Sundrinker

'And of what did he speak?'

'Of you, Master. Is it not true that you came to this land before, that you saw, and judged, and went back to the far north for your army?'

'My army,' Duwan said, under his breath, looking around at the remaining old ones. 'I came, I saw, and I went back to my home in the north. But you cannot expect a large army to fight for your freedom. If you would be free of the Devourers, you, yourselves, must fight.'

'We will fight, Master,' said the ragged female, 'if you will teach us, and if you will fight at our sides.'

'Go,' Duwan said. 'Sleep. Rest. Tomorrow I will speak with you again.' Duwan awoke late. Jai had guarded him, keeping others away, keeping it quiet in the vicinity of his fire. She gave him water and freshly plucked green things. As he ate, Dagner approached. He was panting.

'I've been working with some of these pongs, or whatever you call them, Duwan,' he said. 'They're puny and weak, but they're willing. I think when we fatten them up a bit—they're going to strip the life organs from every fixed brother around here if we don't teach them the proper way to gather food— they might just make warriors of a sort.'

Other old warriors were showing pongs the proper way to hold a weapon, using the swords taken from the Devourers. Duwan strolled among them, Jai at his side. His mother and grandmother joined them.

'Starving in the midst of plenty,' his mother said. 'We cannot allow this to continue.'

'Look,' Jai said, 'that one has a wicked thrust.' A pong lunged awkwardly at one of the old warriors and the thrust was easily parried.

'We go to the west,' Duwan said.

'And these?' his grandmother asked, indicating the pongs.

'They can go with us if they choose.'

'Shall we not free the others, the ones in the way stations to the south?' Jai asked.

'So, my warrior mate is now bloodthirsty,' Duwan asked.

'Look at them,' Jai said. 'Look at them. They're free. They're fighting.'

'An Enemy sprout could take all of them, one at a time,' he said.

'Give them a chance. We can work with them as we move south. As they get stronger, eating and drinking Du, they will learn.'

'And how do you feel about our new army, father?' Duwan asked, as he approached Duwan the Elder, who was showing a pong how to counter with the shorts word.

'I have looked, as you suggested, at the feet of many of them,' his father said. 'They are Drinkers, Duwan.'

'It will take someone wiser and more patient and more skilled than I, even more so than Belran, himself, to train them.'

'I have done some training myself,' his father said.

'So be it,' Duwan said, with misgivings.

At the next settlement ten more of the enemy died, two of them killed by pongs. Six of the pongs lay on the earth when the swift fight was over, however. More pongs replaced them from the pens, and the straggling, noisy, chomping, belching ragtag army moved southward to clear the forests of the new Devourer settlements. Duwan talked to his growing following nightly. He warned them to forage carefully, to spread out when they were eating, to take sparsely of the life organs of all fixed brothers, lest they take sacred life and, more immediately important to them, leave a trail that a Devourer army could follow.

He now found himself in familiar territory. The wide, deep canyon where he had wintered with Jai was not far ahead. They were in a climate zone, he knew, where the length of summer equaled that of winter, and the summer rays of Du were strong. With Devourer expansion to the north, it was important that he find a safe place for his grandmother to return to the earth, for the old female was failing rapidly now, and she spent all her time on the march looking for a suitable place for her return to the earth. Others among the oldsters were in the same situation, near the final, total hardening, and they, having seen the miracle of rebirth as a fixed brother, longed for the rest, the peace, the eternal satisfaction. Duwan still had his doubts about the growing army of pongs, so he left them in the care of his father and Dagner, who now had no intention of returning to the earth until his blades had tasted much more Enemy blood, and Duwan led Jai and a group of twenty-one hardening oldsters toward the hidden canyon, being careful to cover his trail so that not even one of the supposedly loyal pongs could follow.