with you.” Anselm approaches the horse, then glances about for assistance.
Arnem calls out to the nearby guard: “You. Get this man mounted.”
The guard makes objection with a sour face; but he knows well enough to follow orders, and quickly forms a sling with his hands. Anselm puts his one good leg into the guard’s palms.
“Thank you, my son,” Anselm says. “Now, if you would only help me swing this gift from the God-King over the beast …” The guard — too humiliated to even make sense of this remark — lifts the old man, then roughly seizes the wooden leg and pushes it across the horse, evidently causing the old man some pain; but it is not enough to diminish the latter’s pleasure at the moment. “And, if I
“Nor shall you.” As their horses start through the gate, Arnem turns a serious face to Anselm. “For your role will be that of a mad fool, brought along to coax good fortune out of our smiling god. You agree, I trust?”
“You have my word, Sentek. Now — shall we see what Fate has prepared for us below the mountain?”
Arnem nods, and, with Niksar unhappily bringing up the rear, these last three members of the column head out through the Eastern Gate.
The men eventually wheel right, heading toward the southern and fastest, if not the easiest, route up and down the mountain. (They could not very well have used to Southern Gate for their exit, for it guards the far less than glorious Fifth District.) In making this move, they are brought to and over a bridge that spans Killen’s Run, where Arnem, accompanied by Anselm and Niksar, rides ahead to take up a waiting position and keep a careful eye on his men as they cross, knowing that Niksar’s uneasiness about allowing the old man to travel with the column will at first be shared in the ranks. Yet by showing, from the outset, that Anselm travels at his invitation, Arnem knows that he can counteract this. Indeed, if all goes well as the sentek hopes, Anselm may soon be perceived as just the bringer of good fortune in the field that he has mentioned. For soldiers are a superstitious lot, and a wise commander makes that instinct work for rather than against him—
None of which truly explains why, Niksar observes silently — as Arnem and Anselm receive the (admittedly confused) cheers of the troops during their crossing of the Run — the sentek has asked this disturbing old heretic along on an expedition of vital importance to the kingdom …
The march out of the city has been a lengthy one, however, even given its joyous nature; and no man in the ranks is inclined to dwell on the newcomer’s presence, nor to fix any save momentary attention on anything but the trail down the mountain and the adventure that lies beyond it. Were any one of them
1:{xiv:}
The Bane foragers learn of their people’s fearsome hope—
and of the part that they are to play in realizing it …
Two small fires burn in three-foot holes chiseled long ago into the cold, smooth granite floor of the antechamber of the Den of Stone, offering some warmth but, together with a few torches mounted on the walls, far more light. Heldo-Bah and Veloc walk behind the Groba Elder and through a short stone passageway leading into this relatively small area, and they do so none too eagerly: both men are aware that their tale, while important, will as a matter of course be doubted by those awaiting them. Indeed, even before they enter the Den, the Elder turns on them suddenly and says: “I warn you two — the High Priestess sits with the Groba tonight, accompanied by two of her Lunar Sisters.” Tugging at his beard as he continues forward, the Elder adds, with a sense of gravity heightened by the crisis at hand, “Let us see how well you lie before
Heldo-Bah immediately begins to pace in fear. “Oh, sublime,” the gap-toothed forager noises. “Perfection! Did you hear, Veloc?”
The handsome Bane is wandering about the antechamber, admiring a series of ancient reliefs that are cut directly into the stone walls: scenes of exile and suffering, which eventually lead to happier images of homes being built and a tribe being formed. And in the background of each depiction looms the image of a fortress-capped mountain, a constant reminder of how consistently the people of Broken have tried to thwart the ambitions of the Bane — without success. Water that seeps down slowly from springs inside the stone walls and ceiling has covered the carvings with a light, black-green growth; while the motion of the water itself, along with the jumping light of the fires, makes the carvings seem alive.
“Did I hear what, Heldo-Bah?” Veloc asks, transparently blithe.
“Don’t — do not even attempt it,” barks Heldo-Bah. “You heard — the bloody High Priestess is there. We are
“You overstate the issue,” Veloc says, maintaining his false air of calm. “She and I parted on congenial enough terms …”
“Oh, certainly — she rejected your application to be the blasted Bane historian out of hand, and sent us out into the Wood immediately! Very congenial!” Heldo-Bah paces anxiously. “It’s never made the slightest sense, Veloc. You try to seduce every woman in Okot, in Broken, and in every town between — and when a woman who might actually do us some good asks for you, what do you do? Refuse her!”
“I’m not some prized bull, to play stud to an overbearing young female whenever she goes into heat.”
“Absolutely absurd,” Heldo-Bah murmurs, shaking his head. “Utterly and completely—”
He is interrupted by the sudden call of the Elder’s voice: “Ho, there! Foragers! You may enter!”
The two men walk into the passageway before them, the utter darkness of which is a contrivance designed by the Groba, so that when supplicants enter the main chamber they will be all the more overawed by its dimensions: a ceiling over thirty feet high, with enormous, needle-like formations of rock and minerals seeming to drip down from above, as though the cave were slowly melting. The walls of the chamber are adorned with elaborate suits of Broken armor, stuffed with rags and straw so that they appear alive, even to the smooth white- and-black riverbed stones set into the sockets of human skulls (which in turn rest inside each helmet), so that they resemble the eyes of dead men, staring madly at those who have come through the passageway. Weapons of the Tall also adorn the walls: large collections of spears, swords, battle-axes and maces, each group bursting out from a Broken shield, any one of which is as tall as a Bane. The chamber is lit and heated by an enormous fire set into one recess in the wall opposite the Groba’s council table; and the “chimney” of this fiery alcove is a naturally occurring shaftway that empties out at the very top of the rock formation, along the sharp rise of the mountain slope above. In all, it is a sight that makes a profound impression on nearly every Bane, particularly as most only ever see it once in their lives, when they petition for permission to wed.
For habitual guests of the Den, on the other hand, the inner chamber is noteworthy only because it never changes, save for the occasional addition of some trophy taken from the Tall; but often, even these changes go unnoticed, for to be a frequent visitor is to be an incurable nuisance to the tribe — or worse — and all such tend to train their eyes on the Groba itself, to determine what mood the old men are in, and what chances exist for leniency.
Heldo-Bah follows this pattern, taking in the five familiar faces of the Groba Elders: elected officials,† each of whom is, in appearance, remarkably like the next. They all wear identical grey robes, cut their beards to the same middling length, and sit on rough-hewn, high-backed benches. The only differences among the five are the amounts of hair on each head, the length of their noses, and, finally, the fact that the chair belonging to the senior Elder (formally referred to as “Father”) has a higher back than the others; and that the top of said back is carved into a
