The Shaman (8 page)

“To
Byleo,” Ohaern said offhandedly. “We have a quarrel to settle with the soldiers
of Kuru.”

Lucoyo
stared. And they called
him
twisted! “Have you taken your brain to the
shaman lately? It does not seem to be working well.”

“Really?”
Ohaern looked down at him, a grin hovering at the corners of his mouth. “Why do
you say that?”

Behind
him, Lucoyo heard Glabur whisper to another Biri, “I have not seen Ohaern smile
this fortnight. The half-elf is a tonic for him.”

Lucoyo
felt anger rise again and determined that if he was a tonic, they would not
like his taste—at least, his taste in pranks. “What makes me say that? Oh,
merely the fact that you are going a long distance, with a great deal of
effort, to seek a death that you might just as easily have found at home!”

“You
think the Kuruite soldiers are unbeatable, then?” Ohaern asked politely.

“When
there are five hundred of them to your twenty,” Lucoyo said, “yes.”

“Come,
friend Lucoyo!” Glabur stepped up beside him. “Have you never stolen anything
from an enemy?”

Lucoyo
turned on him, face burning. “And what if I have? If it is an enemy, there is
only honor in it, not shame!” He did not tell them that the enemies had been
within his own clan.

“Exactly,”
Glabur agreed. “And if the thing you steal is something they stole from you,
the honor is greater.”

Lucoyo
looked up at him in silence for a moment, then gave a short nod and said, “Even
so. What do you go to steal?”

“A
sage,” Ohaern told him, “a teacher who had given us great aid, saved our lives,
and taught us much—even the forging of iron.”

Lucoyo
looked up shrewdly. “Was his name Manalo?”

“Why,
yes.” Ohaern looked startled. “Do you know him, then?”

“Somewhat.
He taught our clan, too.” But not enough, Lucoyo added silently. Manalo had
been the only man who ever spoke kindly to him, without trying to intimidate
him the next minute or enlist his aid so that he would take the blame for a
rule-breaking. Lucoyo had felt himself drawn to the man very strongly, though
he tried to fight the feeling by playing prank upon prank, and jibing, and
striving to find a question Manalo could not answer. The sage had borne it all
with a good grace and seemed to persevere in liking him in spite of it all. Yes,
he had tried to teach Lucoyo’s clan his own easy tolerance and kindliness—but
the teacher is not to blame if the students reject his teaching. “What has he
to do with Byleo?”

“They
have locked him up in their prison,” Ohaern said, “for he will not worship
Ulahane. My wife died because he could not come to save her.” The sadness, the
darkness, suddenly settled about him again, like a mantle.

The
contrast was so great that it shocked Lucoyo, and he felt a quite
uncharacteristic urge to banish that gloom from the big man’s face. “Oh, well,
then.” He turned away nonchalantly. “Of course, if you only go to steal, then I
am your man!”

“Are
you really?” Almost against his will, Ohaern smiled again, ever so lightly. “Are
you the master thief, then?”

“Quite
the master,” Lucoyo said airily, “and if it is only a matter of sneaking past
their guardsmen and breaking into their prison, I am quite willing to take
that
much risk.”

“Well,
there may be need to do more than sneak, when it comes to their guardsmen,”
Glabur said, and Ohaern agreed. “We cannot risk one raising the alarm. It may
be necessary to take one out here and there—perhaps even to kill.”

Lucoyo
looked up at him with a fox’s grin. “Oh,” he said, “I think I can accept that.”
After all, he really didn’t care who he killed—anyone would do, as long as he
was human—or elfin. He would be just as glad to make Byleo the butt of his
revenge as his own tribesmen.

No,
his own tribesmen would be better—much better. But any other human being would
be acceptable after that—except, possibly, for these hunters. He would delay
judgment on them.

Of
course, he would try them first. When they pitched camp an hour or so later,
Lucoyo volunteered to gather kindling, while others set out to hunt. There were
few trees on this side of the river, and they all clustered by the water—the
flow marked the end of Ohaern’s forest country and the beginning of Lucoyo’s
grasslands—but Lucoyo found sticks enough to start a fire, and some thick
enough to keep it going.

He
also found a stand of curious fanlike plants with cones that he knew well.

He
brought them all back to the campsite and started laying the fire to roast the
pig the hunters brought back. Then he stacked the larger sticks to the side,
hiding the cones in them.

“Well
done, Lucoyo!” Dalvan knelt beside him, opening the greenwood box that hung at
his belt and emptying the living coal out into the pile of kindling. Lucoyo
watched with interest and saw the box was lined with clay, hardened and
blackened from the heat. His folk always carried along a smoldering pot, but
when they journeyed from place to place, they went as a clan, not by ones and
twos. He realized he could learn much from these hunters ...

And
they from him.

When
the pig was roasted and the carcass taken from the spit, Lucoyo said, “I will
stoke the fire.”

The
Biriae looked up, agreeably surprised. “Well, thank you, Lucoyo!”

“None
can say the ha—the stranger does not do his share of the work.”

“Stranger?
No more! Let us call him ... the archer!”

Lucoyo
almost felt guilty as he set a few sticks on the fire— with the cones among
them. But he steeled himself with the thought that these Biriae’s goodwill must
be tested—never mind that he wasn’t really acting as a friend should.

He
went back to his place, gnawing on a bone and listening to the talk. Glabur was
in the middle of a tale about a huge boar and a sharp spear when—

The
fire exploded.

Loud
reports rang out, and sticks and flaming coals flew everywhere. Dalvan shouted
with pain and brushed a burning stick from him as he jumped up. The others were
already on their feet, yards away from the fire and still moving, calling to
one another, “What was it?”

“A
spirit!”

“The
wrath of Ulahane!”

“A
fire demon!”

Ohaern
was as surprised as any of them, but as he leaped back, his hand was on his
dagger, his left up to guard, and the expression on his face neither angry nor
frightened, but only very alert. While the others looked at the fire, he looked
at the trees around, then at them, and noticed that Lucoyo was silent, though
moving just as fast as any of the band. He caught the halfling’s eye, and
Lucoyo’s face went blank with innocence.

Ohaern
laughed.

The
other Biriae looked up at Ohaern in surprise, then followed his gaze to Lucoyo,
then looked at one another with sheepish grins as they all began to laugh, too.
“It was a famous joke,” Glabur told Lucoyo, “or will be. What was it? Resinous
wood? But here there are no pines.”

“No,”
Lucoyo admitted. “Cones.”

“Cones?”
Glabur stared in surprise. “What kind of cone makes a noise like that?”

“We
call it ‘the podium,’ “ Lucoyo told them. “It is a low branching plant with a
few cones at the top. Crickets sit on them to play their tunes, looking like
chieftains standing up high to address their people.”

“
‘Lucoyo’s podium’ it shall be to us from this day forth,” Ohaern averred.

“You
will have to show it to us before we will truly know it,” Glabur said. “We have
never seen it before.”

Lucoyo
frowned. “Why, how is that?”

“It
must be a thing of the grasslands,” Ohaern said. “And you really
must
show it to us, Lucoyo—we might find a use for such a thing as that.”

“Use?”
Lucoyo asked, disbelieving. “What use could it have other than to play a prank?”

“Well,
it was a humorous prank indeed,” said Glabur, shaking his head. “I have not
jumped so high since an aurochs tried to gore my shins!” He chuckled, shaking
his head.

“It
was indeed.” Dalvan chuckled, too. “But can we go back to our meal now, archer?
With no more alarms?”

“I
promise.” Lucoyo held up a hand. “For this meal, anyway.”

“Oho!”
Glabur cried. “Watch out, my lads! We have a prankster among us!”

They
laughed and averred that they would be careful as they sat down to eat.

Lucoyo
could scarcely believe his ears. They were actually laughing! And no one seemed
to be angry with him—at least, after the initial shock. He took his place in
the circle slowly and tentatively, unable to believe that people could be
capable of such simple goodness.

There
had to be a reason for it. They had to have a motive.

Lucoyo
determined that he would find that motive. He would test these people very
thoroughly before he would begin to trust them.

But
they will turn away from you,
that nasty voice whispered inside him.
They may be friends, real friends, and you will make enemies of them by your
tricks.

Lucoyo
realized that, and had to admit that perhaps the ill-will among his clan-mates
had not been entirely due to their villainy. Nonetheless, he had to test these
new friends. It was stupid, he knew, but the urge to revenge his hurts on
anything human was too strong for him still; he would confine it to attacks
that could be construed as jokes—heavy-handed, perhaps, but jokes nonetheless.

Lucoyo
tried them, well and truly. He put dried burrs in Glabur’s leggings; he put
riverbank clay in Ohaern’s boots. He put a cricket in Dalvan’s coal box, and
when Dalvan opened it and cried out in alarm, Lucoyo laughed with delight and
produced the coal, live and hot in a makeshift box of his own. He was careful
never to do any real damage—and was always amazed that, after the initial shout
of anger, the hunter would look up in surprise as his clan-mates began to
laugh, then would grin sheepishly and begin to laugh himself.

Of
course, Lucoyo hadn’t stopped to think that
they
might play pranks on
him.
He didn’t even think of it when he shoved his foot into his boot and
felt something cold and supple move against his foot. He yelped and yanked the
boot off, dumping the little snake out, then beat the sole furiously to knock
out anything else that might be there—and suddenly realized that the whole band
was laughing. He looked up, astonished and enraged, leaping to his feet with
words of denunciation on his lips—then remembered the sheepish grins and
grudging laughter of his victims. Indignation shot through him, pushing out the
rage—he would be hanged if one of these crude hunters would show more tolerance
than he himself! He forced the grin, then managed to hack a laugh—and found
that the second came easier than the first, and the third even more easily, and
by the fourth he was really laughing.

Ohaern
clapped him on the back and cried, “There’s a man for you! He can swallow it as
well as he serves it!”

Lucoyo
laughed even louder, realizing that now it was
he
who had been
tested—and had passed the test. But he resolved to reserve a very special
tidbit of humor for the big barbarian.

Of
course, he jibed at them constantly, calling Glabur “ox-high” due to his epic
leap, and Dalvan “coal-carrier.” They responded in kind, calling him “arrowhead”
and “limpet,” to which he replied that all should be as limpid as he, and
answered their chorus of groans by saying that he could walk as quickly with a
bad leg as Racol could with a good one, which of course led to a race, and when
he lost, Lucoyo could always protest that he would win the rematch when his leg
recovered. Ohaern pointed out that perhaps he should not have picked out the
fastest runner among the Biriae, but Lucoyo answered that there was no honor in
challenging any but the best. “True,”

Ohaern
answered, suddenly somber. “It is therefore that we go against Byleo.”

Lucoyo
was shocked to find himself alarmed at the leader’s gloom and determined once
more to banish it. “No,” he said. “It is therefore that Byleo sent troops
against the Biriae.”

Ohaern
stared, astonished, then joined in the chorus of laughter and slapped Lucoyo on
the back again. He forgot to be gentle this time, but he caught the half-elf
before he hit the ground.

So,
what with one thing and another, Lucoyo was feeling quite a part of the band,
and very much the honorary Biri, by the time they came to the river.

Lucoyo
looked out over the River Segway and could barely see the opposite shore. “How
do we cross?”

“We
do not.” Ohaern nodded at Glabur and Dalvan, who had taken huge leather bundles
out of their packs—indeed, the packs could have held very little else. They
unfolded the leather, while other men prowled the small stand of trees on the
banks, cutting down saplings and pruning limbs off larger trees. As Lucoyo watched
in astonishment, they bent the saplings, lashed them together, bound others
around the top, then stretched the leather over them.

“Skin
baskets!” the half-elf cried. “
Huge
skin baskets! But what is their
purpose?”

“They
are boats,” Ohaern said, grinning. “We shall ride them on the water.”

Lucoyo
stared up at him, appalled, then whipped about to stare at the water, swiveled
to gape at the boats, then the river again. Finally, he backed away, shaking
his head. “No, never! They will turn over! The water-spirits shall drag us
under! We shall all drown!”

Several
of the Biriae laughed aloud, and Lucoyo swung about, staring, then turned to
Ohaern, glowering. “It is a prank! It is all a ruse, to see me tremble!”

“It
is not a ruse,” Ohaern told him, grinning, “but your panic is amusing—the more
so since each of us felt it the first time we rode in a coracle. No, you shall
not drown, Lucoyo— and if you keep your seat, making no sudden movements,
neither shall we capsize. We shall ride all the way to Byleo in these boats, or
nearly—and you shall find the trip less tiring and far quicker than it would
have been otherwise.”