WARFRIENDS

Tom Purdom

“Warfriends” is the long-awaited sequel to The Tree Lord of Imeten, an Ace Double Tom wrote over forty years ago. He liked the planet and its people, and he always thought “a more energetic writer might have turned it into a series.” We are fortunate that recently he found himself thinking “Why not a novelette or two?” Readers who would like to learn more about the original tale—along with revelations about marriage, cats, SF readers, and the Ace Double publishing saga—can browse the literary memoir the author is publishing on his website, www.philart.net/tompurdom.

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“He has decided to attack the patrol,” Jila-Jen said. “Tonight. In the dark. You and your warband will scout. And carry me and two others.”

Vigdal’s tail started to stiffen. He stifled the impulse and held it curled against his body.

“They will know we’re in the area if we do that,” Vigdal said. “They’ll be alerted. We’ll face an alerted force when we attack the road.”

Vigdal had deliberately arranged himself in a sitting position, with his hindquarters tucked under him and his weight resting on his forepaws—the most relaxed, unthreatening posture a member of his species could assume. Jila-Jen had tried to reciprocate, and he had done about as well as his species could. Jila-Jen was bending forward, with the weight of his upper body resting on the knuckles of his left hand, and he had let himself lean to one side, so he would look almost languid.

No Warrior of Imeten could ever eliminate the threat inherent in his presence, of course. Vigdal could still feel the tensions and conflicts that permeated every conversation he conducted with Jila-Jen’s species. They both knew the dartblower hooked to the back of Jila-Jen’s harness could be whipped into action in seconds. The iron sword at Jila-Jen’s waist could be unhooked and swung against an enemy’s neck in a single, sweeping motion.

The tree people always looked awkward on the ground. In the trees, Jila-Jen could flow across the branches on all fours and sail from handhold to handhold. He could hold himself steady with one hand and manipulate a weapon with the other. On the ground, without his weapons, he would be a prey animal—a clumsy creature who scuttled around on his knuckles and hind legs, without the natural grace of a fourlegs.

But everything had changed in that legendary age when fate had taught the tree people their hands could be used to fashion things that had never existed....

“We are supposed to kill the enemy and make them guard their land and their wealth,” Jila-Jen said. “Nama-Nanat says we can do that by attacking their patrol. We will kill every Drovil in the patrol. And attack the iron road if we can.”

Vigdal was holding his big round head slightly bowed, as if he was pondering every word he heard. The tree people didn’t like it when you looked them in the eye without a break. “And what if we don’t kill all of them?” Vigdal said. “What if some of them escape and get to the road before us? And we can’t attack the road because the Drovils have been alerted? Are we supposed to give up the chance to steal iron and free captives just so we can ambush a patrol?”

Jila-Jen straightened up. The fur on the side of his head stiffened into bristles that turned his face into a broad angry mask. His free hand gripped the hilt of his sword.

“Nama-Nanat has given his orders!” Jila-Jen screamed. “Nama-Nanat is your commander. He commands! We obey!”

Harold the Human had placed Nama-Nanat in command. Harold had met with the five Master Harmonizers selected by the itiji and they had all agreed it was the best course. This would be the first time a war party of the tree people and a warband of the itiji would fight under a single leader.

The Five Masters had engaged in the usual chatter. Their orange eyes had flashed and fluttered. Their heads had bobbed like windblown flowers as they vented their dissatisfaction. And in the end, after all their talk, they had come to the same conclusion they would have reached if they had never said a word. The Warriors of Imeten would only respond to orders and they would not accept orders from an itiji. That day had not come.

Harold was younger than the Five. He obviously lacked certain kinds of wisdom. But he was the being the Warriors of Imeten would listen to. He was the being they had to listen to.

“The Imetens have accepted the will of the Goddess,” Harold said. “Most of them truly believe they must accept you as equals because I defeated their champion. Many of them realize you’ve made them stronger. Some of them even realize you understand strategy better than they do. But I can tell you many of them resent it, too. And some of them feel confused. They’ve been taught all their lives that you’re supposed to be their slaves. And now they’re being told their Goddess has changed her mind. Some of them are even claiming there was something wrong with my fight—that it didn’t truly tell them the will of the Goddess. We have to move carefully. We can’t make too many demands on their emotions.”

Harold had spoken in his own language. He was still learning one of the simpler languages of the itiji. The itiji who worked with him had found it was easier to just add his language to their repertoire.

Vigdal had attended the council because the Five Masters had already agreed he would be the designated harmonizer of a warband that would contain eight warfriends. He had maintained the Ordeal of Silence—an act of self-repression that could feel just as painful, in its way, as the restraint of the mating urge—and stretched across a bed of blue and yellow shade flowers while they reviewed, once again, the strategy the Five had recommended to Harold.

The Warriors had accepted the itiji as their equals and, in return, the itiji were supposed to help them stand against the armies of Lidris of Drovil, the ambitious conqueror who had subdued four of the smaller cities the tree people had erected along this section of the Great River. Lidris coveted the iron mine possessed by the Warriors of Imeten because his own source of iron was located a full four day march from Drovil.

Every successful raid on that long, vulnerable road would reduce the Drovils’ supply of iron and free the itiji slaves who dragged the Drovils’ ore sleds. But the raids didn’t have to succeed. They were winning a victory if they merely forced Lidris to patrol that vast expanse of forest.

The member of the Five who liked to “chase down the numbers” had summarized the overall strategy. “Every Drovil who is forced to guard the road is one less Drovil who can attack Imeten. We don’t have to take major risks. We can produce a major effect with a minor effort.”

So what could Vigdal say? His own people had worked out the strategy. Jila-Jen was right. They didn’t have to attack the iron road. An attack on a patrol would have the same effect on Lidris’ army.

Did it matter that no itiji would be freed from toil? Should he start an argument merely because two of his closest friends had been captured by the Drovils and were now hanging in nets, dying from starvation at a pace determined by their tormentors?

“You don’t have to scream at me,” Vigdal said. “We will do what Nama-Nanat decides. But I know how my warband feels. I know how I feel. We all started this march seeing the faces of the people we would free. The suffering of our mindkin nags us like a thorn that pricks every move we make.”

Jila-Jen’s fur relaxed. He had been assigned to communicate with Vigdal precisely because he had some capacity to work with others without basing the entire process on punishments and rewards. By the standards of the tree people, he was an individual with a remarkable ability to share the feelings that motivated other minds.

“Nama-Nanat hasn’t abandoned the attack on the iron road,” Jila-Jen said. “We may still attack the iron road if the attack on the patrol goes well.”

Jila-Jen’s face hair fluttered. “But the attack on the patrol must receive your best support. We must destroy them.”

“And what of the two prisoners dying in the nets?”

“I have told Nama-Nanat that is important to you. He knows he must keep it in mind when he makes his decisions.”

The night was never quiet. In addition to the chatter and movement of all the creatures that flew through the trees and prowled the darkness, they could hear the sounds that formed a constant background to every itiji’s thoughts: the songs the itiji sang as they went about their rounds. Small itiji huntbands still ventured into this region, in spite of the danger they would be captured by the Drovils.

Vigdal’s warband fanned out at the front of the advance. Behind them, most of Nama-Nanat’s Double Eight flowed through the trees. Three Warriors rode on cargo frames carried by pairs of itiji, as Nama-Nanat had ordered.

Jila-Jen rode on the frame Vigdal carried with one of the younger—and stronger—itiji in the warband. Vigdal could have avoided the labor, given his position, but that would have weakened his influence. He had agreed to carry the three Warriors, but he didn’t believe it was necessary. Jila-Jen could have maintained contact from the lower branches of the trees.

The two captives who were hanging in nets near the iron road were conserving their strength, but they raised their voices when the need became unbearable and the itiji huntbands roaming the forest passed their messages through the night. The captives were trying to last as long as they could but they were obviously resigned to death. Mostly they sang their names and the names of their relatives and mindkin, living and dead.

Remember us, they sang as they finished each branch of the name tree. Remember us.

And now and then, faint and far ahead, Vigdal’s sensitive ears could detect something that was almost as disturbing—an itiji singing in a language no member of his species had ever developed. The Drovils had invented a code and forced their captives to relay messages for them.

Jila-Jen maintained a disciplined silence while he was being carried, but he started talking the moment Nama-Nanat ordered a rest stop. Jila-Jen had never admitted he no longer believed in the Goddess who supposedly ruled Imeten, but Vigdal had concluded Jila-Jen’s worldview had been shattered by the coming of the humans. He was obviously fascinated by Vigdal’s casual attitude toward the gods.

“We have a northern thinker called Kladen ev Grada,” Vigdal had told Jila-Jen. “He said the gods have their world and we have ours. They have their affairs, we have ours.”

“But how do you know how you should act?” Jila-Jen had said. “How do you decide right and wrong?”

“I don’t need a god to tell me I need to get along with my friends. I know I would starve if I had to roam the forest by myself.”

“So you obey your laws because you think you will benefit. Do you believe you can break your laws any time you think you’ll be better off?”

“It’s not a law. It’s a feeling. I want to get along. It’s the way we are.”

Jila-Jen had heard the itiji singing in the code the Drovils had created. It was the first thing he mentioned when he slipped off the frame and broke the silence.

“They’re helping your enemies,” Jila-Jen said. “You can hear them doing it. Is that right? Wouldn’t you all be better off if they didn’t do it?”

“They’ll be killed if they don’t.”

“Shouldn’t they be willing to die before they’ll help your enemies?”

Vigdal had stretched out on his side with his head resting on a tree root. He had taken advantage of the release system on the frame the moment Jila-Jen had touched the ground.

“There are thinkers who claim they should behave that way,” Vigdal said.

“So why don’t they? Aren’t their feelings strong enough? Isn’t that what happens when you obey feelings instead of laws? Doesn’t it mean you can do anything you feel like doing?”

Vigdal could understand Jila-Jen’s confusion. He had just become the father of a winsome, stumble-legged daughter when the first descriptions of Harold and his wife had spread through the forest. From nowhere, without a whisper of warning, two creatures walked through the forest on their hind legs alone, with both hands free, pulling a cart equipped with the round things they called wheels, and armed with a two-handed weapon the male called a bow. Vigdal’s whole life had become engulfed in a dream. Visions of other worlds had flooded his mind. Couriers had roamed the forest singing of the weapons and armor the humans were creating for the itiji. Strike back. Join us. Fight for your children and your friends. Our time has come. The world has changed.

And if it dazed him, what must it be like for Jila-Jen? For generations, before the oldest trees in the forest had taken root, the tree people had been using their dart-blowers and nets to turn itiji into pack bearers and sled draggers, ripping husbands from wives and children from their parents. From the day he first opened his eyes, Jila-Jen had been told that was the way things were supposed to be—the way the Goddess who ruled his city had proclaimed they should be. And then, in one violent moment, this strange creature from beyond the sky had killed the champion of the Goddess. And every Warrior of Imeten was supposed to believe the Goddess had reconsidered her position and decided the itiji should, after all, be treated as equals.

“I don’t know what they believe, Jila-Jen. They could have rules and strict gods just like you. But I think the rules that last are rules that help us get along with each other. Harold says the humans have a theory very much like the theory many of our thinkers advocate. Different things come into existence. And the things that help us survive and raise children tend to last—including feelings. You should ask Harold about their theory. He uses it to explain why we have two kinds of talkers on our world. And only one kind of talker on the world he comes from.”

“My people aren’t just talkers.”

“His theory explains that, too.”

They halted and reorganized in assaulting distance of the Drovil patrol. The itiji slithered under the armored blankets Harold the Human had helped them create. The stiff animal skins trapped too much body heat and irritated the skin around Vigdal’s front shoulders, but they covered him from head to tail and they would stop venomed darts.

Vigdal slipped toward the enemy camp with two of his warfriends clinging to his steps. The glow from a single fire pot marked the spot in the middle branches where the Drovils would be sleeping. Sentries would normally be posted about thirty itiji strides from the pot, in a rough circle, with a full Eight assigned to each watch.

Vigdal had learned to look at the trees through the eyes of a Warrior of Imeten. The sentry located in the direct path of Nama-Nanat’s advance was posted about where Vigdal had expected to find him. The sentry was crouching against the trunk of a tree, on one of the highest branches that would hold his weight. To an intruder in the trees, equipped with the eyes of his own species, he was positioned so he would blend into the bulk of the tree trunk. From the ground, to a prowler with the night vision of an itiji, he could be identified by the glow of the starlight filtering through the leaves.

The tree people fought their wars in the trees. The Drovils were still learning they had to watch for scouts and ambushers who used the ground as fluidly as they used the trees.

One of Vigdal’s companions had a weapon strapped to a harness on his back—the cumbersome item Harold called a crossbow. He and his partner were both so young they would have been placed in separate bands, where they would mostly watch and learn, in the days before the humans disrupted the world. One of them still hadn’t reached his full sexual maturity. They had been chosen for their task because they seemed to have a flair for the mechanical devices Harold had created for them. The loader could pick up iron darts with his teeth and insert them in the groove with the speed and finesse of a hunter who could take his prey with a single snap at the throat.

Vigdal raised his right front paw and waved it from side to side. The loader stared at him. He maintained silence, but he obviously disagreed with Vigdal’s decision.

Vigdal slid out of position and crept back to Jila-Jen. “We’ve found the sentry, but he’s too high for a crossbow shot. The angle is too sharp.”

He had already translated the sentry’s position into a description Jila-Jen could use. He had learned to think in three dimensions. He had taught himself to see the pathways and visual guides the tree people would use as they navigated through their world. You had to know which branches would support their weight, which gaps they could leap across.

Jila-Jen memorized the description as he listened. He recited it once, to make sure he had it right, and scurried up a ladder he had attached to a bottom branch. Vigdal wondered if Nama-Nanat understood the intellectual effort behind his description. Jila-Jen understood some of it.

Vigdal returned to his position. Above him, somewhere in the branches, a lone Imeten Warrior crept through the dark with a dartblower.

A fruit bounced off the branches on his right—the signal the Imeten dartblower was about to shoot. Vigdal counted to eight, twitching his right front paw with every count, and let out a single sharp yelp on the last twitch. He flowed to his feet and ran forward with his two companions stretching out beside him.

The Imetens knew Nama-Nanat would have them tormented and killed if they broke silence as they assaulted through the trees. There was a long moment when Vigdal wondered if they had heard his signal. Then he heard the first shouts from the enemy as the Imetens fell on the camp.

A chorus of itiji voices mingled with the din in the trees. Nama-Nanat had given the itiji two tasks. They were supposed to watch for any Drovils who tried to escape and finish off any enemy wounded who dropped from the trees.

The tree people could build cities and weapons but they could never create anything like the complex structures a band of itiji could raise in their minds. Vigdal felt—as always—as if the words flying between him and his bandfriends had formed them into a single consciousness. He could see everything eight sets of eyes could see. He could move as if he was part of one huge many-legged body.

“Concentrate on the runaways,” Vigdal sang. “Ignore the wounded who can’t run. Let no one escape!”

He sang a direction and three itiji broke from the positions they had assumed around the perimeter of the Drovil camp and began prowling through the trees in a standard search pattern. Four Drovils had already plummeted through the branches. Two were dead. One had a broken back. The fourth died beneath an itiji’s claws before he could hobble to safety on a battered leg.

An itiji caught a flash of movement high in the trees, moved to get a better look, and felt a dart glance off his blanket. A Drovil was scurrying through the lower branches as if he was trying to break away from the battle. Another Drovil seemed to be protecting him.

Vigdal’s neck muscles tightened. He threw back his head and screamed his best—and loudest—imitation of the high, screeching voices of the tree people. Somewhere above him, Jila-Jen was supposed to hear that unmistakeable parody of the noises he and his fellows were flinging at each other.

The itiji who had spotted the runaway galloped along the ground after his quarry and Vigdal relayed his reports to the trees. Had Jila-Jen heard him? Was anything happening?

“They have darted the runaway,” an itiji sang. “He clings to a handhold. I believe he is darted again. A tree devil falls near me. I kill him with a swipe to the face.”

Vigdal had told his companions they should avoid some of the terms they had customarily applied to the tree people. They are our allies now. We must think of them as people, just like us. Even the ones we fight. We must treat them just like we treat our own people when we fight with them.

He would discuss the matter with them again, when they were calmer. Right now it was a minor matter. But someday some of the tree people might actually learn an itiji language. It seemed very unlikely now. But the world had become an unlikely place.

They counted the bodies in the morning. They had assumed they were attacking a Double Eight and they found thirteen dead and five cripples. If you added in the normal ration of commanders, each eight should have contained nine people—eight subordinates and one commander. Eighteen for the whole patrol.

Unless the patrol had been given an overall commander. In that case, the count had come up one short.

“There’s no way to be sure,” Jila-Jen said. “Sometimes one of the eightleaders takes charge. Sometimes they appoint someone extra. They aren’t consistent.”

“Can’t you ask one of the cripples?”

“The two who can talk say we netted the whole patrol.”

“But who knows if they’re telling the truth?”

“Yes.”

Jila-Jen had another matter on his mind. Vigdal could see the signs in the arch of his back, the movements of his fur, and the position of his fighting hand. Jila-Jen was holding himself as if he was expecting a blow—or preparing to deliver one.

“Does Nama-Nanat have any other messages for me?” Vigdal said.

“He has ordered me to give you a warning.”

“A warning?”

“He says he knows you are our allies. He knows the Goddess has decreed we must accept you as equals. But that doesn’t mean we must accept everything you do.”

“We did everything Nama-Nanat decreed. I objected to his command to attack the patrol but we still obeyed his orders.”

Vigdal had learned to speak the Imeten tongue almost as naturally as he spoke the nine itiji languages he had mastered, but some part of his mind always cringed at the way he had to talk about ordering and obeying. The Imetens had no words for the fluid, voluntary coordination of an itiji band.

“Three of the enemy bodies had missing legs,” Jila-Jen said.

Vigdal didn’t believe in gods, but he had learned some of the standard prayers when he had been young. He could steady his emotions with a silent recital of the complete text of the famous Prayer for Evening Calm while his mind sorted through possible responses.

“Tell Nama-Nanat I will take the necessary steps,” Vigdal said. “Tell him it will not happen again.”

It was the best he could do. There was no way you could apologize in the Imeten language without expressing some kind of submission.

“We don’t eat our people,” Jila-Jen said. “We don’t eat your people.”

“I will take the necessary steps.”

“Will you have them punished?”

“I will have them punished. Tell Nama-Nanat they will be punished.”

Jila-Jen’s face fur stiffened. He stared at Vigdal through a halo of ferocity.

It was a good display. Nama-Nanat would be satisfied. But Vigdal had noted Jila-Jen’s choice of words. He hadn’t demanded that the culprits be killed or mutilated. He hadn’t even demanded a beating. He had left the nature of the punishment up to Vigdal. For a Warrior of Imeten, it was an impressive exercise in diplomacy.

The tree people could survive indefinitely on fruits and leaves, gathering their food as they traveled. The itiji diet required more demanding arrangements. Normally, a band of traveling itiji would kill and feast every second day. If they were in a hurry, they could spend a little time each day catching small animals or slapping fish out of streams.

Sun-dried flesh was another alternative. Vigdal’s warband had been living off four bags crammed with sun-dried flesh and the burned flesh the tree people and the humans liked to eat. Both substitutes felt dry and chewless. The burned flesh had a flavor that evoked unpleasant memories of charred, smoldering trees.

Vigdal led his band away from the Imetens and gathered them in the tightest circle they could tolerate.

“I’ve felt the same temptation myself,” Vigdal said. “The tree people would probably eat us if we were plant eaters. But we must treat them exactly the same way we would treat our own people.”

They started talking before he had finished—three or four at a time, in the way they always pursued a question when they were gathered with their own kind and weren’t trying to communicate with the tree people and the humans. Harold had shaken his head the first time he had seen them do it, in the way that seemed to indicate he was seeing something puzzling and strange. But Harold had said he was awed, too. To the Imetens, as far as Vigdal could tell, it was another sign the itiji hadn’t developed the self-control that won battles.

They knew Vigdal was right but they all had to have their say. Most of them wanted him to know they agreed. But they all hated the stuff in the bags. Two of them found it disgusting. The gourmet in the group couldn’t resist a small paean to warm flesh and the complexities of the flavors and aromas stored in its juices.

Vigdal let them run on until he saw an opening. He told them about his promise to punish the offender and the whirlwind he received in response was just as agitated as he had known it would be. They hated the idea just as much as he had. But they knew they had to do something.

“Are you going to let them whip us? Did you tell them they could whip us?”

“Or cut off our ears?”

“Who is it going to be? How many do they want?”

“It was a natural thing.”

“We must find the mildest punishment they will accept.”

“I won’t agree to anything more.”

“They would eat us if they thought we were edible. We know they would eat us.”

In the end, two volunteers accepted the burden. One of them really was one of the perpetrators. The other insisted he had kept his impulses under control but he would do what had to be done, since the true culprit wasn’t willing to fulfill his responsibilities.

Vigdal carried the decision to Jila-Jen. “I have uncovered the transgressors. They are to eat nothing but the food stored in the bags from now until we return to Imeten. They will not be permitted to hunt any other food. We will present them to the Five Masters when we return and they will determine the rest of their punishment.”

“That’s all? That’s their punishment?”

“It’s far more severe than you may realize, Jila-Jen. But I also feel it is the most we should inflict on them now. We are still surrounded by the domains of our enemies. They are both good scouts and strong fighters. I would have denied them access to every kind of food but we would all be weaker if I did that.”

“I will tell Nama-Nanat. He will not be pleased. He would have bashed in their skulls if any of our people had committed such an act.”

Harold said the humans had studied the past on the world they had come from. They had dug up the bones of creatures that had been dead for more years than there were leaves in the forest. They could see, from the bones, how things that helped you live and have children replaced older things that weren’t as good. Feet got faster. Muscles got stronger. The tallest trees received the light. Short trees died in the shade.

On Harold’s world, they had something he called seasons. Sometimes it was very cold. Sometimes hot. They had large open spaces where the trees were far apart. The ancestors of the first humans had been creatures who started walking on two legs and descended from the trees.

Harold understood the Rule of Self-Nurturing Fortune. The creatures who walked on two legs could use their hands to make things and throw things, Harold argued. And the more they used their hands, the more they needed their hands—and the minds that guided their hands.

The itiji began to talk so they could hunt better in bands, according to Harold’s theories. And the itiji who talked the best, ate the best. They grew bigger heads and clever tongues instead of bigger teeth and stronger muscles.

The tree people could have developed in the same way the humans had. But this world was warmer than Harold’s world and more uniform. The forest covered everything but the mountains. The tree people stayed in the trees. They lived in their world and the itiji lived in theirs.

It was a good theory. Vigdal believed it was essentially correct. But Harold had another theory that felt less convincing.

As the humans had become better thinkers, they had grown bigger heads. As had the itiji. And the tree people. But that created a problem, Harold claimed. Their hips had become narrower as they had stood up. How could their women pass those big heads through the narrow opening they had developed as they had become straighter?

The children of the humans, Harold said, were as helpless as seeds. Their heads were still growing when they were born.

The tree people were different, Harold felt. Their children were born with fully grown heads. They could scamper around and create problems from the day they were born. They had to be controlled. And this emphasis on control and coercion became a permanent part of the tree people’s character.

Vigdal wasn’t sure. It was true the tree people seemed like a churlish lot compared to his own people. But they must have some feelings that encouraged them to bond with each other. Could you build huge communities merely by coercing people with rewards and punishments?

The itiji hanging in the nets were sending a new message. Their tormentors were making new threats. They say they will let us live. But they will blind us. They will crush all our legs. They will cut out our tongues.

They had stopped singing the song of remembrance. Now they were truly frightened. Now they were pleading for help.

“The tree jumpers complain about us,” Vigdal’s youngest warfriend said. “They punish us for yielding to hunger. But when did we torment them? Do we do things like that to the creatures we eat?”

“The Drovils are trying to lure us away from the iron road,” Vigdal said.

“And what will they do if we attack the iron road? Don’t you think they’ll carry out their threats? They’ll blind and cripple the captives just so we’ll know they’re making a real threat the next time they do this to us.”

Nama-Nanat claimed he believed the Drovils were baiting a trap. “The iron road is hard to guard,” Jila-Jen said. “We can attack anywhere. The prisoners could be surrounded with an ambush.”

“I can appreciate Nama-Nanat’s logic,” Vigdal said. “But please tell him I feel there are other factors he should consider. The Drovils don’t care if we free the prisoners. They will probably put most of their guards on the iron haulers. A rescue attempt will probably be easier. And it will mean more. Every itiji who hears the news will sing about it. And praise Nama-Nanat’s name.”

“I believe Nama-Nanat has decided to attack the iron haulers. But I will tell him your thoughts.”

Vigdal rejoined his warfriends and watched them become more intense while they waited for Jila-Jen to return.

“It’s the iron. The iron is all they care about.”

“And their share of the loot. You don’t get a share of the loot when you rescue people from suffering.”

“Make sure we get our share, Vigdal. We need every crossbow dart the humans can make for us. It’s the only thing our beloved allies respect.”

Their tails stiffened into spears as they talked. They turned toward the ladder when Jila-Jen returned and Vigdal broke away from them. He jerked his head at a fallen branch a good thirty strides beyond the ladder and hurried toward it without waiting for a response.

“Your band looks agitated,” Jila-Jen said.

He was speaking his own language. To him, the possessive meant “the group you command.” To Vigdal, it would normally mean “the group you’re associated with” or “the group you belong to.”

“They are angry. I believe I can persuade them to control their anger. But it would be better if I didn’t have to.”

“Your leaders ordered them to obey Nama-Nanat.”

“We understand that. But they are tormented by feelings that burn like poisoned stings.”

“Are you making a threat? Are you telling me they won’t obey their orders if Nama-Nanat doesn’t give them what they want?”

“I am only telling you the facts. I will try to help them control their anger. But their feelings could affect their actions.”

“Nama-Nanat has considered your arguments. We will attack the iron haulers.”

“Then you can tell him we will do what he says. But you should tell him the things I just told you, too.”

“Would it ease the stings disturbing your band if we rescued the prisoners at the same time?”

“And how can we do that? With the numbers we have?”

Jila-Jen’s posture changed. Vigdal didn’t know what the shift meant, but Jila-Jen seemed to have softened.

“An all out attack might run into an ambush,” Jila-Jen said. “But three skilled Warriors could slip through the guards around the nets.”

“And Nama-Nanat would approve such a raid?”

“I believe he would let me do it if I asked him.”

“They’re hanging from the highest branches that can support their weight.”

“We’ll lower them to where they can survive the drop and cut them free. We can carry enough rope if we don’t carry anything except our weapons and armor.”

“It would be dangerous, Jila-Jen.”

“I’m willing to take the risk. I would have to ask you a favor in return. But I’m willing to take the risk.”

“A favor?”

“If I do it, I won’t be entitled to a share of the ore we capture. I would have to ask you for shares from whatever your band gets. For all three of us.”

Vigdal raised his head and eyed the light above the trees. He was standing on familiar ground. He had been trading favors since he was a child. His cleverest aunt had given him his first lessons in formal rhetoric in return for the time he spent tending her children. His aunt was a dreamy woman with a limitless appetite for romantic gambols and she couldn’t have indulged herself without the help of a dependable child watcher.

“You will have to haul the extra shares yourselves,” Jila-Jen said. “Nama-Nanat will insist.”

“We will give you three shares from our portion, succeed or fail. And five if you succeed.”

Jila-Jen’s head jerked. He probably hadn’t anticipated the extra offer.

“It would be easier to divide six,” Jila-Jen said.

“Our leaders are counting on the iron.”

“I understand. But we’re talking about the lives of the captives.”

“We’ll make it six,” Vigdal said.

He had, of course, assumed Jila-Jen would ask for the extra share.

Vigdal and his warband swallowed a hasty meal, napped for a third of a day, and set off for the iron road with the Imetens clustered above them. They kept their voices low but they argued about the bargain with Jila-Jen as they advanced. They had immediately realized they would be burdened with extra weight when they left the iron road and turned toward home.

“We shouldn’t forget we’ll be setting the iron haulers free. They can carry some of it.”

“We’ll still be carrying someone else’s load.”

“What if we have wounded? Do we have to leave them behind so we can carry Jila-Jen’s bribe?”

“We’re supposed to treat them the way we treat our own people. Why can’t they do the same?”

“This is how they treat their own people.”

“They have a philosopher who claims anyone who lets himself become a slave should be a slave. That he would have let himself be killed if he didn’t have the mind of a slave.”

“It sounds like the kind of philosophy they would think up.”

“They don’t all agree with it,” Vigdal said. “I don’t think Jila-Jen believes it.”

“Enough of them believe it.”

The iron road was essentially a trail that had been worn by the sleds itiji had dragged through the forest. A line of packed, exposed dirt ran through the trees like a river that had been robbed of its water.

Nama-Nanat arranged his forces in two groups about two hundred strides from the road. The distance had been chosen with a precision that indicated Nama-Nanat had a good feel for tactics. Too far, and the attackers would waste energy making the initial rush. Too close, and there would be too much danger an outlying scout would spot the ambushers.

Vigdal crawled under a tangle of flowering vines that covered a depression in sight of the road. He relaxed his muscles sector by sector, neck to tail, and focused on his ears. Behind him, on the ground under the Imetens, his warfriends had pressed themselves into anything that looked like it might give them some protection from a downward glance.

The itiji who pulled the sleds were whipped if they gave away their position, but their guards disturbed the creatures of the trees as they advanced. Vigdal picked up the first squawks and flutters when they were still so faint he had to close his eyes and make sure he wasn’t being fooled by his emotions.

The stir created by the advance guards passed over him. He was wearing his armored blanket, but his back muscles still cringed.

Three itiji strained against the crossbar attached to the front of the first sled. The flat bed behind them was almost four strides long. A frame covered with hides contained a load of ore that must have weighed twice as much as the three itiji put together. Vigdal could feel his own shoulder muscles pressing against the crossbar as he watched. The tree people had carpenters who could smooth the bottoms of their sleds, but they filled them with the maximum load their slaves could pull.

There were no Drovils on the ground. Above him, guards trotted along branches and leaped from perch to perch.

Four pack bearers followed the sled, laboring under bags draped across their backs, with their necks secured to a long pole. Three single-yoke sleds crowded behind them.

He let out a truncated yelp as the first single-yoke sled passed his position. A short, harsh screech let him know his message had been received. He counted his heartbeats, allowing—he hoped—for the effects of his fear.

He didn’t hear any extra commotion in the trees until he reached twelve. Voices started shrieking orders in the Drovil language. He lifted his chin off the ground and gave the slaves the best yell he could produce without rising from his hiding place.

“We are coming to save you. Run this way if you can. Prepare to fight for your lives.”

The itiji assaulting behind him broke their silence. Imetens screamed war cries. His warfriends swept past him and he leaped up and initiated a zigzagging pattern.

One of the slaves hauling a single-yoke sled turned off the road and started dragging his load through the vines and brush. The others were reacting the way they usually did. Half of them seemed to be looking up at the trees as if they were waiting for instructions.

Vigdal was supposed to hang back and sing a view of the overall situation while he presented a moving target to the Drovil dartblowers in the trees. His warfriends had closed on the slaves and started urging them to move.

“Who wants to be free?”

“Sing if you want to be free.”

The critical factor was the time the itiji had spent in captivity. The slaves who had been captive less than a year always leaped at the chance to break free. The slaves who had been born in captivity could be paralyzed by the fear that had dominated them since they first opened their eyes. Some of them had even accepted the idea that they were inferior creatures who had been created to serve their captors.

Darts slapped against Vigdal’s armor. A Drovil dropped out of the trees and leaped onto the back of the itiji who was trying to pull his load away from the fracas. A second Drovil landed on the sled.

Vigdal raced toward the two Drovils. He raised his pitch to underline the urgency of his words and added a request to the chorus of itiji voices weaving through the screams in the trees. The Drovils leaped off the sled and crouched on the ground with their war hammers poised. Padded armor hung from their shoulders. Iron helmets protected their heads.

A high-pitched reply advised him help was arriving on his right. He veered to the left, as if he was trying to circle the Drovils and reach the sled, and both Drovils turned with him.

It was one of those moments when everything worked exactly the way you hoped it would. Vigdal’s supporter leaped on one of the Drovils from the back. The other Drovil jerked his head around and Vigdal pounced.

It was the longest leap Vigdal had ever attempted, but it did the job. His teeth ripped at the Drovil’s unprotected face. The salty taste of blood tickled responses that had been developing since his father gave him his first pre-chewed bit of flesh.

He pulled back his head. The other Drovil was shrieking under the claws of the warfriend who had attacked him from behind. Vigdal turned toward the itiji who was yoked to the sled and glared at him with his teeth bared.

“Go. Keep moving. Get as far from the road as you can.”

He slipped into his zigzag pattern and returned to his primary mission. Messages flickered across his consciousness and he tried to form them into an integrated picture. Three more Drovils had dropped from the trees—two dead and one thrashing as he died. A dead Imeten with a smashed skull had fallen near the big sled. Two warfriends had gathered around the four itiji who were carrying packs and started prodding them off the road. The pole fastened to their necks disrupted their movements but they seemed to be coordinating themselves.

Vigdal could understand some of the orders and outcries he could hear in the trees, but he still hadn’t mastered the intricacies of three-dimensional combat. On the ground, you could break an enemy line or strike it from the flank. In the trees, the vertical dimension created possibilities that multiplied the complexity. The Imetens maneuvered in unimaginative, rigidly disciplined Eights, but he couldn’t have evaluated the situation if he had grown wings and flown through the leaves.

Had the Imetens broken the Drovil defense? Was a downward counterattack by the enemy worse than a high-speed ascent? He could pick out one useful element in the overall pattern communicated by the shrieks in the trees. Nama-Nanat and his Warriors had captured the Drovils’ undivided attention.

The Drovil dartblowers were aiming their tubes at targets in the trees and ignoring the slaves and their rescuers. The Drovils on the ground had all tasted their last breath—or would when the nearest itiji added a final bite or claw stroke to their wounds.

The three itiji who had been pulling the oversized sled were arguing with each other. Two wanted to escape, the third was moaning about whippings and recapture. A warfriend was pleading with them, but they didn’t seem to hear him.

Vigdal stopped beside the sled. “Chew the hesitater free. Help the other two pull. Get them off the road. The Drovils are concentrating on the fight in the trees. Get them off the road before the situation changes.”

They left one of the single-yoke sleds on the road. Its slave had scrunched up on the ground, with his face pressed between his forepaws. The slave who had been released from the big sled sat down beside him.

Vigdal joined forces with three warfriends who had wrapped their jaws around any hold they could find and began to help the two itiji who were still yoked to the big sled. Tree roots and low-lying bushes forced them into tedious twists and detours. His warfriends couldn’t talk with their mouths full, but their grunts and tail whips told him everything he needed to know. They were hunters, not haulers. Their teeth were made to rip flesh, not grip loads.

The two freed slaves were working just as hard as everybody else, but they were using their shoulders, not their mouths, and they couldn’t stop the flood of words their rescue had unlocked.

“How far do we have to go?”

“How many Imetens are fighting in the trees? The Drovils have reinforcements standing by at every camp on the road.”

“We should have made Lenalva come with us. He just needed time.”

“Wouldn’t we move faster if we left the iron behind?”

Vigdal released the bit of leather strap he had been clutching with his grinders.

“Just keep moving. The further we go, the better.”

“Then why not release us? Why are we still pulling this load?”

Most of the itiji who roamed the area in huntbands had edged away from the battle zone, but the commotion had attracted its quota of curiosity seekers and news tellers. The Drovils had apparently set up an ambush of their own. Reinforcements attacked Nama-Nanat’s Double Eight just as he thought he had scattered his adversaries.

“They must have been following the ore party,” one of the observers sang. “None of us saw them. They must have been spread out. Or scattered through the highest branches.”

The news teller’s voice deepened. He shifted into the measured rhythms of the fourth mode of the Agalav epic tradition. “Hear the orders of Nama-Nanat. He will fight as long as he can breathe. Carry the ore to Imeten. Obey the will of the Goddess.”

Vigdal let go of his hold. He threw back his head and sent the cry of an itiji calling for help ringing through the trees.

“Hear me. Hear my plea. Help us pull the load we have captured. Help us free your friends and kin. Tell our friends and kin in Imeten we need their help. Nama-Nanat and his Warriors are dying so we can escape with our loads. Give them the response they deserve.”

A voice took up the cry somewhere ahead of him. Another voice sang faintly on his right. No itiji could hear a message like that without passing it on.

Whether they would actually come to his aid was, under the circumstances, a different matter. You could, after all, appease your conscience by noting that Nama-Nanat was really trying to increase his city’s iron supply and weaken its major enemy.

Vigdal wasn’t completely certain he would have responded to the call himself. Under the circumstances.

The itiji who were sending reports couldn’t follow the battle in the trees in any detail but what did you need to know? Nama-Nanat’s Double Eight had taken casualties during the initial attack and the enemy had counterattacked with a force that outnumbered the Warriors he had left. The outcome was as predictable as the path of a well-aimed dart.

Vigdal’s warfriends couldn’t talk with their mouths full but they all grunted when the freed slaves voiced the obvious. Tails beat on the ground. “The Imetens are outnumbered. How long can they hold? The Drovils will be on us and we’ll all be whipped back to the road.”

“Cut us free. Leave the iron. Does all this dirt mean more than us?”

“The Warriors of Imeten are the best fighters on the Great River,” Vigdal said. “Half the Drovil army comes from weak cities the Drovils have conquered. Save your breath. Pull. Don’t make me stop to talk.”

The noise from the battle faded. The observers became their only source of information. Then their ears picked up the faint hint of battle shrieks. Nama-Nanat was fighting for every branch, but the battle was creeping steadily closer.

Vigdal had already decided they would abandon the load when the situation became hopeless. But what if he waited too long? And the Drovils overwhelmed them before they could free the itiji who were still yoked to the sleds?

Four itiji had trotted out of the trees and grabbed holds. The gadabouts prowling around the flanks of their little caravan could have filled a marriage feast huntband, judging by the voices he could distinguish.

A voice from somewhere ahead of them snagged Vigdal’s attention. “Help is coming. Two Eights of Warriors were patrolling near you. They’re on their way. Huntbands have been asked to help. Itiji are leaving the camps near Imeten. Your friends and kin have heard your call.”

Vigdal pointed his face at the treetops. The rhythms of one of the oldest itiji hunting songs rolled across his tongue. “Hear the words of your huntfriends. You are not alone. You are never alone.”

“But how many are near here, Vigdal? And how many more are the Drovils sending?”

* * *

A voice yelled a warning. Vigdal turned his head and realized one of the small sleds had stopped moving. The captive who had been pulling it was staring at the air with his mouth hanging open.

Vigdal broke into a run. His eyes searched the trees. “Get down. Cower. Make yourself small.”

The captives attached to the pole flattened themselves against the ground and made a determined attempt to huddle under their packs. The itiji who were bound to the other sleds contorted themselves into the tightest balls they could achieve.

“Stop hauling,” Vigdal yelled. “Cover the captives with your armor. Unarmored take cover.”

Dark bodies sped across the ground. Armored itiji threw themselves on the unprotected captives. Vigdal stopped in front of the sled puller who had already been hit and tried to look reassuring.

“We’ll get you out of here. We won’t leave you behind.”

The tree people used darts tipped with a lethal poison when they fought each other but they usually attacked itiji with a poison that induced temporary paralysis. Dead itiji made poor slaves.

Vigdal’s teeth dug into the hide bonds tied to the cross bar. The dartblower in the trees seemed to be intelligent. He could have hit them with more darts but why bother? He had already forced a halt.

The hide was tough and thick and it was hard to gain a good purchase. Every itiji knew the tree people took some of their hides from the bodies of dead slaves.

The captive’s rigid form dropped away from the bar. Vigdal gripped a loose strap and dragged him across the ground without worrying about scratches and bruises. Two armored itiji answered his call and they managed to coordinate their drags and pushes and wrestle him onto the top of his load.

“I’ll haul the sled,” Vigdal said. “Give everybody the best protection you can. Try to do some work while you’re at it.”

The captives who had been attached to the pole had been gnawed free. Two of them crowded close to Vigdal so they could get some extra protection from the bulk of his sled. He pushed onward with his jaws and back muscles straining against the load and sheltered them with his armor when he felt he could honorably stop for a break.

“Do you understand the situation in Imeten?” Vigdal said.

“We will be free if we get there. The Warriors will help us defend ourselves.”

“I want you to go on ahead of us. Carrying your loads. Just head straight south. Your pouches will give you some protection from darts.”

“We could move faster if we emptied them.”

“We can use the iron. The Warriors have their own mine but every extra load helps. Get your load to Imeten if you can. Show the Warriors they can depend on us.”

“Are they capable of gratitude?”

“They know a useful relationship when they see it. They are fighting with us now because they believe their Goddess has commanded it. We should give them more practical reasons.”

“And what will you do, helpfriend?”

“I and my warfriends will pull the loads. With the help of any unarmored volunteers who wish to join us.”

The taste of twisted hide dominated Vigdal’s senses. Was this what the captives endured day after day?

And they had no hope it could end.

The itiji lurking on the fringes had worked out a way to help. Two or three lurkers would run out of the trees and grab holds. The stalking dartblower would harry them with well-aimed shots, a dart would penetrate an unarmored muscle, rescuers would drag the victim to safety, and another volunteer would take up the burden.

There was nothing they could do to fight back. They had to slink along the ground, tormented by the helpless rage of hunters who were being hunted.

Voices sang on all sides. Reinforcements were hurrying to the aid of the Drovils. The two Imeten Eights were drawing closer.

“Nama-Nanat has fallen from the trees. His Eights have been broken. His Warriors fight isolated and alone.”

Images raced through Vigdal’s mind. The Drovils could contain the remnant of Nama-Nanat’s Warriors with a portion of their force. The rest would press the pursuit and overtake the sleds....

He yanked his mouth from the strap and threw back his head. “Stop advancing! Pull the sleds together! Form a triangle with the big sled.”

Voices shrieked above them while they were still pulling the sleds into place. “That’s good enough,” Vigdal yelled. “Get inside. Make yourself small.”

The itiji huddled inside the impromptu fort. There were big gaps at the corners but that didn’t matter. Their armor would protect them from attacks from above and the sleds would hamper missile attacks from the sides.

“They’ll have to come get us,” Vigdal said. “In our element. One on one.”

“There are more of them coming. Have you considered that?”

“They’ve got help coming from their nearest camp.”

“And our help is further away.”

A voice screamed above them. “Your guardians have been scattered, itiji. You are now defenseless. The Warriors who were protecting you have all been killed or shattered.”

Vigdal’s companions stirred under their armor. In a moment every voice in the warband would probably be shouting a reply.

“Let me talk to him,” Vigdal said. “Please.”

“What are you going to do? Bargain?”

Vigdal’s tail thrashed. He pressed himself against the ground as if he was making a stalk and let his fatigue and anxiety color his voice.

“We still have teeth and claws, fruit eater. We can still give ourselves a good meal when creatures like your fat king waddle our way.”

It wasn’t the best insult he had ever phrased but it touched the same sore spot that had inflamed Nama-Nanat and Jila-Jen. And it insulted their king in an area in which he was conspicuously vulnerable. It had been a long time since anyone had seen Lidris of Drovil leap between a pair of branches.

Voices screamed. Something heavy crashed into a warfriend’s armor. The warfriend jumped and an iron hammer slipped off his back.

The leader in the trees shrieked a threat at the subordinate who had lost control. The hammer thrower would be facing a painful future, apparently, if he didn’t recover his weapon before he returned to his base.

“I’m all right,” the warfriend who had been hit with the hammer murmured. “My back hurts. But I can still fight.”

There was a song celebrating the haunches of the velagar—the fat, tusked creature that lived on roots and fallen fruits and formed one of the staples of the itiji diet. It popped into Vigdal’s head and he realized he could translate it into the language of the Drovils without doing too much damage to the match between the words and the music. And substitute King Lidris for the velagar.

“Listen to me. Join in. Sound tired.”

“Don’t you think we are?”

He kept it to a single stanza. The band joined in on the repeat and he let his tail thrash in time with the music. Eyes glistened. They might be fatigued but they weren’t daunted.

He had tried to look at the situation from the viewpoint of the tree people when he had arranged their impromptu barricades. There were no heavy branches directly overhead. The major weakness in their position would be two bottom branches that were located an easy jump from the sleds.

Every warband had one or two clowns. Theirs was a good-natured dance leader named Laga Duvo Ludac who had developed a perfect imitation of an over-excited tree dweller. On the third repetition, Ludac counterpointed the song with a good imitation of a tree dweller chattering like a frightened prey animal. Three voices shifted the rhythm to an over-emphasized rise and fall, in one of those moments of collective inspiration that characterized good songfests, and they all took up the new variation.

Fat, fat haunches. Glorious haunches. Thank all the gods for fat King Lidris.

Eight bodies landed on one of the bottom branches. Four lined up on the other branch. Their leader shrieked an order and they leaped onto the sleds and hurled themselves on the warband.

It was the kind of fracas Vigdal had been trying to provoke, but that didn’t make it any easier. They were crowded into a space that was so small the itiji were just as hampered as their awkward adversaries. The Drovil who swung his upraised hammer at Vigdal’s skull had to balance himself with his other hand, but Vigdal couldn’t dodge the blow by moving right or left. He pushed himself forward, into the arc of the falling arm, and realized the Drovil was holding a thick iron knife in the fist that was resting on the ground.

A paw raked the knife hand. The warfriend on his right had seen he was in danger and reacted. Vigdal reared up and slashed at his adversary’s face with both front paws. He turned his head and closed his jaws around the arm that held the hammer.

His teeth dug into the Drovil’s padded armor. It was made out of a tough, woody material he knew he couldn’t bite through. But now that he had the arm immobilized, he could jerk his head and bite into the exposed flesh near the Drovil’s wrist. Bone crunched. Blood flowed. He pulled back his mouth as soon as he was certain the arm had been crippled and turned to his left in response to the snatches of information he was picking up.

“Killed one.”

“Blinded with my claws.”

“Stabbed by a sword.”

“My rear left paw is crushed.”

“On my right. Help me.”

He added his own voice to the clamor as he threw his weight on another sword wielder. “Kill them or maim them. They must not follow us. Let no one escape your fury!”

Bodies sprawled across the ground in strange positions. Wounded enemies moaned in pain or stared at them with angry eyes. Three of the enemy wounded had stumbled away from the sleds and Vigdal had assessed their wounds and let them go.

Two itiji were dead, two wounded. One of the wounded had a rear paw broken by a hammer. The other one was lying on his side staring at a mangled tear in his stomach.

Vigdal stepped around three dead Drovils and took his place behind the bar of the sled he had been hauling.

“We need to start moving. We’ve gained some time but it won’t do us any good if we don’t start now.”

Exhausted faces stared at him.

“You want us to keep hauling? After this?”

“We’ll be lucky if we manage to save ourselves.”

“We’ve hurt them. They won’t forget this.”

Vigdal fought back the urge to lie down. How could he offer them words after the shock and strain they had just endured?

They weren’t fighting just to kill their enemies. They were creating an alliance—a bond with the Imetens. Their battles were a means, not an end.

“We have something our friends and kin need,” Vigdal said. “We can still save it. Help is on the way. We should try to save it if we can.”

He tipped back his head. His voice sang across the forest.

“Tell them in Imeten. Tell all who can hear. We have defeated the Drovils. More are coming but they are well behind. We are pulling our loads and our wounded. We are dragging the iron to our mindkin. Come to us as we come to you. Come to us before they catch us again.”

A voice rose in the trees ahead of them. Another voice took up the call on their right.

Ludac was lying against a sled. He raised his head and Vigdal realized he was looking at the self Ludac covered with his clowning.

“You have committed us, Vigdal. You have committed us without our consent.”

“We have to try,” Vigdal said. “We can abandon the loads if they overtake us.”

Words flew at him from all sides.

“And try to run when we’re tired?”

“We’ve fought. We’ve killed. We’ve freed slaves.”

“You spoke for the band. Without our consent.”

“It’s just a few extra loads of iron.”

Ludac stood up. He stalked toward the big sled and Vigdal waited for him to say something funny.

“The message has been sent,” Ludac said. “Our friends and kin have heard our promise.”

“It was the only thing we could do,” Jila-Jen said. “There were too many guards.”

“And the captives were already dying....” Vigdal said.

A noisy stream crashed over a rocky incline a short leap from Vigdal’s forepaws. They were meeting alone, in the most isolated place Vigdal could select. Every itiji in Imeten knew they were talking but Jila-Jen’s scouts had assured him there were no ears within three hundred paces.

“We couldn’t have rescued them even if we’d reached the net,” Jila-Jen said. “The Drovils would have slaughtered us before we got a rope tied to the net.”

“You didn’t even try to reach the net. You gave up before you’d blown a single dart at the guards.”

“They had guards everywhere we looked. We could see they’d be swarming all over us as soon as they realized we’d worked our way through them.”

“The captives hadn’t asked to die, Jila-Jen. You could have left them alone.”

“They were suffering. They were threatened with mutilation. You would have done the same thing.”

Jila-Jen had been crouching with his head lowered—as if he had been talking to one of his superiors. He was keeping himself under control but Vigdal could hear the shriek he was holding in his throat.

“We knew the guards would be all over us as soon as we blew the first dart,” Jila-Jen said. “We would have been killed before we got near the nets. And your friends would still be hanging there.”

Vigdal stared at the ground between his paws. He had planned every word he would say before he had arranged this meeting. I will say this, he had thought. And he will say that. But it never worked out the way you thought it would.

Had Jila-Jen known three Warriors couldn’t free the captives when he had made his offer? Had he planned it this way from the start?

Isn’t that what happens when you obey feelings instead of laws? Doesn’t it mean you can do anything you feel like doing?

“You felt it was the right thing,” Vigdal said. “You responded to their suffering.”

“I did what you would have done. If you could have done it. If you could have approached as close as we did. And used our dartblowers as well as we can.”

Vigdal’s tail twitched. He raised his head and pounced.

“Don’t you think we could have? Don’t you think we could have worked a crossbow duo close enough to kill them if we wanted to? You told me you could free them. You told me three skilled Warriors could slip through the guards and free them.”

“They’re free. They got the only freedom anyone could give them. They’re free and you owe me six shares.”

“I said three if you tried. And six if you succeeded. Am I supposed to tell my wife I gave up my shares so you could kill our friends? And call it success?”

Vigdal had tensed into a fighting crouch. Jila-Jen had his sword but he was armed, too. Itiji were always armed. Wherever he went, he had teeth in his mouth. And claws at the end of his legs.

And the ground was his element....

He raised his right paw. He settled back into a sitting position. He let himself indulge in the little bark another itiji would have interpreted as a wry laugh.

“You’ll get your six shares. I’ve discussed it with my wife and the Five. We feel we have done more than our share. We have doubts about the way you acted. But we are building a band with your people. You do not build a band by quibbling over the sharing of the kill.”

“And when will I get it?”

“You think I don’t have to keep my promises, don’t you? You think I can do anything I want because I don’t believe in the gods?”

“We aren’t discussing philosophy, Vigdal. I led two young Warriors into danger. Do you know what it took to get that close? Nama-Nanat and twelve of his Double Eight died so you and your friends could escape.”

Vigdal’s teeth clamped on the retort that quivered in his throat. He had lost three warfriends out of the eight who had walked out with his band. Four children were going to stumble into adulthood without a father to guide them.

And what did Nama-Nanat’s sacrifice have to do with you, Jila-Jen? You were skulking into dartblower range while Nama-Nanat and his Warriors were fighting to the death.

He jerked his head. “If you go five hundred paces that way you’ll find the sled I pulled here. With six bags beside it. I think you’ll find every bag will hold a full share.”

Jila-Jen stared at him. Vigdal couldn’t read all the emotions crossing his face, but he could understand the confusion behind the parade.

“Then why are we having this conference?”

“I wanted to hear what you had to say,” Vigdal said. “Every itiji in Imeten knows what you did. Every itiji you encounter will know what you did. And what you have said.”

He straightened up and tried to capture some of the authority of the elders and harmonizers he had been watching since he had been a child. “They will come to their own conclusions. But it will never be forgotten. They will all think about it when they work with you.”

“And they will all decide I should have died like a good itiji would.”

“Some will. Some think you did the right thing and should share what we agreed. Some think you did the right thing and shouldn’t share. Some think you never planned to free the prisoners.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think the Five Masters are right. We should pay you and tell the story.”

“You don’t have any thoughts of your own?”

“I think you have decided you can do anything you want to. And I should remember that when we work together.”

“And I should think you are different?”

“I’m an itiji, Jila-Jen. Itiji have each other.”

He nodded at the location of the sled. “Take your share. We made a bargain. And we will keep it.”

Jila-Jen’s face swelled. He reached for his sword and Vigdal fought back the urge to strike before the blade could leap from its hooks.

Jila-Jen turned away. He grabbed the rope he had used to descend from the trees and ascended into the leaves hand over hand. He paused on the lowest branch, secure in his element, and looked down on the creature who lived in the world below.

“I’ll fill the bags till they’re ready to burst. And while I’m doing it, consider this, itiji—if you don’t believe in the gods, why should we believe the Goddess wants you to be our equals?”

Vigdal watched him as he leaped to the next tree and fell into the rhythmic grace that could carry him to places where no itiji could follow.

This wasn’t the first time he had been confronted with that question. The Five had pondered it, too.

The Imetens needed them. They couldn’t defend themselves against Lidris without the itiji. Eventually they would see that.

The itiji’s efforts might not be enough. Lidris might prevail no matter what they did. They would just have to do their best. And hope they got a little help from luck.

Or the gods.

Copyright © 2010 Tom Purdom