It was one thing to choose a course of action and quite another to implement it. We had two drooves and one weapon, a stirka. The Creet party left an easy trail to follow, but we had to be cautious. Though I was sure they had no idea we were in pursuit, we couldn’t allow ourselves to succumb to overeagerness and stumble into their camp through inattentiveness.
Therefore, we kept a safe distance between us—and it was getting us nowhere. After the second day, Lillatta appeared no closer to rescue, and was instead nearer to a grim date with unimaginable misery. Our plan had to change, though the truth was we never had one to begin with. Even so, my brain at last began to function and a seed of an idea began to germinate.
Izzy volunteered. She would do our dangerous reconnaissance work, creeping up to the Spood encampment nightly, and then reporting back what she learned. The Creet (or Creetans, as Izzy liked to call them) always set up camp just before Ra-ta descended into his bed, and it was then they allowed the prisoners to eat. Izzy realized, to her surprise, that the captives had no bindings. Careful observation showed that the Creet had failed to bring along the necessary rope, a foul-up by someone, no doubt.
She also discovered that the camp guards always deployed in force around the entire site perimeter, and that would make it difficult to sneak in or out without detection. Yet the most intriguing piece of information to me was that even though the Creet had all changed out of their robes, the captives still wore their desert apparel. If I could find a way to sneak into their camp wearing the robe we had found in the droove pack, I could insinuate myself among the prisoners. Then, I could liberate a rik-ta or two, find Lillatta, and manufacture an escape plan.
“Are you crazy?” That’s how Izzy responded to my admittedly sketchy plan.
“You want to walk right in without any idea how to get out again? It’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
“Well, don’t hold back your feelings,” I said, amused by Izzy’s strong reaction, as she rarely gets worked up over anything. “But if you have one, I’d love to hear an alternative . . . one that gets rid of the stupid part, of course.”
“We need to get more weapons, first,” Izzy proposed. “I would feel more comfortable if you had a knife hidden on you when you went inside. That way you could at least defend yourself if discovered.”
“As long as my hands are untied I can defend myself. And even then, I still have my feet.”
Izzy showed her skepticism.
“Look, I know what you are saying,” I granted. “And I admit there is danger. But I have to do this, and I want to know if I have your support.”
“You have mine,” Brilna piped up. She had been sitting nearby, listening to us debate.
“And mine,” Izzy affirmed. “Though we certainly have to make some adjustments to your foolhardy plan.”
In the end, the plan we came up with wasn’t any better than my original one. We decided Izzy would create a diversion, enough to distract the guards and allow me to sneak into their camp, where I would then plant myself down among the captives. From there, I would seek out Lillatta, and after that—well, that’s as far as the plan went.
Kaynar favored us, for the next night he rolled his forces in to do battle with Ra-ta. The sun god raged as he fought to regain the heavens. His tears fell in torrents as his voice rumbled and his rays split the sky. It always puzzled me why Ra-ta would not just let Kaynar control the night sky since Ra-ta normally slept during that time anyway. It is hard to fathom the mind of a god.
The Creet encampment lay scattered among the massive trees of a loose stand of kakkata that grew in the middle of a broader kanser forest. Guarded by a lax perimeter of soldiers, the prisoners lay bunched together beneath a few closely linked trees, with the large, overlapping leaves providing a decent storm cover. There were no campfires and the soldiers not assigned guard duty had turned in, as there was nothing to do but sleep on a miserable night like this. They dozed beneath the sheltering trees of another stand of kakkata not far from the captives, with their picketed drooves clustered nearby.
Izzy and I had left Brilna to watch over the drooves while the two of us used the cover of night and the storm to creep within sight of the encampment. The guards looked unhappy, stuck out in this downpour, and they were no doubt praying for the storm to pass swiftly. Each had covered his head with a kakkata leaf and seemed more concerned with staying dry than keeping a lookout.
My rain-soaked robe felt heavy as I moved toward a small gap we had discovered in the Creet defenses. The nearest guard had his back to this opening. All we had to do was distract him, bring him farther out, and I could slip right into the compound.
The huge kakkata leaves were a blessing, for the rain striking them made a sizable racket, a constant drumming that drowned out my own slight rustlings. Lightning flashes consistently lit the heavens. I used the brief glow from each to get my bearings and to move in closer. Soon, Izzy would light a torch and begin the diversion, using a long-stemmed geffsan plant for that purpose. We had found a dry patch of this remarkable weed earlier and knew with its high oil content that its flowered tip would burn even in this rainstorm.
We hoped a point of light appearing in the kanser forest would attract the guards' attention, causing them to investigate. Izzy would walk the woods, keeping a reasonable distance from the encampment. When discovered, she would keep her torch lit only until the guards came out, and then extinguish it to avoid them tracking her. With the guards distracted by the light, I would slip in among the prisoners.
I glanced behind me, over to my left, and saw a flickering light moving slowly through the foliage. The guard did not notice, for he had his head down, protecting his face from the pelting rain.
Look up! I only thought the words, but it was as if I had spoken them, for the Creet’s head elevated. He leaned forward and his body stiffened as he peered into the forest and spotted the wavering flare.
Another guard hurried over to join the first. They discussed the situation. I worried that they would wake the company, rendering our plan unworkable, but they didn’t appear inclined to make that move. The guards decided to take a few tentative steps out toward the glowing object, and their curiosity drew them even farther from their posts. I slipped into camp, located the nearest group of sleeping captives, and then deposited myself, unnoticed, among them.
As I lay next to a lump that emitted sonorous snores, more flashes lit the sky. The guards had returned and no alarm sounded. They must have concluded the forest light was a natural phenomenon and not worthy of disturbing their superiors. Izzy had done her job well. The hard part now would be blending in without attracting notice, and somehow finding Lillatta among this identically garbed group.
The man-lump next to me shifted position, and then he went back to sleep. My soaked skin made me glad for the shelter of the leaves. I hoped my clothes would dry by morning, for I would draw suspicion if mine were the only wet garments. I had intended to use the cover of darkness to skulk about in search of Lillatta, and then try to sneak out before daybreak, but soon realized the absence of light made it impossible. The lightning was too sporadic and I would wind up stumbling over someone and attracting unwanted attention. So, instead, I spent the night in fitful sleep. I awakened in the darkness a couple of hours before dawn, knowing the light of day would bring exposure and the greatest risk to this plan-that-was-no-plan. I wanted to be ready.
I passed the time examining my surroundings, assisted by the paltry illumination of the lightning. I soon determined that this large caravan of prisoners contained not only Sakitan captives, but also members of other tribes. In a group this size, it might be more difficult to find Lillatta than I had initially thought. To add to the difficulty, I had to worry about the chance my fellow tribesmen might suddenly notice my unwelcome presence among them.
A slight movement caught my eye. A boy about my age or perhaps a year older was watching me. He sat with
a group of captives huddled one tree away, and he was the only one awake. His hood was down, allowing a clear view of his dark-skinned face, and by the lightning flashes, I discovered he was edging closer to me.
He plopped himself down in front of me and offered a quick smile.
“I am Javen,” he said, as a rumbling of thunder shook the sky. It was quite an effect, causing him to chuckle.
“That’s what always happens when I say my name,” he boasted.
“I am Sanyel,” I countered, “and saying it has no effect whatsoever.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I am sure the name has elements that make it quite compelling. Let me sound it out. San . . . yel. Yes, there is a definite magic there. I am certain I detect a hint of several impressive ingredients. Let’s see. Beauty? No question. Charm? Certainly. Intellect? Undoubtedly. And, of course there’s—uh, let me see—did I already say beauty?”
I laughed. This boy was amusing—and not hard to look at either. He was tall and had wavy dark locks that did not quite reach his shoulders, shoulders that appeared broad and muscular even beneath his desert robe. His eyes were deep and gentle. At least that was my impression in the sporadic light available to judge such things.
A well-balanced, slightly flared nose sat in regal splendor above the boy's firm chin. His ears I couldn’t see, as they remained hidden beneath his flowing mane. He had a somewhat dark complexion, a high, smooth brow, and a full mouth with lips that for some inexplicable reason had me curious as to their softness. I noticed his hands sported long fingers and that one of those was now pointing up into the trees.
“Of course you have been wondering why we, the treasured guests of the mighty Spood, have not shimmied our way up these magnificent mazes and lost ourselves in their luscious foliage, thus escaping our less-than-hospitable hosts,” Javen stated in one breath.
I had been wondering no such thing, but it was something to ponder, nonetheless. The Spood would not be able to spot someone if that person were high enough in that tangled, thick greenery, so why hadn’t at least some of the captives attempted escaping that way?
Javen’s expression had turned hard and the reason was chilling.
“Some of us did escape,” he was saying. “It was a while back in a similar forest. However, the Creet soldiers knew our number. When those few turned up missing, they counted out that same number from those of us remaining.”
Javen paused and his fists clenched. His face screwed up in anger.
“They executed them. I almost met that fate, but they took the man next to me, instead. I’m lucky to be alive. We no longer try escaping, for we know innocent tribal members will suffer if we do.”
The dim light of approaching dawn was spreading through the trees, and we noticed the rain had stopped. Javen glanced at the brightening sky. His expression changed. He looked to me with anxious eyes.
“You must hide before they begin counting!” he said. “When I saw you come into camp in the middle of the night, I knew you were not one of us. If the count is wrong, who knows what will happen. They may think they miscounted, but you cannot rely on that. If they feel someone has infiltrated their group, it could go badly for many of us. So please, Sanyel, will you climb this tree until they finish the count?”
I agreed, not only because it made sense, but also because my clothes were still damp and I might stand out otherwise. None had awakened in our vicinity all night and still they slept, so I began my climb unseen. Scaling a kakkata tree in a full robe is not easy, but I managed to ascend a safe distance. The Creet were soon rousing all from sleep, lining them up and beginning the count. I could see nothing. I heard a soldier’s voice sounding out a rhythmic cadence. In a short time, they finished.
Noises of a convoy readying to depart reached my ears. Javen did not forget me, for he whistled from below and I gingerly started down the tree. The boy signaled for me to hurry. I jumped from the lowest limb and Javen escorted me to a droove, careful to keep between the Creet guards and me. I left my hood up, not wanting my fellow Sakitans to get a good look at me. As for the Spood, I was confident this group knew nothing of my exploits, as it had only recently arrived from the desert; these soldiers would not know their people desired my capture.
Once mounted on the droove, Javen hopped up behind me. No one paid us any attention. The soldiers moved to the front and back of the column, allowing the two of us to talk freely. Our droove felt the tug of the reins and the caravan rolled forward.
“So, from where—and why, I might add—does this fair-haired beauty come to brighten up our dismal days?” Javen asked.
“I come from beyond the mountains. My tribe is the Sakita. That’s—”
“Sakita!” Javen exclaimed. “How remarkable! Many in this caravan are Sakitans—but I suspect you already know that. Therefore, that brings up an interesting question. Why are you here, Sanyel? Why would you willingly follow your people into slavery when you could have remained free?”
“I don’t plan to stay long.”
Javen laughed.
“None of us plan to stay, although the Spood seem intent on persuading us we have no other option.” Javen laughed again and said, “I suppose I should inform you that I am Raab. Now, don’t be alarmed. Even if my bitter enemy, I have no desire to kill you.”
“How noble and gracious of you.”
“Yes, I am very charitable. Of course, by being so, I deny myself the opportunity to establish my reputation as a warrior. Killing you would certainly encourage my people to sing songs of my prowess. The stories told of my cunning and bravery would be magnificent! Do you think I am making the right choice in letting you live?”
“I agree with the choice completely. You would have to use your delicate hands to kill me, and I wouldn’t want you to injure them on a throat as tough as mine.”
“You are so right,” Javen agreed. “My hands are indeed delicate. I could demonstrate how much so if you wish?”
“That will not be necessary. Your Raab word is all I require, for straight and true I’m sure it is, as your spear to a spartok’s heart.”
“Oh, how clearly you see me! If only all could discern my outstanding qualities with your clarity. I can assume, then, that you are also aware of my charm, intelligence, and good looks, as nothing seems to escape you.”
“I am aware of but one of the three,” I teased. “The other two have indeed escaped me.”
“Ah, but which one? Could it be my charm?”
“It could be, but then you speak and I am forced to reconsider.”
“Then it must be my intelligence.”
“If a starfen had half its current brain, then yes, I’d say yours would be comparable.”
“I have it now. It is my good looks.”
“Have you not seen yourself lately? If you wish to find a reflection of your true appearance, look to a porse’s rear end.”
“But you said I possessed one of the three qualities I mentioned.”
“I lied.”
Our pleasant bantering ended due to a commotion a short distance ahead. We had exited the forest and were crossing over some low hills. A droove had stumbled, spilling its human cargo onto the ground. The caravan halted as Creet soldiers squared the situation away. One of the spilled passengers attracted my notice.
My heart jumped. I had found her—Lillatta.
Javen sensed me tensing and asked what was wrong.
“The reason I am here,” I told him, “is that I came to rescue her.”
He glanced up the line to where I had pointed.
“The girl with the reddish hair? Who is she?”
“She is Lillatta, my best friend. We have known each other since childhood.”
Finding Lillatta brought thoughts of my homeland, some pleasant and others not. In addition, it brought something else as well, a compelling desire to know what catastrophe had occurred there.
??
?How did this happen?” I asked Javen. “Why are the Raab and Sakita captives of the Spood? How did they find you?”
Javen’s silence caused me to turn back to him, and I saw him shrug.
“I really don’t know how they found us. All I know is that one day these soldiers arrived. They never spoke a word. They just started killing. We didn’t stand a chance. There were just too many of them, although they paid with many lives before they overwhelmed us. As far as the Sakita go, I know nothing about that. You’ll have to ask your friend.”
“So, how did you wind up in this group?”
“The Creet divided the Raab survivors into several groups after taking our campsite. They brought my party to a holding area that held a similar contingent of Sakitan prisoners. There, we were divided by random selection into smaller groups and assigned to caravans. They told us we were now slaves bound for Grell, which I believe is the homeland of the Spood. Along the way, we picked up more captives from other tribes. The Spood told us the Raab not sent to Grell would remain in our homeland and would be used to ‘plant and tend crops,’ whatever that means.”
I confessed ignorance to the meaning as well, and then told Javen about the Spood building sperzas and about the rapidly increasing Creet forces. It astounded him to learn the Spood were so widespread and were expanding their reach with such boldness. I told him about Izzy and Brilna following somewhere behind us, and that perked him up.
“Do they have men with them to help rescue you and your people?”
“No, I think I’ll have to rescue myself. If I could just get my hands on a rik-ta or a spear.”
Javen laughed. “And what would you do with those? Find a man to put them to use? Or are you expecting me to get you out of this mess?”
“Give perfectly good weapons to you? You must think me an idiot. How would you know which end to hold?”
I glanced back and Javen was grinning. He must have thought I was joking. I wasn’t. If I came across weapons, they were mine.
As the column moved forward again, I glanced up ahead so as not to lose track of Lillatta’s mount. She saw me—at least I thought she did. She was on top of the droove and had turned her body to look directly at me.
I don’t know if she recognized me, for she turned back to face the front and did not look my way again. When we stopped tonight, I would find my way to her and we would talk—and the wall between us would crumble. At least that is what I hoped would occur.
The sun blazed as it rolled in a slow uphill climb and the air was sticky after the night rain. Insects buzzed and bit. Soon Ra-ta would peak and I imagined we would stop to rest and feed. Then, I detected something in the wind. The breeze brought an odor, a salty tang I had not smelled before. The forward drooves in the column crested a steep rise and there was a stir among the Creet. Whoops and shouts reached back to me.
They were whoops of joy. The Creet had arrived home. As my droove topped the rise, my breath drew in sharply. Intoxicating sights lay before me. Living liquid stirred with restless energy in a vast bowl dominating my view. Water. Endless blue water topped by exploding light that felt as raw to the eye as a dared peek at Ra-ta’s face. Water that rolled and crashed and gleamed, veined with rippling ribbons and streaks of white. And on the far horizon, blue was meeting blue, dark and pale, sea and sky, and melding into a haze at the edge of the world.
Below me, the hills sloped in a gradual decline before leveling off to form plains that appeared unnatural. A series of patches, squares and rectangles cut to order, had replaced what once was open grassland. Some had tall plants, sprouting in even rows, as if marching in a Creet column. Others had shoots that barely broke the soil, yet they too stood in ordered rows. It appeared workers tended these squares and I wondered what purpose these patches served.
Yet the sight that rivaled my first glimpse of the ocean was the fortress. Was this the Spood city Brilna mentioned? If so, it was massive. Grell was a walled expanse that bordered the ocean on one side and the tended fields on the other. It was built atop the bluffs that overlooked the sea. The fortress followed the winding bluffs for as far as the eye could view to both east and west. The north wall of the fortress faced the vast fields, which extended to that wall from the base of the hills. The south wall was the last obstacle between the edge of the bluffs and the ocean. We viewed this scene from the highest hill in the area, which allowed a panoramic vision. I learned later that only this hill offered the Spood such a spectacular view of their home, and that they often chose to return home by this route just to experience that view. I had to admit it was a beautiful and impressive vista.
The hills around us were much lower in height compared to the one we occupied, and from those hills east of us a small river rolled down, meandered through the fields, and then passed beneath this titanic fortress, most likely on its way to empty into the ocean. I could see into the fortress from my elevated sight line, and I could tell its width was considerable. As mentioned, its form followed the coastline east and west and just kept on going. I had no idea the length of the city, but it seemed almost infinite. I could see how an entire society, even one as large as the Spood, would be able to exist indefinitely within this enclosure.
As we made our way down the slopes, we met up with and began following a wide dirt road that passed through the fields and led to the fortress. Javen and I had not spoken since cresting the hills, but now he remarked on the scene I also viewed.
“Slaves,” he said, without any discernible emotion. His voice did not betray it, but I knew what he was feeling, what I also felt. Neither of us wanted to end up like these poor wretches with their gray togs and gray moods. Who could endure life in such a dark place, with flesh whipped to bloody strips by the swok until there was no flesh left unmarked. And when death came, who would care or utter a word.
“This will not be my fate,” I said with confidence. “And it won’t be Lillatta’s and maybe not even yours, though that might be wishful thinking.”
“Ah, you wish it not to be my fate?” a brightened Javen said. “My assumption then is that I am at last making an impression?”
“I’m afraid the impression you are making is that you make way too many assumptions.”
As we approached the walls of the fortress, I could see they consisted of what appeared to be stone blocks piled on top of one another in an overlapping pattern, much like I had witnessed at the sperza, except these polished stones were enormous in size and their fit appeared seamless. How could anyone move even one of those blocks, let alone pile them endlessly up into infinite space? I angled a look up the side of the fortress, and unlike from the crest of the hill, I could barely see the parapet that lined the top. A curious thought struck me. Why was there no one up there?
Our path led to an arched tunnel built into the wall of the fortress. Two Creet soldiers guarded this portal and both moved off to the side as the forward drooves approached its black mouth. The tunnel was about three can-raks tall and as wide as ten drooves placed end to end. To allow for a more rapid entry into the fortress, our captors ordered us to abandon our single file formation and line up in columns three across. Just as my droove entered the tunnel gloom, the procession halted, and a horn held by a soldier at the columns’ head blew several sharp notes. A massive wooden gate on the far end of the tunnel began to creak and groan, and a crack of light appeared beneath it as it lifted. I marveled at how anything even had the power to budge such a behemoth.
The gate took forever to rise, so we sat our drooves in silence, listening as swoks cracked and punished out in the fields behind us. As the gate reached the top of its guide, someone snapped an order and we proceeded down the tunnel.
I judged the tunnel length to be about twenty paces. If that were correct, then I surmised twenty paces was also the thickness of the fortress walls. That was startling. It seemed a bit excessive to construct walls to such a width, but then perhap
s the extreme height of the fortress required it. As we passed through the upraised gate into the fortress interior, I noted the gate and its guides did not appear to be a natural part of the tunnel construction. Their addition to the structure seemed but an afterthought, and their quality appeared sorely lacking when compared to the flawless stonework of the portal they adjoined.
Yet a bigger surprise greeted us beyond the gate. Inside was like outside. By that, I mean the interior of Grell had roads, fields, forests, and a river—but no buildings, no city! You would not know you were inside an enclosure if not for the distant wall barely visible to the south. How far the fortress extended east and west I could not tell, as tall, remote forests blocked the view in both directions. Judging from what I had seen while outside the complex, I imagined you would have to travel a considerable distance to find either end wall. One other curious thing was that the visible north wall appeared scorched, as if a fire had once ravaged it.
Back again in single file, we traveled east down a narrow road lined with fields worked by slaves. Crossing a bridge that spanned the river, we came to a sperza. I gleaned, through small talk among the Creet, that this little community of shops and homes was one of many built right inside this larger enclosure of Grell. I also discovered that fortress Grell did indeed have a city, also named Grell, and that it lay still farther east.
I was getting anxious. My plan had not included ever entering this place and becoming trapped within its walls, and yet here I was. Lillatta’s droove was still six beasts ahead of me. She had yet to turn and look my way since our first contact. I was failing in my bid to rescue her, and I surmised there would be more trials ahead before I accomplished that goal.
Our company stopped before a nondescript wooden building. Lining the walls were several of those square holes with thin, ice-like sheets for looking through. The Creet called these holes “sentals” and the clear material “sheek.” Women had been eyeing our approach through these sentals and soon came out of the building with armfuls of gray tunics.
They instructed us to don the garments. To me this was getting uncomfortably close to wading out into too-deep water. I was afraid someone might recognize me at any moment, Sakitan or Spood. My description might have circulated to the far reaches of the soon-to-be Spood Empire by now. I knew Javen was just as keen to escape as I was, and I thought we should band together, for any reliance on help from Izzy and Brilna at this stage would be unrealistic. Would he be receptive?
I did not have a chance to find out.
**
~~FIFTEEN~~