Crystal Gorge

“I’ve had some luck with putting an arrow into the forehead of the crazy,” Longbow replied, “but dear old Holy there is about three hundred paces away, and I wouldn’t want to sprain my bow trying to reach out that far.”

“Can a bow actually be sprained?” Rabbit asked with a fair amount of skepticism.

“I’m not really sure,” Longbow admitted. “I’m not going to try it to find out just now, though.”

It was late in the afternoon of the following day when Skarn rode into the temporary encampment with Red-Beard riding at his side. “The archers aren’t far behind us,” Skarn said, swinging down from his saddle.

“And Keselo’s sleds aren’t very far behind them,” Red-Beard added. Then he looked at Tladak, who came from this part of Matakan. “There used to be a river that ran off to the west from here, wasn’t there?”

“It went dry a long time ago,” Tladak replied. “How did you know that?”

“There’s a shallow sort of valley running from here on off in that direction,” Red-Beard replied. “I wouldn’t call it a gorge or a ravine, but it’s fairly obvious that it was gouged out by running water. You get quite a bit of snow up here in the winter, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Tladak replied.

“And that dry riverbed stops being dry when springtime rolls around, right?”

“You sound like you’ve been here before.”

“Well, not here, exactly,” Red-Beard replied. “The same sort of thing happened all the time in the place where I grew up. It’s sort of nice to know that some things never change.” Then he looked around. “Your camp’s just a bit scruffy-looking, Longbow,” he chided.

“We aren’t going to be here permanently, Red-Beard. If things go the way we’ve planned, we’ll be on our way back to Mount Shrak in just a few days.”

“I take it that the Atazaks don’t really pose much of a threat.”

“Even less than that. They take incompetence out to the far end.”

Red-Beard looked around. “Where’s Padan?” he asked.

“He’s building a fort out of sod-blocks on a hill just a ways off to the north,” Longbow replied. “You know how important forts are to the Trogites. Anyway, he’s nearly finished up there. Then he’s going to bring some of his men here to build a series of breastworks off to the east to hold back the Atazaks.”

“Is their glorious leader as crazy as everybody says that he is?”

“Even crazier,” Longbow said. “Rabbit and I saw him yesterday, and he was threatening to spank a thunderbolt.”

“That’s crazy, all right,” Red-Beard said.

“We’ve been working on a way to cure him of crazy.”

“Oh?”

“I think it’s called ‘kill,’ Red-Beard. I’ve noticed that ‘kill’ cures just about everything that’s bothering anybody.”

“They don’t look very much like soldiers, Athlan,” the young archer called Zathan said rather scornfully as he looked down the slope at the invaders from Atazakan.

“I wouldn’t call them soldiers, Zathan,” Athlan replied. “The ones down at the bottom of this slope are just common people who shouldn’t even be here. The madman who gives all the orders decided to bring them here to serve as a human barricade when the war starts. They don’t even have weapons of any kind. I’m sure that they didn’t want to come here, but the ones behind them—the ones with spears—forced them to come so that they could stand between us and the ones who think they’re important. We’re going to ruin their grand plan, though. That should make the crazy one even crazier—right up until one of us gets close enough to drive a dozen or so arrows into his belly. Once he’s dead, everything will fall apart for the ones who think they’re important, and this silly war will end right then and there.”

“I like it!” Zathan said with a broad grin. “When it’s all over, are we going to drag the dead ones over to the edge of Matakan territory so that they can rot and stink up the air in the land of the Atazaks?”

“We might want to see what Dahlaine has to say about that,” Athlan agreed. “If that border territory smells bad enough, we probably won’t have to worry about any more invasions.”

“It worked pretty well for us during the war with the Reindeer Tribes,” Zathan said. “If it worked once, it’ll probably work again.”

“We’ll see,” Athlan replied.

Longbow smiled. There was a simplicity about the Tonthakans that he rather liked. Simplicity was better than complicated most of the time, but Longbow was fairly sure that he’d have a bit of difficulty if he tried to persuade the outlanders that it worked that way.

5

I’m not sure just exactly why,” Keselo said when he joined them the next day, “but there was a large herd of bison following our sleds all day yesterday.”

“It’s possible that the Malavi horses that were pulling your sleds might have had something to do with that,” Padan suggested. “I’ve noticed here lately that those horses have a rather strong odor when they’re working hard. Do you think the herd that was following you might have been one of those large ones the Malavi told us about? The ones that take a week or two to move on past you?”

“There weren’t that many, Sub-Commander,” Keselo replied.

Quite suddenly a couple of things clicked together for Longbow. “Tell me, Two-Hands, are bison at all frightened by fire?” he asked intently.

“All animals are afraid of fire, friend Longbow,” Two-Hands replied. “Every now and then grass-fires break out here in Matakan, and the bison go into pure panic.”

“Let’s say that a fire broke out just behind that herd that was following Keselo’s sleds. They would run toward the east, wouldn’t they?”

“I think I see where you’re going with this, Longbow,” Rabbit said, “but aren’t you overlooking something? A fire won’t spread out very much when it doesn’t have a wind behind it, and we definitely don’t want the wind to start blowing around here again.”

“I’ll get to that in just a minute,” Longbow said. “Now then, Two-Hands, you and Tladak have seen these bison herds running in panic many times, haven’t you?”