The Sage (22 page)

The
ogre was roaring in baffled rage as it pushed itself back to its feet, trying
to swat aside the arrows that stormed upon it. Culaehra saw, with surprise,
that some of them were only half the length of the others, then realized they
were flying from two different directions. Somehow one of the gnomes had gained
a bow, too!

None
of them struck a vital spot, though—the ogre's eyes were so small that only
luck would send a shaft to them, and he was batting most of them out of the air
with his horny palms. But the few that struck through seemed to hurt enough; he
roared with pain as well as anger as he advanced on the biggest archer.

Culaehra
couldn't let the monster reach Kitishane! He dashed in and launched another
flying kick at its knee. He struck it on the side, then leaped back as the
joint bent and the ogre roared in anger, turning to flail at him even as it
fell.

The
ground gave way beneath it; it fell into a pit.

“Well
done, Yocote!” Culaehra cried, then picked his place and waited. A huge arm
slapped down over the side of the hole; then a huger head followed—

Culaehra
spun, kicking it right in the eye.

The
ogre bellowed again, but the other hand came up and caught Culaehra, drawing him
toward its mouth even as it fell.

An
arrow struck from the side, straight into the monster's maw.

It
howled with pain, dropping Culaehra, who leaped up and lashed a kick at its
nose, then turned and ran a dozen paces. He turned back as the ogre finished
climbing out of the pit. It roared and thundered down on him, huge fist
swinging around to crush him. Culaehra leaped aside, but too slowly; the blow
glanced off his arm and side, sending him staggering. His arm and shoulder
flared with pain, but he managed to stay on his feet, turning to face his
foe—and saw Yocote at the end of a limb, gesturing furiously, while Kitishane
stood by with a drawn bow.

He
hoped they liked him tonight.

The
ogre pivoted, fist swinging out like the limb of a whirlwind, but Culaehra
ducked under it easily and drew his sword, managing to get the point up just as
a great foot came swinging at his belly. He jabbed and stepped aside. A roar of
pain shook the forest as the ogre limped around the campsite, then turned back
to him with fiery eyes. It started toward him, claws hooked to seize and
hold—then whirled aside, clenching its fists, and slammed a blow that sent
Kitishane flying. Culaehra bellowed with anger and charged, sword first, all
finesse forgotten. The monster whirled back, grinning now, a huge ball of a
fist swinging straight toward him—but the campfire suddenly roared into a
towering flame that singed the back of its leg and hip. The ogre gave a yelp of
pain and scurried away, then turned back with an ugly look. It scanned the
trees ...

Realizing
what it was looking for, Culaehra ran, sword first, to distract the monster,
but too late—it saw Yocote on the end of his branch and swatted at him as if he
were a fly. The gnome cried out and went tumbling a dozen feet, to land in a
thicket.

“All
right, Illbane!” Culaehra shouted, hating himself. “I admit it! An ogre is more
than we can handle by ourselves!
Now
will you help us?” Then he had to
leap back, for the ogre turned to charge at him.

It
was unkind, really—the sage was just managing to get back on his feet. But he
strode up to the ogre without the slightest sign of fear. His staff whirled,
and the ogre doubled over, clutching its belly in sudden pain. The staff
whirled again, catching the monster right behind the ear. It stumbled forward
and fell, then pushed itself up, roaring and shaking its head.

Yocote
crawled out of his bush, climbed to unsteady feet, and began to gesture and
chant. Illbane turned, saw, and took up the same gestures, the same chant, in
unison.

The
ogre climbed to its feet with a bellow of anger, stepped toward the two
magicians, stepped twice before its legs gave way and it collapsed to the
ground with a roar of agony.

Lua,
gentle Lua, dashed in brandishing one of Kitishane's arrows like a spear and
drove it into the ogre's eye, through the orb and deep into the brain. The
monster's bellow cut off; its body convulsed once, then went limp.

So
did Lua. She sank to the ground, head in her hands, weeping.

Yocote
dashed to her, putting an arm around her shoulders, Kitishane right behind him.
“Don't mourn, little one, don't be frightened,” the gnome said in a soothing
tone. “Poor thing, you did what was best!”

“I
had to!” Lua sobbed. “It was in so much pain!”

Culaehra
stared, dumbfounded.

“And
I couldn't try to heal it,” the gnome-maiden wailed, “or it would have slain
us!”

“Yes,
we know, we know, brave lass,” Yocote said, his voice a caress. “You have done
the kindest deed for all of us. You could not have done otherwise.”

“Sometimes
kindness means giving the lesser pain, sister,” Kitishane said, her tone
soothing, too. “You have saved us all.”

“Yes,
you have,” Culaehra said, amazed, “but most remarkably of all, you have saved
me!” Sheer relief flooded him, and bore “Thank you!” with it on the flood. “Thank
you most extravagantly, from the bottom of the hide that is whole because of
you! But you had no cause to aid me, Lua—if you had reason to do anything to
me, it would have been to return hurt for hurt!”

She
looked up at him, appalled.

“So
had you all.” Culaehra looked from one to the other, still unbelieving. “Yet
you fought to save me, and I thank you most earnestly, for without you that
monster would have slain me! But I have beaten you, demeaned you, insulted you,
and.. .” He glanced at Kitishane, reddened, and glanced away. “I would have
done worse, if it had not been for Illbane. So why would you save me now?
Why?”

Kitishane,
Lua, and Yocote looked at one another, and from the looks on their faces, he
could almost hear their thoughts:
He has a good point. Why
did
we
help him?

Yocote
tried the first answer. “Perhaps because you fought to save us, Culaehra—or
Kitishane, at least. Why did you do that?”

But
Culaehra chopped the implied thanks away with impatience. “There is no virtue
in that, for I fought to save what I regarded as mine!”

“Perhaps
we did, too,” Kitishane said, and the gnomes looked up at her in surprise.

Culaehra
stared in amazement. “You cannot mean that
you
think I am
your
property!”

“Not
property, no,” Lua said, “but I think I know what my sister means. It is not a
question of owning, but of belonging.”

The
consternation on his face was answer enough.

“Yes,
belonging.” Yocote nodded with firm understanding. “It is not that you belong
to
us, Culaehra, but that you belong
with
us now.”

“Yes,”
Kitishane agreed, with some relief of her own. “We have shared hardships,
Culaehra, and have fought the fuchan together. Whether we like one another or
not does not matter as much as that.”

Culaehra's
face went impassive as conflicting emotions warred within him.

Lua
saw, and said quickly, “That is not to say that we do
not
like you.”

“You
have every reason to hate me!”

Yocote's
face turned thoughtful and he shook his head. “Odd, but I find that I do not,
Culaehra—not anymore.”

“You
have, after all, helped us all at the cliff face, and against the fuchan,”
Kitishane reminded him.

“And
you?” He turned with an intense stare. “Do you no longer hate me?”

She
blushed and turned away, muttering, “Certainly not.”

His
gaze lingered on her, then turned back to Lua. “And you, gnome-maiden—you have
more reason to hate me than any!”

“Oh,
Culaehra, of course I do not!” Lua cried with a huge outpouring of sympathy.
She flung herself high to clasp him about the chest, then fell because her arms
were far too short.

He
caught her and lowered her to the ground again, smiling. “No, you would not,
would you? You are far too good for that.”

“Aye,
too good for a rogue like him!” Yocote stepped up beside Lua, pain showing in
his face for a moment, then as quickly masked. He glanced up at Culaehra,
puzzled by his own emotions. “Your pardon, Culaehra.”

“None
needed,” the outlaw assured him. “I
am
a rogue.”

“Were,”
Kitishane corrected.

“No,
is.”
At last Illbane stepped forward. “A rogue is one who goes apart from
the herd. In men, rogues are usually regarded as being dangerous, for they do
not live by the herd's rules, and are therefore as apt to turn on their fellows
as to aid them.”

“But
are therefore as apt to save them as to harm them,” Yocote said thoughtfully.

“They
are unpredictable.” Kitishane's gaze lingered on Culaehra. “Yes, I could say
that of you.”

Culaehra
returned that gaze till it made him uncomfortable, then grinned. “Unpredictable
now.
Not so long ago, you could be quite sure of what I would do next.”

She
returned his grin. “Aye—beat and bully.”

Culaehra
was amazed to realize that was no longer true. He was not sure he liked it.

“Good,
bad, likable, or detestable, we had to save you so that you might someday save
us,” Kitishane went on. “What matters to me is that you were trying to save
me—never mind the reasons.”

“Why
never mind them?” Culaehra demanded with intensity.

“Because
they are as likely to be good as bad,” Yocote retorted, “and none of us are
sure what they are anyway, least of all you!”

Kitishane
smiled, amused. “You are part of our little herd now.” Then she turned to the
gnomes in surprise. “So are we all, come to think of it.” She pivoted to
Illbane. “When did that happen?”

“Over
the last six months,” he told her, “but you need not think of yourselves as a
herd—rather, as a very small army.”

Yocote
grinned. “Very small indeed! But why did you not aid us sooner, Illbane?”

“Do
not tell us there was no need this time!” Culaehra said forcefully.

Illbane
shook his head. “For a time I thought there might be none—that you might manage
on your own. Even when I did aid, I only struck a few blows, then added the
strength of my own magic to Yocote's spell.”

“It
is you who have done it!” Culaehra accused. “You have welded the four of us
into your own little army! But for what battle?”

“Why,
to save humankind, of course,” Illbane said lightly, then nodded to the gnomes.
“And all the other younger races, too.” “Don't jest with us now, old man!”
Culaehra snapped. “Against what foe shall we fight?”

“Bolenkar,”
Illbane said.

They
stared at him, appalled, and the wind blew chill about them again.

Kitishane
said slowly, “Bolenkar is in the south. You are leading us north.”

“I
did not say you were ready to fight him yet,” Illbane replied.

“Then
where do we march?” Culaehra demanded.

“To
find the Star Stone,” Illbane told him.

That
night, around the campfire, he told them of the Star Stone.

“You
have heard me speak of Lomallin and Ulahane,” he said, “and of the War Among
the Ulin.”

“Yes,
and we heard it often enough from our shamans as we grew,” Culaehra grumbled.

Kitishane
nodded. “Lomallin was all that was good and right, and Ulahane all that was
evil and wrong.”

“Ulahane
was all that, and more,” Illbane agreed, “for it was his determination to slay
all the younger races that brought Lomallin to lead a band against him.”

“All
the younger races?” Lua looked up in surprise. “But Ulahane is called the
human-hater!”

“He
hated all the younger races; the humans were only the most numerous of them,”
Illbane assured her. “He would have slain the gnomes, too—when he had finished
with the humans and the elves and the dwarfs.”

Yocote,
too, stared in shock. “The shamans were wrong, then?”

“They
were right so far as they went,” Illbane told him, “but they did not know all
of the story.”

“What
of Lomallin? Was he truly the human-lover? Was he truly the Shaman of the Gods?”

“He
loved all the younger races, as he loved everyone, even the wicked,” Illbane
answered. “As to being a shaman, though—no. The Ulin had none—and in any case,
Lomallin's knowledge went far beyond the catalogue of shamanry. He was more a
sage than a warrior, though he could fight at need.”

Yocote
frowned. “But he fought the scarlet god and slew him!”

“Not
while he lived,” Illbane told them. “In life, he met Ulahane the human-hater at
a stone ring, an ancient temple humankind had raised to the Ulin, and fought
him there.”

“But
our shaman told us that Lomallin slew the Scarlet One!” Lua cried.

“His
ghost did, when Ohaern and Dariad pursued their hopeless war against the
human-hater,” Illbane told them. “When the Scarlet One was about to strike them
down, Lomallin's ghost appeared between Ulahane and Ohaern and slew the Scarlet
One. But Ulahane's ghost sped into the sky, and there the Ulin fought, shaping
stars into weapons. Ulahane broke Lomallin's spear, and a fragment of it sped
off to the north, falling to earth as a shooting star. But Lomallin forged
another weapon and slew Ulahane's ghost, obliterating it.”

“So
not even a ghost is left of Ulahane?” Yocote asked, eyes huge.

“Not
even that—but his memory lives on in his half-human son Bolenkar, who seeks to
finish his father's work.”

“You
mean that Bolenkar truly seeks to destroy humankind?” Kitishane asked.

“He
does indeed, but he lacks the power—he is only half Ulin, after all—so he works
to pit one breed of humans against another, one nation against its neighbor,
one tribe against its kin-tribe. In this he has enlisted all the other Ulharls
that Ulahane begot, who work to turn gnome against elf, dwarf against giant,
all the younger races against one another—and humanity against them all. His
plan is easy to read: let them slay one another in a frenzy of blood lust.
Then, if any survive, he will doubtless lead the Ulharls to slay them all.”