The Shaman Read online

  Reluctant, but not foolish enough to bid him farewell. Lucoyo, too, fared south, pacing quickly to catch up with his friend.

  “It is ridiculous!” Lucoyo protested. “The sun has set; soon there will be only darkness and stars! We should have pitched camp before the orb even started to sink! Why do we still wander?”

  “Are your legs so tired as that?” Ohaern returned.

  Well, yes, they were, actually—but Lucoyo wasn’t about to say so. “Ulahane’s minions are more active at night—all know that! Why do you insist that we keep marching?”

  “I do not know.” Ohaern shook his head with dogged persistence. “I only know that we must. Call it a feeling, call it certain knowledge from some god or spirit, but it is there—a certainty that we may not yet rest. Stay if you wish, Lucoyo. I will come back for you when it is right.”

  Camp alone, on this barren plain? The man must have thought Lucoyo was out of his mind! Who knew what might come upon him, or how defenseless he would be with none to watch and none to guard his back? “Oh, you know I will not leave you!” the half-elf grumbled. “Who would ward your right arm if I did?”

  Ohaern answered with a smile. “Why, then, I thank you, my right arm. Be content—I do not think it shall be much farther.”

  Lucoyo eyed the huge jumble of rock that reared out of the plain before them on their right. “I hope not.” It unsettled him, how masses of granite could rise so suddenly out of this tableland—especially since the trail they followed almost always ran around those huge masses and right near them. Lucoyo could only think what an excellent place it would be for an ambush, just the sort he would have chosen. Of course, there was no sign of any living creature here, if you did not count the birds and small rodents—

  Sudden shouting broke out ahead, with the clash of arms.

  Lucoyo stared. Somebody else had noticed it was a good place for an ambush!

  “Yes, not much longer to march, at all,” Ohaern said grimly. “Come, archer, and keep your bow to hand! Let us see who fights whom!”

  They sprinted ahead, and Lucoyo went dancing up the rock slope as nimbly as a lemur—and with just as good a night vision; at least he had some gift from his nameless father. He dropped down to his belly and stuck his head over the edge of the rocky shelf.

  “What do you see?” Ohaern’s voice was tense behind him.

  “A band of men, beset by goblins!” Lucoyo hissed. “See for yourself, but move softly! Those big-eared monstrosities can hear a gnat’s landing!” He squirmed backward, then up to stand, as Ohaern crawled past him.

  Below, he saw torches ringing a half-dozen men with packs on their backs and swords in their hands. They slashed desperately at the bloodred monsters, half their height but four times their number, who sprang in on their huge frog legs, landing on great splay feet to stab with spears held in short, muscle-bound arms and knob-knuckled hands. Their huge dish ears were turned toward the knot of men, though, not listening for sounds of rescue.

  “Can you shoot the goblins without slaying the men?” Ohaern demanded.

  “Aye, if I shoot at those farthest from the humans.”

  “Then do so—and take care not to hit me!” Ohaern vaulted over the edge. Lucoyo almost cried out, but caught himself in time and leaned to see his friend land, then go skating down the talus slope, drawing his broadsword as he went. Lucoyo cursed under his breath and strung his bow.

  Ohaern hurtled toward the fight, a silent juggernaut come to doom the goblins. He slammed into their rear ranks, laying about him with sword and buckler. Goblins screamed as they fell. Then, the surprise gone, Ohaern roared with a berserker’s anger. Goblins gave way around him in sheer fright, and he turned to mow them down.

  Above him, Lucoyo cursed again and bent his bow. If it had not been for Ohaern, he certainly would have gone his way and avoided this fight—or sat and watched, enjoying the spectacle. Personally, his sympathies lay with the goblins—but if his friend fought for the humans, what could he do? Even if Ohaern had not exactly given him a chance to express a preference .. .

  The humans, seeing a champion charging in to their rescue, let out a glad shout and began to lay about them with renewed vigor. One sheared off a spearhead; the goblin dropped the shaft and leaped at the man, teeth yawning wide in its noseless face. The traveler slashed, but the goblin somehow twisted aside and sank his fangs into the man’s forearm. The traveler cried out, dropping his sword, and a second goblin sprang for his other arm.

  Cursing anew, Lucoyo aimed and loosed.

  An arrow sprouted in the goblin’s back. It screamed and fell short of the beleaguered traveler. One of the human’s fellows chopped through the first goblin’s neck; the body fell, and the head opened its jaws in one last scream as it fell to the ground to be trampled underfoot.

  At the edge of the ring goblins were dying, arrows in their necks and transfixing their bodies. One goblin turned back to call up more of his fellows, saw the windrow of bodies and let out a screech. A dozen of his fellows turned, saw, and howled, scanning the rock face for their enemy. Lucoyo flattened himself against the stone, imitating its stillness, but they saw him anyway, and with a howl of vengeance the dozen goblins surged toward the bluff, leaping and hopping far faster than a man could run.

  But a man ran anyway—Ohaern, leaving the travelers to their own devices. He could afford to—only half a dozen goblins remained to fight four still-standing men, and three of the monstrosities held broken spears.

  Lucoyo saw he was discovered and knew there was no hope but fight. He stepped up to the shelf’s edge and began to shoot, a stream of arrows flowing down toward the goblins. They saw the flight and dodged aside, hiding behind rocks, then leaping from one boulder to another, coming inexorably closer and closer—but much more slowly.

  Ohaern caught up with them, chopping one head from its shoulders. The monster had scarcely any neck, but the cleft between shoulder and head was enough to guide the sword. As the body fell, Ohaern cut backhanded at another—but the creature saw him and screeched just before the blade struck. The other goblins whirled about to look, and Ohaern roared as he strode forward. The goblins yelped in fright and leaped around to put the boulders between him and them—and Lucoyo’s arrows struck between their shoulders.

  A goblin bent backward, keening as he died. The others looked up, realized their only hope was attack, and went leaping up the slope toward the archer, howling for revenge. Lucoyo picked off another and another and ...

  Groped at an empty quiver.

  Cursing, he threw down his bow and drew his long knife.

  He crouched at the edge of the shelf, knife in his left hand, right finding a stone and throwing.

  It struck the lead goblin in the face. The creature went down, and his two companions leaped on past him still howling—but Lucoyo threw another stone, and one goblin dodged.

  Ohaern caught him.

  The last sprang on, unaware that he was alone. He leaped high, and needle-sharp fangs closed on Lucoyo’s left arm. The archer shouted with pain and stabbed; the goblin face fell away, but Lucoyo’s arm dripped blood.

  Then Ohaern was there, catching him up. “How badly are you hurt, Lucoyo? Ah, a curse upon my slowness!”

  “It is only flesh,” the half-elf groaned, watching the even flow of blood. “I do not think he caught a vein, and certainly not the bone. But anything so ugly must have poison in its bite!”

  “Come, down to the travelers!” Ohaern said. “I see packs on their backs; perhaps they have medicines.”

  Lucoyo picked up his bow and clambered off the shelf, then stared at Ohaern. “You are not unscathed yourself!”

  “What, these?” Ohaern glanced down at the runnels of blood on his chest, forearms, and thighs. “Mere scratches. They do not even pain me—yet. Come, Lucoyo. If there is medicine for your hurt, there is medicine for mine.”

  They skidded down the slope arm in arm—but Lucoyo stopped next to the first of the dead goblins that had an arrow in h
im. “I must have back my bolts!”

  “Then the travelers who are not injured can gather them for you!” Still, Ohaern bent to wrench the arrow out of the goblin, then wiped off its ichor in the sand. They labored down the hill, and Ohaern drew and cleaned every arrow they passed. When they reached the plain, he was able to draw a few from the ground.

  “Every archer misses now and then,” Lucoyo said testily.

  “Yes, especially when his targets see the arrow coming and leap aside—or hop away from a sword stroke at the wrong moment. I think we will camp here for the night, Lucoyo. We can look for other shafts in the morning.”

  So they came to the travelers, who had already gathered the goblins’ torches into a campfire and were tending one another’s wounds. They looked up as Ohaern and Lucoyo neared. One of them leaped to his feet. “Welcome and thanks, brave rescuers! How did you know we had need of you?”

  “A lucky chance,” Ohaern said, but Lucoyo told them, “A god talked to him in his heart. It must have been his heart, for surely, anyone with a brain would have thought better of fighting these imps! Have you medicine for a goblin’s bite, traveler?”

  “Aye, in plenty, and you are welcome to it! Come, join our healing circle.”

  Ohaern looked about as they came up to the fire. One traveler lay prone, his face blue, gasping, and Ohaern knew him for a dead man. One of his legs was bound with cloth, but there was a great deal of blood dripping from it, and Ohaern knew the great vein had been cut. Two of his fellows gathered by him, murmuring, though one had an arm in a sling and blood and bandages in a dozen places.

  “Only two real casualties, praise Lomallin!” the leader said. He waved the two guests to seats by the fire. “My other two comrades are out finishing off the wounded goblins and gathering your arrows. Two to slay, two to guard, one maimed, and one .. .” He glanced at his dying companion, and his face darkened. “It is bad indeed—but it would have been worse without you, much worse.” He turned back to them and yanked up Lucoyo’s sleeve. The archer nearly cried out, but managed to stifle it to a gargle. The traveler held up a small clear cylinder with liquid inside and pulled its stopper. “Bite hard; this will hurt.”

  Hurt? It was worse than the goblin’s bite, as bad as fire! Lucoyo nearly strangled on the shout of pain that his grinding teeth throttled. It was fire, liquid fire that sank into his arm and shot up to his shoulder, down toward his heart—but its heat faded as it coursed, and in a minute it was only an ache.

  The traveler turned to putting drops of the fluid onto a white puffball, then dabbing it onto Ohaern’s wounds. The chieftain bit down against the pain, but when it eased, he asked, “How is it you came with an antidote for a goblin’s bite?”

  “We are men who travel for a living,” the stranger answered, still dabbing. “We trade the stuffs in our packs for whatever goods people have. We bring baubles from the cities of the south and trade them for furs and tin, amber and gold. When we have traded our goods for three donkeys and enough amber, gold, and furs to load them fully, we shall wend our way back to the south, where the city folk shall trade us more baubles—and other things we want, many more—for the goods we bring from the north.”

  “You are traders, then?”

  “Yes, and as such, we carry medicines for every danger we can think of—even the bites of goblins.”

  “Wise.” Ohaern nodded. “You should prosper, with such forethought.”

  “Those of us who come home alive and sound may say so,” the trader answered darkly. “And you, strangers—who are you, and why have you come?”

  “We are men of the north, bound for the cities of the south,” Ohaern told him, but did not say why.

  The trader apparently felt no need to ask; it only made sense to him that anyone who did not live in a city would wish to. “If you go south, then beware of the Vanyar.”

  “The Vanyar?” Ohaern traded glances with Lucoyo. “We have heard something of them, but only a little. Tell us more— for example, why have they come to our lands?”

  Chapter 14

  Lucoyo leaned forward, frowning. “We have seen them from a distance, but know only that they are robbers on a large scale—and very poor rivermen. But what are they?”

  “Who, rather,” the trader corrected him. He held out a hand, palm forward. “And as to ‘who,’ I am Brevoro.”

  “I am Ohaern.” The smith pressed his palm against Brevoro’s.

  “Lucoyo.” The half-elf pressed hands in his turn. “He is a Biri, and I am an adopted Biri.”

  “Ah, yes, the nation to the north and west!” Brevoro nodded, lowering his hand. “I have traded with men of your nation, though not, it would seem, with your clan. I tell you, your people are much more hospitable than the Vanyar.”

  “I have not heard of them before this.” Ohaern frowned. “Are they a southern people?”

  “They are a new people—at least, in this part of the world. They tell me they have come from the Vanyar homeland, which is to the south and far to the east, in the plains that view a mountain range a thousand leagues and more from here.”

  “A thousand leagues!” Lucoyo sat bolt upright. “They have come a long distance in a little time!”

  “Not so little as that, for these tribesmen told me they have never seen their homeland—only one among them had, and he was very, very old. He was determined to return, but no others were, at least not from anything more than curiosity.

  They wanted new lands in the west, with new peoples for slaves, so that each of them might live like a king.”

  Ohaern snorted. “They have little humility, have they?”

  “They are supremely confident, and claim that they will prevail against every enemy, for the source of their strength is Ulahane himself.”

  Ohaern and Lucoyo sat very still. Then the half-elf said, “Poor hosts they must have been, indeed! Did they seek to murder you in your sleep, or only to rob you?”

  Brevoro gave him a thin smile. “Neither one, though they might have done both if their smith had not had the foresight to realize he would want our trade not just this year, but next year, too. As it was, we kept a vigilant guard day and night. None threatened us, though many gave us cold stares, and covetous glances to our goods. In truth, we did not know how strongly their chief held them leashed, the more so since every man among them is proud and overbearing—so we felt that our lives were in danger every minute, and did not truly breathe easily until we had been two days on the road again, with no offer to injure us.” He gave a hard smile. “I should not say ‘no offer,’ for after we had left their camp and were about to rest at midday, we saw a dust cloud. One of our party climbed a tree and saw a raiding party following us.”

  “Did their chief know?” Ohaern demanded.

  Brevoro shrugged. “Perhaps—or perhaps he might have punished them if they had slain us. It would not have helped us then.”

  “You did not rest, I gather,” Lucoyo said.

  “Oh, we did—but deeply buried in thickets and high in trees, with slings ready. The Vanyar rode right past us, for they are steppe riders and know little of woodcraft, whereas we had been careful to cover our tracks. No, we stayed where we were for an hour and more, then moved through the wood away from the path. When we came out into open land, we saw them against the sky, returning. We hid again, for we did not wish to go back to their camp—in pieces.”

  “Are they so vicious, then?” Lucoyo asked.

  “Vicious and fierce, to judge from the fights that broke out among them during the day and the night of our sojourn there—and cruel indeed, to judge from the country we traversed, where they had been. We saw villages in ashes, bodies of men ripped asunder and left for the crows, and bodies of old women violated, maimed, and left for the jackals. They had a host of captives in their camp, women and children and hamstrung men, who served them with faces haunted by fear—as well they might, for even work well-done was rewarded with kicks, and poor work punished with beatings.”

&nb
sp; Ohaern reared back as if at an offensive odor. “Have they no law? Has each of them no moral teachings within?”

  “Only for themselves,” Brevoro said, “only for other Vanyar. Anyone not of their nation is outside their law, and fair game for any who wish to abuse him—or her. The Vanyar geid the few male warriors they do not slay out of hand but save for slaves. Perhaps what they do to women is as bad as that.”

  “What manner of people were these slaves?” Ohaern’s eyes were lost in the shadows under his brows.

  “People of many nations, even some that we traders did not know.”

  “Biriae?”

  “Even Biriae,” Brevoro admitted with a sigh, “though not so many of them.”

  “Aye; most of my people dwell in the west.”

  “The Vanyar will come to them, have no doubt.”

  Ohaern tensed with the urge to rise. “We must bring word to them!”

  “But not tonight.” Lucoyo stayed him with a hand. “And perhaps not at all.”

  Ohaern rounded on Lucoyo. “Are you not concerned for your own nomad tribe, they who reared you and sheltered you?”

  “What, they who bade me draw their water and carry their wood?” Lucoyo gave him a wolf’s grin. “They who heaped shame on my mother and tormented me without mercy? Let the Vanyar have them, and welcome! If they keep the invaders from your people for a week or two more, they will have finally served some purpose! As to our course, is it not more important to eliminate the source of this menace than the menace itself?”

  Ohaern sank back, his scowl dark and heavy. “There is something in that.”

  “Never fear, we will take word to your tribesmen,” Brevoro assured him. “But how is this? How can you ‘eliminate the source’? You cannot think that two men alone can destroy all the Vanyar!”

  “Two men can gather more men,” Lucoyo said quickly, before Ohaern could forget himself and tell whom they truly meant. “Will not the Vanyar be a year or more coming to the lands of the Biriae?”