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Hresh muttered thanks to Dawi
“What will bring the hjjks?” Taniane asked.
“Leave that to me,” said Hresh.
Harruel could not understand what was going on. All night long he and his tribe had waited on the crater’s rim, watching the hjjks come closer and closer, and then halt at sundown, with the obvious intent of marching onward toward the crater when morning came. He had expected that he would die today when the City of Yissou took the full brunt of the hjjk-folk attack, and in truth he was not only willing to die but eager, for the savor of life had gone from him. Now it was dawn-time and the attack had come, more or less. Yet he had thought, and Salaman and Konya also, that the hjjks would attack in a methodical, brutally orderly way, as mere ants might do: for that was all they were, ants of a sort, though much enlarged and with far greater intelligence.
But instead the hjjks seemed to have gone crazy.
Their route of march was leading them straight toward the heart of the crater. But now, as Harruel watched dumbfounded, they were breaking ranks. Their formation was shattering into a wild and formless swarm. He stared, bewildered, as the hjjks ran this way and that on the plain, forming little groups that instantly broke and coalesced again and broke again. All of them were milling aimlessly about one group that seemed to hold its place in the center of the entire heaving mass.
Was it a trick? To what purpose?
And the vermilions appeared to have gone berserk also. At the first light of dawn Salaman had come to him with the puzzling news that he had seen the giant beasts all go thundering off toward the west and disappearing into the rough terrain of ravines and landslides that lay out there. But a little while later it became clear that only about half the vermilions had done that. The rest had broken ranks and were wandering everywhere on the northern plain in twos or threes, or simply by themselves. Complete confusion prevailed. It was still perilous to have so many beasts of that size anywhere near the city. But one thing looked certain: the hjjks would not be able to drive an organized force of the monsters down into the crater as beasts of war. The hjjks had lost control of their vermilions entirely. And, so it seemed, they had lost control of themselves.
Harruel shook his head. “What can be doing this?” he asked Salaman.
“Hresh, I think.”
“Hresh?”
“He is somewhere nearby.”
“Have you gone mad too?” Harruel cried.
“I felt him last night,” said Salaman. “As I sat on the high place, where I first had the vision of this army that now thunders all around us. I sent out my second sight and I felt Hresh close by, and others of Koshmar’s tribe too, nearly all of them. Except only Koshmar, and Torlyri. They had followed our path through the forest and they were just east of the city.”
“You are as crazy as those hjjks,” Harruel growled. “Hresh here? The People?”
“Look out there,” Salaman said. “Who could have done this to the hjjks and their vermilions? Who but Hresh? My first vision was a true one, Harruel. Trust me on this.”
“Hresh,” Harruel muttered. “Coming here to fight our war for us? How can this be? How? How?”
He stood staring, trying as the sun rose higher to make some sense out of the incomprehensible thing that was happening to the north. The light that came rolling from the east now brightened half the plateau. There was definitely a center to the melee: the hjjks appeared all to be struggling to reach some place a little higher than the rest, where already a tremendous chaotic mass of the insect-folk had gathered. Harruel sought to find Hresh somewhere about, but of him there was no sign. Salaman must have dreamed him, Harruel thought.
Thaloin came ru
“Harruel! Harruel! The hjjks, to our east side! Konya’s holding them off, but come! Come!”
“How many?”
“Just a few. No more than a hundred, I think.”
Salaman laughed. “A hundred is only a few, is that it?”
“Few enough, compared with what’s out there on the plateau.” Harruel seized Salaman’s shoulder roughly and shook it. “Come, let’s go to Konya’s aid! Thaloin, send the word around the rim that the hjjks are trying to break through from the east!” Turning, he rushed off toward the battle zone.
Thaloin’s estimate, Harruel found, was off by more than a little. Perhaps three hundred hjjks — a party of strays, breaking off from the confused main mass of their people — had come blundering up the side of the crater. They had a few vermilions with them, not many, but enough to trample down the breastworks of brambles that had been placed outside the rim to hold invaders back. Konya, looking immense, casting a long shadow, was ranging up and down along the rim itself, slashing at great-beaked yellow-and-black soldiers who bobbed up here and there at the edge. Nittin was with him, and, to Harruel’s surprise, so was Minbain, and their son Samnibolon. All were thrusting away vigorously at the attackers.
The king drew in his breath sharply and went plunging into the midst of the group, shouting his war-cry: “Harruel! Harruel!”
A hjjk rose up before him, waving his shining jointed limbs. Harruel cut away an arm with one quick stroke of his blade, and brought his spear around to push the hjjk back down the hill. Another appeared in its place, and Harruel cut that one down too. A third fell to Salaman, standing close by him. Harruel looked to his side and saw Samnibolon bravely hacking away. Once more he fought brilliantly for a child, with speed and agility far beyond his years.
“Harruel!” cried the king, in full heat of battle now. “Harruel! Harruel!”
He looked down, past the slope of the crater. There were hjjks straggling about everywhere along the slope, hundreds of them. But they had no plan, and they were moving in a ragged, aimless way. He had no doubt that they could be dealt with, one by one, or if necessary by twos and threes, as in that earlier battle.
The rest of the hjjks, the great preponderant mass of them, still kept converging on that high point in mid-plateau. The site was boiling like an ant-hill now. For an instant the frenzied swarms parted, and Harruel caught sight of something metallic glinting at the midst of everything, and saw a flash of harsh light of many colors; and then the hjjks went piling inward again and whatever lay at the center of the swarm-zone was once more hidden from his view. It seemed to him also that other hjjks, more distant ones, were streaming away from the site of battle now — heading back northward, or eastward into the forest, or around the side of the crater and off to the south — anywhere, so long as it was not here, so long as they could get away from this scene of madness that must be so repellent to their orderly spirits.
There was hope, then. If the defenders of the city could only hold the crater against this relative handful of hjjk warriors, they might yet get out of this day alive!
Harruel, gri
Then Salaman tapped his arm. “Do you see there? There, Harruel? At the edge of the forest?”
Turning to the east, Harruel stared in the direction Salaman indicated. At first he saw nothing, for he was looking into the fiery glare of the morning sun. But then he covered his eyes and tried by second sight, and yes, yes—
People there. Familiar ones. Orbin, Thhrouk, Haniman, Staip, Praheurt — warriors all. Hresh. Taniane. The People! Emerging from the forest, coming out onto the crater approach. Fighting their way toward the city, cutting down stray hjjks as they came. Allies! Reinforcements!