Other old warriors were showing pongs the proper way to hold a weapon, using the swords taken from the Devourers. Duwan strolled among them, Jai at his side. His mother and grandmother joined them.
"Starving in the midst of plenty," his mother said. "We cannot allow this to continue."
"Look," Jai said, "that one has a wicked thrust." A pong lunged awkwardly at one of the old warriors and the thrust was easily parried.
"We go to the west," Duwan said.
"And these?" his grandmother asked, indicating the pongs.
"They can go with us if they choose."
"Shall we not free the others, the ones in the way stations to the south?" Jai asked.
"So, my warrior mate is now bloodthirsty," Duwan asked.
"Look at them," Jai said. "Look at them. They're free. They're fighting."
"An Enemy sprout could take all of them, one at a time," he said.
"Give them a chance. We can work with them as we move south. As they get stronger, eating and drinking Du, they will learn."
"And how do you feel about our new army, father?" Duwan asked, as he approached Duwan the Elder, who was showing a pong how to counter with the shorts word.
"I have looked, as you suggested, at the feet of many of them," his father said. "They are Drinkers, Duwan."
"It will take someone wiser and more patient and more skilled than I, even more so than Belran, himself, to train them."
"I have done some training myself," his father said.
"So be it," Duwan said, with misgivings.
At the next settlement ten more of the enemy died, two of them killed by pongs. Six of the pongs lay on the earth when the swift fight was over, however. More pongs replaced them from the pens, and the straggling, noisy, chomping, belching ragtag army moved southward to clear the forests of the new Devourer settlements. Duwan talked to his growing following nightly. He warned them to forage carefully, to spread out when they were eating, to take sparsely of the life organs of all fixed brothers, lest they take sacred life and, more immediately important to them, leave a trail that a Devourer army could follow.
He now found himself in familiar territory. The wide, deep canyon where he had wintered with Jai was not far ahead. They were in a climate zone, he knew, where the length of summer equaled that of winter, and the summer rays of Du were strong. With Devourer expansion to the north, it was important that he find a safe place for his grandmother to return to the earth, for the old female was failing rapidly now, and she spent all her time on the march looking for a suitable place for her return to the earth. Others among the oldsters were in the same situation, near the final, total hardening, and they, having seen the miracle of rebirth as a fixed brother, longed for the rest, the peace, the eternal satisfaction. Duwan still had his doubts about the growing army of pongs, so he left them in the care of his father and Dagner, who now had no intention of returning to the earth until his blades had tasted much more Enemy blood, and Duwan led Jai and a group of twenty-one hardening oldsters toward the hidden canyon, being careful to cover his trail so that not even one of the supposedly loyal pongs could follow.
The canyon was in its peak of new green. The stream that had carved it and then diminished to a bright, sparkling, lively run over colorful stones was sweet. There was evidence, in the health of the green, growing things, that the canyon received plenty of sun, plenty of rain. Nowhere had Duwan seen such impressively tall brothers, boles as thick through as he was long, and healthy, and giving shade, and whispering, whispering.
"Yes," his grandmother said, when he showed her a little glade near the stream. "Oh, yes."
There was no prescribed ceremony for the return to the earth. Duwan planted his grandmother himself, kissed her, watched as her eyes closed.
"I feel it, Duwan," the old female whispered. "I can feel the tendrils growing from my feet. I can taste the richness of this earth. You have kept your promise."
There was, in their cave, still signs of their occupation, rotting beds, dead embers. They refreshed the beds, slept by a bright, cozy fire, and spent the next day watching the swift, miraculous transformation of the twenty-one they had brought to the canyon. The newly planted could no longer speak, but there were, in their minds, sighs of contentment, and,
"Farewell, farewell, thank you."
Voices blended into the background of the whispering brothers, none distinguishable until, after several days and nights—it was so pleasant to be alone that Duwan was in no hurry to rejoin the others, and he felt that he owed it to his grandmother and himself to stay with her until the transformation was complete—he went to the new grove of twenty-one growing brothers and squatted beside the thing, the tree, the brother, that had been his grandmother.
"It is a state not to be despised."
The statement came to him so clearly that he looked up to see if it had been Jai who spoke, but she was down at the crystal creek, bathing.
"In the time of the snows it is quiet and peaceful."
"Grandmother?"
"Yes, Grandson. You have chosen a place beyond compare for me to spend eternity. My peace will be complete—although I exact no promise, knowing that it might prove to be impossible for you to keep—if, when the time of my daughter and my son comes you would bring them here, and then, after a long, long time, yourself and your mate. It's peaceful and quiet in the winter and good in the summer. I drink the goodness, grandson, and I revel in it. I am one with the earth, and with all others."
"How is it that you speak with me so clearly?"
"It is my desire."
"And the others?"
"We are here, Duwan," came another voice in his head.
"The ancient ones. The wisdom of the ancient ones. Is it available to you?" Duwan asked.
"Some here were planted before the coming of the Enemy. The Drinker lands were far to the south. This has been a quiet, isolated place. Some remember. Others choose not to, to feel only the wind, the sun, to dance in the winds and commune with Du."
"And the tall brothers at a great distance? Can you communicate with them?"
"A feeling," came the voice. "Nothing more. I sense, far off, that there is pain, and death, and evil."
"Grandmother, try to communicate with those distant ones. It would be very helpful."
"I will. Now you must go. Come back to me, Grandson."
"Yes," he said. "I will come. In this canyon I first began to understand the meaning of love, Grandmother. We will come when we can, Jai and I, and you will be in our thoughts when we are far away."
"Farewell, farewell, farewell."
Chapter Four
For the first time in his life, Duwan delivered a blow to a living entity who was not the enemy. Another Devourer settlement had been destroyed, leaving more enemy dead. Now ex-slaves had seen their former masters vanquished. They had seen that the Devourers bled and died, just as pongs could bleed and die. There was noisy jubilation. Fires dotted the clearing and the surrounding forest. There was a babble of voices, for all the patience and authority of the valley Drinkers had not yet tamed a rabble of slaves into an organized force.
Duwan's surviving cadre of oldsters now numbered just under two hundred, and he never ceased to be pleased and surprised at the way the old Drinkers had risen to the occasion. Many of them, he would have bet at the beginning of the journey, could not have possibly survived the trip, much less survived to grow stronger and fight. It was, he suspected, the goodness of Du, for Drinkers marched and worked and fought as nearly naked as possible, the males clad only in a loincloth, to allow Du's kind and strengthening rays to caress every possible small area of old, hardening hide. He had broken the freed pongs up into groups, assigning them to the care of valley Drinkers, and training went on at all hours. The weapons captured from the enemy were meted out to the more promising pong males—and a few females who seemed capable of emulating Jai—and it had been discovered that there were a few workers in wood among the pongs so that these skilled craftsmen were now being instructed in the art of making bows, of finding straight shafts for arrows and rounding them true.