vanquished. They had seen that the Devourers bled and died, just as pongs could bleed and die. There was noisy jubilation. Fires dotted the clearing and the surrounding forest. There was a babble of voices, for all the patience and authority of the valley Drinkers had not yet tamed a rabble of slaves into an organized force.
Duwan's surviving cadre of oldsters now numbered just under two hundred, and he never ceased to be pleased and surprised at the way the old Drinkers had risen to the occasion. Many of them, he would have bet at the beginning of the journey, could not have possibly survived the trip, much less survived to grow stronger and fight. It was, he suspected, the goodness of Du, for Drinkers marched and worked and fought as nearly naked as possible, the males clad only in a loincloth, to allow Du's kind and strengthening rays to caress every possible small area of old, hardening hide. He had broken the freed pongs up into groups, assigning them to the care of valley Drinkers, and training went on at all hours. The weapons captured from the enemy were meted out to the more promising pong males—and a few females who seemed capable of emulating Jai—and it had been discovered that there were a few workers in wood among the pongs so that these skilled craftsmen were now being instructed in the art of making bows, of finding straight shafts for arrows and rounding them true.
According to the pongs, two settlements, each one larger than those already taken, lay between Duwan's force and the northernmost city, Kooh. Duwan hesitated to move on the settlements, although he was being urged to do so by Jai and others. He knew a rabble when he saw it. He'd never fought in nor had he even seen a pitched battle, but he knew the legends. He knew that a well ordered force of only a few men, such as the royal guards he'd seen in Arutan, could rout his slave army, and he did not want to discourage his own people and the slaves by suffering a defeat. The way ahead was long, and would require much patience.
He was making the rounds of the various camps, consulting with his sub-leaders, seeing with some satisfaction that a few of the pongs were beginning to show some little skill with the bow. As he walked through a dense copse of tall brothers his nostril hairs quivered at an unpleasant stench, and he detoured to come upon a group of pongs in a small clearing, ten of them, male and female. They had taken a cook pot from a Devourer hut and a part of the stench that insulted Duwan's nose was coming from it.
It was the scent of cooking flesh.
He was not seen, for it was growing dark and he moved silently, and he stood in the edge of the clearing just long enough to see a pong male butchering a Devourer female's body and tossing bits of flesh into the pot. The female's haunch was roasting on a spit over the coals of the fire, and from that piece of burning flesh came the worst of the stench. He had traveled far, and he had had many disappointments. He had lost his first love—-although that no longer mattered, for Jai had become his mate in every way—and he had been deserted by his own people. His hope of achieving his goals rested on his own good sword arms, his father, a relatively small number of aged Drinkers, and a rabble. And now Drinkers, people of his own race, where flaunting Devourer evil in the midst of his blood, the stench of their unholy feast floating to the noses of his mother, his mate, his father.
With a roar, with both swords in hand, he leaped into the firelight and kicked the cooking pot over, spilling boiling liquid and flesh onto the ground, and, still roaring his anger, his disgust, he began to flail around him with his weapons. He used the flat sides of the swords, leaving in his wake bloody heads, aching backsides.
'Fools,' he roared, punctuating the roar with a blow here, a kick there, as the pongs scrambled to escape. 'There will be no abominations in my camp,' he yelled, as he kicked the backside of a wailing female, crawling for the cover of the forest.
He stood, alone, in the flickering light of the fire, his chest heaving, tears streaming down his face. He had now reached his adult height, and his body had filled out impressively. His strongly muscled arms hung at his sides, the tip of his longsword on the ground. His legs were parted, and his trunk-like thighs showed the muscles, the strength, that had carried him over so much of the good earth. And he wept. He lifted his face. Through the branches of the tall brothers he saw the twinkles of the sky's night lights.
'Du,' he whispered, 'help me. I cannot do it alone. It is too much for me, Du. Guide me, inspire me, tell me your will. Am I being arrogant in hoping that I, one Drinker, can make a difference, that I can change this evil that soils your land?' He sank to his knees. His tear-stained face was still lifted. Although Du was resting, and the sky was dark, he knew that he was heard. 'I am tired, Du, and I despair. Is it your will that I lead those who are mine into the uninhabited areas to the west? I am sick of blood and death, Du, and I pray for your guidance.'
At first he thought that it was the whispering of the tall brothers, the spirits of departed Drinkers, for the words were indistinct and came, seemingly, from a great distance. And then he began to hear, or feel, or sense, and a feeling of awe pushed his head low, until his forehead rested on the hilt of his shortsword, the sword's point on the earth.
'South. Go south. South. My people—' And in his mind were pictures of the sufferings of the enslaved, the stench of burning flesh was in his nostrils, and the roar of battle in his ears. A death scream pierced him, left him trembling, and his muscles quivered as if from great strain. And then, clearly, the voice of his grandmother, echoing in his head.
'You have come too far to turn away, Grandson.'
'I hear,' he said without speaking.
'Have patience with them, for they have suffered much.' And that other voice, hollow, distant. 'They are of me and for me and you are the chosen one.'
'Who?' Duwan asked, aloud.
'Question not,' his grandmother said. 'Listen. A day's march to the south is another settlement. There are many Drinkers there. Free them. The settlement is but lightly guarded, and the Devourers are lax. From the southwest a stream will give you access to the settlement so that your approach will not be noted. Go swiftly. And tarry not there, but move immediately to the last, and southernmost settlement, where you will face your first severe test.'
