The Shaman (7 page)

He
came to a crossroad—to a place where five roads met. He stared at it in
surprise for a moment, then grinned. Such a meeting was rare indeed, and fairly
spoke of Ulin magic working within human beings—and since the five roads could
be the vanes of a pentagram, Ulahane’s symbol, the Ulin in question must have
been the blood-god! Here, then, was the goal to which Ulahane had been leading
him—but where were the people to slay?

Coming,
something within him seemed to say. Lucoyo raised his head, smiling. Of course!
Ulahane had even brought him here ahead, so that he might find the best place
for ambush!

He
looked around him. The roads met not far from the forest, and there were tall
trees overhanging the crossroads. One was a pine, and looking up, Lucoyo could
see a large branch clearly, thick where it joined the trunk, thirty feet up.
From such a perch, he thought, a man might shoot down upon any who came by
either of these roads—and falling from such a height, the arrows would strike
even harder.

He
grinned and went to the tree. Leaping, he caught the lowest branch and pulled
himself up—groaning and gasping; he certainly had not recovered his former
strength! In fact, he had to rest a few minutes, sitting astride the branch and
holding to the trunk to steady himself. When he felt restored, he stood
carefully, then stepped up and sideways to the next branch. From this point it
was easy.

Finally,
he settled down upon his chosen branch, leaning against the trunk. He slipped
his bow around from his back to string it, then took an arrow from his quiver
and set it against the string. Then he relaxed. Of course, Ulahane might have
brought him here a day or more before his quarry came—but somehow Lucoyo didn’t
think so. He settled down to wait.

The
sun was halfway down the sky when he heard the chanting. Looking up, he saw a
group of men approaching from the northeast—not a very large group, he counted
twenty as they came closer, and mere hunters, not even so advanced as his own
... as the people who reared me!
he corrected himself angrily. But these hunters
were human, and he had no doubt that if it had been they who had reared him,
they would have treated him just as badly as his nomad clan. He raised his bow
and pulled back the string, taking aim at the leader, a big fellow with massive
shoulders and arms and a chest like a basin, if the archer was to judge by the
bulk of his furs. He couldn’t miss, Lucoyo thought.

Just
as he was about to loose, though, a shout broke his concentration—a shout from
the south. Lucoyo flinched, and barely managed to hold the arrow on the string.
Relaxing the bow, he turned to see . ..

A
troop of soldiers who came striding toward the crossroads, wearing the scarlet
kilts and bronze pectorals of Kuru, their heads protected by coiled-rope
caps—protected, and warmed; other than that, they had blankets draped around
their shoulders, but even from a bowshot’s distance, Lucoyo could see how thin
those blankets were. Those soldiers must be cold indeed! He was surprised that
the southerners had not learned to deal with this northern chill any better
than that. Of course, he could see their point—those pectoral tabards would
turn an arrow easily enough.

Fortunately,
their sides were unprotected under the flimsy cloth. Lucoyo raised his bow.

The
lead soldier, the one with his arms left bare so all could see his armbands of
rank, shouted angrily at the hunters and motioned his men to speed up. They
broke into a quick-step, leveling their spears.

Lucoyo
looked back and forth from one band to the other, delighted and confused. Which
should he attack?

Ohaern
grinned—how considerate of the Kuruite soldiers to come to meet him, still two
days’ march from Byleo! “Charge!” he called to his men. “If they do not give
way, cut them in half!” He drew his sword, swinging it high then down, to point
at the soldiers as he leaped into a run.

The
soldiers arrived first and clustered at the crossroad, a rough oval of thirty
men, spears forward. “Halt!” the leader snapped. “Give way to the soldiers of
Kuru!”

“The
roads are free to all!” Ohaern shouted. “Give way before
us,
outlander,
for these forests are ours!”

“Brave
talk, from a bush-crawling barbarian!” the soldier sneered. “We are thirty to
your twenty! Surrender or die, and those who survive shall be permitted to live
as our slaves!”

“No
Biri warrior shall be a slave!” Ohaern roared, and in the tree above, Lucoyo
suddenly knew which humans to begin slaying.

The
two forces crashed together, the Biriae with wild war cries, the Kuruites with
ritualized shouts of anger. The Biriae beat the spears aside with axe and sword
and cut at their owners. The Kuruites, though, proved more adept than they
looked, blocking swords with the copper bands on their spear shafts, then
striking down with the sharpened edges of the points. Here and there a
spearhead found its mark, plunging deep or leaving a red trail behind—but there
and here an axe chopped through a spear shaft and a sword plunged past into
flesh. In minutes the two forces had become a churning melee of single combats.

Above
them Lucoyo swung his arrowhead back and forth, sighting along the shaft,
waiting for a clear shot at a Kuruite soldier . ..

There!
A Biri fell with a red gash along his upper arm, his sword falling from
nerveless fingers. The Kuruite lifted his spear high.

Lucoyo
drew and loosed. Even as he watched his arrow strike home and the soldier fall,
he was pulling the next shaft from his quiver and nocking it to the string.
There again! Another Kuruite soldier turned away from a fallen, bleeding Biri,
looking for another foe . . .

An
arrow shaft appeared in his chest as if by magic. He shouted with pain and
died. With savage elation Lucoyo nocked another arrow. Revenge had begun! None
could exile him for it now—and his head was already any man’s for the taking.
He could kill and kill and kill, and none could do any worse than they already
had. He sighted along the shaft, aimed just to the right of another Kuruite
pectoral, drew, and loosed. The feathers blossomed in the soldier’s side like a
deadly flower. The soldier stared down at it, amazed, only just beginning to
feel the pain when his eyes rolled up and he crumpled. Lucoyo nocked his next
arrow, reveling in the slaughter, sighting on another soldier of Kuru, drawing,
loosing, watching avidly as the blood welled out around his arrow, feeling like
a true servant of Ulahane, then finding the next foe, and the next, and the
next ...

Suddenly,
there were no more. Suddenly, the men of Kuru were all fallen, except for the
half dozen who fled across the meadow as if all the wolves of all the northern
forests were at their heels. They almost were, for a half-dozen Biriae charged
after them, but stopped at the big leader’s call. “Enough! We needed the road
clear, nothing more! We are Biriae! We do not kill for pleasure!”

That,
Lucoyo thought,
is the difference between you and me, Biri.

But
the Kuruite leader looked up with dying eyes and saw his nemesis in the trees
above him. He tried to shout, but it was only a croak—a croak that carried. “May
you die in agony, barbarian! I lay Ulahane’s curse upon you! May Ulahane shred
your flesh and grind your bones!” Then his body went loose and his eyes went
dull.

Lucoyo
stared, feeling his stomach sink, feeling a raw and empty gulf of dread within
him. He had chosen the wrong side! He, who thought he served Ulahane, had
fought against him! And he knew, with a hollow certainty, that whatever god he
worshiped in the future had better be strong enough to protect him from
Ulahane.

But
perhaps he could even the score, win the scarlet god’s forgiveness!
Frantically, he snatched another arrow from his quiver ...

But
the Biriae were looking up, too, pointing, finding the slender archer among the
leaves and calling to one another. Silently, Lucoyo cursed his luck—so much for
the thought of continuing the slaughter with the Biriae!

“Come
down, friend,” the big leader called. “We must thank you mightily for aiding us
against our enemies.”

Lucoyo
hesitated. He had never heard anyone thank him before—except his mother.

“You
are our ally, and a brave man, to dare the wrath of Ulahane,” one of the other
men said. “Come down, halfling.”

Rage
spurred. Lucoyo’s eyes narrowed as he bent the bow.

“He
mislikes the term,” the big leader said in astonishment.

“I
pray you, pardon me, friend!” the other Biri said quickly. “I meant no offense.”

“To
us, the half-elfin are honored,” the leader explained, “for we worship
Lomallin, and they are his allies.”

Lucoyo
stared. Could it be true? Had he chosen the wrong god after all? But Lomallin
was so gentle! How could he stand against Ulahane?

The
big leader smiled, holding out a hand. “Take the risk,” he urged. “We will not
even ask you to unstring your bow, or set the arrow back in your quiver. Here,
we will give you room.” He waved his men back a good thirty feet from the
trunk, then looked up at Lucoyo again. “If we seek to betray you, you can be
back up that tree before we can reach you— but we are friends, and you will be
safer with twenty allies than you would be alone, even if some of us are
wounded. I am Ohaern.” He held out his hand again.

Lucoyo
wavered, looking down at the open, honest faces smiling encouragement, and felt
the longing within him surge up. He quashed it sternly—but told himself that he
knew a good bargain when he saw one. He relaxed the bow and said, “I am Lucoyo.”

The
hunters cheered.

“Come
down, then, Lucoyo,” Ohaern urged, “and let us take what little loot we can
from these Kuruite dogs, then march on a little way and break bread together.”

Lucoyo
forced a smile—at least, he told himself it was forced—and began to drop down,
branch by branch, but still holding the bow, and saying, “I like the sound of
loot well enough. As to the bread, I can only gain by the bargain, for I have
none.”

“Well,
ours is hard journey biscuit, but it
is
bread.” Ohaern held up an open
palm as the half-elf landed on the ground. “Peace and alliance between us!”

Lucoyo
pressed his palm against Ohaern’s, never taking his gaze from the war chief’s
eyes. “Peace,” he said slowly, “and alliance.”

“It
is well!” Ohaern grinned, then gestured to his men. “These are my
clan-mates—Glabur, Sotro, Vlanad ...”

Each
nodded as he was introduced. In spite of himself, Lucoyo found himself smiling
as he returned the nods—and concentrated intently on each hunter’s name and
face, memorizing; if these men were to be his allies, he would need to know
upon whose name to call—and if they turned and betrayed him, he would need to
know upon whose face to visit revenge.

“Welcome
among us.” Ohaern clapped him on the shoulder. “Now let us see if these dogs of
the Byleo kennel carried anything worth reiving.”

They
turned to the looting, what little there was. Lucoyo limped along, keeping a
sharp eye out for arrows or anything else worth stealing—but there were only
journey rations and the excellent Kuruite bronze knives, almost long enough to
be short swords. Ohaern gave Lucoyo two of them because, he said, “There is
easily one for each of us, and several more besides. You slew more of these men
than any of us, friend, so you shall have an extra knife.”

“But
I suffered less risk,” Lucoyo protested, and was amazed to hear himself say
anything to lessen his own position.

“That
is true,” Ohaern said judiciously, “but if you
had
been discovered,
where could you have run to? One cast of a Kuruite spear would have finished
you.”

A
chill seized Lucoyo’s bowels as he realized the big hunter was right.

Then,
wonder of wonders, the hunters turned to burying the enemy dead! “Why do you do
them such honor?” Lucoyo demanded.

“Because
it is an offense to Lomallin to leave a dead man unburied,” Glabur explained, “and
in hopes that a weight of earth and stone will keep their ghosts from roaming.”

Lucoyo
watched the digging in disbelief. “What if one of them were still alive?”

“Oh,
have no fear of that,” Glabur said grimly. “We shall make very sure they are
not.”

When
they were done, Ohaern shouldered his pack again and called, “We march!”

They
did, but he slowed his pace to match Lucoyo’s limping—the half-elf was
mortified that even the hunters who were wounded could still move faster than
he. “Why did you not ask me to help with the digging?” he demanded.

“Because
I could see that you are not yet recovered from your last wounds,” Ohaern
replied.

Lucoyo
looked up, astonished—not by Ohaern’s having noticed the limp and the easy
tiring, but by his consideration.

“No
doubt that is why you fired from hiding,” Ohaern said generously.

Lucoyo’s
eyes narrowed. “That,” he admitted, “and a wish to kill as many enemies with as
little danger as possible.”

Ohaern
laughed, clapping him on the back—but he remembered to pull his punch at the
last minute, and the slap landed lightly. “I cannot argue with that, since it
saved our lives. Indeed, not one of my men is dead, thanks to you.”

The
other men grinned their appreciation, and Lucoyo felt a surge of unreasoning
anger. Did not the naive fools realize he had come within a hair’s breadth of
shooting
them
? “You would not have been so thankful if my shafts had
gone astray,” he said acidly.

Ohaern
laughed out loud, and so did his fellows. Lucoyo decided, right there and then,
that he was going to make them lose their tempers, each one of them,
individually and collectively, before they reached their destination.
Then,
if they still wanted him along, he might begin to trust them. “Where are you
bound?”