'Should such a master come, would pongs fight?'
'With their hands?' Tambol asked.
'If that was all they had.'
'Some would,' Tambol said.
Jai shook her head. 'Not many.'
Duwan had made his decision. 'Tomorrow we will leave Arutan,' he said. 'For the rest of the day, and as long as you can find pongs to talk with tonight, I want you to wander the streets, whispering this myth, telling any who will listen that the Master is coming, that he is coming with an army, that he will free all, and that he will provide weapons for any who will fight at his side.'
He had given the idea much thought. The risk was that a pong would tell what he had heard and that the enemy would, forewarned, begin preparations. However, his observations, his talk with the priest of Ahtol, made him believe that this, too, would be ignored by the complacent enemy as just another myth among the pongs. He could not seriously imagine a man like Captain Hata fearing a pong uprising, or even believing that such a thing could happen. The chances of the story doing any good were slim, considering the totally downtrodden state of the pongs, but if it encouraged even a few, and made them ready to learn to fight, then it would have been worthwhile.
While Jai and Tambol wandered the city, Duwan spent his time in the inn, where he drank a little of that tangy fruit juice that had been his downfall in Elnice's house. He questioned travelers about Devourer cities to the north. When, as Du peeked up in the east, he led his loyal pongs out of the city, he had his route planned. It would take him to three of Farko's cities, one on the shores of the great eastern sea, before his way led him into the thinly populated forests of the north.
It was growing late in the year, and he knew that he would have to winter somewhere to the north, and then make his dash for home as Du's renewal time moved up from the south. He had told Alning to wait for two passings of the time of the long light, and then speak for another. That thought, now, now that he knew the goodness and sweetness of grafting, now that he knew the joys that would be his with his own Alning, was a pain, and he was tempted to travel as quickly as he could and risk being caught in the iron cold.
He kept Tambol and Jai with him as he visited the city on the sea, to find it much like Arutan, but smaller, and with a less impressive garrison of uniformed guards. The other two, farther north, were still smaller, and even less well defended. He would sweep down from the north, taking villages and cities as he came, and then, his forces swelled by recruited pongs, he would face Arutan.
The chill of the change of seasons forced him to use coins, somehow always in supply, thanks to a skill for confiscation developed by Tambol, to buy furs, and he told himself that the animals were already dead, that he had not killed them, and that their hides were serving a good purpose. Their lives had been lost, but he would avenge them, and, the Land of Many Brothers in Drinker control again, there would be no more killing of green or animal brothers.
With the first snowfall, he was in the changing lands, the deep forests of tall brothers not far to the north. He found a cave in a rocky canyon, stocked it, with the help of Tambol, with firewood and dry, preserved foodstuff, and then, as Tambol shivered and longed for the warmer lands to the south, he told both of them that they were to leave him now, to rejoin the free runners in the western hills, there to await his summons when he returned with the Drinkers. Tambol was only too eager to go. Jai wept, but obeyed, and he sent them off dressed warmly, and went into his cave to think of home, of Alning, of how he would tell the wise ones of his people all of his knowledge of the enemy and of the beauty and bounty of the Drinkers' native land.
He awoke to find that snow had covered the ground to ankle depth. He walked in the crisp, cold air and discovered that the tall brothers in the canyon floor were whisperers, and, being few, that their unspoken words were partly to be understood. He opened his mind.
'Brother, brother, brother,' they seemed to be saying, and they dropped dead limbs for firewood as he walked among them.
And there came into his mind pictures, the past, the happy Drinkers living in plenty, and a sense of desperation and loss and pain as death came, and then, insistently, an urge to move, to climb out of the hidden canyon.
'Tell me, brothers,' he said. 'What is it?' Pictures almost formed in his mind. Alning's image was confused with that of the beautiful Elnice of Arutan, and there was a sense of urgency. He wrapped himself well and climbed out of the canyon into a quiet, cold, blinding snowstorm and, obeying the impulses, hearing the whispering, scouted the trail he'd followed up from the south.
She was crawling when he saw her, weak, cold, her skin already hardening on her extremities.
'Jan.'
'Oh, Duwan—'
She went limp in his arms. He carried her back to the cave and warmed her by the fire, covered her with furs after rubbing her feet, legs, hands, arms to restore circulation. When she opened her eyes they went wide and then she smiled weakly.
