Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

“We’ll go back to Embruddock together,” Laintal Ay said. “Oyre will be so delighted.” Aoz Roon made no response at first.

“I can’t return… I can’t … I can’t desert Yhamm-Whrrmar… You can’t understand.” He rubbed his hands on his knees.

“You’re Lord of Embruddock still.”

He hung his head, sighing. He had been defeated, had failed. All he wished for was a peaceful refuge. Again the uncertain movement of hands on knees, on shabby bearskin.

“There are no peaceful refuges,” Laintal Ay said. “Everything’s changing. We’ll go back to Embruddock together. As soon as we can.” Since Aoz Roon’s will had deserted him, he must make his decisions for him. He could obtain a suit of the Sibornalan cloth from the guardroom; so disguised Aoz Roon could join Skitosherill’s party. He left Aoz Roon with disappointment. This was not what he had expected.

Outside the church, another surprise awaited him. Beyond the wooden buildings that circled the church the members of the colony were gathering. They faced outwards silently, looking across the settlement towards open country, anonymous in their drab greys. The crusade of the young phagor kzahhn was about to pass. The flight from the advance of the crusade still continued. An occasional stag plunged along amid the humans and protognostics and Others. Sometime, the fugitives walked beside groups of the phagors who formed part of the van of Hrr-Brahl Yprt’s army. There was a certain blindness about the procession, about its seeming blunders. It was impressive for its numbers rather than its discipline.

Seemingly at random, in fact under control of air-octaves, groups of phagors studded uncounted acres of wild territory. Everywhere, they progressed at their slow remorseless pace with their slow unnatural stride. No haste glowed in their pale hameys.

The way through mountain and valley from the almost stratospheric heights of the Nktryhk down to the plains of Oldorando was three and a half thousand miles. Like any human army travelling mainly on foot over rough terrain, the crusaders seldom averaged better than eleven miles a day.

They rarely marched more than one day in twenty. Most of the time was taken with the customary diversions of large armies: foraging off the land and resting up.

In order to acquire supplies, they had laid siege to several gaunt mountain towns near their path, allying themselves to rocks and crags while waiting for the sons of Freyr inside the town to open their gates and throw down their arms. They had pursued nomadic people, on the threshold of humanity, still ignorant of the power of the seed, and therefore condemned to a life of wandering, tracking them up perilous paths to acquire a few head of scraggy arang for the mess pot. They had been detained at the start by snows and, towards the end, more seriously, by immense inundations crashing towards lower ground from the flanks of the shrinking Hhryggt.

The crusaders had also suffered illness, accident, desertion, and raids by tribes through whose territory they ventured.

Now was the Air-turn 446 according to the modern calendar. In the eotemporal minds of the ancipital race, it was also Year 367 After Small Apotheosis of Great Year 5,634,000 Since Catastrophe. Thirteen air-turns had passed since that day when the stungebag horn had first sounded along the icy cliffs of the home glacier. Batalix and louring Freyr were low in the western sky and close together, as the crusade plodded on the last stage of its journey.

This terrain was soft as a woman’s lap compared with the higher lands of Mordriat already traversed, and spoke less nakedly of savage forces. Yet it was scoured and scooped. True, the season had patched it with trees, the acid-green leaves of which spread their points horizontally, as if compressed by invisible air- octaves, but no foliage could disguise the great geological anatomy beneath; that anatomy had been corroded too recently by centuries of frost. It was a land fit to support without sustaining the restless soul of life, in whatever form that soul was cast. It constituted the unedited manuscript of Wutra’s great story. The chunky bodies of the phagor army were autochthonous manifestations of the place.

By comparison, the grey-clad inhabitants of the settlement were shadowy things, more transient than those who passed their borders.

Laintal Ay walked along the curved street formed between the church and the surrounding offices, guardrooms, and stores, carrying a suit of Sibornalan clothing for Aoz Roon. As he went, he caught glimpses of the scene between buildings.

All the inhabitants of New Ashkitosh had gathered to watch the crusade pass. He wondered if they waited there from fear, to test whether the human tribute they had paid the ancipital force had indeed secured their safety.

The silent white brutes went by on either side of the settlement. They moved with precision, looking incuriously ahead. Many were thin, their coats moulting; their naked heads by contrast looked enormous. Above them flew the cowbirds, setting up a great racket. Many cow-birds broke ranks, to dive on manure piles lying about the settlement, fighting for them with screams and beating wings.

The people of the settlement sent up their own sound, as if in opposition. As Laintal Ay emerged from the church, the massed ranks broke into song. The words were not Olonets. They carried a harsh yet lyrical texture matched by a powerful melody. The song breathed some grand elusive quality between defiance and submission. Women’s voices floated clear above the bass, which developed into a slow chant much like a march.

Now among the ragged army of brutes streaming by could be discerned some on kaidaw-back—not so many kaidaws now as there had been at the start, but enough to make a showing. In the centre of a more orderly phalanx stepped Rukk-Ggrl, red head held low, bearing the young kzahhn himself. Behind the kzahhn came his generals, then his private fillocks—of whom only two survived, and they now haughty gillots. Human prisoners plodded along amid the throng, bearing loads. Hrr-Brahl Yprt held his head high, his face crown glinting in the sickly light. Zzhrrk fluttered above him like a banner. The kzahhn did not deign to cast his regard upon the human settlement that paid him tribute. Yet the throaty song that rolled out across the land to greet him roused a feeling of some kind in his eddre for, when he came to a point that might be regarded as level with the Church of Formidable Peace, he raised his sword above his head in his right hand—whether as greeting or threat could never be determined. Without pause, he continued on his way.

Seeing that Aoz Roon kept by his side, Laintal Ay led him to the guardhouse. There they waited until Skitosherill arrived, bringing along his wife and a maidservant loaded with baggage.

“Who’s this?” Skitosherill demanded, pointing to Aoz Roon. “Are you breaking your side of our bargain already, barbarian?”

“He’s a friend of mine, let that suffice. Where are your phagor friends going?” The Sibornalan shrugged one shoulder, as if denial was hardly worth two.

“Why should I know? Stop them and ask, if you’re curious.”

“They are heading for Oldorando. Don’t you know that?—you brigands, so friendly with the brutes, singing a song to their leader.”

“If I knew where every little barbarous town in the wilderness stood, I should hardly rely on you to show me the way to one of them.”

They were confronting each other angrily when Skitosherill’s wife pushed forward and said, “Why are you arguing, Barboe? Let’s get on with the plan. If this man says he can lead us to Ondoro, then encourage him to do so.”

“Of course, dear,” Skitosherill said, sketching a rictus of a smile in her direction. Scowling at Laintal Ay, he made off, returning very soon with a scout who led several head of yelk. His wife contented herself with surveying Laintal Ay and Aoz Roon in silent contempt.