The Sea Peoples Page 8

  “So”—he began to tap a little more quickly—“let us fare forward. Think of it as a long patrol.”

  His expanded awareness could feel each of them behind him now. Toa added a bass note to it, something deep and massive, scarred by wounds within but stronger for it. A fluttering rose around him, as of a bird with a white body and a red beak. And something peeked out from behind a massive log, something with beady eyes full of cunning.

  “See in your mind’s eye the jungle through which we came, but now the path we are following dips down beneath the earth.”

  BETWEEN WAKING WORLD AND SHADOW

  He could smell the mingled scents of the jungle, both fetid and fertile, moist earth and the heavy perfume of frangipani blossom. And as they went farther, a reek of old blood and the alkaline dust of drying bones.

  Suddenly those scents were alive in his nostrils, carried on a hot moist wind. There was rutted mud beneath his feet and wisps of mist in the jungle to either side. He was in Mist Hills dress, a linen tunic and cross-gartered hose, leather shoes and seax and sword at his belt and his harp in her case of tooled boiled leather slung over his back. A rift in the fog showed a tall building on a hill nearby with a tower at one end; for a moment he thought it was a Christian church because of the field of grave markers at its foot, until he saw that atop the tower was not a cross but a circle, and within it a spiky three-armed symbol in black on gold. Then the drifting tendrils showed it again.

  The Yellow Sign. The sign that was on the crocodile’s armband when we fought the great beast of the waters.

  “Come to me, comrades,” he said, feeling the strings of their fates in the fingers of his mind. “Come to me in my need!”

  A meadowlark circled about his head.

  “Come! For the Prince!”

  “Well, here I am, oath-brother,” Thora said.

  She was in a simple Bearkiller jacket and trousers and boots, unsheathing her sword and looking around. The gesture had some of a grizzly’s arrogant assurance, though.

  “Come!”

  “Come on, you scheming yellow-headed bitch, I know you’re not timid, at least,” Thora added cheerfully. “Front and center!”

  “I’m here, I’m here,” Pip said. “Let’s not be catty, shall we?”

  Deor turned; for a moment he thought he saw a great tawny she-cat indeed, and then it was Pip—not in the robe she’d worn to lie on the bed, but in the odd outfit of round-topped black hat, white shirt and shorts, suspenders and boots and knee and elbow-guards, the kukri-knives and slingshot at her belt and the ebony cane with its two silver-gold heads. A circle of mascara marked one eye.

  “Bloody hell,” she murmured, looking around her. “It really happened. Now this is a fair suck of the sav! Uncle Pete will love hearing about this, even if he doesn’t believe a word of it.”

  “Come! Come!” Deor called, with his voice and spirit and the thunder of the drum sounding . . . somewhere.

  Something rustled in the undergrowth. Something flitted through the tall alien trees. The Maori was there, leaning on his spear and panting. Then he held up a hand to silence Deor’s greeting.

  “What’s that?” he said very quietly.

  It came from the place that might or might not be a graveyard. A hollow sound, like a horse’s hooves on dirt, or now and then harsher on stone. Slow, though, and irregular. As if it were a horse ancient and sick and weary unto death. They all peered, trying to make out the threat.

  Pip’s eyes went wide. “Don’t look!” she said. “Turn around, now!”

  They all obeyed, Thora last; it was against her deepest nature to turn her back on an enemy.

  “Something that John said to me . . . an old legend. Old, from Europe . . . something from a ballad he recited . . .”

  Then she nodded and winced as the memory came back fully: “The beast that grazes among the graves. The Hell Horse.”

  Thora touched the Hammer slung around her neck and started to turn.

  “Then why in Almighty Thor’s name are we facing the other way?” she snarled.

  Pip caught her arm. “If you see the Hell Horse you die!”

  The hooves sounded again, slow and dragging . . . and nearer.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HILO

  CAPITAL CITY, AUPUNI O HAWAIʻI

  (KINGDOM OF HAWAIʻI)

  NOVEMBER 26TH

  CHANGE YEAR 46/2044 AD

  The Hawaiians were waiting as Órlaith and Reiko approached; bright feather cloaks, crested helms, tall carved staffs and a glitter of spearpoints among the guards. A rumble of pahu-drums pulsed in the background as their players’ hands slapped in unison, long narrow instruments made of carved coconut-wood with their heads covered in sharkskin. To the fore were grave older men and a few women, probably generals and noblemen and kahuna—priest-diviners.

  Their liege was much younger, only a few years older than Órlaith, which gave her a stab of sympathy—he’d be surrounded by those who barely recognized him as an adult, as she was.

  The tall figure of King Kalaˉkaua II in the center was made taller still by the golden crest on his golden helm—both were made of yellow feathers, and the cloak hanging from his broad shoulders was of the same, though patterned with red as well. Apart from that and sandals, his only garment was an elaborately folded loincloth that ended with a broad vertical panel before and behind, and there was a heavy battle-spear in his hand with a circle of leaves fastened just below the head, evidently a symbol of peace.

  Kalaˉ kaua was an impressively muscular brown-skinned man, mostly of the blood of the canoe-navigators who’d first settled these islands, though his features were aquiline and eyes hazel, and he was about Heuradys’ age. Queen Haukea was a little younger, and judging from her milky freckled complexion the startling red of her hair was natural. Several maidens dressed like her in colorful kikepa wraps tied to leave one shoulder bare waited with leis of frangipani and sambac-jasmine flowers to bestow on the guests.

  Órlaith had no objection to that, but decision formed as she determined to alter the procedure a little. She took a step forward, stooped to raise a clod of earth to her lips, and spoke formally with a tone pitched to carry without shouting . . . and in the ancient language of the islands.

  English was the tongue most common here for everyday use, albeit in a wildly eccentric form that Montivallans often strained to follow, but they remembered the ʻOˉ lelo Hawaiʻi and used it for worship and for the most solemn occasions of State.

  “I come as friend, as ally, as a stranger who asks leave of the King and the Gods of the land and of the aes dana, the spirits of place, asks their permission to sail their waters and walk upon their shore. With respect I bow before the Powers who rule here! I bow before Pele of the fire, Lady of Kilauea, whose flame draws land from sea! I bow before Her father Kaˉne of the forests, Lord of supreme Hunamoku, whose might separates Earth and Sky! I bow before His brothers Kuˉof the mace who bested Apuhau, and Lono whose tears make fertile the earth! Before Laka of the red lehua flower, who brings love and beauty, I bow! Before dread Milu of the dead, I bow!”

  There were nods of approval from the elders . . . and from the tall figure of King Kalaˉkaua II she thought a slight nod of craftsman’s acknowledgment. From one performer to another, as a murmur of astonishment and pleasure ran through the watching crowd, the news traveling from mouth to ear beyond the reach of her own voice.

  “That was well-done, Your Highness,” he said after the greetings, as they exchanged bows and shook hands.

  “It costs nothing to be polite, Your Majesty,” Órlaith said cheerfully.

  Heuradys coughed; that had been a favorite saying of Sandra Arminger, Órlaith’s maternal grandmother and Lady Regent of the Association for a long time before the High Kingdom.

  The full form she’d generally used was: Even when you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to
be polite.

  “We’ve a good deal to talk about,” Kalaˉkaua said. “Hawaiʻi’s suffered from piracy . . . based in Korea and elsewhere . . . but we haven’t been able to do much about it. Now maybe we can.”

  “Indeed,” Reiko said. “And relations between Hawaiʻi and Dai-Nippon could be fruitful for us both. Soon we will be in a position to break the Korean blockade of our homeland permanently, and we have very rich sources of salvage material.”

  Which is a polite way of saying a lot of Japan is covered in ruins, Órlaith thought.

  The Hawaiian monarchs nodded; their land depended on trade to a degree unusual in the modern world. The islands were self-sufficient in essentials—anyone who’d survived the Change was—but they needed outsiders for the rest and had lively entrepôt dealings as well.

  “But first I suppose your people have to get a good look at us,” Órlaith said. “What was that thing the ancients had for exotic animals . . . a zoo?”

  Queen Haukea grinned, which evidently alarmed some of the Royal advisors. “Or a museum of curiosities.”

  Órlaith chuckled, which lack of offense relieved them in turn. From their point of view she was a curiosity . . . and a dangerous foreign beast . . . and they had to be torn between the twin perils of looking weak and giving offense.

  The rest of the afternoon was about what she had expected. A ride through the streets of Hilo in open carriages with cheering crowds on every side, including plenty of her own forces on shore leave and countryfolk in from round about. The locals kept surging against the barrier of spears and bamboo-laminate longbows held horizontally in the hands of their king’s armsmen, trying to throw her flower wreaths to add to those already piled around her neck officially, and dancers and musicians performed at street corners.

  Once beyond the inevitable tangle of warehouses and forges and shipyards at the docks, the buildings were the usual city-mix of places to live, places to make things and places to sell things you’d made or brought from somewhere else or combinations of the three, combined with taverns and service trades, but all in a style of big arched windows and courtyards and high-pitched roofs obviously intended to shed rain but catch every available breeze. The roads were well-kept, the buildings in good repair, the folk looked well-fed, and you couldn’t mistake the genuine enthusiasm they showed their King, the smiles on the shouting faces and the rain of flowers before the hooves of his carriage-horses.

  Not the sort you get when someone’s metaphorically standing in the background with a spear directed at the crowd’s livers, which is unmistakable too. No doubt there’s the usual share of human misery and wrong-headedness, but it’s a happy enough little kingdom in the main, well recovered from the Change. ’Tis pity I come as the herald of war.

  She remembered looking into the eyes of the enemy kangshinmu in south Westria, that whirl of dissolution . . . war was needful. Not just for Montival’s sake, either, or for revenge for her father’s death at the hands of foreign men who’d come onto the High Kingdom’s land uninvited with weapons in hand, though that would be ample cause for war in the normal course of things.

  Something had gone very wrong in Korea in the aftermath of the Change, something as bad as the Prophet her parents had put down in Montival’s far interior, and the people there didn’t deserve it any more than the hapless inhabitants of Montana-that-was had. Much good had come through the doors the Change opened, and much evil had also been set free to walk the ridge of the world . . . and the world hadn’t yet seen the whole of either.

  After the procession, there was a religious service with much blowing of conch-shell trumpets and drumming and more dancing, this a lot more decorous than the impromptu versions on the street corners; the local priesthood seemed to be willing to let her have the benefit of the doubt, and she hoped the Powers they followed did too.

  Hawaiʻi had religious toleration, and she’d seen various flavors of Christian and Buddhist and Shinto shrines in the city. The reports said there were a couple of covensteads and Asatruar hofs for visitors from Montival, too. Most folk seemed to follow the traditional pantheon, though, and they were rather touchy of the dignity of their Gods and of the servants of the divine.

  And especially touchy about the mainland, as they call us, she thought.

  That wasn’t surprising; Hawaiʻi had been part of the United States so recently that a few living oldsters remembered it from their youths, and Montival was the giant among the multitude of successor-states on the old Republic’s territory and occupied the whole of the western front of North America above Baja. From what she’d read of the history the American annexation here a century before the Change hadn’t been universally popular, especially among the descendants of the folk who’d originally settled the islands.

  You could tell from looking that the people here were of much the same mixture of heritages as Montival’s, albeit in greatly different proportions—there were fewer who looked like Órlaith and Heuradys and more who resembled, say, Sir Droyn’s blunt features and light-brown skin, and quite a few who had Reiko’s fine-boned build, narrow tilted eyes and pale umber complexion—but apparently in the generations since the Change they’d blended and mostly taken on the heritage and attitudes of the firstcomers.

  This island kingdom was simply small, though; populous as some of Montival’s member-realms, compact and well-governed and rich from fields and sea, trade and crafts, but still a little nervous about possible ambitions from its giant neighbor. Soothing those was part of her task.

  And besides, I could feel it if this were destined to be Montivallan soil . . . and I don’t. It’s . . . not ours, even in potential. I get the same feeling as I do stepping across the border to, say, the Dominions or Iowa.

  The journey ended with the fortress Órlaith had seen from the Sea-Leopard bulking to the east. They clopped west of it, along a road turned into a tunnel of green shade by towering multi-stemmed banyan trees. An arched wrought-iron gate opened onto a walled enclosure of many acres; a squad of lightly-armored Hawaiian spearmen guarded it, and a detachment of soldiers from the 1st Brigade, United States of Boise Army. The tropical sunlight was harsh on the curved hoops of their lorica segmentata armor, the long iron shanks of their pila and the eagle and crossed thunderbolts on their big curved oval shields. And on the stiff taut curves of their faces, blank as machines. One blinked, very slowly, as a fly crawled along his eyelid.

  The Boiseans were in a column of twos; they snapped their shields up, smacked the heavy six-foot javelins on them in a single echoing crack of salute, did ninety-degree turns to face each other and stepped back four paces in stamping unison to line the roadway on either side. Each pila’s butt grounded with a thud at parade rest.

  Órlaith nodded gravely. Her father had always thought of—and in strict privacy with her and Mother called—this sort of thing dancing a fight or simply murmured Osprey Men-At-Arms Number 46, but he’d also given unstinting praise to the Boiseans who’d fought with him through the Prophet’s War and at the Horse Heaven Hills. And professional respect to the ones who’d fought on the other side, whatever he thought of their political judgment.

  Past the gateway, and the carriages were in parkland scattered with buildings that were mostly new since the Change, connected by roads of white crushed shell amid very beautiful gardens with sweeping velvety-green lawns, groves of many different trees, bright flowers, reflecting pools with golden ornamental fish . . .

  “Nice,” Heuradys murmured as they were shown to their quarters; a subtle touch was the absence of noise and numbers. “Not that straw in a stable wouldn’t be a relief from that barrel of sardines packed in oil they call a ship.”

  Órlaith felt her soul stretching a little too, and there was a murmur of agreement from her followers as they swung down from the mounts the Hawaiians had provided. All of them were countryfolk, born and reared among fields and forests and rangelands. Cities were alien enviro
nments they visited or occasionally worked in, and the ships had been a shock.

  Faramir Kovalevsky of the Dúnedain frowned in thought as the carriages and horses wheeled away, his blue-gray eyes going distant for an instant beneath the brim of the spired Ranger helm he wore for the occasion, along with a black jerkin marked with the silver Tree, seven stars and crown.

  “A ship is like a jail, with the chance of being drowned added,” he said.

  There was a general laugh, which he disclaimed with a raised hand:

  “Not me! That’s some ancient sage Mother is fond of. Not in the Histories, I think, some Fourth Age philosopher.”

  Histories was what the Rangers called the works that described ancient Middle Earth and the Quest of the One Ring, the traditions on which their founders had modeled their scattered, wilderness-dwelling nation.

  Of course, Great-Aunt Astrid always claimed that she was descended from the Dúnedain in the Histories, from the House of Hador. She was a great warrior and hero, by all accounts, but Da told me many who knew her in person thought her barking mad. Though he used to say too it didn’t really matter much in the end, because she made her mad dreams sober truth.

  Non-Dúnedain were more likely to regard the Histories as fanciful tales, though less fanciful than some from the ancient world. The folk in them lived more or less as real people did in modern times, after all, not flying to the moon or sailing beneath the sea. That old sage Faramir quoted had a point, too. A crofter’s cottage or even a barracks back home usually had more room than even the commanders had enjoyed on the trip out, with the added advantage that the world was just out the door. Most of them had spent as much time as they could at the mastheads and bowsprits, or hauling on ropes whenever the sailors would allow them to help, for distraction as well as keeping in trim.

  “And I’m glad we’re within a perimeter, at least,” Heuradys added.

  Reiko actually smiled as she dismounted from her carriage in turn and looked at an arched bridge over a pond.