first light and then to pause at midmorning while fresh troops are moved up. When that pause comes, take the opportunity."

"That is my plan," Duwan said. "Now, father, please wait here while I bring my mate to you. Guard her and my mother well. Find a warm cave in the western hills and save a spot near the fire for my bed." No further words were spoken as they clasped arms and his mother embraced him. Then he went down the canyon wall and found Jai carrying wood for the fires.

"It is time," he said.

"Oh, Duwan—"

"Come." He took the firewood from her, tossed it to the ground and took her arm. Once again he climbed the steep wall, pulling her along with him, until they stood just below where his father waited.

"If you do not come to me," she said, clinging to him, "I will arm myself and seek out the nearest enemy and send many of them ahead of me into death."

"You will stay with my father and mother," he said sternly. "You will help train the army. You will teach newcomers the way, the proper foods, the truth of Du. In that way you will honor me best." He shook her, both hands on her shoulders. "Promise me this."

"Yes, yes," she said. "I promise. But promise me that you will not die just for the sake of stubbornness, because you do not wish to flee from the face of the enemy. Promise me that you will escape when the enemy pauses in his first attack."

"Yes," he said. He held her close and then pushed her up the steep hill. But he held onto her garment and pulled her back. "Once before I sent you away," he said, "and you came back. What do you hold most sacred?"

"My love for you," she whispered.

"Then, on that love, I want your word that you will not come back into the canyon. Promise me that, regardless of what happens, you will not come back. If I am to die, and that is not in my plan, I do not want the sadness of knowing that you threw your life away as well. Promise me."

"On my love, I promise," she whispered.

To Duwan's surprise, he slept. Around him those who had volunteered, who had begged to be allowed to fight at his side, slept or gazed at the fires, anticipating the morning. They were few, only enough to man the defensive positions in the very narrowest part of the canyon. Duwan awoke with a hand on his shoulder.

"Master, the sky lightens in the east."

He rose. He chewed tender life organs from a fixed brother, drank from the steam which, fortunately, came from the east and was, thus, not stinking with the blood and rot from the dead as it was farther down the canyon to the west. He saw to the positioning of his bowmen. They had the last of the arrows and they had been selected for their skill with both bow and sword, so that when their few arrows had been fired they could take up the blade and fill the gaps in Duwan's thin line.

Gradually the darkness faded. And then Du appeared over the eastern hills and from down the canyon they heard the grunted, guttural marching chant of the enemy. The bright uniforms of the enemy were soiled, but still impressive as the first elements emerged from a dense forest and passed near the young grove where Duwan's grandmother lived on. Then the enemy force began to be constricted as the canyon narrowed. Some marched in the shallow stream, slipping now and then on the rocks. Duwan stood, straight and proud. He had come to know the insignia of the various units of the enemy conqforce, and he recognized the markings of the elite Arutan home guard. It was Hata's own unit that was making the initial attack. He looked for Hata and saw him, near the center. More then once they had seen each other on the field, but had not, as yet, come face to face.

Shouted orders from Hata halted the unit at a distance calculated to tempt Duwan's archers into wasting arrows at extreme range. Duwan stood motionless. There was a brittle air of expectancy in the morning chill. No one moved. All was silence. When it became obvious that Duwan was not to be tricked into wasting arrows, there were more orders from Hata and enemy soldiers began to advance in staggered formation, running, swerving from side to side.

"Hold," Duwan ordered, lifting one hand toward his archers. He saw several of the archers notch arrows and half-draw the bow, and he kept his hand up, holding them back. "Swordsmen," he bellowed, "take these few. Archers, hold!"

The tactic had been used against him before, and he was ready for it on that last morning. He had positioned his archers high, so that they could fire over the heads of those engaged in sword to sword combat below them. His swordsmen met the running, weaving advance and the clash of iron on iron rang and echoed from the canyon walls. He did not hear, but saw Hata give the order for the main advance, as the enemy began to fall to the swords of his best bladesmen. He waited until the mass of Hata's force was in fatal range of the bows and then lowered his hand and saw the arrows flash darkly outward and heard the grunts, moans, screams of agony as they found their marks.

"Fall back to your positions," he shouted to the swordsmen engaging the first advance below him and his warriors disengaged and scrambled back to find their assigned places between trees, behind boulders, places chosen to make it impossible for more than one enemy at a time to face them. Duwan's usual place was at the center and he met the rush of an enemy with an almost casual thrust and then kicked the quivering body aside to make room for another. And then the morning became endless repetition. The clash of metal. The moans and screams of the dying. Duwan protected his position with a fierceness and rage that piled the dead in front of him, leaving, at times, a blank spot in the enemy line, since none cared to face him. He smelled the battle, the sweat, the blood, the acrid stench of fear, and he heard the thunder of the enemy captains'

voices, and the shoutings of his own leaders.

Sweat rolled into his eyes and he wiped it away with the top of his shortsword wrist while parrying a thrust by an enemy. Blood smeared from the contact, not his own. The enemy leaped forward as if eager to impale himself on Duwan's shortsword and was given his desire and then Duwan was moving to his left where a swordsman had fallen. Now the battle reached a peak. Hata's own unit was a prideful group, and for many days now they had been repelled by a force of pongs. They had come with Hata's harsh words burning in their ears, words of reproach and shame, and they were determined not to leave the field with a single pong standing.

One by one the defenders fell, and there were several times when Duwan felt that all was lost, when screaming guardsmen breached the line and threatened to fall on the defenders from behind. But each time his warriors rallied, threw themselves into the breach, pushed the enemy back.

The enemy pullback began at the center, where Duwan was the anchor, and spread until there was no longer the sound of sword on sword, only the moans and cries for aid from the fallen. Duwan saw Hata standing at a distance, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring hatred. Now was the time. Now was the time to pull his own remaining warriors back into the trees, to send them climbing up the steep walls, taking their last chance for escape and for life. Now it was time for him to follow them, to lose himself in those dense stands of tall brothers in the hills and slowly and carefully to make his way westward, there to rejoin his family and Jai. He looked across the body strewn battleground to see Hata still standing, still glaring at him, and at Hata's side there appeared Elnice of Arutan, dressed in a crimson copy of the guards' uniform. He looked at her for a moment, then turned to give his orders to begin to fade back into the trees. At that moment a shout of warning came from his rear and he ran back to see a sprinkling of color on the steep walls of the canyon. His heart leaped in alarm, not for himself, but for Jai, for his mother and father, for the enemy had come to his rear in force and were now sliding and slipping down the canyon walls. They had not tried that since the first days, when they had lost many men. To get into position to come at him from the rear they had had to move during the night. Had they known of his plans? Had they come upon the small groups who had left the canyon and destroyed them one by one? No, surely he would have heard had that happened. He could only hope that they had not started their movements until late at night, that his mother and father and Jai and the others were safely away.

Now he heard the battle chant of the enemy from his front. A few of his warriors were running to meet the enemy scrambling down the canyon walls. He lifted both his swords and shouted, "To me. Form on me." Except for isolated individuals already engaged with an enemy who had come down the steep walls, they came to him and he stood among them, so few of them now, and he said, "It is not Du's will that we escape this time, my friends. We make our stand here."

"It is better to die fighting than fall into the hands of the enemy," someone shouted, and Duwan nodded.

"Let us show them how Drinkers can fight," Duwan shouted, as the enemy began to reach the floor of the narrow canyon and advance and he heard the sound of the chant and the poundings of many feet. The guardsmen who had come down the walls fared rather badly, for they were winded by their march and their efforts. They found that pongs could fight well and they died, their bodies littering the ground. Then, from the west, Hata burst into the field at the head of fresh forces. Each one of the enemy came toward the concentrated melee with the words of their High Mistress ringing in their ears.

"Remember this well," she had told them, time and again, "I want their leader, this Duwan, alive. If he is killed not only will the one who killed him be peeled, but each surviving one in his unit."

Thus it was that Duwan had to seek engagements, and was surprised at the ease of his victories. Many, seeing him coming toward them, ran, often straight onto the sword of another Drinker. But one by one the Drinkers fell. Surrounded, in the open, the outcome was inevitable. At last he stood with the only other surviving defender, an ex-slave whose back was to Duwan's as a ring of enemy closed in them.

"Master," the one who was soon to die said, "we will meet again in Du's paradise."

A surge of guilt swept through Duwan. "Du," he prayed silently, as the enemy closed, swords extended, "if I have used your name in vain, forgive me." For he knew that he had been presented by Tambol and Tambol's followers as, at the least, favored by Du, and, at best, as Du's own representative on the earth. It was true that he had often denied divine origin, but he had not been firm, had even, he guessed, as death closed on him, been willing to let the ex-slaves believe in him in order to make them fight better.

"Forgive me, Du," he said aloud, as he lashed out and his sword swept aside a blade and brought blood from an enemy who fell back, screaming. At his back he heard the clash of metal and felt his last companion lean suddenly against him, then slide to the ground.

"Come then," he shouted, "let me take a few of you with me." Surprisingly, the enemy backed away. He rushed toward them and they slipped out of his path, but always he was surrounded by a wall of uniformed, armed Devourers.

"Fight," he hissed, making a lunge that was avoided by an enemy officer who actually turned and ran into three soldiers, sending them sprawling.

"Fight, cowards," Duwan roared, as he stood, swords hanging down, panting with his efforts.

"It is over," he heard, and he spun around to see Captain Hata standing, sword in hand.

"We fought once, Hata, with padded weapons," Duwan said. "There is no pad on my blade now."

"Nothing would please me more," Hata said.

Duwan crouched and began to advance toward the captain, but he halted when Elnice pushed forward and stood by Hata's side.

"You will not find an easy death in battle, traitor," she said. She turned to Hata. "Take him."

"I have never killed a female," Duwan said, stalking toward Elnice and Hata, "but when she represents evil—"

"Will you take him, or will you let him walk forward and kill me?" Elnice asked, her voice calm.

"Take him," Hata thundered. "Take him alive, or, by the dus, you will all be peeled."

Hopelessly, the front ranks of the soldiers began to close on Duwan and his blades flashed and enemy died and then, lest they all die under his iron, they screamed and pushed forward without their weapons and in blood and screamings bore him down by sheer weight until his swords could flash no more, until his breath was forced out of his chest by their weight and he was helplessly screaming his rage and anger.

"Bring him, and any living wounded, to the camp," Elnice ordered. He was carried, tied well, by four of the enemy. He fought against his bonds until he was exhausted, and then he closed his eyes, prayed to his Du, and tried to commune with the tall brothers, but all was silence from them. They tied him to the bole of a tall brother in an area where all green had been ruthlessly cut away. From where he stood he could see the grove of his grandmother, and he prayed that the enemy would do what he was going to do and leave the canyon before harm came to those new immortals, who had grown rather impressively since the plantings and were no longer recognizable as Drinkers.

Elnice stood before him. She had changed into something more comfortable than her uniform, a loose, short gown that showed her bud point and the shape of her legs clearly.

"Not that it matters, traitor," she said, "for all your deluded followers are now dead, but I will know your thinking, your methods, your lies that you told to the those doomed pongs. Talk."

"I am Duwan the Drinker," he said. "Since I am not of you, how can I be a traitor?"

"You told me you were a wanderer," Elnice said. "But you were more. A Drinker? That is a word that means nothing. You are either pong or master. Which is it?"

"I drink of the sun, just as I have taught many to drink," Duwan said.

"He has exposed his head to the sun and it has addled him," someone said.

"Silence," Elnice said. She whirled to Hata. "Clear this area." Within moments only Duwan, the High Mistress, and Hata were in the clearing.

"How did you know that you could drink energy from the sun?" Elnice asked.

"By the grace of Du," Duwan said.

"And you eat of the green, growing things. How did you first know they were not, as you were taught, poisonous?"

Duwan started to answer, but he closed his mouth. He had led an army, had slain many foes, and the enemy was now alert and, perhaps, in spite of the victory, a bit frightened. He would not give this female enough information to alert her to a population of Drinkers in the far north. He doubted that Devourers could survive the journey, and find the way through the land of the fires, but he would say nothing to put his own people in the valley at risk.

"I asked you a question," Elnice said.

"I am tired of talking," Duwan said, with a little smile.

"They, the pongs we have peeled to get information, say that you came from the earth," Elnice said, "that you are a god, a new master. Did you come from the earth?"

It was safe to say, "We are all, we Drinkers, of the earth and for the earth."

"Don't prate superstition at me," Elnice snarled. "I can give you a quick death. That much I will do if you will tell me how you managed to convince pongs to bare themselves to the sun, to eat green."

"Death, fast or slow, produces the same end result," Duwan said. "I will say that you will have ample opportunity to study the problem, for something has started in this land that you will not be able to stop, Elnice. All pongs know the truth, now, and if some are still fearful, they will come to believe. They will drink of the sun and they will eat and grow strong and then they will drive you and all Devourers back to the southern jungles from whence you came."

Elnice leaped at him and slashed his cheek with her nails, leaving three welling streaks of blood. Then she turned to Hata. "Bring the wounded. Show him what he faces."

A wounded pong warrior was dragged to the clearing. He was peeled quickly. Skilled Devourers used sharp knives to make a circle around the pong's left arm, his uninjured arm, and then the hide of the arm was seized in powerful pincer tools and ripped off, leaving raw, unprotected flesh welling blood as the pong screamed in agony and became unconscious. The hide was like a glove, complete with fingers and thumbs. Elnice picked it up gingerly and slashed it wetly across Duwan's face.

"Your treatment will be slower," she said.

He closed his eyes as seven wounded were peeled, first the arms, then the legs, then, in strips, the hide from the back, belly, ribs, hips. Death and the smell of it surrounded him, and the moans of it, for careful peeling left a raw, bleeding mass of flesh that lived on, often for more than a day. Fortunately for those who had been peeled, many were near death from their battle wounds so soon only two lingered, screaming in pain.

"I will give you death," Elnice said, standing over one of the screaming masses with sword in hand. "Tell me of this Duwan."

"He is the Master," the dying pong gasped. "He came from the earth. He is the appointed one of Du, the one Du. He gave us magic to eat the green and to drink of the sun."

"How many eat of the green?" Elnice asked. That question had been asked many times before of dying pongs.

"Tens of thousands," the dying one said. "And more each day."

"Liar," Elnice screamed, bringing down the sword to finish the pong's agony. The last survivor died as she asked her first question. Duwan wept. Even in death the warrior had been loyal. "Tens of thousands," he had said, and it was, as Elnice had said, a lie, for there were mere hundreds, and no one knew how many of them would survive to reach the doubtful security of the western wilderness.

"I want this one peeled with the greatest of care," Elnice told the two guardsmen whose specialty was shown by the oddly shaped knives they carried. "He is strong. Peel him in tiny strips. I want him to live for a day, perhaps two. Then we will see if he has had enough talking, or if he will be eager to talk, will beg to be heard, in exchange for the release of death." A peeler came to stand beside Duwan, knife in hand, made a cut at Duwan's shoulder.

"No," Elnice said. "Start at his feet. You should know that he will last longer if you start there."

She sat in a chair beside the tree and watched with slitted eyes as Duwan's left foot was lifted and the knife made an incision and the sole of his foot was peeled away. She looked up at Duwan's face, contorted in agony.

"Some find that screaming helps. It seems to use up energy and hasten death," she said. "Will you scream?"

He screamed, loudly and lustily, as the knife sliced and the hide was peeled from the arch of his foot and down off his horned toes. The clearing was now surrounded by soldiers. Some lay on the ground, heads cocked to see the show. Others sat, kneeled, stood. They drank their rations of wine and made wagers on how long Duwan would live once he'd been fully peeled.

It happened slowly, slowly. Little by little, strip by strip, his lower legs were bared. Flesh oozed blood. The pain of peeling made his senses reel. He screamed. And the peeled, exposed flesh burned with the slightest movement of wind, burned with a pain unlike any he had ever felt, a pain more severe than that he'd felt when the rock sucker was draining all his blood and he had cut off his own arm.

When he was without skin to mid-thigh he began to pray to Du for death. He didn't care if anyone heard him, he prayed aloud, almost screaming the name of his Du, and the High Mistress laughed.

"Pour wine on his exposed flesh and see if his du can stop the pain," she said.

Duwan screamed and writhed against his bonds as liquid fire attacked his exposed legs.

"Your du is not on duty today," Hata said, laughing.

"So he came from the earth," Elnice said. "Let us return him to the earth. Peel him to the waist and then plant him to mid-thigh in the earth. Let us see if that will awaken his du."

Jai, of course, had not obeyed Duwan's wishes. In the darkness of the night she had whispered to Duwan the Elder, "I go. Don't bother to follow me. Take care of your own." Then she was gone, and Duwan the Elder could only continue, for he had the responsibility of his mate and others on his hands.

Jai lay hidden high on the side of the canyon. She had, by sheer good fortune, chosen a place where no enemy came down, and she watched the last battle with wild, desperate tears. More than once she jerked, almost making the move that would send her down the wall of the canyon to join the dying remnants of the once great pong army, but, although she had broken part of her promise, she could not bring herself to betray Duwan's orders totally.

When, at last, Duwan stood alone and then was taken she was in shock, incapable of movement, save for her eyes, and they followed him as he was carried away. She regained movement and crept along the side of the canyon to see that he had been tied to a tree and she could hear what was said. She ground her teeth in anger as the wounded were tortured and then she almost screamed with Duwan when his first agonized wail came to her.

He was going to die. She did not want to live with him dead. She gathered her limbs to leap to her feet and go charging down the hill to, hopefully, surprise the enemy and get within swords' length of Elnice of Arutan, to take that evil with her and Duwan into death. She was poised to move when she heard, "Stay as you are, daughter." She looked around, frightened, for she had been very much alone in her hiding place. And she was still alone.

"You have given your word," the voice said, and she realized that it was in her head, not her ears.

"Who?" she whispered.

"I, too, know his agony," the voice said, "and he is my grandson, but you have promised him. You must not die with him."

And, in spite of her efforts, she could not stand. When Duwan screamed again she hid her face in her hands.

She had to look. She saw the torture proceeding slowly and, although he still writhed and screamed, she knew that he was dead, for he was peeled to the waist and no one could survive that. A silent wail of grief filled her, and the voice spoke, and it was laughing.

Laughing?

"The fools give him to the earth, daughter."

He returned to the earth, buried up to his hips in an upright position. He knew a new agony, for as the soil was shoveled and packed around his raw legs it was as if he'd been dipped to his hips in the molten rock of the land of the fires.

They braced his back against a post and tied his hands above his head so that the peelers could reach the tenderer hide of his underarms. Between each strip, the peelers rested, and Elnice, seated comfortably in her chair, taunted him, promised him that he would talk, would answer all her questions. And in her hiding place above, Jai died a little with each strip of hide removed from Duwan.

When, as the day grew long and Du sank low, there was only the skin on his face left, he had screamed so that his sounds of agony were now nothing more than a hoarse croak.

"Leave the lips," Elnice ordered, as the peelers began on the face. His eyelids were removed carefully. Now his orange eyes seemed on the verge of popping from his head and he stared without seeing at the smiling face of Elnice.

"You've stood more than most, already," Elnice said. "It is not that I believe you have any secrets worth knowing, it is just that you will talk. Tell me, if nothing else, of your childhood, my lover."

"The curse of Du be on you," Duwan said. "The agony you have given me will be returned to you in multiples."

"Take the fool's lips," Elnice snarled, leaping from the chair, her skirts swirling as she walked regally away.

Night. A light rain came, cold, not a great hardship to the camped enemy, but new horror for the peeled Drinker, with each drop striking like acid fire. He could no longer moan, for his throat was swollen closed with his screaming, and his breathing was difficult. There was no time. The rain stopped and he knew that death was near. He did not know how long the night had gone on, whether for an eternity or for an hour. He determined to live until Du came, to look upon Du's kind face just once more.

His sight was blurred by the blood that ran over the lidless balls, but he saw a lightening in the east. He lifted his head to agony. He had been in a semiconscious state of shock, and the movement seemed to awaken his mutilated body to fire. But there was Du. He could not blink to protect his eyes from the brightness.

"Du," he tried to say, and managed only a croak, "take me. I can stand no more."

And then the red, fiery circle was fully exposed above the hills and he set his lidless eyes on it and prayed until the rays began to burn his sight and blackness came slowly, slowly.

Elnice was in her uniform. Around her the conqforce was making preparations to move out. She stood and looked down upon the raw, bleeding body. His head was hanging on his bloody chest. His lungs had ceased to function.

"I had hoped," she told Hata, "that he would last at least until the heat of midday began to cook him."

"He died just after dawn," Hata said, "with one last prayer to his du."

"So much for dus," Elnice said. "I am ready." She did not look back. The last of the conqforce was out of the canyon by midday, leaving behind a feast for the scavengers of the earth and the air, and a weeping female who knelt before the dead one. In her nostrils was the stench of the newly dead and the long dead, for the enemy did not bury his own, much less dead pongs.

"You could have come with us," Jai whispered to dead ears. "You could have left during the night, and we would now be marching to the west and you would be alive. You could have, you could have."

Chapter Seven

Sema, mother of Duwan the Drinker, put fresh, dry wood on the fire. The cave was an ideal place, for there was a small vent at the very rear that allowed the smoke to be drawn straight up and out. She looked up as her mate entered.

"More have come," he said.

"Is there word?"

"None," he said. "Save that the enemy marches south and does not pursue any toward the west."

"And of Jai?" she asked.

Duwan the Elder shook his head. "There is one of the newcomers who has an infected wound."

Sema rose, reached for her bag of dried healing herbs.

"I will tell you immediately if there is word of either of them," Duwan the Elder said. "Go now, for the warrior is in pain." They had joined Tambol and a growing group of Drinkers who had found their way into the hills of the west. The last stages of the journey had been made in snow and sleet and cold. Many wounded died. A few of the old valley Drinkers had chosen a pleasant valley in the foothills to go back to the earth. Now the cadre of valley Drinkers had been reduced to less than ten, and Dagner, as if the defeat in the canyon had taken away his seemingly newfound youth, was hardening and had spent the first few days in the hills looking for his chosen place to return to the earth. There were, counting females and the few young, just over three hundred of them in the valley they'd chosen when a band of free runners came. Duwan the Elder went out to meet the runners, marveling at their wasted condition in the midst of plenty. There were evergreens and plenty of dried fodder, enough food to make a Drinker sleek and fat.

"If you must make your presence so blatant, with fires and noise," said the skinny spokesman of the runners, "you will leave this area and go further west, lest you draw the masters down on us."

"Who gives me orders?" Duwan the Elder asked.

"Farnee, Eldest of the free runners."

"I see only a fool who starves with Du shining and good food everywhere," Duwan the Elder said.

The group of runners, thirty strong, reached for weapons. Duwan the Elder clapped his hands and the group of runners were quickly surrounded by swordsmen, healthy, fat swordsmen who, except for their ragged dress, looked like masters. Farnee yelped and tried to run and two strong Drinkers seized him by the arms and brought him back to face Duwan the Elder.

At that moment Tambol appeared and Farnee, seeing him, cried out,

"Traitor, you have led them to us."

"Be quiet, old one," Tambol said. "We are Drinkers, all. We have killed the enemy, and we give you one more chance to join us."

"I see the new mounds of earth where you have buried dead," Farnee said. "If you have killed the enemy, why are you here, hiding as we hide?" All during the march to the west Tambol had been trying to come up with an answer to just that question, and others like it. There had been long days and night when he walked in miserable muteness, when he knew the blackest despair. From the beginning Duwan, the Master, had been the heart of it.

He had come from the earth to fulfill the ancient prophesy, that coming witnessed by his mate, Jai, and he had killed the enemy and taught others how not only to kill, but to live. Tambol could not delude himself into believing that things would be the same with Duwan gone. During those first grim days, when everyone was fearful that the Enemy was just behind them, he could not muster enough faith to believe that Duwan could escape the canyon of death. He knew that Duwan had accepted death, in exchange for a greater chance of escape for his followers. Try as he might, Tambol had never been able to hear the whispers from the trees, trees that Duwan called brothers, trees that, said Duwan, were the spirits of Drinkers. His entire faith was based on the Master. He had seen the evil in the pens, and he had heard others weep and pray to many dus. Emotionally, the concept of one Du, an all-powerful, merciful Du who was the Du of the Drinkers, appealed to him. Intellectually, he doubted during those days when it became apparent that Duwan had died in the canyon and would never rejoin them. He felt hypocritical when he told others, "This is the way of the Master. He left us once before, to attend to the business of Du. He has left us once again, but only temporarily. It is up to us to honor him and what he has done for us by carrying on his work. In the days of final crisis he will return to lead us into the last battles." As for the freed slaves, never having had anything in which to believe save some nebulous dus who seemed always to favor the stronger, the Devourers, they seized on Tambol's teachings and spread them. So, although Tambol, himself, knew doubt, he also knew the worthiness of the cause, and he still had some small hope that Duwan's ultimate goal, freedom for all, could be achieved under the leadership of the Master's father. So he was ready for Farnee's question.

"We will not regain the lands of our ancestors and rid ourselves of the Devourers without loss," he said. "The Master guides us, speaking to us through the spirits of our ancestors. He calls out to all to join in the battle." He drew himself up and looked at the free runners, his face majestic, grim. "And these are the words of the Master. All who are not with us are against us."

Duwan the Elder seized upon that thought. He had been told that there were hundreds of male runners, and that number would partially replace the losses to the army.

"We will waste no time on those who equivocate," he said, "but we will shove them aside, treating them as we would treat the enemy, lest they stand in our way or betray us to the enemy."

"The choice is yours, Farnee my father," Tambol said. "Join us, accept the ways of Du, live a good live eating and drinking of the bounty of Du, or risk our wrath. The sight of you reminds us of what we were before the Master taught us to be Drinkers, and that we cannot abide." Farnee looked around nervously at the bared blades of the swordsmen.

"What would you have us do?"

"Eat," Tambol said. "Fatten yourselves, and then you will be assigned to a unit for training."

Farnee swallowed and then said, "Can we not simply leave you, go farther to the west where we will not offend you?"

Duwan the Elder motioned with his hand and the swordsmen moved closer to the group of runners. "You are with us or against us," he said, borrowing Tambol's words. "Eat."

Farnee was handed leaf organs from an evergreen. He glanced around, in panic. Seeing no other course, he ate. In the days that followed it became a challenge not to get the free runners to eat, but to keep them from stripping all green in the immediate area.

Runner males began training. The surviving wood workers began to replace lost bows and arrows, and, in the absence of metal, experiments were made in accordance with ancient legends of the making of arrowheads from stone.

"It is time for me to go," Tambol told Duwan the Elder, on a day when the first severe storm of winter threatened, when the sky to the northwest was purple-black and Du's rays seemed to be already weakened. "I will try to outpace the winter to the east."

Winter overtook him, however, and he walked through snows and winds and when, at last, he reached a settlement he was weakened, looking very much the part of a wandering priest of Tseeb. He was given shelter in the pongpen and began, that first night, to talk of the Master. Winter had come to Arutan. The conscripts among those who had served in the conqforce were sent back to their homes. All was quiet in the pongpens. Elnice had ordered a few random peelings, with questioning, to determine if word of the abortive slave rebellion in the north had reached the pongs of the capital city and she was pleased to hear no hint of it from the screaming, begging victims. She had ordered a quarantine of the city of Kooh. It was enforced by a large force of her guards. No citizen or pong was allowed to leave Kooh to travel to the south.

As the cold closed in and made her luxurious quarters seem even more cozy, Elnice consulted her wise men with Captain Hata present. The eldest of her advisers was speaking. "It is my opinion, High Mistress, that there is no present danger. The future? That is another matter. It took our ancestors three generations to wipe from the memory of the relatively few native survivors of the conquest the knowledge of the special abilities of these people. Now that knowledge is once more afoot. We know that there are escaped slaves in the west. Your own people say that many escaped death in your last battle in the north. We can be assured that those who escaped will continue to spread the word, and that, High Mistress, is the danger."

"I see no danger," Hata said. "A few pongs were deluded by a rabble-rouser. He is now dead."

"Do you read the priestly writing, Captain Hata?" the old adviser asked. Hata shook his head. "Perhaps you should have read to you the records of those who came to these lands first. It is not widely known that our ancestors narrowly escaped being pushed back to the south, in bloody defeat, by peoples who, until our arrival, knew nothing of weapons or killing. Tell me, did the pongs fight well? Did you not have losses?" Hata made a gesture of dismissal, but Elnice said, "Their losses were greater, but the bones of our dead litter a canyon in the north. And one of them fought better than any warrior I've ever seen."

"So it was in history. Once they learned, they fought savagely. And," he squinted and looked around with a wry smile, "this will ruffle the pride of many, but it should be said. Warrior for warrior, equally armed and equally trained, they were superior, those early people who called themselves Drinkers."

Hata started to protest.

"Captain," the old adviser said, "can you march for one change of the moon without rations? Can you live, in winter, on dry leaves and grass?

Can you expose your skin to the sun and use its light to make energy? They can. Another thing. Have you seen figures showing the total population of pongs in our cities, in our settlements, in the single establishments in the countryside? We have, to sustain our lifestyle, allowed our slaves to outbreed us, to actually outnumber us."

"There is a simple solution for that," Hata said. "Kill them all." The old adviser spread his hands. "Are you willing, captain, to cook your own food, to carry your own wood, to clean your own house? Are you willing to take your turn in the mines, in the fields, in the workshops? Our entire way of life is based on our slaves, captain. To eliminate them would require vast upheaval."

"Well, all is quiet now," Hata said.

"Yes. It is winter," Elnice said. "What of the spring?" She looked at the old adviser. "What are your suggestions, old one?"

"Slow change," he said. "Little by little we must require more of our own people, our idlers. We must make it a requirement that each of our young learn a trade. We must limit the breeding of the pongs, allowing only enough of their young to survive to maintain a solid pool of breeding stock. Slowly, without letting it be known to the general population of pongs, we begin to reduce their numbers. This can be done easily in the cities. A pong, or an entire family, simply disappears. It happens often. Pongs are sold or traded. It will take years, perhaps ten, to make a significant reduction in the pong population without causing panic among them, without disrupting our economy."

"So be it," Elnice said. "Will you assume responsibility for starting this program?"

"I will, High Mistress," the old adviser said. "There is one other thing. You have begun to dismantle the army you put together. That process should be halted. Instead, you should build several forces, not as large as a conqforce, and train them well, have them ready to move instantly to any trouble spot in the land. As soon as the weather permits, the strongest force should be sent west to comb the hills. I would also suggest that you send emissaries to the western land, across the great, inland mountains, to see if there has been trouble there, to warn them if there was not."

"They would laugh at us," Hata said heatedly, "if they knew we had lost warriors to pongs."

The old adviser shrugged. "A small blow to pride, considering what is at stake."

"Let them laugh," Elnice said. "What I want to know is how this Duwan came to be a leader. He was pong. I saw the pores in the bottom of his feet. How did a pong rise above his station and influence thousands?"

"You killed the only possible way of knowing that in the canyon," Hata said.

"He could not have spread the word alone," Elnice said. "I want spies sent into the pens. I want to know who among them carries the messages of sedition." She rose. "Hata, begin to build the armies. You, yourself, will lead the force to the west in the spring. I want a daily count on the number of pongs put to death not only in Arutan but in all other cities. Upon consideration, I think it wise to exterminate the entire pong population of Kooh, and all surrounding settlements. If not all at once, at a rate in multiples to the exterminations in the other areas, for the pongs of Kooh saw an attack force kill masters in their city. That news must not spread."

"It will be done," Hata said, his eyes on Elnice's shapely backside as she swept from the conference room.

So it was that when Tambol came to Kooh, in the dead of winter, he came to terror and death. The days were filled with fear and wailing as entire families were taken from the pens to disappear forever. Not a day passed without several public executions in the square for offenses that, in the past, would have brought nothing more than a mild lashing. Tambol was shocked to find that fully a quarter of the population of one pen had already disappeared, or had been killed quickly—there were so many executions that peeling was too time consuming.

A sense of panic filled Tambol. Many of those whom he had taught personally were gone. Only a few real believers remained, and they were filled with fear and doubting, so that his urgings for hope, for action, went unheeded. When the edict came down to the pens that there was to be no breeding, there was a general wail of despair.

"It is evident," Tambol told a selected group, "that the Devourers' intent is to wipe out all knowledge of what happened here. They are going to kill all of you, so that no one will be able to tell others that here pongs fought and killed their masters. There is only one thing to do. We must help as many as possible to escape. This will be possible in the confusion, for so many are being killed that a few more who do not return, for example, from their work outside the city walls will not be missed." Singly and in groups of two to five, those who saw the hopelessness of staying in Kooh began to move toward the west. In their desperation, knowing that they faced certain death if they stayed in Kooh, they ate as Tambol had instructed them to eat. Most lived to survive the winter march, and many found the valley where they were welcomed by the growing force under the command of Duwan the Elder.

If the Master was dead, and Tambol began to believe that he was, his dream was still alive, not burning brightly as it had burned when an army marched and slew the enemy, but flickering, nevertheless. Winter had also come to the northern canyon where Duwan had made his last stand. The snows were deep there, and, although the canyon floor was shielded from the worst of the cold winds, the stream was frozen and the tall and other fixed brothers were laden with snow and ice. Jai had accumulated firewood and food in the cave where she had wintered with Duwan before they had made the trek to the valley of the Drinkers. There she had her memories. She had intended to leave the valley before the snows, but another change, a puzzling one, had kept her there. When the change first began she had screamed out in horror. She had noticed it first on the second day after Duwan's death. She'd spent the night in the cave, shivering with loss and the cold, too tired to build a fire, and she'd made her way to where he was standing, planted in the earth, shortly after sunrise to see that things, living things, were attacking his thighs just above where they disappeared into the earth. The things seemed, actually, to be growing in his dead flesh, absorbing the congealing liquids that had seeped from his exposed cells. She screamed and reached out to jerk them away, but she could not bring herself to touch that mass of horror. That was Duwan, his remains, but it was not the Duwan she'd loved. His orange eyes, now burned to a dull rust by the heat of the sun, were no longer the eyes into which she'd loved to gaze, picking out the little individual flecks of color.

She could not see the things growing, but by the end of the second day they had extended upward a full handspan on his thighs. She was led to remember the think vines, the living green that could be directed by the minds of the valley Drinkers to form their huts. She had seen Duwan's grandmother and many others of the valley oldsters return to the earth. In fact, as chance would have it, Elnice of Arutan had chosen an opening in the very grove where Sema the elder grew. Was this, Jai wondered, the earth reclaiming her own? Was Duwan to become one of those whisperers?

She lay on the cold earth before him and watched as, little by little, his peeled flesh was taken by the thick growth of tendrils. The growth spread as it reached upward, and there formed a moss-like fuzz, an all-covering blanket that gradually began to obliterate the shape of separate legs and arms.

With the coming of the first serious snow Duwan's body was no longer recognizable. It was a fuzzy mass, rounded to a point at the top, an odd growth, but a part of the earth, so much so that birds landed there to preen themselves and once she saw a small ground creature standing on its rear legs nibbling at the moss-like covering. Then the snow began to hide the mass, drifting against it, lodging on it, and soon there was a white pillar standing there in the grove.

She had conflicting emotions. She felt a need to be away from the reminder of her sorrow, but, when she thought of going, the emptiness inside her grew and engulfed her so that she would go into her cave, curl into her bed of boughs by the fire and weep until she fell asleep. Then the snows were too deep, the weather too cold, to consider traveling, so she settled in and would not leave the cave for days, for she could supply her need for water by eating the snow that drifted into the entrance. In the quiet winter nights, with the cold so brittle that the smallest sound seemed to reverberate throughout the entire canyon, she relived every moment she'd had with Duwan and as she remembered there were the whispers, indistinct, distant but comforting. To her knowledge she was the only one, other than valley Drinkers, who could hear them now that Duwan was dead. The whisperings renewed her speculation about what had happened to Duwan. Had the earth claimed him? Other dead bodies moldered, rotted, were eaten by scavengers. (It was more pleasant in the valley since the snows, for the grisly reminders of death were, at least temporarily, covered by a blanket of pure white.) Was he, like the ancestors and those oldsters from the valley, alive? She could not understand how. His heart had stopped. When Sema the elder and the others went back to the earth they had been living, if hardening. No, she told herself, he was dead, deprived even of that doubtful existence as a tall brother.

She had not yet accepted that aspect of being a Drinker. To think of half-burying oneself in the earth to become a tree seemed almost as horrible as being killed and left to become a part of the earth through decay. But now that Duwan was of the earth, she began to wonder, and, as she heard the confused, indistinct whispers, she told herself that, when her time came, she would return to the canyon and join Duwan there, to be by his side for—how long? Forever? Did the tall brothers die? She'd seen them killed by Devourers, cut for their wood. How could anything, even a tree, live forever?

"What follows forever?" she asked, aloud.

"Eternity," came the answer, clearly.

She jumped, startled. She came to her knees on her bed of boughs and looked around. The fire had burned low. She threw on dead branches and the light flickered. The entrance was almost totally blocked by snow.

"Who?" she asked. "Is it you, Sema? Speak to me. Tell me of Duwan." Silence. Massed whisperings.

With the morning she went to the green pillar that had been Duwan and brushed away snow with a fresh bough. The moss-like covering was denser, and seemed to glow with life. She touched it. It was not unpleasant to the touch.

"Duwan," she whispered. "Do you live? If you live tell me, and I will join you now."

The silence activated her pain and in a frenzy she began to dig away at the snow until she reached the frozen earth and broke fingernails trying to dig a hole into which she would plant herself.

"Peace, daughter," the voice said inside her mind. "It is not your time. Rest. You will go with the coming of the change of seasons." She kept her vigil through the coldest months. There was no change. The green pillar did not grow. Was that to be his last and final form? She asked and received no answer.

"You're hateful," she told the whisperers, one night when she'd called and called and prayed to Duwan's Du without answer. "You can speak. You can tell me, and you won't. You are cruel. I will leave this place with the first thaw."

When it came, the change of season, it came suddenly. She awoke one morning to find that she was not, as usual, shivering with the cold. There was a sound of dripping water. Since the cave was dark, lit only by the fire and a slit for ventilation at the top of the newly banked snow, the coming of morning meant nothing to her, and she slept, often, until midday. She saw a trickle of melt water running down the inside of the snowbank at the entrance to wet the dry floor of the cave. She pushed an opening through the snow and looked out to see a wet, bright, dripping world. A mass of snow fell from the laden bough of a tree and made a wet, soggy sound. She went to the green pillar. Its snow covering was melting, too, exposing the rich, dark green color. The sun had a hint of warmth. She bared her arms and drank of it. Soon, she told herself, she would set out for the west.

There was little preparation to be done for leaving. She would carry only Duwan's swords. They had been cast aside by the enemy and she'd stored them in the cave, keeping them bright during the winter by rubbing them with sand.

On a day that dripped a new layer of melting snow, snow deposited by what she felt would be the last of the late winter storms, she buckled Duwan's swords to her hips and emerged from the cave to take one last look at the valley and the green pillar. The sun was just beginning to light the top of the canyon's sides. She walked to the pillar and stood there, remembering.

"I go now, Duwan," she said. "I will come back, someday."

"It is not yet time," the voice in her mind said. Anger flooded her. "Now? Now you speak?"

"You will go when Du warms the earth so that the new, green grass comes."

"I will go now," she said. "Why must I wait?" There was no answer. "May the dus curse you all," she shouted, and her voice echoed back to her. She fell to her knees and faced the green pillar.

"Duwan, Duwan, they torment me so."

She would have spoken more in complaint, but her eyes fell from the pointed peak, where his head had once been, from the point where once his fiery eyes had flashed, down to a point not far above the ground. A small movement had drawn her eyes. She gasped. The mossy green covering split before her eyes and she saw one finger. A finger! And it was not raw, or decayed. It had pale green, healthy, living skin.

"Duwan," she screamed, reaching for the spot, finding that the mossy covering was tough, so tough that she could not tear it.

"Peace, daughter," said the thought voice of Sema the elder. "Do not disturb him, for he still sleeps."

"He's alive?"

"He is with us. Be patient, daughter."

Chapter Eight

"It is not a full conqforce," Dagner told Duwan the Elder. The old Drinker had not weathered the winter well. He moved with difficulty. The hardening had reached past his hide and was affecting his joints, his flesh, his bones. "The scouts have all returned, and fresh ones have been sent out. They estimate that there are more than two thousand armed men, with a support group of more than two hundred slaves guarded by lightly armed conscripts. Their movements indicate that they are making a methodical search. They send out groups of about one hundred in various directions, surrounding a given area, a valley, for example, and then sweep all toward the center. One of our scouts was thus encircled and did not escape."

"Was he a good warrior? Would he have talked?" Dagner shrugged wearily. "Who can say what a Drinker will do or say when he is peeled rapidly? We must assume that he talked. Du knows that I probably would if they were taking my hide."

Duwan the Elder nodded gloomily. He could field an armed force of less than a thousand warriors. He was not ready, and he had feared the coming of the thaws and the warm, sunny weeks that followed. But he had no choice, or, at best, some doubtful choices. During the winter he had questioned the free runners who were now a part of his force. He had learned that to the west were the impenetrable, high, always snow-capped mountains. To the southwest, the desert. To the north, he knew, were the dense forests and beyond them the tundra. He could not move west. He could not move to the south. Should he move to the north?

"We will attack the separate groups," he said.

He called in his group leaders. "To kill the enemy, to prevent him from chasing us down here in these hills and throwing all his strength at us at once, we must move quickly."

A young leader moaned. He remembered the grueling training marches of the winter, through the snow and cold, when Duwan the Elder had pushed them to the limit of their endurance and beyond by reminding them that it was the enemy's mobility that had trapped the army in the canyon.

"The enemy moves swiftly," Duwan the Elder said, "but we can move even more swiftly. We will move as a body, and attack as a body. Behind us will come the females, the young, and those who do not, as yet, have arms. Their function will be to strip the battlefield of all weapons, all scraps of metal. We kill, they salvage, and as weapons are captured, our force will grow."

"Run, run, run," a young warrior complained, as the first elements of the army left the western valley. "I'd rather fight than run. Run all day and all night and then fight. Does he think we're dus?"

"He thinks you are Drinkers," an officer bellowed. "Save your breath for the running."

The encirclement was made with some units at a full run so that they arrived at their assigned points panting, out of breath, dripping sweat. The unit that had had to run faster and farther met the enemy first, a group of just over eighty well disciplined guards, and in their exhausted condition they took quick losses until Duwan the Elder, driving his unit hard, closed on the enemy's rear and the swords were aimed at enemy throats from two sides. It was quickly over. Leaning on his longsword, realizing that he was not as young as he once was, Duwan the Elder stiffened when a scout came pounding onto the battlefield.

"Two escaped," the scout panted. "Come, you can see them." Duwan the Elder followed the scout to a sheer drop, a precipice of faulted stone, and looked down into a river valley to see two blue uniforms, dim dots in the distance, moving rapidly. He had to look harder to see Drinkers in pursuit, so far behind that it was hopeless, for in the distance he could see the massed blue of the main enemy force.

He summoned his leaders. Old Dagner was grunting with the effort of walking. "They know we are here," Duwan the Elder said. "Now our only advantage is that we can pick our own ground."

He chose well. At the western end of the valley the stream had eroded its way down through native rock to form an outlet. On either side the slopes rose steeply. The slopes were stony and barren of heavy growth near the valley floor, slanting upward to a tree line where a dense evergreen forest offered protection and cover.

"We will be outnumbered," Duwan the Elder told his leaders. "We will have to kill two for one. We will entice them to us by exposing ourselves on the barren slope and falling back gradually, making them fight uphill until we are in the tall brothers, where their formation will be broken and the action will favor us. Our bowmen will be concealed in the trees, and will choose targets of opportunity as we draw the enemy near." The Devourers advanced in two columns, coming up the valley on either side of the stream. Their scouts had seen Duwan the Elder's battle formation on the barren slope and they were advancing at quick pace, their guttural chant reminding veterans of the northern fighting of the sounds of a charging conqforce. Duwan the Elder, noticing the nervousness among his force, strode back and forth in front of the formation.

"Our withdrawal must be orderly," he shouted. "Keep the lines straight. Keep your eye on the warriors on either side of you. Should there be a breakthrough, close up and cut off the enemy. Fight as you back up slowly. Remember that you are Drinkers, and more than a match for a Devourer. Those of you who kill one enemy on the slope will have only one left to kill in the melee among the tall brothers."

And, as the enemy reached the foot of the slope and, chanting, swung into a broad front, an attack formation, he yelled, "For Duwan, for Du, and for the land of our ancestors."

Duwan the Elder had no way of knowing that this force of guards that he faced had been hand-picked. They were all veterans of the northern fighting, and they'd undergone the most intensive training that Hata could organize. Moreover, before their departure from Arutan the High Mistress, herself, had addressed them, and had told them that their expedition was more than an effort to punish escaped pongs. She had, against the advice of Hata, told the guards of the special abilities of the pongs, who called themselves Drinkers, had given them a short lesson in history, and, perhaps most effective of all, had promised a bonus to each man based on the number of pong killed during the campaign. There had not been a more motivated force of Devourers in the field since the days of the conquest, and it showed as the enemy came charging up the hill with dismaying speed and energy to strike the formation of Drinkers a blow that sent them reeling. So fierce was the assault that there was no question of a slow, orderly retreat. The Drinker line began to give way rapidly on the left, and Duwan the Elder shifted strength there only to see the center crumbling.

"Fall back," he bellowed, fighting for his life as two snarling enemy pressed him hard.

Panic struck on the left, and Drinkers turned their backs, and ran. Many died as they were overtaken. Screams and the clash of blades filled the air. Dust billowed up from the dry, rocky soil. Duwan the Elder's vision was limited by the dust so that he didn't know what was happening to his far right.

"Fall back to the trees," he bellowed, fighting as he backed up the slope, leaving enemy dead behind him. But once more he was reminded that he was not a warrior in his prime as his longsword arm grew weaker and weaker with fatigue and he found himself relying, dangerously, on his shortsword.

There would be many who claimed to have seen the miracle first. It came from the left, where the panic had begun and where the Drinker line was dissolving.

Two figures emerged from the tall brothers, moving down the slope not in haste but with long, purposeful strides. The taller of the two uttered a powerful cry as he launched himself at the enemy flank and his blades sang and hissed and thudded and caused a ripple in the enemy line, then a pause, and then the shout began.

"The Master!"

It came from someone on the left. It was repeated.

"The Master!"

"The Master has come!"

"Rally round the Master!"

Fleeing warriors halted, turned, struck down their pursuers or were struck down. A mass of Drinkers converged on the left and this movement was seen dimly by Duwan the Elder. He saw a knot of enemy surrounding just two Drinker warriors and was astounded to see that the two were more than holding their own.

"The Master! The Master!" The word was shouted, whispered, screamed, and the Drinker line wheeled and converged on the battle that had formed on the Drinker left.

"No, no," Duwan the Elder shouted, knowing that to stand in the open would be fatal. The odds against them were too great, but he, too, kept hearing that word, "Master," and he, too, seeing that it was impossible to restore order and continue the withdrawal, began to fight his way to the left.

Without orders, the archers in the trees bolted toward the battle. The enemy, trying to engage the Drinkers, who were congregating at the left, was milling in confusion, only a few of them in actual contact with Drinker swordsmen. Their rear was riddled by the arrows from the archers. Stone arrowheads were not as effective as iron. Some shattered without wounding deeply, but they took their toll.

In the valley, Captain Hata saw the surprising turn of events and shouted. "Reserves, to the right, come on them from the right, from up the slope." And his two hundred reserve swordsmen began to run up the hill, skirting the battle to gain the advantage of higher ground. By all logic, being outnumbered, the Drinkers should have formed a defensive square, limiting their exposure to the more numerous enemy. Instead, they charged. They charged in the direction of the thickest fighting, where blades caught the rays of the sun, flashed, and dripped blood. All formation was lost on both sides, and it became a confused, dusty, screaming mass where it was often difficult to distinguish friend from foe.

Gradually, out of the chaos, a wedge-shaped formation grew, with two at the head, fighting side by side, swords meeting the best that the enemy had to offer and leaving carnage behind them. Twice this wedge carved its way through the milling, sweating, dying masses of warriors, taking a toll of the enemy. And now all the surviving Drinkers were a part of it, and the split enemy flowed along the sides of the wedge with clashing swords. Enemy captains bellowed, trying to bring order, to get their warriors back into formation. And from the valley, Captain Hata saw that his numbers were thinning much more quickly than those of the pongs.

"Formation," he screamed, "form a double line." But his voice went unheard. In desperation he led his two staff officers running up the slope to join the fighting and for a moment it seemed that his presence would turn the tide as guardsmen began to rally to him and seek a disciplined line. Just as it seemed that he had control, the pong wedge turned toward him and came rolling down the slope, leaving dead, blue-clad warriors in its wake and those who had rallied to him turned and ran, some of them falling and tumbling down the slope. Hata found himself almost alone, with only two of his officers and three guards at his side. He moved to avoid the rush as the wedge broke, pongs yelling, "After them. No prisoners. For the Master." The battle rolled past and Hata stood, panting, looking on the carnage. Much more blue than the colorless garments of the slaves was on the ground. And below there were footraces as pongs ran down guardsmen and killed them from the rear.

Still he stood and now, below, there was only silence. A wounded man moaned. A light breeze cooled his brow. He saw the pongs turn and start slowly up the slope. And at their head was—

"You!" he said, his voice breaking, as Duwan the Drinker halted a few paces in front of him, swords dangling, blades bloody, face smeared with blood, his body nearly naked, and that, too, smeared with blood that was not his own. "But you're dead," he said.

" They are dead," Duwan said, pointing with his shortsword to the litter of bodies.

Hata's sword jerked into readiness. "I killed you once," he said. "Now, apparently, I must do it again, or have you the courage to face my sword alone?"

"At your pleasure," Duwan said.

Hata had noticed that the one who had fought so well by Duwan's side was a female, but now he had eyes only for Duwan as he moved cautiously down the slope.

"Two swords against one?" he asked. "When we dueled in the square at Arutan you put aside your shortsword."

"That was sport," Duwan said. "I will show you as much mercy as you and your ancestors have always shown to Drinkers."

He moved swiftly up the slope, met a thunderous downswing of Hata's longsword and, without regret, with no desire to prolong the fight, plunged his shortsword to the hilt in Hata's breast.

Duwan the Elder had pushed through the crowd of drinkers to see the last encounter. He didn't wince as the remaining Devourers were put to the sword, but then he was blinking as he stared into a pair of fiery, orange eyes.

"Duwan?"

"Father."

"Du is great," Duwan the Elder said.

"Greater than you could have ever imagined, father," Duwan said, clasping his elder's bloody right arm with his own.

"I, too, am here," Jai said.

Duwan the Elder looked into her face, embraced her. Pushed her back to look at her again. "I never thought to see either of you—how—"

"There will be time for that, for there is much to tell," Duwan said. "Are there other enemy units in the west?"

"Not within scouting distance," Duwan the Elder said.

"How many more warriors do you have?" Duwan asked. His father smiled grimly. "You are looking at our entire force, alive and dead."

Females and young had begun to search the battlefield, coming away with swords carried like firewood in their arms.

"Your mother will be happy to see you, my son," Duwan the Elder said.

"And I her," Duwan said. He was watching as the wounded were being treated. Here and there a Drinker or two knelt beside a warrior too severely injured to be moved, waiting for the end.

Duwan the Elder turned to his leaders, who had formed behind him and were gazing at Duwan in wonder. "Form them up." he ordered, "and we will move toward home."

But the march was delayed by the arrival of a panting scout. "Leader," he shouted from a distance, "there come ones with whom you will wish to speak."

There were five of them, escorted by another scout. Their bellies were bloated and distended in the manner of those who were eating their fill for the first time in their lives.

"And who are these?" Duwan asked, as the ragged group came toward the leaders, looking to the left and right in some fear at the sight of so many dead.

"We are from Kooh, Master," said a male, bowing.

"Good," Duwan the Elder said. "I will detail some to march with you and show you the way, since you will have difficulty keeping our pace."

"Master," the male said, bowing ever lower. "There are others behind us."

"Excellent," Duwan the Elder said. "I will leave some to guide them, too." He turned to pick out a warrior or two to leave behind. As an afterthought he asked, "How many are coming?"

The swollen-bellied male bowed again. "There are too many to count, master, as many as the leaves of the trees."

Duwan, who had been staring moodily at the Drinker dead, jerked his head around. "What did you say?"

"Master, they were killing us by the dozens, by the hundreds. Every day they were killing us, and when we finally began to believe the words of the wise priest of Tseeb, we rose. We slew our masters, or at least many of them, and we left behind us a burning city."

"Du!" Duwan breathed. Tambol had once estimated for him that there were over twenty thousand slaves in the city of Kooh. He turned his burning orange eyes on his father. "There is our army," he said. "Now if they will only give us time."

"We will make the time," Duwan the Elder said.

The momentous news filled Duwan's head, almost making him forget something that had been on his mind. He did not hear his father, at first, when Duwan the Elder made a suggestion. When it was repeated:

"Duwan, I will stay with the rest to escort the hordes to our valley. Go ahead, with your mate, to greet your mother."

"Yes," Duwan said. Then he remembered. "It has been said that the Devourers have a method of recording on lasting material the spoken word. Is that true?"

A former pong nodded. "That is true, Master. It is the priestly writing. They use a colored fluid to make marks on material pressed into thin sheets from the pulp of a certain plant. I have seen this writing."

"Do you practice it?" Duwan asked.

"No, Master. That is for priests and certain temple pongs who are trained in this magic."

"Find me, among those who are coming from Kooh, one who can both record words and recite them back," Duwan said. "Bring him to me as quickly as possible."

"It will be done," the pong said.

Chapter Nine

This is the word of Duwan the Drinker, who was dead but now lives, son of Duwan and Sema, Drinkers of the Valley, led into the homeland of my fathers by the wisdom and grace of Du there to be captured and peeled by the enemy and to be returned to the earth in a spirit of irony by the High Mistress of Devourers, Elnice of Arutan.