Sundrinker

'And I her,' Duwan said. He was watching as the wounded were being treated. Here and there a Drinker or two knelt beside a warrior too severely injured to be moved, waiting for the end.

Duwan the Elder turned to his leaders, who had formed behind him and were gazing at Duwan in wonder. 'Form them up.' he ordered, 'and we will move toward home.'

But the march was delayed by the arrival of a panting scout. 'Leader,' he shouted from a distance, 'there come ones with whom you will wish to speak.'

There were five of them, escorted by another scout. Their bellies were bloated and distended in the manner of those who were eating their fill for the first time in their lives.

'And who are these?' Duwan asked, as the ragged group came toward the leaders, looking to the left and right in some fear at the sight of so many dead.

'We are from Kooh, Master,' said a male, bowing.

'Good,' Duwan the Elder said. 'I will detail some to march with you and show you the way, since you will have difficulty keeping our pace.'

'Master,' the male said, bowing ever lower. 'There are others behind us.'

'Excellent,' Duwan the Elder said. 'I will leave some to guide them, too.' He turned to pick out a warrior or two to leave behind. As an afterthought he asked, 'How many are coming?'

The swollen-bellied male bowed again. 'There are too many to count, master, as many as the leaves of the trees.'

Duwan, who had been staring moodily at the Drinker dead, jerked his head around. 'What did you say?'

'Master, they were killing us by the dozens, by the hundreds. Every day they were killing us, and when we finally began to believe the words of the wise priest of Tseeb, we rose. We slew our masters, or at least many of them, and we left behind us a burning city.'

'Du!' Duwan breathed. Tambol had once estimated for him that there were over twenty thousand slaves in the city of Kooh. He turned his burning orange eyes on his father. 'There is our army,' he said. 'Now if they will only give us time.'

'We will make the time,' Duwan the Elder said.

The momentous news filled Duwan's head, almost making him forget something that had been on his mind. He did not hear his father, at first, when Duwan the Elder made a suggestion. When it was repeated:

'Duwan, I will stay with the rest to escort the hordes to our valley. Go ahead, with your mate, to greet your mother.'

'Yes,' Duwan said. Then he remembered. 'It has been said that the Devourers have a method of recording on lasting material the spoken word. Is that true?'

A former pong nodded. 'That is true, Master. It is the priestly writing. They use a colored fluid to make marks on material pressed into thin sheets from the pulp of a certain plant. I have seen this writing.'

'Do you practice it?' Duwan asked.

'No, Master. That is for priests and certain temple pongs who are trained in this magic.'

'Find me, among those who are coming from Kooh, one who can both record words and recite them back,' Duwan said. 'Bring him to me as quickly as possible.'

'It will be done,' the pong said.

Chapter Nine

This is the word of Duwan the Drinker, who was dead but now lives, son of Duwan and Sema, Drinkers of the Valley, led into the homeland of my fathers by the wisdom and grace of Du there to be captured and peeled by the enemy and to be returned to the earth in a spirit of irony by the High Mistress of Devourers, Elnice of Arutan.

As I died, Du lifted my spirit from my body and I looked down upon our earth from the blackness, where the lights of the night sky sang with mighty voices of crackings and whistlings and odd growlings. And Du said, 'Look on my works.'