Poul Anderson: Fire Time

A murmur went through the array. Arnanak overrode:

“Today your leaders and I have hammered out what to do. You have but to cleave to their standards. In two divisions, we will go at the north and south gates. Then when we have the soldiers well busied, a little band will scale the riverside wall—a tricky act, therefore a surprise, but not too tricky for my sailors, who have rehearsed it on a copy of the wall which I had built at Ulu. They will carve a bridgehead for others, who will fall on whichever gate looks more weakly defended, and get it open; and thus we take the town.

“If there is hunger in your home, warrior, remember that you can go to islands in the Fiery Sea which are still fat and still too well held for us to overcome; and you can barter your share of the loot for food. Before all, remember that here we barely begin the overthrow of the Gathering. Your children shall dwell in lands the gods love.

“Of this I give you a sign.”

He had been pacing his words to the sun. When it slipped beneath the hills, dusk went like a wave across the world and the first stars leaped forth. From the same western rim lifted Kilivu, its jaggedness aglint as it tumbled. Frosty light shivered among suddenly uneasy darknesses. Somewhere a prowler howled; the noise of the river seemed to louden; though soil and boulders breathed forth heat, the air felt at once less heavy.

Arnanak’s tail signaled the dauri. They slipped from the canebrake like seven other shadows, until their weirdness entered the moon-glow. Beneath its petals, their leader bore in its arms the Thing.

Fear whistled and bristled in the murky mass gathered under the bluff. Spearheads slanted forward, blades and axes flew free. Arnanak took the Thing. He held its gleams and blacks on high. “Hold fast!” he shouted.

“Stand firm. No curse is here. These beings are with me.”

After a while he had the warriors calmed enough that he could say more quietly: “Many of you have heard how I am become a friend of the dauri. You have heard how I fared into the Starklands which they haunt, where never mortal trod before, and brought back from their tomb city a Thing of Power. Behold, it was no lie. We cannot but conquer.

“Tonight we begin. I have spoken; and you will understand.”

Before the troop set off, Narvu rose in the east, smaller, duller, slower, but full, which Kilivu was not. That meant full in the light of the True Sun. The Invader cast its own wan red glow on both; no longer were they always eclipsed when they crossed the top of the sky at this phase. Between moons, stars, and Ghost Bridge, the Tassui saw well.

Nonetheless, descent to the valley was hard. Often Arnanak must grip with all three toes on all four feet, lest he tumble down a slope eroded to treacherousness. His hearts thumped. His throat felt sere as the brush which clawed at his pasterns. He could well-nigh sense the leaves of mane and brows, the blades of his pelt, go likewise dry. The night brooded thick. He knew it must be growing milder, but his overburdened body did not.

He had left his riches and the Thing behind in care of the dauri. No Tassu—belike no legionary—would try to steal them from those creatures. Rather, such a person would run or, if uncommonly bold, make an offering on the spot in the hope of good luck later on. Now Arnanak carried war-gear on his back. Made in Beronnen for him when he served the Gathering, it was heavier than what most of his followers bore.

He heard them behind him, foot-thuds, metal-chink, rattle of stones, muttered oaths and harsh breath. Stiffly, he kept ahead. If he would be obeyed, he must ever be in the van of trek or battle.

Foolishness, he thought. Civilized folk were wiser. His commandant in his soldiering years had been lamed by wounds long before, but stayed in charge because there was no better tactician or day-by-day administrator. Barbarians—yes, barbarians—could win against civilization only by default, when it was breaking down.

He was glad that the legion he meant to throw out of this land was the Zera, not his old Tamburu Strider.

Of course, the latter might chance to come here as reinforcement. But that was beyond likelihood. One by one, the Gathering was abandoning its outer territories, as civilizations did each thousand years when the Stormkindler returned. Let Valennen be lost, and the Gathering would hardly try to regain it… even though this would presently mean the fall of the Fiery Sea islands, and thereafter—

Unless the humans—What could a male really know about beings more eldritch than the dauri, beings from so far away that their sun was lost to sight—if that story of theirs, or any other, could be believed—?

Arnanak clutched the hilt of the sword sheathed at his torso. If he had heard, and understood, and guessed aright, the humans would be too busy around Sehala to help in this remote outpost. Foreign as they were, they shouldn’t grasp the meaning of the Valenneners’ advance until too late. Then… why should they not be willing to deal with the High Overling? He would have more power, more to offer, than the shards of the Gathering.

If Arnanak had caught the truth and planned well.

If not, he would die, and most of his people with him. But Fire Time would have kilted them anyhow, in worse ways than battle. Arnanak let go the sword and gave himself to making haste down the stony, scored Hanks of the hilts.

Travel was easier in the flatlands. On orders from their chief, the warriors stayed off a trade trail along the river, save twice when they slipped thither to quench thirst and lave their skin-plants. They might have met a patrol, a few of whom might escape to give the alarm. Instead they trotted cross-country.

The fields there were free of brush if not of thorn fences. Taught by the towndwellers, folk hereabouts had been cultivators for two or three sixty-four-years. Speargrain, breadroot, and tame animals grew well. But come Fire Time, farms where food was would draw more hungry raiders than the legion could handle, until weather destroyed crops and cattle from the gentler climes of Beronnen. The cultivators were leaving their homes while a chance remained to take up different ways of life. Arnanak’s band met no one in the few steadings it passed. However, pasture was not yet completely ruined; the fighters foraged sparingly as they went.

The east had lightened when they swung back toward the stream. Black ahead of them, limned against western stars and moon-shimmer on water, bulked the walls and watchtowers of Tarhanna. Leaders uttered low-voiced commands to halt and arm quickly, before the Demon Sun rose and betrayed them to yonder sentries.

By now, air and soil were nearly cool. The Invader would not by itself bring back great heat. Though somewhat larger in the sky than the True Sun when passing nearest the world, it gave less brightness and warmth—about a fifth as much, a philosopher in Sehala had once told Arnanak. Indeed, the worst part of a Fire Time came after the Marauder was again outward bound.

Still, by True noon today, when it set, the plain would be fevered. (And this was only spring, in an early year of the evil!) Arnanak hoped to be inside the town before then. Whether or not he would be out of his armor depended on the garrison. He believed the legionaries would surrender on promise of being allowed to depart disarmed. Civilized soldiers reckoned it an empty bravery to die in a lost cause. But their captain might decide death was worthwhile for the sake of killing as many barbarians as might be.

Well, then the bone kettles would seethe; and kindred from end to end of South Valennen would join the Overling of Ulu in revengefulness.

He unpacked his kit, fastened helm and mail to his body with the help of his standard-bearer, took shield on arm. The bad dawn broke, crimson across the land. Arnanak lifted his sword to grab that tight. “Come!” he roared. “Attack and win!” He trotted into a run. Behind him the ground drummed under the weight and haste of his warriors.