Chapter-2-4

⁠—⁠—⁠— IV ⁠—⁠—⁠—

In moments, the valley of the Raku was a sea of furious activity. The warriors of the Guro, Rasa, and Tubai were the first to move out the valley. They gathered their troops according to tribe and awaited orders to march.

The Raku women raided their stores for all the food they could find, and for a while they were busy preparing and serving a meal for the warriors of the other tribes who had run through the night to attend the council and now were weary and in need of nourishment. It was also the women’s job to gather the flowers from which the Sem drew the poison they used to make their poison arrows, the most fearsome weapon in the wildling arsenal. The Raku women mashed these flowers and strained the juice into small jars which were placed on the cooking fires to boil until the thin juices had become a viscous toxic brew. This they applied to the tips of innumerable arrows, which were then lined up to dry. Meanwhile, other women went around the camps, checking warriors’ bows to see that they were not warped and that the bowstrings had not snapped. With skilled hands they mended the ones in need of repair. Still others went into the hills and gathered strange grasses from which they made essences for warding off the many poisonous serpents and sand leeches that made their home in Nospherus. They placed these hastily concocted essences into small leather pouches, which were distributed among the gathered warriors.

The warriors, for their part, prepared themselves for the coming battle. They ate and slept as they could, but most were kept busy sharpening their stone axes and boiling down a kind of red moss which they had gathered and kept dried in glazed jars. From the boiled moss they now made the ruddy brown pigment they would use to paint elaborate patterns on their faces to show that they were warriors and to drive fear into the hearts of their enemies. Meanwhile, the chieftains and other leaders among the Sem gathered in the chieftain’s hut, where they deliberated over possible battle plans.

It was nothing like the peaceful Raku village in which Rinda, Remus, and Suni had arrived the day before.

Rinda offered to help the women of the village, using gestures to communicate her desire to Suni. The princess picked up a stone scoop to help mix the poison pots, but Suni and the Raku women would hear nothing of it. And so Rinda took her brother by the hand and found an out-of-the-way corner of the clearing in which they could sit and watch the bustling of the village as it prepared for war.

The night had given way to dawn and another dry, hot Nospherus day was beginning. In the early morning light, the twins could see the wildling warriors making ready for battle. The men of each tribe had painted their faces with different colors of war paint. They moved about the clearing, stone axes at their waists, weaving between the women who were carrying jars and bundles of arrows this way and that. Everywhere there was the endless chitter of Sem voices, the scent of things boiling, and the smell of wood fires. Guin had gone into the chieftain’s hut, making arrangements and giving orders, and for a long time he did not show himself outside.

At first, the mercenary Istavan sat next to Rinda and Remus and grumbled about one thing or another, half-heartedly making fun of the Raku women hustling by. Soon, however, he decided that it would sully his image to be seen consorting with children, and so he made his way into the chieftain’s hut and did not come back out.

The sound of hasty activity and the palpable tension in the air spread throughout the valley on the scurrying legs of the Sem. The twins saw one squad of Sem run into the clearing bearing flags that were no more than fur tassels strung on the ends of spears. Lowering these makeshift flags, they rushed into the chieftain’s hut to receive their orders, then moments later came hurrying back out and disappeared up the road toward the mouth of the valley.

“Rinda,” whispered Remus to his sister. His eyes were wide with boyish excitement at the warriors’ preparations for battle. “Rinda, I never would have imagined we’d get to see this! Not in my wildest dreams!”

“Truly,” his sister agreed. “Not in the Crystal Palace of Parros, not in the Marches wood, not in that cell in Stafolos Keep…not even last night, curled up on the floor in our hut, holding our breaths, waiting for Guin to come back. This is truly marvelous.” She, too, was completely entranced by the goings-on.

“Rinda?”

“Yes?”

“What do you think will happen next?”

“I don’t know. What will happen will happen, I suppose.” Rinda was irritated by the question. “But I think that we are no longer two children without a country, on the run from the armies of our enemies.” She paused, working up the courage to say something that had been on her mind ever since they had learned that they were going to fight. “Remus, I want to join Sum’s band and fight the Mongauli, too!”

“I feel the same way, Rinda… but do you really think we can win?” he replied, gazing at the Sem running back and forth in front of them, his eyebrows wrinkled with worry.

“Of course we will!” Rinda exclaimed, irritated by her brother once again. “We’ve got Guin, Remus! Guin!!”

“But you heard what they said. There’s so many of them! And they’ve got horses, too—”

“One more ‘but’ like that and I’ll pull out that silly tongue of yours!” Rinda snapped, the girlish indignation making the blood rise in her cheeks. “We will win. We have to.”

“Is that what you… feel?” Remus asked, in such a slow, careful way that for a moment, Rinda thought he was mocking her gift and gave him a withering glare.

What the princess had not yet realized was that the cautious manner she found so infuriating in her brother was the very essence of his character. It sprang from his utterly realistic way of viewing the world and his natural tendency to suspect before accepting anything. Though the twins looked nearly identical, their inner selves were as different as though the gods had played a game to see just how unlike they could make the two. Sensitive though she was, Rinda failed to recognize how different their personalities were, and so she was always irritated at what she regarded as her brother’s failings. She often worried how she might make the coward she saw into a brave warrior, and someday, king—-a task which she felt was her responsibility. Rinda had not yet realized that sometimes courage is the same thing as folly and that sometimes a skepticism bordering on cynicism is the best quality a king might hope to have. Perhaps her blindness to her brother’s strengths was a result of her own sensitivity. She had lived her life aware of the realm of the gods, and this blinded her to some things in this world, including the depth of her brother’s personality. She could not see how well he understood people, and how, ultimately, after he had gotten over his suspicions, he accepted them into his heart in a way that she could not.

“You mean did I ‘see’ us winning? The answer is no,” she flared, scanning her brother’s face for any trace of a jest. Finding none, she relaxed. “But we do have to win. We can’t go back now. We can’t retreat! If it comes to pass that the Sem are destroyed, then this land far from our home, this wasteland of Nospherus, will be where we make our last stand. If we let them capture us, Remus, they’ll take us and drag us behind their horses again—this time to Torus, where they will kill us on the torturing block. They will cut off our heads and stick them atop the gates above the central market there.”

Rinda shivered, scaring herself with her own words. “It’s not that I fear death, Remus, it’s just that I don’t see that happening to us. We lived through the fall of Parros, and the fall of Stafolos Keep, and I believe we survived thanks to our destiny. Yes, Remus, we bear a destiny! We must rebuild Parros. And—” Rinda grabbed her brother by the shoulder, drawing him nearer to her. “All will go well as long as we have Guin! Don’t you think so? As long as he is with us, there is nothing we need fear. Our destiny will not let us die out here in Nospherus—I cannot think that. We, and Guin, are special. I know.” She whispered the last, as though the words were an incantation.

“I don’t know,” Remus murmured. “I don’t feel anything.”

Deaf to the sadness in her brother’s voice, Rinda continued, “Well I do! I am Rinda Farseer, and yes, I do feel something. Guin is not a normal person. No, and it’s not because of his leopard head or because he’s a great warrior. There is something more that separates Guin from all other people. You know what? I think it’s because he has… a destiny.”

“A destiny?”

“Yes,” Rinda replied, sounding surer of herself by the moment. “Guin of course has a fated future like everyone else, but I mean something more than that. I think he has the power to change other people’s destinies, wherever he goes! It’s as if he is himself an embodiment of their destiny, too, or part of it—something like that.” Rinda nodded, the force of her own words convincing her of their truth. “And that is what separates him from everyone else. That’s what makes him special! Surely you must feel that, Remus! As long as Guin is on our side, there is nothing we need fear, and as long as he is here, the Mongauli army and these Sem wildlands are all just a step on the way to our own destiny.”

Rinda’s voice was filled with unmistakable excitement and a conviction that Remus knew would not easily be shaken. He squinted as he looked at her, as though she were bright as the sun. “I wish…” Remus began, his voice tinged with a deep, wounded pride, and envy, “I wish I could feel things, too…”

Rinda, heedless, gave her brother a sharp jab in the ribs with her elbow. “Look, Guin’s come back out.”

“I guess the meeting’s done. I wonder if they’re finally going to march.” Remus craned his neck to see whether it looked like they were in a hurry.

“I’m sure of it,” said Rinda.

The leaders of the Sem tribes surrounded Guin as he appeared in the entrance of the chieftain’s hut like some giant instructor surrounded by his pupils. With the confidence of one born to lead, he gave orders to each chieftain. In awe, Rinda saw each bow reverently before rushing off to carry out his duties. “Watch, Remus—no matter how you look at him, he is a born emperor. He is king, he is commander—he’s a hero!” she declared, utterly enchanted.

Remus had turned his attention to a band of Sem that had come down to the village center to give a report as the group of chiefs was leaving. “I wonder what news they have. They look like they’ve come in a terrible hurry.”

“They’re scouts returned from a patrol,” answered Guin unexpectedly, walking towards them from the middle of the clearing. Remus jumped, startled.

“Guin! Is the war council done?” asked Rinda, rising to meet him.

Guin nodded slowly. “Did you rest well?” he asked, gazing up toward the entrance to the valley and placing a large hand atop each of the twins’ heads.

“Yes, enough.”

“Guin, when is the fighting going to start?”

“Soon—when I decide it shall begin,” Guin replied. “Watch, the Raku warriors are leaving the valley.”

It was as he said. The village clearing, so crowded only moments before, was nearly empty now. All the Sem warriors in their battle gear had hurried toward the mouth of the valley, where the army was now gathering, lining up by platoons.

“Guin?” asked Remus quietly. “Can we win?”

“I have been thinking,” the leopard-headed warrior said, avoiding the question, “I have been wondering what to do with you two. The Sem of the Rasa, Raku, and Tubai are sending their aged and the women with children over the ridge, to follow the spine of the hills toward the Dog’s Head where they have a place to hide. Soon, those of the Guro who will not be fighting will join them. Already I have given the order for them to come here and prepare for the journey. You could go with them to the mountains. But then, should things go poorly, you would be stuck out there.” Guin scratched his furred chin. “That said, we can’t spare any to take you to Earlgos or such. We have few enough fighters as it is.”

“Why don’t you ask us to fight?” Rinda accused angrily. “We’ve just now decided never to leave your side again. Waiting for you will be like torture, Guin! Give us weapons. We’ll fight by your side.”

Guin shook his head. “I can understand why Mongaul is so intent on finding the orphans of Parros,” he muttered half to himself. “If we had, right here, a way of understanding the trick by which you were sent in an instant from Crystal to the middle of the Roodwood, we could send you away from here, to a safer place. If we only made that device bigger, we could send troops wherever we want, whenever we want. No front would stand against us; we could attack our enemies at our leisure, and always catch them by surprise. Twins, you do not understand at all how much they value you. You are worth far more than your weight in gold, far more.”

“But we have no idea how it works!” Rinda exclaimed.

“That artifact got us out here, yes—but we have no idea how, or why. Maybe if we had the Crystal Palace back, and the sealed temple—the Spire of Janos—we could learn. But now, we know so little about it.” She spoke quickly, hoping her mind would stumble upon some bit of information that could help Guin.

Suddenly, Remus grabbed her arm.

“What?” his sister snapped.

“Rinda.” The boy’s voice had an echo of urgency in it.

She turned and looked in the direction he was looking just in time to see a dark face disappear quickly into the shadows beside the hut where they had feasted. She snapped her mouth shut and stuck out her lip in a pout.

“Coward! Eavesdropper!” the princess called out, casting a baleful gaze toward the shadow. But already the figure had vanished around the side of the hut.

“Ah, Guin—there you are,” came a voice from behind them a few moments later. It was Istavan, his look of forced innocence marred by a smirk that suggested he might whistle up a jig at any moment. “This is no time to be chatting with the young ’uns! We’ve got to get going! The monkey army’s all lined up waiting for their general.”

“He’s pretending he wasn’t listening!” Rinda whispered to Remus.

Istavan grinned, ignoring the twins. “No matter how you look at it, I don’t think those Karoi are coming. By Ruah’s fiery chariot, if they don’t show up, we’ll have to fight this war without them!”

“If that is the way it is, then so be it. We’ll think of a way to wage this war,” Guin answered.

“Right. Well, shall we get going?” The mercenary clapped Guin on the shoulder and turned to head off toward the valley entrance.

“But Guin, what about us? Where should we go?”

“You brats should stay here, with the monkey brats,” the mercenary sneered.

“You’ll take us with you, won’t you?” Rinda asked Guin worriedly, ignoring Istavan.

“Time is precious.” Guin sighed. “Children, come with me to the mouth of the valley. We will decide there.”

“Yes!”

“Yes, Guin!”

The prince and princess had to walk fast to keep up with Guin. The last warriors had departed from the village of the Raku, and now the wildling army filled the broad slope of the valley mouth with painted faces and brandished spear-flags, all waiting for Guin. Siba came running up to escort the leopardman, a troop of young Raku warriors behind him.

“Riyaad!”

“Yes, let us go.” With the twins of Parros on either side and Istavan and Siba’s band behind him, Guin headed up the slope from the village with giant strides. As the small band passed among the ranks of the army, cries went up from the warriors of the Raku, Guro, Tubai, and Rasa packed on both sides of the path.

The Sem warriors waved and pounded the hafts of their spears on the ground. “Riyaad! Riyaad!”

At the rear of the ranks, the elderly and the childbearing women, as well as the Raku women who would remain to protect the village, gathered and cheered, calling the names of their husbands and sons.

“Incredible! Look at all of them, look at the tribes!” whispered Rinda to her brother, gazing around with wide eyes. “Guin did all this in one day, Remus. Our Guin!”

“But the Mongauli have three times our number,” replied her practical brother. “And the Karoi haven’t showed up. That’s a great loss. They’re almost as many as the Guro, and even better fighters.”

Rinda’s expression changed to a look of gloom. “Blah! Don’t say things to disappoint me.” She scowled at the prince. “You’re always like that… Say, where did Suni go?”

Remus shrugged and looked around. But he didn’t have time to go hunting for Suni, for just then an outcry came from the vanguard of the army as it stood poised to leave the valley.

“What is it?” came Loto’s shout.

“It’s terrible—the messengers!”

“The messengers?” the chieftains murmured, and all craned their necks to see what the matter was.

From the head of the columns came a young Raku warrior, out of breath. He jostled his way through the ranks, and the Sem hurriedly stepped aside to let him through. He staggered and tumbled onto the ground in front of the Raku high chieftain.

“Nolu!” shouted Loto. The young warrior was covered with horrible wounds. There was a deep gash across his forehead, and the blood that ran from it had nearly blinded him, transforming his face into a crimson mask. His whole body was covered with cuts. The twins were amazed that he still breathed.

“He was one of the messengers we sent to the Karoi?” asked Guin.

“Yes, Riyaad.”

“Th-The Karoi…” the messenger known as Nolu gasped. The Sem around them shouted when they saw what he held in his two hands.

Two heads, dripping blood.

“Gogu, and Ruki,” Siba groaned. They were the two other messengers, warriors of the Raku, who had been sent to the Karoi with Nolu.

“Gaulo has this to say to Loto: ‘The Karoi crossed the river and attacked the oh-mu, we are the brave warriors who burned down the castle. We do not need to join hands with the cowardly brownhairs or the yidoh-kin. The oh-mu fear the Karoi, they… they will part before us.’”

“Fools,” spat Loto. “Someone, tend to Nolu.”

Cries rose up from the assembled warriors:

“Cowards? They call us cowards?”

“It is the Karoi’s fault the oh-mu crossed the river! They attacked them, they burned the oh-mu castle on the Kes!”

“Our enemy is the Karoi!”

There was a brief, tense silence when this was said. The silence was broken by more shouting from the ranks.

“Death to the Karoi!”

“Kill the Karoi!”

“Iiiya! Iiiya! Iiiya!”

A battle cry spread rapidly through the assembled army. All the Sem were standing, shouting and waving their spears and bows in the air.

Siba turned with a despairing look to Guin. “Riyaad!”

It was then that Guin rallied them.

“Wait, warriors of the Sem! Listen to me!” the piercing howl erupted from the leopard mask. And he began to address the Sem army.