The Elder Gods (11 page)

“She was not drowned, Old-Bear,” One-Who-Heals replied grimly. “The marks on her throat are the marks of fangs. It was venom that took her life.”

“There are no venomous snakes in this region,” Old-Bear protested.

One-Who-Heals pointed at the marks on Misty-Water’s throat. “No snake of any size has fangs this large. It is my thought that these are the fang-marks of one of the servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh. There are many stories about the servants of the Vlagh. Old stories seldom have much truth to them, but it seems that the stories about the creatures of the Wasteland might well be true. It was That-Called-the-Vlagh that made them, and we are told that the Vlagh gave them venom so that they would need no weapons.”

“Why would a servant of the Vlagh kill our beloved Misty-Water?” Old-Bear demanded in a voice filled with grief.

“There are rumors in the air which tell us that That-Called-the-Vlagh grows restless and that it sends its servants out of the Wasteland into the coastal domains to watch us so that the Vlagh might come to know of our weaknesses. Those servants do not wish to be seen, I think, so they will most probably kill any of us who happen to see them, so that they may continue to watch us and to carry what they have seen back to the Vlagh.”

“It might be well, then, if none of the servants of the Vlagh return to the Wasteland with this knowledge,” Old-Bear said grimly. “I will speak with my son Longbow of this. His grief may be a wellspring for eternal hatred, and I think That-Called-the-Vlagh may come to regret what its servants have done this day.”

“Send him to me before he goes to the hunt, my chief,” One-Who-Heals suggested. “Let him grieve first, though. He’ll think more clearly after his grief has run its course, and while he grieves, I will use the time to gather more information about the servants of the Vlagh so that I can advise him of their peculiarities.”

It was late in the winter of the following year when Old-Bear decided that it might well be time to take the still-grieving Longbow to the lodge of One-Who-Heals, for Longbow’s grief showed no signs of fading, and so he bleakly commanded his despairing son to accompany him.

And so they trudged through the melting snow to the shaman’s lodge, and when they entered, One-Who-Heals opened a bundle of dried bones and spread them out upon a blanket for them to see. “Since little is known of the creatures of the Wasteland who serve That-Called-the-Vlagh, I thought it might be well if we had a dead one to examine, so that we might better understand its peculiarities,” he told them.

“Where did you find this dead one?” Longbow asked in a flat, unemotional voice.

“I didn’t really find it, Longbow. After the death of Misty-Water, I went out to trap one of them. They know very little about the forest, so it’s easy to conceal a trap from them. I found many tracks of their small feet, which told me where I might have some luck with a trap, and then I dug a pit and concealed it under fallen leaves and twigs. It was a fairly deep pit, and I lined the bottom with sharpened stakes, and then, when it was well-concealed, I waited. It took a while, but finally one of the Vlagh’s servants fell into my trap, and the stakes at the bottom greeted it. Everything worked out quite well, except that it took the creature two days to finish dying. Then I pulled it up out of the pit and boiled all the meat off its bones so that we might better see its peculiarities.” One-Who-Heals shrugged. “After we’ve learned what we need to know, you might want to take the skull to Misty-Water’s grave as a gift to her spirit.”

Longbow’s eyes, which had seemed almost dead, suddenly brightened. “It might please her spirit at that,” he conceded, “and more of these heads might even please her spirit more.”

“It’s quite possible, my son,” Old-Bear agreed.

“Now, then,” the shaman said, picking up the skull, “notice that this creature’s fangs are folded back to keep them concealed—much in the same way that the fangs of a venomous snake are hidden. The fangs spring forward when the creature strikes. This is how it hides its weapons until it attacks.” He set the skull aside and picked up the bones of one of the creature’s arms. “As you can see, the creature has sharp spines along the outer sides of its arm from the wrist to the elbow. The spines are much like the stings of wasps or hornets. The spines, like the fangs, are venomous, and they also remain out of sight until the creature wishes to attack. Then they spring forward. Be wary when you approach one of these creatures, Longbow, for they can move very fast. That-Called-the-Vlagh has made a very effective killer, but it has to be close to kill. It cannot kill from any great distance.”

“That’s a useful thing to know,” Longbow said, his voice coming to life now. “Does this venom cause pain?”

One-Who-Heals nodded. “Unbearable pain, I think.”

“And is it even able to kill creatures of its own kind?” Longbow pressed.

“I’m certain that it can.”

“Then if I were to smear the venom of one of them on the point of my arrow, it would carry pain and death to any other one I happened to meet, wouldn’t it?”

One-Who-Heals blinked. “Why would you need to do that? You never miss your target when you shoot one of your arrows.”

“The creatures of the Wasteland have caused me much pain, and I think I owe them a great deal of pain in return. An honest man always pays what he owes.”

“Be very careful, Longbow,” the shaman cautioned. “These creatures hunt by concealing themselves, and they strike only when their intended prey is very close.”

“I’m a hunter, One-Who-Heals,” Longbow reminded the shaman. “Nothing in the forest can hide itself from me. The servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh have been sent into our lands because the Vlagh hungers for information. I think it will be my lifelong task to make certain that the Vlagh’s hunger remains unsatisfied, for I will kill all servants it sends here and deliver their heads to Misty-Water’s grave as gifts to her spirit, as a sign that I love her still.”

“And will you now go to the hunt, my son?” Chief Old-Bear asked.

“If it pleases you, my father.”

“It pleases me very much, Longbow.”

And so it was that Longbow of the tribe of Old-Bear vanished into the forest to seek out the venomous servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh. It was rumored over the next decades that the Vlagh sent many of its servants into the lands of the tribe, but few if any of its servants returned, for Longbow had become one with the forest, and the creatures of the Wasteland could neither see nor hear him, nor could they even catch his scent as death sprang upon them from his bow.

The return of the legendary Zelana of the West stirred great excitement in all the tribes of her Domain, and the people of Old-Bear’s tribe felt greatly honored when word reached them that she would soon come to visit. Longbow, however, had felt no great need to meet with her, and so it was that when word of her approach reached the village of Old-Bear, Longbow simply faded back into the forest to continue his hunt.

She had sought him out, however, and he had found that to be disturbing. He had been certain that no one could find him in the forest if he did not wish to be found, but Zelana had unerringly come to the place where he was to ask him for his aid.

“I’m not really interested, Zelana,” he had told her bluntly. “I have a responsibility of my own right now. I think you’d better choose someone else.”

“This is
very
important,” she had pressed.

“Not to me, it isn’t. There’s only one thing that’s important to me, and it’s what I’m doing right now.”

“You don’t like us very much, do you, Longbow?” the little girl who’d accompanied Zelana had asked shrewdly. “You don’t really like anybody, do you? You don’t have any room inside you for ‘like,’ because you’re all filled up with ‘don’t like,’ aren’t you?”

“It goes quite a bit further than ‘don’t like,’ little one,” Longbow had told her, his voice softening slightly. “The servants of That-Called-the-Vlagh killed she who was to become my mate, so now I kill them.”

“That sounds fair to me,” the little girl had said. “How many of them have you killed so far?”

He had shrugged. “Hundreds, I suppose. I don’t really keep count anymore. I’ve been doing this for twenty years now.”

“If that’s all that really matters to you, we know how you can kill thousands, don’t we, Beloved?”

“Perhaps even more than that, Eleria,” Zelana had replied. Then she looked Longbow straight in the face. “We hate the creatures of the Wasteland almost as much as you do, Longbow, and if this turns out the way I want it to, we’ll kill them all, and then we’ll go into the Wasteland and kill That-Called-the-Vlagh. How does that sound to you?”

“It’s interesting enough to make me want to hear more,” he had conceded.

He was just a bit puzzled by these two. Zelana had been very arbitrary, demanding that he obey her commands. Eleria, however, appeared to have seen right to the core of his abrupt refusal to accept Zelana’s command, and had cleverly waved “kill them by the thousands” in front of him almost like waving bait before a fish.

Longbow ruefully admitted to himself that he’d taken Eleria’s bait almost without thinking. “Maybe I’d better keep a very close eye on that little one,” he murmured to himself. “There’s much more going on here than seemed right at first.”

Longbow had been a bit dubious when Zelana had assured him that the ship of the Maag called Hook-Beak would come across the face of Mother Sea to the Land of Dhrall, and even more skeptical when she’d told him that the Maags would do
anything
for gold, but when the long, narrow ship of Hook-Beak arrived at the village of Old-Bear almost exactly when she’d told him that it would, Longbow’s skepticism began to fade. Moreover, Sorgan Hook-Beak had responded to the word
gold
even as Zelana had suggested that he would.

Zelana had been right twice so far, and if the Maags would be as useful as she seemed to believe, the long voyage to their homeland could be worth the time and trouble.

Longbow had not killed a servant of the Vlagh for many days now, and that made him a bit ashamed. Misty-Water had always been patient, though, so he was fairly sure that her spirit would be willing to wait while he gave Zelana of the West the assistance she needed to bring the men of Maag to the Land of Dhrall to help Longbow kill all the servants of the Vlagh—and ultimately, of course, the Vlagh itself.

Longbow was quite certain that the spirit of Misty-Water would be quite pleased when he brought the head of the Vlagh to her grave and laid it there as a present for her.

2

T
he
Seagull
returned to Old-Bear’s village late one blustery afternoon, announced somewhat in advance by the booming sound of her sail. Longbow immediately saw the advantage of the sail, but when the wind was just right, a sail could be very noisy.

“Will you leave now, Longbow, my son?” Chief Old-Bear asked when the Maag ship hove to a short way out from the pebbled beach.

“It may be that it will be in the best interest of the tribe, my father,” Longbow replied. “Zelana of the West has told me that the Maags can show us ways to kill more of the creatures of the Wasteland, and that may please the spirit of your daughter Misty-Water.”

“Then it is proper for you to go, my son,” Old-Bear agreed. “Do not be concerned about your absence. I myself will attend to the grave of Misty-Water while you are gone.”

“I would appreciate that, my father,” Longbow said. “It may be that in time you and I will be able to bring the head of the Vlagh itself to the grave of your daughter, and that should please her spirit.”

“I know that it will please mine,” Old-Bear said approvingly. “Go, then, my son, and may the spirit of Misty-Water watch over you.”

“It shall be as you have said, my father,” Longbow said quite formally. He went on down through the village to the pebbled beach, pushed his canoe out from the shore, and took up his paddle to cross the choppy water to the
Seagull.
The village and his forest were fading behind him, but he didn’t look back.

“Nice little skiff you got there, friend,” a fellow with enormous hands observed, leaning over the rail of the
Seagull.

“Skiff?” Longbow was puzzled by the word.

“That skinny little boat you got there. It goes real fast, don’t it?”

“It takes me where I want it to go.”

“You want we should bring it on board?”

“It might be best. I don’t know the tribe of the
Seagull
as yet, and if it happens that I don’t get along very well with them, I might need the canoe to take me back to where I belong.”

The man with the big hands laughed. “There’s been a few times when maybe I could have used a skiff of my own for the same reason. I’ve been at sea for most of my life now, and every so often I’ve had trouble my very own self getting along with my shipmates. You’re Longbow, aren’t you?”

“That’s what they call me.”

“They call me Ham-Hand,” the man at the rail said. “It’s not much of a name, but I guess I’m stuck with it now. Come on board, Longbow. The cap’n wants to see you. I’ll take care of your canoe for you.”

“I should tell Zelana of the West that I’m here,” Longbow said.

“She’s with the cap’n in the cabin back at the stern,” Ham-Hand advised. “She took his cabin away from him back at the place called Lattash. He wasn’t none to happy about that, but she’s the one who’s paying us, so he didn’t argue with her. He still uses the cabin for business during the daytime, but he bunks with me and Ox after the sun goes down.”

Longbow handed the braided thong attached to the front of his canoe to Ham-Hand and climbed smoothly aboard the Maag ship. “Just exactly where’s the stern?” he asked.

“The back end of the ship,” Ham-Hand explained.

“Who’s this one you call ‘Cap’n’?” Longbow asked. “I’m not familiar with that word.”

“You talked with him the last time we passed through here,” Ham-Hand replied. “His name’s Sorgan Hook-Beak, and he owns the
Seagull
here.”

“That clears things up a bit. We Dhralls would probably call him ‘the chief.’ I’ll talk with him and let Zelana know that I’m here.”