From their privileged viewpoint, they saw beyond the incident among the grove of rajabarals, across the rolling plain where Fish Lake had once enshrined its terrifying statuary, to Oldorando itself.
And all that landscape was dotted with figures. The young kzahhn was preparing at last to descend upon the city that had torn both life and tether from his illustrious grandstallun. He awaited only the sign. Although his force was arrayed in no great military order, but rather disposed itself like so many herds of cattle, not always looking to the front, numbers alone made it formidable. It would roll across ancient Embruddock, and then roll remorselessly on towards the southwest coasts of the continent of Campannlat, to the very cliffs of the eastern Climent Ocean, to cross if possible to Hespagorat, and the rocky ancestral homelands of Pagovin.
Because of this nonhomogeneous disposition of the phagor crusade, it was still possible for travellers—refugees mainly—to move among the various herds and components without molestation, while hurrying in the direction from which the crusade had come. Generally, these fearful parties were led by Madis, sensitive to the air-octaves avoided by the hulking beasts under Hrr-Brahl Yprt’s banner. One such party had the fork-bearded Raynil Layan pushing a timid Madi before him. It passed close by the young kzahhn himself, but the latter, immobile, gave no flicker of interest.
The young kzahhn stood against the eroded flanks of Rukk-Ggrl and communed with those in tether, his father and his great-grandstallun, hearing once more their advice and instruction in his pale harneys. Behind him stood his generals and then his two surviving gillots. He had serviced the gillots rarely but, given favourable fortunes, the time would come again. First must the two future octaves of victory or death be unravelled; if he travelled down the octave of victory, there would be music for mating. He waited without motion, occasionally sliding his milt up the slots of his nostrils under the black fuzz of his muzzle. The sign would come in the heavens, the air-octaves would convulse themselves into a knot, and he and those whom he commanded would surge forward to burn down that ancient damned city, once Hrrm-Bhhrd Ydohk.
Across this ancient battlefield, where man and phagor had encountered each other more frequently than either side knew, Laintal Ay and the Sibornalan scout stood with their swords ready to greet the first phagors to climb the mound. Behind them, the noise of the rajabarals was like thunder. Aoz Roon and the maidservant crouched by one of the boles, supinely awaiting whatever befell. Skitosherill laid down the rigid body of his wife tenderly, tenderly, shielding her face from the blinding double sun now climbing towards zenith. Then he ran to join his two fellows, drawing his sword as he did so.
The uphill climb disrupted the line of phagors, the fitter arriving at the top first. As the leader charged into view, head and shoulders appearing over the slope, Laintal Ay ran forward. In despatching them one by one lay their only hope—he had counted thirty-five or more of the brutes, and refused to reckon the hopeless odds.
Up came the phagor’s throwing arm. It bent back to what to a human was a disconcerting angle, but Laintal Ay dived under the point of the spear, rendering it useless, and stabbed with a straight arm. His elbow took the shock as the blade grated against rib. As yellow blood spurted from the wound, to his mind came the old hunters’ tale that ancipital intestines were situated above their lungs; he had proved its truth when he skinned the phagor to deceive its kaidaw.
The phagor threw back its long boney head, lips peeling back from yellow teeth in a gesture of agony. It fell, and went rolling down the slope, to lie at the bottom in the dispersing mists.
But the other brutes were at the breast of the rise now, closing in. The Sibornalan scout was fighting valiantly, every now and again gasping a curse in his native tongue. With a yell, Laintal Ay flung himself into the fray again.
The world exploded.
The noise was so sharp, so close, that fighting immediately stopped. A second explosion came. Black stones flew overhead, most of them landing somewhere on the far side of the valley. Pandemonium ensued.
Each side was governed by its own instincts: the phagors became immobile, the two humans threw themselves flat on the ground.
Their timing was perfect. Concurrent explosions sounded. The black stones flew everywhere. Several hit phagors, carrying them immediately over the brink, scattering their dying bodies. The rest of the phagors turned tail and ran back into the valley for safety, rolling, slipping, sliding, in their haste to escape. The cowbirds flew screeching across the sky.
Laintal Ay sprawled where he was, hands over his ears, looking upwards in terror. The rajabarals were splitting from the top, cracking and peeling open like exploding casks, their staves falling. In the autumn of Helliconia’s last great year, they had retracted their enormous fruit-bearing branches into the top of their trunks, sealing the crown over with a cap of resin until the vernal equinox. Over the winter centuries, internal heat pumps, drawing up warmth through the root system from rocks far below, had been preparing the way for this mighty explosion.
The tree above Laintal Ay burst with furious noise. He watched the seeds expelled. Some flew upwards, most were shot out on all sides. The force of the ejaculation threw the black projectiles as much as a half mile away. Steam rolled everywhere.
When silence fell, eleven of the trees had exploded. As their blackened casings peeled back from the top, a more slender crown thrust up inside, whitish, topped by green growth.
That green growth was destined to spread until the grove, which had consisted merely of polished columns, became roofed over in brilliant green foliage, shielding the roots from the more savage suns that were to come, in the days when Helliconia moved close to Freyr—too close to be comfortable for man, beast, or vegetation. Whoever lived or died under their shade, the rajabarals had their own form of life to protect.
These rajabarals formed part of the vegetation of the new world, the world that came into existence after Freyr swam into the clouded skies of Helliconia. Together with the new animals, they were set in ceaseless ecological competition with the orders of the old world, when Batalix ruled in isolation. The binary system had created a binary biology.
The seeds, a mottled black in colour, designed to resemble stones, were each as big as a human head. Over the course of the next six hundred thousand days, some would survive to become adult trees.
Laintal Ay kicked one carelessly away, and went over to see to the scout. The latter had been wounded, pierced by a sharp-edged phagor blade. Skitosherill and Laintal Ay helped him back to where Aoz Roon and the maidservant stood. He was in a bad way, bleeding freely. They squatted helplessly by his side as the life drained from his eddre.
Skitosherill began to go into an elaborate religious ritual, whereon Laintal Ay jumped up angrily.
“We must get to Embruddock as soon as possible, don’t you understand? Leave the body here. Leave the woman with your wife. Press on with me and Aoz Roon. Time’s running out.”
Skitosherill gestured to the body. “I owe him this. It will take a while but it must be done according to the faith.”
“The fuggies may return. They don’t get scared easily, and we can hardly hope for another turn of fortune like the last. I am going to press on with Aoz Roon.”
“You’ve done well, barbarian. Go forward, and perhaps we will meet again.”
As Laintal Ay turned to go, he paused and looked back. “I’m sorry about your wife.” Aoz Roon had had the sense to keep hold of two of the yelk when the rajabarals exploded. The other animals had galloped away in fright. “Are you fit to ride?” “Yes, I’m fit. Help me, Laintal Ay. I’ll recover. To learn the language of the phagor kind is to see the world differently. I’ll recover.”