Only one thing troubled him, and that came to a head as Du's faint presence made a smear of light in the far south. His grandmother. He had promised her that he would personally plant her in a warm, sunny place in the south, and it was becoming more and more evident that she was entering the last stages of the hardening disease. She could not possibly make the hard, long journey to the south, or so at least Duwan thought. His grandmother had other ideas. She was not senseless, not yet. She noted the preparations, and she prepared her warmest garments and nothing else. Duwan saw her placing garments into a small, neat pack one day, as he and his father were making their last preparations, and his heart pounded. How could he tell her that she was to be left behind?
"You made me a promise, Grandson," she told him, when she saw the look on his face. "I hold you to it."
Duwan consulted his father about his grandmother's determination to accompany them. Duwan the Elder thought for a moment. "I have been anticipating this, and I think this way. Your mother's mother will soon harden, cease to be mobile, and then her heart will stop and she will be dead. It is true that the remaining time of her life could be spent in comfort here in this house, but when she hardened she would be just as dead as she will be if she perishes in the cold of the barrens or in the land of the fires."
Duwan lowered his head in sadness. He was about to speak when there was a call at the door and his father invited Belran the Leader to enter. The warrior stood stiff and silent for a moment, looking around the workshop to see the newly forged arrow heads, the newly polished swords.
"I had suspected that the younger Duwan would leave us again for the south," Belran said. "Now it appears that our chief elder is also contemplating a journey."
"Old friend," the Elder said, "I was going to postpone that news as long as possible, but now I suppose it is time we talked. Yes, I will go with my son."
"Then count my swords among your number," Belran said, holding his chin high.
Duwan the Elder clasped Belran's right arm with his. "There is no Drinker I would rather have fighting by my side, but if you go who will lead these Drinkers who remain?"
"Many of the young warriors will choose to go," Belran said.
"And leave anarchy behind?" Duwan the Elder asked. "This one is my son, Belran, and he has given his word to those he left behind in the south. I, as you can see, must go, but you must stay. I know that it is much to ask, but both of us cannot throw over our responsibilities to our village. It is not yours to support the word of a son, as it is mine. You must stay, my friend, and, moreover, you must control your young warriors. If we bled off the strength of this village it would cease to function. It would be absorbed by the other villages. Can we be responsible for that?" Belran's chin lifted even higher. "You speak the truth, but it is painful."
"I know," Duwan the Elder said.
"I will stay." Belran turned to Duwan. "I see something in you that was not there when you first left us. I see, I suspect, the quality that makes a Drinker a leader, and perhaps something else. When you begin to train your slaves, remember the lessons of Belran. Neither push them too hard nor allow them to be slack. And remember that you train the mind as well as the arms."
"I will, Leader," Duwan said.
Belran shook, his head. "Two Drinkers to do the work of an army. I feel shame for my people."
"No," Duwan said, "there is no shame. This is their world now, and change is difficult. Change comes usually by outside agencies, and not from within, although that is not as it should be." He clasped Belran's arm. "We will send word. When we have proven that we can free the Drinkers of the Land of Many Brothers, when we have forged an army of them and have begun to retake our lands, we will send word and then perhaps the elders will choose to join us."
"I will wait with great impatience," Belran said. "My heart will be with you, and, some day, my swords."
As it happened, Belran's desire to leave the valley, to accompany the two Duwans to the south, was shared by others, and that, too, presented a problem. On the day that the journey began, when the Duwans and their mates emerged, laden, into the square, they were awaited by what seemed to be every aged member of the village, over Fifty oldsters, and each of them was dressed warmly and carried a pack.
Duwan felt his heart sink. He knew, from talking with his grandmother, what wild hope beat in the hearts of those old, hardening Drinkers, and he quailed at having to tell them that they could not possibly make the trip, that four younger Drinkers could not be expected to tend to the needs of so many feeble old ones. Before he could speak, however, an old Drinker pushed forward. He was a warrior of note, had once been a Leader.
"Duwan the Elder, and Duwan the Son," the old Drinker said, "the mother of Sema, mate of Duwan the Elder, goes to the south to return to the blessed earth in the land of our fathers. We, too, will go." Duwan swallowed and looked at his father, who was silent. "Honored old ones," he said, "someday, the ones who grow old after you will have that right, or so I pray. Now—" He opened his hands and stood mute for a moment.
"We take the responsibility for ourselves," the old one, Dagner, said.
"We will not burden you. We realize that some of us will die in the barrens, some in the land of the fires, that not all of us will reach the lands of the south." He drew himself up. "However, unlike some here in this valley, we will die trying to reclaim our heritage." Duwan whispered to his father, "They are weak, old, and they will all die before we reach the land of the fires."
"Death will find them, wherever they are," Duwan the Elder said. "Give them their hope, son."
It was to become a matter of legend, a subject for the minstrels, how the two Duwans, elder and younger, led the slow, sometimes reeling procession from their native village, how the procession swelled as it passed through the countryside, and grew by multiples as it passed the villages and reached the narrow cleft leading out of the valley, how the first dead did not even make it out of the valley, but fell in the steams to return to the earth without hope, without eternal life.
Duwan led the way out of the valley into the cold winds of the barrens. It was still winter there, but the thinking was that, fat and well fed, cells filled almost to bursting with nutrition and energy, it would be best to face iron cold at the beginning of the trip rather than face it, as Duwan had, in a weakened condition at the end of the trek. That decision was not altered for the old ones, and the cold took its toll, and the dead were left behind, to be buried by the last of the winter's snows.
Duwan's mother, Sema, walked easily, strongly, always near the front of the procession. Her orange eyes seemed, almost, to glow in the dark. Beside her, struggling resolutely along, was Sema the elder, her mother, Duwan's grandmother, bundled into all her clothing, lifting her feet in the deep snow with difficulty, but always, at the end of a march, when they dug down and made a place to sit in the snow, with them.
Jai and Duwan the Elder ranged from the front of the group back to the last straggler, encouraging, shouting, lifting some oldster to his or her feet. Oddly enough, the hardships seemed to put new life back into some of the old ones. By the time Du was a warming influence, and the smokes of the land of the fires could be seen occasionally, low on the southern horizon, Sema the elder was walking as if she were much, much younger, made more agile by having used up stored fat that seemed to accumulate under the hardening hides of the old ones. And some of the elderly warriors were now insisting on spelling Duwan in breaking a trail through deeper snow. It seemed that those who were going to die had died by the time the snow began to melt and they walked on the ash and hard rock and felt for the first time the warming influence of both Du and the land of fires. Duwan stood on a high place and looked back at the caravan. He saw his mother walking tirelessly, his grandmother at her side, walking stiffly but strongly. He saw Jai helping a female far to the rear and he hollered down to her. She waved. He worried that she was using too much of her energy helping the weak ones, but his father had said, "Her heart is great, Duwan."