Crystal Gorge

“It’s all over—and I suppose you could say that we won.”

“That was quick.”

“We had some help.”

“What happened to the crazy Atazak?”

“He isn’t crazy anymore.”

“You cured him? How did you manage to do that?”

“He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong—or maybe the right—time. He doesn’t have time to be crazy anymore. He’s much too busy being dead.”

“You stuck an arrow in his forehead, I take it?”

“No. That wasn’t necessary. We might be able to find a few bits and pieces of him to give to your big brother, but I wouldn’t make any large bets on that. He stopped being all in one piece rather quickly. Did you want any details?”

Zelana made a gagging sort of sound. “Spare me,” she said. “Were you able to persuade the rest of the Atazaks to go on back home?”

“There weren’t really very many of them left. It’s going to take us a few days to get back down there to Mount Shrak. Ekial and the other Malavi can come on down faster if Dahlaine really needs them. Have the servants of the Vlagh started their invasion yet?”

“Not as far as we’ve been able to determine. Hurry on back, Longbow. Things aren’t the same when you’re not here.”

“We’ll be along in just a little while. Tell Eleria that I said hello.”

“That’s sweet, Longbow,” Zelana said.

“Try not to get carried away with it,” he told her.

THE FORTRESS

1

It was a crisp day in late autumn as Narasan and Sorgan led the Trogite army and their assorted allies from the encampment around Mount Shrak down toward the southern mountains.

“Who’s in charge of the men you sent down to that gorge to help Gunda build the foundation for our fort?” Narasan asked his friend.

“Skell and Torl,” Sorgan replied. “I always put my relatives in charge when I’m not going to be there.” He looked around and drew in a deep breath. “It’s good to be out in the open again,” he said. “You don’t necessarily have to tell Dahlaine that I said this, but living in a cave for weeks on end doesn’t really light my fire. I start to get jumpy when I can’t see the open sky above me.”

“It does take a bit of getting used to,” Narasan agreed. “We’re warriors, Sorgan. We aren’t supposed to live inside—whether it’s houses or caves.” Then he smiled briefly at his friend. “I’m not sure just exactly why, but that cave seemed to shrink quite a bit when Dahlaine’s little boy brought that bear into the map-room.”

“He was a big one, all right,” Sorgan said. “There are bears up in the hills above Weros over in the Land of Maag, but they’d look like midgets compared to that monster Ashad seems to believe is his brother. I didn’t know that bears could grow that big.”

“Different varieties, I’d imagine,” Narasan said. “It might be something like the differences between you Maags and the men of my race. Your first mate, Ox, is about twice as big as Gunda or Padan.”

“That might have something to do with it,” Sorgan agreed. “Of course, Ox is one of the biggest men I’ve ever come across.” He smiled. “That’s always made my life much easier. When you’ve got somebody as big as Ox to back you up, the men in the crew don’t argue with you very much. How far would you say it is down to Crystal Gorge? I don’t really read maps very well. I’ve spent most of my life at sea, and we sort of think in days rather than miles.”

“I made it to be about forty miles down to the mouth of the gorge, and Gunda’s building the foundation about ten miles on down from there.”

“And your men can cover only about ten miles a day?”

“That sort of depends on the terrain, Sorgan. When it’s flat and there aren’t many trees, we can usually walk fifteen. If it’s steep and forested, we’re lucky if we can cover five.”

Sorgan peered on ahead. “Here comes that warrior woman called Trenicia,” he said. “I never did get the straight story about her. After she threw all those jewels back at Zelana’s sister and told her that she wouldn’t work for her anymore, why did she decide to come north with you instead of trying to find some way to go on back home?”

“I’m not entirely sure, Sorgan,” Narasan admitted. “Maybe she just wanted to see more of the Land of Dhrall—or maybe she wanted to find out if Dahlaine might want to hire her to fight in this war. She’s a very complicated woman, and she can do things that I wouldn’t even try. When we were marching from the east coast to Mount Shrak, she got bored and started ranging out in front of the army. She seemed to enjoy sneaking up on deer and frightening those huge bison. As it turned out, she’s an extremely good scout. She’d come back to our camp every evening, and give us a detailed—and very accurate—description of the ground we’d cover the following day. There’s something that she wants, but I can’t for the life of me figure out just what it is.”

“Women are like that, Narasan. They always want something, but they’ll never tell you exactly what it is.”

“Are we still just plodding along, Narasan?” the warrior queen demanded as she joined them.

“I’m an expert plodder, Trenicia,” Narasan replied. “Is there anything interesting out to the front?”

“Not really—just more of those miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. The mountains to the south are still a few days away.”

“Did you see any of those bison herds?” Sorgan asked her.

“Not directly ahead of us,” she replied. “There’s a fair-sized herd eight or ten miles off to the west, but they weren’t moving in this direction.”

“That’s a relief,” Sorgan said. “After what Chief Two-Hands told us about those overgrown animals and what happens to people who can’t get out of the way when the animals start to run, just the thought of being in the wrong place at the wrong time tightens my jaws more than a little. If Longbow happened to be with us, I could probably relax, but he had to go north with all those other useful people to chase the Atazaks back to where they belong.”

“It’s not really going to take them very long, Sorgan,” Narasan replied. “From what Dahlaine told us about the people of Atazakan, I don’t think very many of them will survive when our people attack them.”