David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

They're running toward the head of the valley." Temple raised the clumsy trumpet he'd borrowed from the villagers. It was a wooden cone as long as his outstretched arm, fitted with a mouthpiece carved from a goat's thighbone. He blatted a harsh call toward the men beneath the dam. The bull-roarer stopped with a brief moan. The villager spinning it-Gressar'd been carrying the device when they hiked to the dam this morning-must've just let go of the cord when Temple signalled. Ilna watched for a moment further to be sure the trumpet call hadn't affected the pack of Coerli. Then she said, "All right, they're still focused on the men." Temple set the trumpet upright on the ground. He and the two hunters swung out of the cave and started toward the outlined portal, letting Ilna set the pace. Behind them the women of the village dragged the heavy door closed. One had begun to sob. Ilna disliked running-and ran poorly, the main reason she disliked it-but it was necessary now. She'd learned that her legs and lungs wouldn't actually fail her if she was willing to keep on despite the pain. She couldn't imagine circumstances in which she'd permit pain to dictate her behavior, so she simply trotted along with an angry look on her face. The expression wasn't a new one for her, of course. The dam collapsed with a series of hollowklock s. Stones knocked against each other as they fell out of alignment and water pressure pushed the whole structure into ruin. Temple had arranged the project this morning, showing Gressar and his fellows where to place their levers.

Ilna hadn't been sure the villagers would be able to execute the plan, but neither had she seen a practical alternative. If the villagers failed, of course, the catmen would kill them. She smiled faintly. And then they'd kill Ilna and her companions, whose lives also depended on the river's sudden return to the valley it'd been diverted from. She should be able to do for a few more Coerli even in that case, though.

Since she neither expected nor desired to live forever, being slaughtered now rather than later didn't concern her greatly. The planted fields were even more unpleasant to cross going uphill than they'd been when Ilna'd run down them when she'd arrived in the valley. She couldn't say it was pleasant to get to the end of the furrows-she was still jogging uphill, after all-but it was less unpleasant. That was as much as Ilna expected from life, after all.

Her lips twitched in another tiny smile. "Less unpleasant" wasmore than she expected from life. She glanced over her right shoulder.

Pent-up water frothed and curled as it poured through the displaced stones. The flow built up as it ate away more and more of the dam that'd diverted it, shoving out blocks from both edges, but even so the volume wasn't enough to fill the valley as a solid wall. The catmen howled in surprise and anger, but they had no difficulty in bounding up either slope to avoid the oncoming water. The villagers who'd ripped the first hole in the base of the dam would've been surely drowned if they hadn't had the raft of massive timbers to clamber onto. Half the houses in the village were in ruins even before the water reached them and undermined their walls: the rooftrees had supplied the materials to make the raft. There were thirty-one in the labor party, Temple had said: thirty adult males and the woman Stuna.

She'd insisted on coming even though she wasn't strong enough or heavy enough to add much to the task. The raft was big enough to hold them all, but the coiling, bubbling water rocked it so violently that several fell off as Ilna watched; they clung to grass ropes which she'd braided from roof thatch while Temple prepared the dam for destruction and the hunters built the raft itself. "We're here!" said Asion, halting at the gate of light. Close up, Ilna saw a shimmering membrane within the brighter rectangular outlines. "Mistress, what do we do?" Temple looked at Ilna and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. He understood the situation better than she did; she'd be a fool to give orders simply to prove that she could. She'd felt the impulse, but at least she'd fought it down before sheproved herself a fool. This time.

"We wait here and kill the warriors as they try to return," Temple said to the hunters. "When we've killed the last of them, we enter the world on the other side of the portal and finish the job." Asion looked toward Ilna doubtfully. "Yes," she said, as she determined the pattern she'd use this night. "It's not a complicated problem." Ilna had time to knot an unusually large pattern this time, though she had only the short lengths of yarn from her sleeve to work with. They'd do. The raft wallowed and began to float downstream, rotating slowly in the current. The villagers who'd lost their footing crawled back aboard, saved by the ropes. It'd been unexpectedly satisfying to weave something for a solely physical purpose, a task that had no tinge of wizardry or compulsion. Ilna smiled like a serpent, a tight-lipped, cruel expression. Whereas the fabric she knotted now hadeverything to do with compulsion. It would draw the warriors to their deaths as surely as a hangman's rope. The river poured into the valley in a smoother, deceptively calm fashion now that it'd swept away the last of the dam that'd bounded it for so long. Half the Coerli were on the east side, across the broad channel from Ilna and her companions. As if on a signal, they waded together into the water and began swimming toward the raft and its cargo of villagers. The remaining catmen started toward Ilna's party. Ilna decided her pattern was complete. It was slightly too long for her to stretch it by herself with her arms extended. "Temple?" she said, handing him one end of the sketchy fabric. "Take this if you will. When I say to, pull it tight with me."

"We'll change sides then, Ilna," the big man said with a friendly grin. "So that I can hold it in my left hand rather than with-" He drew his sword. The bronze blade hummed softly. "-my right." "Yes," said Ilna, walking behind him and swapping the end she'd been holding for the one she'd offered him. The river continued to rise, though now slowly. It lapped to the edge of the portal; Ilna felt water bathe her feet, noticeably cool. The loose soil melted and squelched between her toes. She'd wondered if it'd leak into the other world, but she found she could see the panel of light gleaming even through the thin mud.

The door-the membrane of light-behind them made the hair rise on the nape of Ilna's neck. She glanced at her companions to see if they felt it. Karpos probably misinterpreted her gesture, because he said to Temple, "So you're sure they can't come at us through this window from behind, then?" "If the Coerli enter the portal from the back, Karpos…," Temple said with a deep chuckle. "They'll go to a place neither in our world nor in theirs. They don't know what that world is, but they fear it is a bad one." He laughed again with honest amusement. "The truth," he went on, "is far worse than they imagine it could be." Ilna sniffed. "I'd as soon we killed them ourselves anyway," she said. The catmen who'd leaped into the water were nearing the raft. They swam like dogs, their heads out of water and all four limbs paddling. Perhaps ordinary cats swam that way too-Ilna'd never seen one take to the water. The beasts didn't seem to mind the swim, but that didn't help them now. Gressar aimed his bow and arrow at the nearest of them. The beast ducked under the water but bobbed to the surface a moment later. Gressar shot. The bow was crude and short-a farmer's weapon of plain wood, shooting a stone-pointed arrow. It was good enough for the purpose, though: the arrow drove a hand's breadth into the catman's neck. Blood spouted; the beast thrashed in a circle and sank. A Corl dived under water and came up to grasp the edge of the raft. Three villagers struck at it together with spears and a club. One of the blows must've gotten home, because the brute drifted away in a spreading red curtain. A panicked villager flung his spear at a swimming warrior. The weapon wasn't balanced to throw and the man had no skill at the business anyway; the cast missed by an arm's length as the target bobbed beneath the surface. Another man spun out his pebble-weighted minnow net, settling over the beast's head and shoulders as it rose again. The fisherman dragged his catch toward the raft where another spear, thrust this time, skewered it. Smiling faintly, Ilna looked up from the pleasant drama about the raft. She and her companions had their own tasks to perform now: the Coerli on the west of the river were in better order than their swimming fellows had managed. Karpos nocked an arrow; Asion held the bullet in the pocket of his sling with his left hand. "Whenever you give the word, Ilna," Temple said calmly, his eyes on the oncoming warriors.