Crystal Gorge

“They’re burning grease-trees,” Omago replied. “We do that down in Veltan’s part of the Land of Dhrall to drive bugs away from our orchards and crops. It kills them if they don’t get clear of it.”

“We aren’t bugs, Omago,” Gunda scoffed.

“You still have to breathe, don’t you? If you breathe in that smoke, it’ll kill you almost as fast as it kills a bug.”

“Can you block it, Dahlaine?” Veltan demanded.

“I can hold it back for a while,” Dahlaine said, “but this gorge is almost like a chimney. It’s pulling that awful smoke up from down below.”

“Rain,” Longbow suggested. “If the fire goes out, there won’t be any smoke.”

Veltan turned. “I need you, baby!” he shouted.

There was a sudden flash of intensely bright light and a deafening crash of thunder, and then Veltan was gone.

“I wish he wouldn’t do that,” Padan grumbled.

“If it puts those fires out, I think we’ll be able to live with it,” Gunda disagreed.

For a short time there was an almost continuous roar of thunder to the south and jagged bolts of lightning flickering from horizon to horizon down there.

Then, as abruptly as the storm had appeared, it died out, and Veltan came flashing back, spouting curses in several languages. “It’s no good,” he declared. “Can you believe that they built those fires inside caves? Gather up your people, Narasan. You’re going to have to get up out of this gorge, and you don’t have very much time. Dahlaine and I can hold the smoke cloud back—or slow it a bit—but it will keep coming. If you don’t get your people out of this cursed gorge, they’ll die.”

THE RETREAT

1

The thick cloud of dense black smoke continued to come boiling up the gorge even as the Trogite soldiers and their Maag friends hastily gathered up their equipment and prepared for the march to the north.

Keselo had dabbled in botany a bit when he’d been a student at the University of Kaldacin, but so far as he could remember, he’d never heard of any tree or bush such as Omago had described.

“Just exactly what causes this particular tree to emit this dense smoke you mentioned?” he asked the farmer.

“I’m not really sure,” Omago replied. “It’s always been called ‘the grease-tree,’ and we’ve learned not to use it for cooking or heating. Quite a long time ago, though, the farmers in Veltan’s Domain learned that a cloud of dense, greasy smoke will drive the bugs away from our orchards or crops. The smoke from a greasewood fire clogs up their breathing pits, and they die from the lack of air. It sort of comes down to ‘run away or die.’ Bugs aren’t very intelligent, but over the years they’ve come to recognize the odor of greasewood smoke. I’ve seen several varieties of bugs that are usually natural enemies fleeing from that smoke side by side.”

“Does it kill every variety of bugs?” Keselo asked.

“It’s not limited to bugs, Keselo. Greasewood smoke kills animals as well—and also people. Every now and then, the wind changes direction and throws the smoke right back in our faces. Then we’re the ones who start choking and running away. Wet cloth provides a little bit of protection, but only temporarily. I’ve heard that many farmers who’ve used greasewood smoke to drive bugs away have been trapped by a change in wind direction, and, just like the bugs, they’re choked to death.”

Keselo shuddered. “Sometimes it seems that being a farmer is even more dangerous than being a soldier.”

“Let’s move, people!” Gunda shouted. “That smoke’s coming up the gorge faster and faster.”

“Veltan and I’ll do our best to hold the smoke back,” Dahlaine told them. “We’ll pull in rain clouds and unleash as much rain as we can, but this isn’t a good time of the year for rain, so you’d better tell your men to hustle right along.”

“I’ll take the children to safety, big brother,” Zelana said. “Don’t let that smoke get ahead of you.” Then she turned and hurried along the top of the wall to the tower where the children were staying.

“You were talking about wet cloth, Omago,” Gunda said. “If we went back inside the fort and covered all the doors and windows with yards and yards of wet cloth, would that keep the smoke from reaching us?”

Omago shook his head. “You’d have to keep throwing buckets of water on the cloth,” he said, “and the brook coming down through the gorge is hardly more than a trickle.”

“I hate running off like this!” Gunda fumed. “We’ve got a perfectly good fort here, but that cursed smoke’s going to force us to abandon it.”

“We don’t have any choice, Gunda,” Narasan said. “We’re going to have to retreat.”

“Or run away,” Sorgan added, “whichever works best.”

They started north from the fort at what was called “quick time” in the standard army usage. They weren’t exactly running, but they were moving right along.

“This smoke sort of means that the bug-people have learned how to make fire, doesn’t it?” Rabbit suggested as they splashed across the small brook to avoid another of those heaps of shattered quartz.

“I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say ‘make’ fire,” Keselo replied. “It’s much more likely that they found burning branches or bushes. One of my teachers said that early man carried fire rather than starting it with flint sparks.”

“That sort of says that the bugs are following the same road that people did, doesn’t it?”

“Approximately, yes,” Keselo replied, “but they’re moving much, much faster than people did. These wars here in the Land of Dhrall started last spring—about six or seven months ago—and the creatures of the Wasteland have already gathered a lot of our weapons, and they seem to know what smoke can do.”

“It’s almost like a race, then?”

“Well, sort of, I suppose, but I’m afraid that they’re moving a lot faster than we did way back when. It took us thousands of years to cover as much ground as they’ve covered in two seasons.”

“We’d better find some way to slow them down, then,” Rabbit declared.

“When you come up with something, Rabbit, let me know about it. I’ve been beating myself over the head about this for quite some time now, and I haven’t found anything that’ll work yet.”