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“Let’s go!” Orders rattled from Trolwen, his messengers swooped to the appropriate squadrons.” Hunlu and Srygen, close ranks about the bearers; Dwarn fly above with half his command, the other half guard the left wing. Rearguards—”
The morning was perceptibly further along before he had disengaged. His nightmare had been that the larger Fleet forces would pursue. A ru
“As you predicted, Tolk,” panted Trolwen.
“Well, Flockchief,” said the Herald with his usual calm, “they themselves wouldn’t be anxious for such a melee. It would over-extend them, leave their rafts virtually defenseless — for all they know, your whole idea was to lure them into such a move. So they have merely decided that the Eart’ska aren’t worth the trouble and risk: an opinion which the Eart’ska themselves must have been busily cultivating in them.”
“Let’s hope it’s not a correct belief. But however the gods decree, Tolk… you still foresaw this outcome. Maybe you should be Commander.”
“Oh, no. Not I. It was the fat Eart’ska who predicted this — in detail.”
Trolwen laughed. “Perhaps, then, he should command.”
“Perhaps,” said Tolk, very thoughtfully, “he will.”
IX
The northern coast of La
But their doors were broken down and their roofs burned open; Drak’ho canoes lay on Sagna’s beaches, Dark’ho war-bands laired in empty Ulwen and patrolled the Anch Forest and rounded up the hornbeast herds emerging from winter sleep on Duna Brae.
Its boats sunk, its houses taken, and its hunting and fishing grounds cut off, the Flock retired into the uplands. On the quaking lava slopes of Mount Oborch or in the cold canyons of the Misty Mountains, there were a few small settlements where the poorer clans had lived. The females, the very old and the very young could be crowded into these; tents could be pitched and caves occupied. By scouring this gaunt country from Hark Heath to the Ness, and by going often hungry, the whole Flock could stay alive for a while longer.
But the heart of La
“It is not well,” said Trolwen inadequately.
He strode up a narrow trail, toward the village — what was its name now? Salmenbrok — which perched on the jagged crest above. Beyond that, dark volcanic rock still streaked with snowfields climbed dizzily upward to a crater hidden in its own vapors. The ground shivered underfoot, just a bit, and van Rijn heard a rumble in the guts of the planet.
Poor isostatic balance… to be expected under these low-density conditions… a geologic history of overly-rapid change, earthquake, eruption, flood, and new lands coughed up from the sea bottom in a mere thousand decades… hence, in spite of all the water, a catastrophically uneven climate — He wrapped the stinking fur blanket they had given him more closely around his rough-coated frame, blew on numbed hands, peered into the damp sky for a glimpse of sun, and swore.
This was no place for a man his age and girth. He should be at home, in his own deeply indented armchair, with a good cigar, a tall drink and the gardens of Jakarta flaming around him. For a moment, the remembrance of Earth was so sharp that he snuffled in self-pity. It was bitter to leave his bones in this nightmare land, when he had thought to pull Earth’s soft green turf about his weary body… Hard and cruel, yes, and every day the company must be getting deeper into the red ink without him there to oversee! That hauled him back to practicalities.
“Let me get this all clear in my head,” he requested. He found himself rather more at home in La
“You came back from your migration and found the enemy was here waiting for you?” he continued.
Trolwen jerked his head in a harsh and painful gesture. “Yes. Hitherto we had only known vaguely of their existence; their home regions are well to the southeast of ours. We knew they had been forced to leave because suddenly the trech — the fish which are the mainstay of their diet — had altered their own habits, shifting from Draka waters to Achan. But we had no idea the Fleet was bound for our country.”
Van Rijn’s long hair swished, lank and greasy-black, the careful curls all gone out of it, as he nodded. “It is like home history. In the Middle Ages on Earth, when the herring changed their ways for some begobbled herring reason, it would change the history of maritime countries. Kings would fall, by damn, and wars would be fought over the new fishing grounds.”
“It has never been of great importance to us,” said Trolwen. “A few clans in the Sagna region have… had small dugouts, and got much of their food with hook and line. None of this beast-labor the Drakska go through, dragging those nets, even if they do pull in more fish! But for our folk generally, it was a minor thing. To be sure, we were pleased, several years ago, when the trech appeared in great numbers in the Sea of Achan. It is large and tasty, its oil and bones have many uses. But it was not such an occasion for rejoicing as if oh, as if the wild hornbeasts had doubled their herds overnight.”
His fingers closed convulsively on the handle of his tomahawk. He was, after all, quite young. “Now I see the gods sent the trech to us in anger and mockery. For the Fleet followed the trech.”
Van Rijn paused on the trail, wheezing till he drowned out the distant lava rumbles. “Whoof! Hold it there, you! Not so like a God-forgotten horse race, if you please — Ah. If the fish are not so great for you, why not let the Fleet have the Achan waters?”
It was, he knew, not a true question: only a stimulus. Trolwen delivered himself of several explosive obscenities before answering, “They attacked us the moment we came home this spring. They had already occupied our coastlands! And even had they not done so, would you let a powerful horde of… strangers whose very habits are alien and evil… would you let them dwell at your windowsill? How long could such an arrangement last?”
Van Rijn nodded again. Just suppose a nation with tyrant government and filthy personal lives were to ask for the Moon, on the grounds that they needed it and it was not of large value to Earth -
Personally, he could afford to be tolerant. In many ways, the Drak’honai were closer to the human norm than the La
The La