The Shaman Read online

  That was the only night they camped, though. The next day, a man in one of the left-hand boats gave a shout, pointing, and they all looked to see a dozen canoes putting out from the western bank, moving toward them. Ohaern called out a greeting, but it was answered with a flight of arrows. The arrows all fell short, woefully short, but Ohaern called, “Into the middle of the river, and paddle hard!”

  The current moved faster in the center of the river, and the paddlers dug in with a will, united by Ohaern’s war chant. Lucoyo unlimbered his bow, strung it, and asked, “How can I look over the side?”

  “Carefully,” Glabur answered, and Ohaern nodded, never slackening the chant.

  Dalvan said, “As you move higher, archer, I shall move closer to Ohaern, and we shall yet be steady. Ready? Up, now—carefully, carefully ...”

  Lucoyo inched his way up the side of the boat, his heart in his throat, but it did not capsize—and when he arrived there, he was surprised to see the canoes far away behind them and growing farther, the men in them shaking their fists at the Biriae. Dimly, he could hear their curses. “Why did I bother?”

  “In case they proved to be better boatmen than they seemed,” Ohaern told him, “and this sluggishness only a ruse to draw us in.”

  “It is no pretense,” Jannogh said from his place in the rear. “They are so clumsy it is ridiculous—but surely they would not pretend so when they see us escaping!”

  Ohaern frowned. “What manner of men are these, who have canoes but know not how to use them?”

  They rowed in silence while each man pondered the notion. Then Lucoyo offered, “Thieves?”

  “There speaks the voice of experience,” Glabur grunted, “but I think you have found it, archer.”

  “He has,” Ohaern agreed. “These are plainsmen who have conquered a river village, and its canoes with it, but have no idea how to use them—or have just begun to learn, at least.”

  “I hope they will not have learned better when we return,” Glabur said.

  “They are five to our one,” Dalvan admitted.

  “But what kind of archers are they, whose shafts fall so far short?” Ohaern wondered.

  But Lucoyo had an answer for that. “They are plainsmen who follow the great herds. My clan has met some of them, and kept our weapons in our hands as we traded insults, then finally began to trade goods instead. Their bows are made of aurochs’ horns, with only an arm’s length of wood to connect them. They will send an arrow with great force, but for some reason it will not travel far.”

  “More likely, then, that they do not know how to make arrows,” Dalvan opined.

  “Do they know how to wield swords?” Glabur wondered.

  “It grieves me to say it, but I trust we shall not have to find out.” Ohaern sighed. “We cannot spare the time; each day we tarry is a day Manalo comes closer to being sacrificed to Ulahane. Perhaps we can fight them after we have saved him.”

  But the plainsmen had other ideas—or their first cousins did. The next day, the river narrowed, and the canoes started out from the shore as soon as the Biriae came in sight. By the time they neared the village, there were a dozen canoes already in mid-river, with more following from both banks. Lucoyo readied his bow, and one man in each coracle readied his spear.

  “Keep them from us, Lucoyo,” Ohaern bade him, and the half-elf did his best. He filled the air with arrows, arrows that would have found their mark if the attackers had not dodged so well—they seemed as supple as eels. They were close enough to see clearly now—stocky, swarthy, bearded men with black or brown hair coiled under leather caps. They wore copper armbands and leather jerkins, and were shouting obscenities at the Biriae.

  “I have come this way before,” Glabur said, “and I have never seen such as these!”

  “Whoever they are, they are cousins to those who chased us upstream,” Lucoyo said. “Duck!” He took his own advice, and a short arrow arced into the coracle. Ohaern shouted in anger as it struck his boot.

  “Are you hurt, Ohaern?” Glabur cried.

  “A fly’s bite, nothing more—but my boot will need mending.”

  “It will.” Lucoyo plucked the shaft out of Ohaern’s boot heel and sent it flying back to its source. “I have only two more arrows, my friends!”

  “There are more in my pack,” Glabur answered. “Put them to good use, Lucoyo.”

  The archer did.

  Shouts rang out from the other boats as the Biriae caught the strangers’ arrows on their paddles, then handed them down to the spearmen, who threw them back at their attackers. Those were only fly bites, of course, so the stocky men pulled closer and closer, no matter how clumsy they were in their canoes.

  “Give me a boat like that, and I could fly like the wind!” Dalvan cried.

  “Why, then, I shall!” Ohaern replied as a canoe lurched up alongside. The stocky men sprang to their feet, and the canoe lurched beneath them. They shouted in alarm, flailing for balance, and Ohaern slashed with his sword. Bright blood answered him, the wounded man howled and fell—and the canoe capsized. Over they went, and the Biriae cheered.

  The other coracles had met with similar fortune. All but three of the canoes had capsized, and the attackers floundered in the water, eyes white, too proud to call out in fear but very obviously sinking. The water was churned to froth by men who could not swim. The few canoes still afloat were doing the best they could to pick up their drenched friends—with comical results as first one canoe, then another, flipped over when men tried to climb in.

  Through his laughter Ohaern called out, “Bid them hold to the sides! A canoe will hold you as well upside down as right side up!”

  One man must have understood him, for he bawled something in a language the Biriae could not understand, and the men in the water seized hold of the overturned canoes like leeches grabbing onto warm flesh.

  “Grapple two of those empty canoes!” Ohaern called to the coracle coming after him. “Spoils of war!”

  So they left the barbarians behind, and the river bore them south. It broadened again within the mile and stayed broad enough so that they could easily hold off any more attackers until they had passed them. With the two canoes and the lighter load in the coracles, they seemed to be traveling faster than word of their coming could, for none of the other tribes were lurking in mid-river waiting for them. Indeed, most of them did not even try to paddle out—they only shot arrows, which almost invariably fell short.

  “Why do they bother?” Lucoyo asked, looking over the edge of the coracle. He had tried a canoe once, and had quickly opted for the coracle again. “Why shoot when they know they will lose their arrows?”

  Ohaern shrugged. “Perhaps they wish to make it clear we are not welcome.”

  “Well, they have succeeded in that. Will we find them doing so all the way to Byleo?”

  They did not; a day’s march from Byleo, the riverbanks became reasonably peaceful—but also amazingly cultivated. The grasslands and the forest ended as if cut off by an axe, or turned into open fields of bare ground, with men and women alike out digging.

  “What are they seeking?” Lucoyo wondered.

  His boat-mates exchanged glances; apparently the nomad knew nothing of farming, in spite of Manalo’s visit. “They are opening the earth to receive seed, Lucoyo,” Ohaern explained. “Manalo showed us the way of it. They put grains of oat and barley in the ground and cover them over. Then, late in the summer, they will have oats and barley to reap by the basketful.”

  Lucoyo stared. “And they live on that?”

  “If they have to. It is better than starving. But I suspect they still hunt when they are done with the planting, and after the harvest.”

  “Hunt where? They have cut down the forest—and the great herds do not come so close to the river!”

  “That is true. They must hunt small game, and perhaps deer. Those crops must attract a great number of such.”

  “They certainly must! There is so much of them! When do these peop
le find time to do anything else?”

  “It does make you wonder,” Ohaern admitted. “At least they are peaceful.”

  But the fields did not leave much room to make a landing. They ate hard biscuit and dried meat, and drank from the river. The next morning they came to Byleo.

  “Lucoyo, awake!” Something nudged the half-elf.

  Lucoyo looked for something to throw, found nothing, and grudgingly levered himself up. “Why?”

  “We must go ashore and hide the boats! Quickly, before the sun rises!”

  Lucoyo frowned up at the big hunter. There was urgency in Ohaern’s voice, but also eagerness. The half-elf decided it was not time to argue. He pulled himself up to look over the edge of the boat and saw, on the horizon, the shapes of lodges—for surely those odd, squared shapes could be nothing else—dark against the false dawn.

  But so many! They spread out on the eastern shore as far as he could see—long and low, but very many. A hill thrust up out of their center, a low hill with a black crown of many points. “What is that atop the slope?” Lucoyo asked, feeling a chill of dread.

  “It is a wall made of trees set upright side by side, and sharpened on top,” Glabur told him. “I was here once before, to trade furs for bronze blades. They would not give me bronze, but they offered me a great deal of elegant pottery and pretty beads.”

  Lucoyo gave a snort of laughter. “You did not come again, did you?”

  “No, I did not!” Glabur said grimly. “Pots are useful, but not worth the trip, and we can make beads enough at home. But it is more than that—these Kuruites are so suspicious, they give off such an air of malice, that you shudder just being near them—and whenever they look at you, you cannot help but feel that they are gauging how good a sacrifice you would make, to their scarlet god Ulahane.”

  Lucoyo felt another chill, but he forced a sour smile. “They will not do much business, will they?”

  “I hope not,” Glabur answered, but he did not seem sure.

  They clambered ashore, stowed the coracle skins, and sank the frameworks under a bank, where few would think to look for them. Then the hunters set to hiding the canoes, muttering about it being nearly impossible without forest cover. But Lucoyo was amazed—before his very eyes the canoes disappeared. Soon there was nothing left but a long, low mound on the bank, of dried grass and last year’s fallen leaves.

  Glabur turned to Ohaern. “What now, chief?”

  It was the first time anyone had said it, but Lucoyo realized it was true—Ohaern was the chief, at least of this little band. The term raised his hackles, but he reminded himself that this was Ohaern, not Gorin, and let the antagonism subside.

  “Did you go inside the stockade?” Ohaern asked Glabur.

  “Yes, for that is where they do their trading.”

  Ohaern smiled. “It was well for you that you were willing to trade, or you might have walked out of there without your furs after all.”

  “And lucky to walk out with his life,” Dalvan said darkly.

  Ohaern nodded. “They must have had sacrifices enough that month. It is large, then?”

  “Large enough to hold two villages the size of ours! Indeed, it does hold one—if you can call four long houses of Kuruite soldiers a village. There is a fifth house, too, for their women.”

  Ohaern frowned. “Odd that the wives would not live with their husbands.”

  “I did not say they were wives.”

  “But how else—” Ohaern broke off, shaking his head. “Never mind. The ways of these southern city-people are such that I will never understand them. Is there only the one gate?”

  “No, there is a smaller one, wide enough for only one man at a time, at the back, behind the temple.”

  Lucoyo stared. “They have a temple in there?”

  “Did I not say it could hold two villages? Yes, they have a temple, to worship Ulahane. The prison is next to it—in fact, they share a wall.”

  “All the easier to make sacrifices of criminals,” Ohaern said grimly. “Are the gates shut at night?”

  “They are, and held closed by a tree trunk squared enough to be a great bar. There is a small gate on the southern side, but it, too, is closed and barred.”

  “What can be closed can be opened,” Dalvan growled.

  “Without question,” Ohaern agreed, “but I would rather open a small gate than a big one. There should only be one guard there, for one thing, or perhaps two. Well, then, my friends—which of you wish to go into the fortress and trade?”

  There was a moment’s pause; then all eighteen called, “I!” After a minute, so did Lucoyo. It was just his bad luck that Ohaern chose him for companion.

  They went into the city when the sun was low, entering by twos and threes. Lucoyo was amazed at the extent of it and the overwhelming number of people—amazed and repelled that so many people could live together with so little room for each. It showed; there were quarrels on every hand, and he saw two fights break out as they walked along.

  Byleo had grown up between the riverbank and the fortress on its hilltop. The houses varied between the lodges of the hunters, new and strange to Lucoyo, and the tents of the nomads, which were more familiar to him, though not quite like those among which he had grown up. At least the street between them was a good twelve cubits’ wide, though it was only dust; there was no grass and few enough trees, but there were weeds a-plenty, if the dried remains of last year’s crop were anything to judge by.

  After fifteen minutes’ walk through a warren of such streets, they came into a broader one, at least ten yards in width. The houses here were built of mud brick, something that Lucoyo and Ohaern stared at. “Surely it will wash away in one good rain!” Lucoyo protested.

  “Surely,” Ohaern agreed. “What are these pictures painted on the walls?”

  Lucoyo frowned. “That one is a fish—and surely that is a joint of meat. I see a sheaf of grain, but what is that foaming bowl next to it?”

  “I cannot say,” Ohaern said, “but I do recognize a bunch of grapes, there. What can such drawings be for? Surely not mere decoration!”

  “They show what goods we have to trade, outlander,” a fat man called, lounging in the doorway under the sign of the foaming bowl. “Mine shows a bowl of beer. If you have goods to trade, you may taste of it.”

  “Beer? What is that?”

  The merchant grinned. “A drink made of grain, though it must be made by a special recipe, and takes a week and more to prepare. I will let you drink all you want for only one small piece of amber, if you wish it.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow,” Ohaern said, interested, “but for now, we must go to the stockade and learn how we are to go about our trading.”

  “Ah, well!” the merchant said with regret. “You had best hurry, then, for they close the gate when the sun sets.”

  “Thank you, stranger.” Ohaern hastened his steps, asking Lucoyo softly, “Surely the amber traders would give us more than a few bowls of drink for a piece of gem?”

  “It would seem to be a bad bargain,” Lucoyo agreed. “Why do you suppose this street is so wide, Ohaern?”

  “Look!” Ohaern pointed at the stockade, straight in front of them, though still much higher. “It goes directly to the gates! It is wide so that a troop of soldiers may march down it side by side!”

  Lucoyo lifted his head slowly. “Yes, that would make sense. Well, let us go to it side by side, then.”

  They came to the great stockade gates just as the sunset reddened the sky. “You have come too late,” the sentry told them. “There is no more trading today.”

  “Can we not come in and stay the night?” Ohaern peered in through the gate. “I see that other traders do, and we would prefer to be here when the trading begins in the morning.”

  “Well, you can if you wish,” the Kuruite soldier said, “but you shall have to barter for your dinner.”

  Ohaern nodded. “I have amber.”

  The soldier’s eyes gleamed with a covetous ligh
t. “Give it to me and I shall see you fed!”

  Ohaern reached into his pack and pulled out a lump of amber the size of his thumb. “Is this all?” the soldier asked contemptuously.

  “No, but I must save some to trade in the morning, must I not?”

  “There is that,” the soldier said reluctantly. “You will need breakfast, too. Very well, enter.”

  Ohaern and Lucoyo went in, and found Glabur and his two men already waiting. Not far away, Dalvan and Jannogh lounged and gossiped. They were careful not to acknowledge one another, pretending to be strangers. The soldier was true to the bargain and brought them dinner—if bowls of cold porridge can be called dinner. Ohaern pointed this out to the man, but he only said that he would bring it to them hot, for breakfast. Then he walked away, chuckling to himself.

  Lucoyo tasted the mess and made a face. “I hope that soldier is still on duty when—”

  Ohaern cleared his throat rather loudly.

  “—the moon rises,” Lucoyo finished hastily. “It will be good to know we have a protector.”

  “What?” said another barbarian sourly. “Do you think that man would care whether you lived or died?”

  “So long as I had amber or fur to trade him? Yes.”

  “A point,” the stranger admitted. “Have you?”

  Lucoyo saw the covetous gleam in the man’s eye and grinned. “Whether I do or not, friend, he will learn in the morning. But what trade goods have you?”

  “It is too late to talk.” Ohaern gave Lucoyo a warning glance. “We should be abed.”

  “What, when the moon is not yet risen?” Lucoyo gave him a wink. “Surely it would be quite unnatural for traders far from home to forgo the pleasures of talk and news any sooner than that!”

  Ohaern lifted his head, understanding coming into his eyes, and Lucoyo turned back to strike up some gossip—and just incidentally learn a little more about Byleo and its Kuruite soldiers. He discovered, for example, that they changed the sentries an hour after sunset and again in the middle of the night; that the sentries tended to gossip and nap at their posts; and that there were always two stationed by the prison door, and one by the southern gate. The gleam of approval in Ohaern’s eye told him that he was doing well.