The Elder Gods (The Dreamers 1)

“So that’s the purpose of that berm along this side of the river,” Narasan observed. “It didn’t seem to make any sense when I first saw it, but it does now. Does it keep the water back?”

White-Braid nodded. “We put it there to make it easier for the water to go on down to the sea rather than to wander around in our village. Do not, as Chief Old-Bear warned, remain in the ravine when the warm wind begins to blow, for if you do, you’ll be washed away.”

“That gets right to the point, doesn’t it?” Sorgan said. “I think my cousin had better get word to his men up there. It’s time for them to leave their forts and find some place where their feet won’t get wet.”

“Does this same sort of thing happen all along the coast, Chief White-Braid?” Narasan asked. “I’ve got about twenty thousand soldiers on board ships that are coming up from the south, and we need those soldiers here, not fifty leagues out to sea.”

Longbow had been standing off to one side, listening but not saying anything. “I think we might be overlooking something,” he said finally. “Our enemies live in the barren Wasteland, where there are few streams, so they probably know little or nothing about these spring floods. I’ve spent many years hunting the creatures of the Wasteland, and I’ve seen very few of them in the winter. It’s very difficult to move through the mountains when they’re covered with snow, and even if That-Called-the-Vlagh does send its servants here during the winter, it’s my guess that most of them will freeze to death up in the mountains or drown during the spring flood. That suggests that the Vlagh has no knowledge of these yearly floods, doesn’t it?”

“Well, maybe,” Sorgan agreed. “Where are you going with this, Longbow?”

“Red-Beard’s scouts tell us that the invaders are camped among the snowdrifts right on the banks of the river that runs down through the ravine, and that’s not really a safe place in the springtime. But if the Vlagh doesn’t know about these spring floods, those who serve it wouldn’t know either, would they? Isn’t it quite possible that the spring flood will come as a complete surprise to them? Their march down the ravine might go quite a bit faster than they’d planned, but I don’t think they’ll stop when they reach Lattash. They’ll invade Mother Sea instead, and very few people who live in deserts know how to swim. It might just turn out that we’ll win this war without even raising a hand. The seasons and Mother Sea might just win it for us.”

“We’ll still get paid, though, won’t we?” Hook-Beak demanded in a slightly worried tone of voice.

“I think you’d better take a look at this sculpted model of the ravine Red-Beard and the village potters are putting together, Skell,” Sorgan was telling his cousin as the two of them trudged up the beach to Rabbit’s arrow shop in the drizzling rain. “The time’s going to come before much longer when you’ll have to get your men up out of the ravine in a hurry. If old Chief White-Braid’s anywhere close to being right about these spring floods, you’re going to have something a lot like a tidal wave coming down the ravine without much warning.”

“I think I should have held out for more gold, Sorgan,” Skell said sourly. “This isn’t turning out to be anything at all like I expected. This yearly flood could wipe out half my men.”

Rabbit trailed along behind them as they entered the cave.

“The Beloved’s busy right now,” Eleria told them.

“We won’t need to bother her,” Sorgan replied. “I just want to show my cousin here Red-Beard’s model of the ravine. How’s he doing, by the way?”

“He was talking with Longbow this morning,” Eleria replied. “He said that things are going a lot faster now, and that the potters should finish up by tomorrow. They don’t need so much clay now.”

“Oh?” Sorgan said. “Why not? I thought they’d need even more the farther uphill they go.”

“Red-Beard was complaining about that, too,” she said. “I made a little suggestion, and now they don’t need nearly so much clay.”

“What suggestion was that, baby sister?” Rabbit asked.

“They didn’t really have to pile clay up in those great big heaps. We’ve got all those yellow blocks in that long passage, so I told them to stack the blocks up on the cave floor where they’re building that model of the ravine and then slather clay on top of the blocks to make only the surface. It seems to be working quite well.”

“You’re slopping wet clay all over those gold bricks?” Sorgan almost screamed.

“It’ll wash off after the war’s over, Hook-Big,” Eleria assured him. “It was just sitting there not doing anything, so I thought we might as well put it to work.”

Sorgan spluttered a bit, but then he threw his hands in the air. “I give up,” he said.

“Isn’t he nice, Bunny?” Eleria said with a fond little smile.

Red-Beard was standing near the foot of his sculpted map, carefully inserting spruce twigs into the damp clay that represented the south side of the ravine.

“Is the forest there really that dense, Red-Beard?” Commander Narasan, who was standing nearby, asked.

“Denser,” Red-Beard replied. “It thins out farther on up, but the forest near the bottom of the ravine is so thick that the only way to get through is to follow the game trails.”

“That might give my soldiers a bit of trouble,” Narasan mused. “We aren’t used to fighting wars in thick brush. We like open fields where we can see the enemy.”

Red-Beard shrugged. “If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. If Longbow’s right about how stupid the servants of the Vlagh really are, we probably won’t encounter very many of them near the bottom of the ravine. The spring flood should thin them out for us. We might start seeing a few of them farther on up the ravine, but the trees up there are much farther apart.”

“How are things going, Narasan?” Sorgan asked.

“Better than any of us had anticipated, Sorgan. I think mapmaking just grew up. Red-Beard’s sculpture here makes every map I’ve ever seen look like the scribblings of a child.”

“Can you point out the place where your men were building their fort before the snow came, Skell?” Sorgan asked his cousin.

Skell peered down into the imitation ravine. “It’s right about here, I think,” he replied, pointing at a spot some distance upstream. “The riverbanks are narrow, and that makes things a lot easier. That wasn’t the main reason I picked that spot, though. The walls of the ravine are straight up and down there, and if I butt walls right up against those flat faces, I’ll be able to block off the whole ravine. Nobody’s going to get past me, Sorgan.”