Robert Silverberg: At Winter's End

“Only a little while longer,” Hresh said. “I feel their presence all around me.”

“The hjjks?” Taniane asked. “Or Harruel and his people?”

“Both. The hjjks in infinite numbers, to our north. And Harruel’s city straight ahead, and below us, in that circular formation on the meadow. At the center, where it’s dark with vegetation.”

Taniane stared, as though without seeing. After a time she said, “Can this succeed, Hresh? Or will we all be swallowed up by those million insects?”

“The gods will protect us.”

“Ah, and will they?”

Hresh smiled. “I have asked each one individually. Even Nakhaba.”

“Nakhaba!”

“I would ask the god of the hjjks to be kind to us too, if I knew his name. The god of the vermilions. The god of the water-striders, Taniane. The gods of the Great World. The unknown and unknowable Creator-god. One can never have too many gods on one’s side.” He caught her by the fleshy part of the arm, and pulled her close to him, so that she could see the conviction that glowed in his eyes. In a low voice he said, “All the gods will defend us today, for what we do is their bidding. But especially will we be defended by Dawinno, who cleared away an entire world so that we might inherit it.”

“You seem so certain of that, Hresh. I wish I could be as certain as you are.”

Certain? For one wild moment he felt swept with doubt, and he wondered if he believed any of what he was saying. The reality of what they had chosen to undertake seemed suddenly now to be coming home to him, and his will, which had carried them this far, seemed to be weakening. Perhaps it was the emanations of those numberless far-off hjjks that were battering his soul. Or perhaps it was simply the awareness of the unending work that must be done to create all that which he hoped to create.

He shook his head. They would prevail today, and in all the days that followed. He thought of his mother Minbain down in that meadow, and of Samnibolon his brother by Harruel, who was carrying the name of Hresh’s long-dead father into a new era. He would not let them die this day.

“Here we should make camp,” he told Taniane. “Then you and I go on alone, and set up the defensive measures.”

“And if some enemy finds us and we perish while we’re out there by ourselves, who will lead the tribe then?”

“The tribe had leaders before us. The tribe will find leaders after us. In any case, nothing will harm us while we do what must be done.” Hresh took her by the arms, as she had taken him that day of Koshmar’s death, and sent strength to her. Taniane’s shoulders straightened, her chest rose to her deepened breath. She smiled and nodded. Turning, she gave the signal to halt for the night.

It took an hour to get everything settled down. Then, leaving Boldirinthe and Staip in command, Hresh and Taniane slipped away a little to the west and from there moved to their right, edging around in a northward way toward the shovel-shaped plain that lay between the hjjk-folk and the settlement that Harruel had founded. The shadows were lengthening by the time Hresh came to the place that seemed best, where they could look down into that circular-walled place where Harruel had chosen to dwell. From this distance Hresh saw that that circular formation was a crater of some sort, very likely formed by the impact of something massive falling from a great height. In all probability, this was a place where a death-star had landed. Hresh pondered that, wondering if the substance of the death-star might even still be buried there. But he had no time to investigate that now.

They had brought with them a thing of the Great World, Hresh carrying one end and Taniane the other: that hollow tube of metal, hooded at one end, with a region of incomprehensible blackness held captive within that hood, and brilliant light sizzling and hissing at its entrance. Hresh held it by the hooded end, Taniane by the other. The metal was warm to the touch. Hresh wondered what magics were locked within this thing, and how he could ever explore them without being carried away to whatever place it was the tube sent those who approached it.

“Here, do you think?” Hresh asked.

“A little closer to the settlement,” said Taniane. “Then if this plan of yours succeeds and the hjjks are cast into confusion we can fall upon them from one side and Harruel and his warriors from the other.”

“Good,” Hresh said. “We’ll go a little closer. And the plan will succeed, Taniane. I know it will.”

They went on a short way. Now darkness was coming on. Taniane indicated a place a little higher than the rest, where there was a flat rock on which they could mount the tube, and other rocks around to prop it upright. Hresh guided it into position. The moment it was upright it came alive, crackling with light and mystery. He felt once again the insidious temptation of the thing, its artful pull. But he was ready for it and he shrugged it away. Stepping back, he tested the device by tossing a stone toward its hood. The circlet of lights flashed blue and red and wild purple, and the stone vanished in midair.

Hresh muttered thanks to Dawinno. He was grateful to the god for favors received; but also now he was beginning to grow pleased with himself. This was going well.

“What will bring the hjjks?” Taniane asked.

“Leave that to me,” said Hresh.

Harruel could not understand what was going on. All night long he and his tribe had waited on the crater’s rim, watching the hjjks come closer and closer, and then halt at sundown, with the obvious intent of marching onward toward the crater when morning came. He had expected that he would die today when the City of Yissou took the full brunt of the hjjk-folk attack, and in truth he was not only willing to die but eager, for the savor of life had gone from him. Now it was dawn-time and the attack had come, more or less. Yet he had thought, and Salaman and Konya also, that the hjjks would attack in a methodical, brutally orderly way, as mere ants might do: for that was all they were, ants of a sort, though much enlarged and with far greater intelligence.

But instead the hjjks seemed to have gone crazy.

Their route of march was leading them straight toward the heart of the crater. But now, as Harruel watched dumbfounded, they were breaking ranks. Their formation was shattering into a wild and formless swarm. He stared, bewildered, as the hjjks ran this way and that on the plain, forming little groups that instantly broke and coalesced again and broke again. All of them were milling aimlessly about one group that seemed to hold its place in the center of the entire heaving mass.

Was it a trick? To what purpose?

And the vermilions appeared to have gone berserk also. At the first light of dawn Salaman had come to him with the puzzling news that he had seen the giant beasts all go thundering off toward the west and disappearing into the rough terrain of ravines and landslides that lay out there. But a little while later it became clear that only about half the vermilions had done that. The rest had broken ranks and were wandering everywhere on the northern plain in twos or threes, or simply by themselves. Complete confusion prevailed. It was still perilous to have so many beasts of that size anywhere near the city. But one thing looked certain: the hjjks would not be able to drive an organized force of the monsters down into the crater as beasts of war. The hjjks had lost control of their vermilions entirely. And, so it seemed, they had lost control of themselves.

Harruel shook his head. “What can be doing this?” he asked Salaman.

“Hresh, I think.”

“ Hresh? ”

“He is somewhere nearby.”

“Have you gone mad too?” Harruel cried.