Hammerfall

The veiled man glared back, looking at him, not at Hati. “What is your request, villager?”

“Lead a caravan east, past Pori, past the rim of the Lakht, where there’s safety from the star-fall. No one knows the eastern desert better than the Keran. Sheproves that.”

The eyes above the veil were hard as black stone, and no more revealing.

“Marak Trin Tain, is it?”

“All the world’s come here expecting to die. If someone doesn’t lead all the world awayfrom here, they’ll starve, if the stars don’t destroy them first. The crops will fail. The star-fall will only get worse. Soon there’ll be no food to sustain this mass of people.”

“I bleed from grief. We’ll ride away safe.”

You came here, it occurred to him to say. You came here because everyone else was coming…

But that was not the way to win this man. Not this man.

“I’m amazed your prideisn’t sufficient,” Marak said, leaning an elbow on his knee. “Hati had said you’d want to lead, not follow.”

“Lead this refuse?”

“To lasting glory. A caravan. A caravan of everyone in the world, toward safety. No one will forget your name. Aigyan, they’ll say. Aigyan-omi, the great tribesman, the most famous man in all the tribes. You can’t be famous if there’s no one to tell the tale.”

“I hear you’re mad as she is.” It was Aigyan’s first acknowledgment Hati existed.

“At least as mad as she is,” Marak said, “but both of us have the Ila’s forces under our command. That’s Memnanan himself that’s just left here. Do you know the name?”

“Marak Trin Tain commands the Ila’s army, and Captain Memnanan takes his orders. The Ila’smad, too.”

“No. The Ila’s gone sane. She wants to live. I ask you: lead. You’ll go first, the other tribes, then the Ila with my company.”

“That white whore! In her billowing white canvas!”

“None of the big tents: small ones, fit for the desert. It’s our only chance.”

“And what’s at the other end? There’s no oasis beyond Pori!”

“Have you been beyond Pori? I have.”

“My father was there. And there’s nothing there.”

Pieces came together. Made sense. “Thirty years ago. This began thirty years ago. There was another Descent. And I’ve seen the tower. I’ve seen the river. A green oasis, past Pori and off the Lakht a few days.” He had only the eyes to reason with, above the veil, dark and fierce as Hati’s, but they were attentive, and he took a chance. “I tell you this well knowing you could find your own way there and leave the villages to die. You came here because you hoped the Ila had an answer for the star-fall. You came because you know how bad it is out there. Well, so do we. We just crossed the Lakht. And we know that a skill like yours is the best help we could get.”

The eyes narrowed above the veil. For the first time they swept across Hati, acknowledging her existence. “This isMarak Trin Tain.” That was a question, flatly stated.

“Marak Trin, no longer Trin Tain,” Hati said, “because Tainis a fool. Be patient. He’ll make you an honest grandfather yet.”

Whathad he just heard?

The an’i Keran swept aside his veil and spat to the side. It was a superstition, ridding the place of devils, and Aigyan stared across at them, unveiled, a man the sun had weathered about the eyes, a man whose face showed deep scars and an unforgiving mouth.

“Daughter of a devil. So now I’m to follow you, is it?”

“Join me,” Marak said urgently, before things flew out of hand. “Lead the caravan. Take the place of honor across the edge of the Lakht. Can a man ask more?”

“Your mother is Haga.”

Aigyan might as well have spat as said that word. There was an old feud, old as water boundaries.

“Damned right his mother is Haga!” rang up from below, where other tribesmen had had forced a way toward them, brown and green, Haga riders, six or seven of them.

One rider suddenly drove his besha up toward them.

“My enemy,” Aigyan said, unveiled, and Menditak, lord of the Haga, likewise unveiled himself as he arrived.

“Water thief!” Menditak hissed.

“Hold off,” Marak said, and drove Osan between the two. “To you, omi, the lead.” This he said to Aigyan. “And Hati goes with me.—And you, omi, mother’s cousin…” The last was for Menditak of the Haga, heartfelt. “I’ve reserved a place of honor for you. I hope you have my mother and my sister. I knew if there was any safety for them, it was with you, and I know if anyone will bring all his tribe through, you will. That’s why I want you on the one side and the Keran on the other, because you’re the wisest, the ca

“New land, you say! Paradise!” The last was mockery from Menditak of the Haga. Few of the tribes believed in the god behind the Ila. They had their own ways, their own paradise, their own devils, and one of the latter wasthe Ila.

“To each his own!” They could all but hear one another normally, with the sudden ebb of the crowd from around the ridge. Tribesmen had drawn swords and villagers and priests alike scrambled out of the vicinity, not that they were targets, but that a tribesman had as soon ride over them as around them. “Water and safety is what I offer! I came back to save as many as I could! It was beyond my hope to get word out to the tribes, but here you are, and now I see a chance for the rest of the lives out here under this unfortunate sky! It’s gotten worse, and it will get worse than that, rapidly, trust me that I know. Paradise of water, of shade, of everything material, and honor!

Not forgetting honor, and the respect of all the villages as well as the tribes. They were both there, they were both listening, and neither had ridden at the other. ”Will you ride away from honor? Will you ride away from renown greater than any man has ever had? Or will you ride at the front of the greatest caravan the world has ever seen?“

“We go first,” Aigyan declared.

“And you next the Ila’s men,” Marak said before Menditak could take umbrage at that, “and not less in honor. It takes twoof you, setting aside water feud, to demonstrate to all the tribes how great-souled men can behave! One isn’t without the other! It takes you both, and both of you will have that reputation. Ever after this, whenever men talk about wise agreements, they’ll say, Like Aigyan and Menditak, after their example. You’ll become a proverb for wise men. You’ll put all the rest to shame, never yourselves.”

They hesitated. If the wind blew contrary, if a besha sneezed, if anything tipped the balance the other way, it was calamity. But the wind stayed still.

“My fathers,” Marak said, in the way of the tribes with other men, paying his respect. “We need you.”

“To Pori,” Aigyan reminded him. “And how do we move these city-bred fools?”

“As the tribes move. If men fall behind, they fall behind. Take the south road tonight and wait for me by the Besh Karat, do you know it?”

“As I know my own backside,” Menditak said.

“I trust you to know,” Marak said—whatever and any flattery to keep the peace. “I have to gather the Ila’s beshti. If anything should happen to me, leave, lead as many as you can keep alive and go to the village of Pori. Do you know a northern route? It’s safer.”

“It’s reputed there’s a northern track,” Aigyan said. “Our oldest may remember. If not, I can still find my way.”

“Ha!” Menditak said.

“Go for Pori, then east, down off the Lakht, east still, and ten marks off east to the south. There’s the refuge!”

“There’s nothing out there!” Menditak protested. He resisted the voices’ cry for haste. Resistance was all that gave him sanity.

“There is now. A second Descent.”