"Grandmother," he said without words. "Grandmother." But there were only the distant, meshed, indistinguishable whispers of the old brothers and no word came to him, no sign, no guidance. He prayed, listening for that odd, hollow, faraway voice, and there was only the silence and coolness of the night and the faint backwash of massed whispers.
This decision would be his and his alone.
"You say go," he stated to Jai.
"You are our leader," she said, "but my heart and my head say go."
"As say Dagner and others."
"We will obey, whatever you decide," she said. "But consider this. Even if we are repulsed at the walls, and I don't believe this will happen, we will have sent a message to all who are still in the pens. We will be saying, look, we are here. We are free. We are strong enough to threaten a Devourer city. Join us."
Duwan took her hand and led her back. Dagner, Duwan the Elder, others of the valley Drinkers and a few of the pong sub-leaders were listening to Tambol as he taught the miracle of Duwan, how he had come from the earth, how he had the ear of Du, himself.
Tambol fell silent when Duwan and Jai walked into the light of the fires. Duwan stood, tall, an imposing figure, the light gleaming redly on the hilts of his swords.
"We will go to Kooh," he said.
"Du has spoken," Tambol hissed, in awe.
"No," Duwan said, somewhat angrily, "Duwan has spoken, and he prays that he has not made a bad decision."
"The city is ours," Dagner said.
"We will go. We will take the city. We will destroy it. We will raze its buildings and its walls, and we will water the earth with the blood of Devourers," Duwan said. "And then we will march to the west, far to the west, and there we, ourselves, will establish a defensive position from which we will, after the snows have come and gone, raid the countryside, building our army. After, Kooh there will be no more surprises for the enemy, for he will know, and he will mobilize himself, and there will be no standing against him in open battle, not for a long, long time."
"We will send teachers to all cities, to the pongpens," Tambol said. "We will instruct the pongs to slow down their work, to do damage when they can do so without detection, and this unrest in the pens will force the Enemy to use more of his conscripts and order keepers to watch the pens. Each one detained in this manner will be one less we will face on the field of battle."
Duwan spent the next two days making his plans, remembering clearly the layout of Kooh, and its approaches. He went over and over his plan of attack. This time the various units would be led by their valley Drinker leaders. This time he, himself, would fight. The four gates of Kooh would be attacked by four strong units, Duwan with the force at the main, southern gate, Duwan the Elder at another, and Dagner at the third gate. The fourth gate, a lesser gate at the west, used mostly for entry by the gatherers of firewood, would be attacked by a smaller force, and that attack would come first, with a delay to pull the guards garrison toward the Wood Gate.
If all went well, the other three gates would be opened by pongs from the inside. The attack would come at first light, giving the night to move the army into position unseen.
Now with the scouts out front, the army was on the march. It moved through the western forests like a multi-segmented, long, deadly snake. It did not move in silence. Although there were many among the force who were becoming skilled with weapons, it was, Duwan knew, still more rabble than army. Ideally, his army would have been as well trained, as dedicated, as disciplined as the army of the great Alon. Alon had but to nod, said the legends, to send a fast moving strike unit into action, with all units coordinated as if by magic, but, actually, by training and discipline. Once more Tambol went into the city, moving ahead of the army as fast as he could walk. As Duwan positioned his forces for the final nighttime approach, Tambol found his way back to Duwan's camp to report that the pongs of the pens were ready, and that the gates would, surely, be opened from the inside.
"To be sure," Tambol said, "I am going back into the city. I will personally lead one group, the one to open the main gate, Master."
"You have risked enough, my friend," Duwan said.
"Then give me a sword and I will fight at your side."
"And how much training have you had with the sword?" Tambol lowered his head.
"My friend," Duwan said. "You have done more than any other. You have done your part. Thanks to you we have this army. Thanks to you there is hope for the enslaved. I would not lose you now, doing something for which you are not trained, for your leadership, and your teachings, will help us to multiply the size of this force. In that way your talents will be best utilized."
"As you will, Master," Tambol said.
The signal to those inside the city's walls that the attack was beginning had been arranged by Tambol, and it was a huge bonfire on a hill that was visible from within the city. The fire would be lighted when Du first showed the edge of his face over the eastern horizon, and by that time the four attacking forces had to be in position.
For once the army moved in silence. Duwan, with Jai at his side, positioned his group in the southern forest, a hard run from the main gate, and watched the signal hill. Since those on the hill were at a higher point, they saw Du first, and it was in predawn darkness that Duwan saw the first smoke, then the glow of fire, and heard, in response, the faraway shouts of the force attacking the western gate. He moved forward, hugging the earth, taking advantage of cover, getting near enough to the wall to hear shouts from inside, to know that his plan was working, for there were sounds of running, and shouted orders to tell him that the guards were moving to the Wood Gate. He stood and signaled Jai to give the order for the force to advance, and they began to emerge from the forest on the run, swordsmen first, then unarmed men carrying wooden ladders for use in case the gates were not opened from the inside.
As the first swordsmen drew near he heard sounds from behind the tall, strong, wooden gate and then a creaking as the gate began to open.
"Now we fight," he yelled to the first swordsmen to reach him. "Go, go, go!" They streamed past him, yelling, swords raised, pouring into the opening gates. He could hear faint shouting from the eastern gate, and he was elated, for it was going well. The crucial moment had come when his men ran toward the gate, exposing themselves, but the pongs from the pens inside had done as Tambol had promised, and now his army was pouring into the city and it was, for all practical purposes, his. Not even a trained unit of royal guards could stand against the human tide pouring through the gates.
Jai had run to his side. "Come," she said. "We will miss the killing."
"There will be enough blood for all," he said grimly. One third of his group had entered the gates and the rest were crowding, yelling, pushing to enter the relatively narrow opening when he saw the gleam of Du send light to flash from the bared swords of a running, silent mass of Devourers in the blue of the guards. They fell onto his force from the right rear, and they came in trained formation, each Devourer's flank protected by a companion in arms, and their blades began to bring havoc to the slave army.
"Turn, turn," Duwan began to shout, leaping into the melee of pongs pushing to enter the gate. "Turn and face your rear."
Chapter Five
Duwan was never to know the exact course of events that had resulted in a rear-flank attack on his main force before the gates of Kooh, but he had been prophetically right in warning others not to underestimate Elnice of Arutan. She had made a decision, in the face of some amusement from her male advisers, based on the report of one Devourer male. This one, a hunter, had been afield when the first northern settlement had been attacked. He had returned toward the settlement, laden with the pleasing results of a good day in the forest, to hear the screams of the dying. He came near enough to see, to his astonishment, that pongs could fight, and he was so traumatized that, for a day and a night, he hid near the destroyed settlement, then entered to walk among the bodies of the dead and to sift through the ashes of his hut.