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  Now bow and arrow making was intensified. Now the training went on from the first to the last light of Du. The days were growing shorter, the change of season nearing. Jai and Dagner kept reminding Duwan that if Kooh was to be taken, it had to be soon, before the snows came and made marching difficult.

  The nights were growing quite chill by the time Tambol returned. He came walking alone to find Duwan standing on a knoll watching the entire force of his army make a simulated attack on a walled city, the city represented by a rising wall of natural stone. Over a thousand pongs made the assault, using ladders of wood laced together by vines to climb the rocks. There were accidents. Pongs fell and were injured. Duwan was pleased with the progress of the training, but highly doubtful about the chances of this partially trained force against Kooh.

  Tambol waited patiently until the exercise was over, the leaders had dismissed the various contingents of the army, and the evening campfires were beginning to make their smokes.

  "Master," he said, "Kooh goes about its business. There is a garrison of a hundred guardsmen, and they are not the elite of the guards, but lesser ones, who consider the assignment in Kooh as exile from the pleasures of Arutan."

  "Are you saying that none escaped the settlements to carry word?"

  "To all appearances, yes," Tambol said. "There have been no alarms. No urgent messengers have left the city for the south. A pong who serves in the guards' barracks heard that, soon, a force will be sent north, to find out why the settlements there have not started sending flesh and hides to Kooh. There seemed to be no hurry about this. So, as it stands, an attack in the next few days would come as a surprise."

  "We are ready," Dagner said, with an outthrusting of his hardening chin. "We must not lose the advantage of surprise, Duwan."

  "There will be help from inside the city," Tambol said. "I spent several days and nights in the pens. At a signal, pongs will break down the fences and open the gates."

  Duwan frowned. He still felt it was too soon. He had been thinking in terms of moving farther to the west, making winter camp and using the cold time for training and building his forces.

  "Master," Tambol said, "they are waiting. They believe. They hunger for you."

  "Pongs who have no training, who have never known freedom, they will risk peeling to open the gates?"

  "Master, those who have heard me, and believed me, teach day and night. Yes, they will open the gates. And when we have Kooh!" He looked to the sky and muttered a prayer. "When we have Kooh the word will spread like wildfire when the rains fail. They will rise in Tshou, and in Arutan, and in the southern cities. We will march in triumph the length and breadth of this land!"

  "I will think on this," Duwan said, rising. He walked away from the fires, left the camp behind him, scarcely noticing that Jai was following. He sought a high place, sat on a night-chilled rock, and searched the lights of the night sky for an answer. Jai, silent, sat with her back to his, giving him of her warmth, until, still without speaking, he rose and went down from the high place into a grove where there were whispers. He lay on the earth and opened his mind. The whispers were faint, massed together into a languorous murmur.

  "Grandmother," he said without words. "Grandmother." But there were only the distant, meshed, indistinguishable whispers of the old brothers and no word came to him, no sign, no guidance. He prayed, listening for that odd, hollow, faraway voice, and there was only the silence and coolness of the night and the faint backwash of massed whispers.

  This decision would be his and his alone.

  "You say go," he stated to Jai.

  "You are our leader," she said, "but my heart and my head say go."

  "As say Dagner and others."

  "We will obey, whatever you decide," she said. "But consider this. Even if we are repulsed at the walls, and I don't believe this will happen, we will have sent a message to all who are still in the pens. We will be saying, look, we are here. We are free. We are strong enough to threaten a Devourer city. Join us."

  Duwan took her hand and led her back. Dagner, Duwan the Elder, others of the valley Drinkers and a few of the pong sub-leaders were listening to Tambol as he taught the miracle of Duwan, how he had come from the earth, how he had the ear of Du, himself.

  Tambol fell silent when Duwan and Jai walked into the light of the fires. Duwan stood, tall, an imposing figure, the light gleaming redly on the hilts of his swords.

  "We will go to Kooh," he said.

  "Du has spoken," Tambol hissed, in awe.

  "No," Duwan said, somewhat angrily, "Duwan has spoken, and he prays that he has not made a bad decision."

  "The city is ours," Dagner said.

  "We will go. We will take the city. We will destroy it. We will raze its buildings and its walls, and we will water the earth with the blood of Devourers," Duwan said. "And then we will march to the west, far to the west, and there we, ourselves, will establish a defensive position from which we will, after the snows have come and gone, raid the countryside, building our army. After, Kooh there will be no more surprises for the enemy, for he will know, and he will mobilize himself, and there will be no standing against him in open battle, not for a long, long time."

  "We will send teachers to all cities, to the pongpens," Tambol said. "We will instruct the pongs to slow down their work, to do damage when they can do so without detection, and this unrest in the pens will force the Enemy to use more of his conscripts and order keepers to watch the pens. Each one detained in this manner will be one less we will face on the field of battle."

  Duwan spent the next two days making his plans, remembering clearly the layout of Kooh, and its approaches. He went over and over his plan of attack. This time the various units would be led by their valley Drinker leaders. This time he, himself, would fight. The four gates of Kooh would be attacked by four strong units, Duwan with the force at the main, southern gate, Duwan the Elder at another, and Dagner at the third gate. The fourth gate, a lesser gate at the west, used mostly for entry by the gatherers of firewood, would be attacked by a smaller force, and that attack would come first, with a delay to pull the guards garrison toward the Wood Gate.

  If all went well, the other three gates would be opened by pongs from the inside. The attack would come at first light, giving the night to move the army into position unseen.

  Now with the scouts out front, the army was on the march. It moved through the western forests like a multi-segmented, long, deadly snake. It did not move in silence. Although there were many among the force who were becoming skilled with weapons, it was, Duwan knew, still more rabble than army. Ideally, his army would have been as well trained, as dedicated, as disciplined as the army of the great Alon. Alon had but to nod, said the legends, to send a fast moving strike unit into action, with all units coordinated as if by magic, but, actually, by training and discipline. Once more Tambol went into the city, moving ahead of the army as fast as he could walk. As Duwan positioned his forces for the final nighttime approach, Tambol found his way back to Duwan's camp to report that the pongs of the pens were ready, and that the gates would, surely, be opened from the inside.

  "To be sure," Tambol said, "I am going back into the city. I will personally lead one group, the one to open the main gate, Master."

  "You have risked enough, my friend," Duwan said.

  "Then give me a sword and I will fight at your side."

  "And how much training have you had with the sword?" Tambol lowered his head.

  "My friend," Duwan said. "You have done more than any other. You have done your part. Thanks to you we have this army. Thanks to you there is hope for the enslaved. I would not lose you now, doing something for which you are not trained, for your leadership, and your teachings, will help us to multiply the size of this force. In that way your talents will be best utilized."

  "As you will, Master," Tambol said.

  The signal to those inside the city's walls that the attack was beginning had been arranged by Tambol, and it was
a huge bonfire on a hill that was visible from within the city. The fire would be lighted when Du first showed the edge of his face over the eastern horizon, and by that time the four attacking forces had to be in position.

  For once the army moved in silence. Duwan, with Jai at his side, positioned his group in the southern forest, a hard run from the main gate, and watched the signal hill. Since those on the hill were at a higher point, they saw Du first, and it was in predawn darkness that Duwan saw the first smoke, then the glow of fire, and heard, in response, the faraway shouts of the force attacking the western gate. He moved forward, hugging the earth, taking advantage of cover, getting near enough to the wall to hear shouts from inside, to know that his plan was working, for there were sounds of running, and shouted orders to tell him that the guards were moving to the Wood Gate. He stood and signaled Jai to give the order for the force to advance, and they began to emerge from the forest on the run, swordsmen first, then unarmed men carrying wooden ladders for use in case the gates were not opened from the inside.

  As the first swordsmen drew near he heard sounds from behind the tall, strong, wooden gate and then a creaking as the gate began to open.

  "Now we fight," he yelled to the first swordsmen to reach him. "Go, go, go!" They streamed past him, yelling, swords raised, pouring into the opening gates. He could hear faint shouting from the eastern gate, and he was elated, for it was going well. The crucial moment had come when his men ran toward the gate, exposing themselves, but the pongs from the pens inside had done as Tambol had promised, and now his army was pouring into the city and it was, for all practical purposes, his. Not even a trained unit of royal guards could stand against the human tide pouring through the gates.

  Jai had run to his side. "Come," she said. "We will miss the killing."

  "There will be enough blood for all," he said grimly. One third of his group had entered the gates and the rest were crowding, yelling, pushing to enter the relatively narrow opening when he saw the gleam of Du send light to flash from the bared swords of a running, silent mass of Devourers in the blue of the guards. They fell onto his force from the right rear, and they came in trained formation, each Devourer's flank protected by a companion in arms, and their blades began to bring havoc to the slave army.

  "Turn, turn," Duwan began to shout, leaping into the melee of pongs pushing to enter the gate. "Turn and face your rear."

  Chapter Five

  Duwan was never to know the exact course of events that had resulted in a rear-flank attack on his main force before the gates of Kooh, but he had been prophetically right in warning others not to underestimate Elnice of Arutan. She had made a decision, in the face of some amusement from her male advisers, based on the report of one Devourer male. This one, a hunter, had been afield when the first northern settlement had been attacked. He had returned toward the settlement, laden with the pleasing results of a good day in the forest, to hear the screams of the dying. He came near enough to see, to his astonishment, that pongs could fight, and he was so traumatized that, for a day and a night, he hid near the destroyed settlement, then entered to walk among the bodies of the dead and to sift through the ashes of his hut.

  Still in shock, he headed south, promptly became lost, and when he found his way again he arrived at the next settlement to the south in time, once more, to witness the bloody signals of a vast change. He saw females and children put to the blade and the fear sent him running to the south, bypassing all settlements, for he was convinced that the entire land swarmed with the bloodthirsty pongs. He lost his way again, discovered his approximate position when he was to the south of the coastal city, Tshou, and, walking on the last reserves of his strength and fear, reached the capital city and collapsed. It was days before he came to his senses again and began to try to get someone in authority to listen to him. When, at last, he was admitted to the presence of the High Mistress, he saw her dressed in a flimsy, clinging, ankle-length garment of the richest material, seated upon the throne of Arutan, a handsome, tall, well-built captain of the guards standing at her right side. Given permission to speak, his story began to be blurted out in sometimes almost incoherent half-sentences, so that the captain became impatient and told the guards to remove this idiot.

  "Hold," the High Mistress said. "We will hear what he has to say." He told, tearfully, of finding the body of his female and his two children in the ruins of the settlement and then became involved in a confusing account of his arduous journey all the way from the northern settlement to Arutan.

  Elnice listened patiently. She asked questions.

  "Are you expecting us to believe," the captain asked, "that pongs killed swordsmen of the master race?"

  "Hata," Elnice said harshly, "hold your tongue." When she had heard all, how this male had witnessed the total destruction of two major settlements, she dismissed him with instructions to put him in the care of the healers and keep him near for further questioning.

  "He's mad," Hata said. "It is not unusual for the loneliness of frontier life to destroy reason."

  "I have a report from Kooh that states that there has been no return, in the form of flesh and hides, from the northern settlements," Elnice said.

  "I heard the report," Hata said. "It takes time to clear the virgin forests, to establish routes."

  Elnice was silent for a time. "Have you also heard the reports of decreasing production from the pongs?"

  "I ordered that their food allotments be reduced until the work begins to produce the usual results," Hata said.

  "Have you heard, as well, the whispers of a new Master who will free all pongs?"

  Hata laughed. "The teaching of the sect of Tseeb. Yes, I have heard. I, myself, spoke with a priest of Tseeb. He was a fatuous fool, wanting to spread his message in the pens of this city, and I gave him permission. To have hope of something in the not too definable future keeps the pongs working. To believe in a du of mercy, who will give them freedom and eternal life in the afterworld, allows them to endure their otherwise intolerable condition."

  "I wonder," Elnice said. "Send a spy into the pens. Have him name two or three who seem most excited by these messages of hope. Have them peeled slowly, giving them plenty of time to talk. Meanwhile, activate all guard reserves, and conscript enough males to form a full conqforce."

  "A conqforce?" Hata gasped. "High Mistress, there has been no army of that size in existence since the days of the conquest."

  "If the male who came from the north is mad," Elnice said, "we will use the conqforce to sweep through the western mountains, to eradicate for all time any vestige of runaway pongs."

  "It will be a severe drain on your treasury," Hata said. Elnice laughed. "You still have hopes, I see, that I will relent and make you my consort. Never fear, Hata, should I decide on that course, there will be enough left in the treasury to assure that you will live well." Elnice could not say, nor, being High Mistress, did she have to, what prompted her to march out of Arutan at the head of the largest force that had been gathered since the days immediately following the Devourer migration from the humid, hot lands of the far south. Perhaps it was nothing more than a desire to see some of the land that she ruled. Perhaps, deep down, not realized even by herself, there was uneasiness at the continued silence from the new northern settlements.

  "We have invested good treasure in those settlements," she told Hata. "I think it is time we found out why we are not yet getting a return." She marched by easy stages to the north, spending a pleasant few days in the coastal city, giving her subjects there a chance to see her, her splendid body hinting of its beauty through her thin garments, giving the residents of that city a reason for pride with drills and reviews of the well trained conqforce. The change of season forced her to leave Tshou's pleasant beaches, for if she was going to travel past Kooh, to the first of the settlements, and return before the snows, she could not afford to waste any more time.

  Actually, Hata found that being in command of a full conqforce was an exciting e
xperience. He had no illusions, he felt, about a threat in the far north. Pongs were inferior, and incapable of fighting. But it was glorious to give commands to so large a force, and he took full advantage of the opportunity to exercise his military skills. He set problems for the traveling force, and sent out scouts just as if there was an enemy army lying in ambush in the vast northern forests. Thus it was that two of his scouts almost blundered head-on into Duwan's main force moving toward Kooh.

  "Have you been at the cup?" Hata demanded, when the breathless scouts came to his tent and reported a large force of armed pongs moving toward the city. He felt first a chill of apprehension, then elation. No Devourer officer had faced combat in generations. All his life he had been a soldier, and aside from peeling a few pongs he had never had a chance to exercise his skills. He summoned the High Mistress and had the scouts repeat the story. Then he sent others and, during the night, reports came back that astounded him. Pour separate groups of armed pongs were closing on Kooh, the largest moving toward the main gate, the southern gate.

  "We will attack at dawn," Elnice said. "Spread your forces, captain, to destroy all four of the forces that dare to threaten my city."

  "Your forgiveness, High Mistress," Hata said. "One of the most fundamental rules of warfare is never to split your forces in the face of an enemy of unknown strength."

  Elnice frowned. "Then what do you suggest?"

  "We will first wipe out the larger force of enemy, the force that is getting into position in front of the south gate. Then we will move to destroy the others forces one by one."

  "And if the other forces flee at the first appearance of our troops you will have to hunt them down one by one in the forests. Dus, Hata, these are pongs. Do you fear them?"

  Hata drew himself up. "I bow to your wishes." He gave orders to split his forces, to have four separate groups move into position. He doubted that they could move fast enough to reach the eastern and northern gates before first light, but he had to admit that Elnice's reasoning was good. There could be no serious threat from pongs, and he didn't relish having to spend the winter chasing them one by one through the snows. When Duwan saw the advancing lines of enemy guardsmen, his heart leaped. He had not felt right about this attack, and now he had learned a lesson. He had learned to trust his intuition.