Samples from books that we have published under the Eartherean Press imprint.
This sample is another in a series from the first book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: The Former King.
© 1981 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. The license is included as an appendix to this work.
The Chief’s Refusal
THEY WERE A SIMPLE and a warlike people. Also they were proud, for were they not one of the original eighteen tribes? And were they not, as well, the largest tribe yet independent of Gen-Karn, the Warlord of the far North?
It was in the far North that they dwelled, on the shore of the Sea of Goddess, or, as some call it, the Ocean of the Dead; and Her throne of Golden Fire stood five fists above the bright horizon. Related clans had their dwelling-places farther up and down the coastline, but the original village was in the best of places, for it was on a small hill sheltered by the coolness of the forest and overlooking a deep bay of clear blue waters abundant in shellfish.
And the fishermen sailed in their small boats out of the deep bay and cast their nets into the clear blue waters; and the hunters slipped silently into the shadowed depths of the forests and laid their traps. The women grew corn and grain and herbs and vegetables in the small fields, and the men did some killing for food. And traders visited the village, from the civilized lands of the faraway South, from Gerso beyond the Pass of Gerso in the mountains called the Spine of Civilization, or from Arpane on the Sea, the only city on the Ocean of the Dead. The traders came bearing fine-woven garments, tools and implements, blades that would not soon shatter or dull; and they departed with some gold dust or nuggets of silver, but mostly with the vivid green bandar pelts, much prized in the faraway South.
And the women of the tribe wove brightly colored coarse tunics, and the men did some killing to get goods. But mostly the men only killed for sport, or in blood-feud, or tribal raids. One thing that could be said well of them was that there was little blood shed within the tribe. Gundoen the chief saw to that. If men were angry, he would have them wrestle, a skill the chief dearly loved. And if their anger were too great to be appeased by wrestling, Gundoen would send them outside the tribe. It was a saying of his: ‘If you are so angry that only blood will satisfy you, go and kill a Korla. Then your anger will be put to good use.’
The Korlas were their neighbors and hereditary enemies. They dwelt deeper into the forest, close to where the bandar were thickest in the Forest of Bandar. A mean and petty-hearted tribe were they, with little honor among them; moreover, they were the dogs of Gen-Karn, and annoyed Gundoen’s people on the Warlord’s orders. The Korlas claimed for themselves all the lands on which the bandar roamed, but that was a lie. Bandar were sport for all the tribes, especially when the merchants from the faraway South would trade so much for their pelts.
When the warriors made war upon the Korlas, and that was more often now than before, they took the Korlas’ bandar pelts and their weapons. Sometimes they burned their huts, and sometimes they took their women, but that was rare. There is no profit in burning another man’s hut, and Korla women were never renowned for their beauty.
And it was a little too hot in the summer, and far too cold in the winter, and the rains did seem to come at the wrong times for the crops. Yet, all in all, it was a good life for the people of Gundoen’s tribe, if a little too contented. But then the stranger came among them, and their lives were never the same again. Even before the dark man came there were omens of his power. But at the time none recognized them for what they were, except perhaps for Kuln-Holn the Pious One.
Kuln-Holn the Pious One came up from the sea to chief Gundoen’s hall, which was the largest hall in the village, built of stout logs thicker than a woman’s hips, cemented together with mud and wattle. Before Gundoen sat here, there had been In-Hall, Gundoen’s uncle, and before In-Hall there had been Gornoth, Ru-Anth, and Oro-Born. And before them all had been the builder of the hall, the great chief Tont-Ornoth. He had come from the last stand of the tribes, from Urnostardil on the Edge of Darkness, and he had settled the tribe here, and built the hall. Other structures had been burned, broken, and torn down, but not the hall of Tont-Ornoth.
Here entered Kuln-Holn, blinking his eyes against the smoky, acrid darkness and feeling very out of place. Rarely before in his life had Kuln-Holn been inside the chief’s hall, and never during a feast. He was a simple fellow, neither a great hunter nor warrior, and the chief disliked him and scorned all his preachings. Now he tried to pierce the darkness with his eyes, uncertain of himself in the din of the feasting.
Upon the walls of the hall were the trophies left by all the past chiefs in commemoration of their lives and victories. Here was the battle-shield of a Korla chief, taken in combat by Gornoth; and there was the great sharp tooth of a Darkbeast slain by Oro-Born in a hunt still sung of. And above them all was the hilt of Tont-Ornoth’s sword, which had tasted the blood of Elna the god, and first Emperor of the South. And to mark Gundoen’s reign there were hung the bones of great foreign champions, strong-boned, mighty-chested men, the bones broken, the ribs stove in by Gundoen’s arms in wrestling match. There was no wrestler greater than Gundoen Strong-In-Girth in all the far North.
Below the trophies, around the great central cook-fires, were set the long tables of polished wood and the carved chairs of honor at the end of long benches. The benches were filled with men, the greatest warriors and hunters of the tribe; the tables were covered with wooden plates, bowls, and much food; and on the grass-strewn earthen floor the dogs gnawed at bones. For it was the time of the second meal; and the welcoming-feast of those who sat in the chairs of honor: merchants from the civilized lands of the faraway South, dining so daintily and taking care to keep their scented robes and perfumed coiffures in immaculate array. They were here because the spring was newly come, and soon would be the time of the great Hunt for bandar.
To serve them all came and went the concubines and handmaidens of the chief, seven wenches of great beauty and skill. And the loveliest of these, and highest favored, was Alli, the chief’s favorite. Kuln-Holn gathered his courage and touched one of the serving wenches on the shoulder. And when she turned he saw that it was Alli herself.
She looked into his face with her dark slanting eyes and smiled boldly. ‘Yes, Pious One?’ she asked. He blushed under that gaze, but kept his head about him, and told her that he had come to see the chief, adding that it was important. Her smile broadened, and she went up to the carved high seat where sat the chief, her figure growing dim as it receded behind the walls of smoke billowing from the cook-fires, which the opened wooden vents did little to dispel. She bent down over Gundoen the chief’s shoulder and said something to him, and gestured at Kuln-Holn. Kuln-Holn could see the chief look up and fix his eye in his direction. Then Alli added something else, and the chief laughed, a rumbling, powerful laugh.
He waved Kuln-Holn forward. ‘Come, come, O Pious One!’ he shouted. ‘You visit my hall too little! What news of doom or visions in the clouds do you bring us now?’
Kuln-Holn the Pious One then stepped up amidst the laughter and faced the chief. Gundoen was not a tall man, but he was half as broad as he was tall. His body was as hard and solid as the ancient logs of his hall, and his arms were corded and scarred like rough-barked branches; his short bowed thighs were knotted like great roots gripping at the earth. The chief wore his sandy hair and beard short, so as to afford no hold in a wrestling match. Below the hair were the broad face like roughened leather, the twisted broken nose, and the eyes bright with humorous mockery as they viewed Kuln-Holn.
‘Come, come,’ the chief shouted over the laughter and the barking of the dogs. ‘Speak up, man: have you lost your tongue?’
Kuln-Holn drew deep breath and spoke – rather loudly, he thought; but his voice was like the peeping of a mouse after the rumble of Gundoen’s.
‘O Chief,’ said Kuln-Holn. ‘It is important that I speak to you. We need you. Oron is ready.’
Gundoen lifted his bowl of ale in one calloused hand and quaffed a brimming mouthful of the brown ale, letting the foam trickle down his lips and short beard to drip upon his great chest. ‘Well, what is that to me?’ he mocked through the mouthful. ‘He was never any friend of mine.’
Truly, thought Kuln-Holn, he has had too much of ale, else he would understand my words. Aloud he tried to explain, speaking slowly so that the chief in his drunkenness would comprehend. ‘Chief Gundoen, Oron is ready. I have prepared his body and filled his barge with all that is needful. He is ready to set forth on his final voyage to the Happy Shores. We only wait upon you, the chief of the tribe. It is your duty to see him off.’
Gundoen frowned and set the bowl down loudly. ‘Duty! Who tells Gundoen his duty?’
‘But, chief, Oron is ready. You must see him off to the Happy Shores—’
‘Be silent, Little Prophet!’ roared the chief. ‘And speak no more of the Happy Shores, lest I send you off with Oron!’ Across the hall the two civilized merchants smiled behind their soft hands. The chief rose from the carved seat, gripping the great sword slung over the chair-arm and brandishing it with one thick hand.
‘Gundoen, if we do not send the dead to peace, they will return to give us war.’
Kuln-Holn said no more than an old saying of the North; but Gundoen swore, stepped over the low table, knocking off plates and bowls, and thrust the naked blade against Kuln-Holn’s bare throat. The Pious One could feel the sharpness of the point and the heat of drawn blood.
‘Now’ – the chief grinned drunkenly – ‘say it again.’
Kuln-Holn looked fearfully about the hall for support. Never before had the chief refused his sacred duty of seeing off the dead. Yet there was no voice raised in support of Kuln-Holn. The merchants had lost their smiles now. The hunters were angry, and frowned and grumbled, because this blasphemy of the chief was a luckless, ill-omened thing; but they feared the chief’s wrath more than any ill-luck. Their eyes played over the bones of the seventeen foreign champions that hung about the hall, crushed and broken; and though they murmured, they did so only to their bowls.
‘Truly, Gundoen, it is but your duty Kuln-Holn asks.’ It was Hertha-Toll who spoke, Gundoen’s wife, whom some called the Wise and others the Sorrowful. She stood midway down the tables on Kuln-Holn’s right, the wisdom of her eyes belying the stoutness of her middle-aged body.
She fixed her deep eyes upon Gundoen until he was forced to look away. There was no woman in all the North wiser than Hertha-Toll; she was visited with the Sight, and could cast a luckless fear into the strongest-hearted of men.
‘It is but your duty, Gundoen,’ she repeated.
But the chief snorted, ‘To the Darklands with your duty! Do I rule here, or do you? Go back to your cooking and weaving, woman, and leave the rule of the tribe to me.’ But he did take back the sharp-pointed sword and return to his seat.
Hertha-Toll shrugged and bowed low. ‘As you wish, lord,’ she uttered with dignity, and left the hall.
‘Bravely spoken, lord,’ said one of the foreign merchants, his ringed fingers playing with his smoothly shaved chin. ‘I can see that you are above these petty superstitions, as indeed befits a great lord. In the South these matters are not thought much of. The Empress Allissál herself, when her revered parents died some ten-and-five years ago, did no more than entomb them in structures resembling death-barges. I have visited the great city and seen them myself. No one bothers actually to set his dead out upon the sea anymore, except for a few fanatics like this man here. The playwright Tolpomenes wrote a very witty play about such people some years ago. It really is quite amusing.’
‘Oh?’ scowled Gundoen. ‘And who are you to laugh at the dead, Southron? I see nothing funny about it – but then I suppose I am only an ignorant barbarian, eh? Maybe if we killed you and imprisoned your body under a stone in the ground we would see the humor better. I’ve half a mind to try it. Who will join in?’
At this sally the people’s frowns turned again to laughter, and cries of encouragement rose from all sides. The merchants, blanching even paler than usual, rose from the carved chairs and bowed.
‘Your lordship,’ said the other, ‘we beg pardon. My fellow meant no harm. He only – That is, if you will grant us leave, we must be – well – going.’
And they slunk from the hall amidst loud peals of jeering laughter. One man thought to throw a half-eaten meat pie after them; it hit the rear merchant squarely on the shoulder, leaving a dark stain on his elegant robes. At this the laughter grew even louder.
Kuln-Holn the Pious One waited, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He did not know whether to stay and ask the chief once again or leave. To come back again when Gundoen might be in a better mood was impossible: Oron was ready now.
The laughter at last died down, and the normal sounds of jests, clanking plates, and barking dogs resumed. But Kuln-Holn was completely ignored. He stood in the middle of the hall, about to try to speak again, when a hand touched him in the back.
‘Still here?’ Alli laughingly asked. ‘If you want to eat something, why do you not sit down? Even the most pious can have empty bellies.’
He shook his head and left the smoky hall. Behind him followed the rumbling sounds of the chief’s laughter. Coming again into the light of Goddess he blinked, half-blinded by the brilliance. ‘Truly, Gundoen meant nothing,’ he muttered to the shimmering orb. ‘It was the foreign merchants, and the ale, and nothing more.’
But as Kuln-Holn walked down the steep sandy path to the bay, Goddess looked down on him from Her throne of Golden Fire, and there was a tension in the air, a great abiding anger in Her look. And Kuln-Holn, who had known the power of Her anger once before, was afraid.
