The Kargoi had landed on what was now a peninsula, in the land of a people who called themselves the Hauri. The Hauri were neither numerous nor well armed, although their courage and skill needed no further proving. They lived by fishing and diving for shellfish and pearls, and were very much at home both on and under the water.
The Hauri lived in a loose federation of twenty-one villages. Their only «government» was a council of the headmen of each village that met once a month. The headman of the largest village was usually allowed to act as the chairman of the council, if he was judged fit.
The current chairman was young, but he had a large reputation among the Hauri as a fearless sailor and diver, who deliberately sought out the most dangerous fish in the seas. His name was Fudan, and the woman Blade had captured was his sister Loya. She had several titles, all of them long, virtually impossible to pronounce, and totally impossible to translate into anything sensible. For want of a better title, Blade called her «Princess» Loya.
So much for the Hauri. They would be no particular problem, in spite of their stubborn courage. The Kargoi could overcome them and probably wipe them out to the last man, woman, and child, any time they chose. Fortunately, such a slaughter probably wouldn't be necessary. The land where the Hauri lived seemed large enough to hold both them and the Kargoi, if necessary.
Unfortunately there was more to settling in this new land than dealing with the Hauri. To the west of the forests and hills where the Hauri lived lay broad plains, plains the Kargoi would need for grazing their drends. Those plains were also the eastern border of the kingdom of Tor. Two hundred miles farther west lay the great city of Tordas, which held more people than all of the Hauri and the Kargoi put together.
The Torians, it was said, were a people mighty in war. If the Kargoi dared march against them, they would be marching into disaster, and the Hauri would rejoice. The Hauri and the Torians had fought in the remote past, but for several centuries they had lived more or less in peace. The Hauri had neither the wish nor the ability to wage war against the Torians. The Torians' trained lancers mounted on three-toed blue horses could do little against the Hauri if they retreated into their forests and caves. The Hauri preferred to trade the pearls and shellfish their divers brought up for fine weapons and other goods they could not produce themselves.
Blade was loudly assured that the Torians would not feel so peacefully inclined toward the Kargoi. They would attack as soon as the Kargoi moved out onto the plains. They would attack, and they would very probably put an end to the Kargoi. That thought naturally made the Hauri prisoners extremely happy.
Blade was not quite sure what to do with the prisoners. He eventually decided to release them all, including Loya. He also gave them a message for Fudan and the council of headmen. If the Hauri would make no attacks on the Kargoi for three months, the Kargoi would also keep the peace for that length of time. They would also keep away from the villages of the Hauri as much as possible when they marched west toward their meeting with the Torians.
The Hauri would do well to accept this agreement, he said. They had seen that the Kargoi were strong and brave, quite able to conquer this land if they wished. They would rather march west, to find pasture for their drends and measure their strength against the riders of Tor. They were making the Hauri a free gift of peace, and the Hauri would be wise to accept that gift.
None of the Hauri showed much reaction to Blade's proposal. Silently they gathered up their clothing and weapons, and just as silently they slipped off into the forest. The last one to go was Loya. She said nothing, but her eyes met Blade's for a moment, and he thought he saw her smile faintly. Then she was gone into the forest after the others.
The fort built on the shore was no more than a ditch and a rough wall of logs dragged into place and piled up. The place to build a fort that could stand up against a strong attack was farther to the west, on the Torian frontier. The warriors Blade sent west had orders to pick a site for that fort, while avoiding encounters with the Torians as much as possible.
Meanwhile, the wagons and the rafts were starting to cross the water. At Blade's request Paor sent across two hundred riding drends and their riders before letting any of the family wagons and wagon drends make the crossing. Blade was determined to get a line of mounted scouts thrown out to the west as soon as possible. The Hauri might already have sent word to the Torians that the Kargoi were in the land. Then the Torians would come riding east, perhaps in force, and Blade wanted to make sure they did not come by surprise.
The days passed and the shore came alive with the sounds of drends bellowing, axes chopping, trees crashing down, war songs and camp songs, the clatter and banging of craftsmen at work repairing wagons and rafts-all the sounds of the Kargoi hard at work. On the fifth day Naula came over, and Blade was able to spend a few hours with her in his tent.
On the sixth day Rehod came over. He was rather less welcome than Naula, and Blade almost wished Paor had come over instead. Yet it was probably better to have the trustworthy Paor on the far side of the water and the treacherous Rehod over here where he could be watched.
In any case, the Kargoi needed to cooperate more than ever now. Beyond the land the Torians and the Hauri shared uneasily lay the sea-nothing but the sea, on all sides and in all directions for as far as anyone knew.
The Kargoi had reached the end of their journey. They would either live in this land or die in it.
Chapter 19
Blade stood on the wall of the West Fort and looked out across the plains of Tor. To the west they stretched away to a green horizon as featureless and nearly as level as the sea itself. Mounted scouts of the Kargoi were out there beyond that horizon now, and no doubt so were the riders of Tor.
The West Fort had been finished for ten days now. A double log wall twelve feet high enclosed a square two hundred feet on a side. The two walls stood eight feet apart. The space between them was filled with earth, and the top of the outer wall set with a waist-high railing of sharpened stakes. Inside were huts, stables, and storehouses holding drend meat and kaum. Two wells of sweet water were dug at the opposite corner of the square from the stables.
The West Fort stood ready, a base for the scouts and the permanent home of a garrison of four hundred Kargoi warriors. That was too many for the Torians to leave in their rear if they chose to ride east. They would have to eliminate the West Fort before they could feel safe, and Blade knew the fort's garrison could hold it against any army five or six times their strength if they had to.
So far the Kargoi and the Torians had both been sending out their scouts and nothing else. Little skirmishes flared across fifty miles of plains, with blue horses and drends both dashing off riderless afterward. So far honors were about even.
Sooner or later the collision would come. The Kargoi and the Torians could not ignore each other this way much longer. The Kargoi needed to move well out onto the plains to graze their drends freely; the Torians needed to protect their eastern borders.
Even if the Kargoi were willing to give up their drends, Blade wondered if there would be peace between them and Tor. The Hauri certainly would have something to say on the matter. So far the fishermen were keeping the truce Blade had offered them. So far they were also expecting to see the Kargoi move on to the west and fight the Torians. It didn't matter greatly to the Hauri who won that fight, as long as the Kargoi went west. If the Kargoi showed signs of actually settling in the land that had been theirs for so long, the Hauri might start having second thoughts about the truce.