Chapter-2-3

⁠—⁠—⁠— III ⁠—⁠—⁠—

It was a night that would long remain vivid in the memories of all who were there. For Rinda and Remus, in particular, it was the true beginning of an adventure that would surpass all of the strange and wonderful things they had experienced since their first encounter with the leopard-headed warrior Guin.

Rinda held her brother’s hand as she sat on her knees at the entrance of the house into which the twins had been welcomed; the faithful Suni was curled quietly in the doorway behind her. The naughty princess who had teased Istavan a few moments ago was gone. Rinda’s violet eyes were meditative now as she silently surveyed the crowds of Sem thronging in the clearing before her.

She could sense the trepidation in the air. Everyone and everything in the village seemed suffused by fear of a future that none could foresee. She shuddered. The heavy air of destiny that filled the night was tangible to her, and she sensed the strength and desperation of the Sem people’s desire to live. She breathed deeply and tried to calm herself. Her mind drifted to her own predicament, and in a flood, the weight of the last few days came crushing down onto her, with all of the changes those days had brought. She wept.

Parros glimmered in her mind’s eye. Had she truly walked down those royal corridors? Parros, the ancient kingdom, flourishing and perfect, flower of the Middle Country—at its center the Crystal Palace, the gem in the royal crown. And in that crown had been set two pearls, Rinda and Remus, the twins of Parros, so well protected that not even a stray breeze was allowed to touch them. Rinda had thought her charmed life perfect, and eternal.

But it was gone. Not in their wildest dreams had the lords of Parros imagined that the holy kingdom might be attacked across its northern border, where there had been peace for so many years. But attacked it had been; and it did not take three days for the shields of Parros to falter and the Crystal Palace to fall. The young prince and princess watched as their lord father and lady mother were cut down where they sat on the jeweled thrones of the burning palace, their blood let to run in streams in their own court.

Images flooded through Rinda’s mind: their nursemaid Boganne’s tears as she fled with them down through the ancient halls; Minister Riya and the mysterious ancient machinery to which they were brought. If that strange artifact had sent them where it was supposed to—to Earlgos, where their aunt was queen—things would have been much different. But the hands of fate had moved again, sending the twins—and with them, the hope that Parros would someday rise again—tumbling onto the forest floor in the Roodwood. The cruelty of it! Stuck in the middle of Mongaul, one of the three archduchies of their enemy Gohra that had destroyed Parros. But it was in the Roodwood that they had met Guin, and he had protected them from the ghouls of the Marches forest, freed them from the cells of Stafolos Keep, and guarded them during the siege that had destroyed that fortress. Rinda shook her head as she remembered the Sem warriors crowding those narrow halls, the screams, the smoke, and the blood… so much blood.

Fate’s skein is twisted, thought the princess, snuggling closer to her brother. I know not where it will lead us next… but one thing I do know. These last several days have been like ten years spent in the halls of the Crystal Palace. So filled with adventure and excitement I’ve hardly had time to catch my breath! Remembering the gentle color and beauty of her lost home, Rinda sighed. She and her brother had been the love of all. And now, every day seemed like her last left to live!

Yet—here they were, the Pearls of Parros, alive and unscathed. Sweet god Janos, we thank you from our hearts! thought Rinda, putting one slender hand on her breast. She already knew, deep inside, that the constant trials and rapid pace of adventure had changed her and her brother greatly. No longer were they the two children who had clung together so desperately in the vasya bushes of the Roodwood, crying helplessly. Here in the no-man’s-land, their future entrusted to a barbarian race, they sat untrembling as that alien people’s fate began to unfold.

Surely, if some seer back in the marbled halls of the Crystal Palace had prophesied that such events as these would come to pass, he would have been mocked out of court as a fraud. But it had all really happened, and there to prove it were the Pearls.

We’re so far from Parros, so horribly far, thought Rinda, wondering if she would ever see something as beautiful as the shining towers of the Crystal Palace again, the spires that had burned and fallen before her eyes. Her hatred for the Mongauli who had killed her father and mother and trampled the beautiful city beneath their hooves had not waned in the least. Instead, it had been transformed, over the past few terrible days, into something hard, a crystalline will for revenge that nothing could erode. She would not waste away grieving for the lost idyll of her buried home. She was too young and full of life for that, and in fact, she felt alive more than anything else now.

As it is with most spirited children, the twins loved adventure. New sights and thrilling scenes stole their hearts. What Rinda and Remus had experienced over the past few days was far more remarkable than anything they had ever seen or imagined, sheltered as they had been in the beautiful halls and courtyards behind the palace walls. Dreadful as their journey had been, it had also opened their minds and filled them with the excitement of exploration.

And then there was Guin…

Rinda clutched Remus' hand tightly, feeling its warmth in her own, and turned her eyes to look at that amazing god of a man. She was struck again by the power of his presence. He was standing atop the high stone pedestal in the middle of the clearing, with Loto and the other Raku chieftains arrayed on either side; he cast a fierce gaze over the gathered Sem, describing the approaching Mongauli army and the dire threat that faced them all. To Rinda, whose understanding of the Sem tongue had not progressed much beyond communicating with Suni via hand gestures and facial expressions, the words of Guin’s impassioned speech were gibberish. But the quality of his voice and the way he held the crowd was such that her ignorance of the Sem language did not tarnish the impact of the scene.

The only space in the clearing not packed full with wildling troops was a small circle surrounding the jutting rock that served as Guin’s pedestal. Within this circle the elders and tribal chieftains sat. They wore painted feathers in their hair, and their bodies were wrapped in long fur cloaks; their bushy eyebrows were graying, and some of the eldest had gone white with age. Behind the old chieftains stood standard-bearers holding up spears with flags that marked the divisions of the armies of each tribe. Each of them was accompanied by a few warriors in charge of looking after their respective flag; behind them, the rest of the warriors sat in tightly packed rows. This was more than enough to fill the central clearing, and the tail end of each row spread out between the houses, in some places half-pushing through the doorways into the homes of the Raku.

All told, the Sem numbers in the village had swollen to almost five thousand, covering the entire end of the valley in a thick, furry blanket. Though not unheard of, it was rare for such a large number of Sem to gather in one place. High Chieftain Loto had sent a call for all able warriors to the neighboring Rasa and Tubai villages, and among the Sem, warriors included women and children, who picked up weapons and fought alongside the men, often with equal skill in battle. Among the Sem, the only ones who did not fight were those so aged that they could not move, and infants still at their mother’s breasts.

Moreover, when they came, the Rasa and the Tubai had brought not only their warriors, but also their elderly and women with infant children. Unable to find room within the already crowded village, the non-combatants had spread to fill every available space in the surrounding valley. They were packed in so tightly that there was scarcely room to breathe. They pushed against each other, jostling to get closer to the central clearing to catch a glimpse of the strange warrior who had summoned them and to hear what their leaders were discussing.

In the clearing, all ears were perked, listening. They had already heard of the Mongauli invasion, and they knew that this was by far the largest force that had ever been unleashed upon the wildlings of Nospherus. Unless the invaders could somehow be turned back, it was certain that all the tribes would be demolished. The faces of the Sem were set in hard lines and not a voice was heard among the crowd. Even the children kept silent, sensing that this was not a time for play.

All eyes were fixed on the bizarre visitor, the great half-man, half-leopard warrior who towered above them now. Guin had been introduced to them by the high chieftain as the very son of Alphetto, the Sem god of war. But even without such an introduction, they would have known that Guin was no mere human. Among the diminutive wildlings the leopard-man stood incredibly tall, and his presence was overwhelming. It was as if he were not a man at all, but a statue of some divine being at whose feet the Sem had come to worship.

The firelight lit his bare torso, casting rippled shadows across the muscles of his chest, and the glow of the light on his giant leopard head seemed to threaten the very darkness around it. He was no ordinary warrior—or even hero—but a demigod sent to lead the Sem truly into the battle that would determine their fate. He was the messenger of that fate, and surely, if they followed his counsel, he would as their war-god lead them to victory. This was what the women gathered there said in soft whispers.

Guin knew nothing of this as he continued in his passionate attempt to convince the tribal chieftains that they must join battle together against the Gohrans.

“Of course, the Rasa are willing to fight, but we are not fools!” said Kaito, the leader of the Rasa. Befitting his tribe’s nickname of “spotfur,” his body was covered in fur of mottled black and gray, giving his rather large figure a humorous and gentle look belied by the bile in his words. “The Rasa do not wish to fight a battle that cannot be won!”

“It can be won!” declared Guin, sending gasps through the crowd. “I swear we have a chance. But to do this, all the Sem must move as one. One mind, one strength!”

“You speak of joining with the Guro and the Karoi, but this we cannot do!” shouted one of the Tubai chieftains. “The Karoi are the enemies of the Tubai.”

“The Karoi and the Guro would not give their aid to the Raku and the Rasa!” shouted another. “They call the Raku weak, they make jest of us!”

“This is true, Riyaad,” said Siba. Siba stood with his troops right behind Guin, as an honor guard of sorts, and occasionally he would whisper the names and standings of the speakers to Guin.

“Gaulo, the high chieftain of the Karoi, and Ilateli of the Guro both mock us,” the Tubai chieftain explained. “They say that the Raku are like war-fearing women.”

“But if we do not have the Karoi and Guro,” the other chieftain went on, “then all the Raku and the Rasa and the Tubai put together, women and children included, cannot match the oh-mu.” Behind Guin, Siba whispered that oh-mu, meaning “hairless ones,” was the Sem word for humans.

“But to wait here is to wait for our own deaths!” came a voice from the Raku. The Raku chieftains had already heard Guin speak in the meeting hut, and many of them agreed with him that meeting their enemies offered their only hope of survival. “Can we trust that the demons will give up if we leave our villages and homes to hide in the mountains? What if they follow us and hunt us down? Then we are finished.”

“No!” the Tubai chieftain shouted. “The Rasa and Tubai should come hide here in the Raku valley and wait for the oh-mu to pass!” Many furred heads nodded in agreement.

“That is poor counsel,” Loto declared, his voice rising clear and loud. Silence came over the crowd, and all turned their heads to listen. “If by some chance a patrol found our valley, we would be lost. And we must consider the Karoi and Guro. The valleys where they live are easier to find than ours. Even if they are our enemies, we cannot abandon them as prey for the oh-mu.”

“The oh-mu would surely torture any captives they take,” pointed out the Raku chief Rinno, “and thus they would find our village.”

“High chieftain! Have you sent messengers to the Karoi and the Guro?” asked the high chieftain of the Tubai.

“Yes, Tubai of the Tubai,” Loto answered calmly. “I sent them out with the messengers who went to your village and to that of the Rasa. They should return with an answer soon.”

“If they have not been eaten by our would-be allies!” spat Tubai. He was extremely large for a Sem, nearly as tall as Remus in height, but more striking was his face and tail. His face wore a white scar in the shape of a slanted cross, the relic of some great battle of old, while his tail had been severed near the base, leaving nothing but a scarred stump. “Even if they are not eaten, and we make our pleas heard, with our heads bowed low, it does not mean that the Karoi or the Guro will come to our aid.”

“Wait! Listen to me!” Guin shouted, pacing back and forth on the flat top of the rocky pedestal. He beat his chest with a sound like sudden thunder, and immediately the chittering among the Sem died down, and they turned to listen to him once more. His voice was commanding. “Listen to what I have to say, brave Sem. While we waste time debating, the Mongauli army moves deeper into Nospherus! I do not know if the Karoi will come, or if the Guro will aid us. I do not know how long we can stand against the Mongauli with just the tribes gathered here. But being outnumbered is not cause to abandon hope! Miracles do happen!” Guin now had the undivided attention of the crowd. “There is one thing of which you may be sure: if we sit here letting time slip past us, there will be no miracle. The Mongauli army will come here to this valley with their soldiers and annihilate you.”

Guin paused and looked over the gathered warriors. Then he spoke again, his voice steady and loud enough to carry to the far edges of the village.

“I say we have no time for debate. Indeed, we have no need for it, since the decision has been made for us. We must fight. There is no other path!”

“Riyaad!” Sebu stood up fearfully and shouted to be heard above the cheers that rose in response to Guin’s speech. “Riyaad, you said there is a way we can win. But how can we, who are lesser in number, lesser in height, and lesser in arms, hope to win against the oh-mu?”

Shouts of agreement came from the crowd. Guin raised his hand for silence.

“One factor gives us a chance to win,” said the leopard-headed warrior with confidence. “And I only need one word to explain it… Nospherus!”

The Sem exchanged confused glances. Guin was about to begin his explanation when there was a great commotion at the valley entrance.

“What is it?” demanded Loto, standing up. Siba sprang into the crowd and began pushing his way toward the source of the commotion to see what the matter was, but shouts reported the news before he had gone far.

“Guro! The Guro have come!”

Shouts of surprise, then cheers of joy came from the crowds near the gate.

“What?” Startled, Loto craned his neck toward the mouth of the valley, trying to see over the thronging warriors. Just then, the tightly packed crowds of women and children on the main road parted in two, opening a path to the clearing. There were shouts of”Guro!” and “Ilateli!” and exuberant war cries from the Sem already gathered.

And so, in four even columns, the Guro warriors marched wordlessly into the valley of the Raku, showered by cheers and shouts of joy.

“What’s this?” said Siba, tears in his eyes as he looked toward Guin. “The proud, black-haired Guro have come to our village, the valley of the Raku whom they call brownhairs and fools… Their great chieftain himself leads them!”

“Siba, there was nothing to worry about,” Guin said in a low voice. “I knew they would come. No matter how much the Guro look down on the Raku, or how much your two tribes quarrel, the Guro know they cannot face the Mongauli alone. When they heard the message from Loto’s runners, and the scouts they sent out verified it, they had no choice but to forget all posturing and ill-will between you and come here.”

“Riyaad…” breathed Siba, overcome with emotion.

Guin laughed. “I was only worried that they would spend too long trying to decide, and the Mongauli army would come too close for us to act. Thankfully, the Guro moved much more swiftly than I had imagined. This greatly increases our chances of winning.”

Siba nodded.

By this time the Guro warriors, still being hailed with shouts of joy, had reached the central clearing of the Nospherus Sem, they were the second most numerous after the Raku, and, as their nickname, the “blackhairs,” implied, their hair was darker than that of the other wildlings. The Guro made their home deeper in Nospherus than the valley of the Raku, in the desert where only rocks and small shrubs grew, so they did not adorn themselves with feathers. Instead they wrapped their bodies in the ominously colored skins of lizards. Among the Guro, the hide of a lizard was the mark of a warrior.

At their head was the one they called the great chieftain, Ilateli. He stood as tall as Tubai of the Tubai, and his black hair was exceptionally long and thick. His face was covered with a pattern of strikingly colorful warpaints. His greeting to Loto was somewhat taciturn, but they exchanged a friendly embrace, and then, as was the custom, he thrust out a spear towards Loto with a sand lizard impaled on its tip, an offering of friendship to a comrade in battle.

The warriors of the Guro tribe that followed after him all looked as though they were each match enough for a hundred foes, but they were far fewer in number than Guin had expected. The reason came directly from Ilateli’s mouth.

“I thought that if all my warriors came into the valley along with the Tubai and the Rasa, the valley of the Raku would fill with more Sem than the Kes has riyolaat,” he said. “The women and children of the Guro, too, are warriors, and they would not fit into this place. That is why I have only brought my chieftains and my strongest warriors here. The rest wait outside the valley. If there is need, they are all ready to come here at once.”

“Thank you, Ilateli,” said Loto, clasping his new friend in a heartfelt embrace. Tubai of the Tubai and Kaito of the Rasa joined Loto in welcoming the Guro leader. But the Guro chieftain had already noticed Guin. He looked at the leopard-headed warrior with naked disbelief, half in fear and half in awe of this giant among them. Loto explained Guin’s role, and told Ilateli what he had said to them, and it seemed the leader of the Guro was even more taken with this otherworldly warrior.

“But what is the meaning of this?” asked Ilateli after the cries of welcome had died down, and he had the attention of all the chieftains. “You have called us with urgent cause, pulled us out of our bedskins, yet three tribes sit here on the ground without a drop of warpaint on your face, not a single arrowhead prepared!”

“We have been debating,” Loto admitted, “whether to fight the painted oh-mu demons or to escape to the mountains in the north and wait for them to leave.”

Ilateli angrily thrust the butt of his spear into the ground. “This is no time for discussion! As soon as we received your message, we sent scouts to where you said the oh-mu were coming from and saw there a great host of the painted demons. They are heading due east, and will find this village of the Raku in two days! Even now, in the Guro tents, the women and children dip arrows into the poison pots, and sharpen the spears and axes, for war is upon us!”

Murmuring rose up from the Sem, and Guin’s eyes shone with a hard light. He had thought the Mongauli army would not risk a night march, but camp and wait for the sun to rise before moving. From what the Guro chieftain was saying, however, it seemed that the enemy had decided to shoulder the risks and march through the wastes of Nospherus in the darkness. Danger was not yet imminent, for the hills around the valley would conceal them from Mongauli eyes for a while. Yet there was no doubt that the Gohran army would send out scouts to explore the land before it as it proceeded deeper into Nospherus, and the valley of the Raku would eventually be found.

“To battle!”

The Raku warriors were the first to stand and give the cry.

“To battle!” echoed Guin, sounding relieved. He jumped down from the stone pedestal and nodded to Ilateli. The Sem warrior stood next to him, barely coming up to his waist, but he proudly stuck out his chest and returned the leopard-man’s look of approval.

The sky to the east was slowly growing lighter. Morning had come to Nospherus, and with it, the first winds of the coming clash.