The Shaman Read online

  They scarcely seemed to concern him. He roared anger at the annoyance, swatting the blades out of the air with palms that must have been as hard as oak, while his roar turned into a chant that brought the thousand knives tinkling down.

  Manalo banished the dripping teeth with a snapped phrase and a gesture of irritation. They did not fall, but simply ceased to be; the air around him was suddenly clear. Instantly, he began to chant again, molding something invisible in his hands, forming a large ball that gradually became visible, then began to glow, brighter and brighter.

  The Ulharl bellowed as he threw himself out of the pit.

  The globe in Manalo’s hand burst into flame as he hurled it into the Ulharl’s face.

  Snarling, the Ulharl swung a huge hand to bat the fireball out of the air—but as he did, it burst into five separate brands, each hurtling toward him. He swatted at them, hands a blur, lips pulled back in a snarl of pleasure as he sent one, then two, caroming back toward the Biriae, then three, four ...

  And the dark sphere in their midst, which had rocketed on unnoticed, struck his chest and exploded.

  The Ulharl only began to scream; the sound was cut off as he fell, a huge dark sunburst across his chest—but only across, not within. The Klaja froze, staring, struck dumb by the fall of their leader—or, perhaps, their herder, for as the fact of his falling sank in, they threw back their heads and howled— though it was a howl that seemed to have as much of elation as of fear.

  Then the Biriae shouted with triumph, and the howl definitely became one of panic. The Klaja dropped their spears and ran. Biriae pounded after them, shouting their battle cry.

  “Stop!” Ohaern cried. “Do not pursue! They may lead you into division and fall upon you piecemeal!”

  The eager Biriae hesitated.

  “We cannot be sundered now!” the chieftain called. “There are too few of us left!”

  “Too few, indeed,” Manalo answered him, speaking loudly, “and those few must seek out the others, whether they be slain or fled. Quickly, there is little time! My fireball has only marked this Ulharl and sent him to sleep; he shall waken all too soon, and we must be gathered and gone!”

  That pulled the Biriae back, and they fanned out in search, looking for signs of tribesmen who might have fled.

  But Lucoyo was looking frantically among the bodies, heaving Klaja forms up and away until he could look into the face of the Biri beneath. Then, whether it was dead or merely stunned or wounded, the nomad moved on, searching again and again, growing more and more frantic as he did.

  “He does as he should,” Manalo said to the startled clansmen. “Seek for your scattered fellows, for many fled the Klaja and many have fallen to their onslaught. Bring them together, those who have hidden—but quickly, for there is little time!”

  “The Klaja will not come back while their champion lies dead,” Ohaern objected.

  “I have told you he is not dead, but only unconscious, and Ulahane still shields him enough to keep my spells from slaying him! We must be gone ere he awakes! Speed you!”

  They sped, the Biriae fanning out in every direction, heaving the dead Klaja aside and slaying those who were badly wounded. Dead Biriae they left where they lay, in sorrow, for there was no time to bury them. At last Manalo summoned them back, and they came, with five women, two old men, three girls, and a boy. “These are all we found, O Sage,” Dalvan said.

  “But Elluaera! Was there no trace of Elluaera?” Lucoyo cried.

  “None,” Dalvan said, his face heavy with pity.

  But, “I saw her fall,” one of the old men said. “A Klaja spear transfixed her, and I threw myself against the knees of the beast; he fell, and I cut his throat, but another came on us in an instant. I saw her crawl into a brake, and the Klaja thrust into it with his spear. Her scream was short.”

  The half-elf threw back his head, keening grief, and sank to his knees, burying his face in his hands.

  “But I did not see her die!” the old man amended.

  “Do not give him false hope,” Ohaern said heavily. “It is far more cruel than the harsh truth.”

  “But we have not found her body,” Dalvan objected.

  “She may have crawled deeper into the underbrush as she died,” the chief answered, “or even into the stream, and the current may have whirled her away.” But he did not say what was uppermost in his mind, what all of them were thinking— that the Klaja might have borne her body away for feasting. Certainly there were many bodies missing.

  The fallen giant gave a single rasping groan. Electrified, everyone whipped about, staring at him—but he still lay on his back, though with no more movement than the silent rise and fall of his chest.

  The sound brought Lucoyo staring up from his grief. “Can you not slay him?” he demanded of the sage.

  “Yes, given enough time,” said Manalo, “but he would waken before that. They are incredibly tough and hard to kill, these Ulharl—they are half immortal, after all, and though their father can be slain, it would take another Ulin to do it.”

  “Hard to kill, eh?” Lucoyo glared at the supine giant, eyes narrowing.

  “Very,” the sage answered.

  With a cry like a bird of prey striking, Lucoyo threw himself onto the giant’s chest, stabbing down full-armed—but a hand’s breadth from the Ulharl’s hide, the blade turned aside as if it had met curving steel. Lucoyo screamed in frustration and struck again, again ...

  “Peace, archer, peace!” Ohaern seized the half-elf and wrestled him away. “Ulahane’s spell protects his get; you can do no good!”

  “I can do a great deal of good for my aching heart!” Lucoyo cried, struggling. “Release me, Biri! Let me at least wear out my anger on his unholy body!”

  “There is not enough time for that, there will never be enough time for that! I know the depth of your passion, outlander, I have seen it in the way you smite your enemies! The Ulharl would waken to find you on his chest, and I would lose a valiant fighter!”

  “Lose me! Let me be lost!” Lucoyo cried, throwing himself back and forth against the smith’s arm. “If Elluaera is lost, let me be lost, too!” And he thrashed about from side to side, a howl tearing at his throat—until suddenly he went limp and slid from Ohaern’s grasp to the ground, where he knelt, sobbing.

  “Pick him up, and take him with us,” Manalo commanded, “for we cannot stay here, and we must not lose so greathearted a man.”

  Glabur and Dalvan moved in to gather up their fallen comrade, almost tenderly, and Dalvan carried Lucoyo off over his shoulder.

  Manalo turned to the assembled Biriae. “We have searched and we have found only a few. Pray to Lomallin to aid those others who have escaped these Klaja, and pray that most of your tribesmen have done so—but pray for your dead when there is time, for we must flee now, and quickly, ere this Ulharl awakes and rallies his poor twisted pack. Come, away!” He turned and strode off, robes billowing, staff rising and falling with his steps. Ohaern turned back to beckon only once, then set off after the sage. More slowly, the others followed—but followed faster and faster the farther they went.

  They vanished among the trees, leaving the fallen giant alone with the dead.

  Then the Ulharl grunted and groaned, and his huge body shivered. One arm jerked up, then fell back—and the giant lay still again, lit dimly by the ruddy glow of the still-burning campfire.

  As they walked, Ohaern stepped up beside Manalo and asked, his voice low, “Is Ulahane, then, so much stronger than Lomallin that you, who draw on Lomallin’s power, cannot slay one who draws on the power of the scarlet god?”

  “Ulahane and Lomallin are equal in power, Ohaern,” the sage answered, just as softly.

  “Then why could not you, who serve the green god, escape from Ulahane’s prison?”

  Manalo sighed wearily. “Because the two are equal in power, as I have said; it is the lesser beings, the humans and Klaja and others whom they can each sway to their sides, that will decide the conflict
.”

  “As Ulahane prevented you from coming to the aid of my wife, by imprisoning you?” Ohaern scowled blackly. “Or do I accord myself too much importance?”

  “Every human being is important to Lomallin,” Manalo answered sharply. “But yes, you are more important than most, Ohaern. You are the pivot on which a battle shall swing, perhaps more than one—so if Ulahane can seduce or cripple you, he will.”

  Ohaern looked up, staring, appalled. “Then may Lomallin protect me! Am I truly singled out for the spite of the Scarlet One?”

  “You are,” Manalo answered, “but you are also elected for Lomallin’s special protection. He is wise in that, for even as Ulahane thwarted him in his desire to save your wife, so you thwarted Ulahane by freeing me.”

  “Is there no way for Lomallin to become stronger than Ulahane?” Ohaern protested.

  “Only by dying, as I have told you before. He can only become stronger than Ulahane if the Scarlet One kills him.”

  “Only Ulahane?” Ohaern frowned. “He does not become stronger if another Ulin kills him?”

  “I suppose he might—but who among the few Ulin who remain would do such a deed? Be sure that if Lomallin dies, it will be Ulahane who slays him. And since Ulahane, too, has heard that prophecy, he takes great care not to murder Lomallin. To wound him, to maim him if he can, perhaps— certainly to defeat him in every other way, to hinder and frustrate and oppose him—but he will not slay the Green One, for fear of that redoubled strength.”

  “But how can Lomallin become stronger by dying?”

  “Only the Creator knows that, until it shall come to pass,” Manalo returned. “For now, it is a prophecy that both Ulin accept, though they do not comprehend the way of it.”

  Ohaern glowered at the ground ahead of them, gnawing over a point that troubled him. “If the Creator knows how Lomallin shall gain strength, could it be that he truly prefers Lomallin’s way to Ulahane’s, and lends him strength enough to win in the end?”

  “I devoutly hope so,” Manalo replied.

  “But we cannot know, can we?” Ohaern lifted his head with a grimace of distaste. “Gods are so stingy with knowledge of why they do as they do. Does even Lomallin know whether the Creator has given him greater strength than Ulahane?”

  “No,” Manalo said, with full certainty. “None of us can know, Ohaern—we can only strive to our utmost to accomplish what we believe is right. And that, perhaps, is the reason the Creator does not reveal the knowledge.”

  “I feel that I am a toy being played with,” Ohaern grumbled.

  “Do not we all?” Manalo smiled. “Nevertheless, we can strive until we know our circumstances, and work to use them to best advantage. That is still a great deal, Ohaern, and if our circumstances make us toys, then certainly our manipulation of them must make us a great deal more.”

  Ohaern looked up at him, frowning. “You speak as if our lives were a game of jackstraws.”

  Manalo laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Perhaps they are, Ohaern—perhaps they are like to jackstraws. But remember—only ‘like.’ “ His hand still on the smith’s shoulder, he steered him onward down the woodland path.

  They had been on the road perhaps half an hour when they heard shrill yips ahead. Lucoyo’s head snapped up; then, with a growl, he drew his long knife. About him, bereaved husbands and fathers likewise drew swords and raised spears, the whole group emitting an angry rumble.

  “Nay, down!” Manalo said urgently. He waved them back, saying, “In among the trees, quickly! Their master summons them back, and if they do not come, he shall know where we are!”

  “Let him know,” said a grizzled veteran. “Let him come. We shall carve his dogs for his dinner.”

  “We must not,” Manalo countered, “for though we may prevail, we shall pay heavily for the victory. You are diminished by half already; if the victory costs you the other half, it is no triumph at all, no matter how few Klaja survive. This Ulharl may lose, but his master shall win. Into the brakes with you now, so that you may fight tomorrow, and again the day after, and whittle down the enemy shaving by shaving, till there are none of them left, but many of you! Hide!”

  The bereaved stood a moment, glowering and wavering; then Ohaern stepped forward to herd them off the track and into the underbrush. Unwillingly, they went.

  Other Biriae were already climbing the trees. When they had, they held spears poised, and Lucoyo strung his bow.

  “Strike only to defend yourselves,” Manalo counseled. “If they do not strike you, let them pass.”

  “How can they miss us,” Glabur demanded, “with their jackals’ sense of smell?”

  “It is clouded by the aroma of blood in their nostrils, by their eagerness for it. They do not expect you here and are therefore less likely to see you.” Manalo stepped into the undergrowth, too.

  The forest path stood empty, but a voice from among the leaves said sourly, “The lust for blood may cloud their senses, but it is your spell that clouds their minds.”

  “Even so,” said the sage’s voice. “Be silent now, and let them pass.” He began to chant softly.

  “Revenge tomorrow shall be as sweet as revenge today,” Ohaern assured his tribesmen. “Bide in patience.”

  “All well and good for you to say,” snarled a young widower. “You have had your revenge!”

  “Not enough, I assure you,” Ohaern said. “Not even a beginning.”

  His voice was so grim, so thick with banked anger, that his tribesmen fell silent in sheer surprise. In his thicket, Lucoyo’s grin drew his lips back from his teeth; he knew in his own heart the depth of hatred from which the chieftain spoke.

  The wood stood silent a while, except for the occasional scrape of leather against bark. The chorus of yipping grew louder.

  Then they came, pushing the leaves aside, treading stealthily even though their conversation was loud—anthropoid torsos and limbs with jackals’ feet and fur, yapping to one another and snarling back and forth. There was a tension to them that might have been either apprehension or leashed eagerness. On they went down the trail, oblivious to the Biriae hidden all about them. They passed between ranks of men, every one of whom crouched with naked blade, yearning for a single Klaja to turn aside and stab at him—but none did. Under tree limbs freighted with Biriae they padded, but never once looked up.

  Lucoyo tracked the biggest one with a barbed arrowhead, but the beast never even glanced into the undergrowth, only snarled at the other Klaja about him.

  Then they were gone, vanished into the forest’s gloom.

  The path stayed silent for a few minutes; then a voice demanded, “How long, O Sage?”

  “Wait yet a while,” Manalo told him. “When we are sure there are no stragglers yet to come, we shall resume our journey.”

  “I could have carved out that big one’s liver,” an older Biri growled.

  “I would have been happy enough to see my arrow through his heart,” Lucoyo answered.

  “Yet you withheld your hands.” Manalo’s voice was warm with praise. “Well done, O Biriae. Your forbearance today shall win a greater vengeance tomorrow.”

  There was some grumbling at that, but nothing with any real heart to it.

  After a while, leaves rustled, and the sage stepped out onto the path. “There are no more to come, and the band is far enough past not to hear. Away!”

  One by one they emerged; fifty strong, they followed the sage and the smith along the path in the direction opposite to that of the Klaja.

  Twice more they hid and waited while groups of jackal-men went past them toward the Ulharl. Then, as twilight darkened the forest, Manalo held up a hand. “Hist!”

  The Biriae halted, some glowering resentfully at the man who had deprived them of revenge, some glancing apprehensively at the foliage around them.

  “They come hot-foot,” Manalo told them, has whole body taut, “with their master whipping them on. Now must you hide in earnest, Biriae—but be ready to strike
your hardest if they discover you!”

  “We could have diminished their strength with safety!” Dalvan howled.

  “No,” said Manalo, “for then they would not need to search for us—they would know. There is one party seeking us in this direction, yes, but they are one among many quartering the forest, for they have no certain knowledge even of the direction we have taken.”

  “Then we may strike at them?” a younger man asked eagerly.

  “Not unless they strike us,” said Ohaern, “for that would bring the whole host down upon us, and the Ulharl with them. We must hide again, my friends, and trust in the sage’s magic to conceal us.”

  “But what of the Ulharl’s magic?”

  “As ever, it is Lomallin’s power against Ulahane’s,” Manalo told him, “locked against one another in balance, with the spirit and effort of mortals deciding the issue. Hide, and have your weapons ready!”

  Once again they hid in a thicket; once again Ohaern posted sentries, changing by watches. Once again the sage wove his spell of concealment, and the night passed in fear mingled with longing for battle. Many were the eyes that closed, but few were the warriors who slept.

  Four times during the night they heard the yipping and growling of Klaja coming nearer and nearer, and men grasped weapons in fierce hope of discovery, determined to sell their lives dearly, for the only reason they had now for living was to slay as many Klaja as they could. But soon enough the noises receded again, the barks and growls and occasional gutturals that the jackal-men used for speech, as the Klaja passed by. Disappointed, the Biriae relaxed again—a little.

  Finally the forest lightened with a foretaste of dawn, and Manalo banished the concealment spell with a mutter and a gesture. Ohaern rose up. “Come, men of mine! We have survived the night and can press onward to some true vengeance.”

  “Press onward!” a grizzled warrior cried in disgust. “Six times now you have cheated us of the chance to sell our lives in that pursuit!”