A Dragon at Worlds' End (17 page)

"I wish to return and live among the Ardu. I will be the father of Lumbee's children."

At this there was a scream from the doorway of the shelter. Erris appeared. She laughed bitterly.

"You cannot father children among the Ardu. Ardu and no-tail cannot mate successfully. No children."

"How do you know?"

"Slavers tell us. They say that is why slavers always have to come back to our land and steal more Ardu. They cannot breed Ardu enough to give slaves to all who want."

Relkin's and Lumbee's eyes met. There was an infinite sadness in the Ardu girl's eyes.

"Farewell, Relkin. I love you, but there is too much difference between us. It is better if you not come back, I think. Go with Bazil. Go back to the 'oceans' and the other lands."

Relkin was lost for words. He felt he owed it to Lumbee to come back and live with her and give up the other world.

Lumbee came close, defying the outrage in her father's eyes. "Relkin, you were very good to Lumbee. All Ardu are in your debt. My father and my mother would have been taken to slavery if you hadn't come here to rescue them."

Both Uys and Erris were stilled by these words. Uys looked down, torn by conflicting emotions of great strength. Erris began to sob.

Relkin was holding Lumbee close. She had her head buried in his chest. He could feel her tears running down inside his ragged, worn-out shirt.

It felt as if the ground itself had been pulled out from under his feet. Over the past weeks he had slowly accustomed himself to the thought that he would stay here with Lumbee. He and Bazil were effectively retired from the Legions and lost to the world. They would live out their lives in the lands of the Ardu.

There were two large question marks that always arose when he thought this way, however. The first was his love for Eilsa Ranardaughter. It was not her fault that Relkin had stumbled and betrayed their love with this new love for Lumbee the Ardu girl. Relkin was not worthy of one as fine as Eilsa. Relkin was just an orphan kid from a rural village. How could he hope to aspire to the hand of the daughter of the chief of Clan Wattel? Eilsa would marry someone else, someone within the clan, just as she was destined to do from birth. Relkin would be forgotten. The problem was that Relkin, in his heart, didn't believe this. He knew he wouldn't forget Eilsa and he didn't think she would forget him, either. Therefore, he would be doomed to grieve for the rest of his life with some part of his heart.

The other problem was the wyvern dragon. If they stayed here, Bazil would never be able to fertilize the eggs—wyvern eggs, that is. No one to mate with at all, unless he wanted to try the pujish, but Relkin doubted that. He knew that the wyvern regarded the big two-legged pujish with considerable distaste. They were warm-blooded like himself, and descended from some common ancestor, but they were viciously stupid and incapable of anything beyond violence. To mate with them would be like mating with wild beasts. Relkin knew that in the end old Bazil would grow very lonely here.

"I don't know what to say," he mumbled. "This is so painful."

"If we can't have children, then you will not be happy in the Ardu land."

"I can be happy if I am with you."

"But Lumbee cannot be happy if she cannot have children."

Ah, of course. Relkin understood completely at last. "See," said Erris brightly, "Lumbee is a good daughter."

"Yes," said Relkin quietly, "she is, and more than that, she is a brave one, perhaps the bravest
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all."

He left them then, and later he went downriver with the men and the dragon.

For a month the Ardu warriors hunted slavers on the forest rivers. Word of their ambushes and of the terrifying power of the forest god quickly spread to Yazm and the other slaver towns on the river. For the first time, the Ardu had proved themselves capable of active resistance and it was alarming. Stories about a forest god were not taken seriously in the towns, of course. The men had been too long in the deep woods, it was said. But something was running amok up there. Altogether at least five expeditions had been struck and two virtually annihilated. The word went south. Prices for prime slaves were already soaring. The rulers of the slave markets in the south sent back demands that something be done about it.

"Do it yourself," growled the slavers who'd made it out of the Ardu forests in one piece with their booty. Those who'd had the misfortune to encounter the forest god were even less inclined to listen to the words from Mirchaz. An atmosphere of fear and surliness engulfed the rough-and-ready small towns of the upper river. Messengers sped downriver in swift canoes powered by a dozen slaves.

One thing was certain: The slave hunting season was over. No more expeditions remained above the portage at the great cataract.

For a week the Ardu waited beside the river, but no more slaver boats appeared. One morning, with common consent, they turned their fleet of captured boats northward and beat their way upstream. Eventually they beached the boats, which on Relkin's advice they did not burn. Instead they carefully hid them in the forest.

In the future, the Ardu would fight the slavers with all the slavers' own weapons. They had learned much in this hard season of fighting short, vicious battles, either in midstream or ashore. One of the most important lessons had been the effectiveness of modern weapons over simple war clubs and spears without metal heads. The Ardu men who made boats had studied the slavers' craft with care. They, too, had learned much that they would introduce into their own boats.

Now the Ardu war party marched north. In ten days they reached the Plain of Three-Horns. Across the plain beckoned the hills around Lake Gam. That was where they would find the other Ardu, including the large group that had first been freed by Bazil and Relkin.

There were now seventy men in the war party, accompanied by a further two hundred women and children. They were growing into a tribe. Kin groups were forming friendships and rivalries, marriages were taking place with new kin groups, orphan children were being adopted into other new kin groups. A great social melding was taking place and it was producing a new entity in the Ardu world—the tribe, a grouping far larger than even the largest kin groupings like Red Rocks. The Ardu males had felt the power of numbers. As their strength grew, so their attacks had grown more effective. Equally important were the new weapons taken from the slavers, and the training in their use provided by the no-tail Relkin. They had a confidence now that they had never had before in their fights with slavers.

They found the other big group of Arduby tracking the smoke of their cooking fires. They were camped in the river canyon, not far from where the three-horns herd had run itself over the cliffs. Protected by a thick boma of thorns and stakes, their camp was on a bend, surrounded by deep water on three sides.

Stationed by the boma were some older men and some youths, armed with a handful of slaver-made spears with the heavy steel heads. When they saw the advance party of warriors appear out of the forest, they gave up a shout. Someone recognized Norwul. In moments, the women gave up a wild ululation that echoed off the cliffs above the river gorge, startling huge animals in the thickets and sloughs.

Out of the forest came the warriors and the two hundred or so women and children they had freed. They passed through the boma's gate and a milling scrum began as the two groups came together in a frantic search for kin. A roar of shouts, inquiries, curses went up. Soon cries of joy echoed up the canyon along with wails of woe.

The results were widely uneven. The Red Rock kin were crying in joy to the Gods, giving praise for their mercy. The Heather Hills people were also filled with gladness, though this was sadly tempered by some losses. The small Swan's Lake clan were left weeping. Half their numbers were missing.

"Mirchaz!" they wailed, raging at the southern enemy who hovered out there, vague and shapeless, a malign presence that sent its cruel trawls sweeping through the Ardu regions to steal the people away. It was more remorseless than the pujish and far more effective.

The summertime had once been a time of pleasure, a bountiful time when the Ardu folk lived in the forest as they did of yore. They lived on fruits and monkeys and several large lizards that made good eating. They fished the streams and hunted for small pujish when they came to drink. That was the ancient way of summer. The Ardu could no more change the way of summer than they could shed their tails.

Recently, the summertime had become a grim time of fear and foreboding.

In the summer came the slavers, with nets and steel swords and arrows that made them invincible. They had turned summer to a time of sorrow and loss. So many had been taken over the years that the Ardu numbers had dwindled to perhaps only half of what they once had been.

Mirchaz! Evil queen of the southern cities, dreadful moon of malice casting her shadow across the peaceful world of the Ardu.

But despite the grief for their departed kin, the folk were surprised and pleased to see Bazil return to them. To most of them he was still the forest god. The people in the camp built up their fires and roasted three-horns meat for him. Others brought him water from the stream and mounds of toasted bean pods, which he found very tasty between mouthfuls of meat.

A debate went on among the women. A few had previously disparaged the forest god and the no-tail boy. Some had seen them as tricksters, probably just slavers in disguise. There had been a lot of complaining from some people, especially during the hard days on the long march across the plain. Now these people were discomfited. The forest god had returned and brought more free Ardu. The complainers had been wrong and now they were forced to admit it, or at the least shut their mouths.

The forest god had few complaints, other than sore feet, some scratches, and thorn pricks and the bites of assorted insects. He ate and he drank and he listened with amusement as the Ardu people said prayers to him, asking for help in their daily lives. Bazil's grasp of the Ardu tongue had become quite broad and he understood most of what anyone might say to him now. Still, the Ardu were too much in awe of him to accept that he was a "person" like themselves and not a god. Bazil had to admit he didn't care. The food was good and now that the march was over, he wanted to relax a bit and get the ache out of his legs. It had been a long campaign. Not much fighting, but lots of swimming and marching. The marching had been long at the end and Bazil was glad to get off his feet.

He accepted a huge haunch of roasted three-horns with a cheerful smack of his immense jaws and started in on it with a thrill of pleasure.

Relkin came into the camp with Ium and Wol, two young men from the Yellow Canyon kin group with whom he had struck an instant friendship. Relkin had helped break the chains that bound them and they had accepted him completely. Among the Yellow Canyon group, he was universally popular.

Relkin's position had changed. Even Ommi and his friends gave grudging admiration of the no-tail friend. He not only spoke with the forest god and gave them the forest god's orders and exhortations, but he fought better than any of them and had personally saved many an Ardu life. The robust males were unused to the melee. When they fought among themselves they always fought in stylized combat, one on one, as champions for their kin groups. Thus they settled boundary disputes, woman-stealing, and inheritance fights. The slavers had them at a grievous disadvantage, not only because of their steel weapons, but also because they came from an advanced society accustomed to war. They understood how to organize small combat between groups.

Relkin and Bazil had changed the equation, however. Relkin was constantly teaching the Ardu new tricks with hatchet and sword, spear and knife. He had instructed Ium and Wol in the use of crossbows and they had quickly become first-class shots. As he worked with them individually, he promoted the ideas of discipline and group action. Most of the Ardu were ready to listen. They had been on the receiving end of the techniques of the slavers. They knew they had to adapt or perish.

At night around the campfire they talked of nothing but how to organize for ambushes and small battles in dense woods. They practiced working the boats until they could maneuver them with reasonable proficiency in the fast-moving water of the swollen rivers. Relkin had witnessed a transformation in some of the Ardu men. They were learning soldiery. Relkin had great hopes for them.

But Relkin's ascendancy was not welcomed by many of the people in the camp. These people had been grieving and grumbling even as they moved across the Plain of Three-Horns. For all they had gained, still they agonized over the vast dislocation their lives had received. Many now hated all no-tails with a passion.

Iuuns and Yuns had spoken poisonous words about Relkin. Lumbee had tried to stop it, but she was ignored and finally ordered to be silent by her mother, who feared the family would be ostracized.

Iuuns had put it about that Relkin and the so-called forest god had abducted the Ardu men and sold them to the slavers. Many folk laughed at Iuuns, but a few listened, and the story was spread and embellished. The sudden reappearance of Relkin and the forest god had overturned all of this, but though they willingly fed a hungry dragon, there was no love to spare for the no-tail among some Ardu.

Relkin tried to take no notice. The month had been exhausting, exhilarating, but also frustrating. They had captured two camps and set three ambushes. Two had succeeded brilliantly and they had taken whole slaver expeditions, killing most of the slavers and releasing a hundred slaves each time. The third ambush went awry, however, when some of the Ardu men moved from concealment too soon and the slavers were warned. In the confused fight that followed, casualties were heavy on both sides and few slaves were freed, while the slaver boats swept away into the gathering darkness. And after that there had been no more boats. The slavers had gone, taking their booty to the south.

The war party was now the nucleus of a tribe, the beginnings of a nation. Welded together in battle, the men had forged new, deep bonds, tying together ancient kin groups that had always functioned independently. They could not go back to the old ways living in small groups vulnerable to the slavers. Now they were something different, something new for Ardu folk!