Crystal Gorge

“I had to go through a couple more cheaters before I found an honest buyer, but I’m fairly sure that the word’s been passed around, so nobody’s going to try to cheat me again. I got the full price for our herd, and then we all came back here. What’s this business about a war off in some other part of the world?”

“This is what it’s all about, Ariga,” Ekial said, pulling a yellow block out from under his tunic and handing it to his friend.

The block was very heavy, and Ariga almost dropped it. “Is this what I think it is?” he demanded in a trembling voice.

“It is gold, yes.”

Ariga hefted the block. “This weighs almost fifty pounds, Ekial,” he exclaimed.

“That’s fairly close, yes, and I’ve got several more. You and I and our friends are going to have to visit several other clans. The fellow who’s hiring armies right now wants about fifty thousand men—and horses—to help his people fight off an enemy who’s trying to take over his part of the Land of Dhrall. They’re just a bit unusual, but they’re foot-soldiers, so we shouldn’t have any trouble dealing with them. Have you had anybody ride Bright Star lately? If he’s feeling frisky, I might have to wear him down just a bit. Then you and I should ride on back to the coast and talk with a Trogite named Gunda and our employer’s younger brother, Veltan. He’s the one who hands out the gold.”

“How many guards has he got with him? A man with several of these gold blocks needs lots of protection.”

“He keeps it very well hidden, Ariga,” Ekial said with a faint smile. “It doesn’t show up until he needs it.”

“How does he manage that?”

“I haven’t got the foggiest idea. Get word to the other clans here in the north. We’ll need about fifty thousand men—and their horses, of course—and we’re just a bit pressed for time. Dahlaine’s not sure just exactly when his enemies will attack, so he wants us up there in his territory as soon as possible.”

“I’ll pass the word, Ekial,” Ariga said. Then he patted the heavy block of gold. “I’m fairly sure that this pretty little thing will get everybody’s immediate attention.”

“I’m not really sure who it was that came up with the idea, Gunda,” Ariga told Ekial’s bald Trogite friend a few days later when the two of them were sitting in one of the shabby taverns, in the coastal village where the cattle-buyers did business. The crews of the huge Trogite ships were busy building raftlike floating piers so that they could load men and horses, so Ariga and Gunda had stopped by the tavern to pass some time away.

“I’m sure that it was a long time ago, though,” Ariga continued. “As far as I’ve heard, we’ve been riding horses for hundreds of years now.”

“I’m sure that it’s easier than doing your own walking,” Gunda said.

“And faster, too,” Ariga said. “I don’t want to offend you, Gunda, but you don’t act at all like the Trogites we come across here on the north coast. The only thing they seem to be interested in is finding new ways to cheat us.”

“They refer to themselves as ‘businessmen,’ Ariga,” Gunda said. “It’s a nicer word than ‘thieves,’ I guess, but it means the same thing when you get right down to the bottom of it. I grew up in an army compound, and we were taught not to lie, cheat, or steal. We’re so honorable that we make other Trogites sick to their stomachs.”

“I can imagine,” Ariga said. “Just exactly who is this fellow who took Ekial off to the west after he decided to hire us to fight his war for him?”

“That would be Dahlaine,” Gunda said. “That one scares me just a little bit. Veltan is pleasant, and Zelana is beautiful—even if she is a little silly sometimes—but Dahlaine’s as bleak as a mountain, and Aracia’s crazy.”

Ariga swallowed hard. “Why are we working for them, then?” he demanded.

“For the gold they pay us, Ariga. I thought you knew about that. I’ll work for anybody—well, almost anybody—if the pay’s good.”

“Just exactly who—or what—are we going to be fighting, Gunda?” Ariga asked. “Ekial wasn’t too clear when he was describing the enemy in that last war.”

“That’s probably because we were fighting two separate and different enemies in Veltan’s Domain. The ones we came up against in the first war—the one in Lady Zelana’s part of the Land of Dhrall—were what Sorgan Hook-Beak called ‘snake-men.’”

“No arms or legs? They wouldn’t be much of a problem.”

“Oh, they had arms and legs, Ariga,” Gunda said. “Sorgan was talking about their fangs and the venom that came out of those fangs. Are there any poisonous snakes here in Malavi?”

“I’ve heard about them,” Ariga said, “but there aren’t any around here—at least I hope not. Who—or what—was your second enemy?”

“The Trogite Church,” Gunda replied, “—which isn’t really around anymore. If you think we’re interested in gold, we don’t even come close to the Trogite Church. They invented greed—and that’s what finally killed them—well, most of them, anyway. When the Church found out that the Land of Dhrall had mountains of gold just lying around for anybody who wanted it to just bend over and pick it up, they went completely insane. When you get right down to it, the Church fought that second war for us. All we really had to do was get out of the way.” Gunda laughed then. “There’s somebody in the Land of Dhrall who can do things that you wouldn’t believe, Ariga. We think that she’s a woman, but as far as I know, nobody’s actually seen her. The Wasteland in the center of the Land of Dhrall is a desert—all sand and rocks—and this mysterious lady somehow made the whole thing look exactly like gold. The snake-men were charging up a slope that led into Veltan’s territory, and the Church-men were charging down. They were busy killing each other, but then a solid wall of water came out of the ground, and drowned every single enemy on that slope.”

“Where did the water come from?”

“The way I understand it, there’s an underground sea five or six miles down below that part of the Land of Dhrall, and it broke loose just exactly when we needed it. I guess there was a bit of what the Dhralls call ‘tampering’ involved. Dahlaine’s family tampers with things all the time, but even they seemed to be more than a little startled by that vast amount of water that suddenly came blasting up out of the ground to wash away all of our enemies.”