Chapter 14: The Fifth Spear

The monument to the Ortheri Rhîs was more than a league away, but the trip was more arduous than its distance, as the ground sloped upward nearly the whole way. Caras Lithgweth sat at the southwest of a great valley of pastureland, a shallow bowl whose open fields were heavily used as pastureland and farms. The city, and the roads leading east from it towards the lands of other kings, served as the southern border of this valley. The north and west were bounded by a ridge of hills, gentle mounds at the southwestern end of the ridge, then curving north and east in a great arc, reaching heights at the eastern end that might be called mountains, at least by someone who had never seen the vast peaks of the Ephel Duath in the west. Midway along this arc, perched atop the ridge, were the ruins of the king's city. It had grown up from a defensive fortress, located on a high perch to be defensible and for its commanding views of the valley. But this also made it vulnerable to sandstorms that swept across the pasture; and now all that remained were tumbled stones, and the partially-shattered Spire of Last Days.

Much farther west and south, the ridge was little more than a line of hills, atop which grew the only true forest in the area. Mostly scrappy pines with a sprinkling of hornbeams, elms, and slender oaks, this woodland was visited only by lumberjacks, save for the path leading to the statue of the Ortheri Rhîs. It presided atop the peak of one of the highest of these hills, in a clearing where grew flowers of all sorts.

The queen had come from far west, given by her father to the Ortheri Baugcaun to strengthen ties between two kingdoms. Her heart longed for the flowers and trees of her home, and when she found this glade of wildflower, she took to visiting it nearly every day. Thus it was that, when she was claimed by the sandstorm that destroyed the city, the bereaved Ortheri Baugcaun ordered her glade preserved and beautified, and had a monument built to her, standing tall above it, to watch over her beloved flowers forever. This monument, along with the aviary that housed her doves, had long been points of contention amongst the Ortheri. Some saw them as a wasteful extravagance, carrying out whimsies for someone long past, while those still alive suffered; others saw them as a small concession to peace, beauty, and tranquility in an otherwise harsh land and culture.

As she tried to force her weary body to climb the comparatively gentle slope leading towards those hills, Yîgeke pondered how the Fourth Spear had seemed to refer to one of these two monuments, while the Fifth Spear to the other. Long habit made her first take the prophecy at face value, and wonder if they had merely misinterpreted the Fifth Spear, as they had the Fourth. Then the memory of its falsehood, of the lie that had been the core of her life and the lives of every other Haehînbór for centuries, crashed in on her again. After she'd reeled from that for the hundredth time, she considered the coincidence of two Spears referring to two monuments in the light of its true provenance. The Ortheri Rhîs had perished only a decade before the creation of the prophecy; the building of the aviary and statue were fresh on the minds of everyone then, including the Ortheri Cowr. And in the minds of the Haehînbór who he intended to deceive with it. Using the monuments was just another way to twist their thoughts in a direction to his liking, by giving them an interpretation that seemed mysterious, yet was easily reached, and had just the right amount of impossibility.

There were, no doubt, Ortheri hunters behind them. But there were scores, no hundreds, of other Haehînbór here, nearly all of them runaways. Some were gathering in the western pastureland, from which the monument was little more than a dark spot on a distant ridge; others were traveling, as she was, towards the base of the hills, to get closer to it. The Ortheri hounds were keeping a distance; there were too few of them to deal with so many slaves in brazen defiance. She'd heard word that, to the east, the army of the Ortheri that had been readying to march west was now gathering. They were at least a thousand in number, and she wondered what their absence might mean to their fellows, and allies, in the invasions being readied in faraway lands. But she felt sure it meant the end of her people, here and now. If all the Haehînbór in Caras Lithgweth, and many more from other settlements, gathered here, they might well outnumber the Ortheri army by ten to one. But they were barefoot slaves. It would take all of them, acting as one, and undiminished by fear or hesitation, to pose a threat to an army.

Night was falling as they reached the base of the hill. They had not slept or eaten in days, and had hardly had a moment's rest; continuing towards the monument was out of the question. Dozens of other Haehînbór had made a campsite there, and they were entirely welcoming to any of their kind to join them. A few had brought some food, while others had brought in some of the meager forage and hunt the hills offered, and these too they shared with open arms.

There was a quality to the moment that struck Yîgeke as unreal: sitting in apparent peace and freedom with a few dozen of her people, almost fearless of the Ortheri, living as if this had always been their lot in life. They worked together readily, setting up guard duty and dividing up the labor of keeping the camp. They laughed, they talked, and sometimes they even sang. At times it filled Yîgeke with hope, but fleetingly; soon she would be back to dreading the moment when the axe fell, as it seemed it must. And dreading even more her role. The role forced on her. The First Hand.

While the other slaves discussed possible interpretations of the Fifth Spear, what form a spear cast by the sky might take, Yîgeke pondered how she had become the First Hand. Something or someone was causing the events of a false prophecy to come true, and the first of these was a sign that pointed to her. The First Hand shall fell, trembling, a beast of noble blood, within whose very flesh will be scribed a spear circled; and thus shall the First Spear be seen, and the First Hand known. Why her? She'd wondered this since that first day, in the Court of the Well, and all that had been learned since had changed the meaning of the question, but not its intent. Was it still fate, and if so, why would it choose so unsuitable a First Hand? Or might one of the Ortheri have chosen her to intentionally sabotage the hope of freedom by starting the events of the prophecy along, but crippling it with a hopeless choice of a First Hand? But then how would the Ortheri Cowr not know of this effort?

For that matter, how could one falsify such a sign? She recalled that the horse had, so the tale had gone, come from a faraway land in the train of a wandering merchant, and had been sold to the Ortheri Cowr when it was a full-grown stallion, selected for its fiery temperament, strength, and speed. Could the man who sold it have somehow shaped the beast's growth to create the pattern? Or simply found one horse that would already have such a shape, then brought it here? If so, that she became the First Hand was mere chance; she just happened to be the slave assigned to such duty in the town where the horse's remains were sold. Had the horse died two years earlier, it would have been another, and had it died two years later, perhaps someone else. And while her master was the most prominent trade in horse-flesh in this land, he was not the only one; the horse might have gone to another. Many hands might have become the First Hand, instead of hers. Perhaps another was meant to be, by fate or by a mysterious merchant, and chance steered this plan awry.

No matter how she turned these thoughts over in her mind, they circled back on each other like the marking in the hide. They followed her down the well of exhaustion and chased one another within her troubled dreams, full of the sounds of a rising storm, or a roaring horde, or the clash of axe against bone. She stumbled in a moonless darkness through the roaring, to an end she could not see. Her friends would sometimes approach, looming out of the pitch-black night, but always they tried to push or pull her, and she could not know if the direction they chose was the right one. Now Kargöz was pulling insistently on her hand, but did he wish to guide her to safety, or heroics, or to his bed, or simply around some footfall in the darkness? He grew more and more urgent, and finally she awoke to find him pulling her hand, saying, "Awaken, Yîgeke, we must be away! Ortheri approach!"

She expected on rising to see the entire army, clad in shining armor, charging from the plains and ready to swoop down upon them with a thousand shining axes red with Haehînbór blood. But her eyes were met by only a few dozen Ortheri hunters, moving from one camp to another to try to stir up fear and break up unity amongst the slaves as much as they could, so the army's strike, if it were needed, would go that much more easily. Oyana explained to Yîgeke, as they hurried up the hill and through the pines to avoid them, how a few such squads of Ortheri were scattering groups of Haehînbór all around the valley. In some cases it was working; bereft by fear, some slaves were turning themselves in, returning to the city, or running away in simple terror. In others, groups of Haehînbór were banding together to hold off the Ortheri hounds. Thus far, there had been little bloodshed, but it was only a matter of time.

There was a path leading up to the clearing, but they avoided it, because many more Ortheri were hurrying up it. "They know what Spear is next as well," Oyana mused, "and there are warriors and guards gathering in the clearing, to prevent us from reaching it, or for some other purpose." The roaring from her dream continued to haunt Yîgeke; she thought it was just in her ears until she saw Ulgî wince at a sudden roll of thunder. Far above them, rain was falling, but the pines kept them dry. "Look, there, another dozen or so. No one will be able to get anywhere near the monument," Oyana continued, but Yîgeke was having trouble paying attention. The rain seemed wrong somehow. Storms like this struck from time to time; the land wasn't dry because it never rained, it was dry because it rarely rained, but when it did, it did so prodigiously. At this time of year, a thunderstorm would be a welcome relief to the farmers and cattle-ranchers on the pastureland behind them. What seemed wrong about it? Yîgeke couldn't focus enough to answer the question, or even frame it clearly.

The sight as they reached the edge of the clearing was enough to make Yîgeke's eyes go wide. She'd never seen the statue itself, nor the plaza surrounding it, fashioned from cut stone in a bewildering variety of colors, arranged in pattern that seemed random at first, but nevertheless, immediately pleasing to the eye. Nor had she ever seen this many flowers before. In the time of the Ortheri Rhîs, wildflowers had grown here, but now, it was a carefully tended garden, with neatly arranged flowers positioned to create shapes delineated by gradations of hue, breathtakingly beautiful even in the half-light of the growing storm. The statue itself towered over it all, a sublime representation of a serene woman with a small songbird on her hand, carved by a master at the art of shaping stone.

But all the perfect asymmetries and artistic flourishes were pushed aside by the ugliness around it. Forming a ring around the statue, arm to arm and spear to shield, were nearly a hundred Ortheri warriors. Outside this ring, dozens of other Ortheri were working in small groups, driving tall iron stakes into the ground, and linking them one to the other with the sort of steel chain used in fashioning ballistae.

Hanging back in the cover of the tree-line, they stared at this a few moments. "If that's a fence to keep us out," Qemik mused, "it seems a bit much. I'd think those soldiers will do the job quite well."

"Perhaps they mean to use a fence for a lengthier occupation," Kargöz mused. "The Fifth Spear might not happen today, but if it happened three days hence, that would still be a threat. They can't spare a hundred soldiers to stand in a ring indefinitely."

"If that's to be a fence," objected Oyana, "it's a poor one. The posts are too far apart, and much too high. Even Ulgî could walk under the chain."

Kumzu was starting to say something when Kargöz answered, "It might just be the start of some construction. Perhaps there are more materials being brought here. They have had to move hastily to arrive here before we did."

"I think I know…" Kumzu began, but Qemik spoke over her. "If that's how they're starting, they clearly don't know a thing about building fences. They should have gotten us to build it. I know a woman back home who builds fences for her mistress who could show them a thing or two."

Before Kumzu could make another try, Oyana asked, "That's a fair point, though, if this is manual labor, why not bring some slaves to do it?"

"Because they're afraid they'd do it poorly. Many of us are in open rebellion," Kargöz said. "What is it?" he finally said to Kumzu.

But before she could answer, there was a blinding flash and a sound like the world shattering. When their eyes cleared, there was a scorch-spot on the far side of the clearing, and all the Ortheri workers had stepped away from the chains. "That's what it is," Kumzu finally said over the ringing in their ears. "They place these on high towers. When lightning strikes, these iron stakes catch it and carry it down the chain to the ground, so the tower itself is unharmed. They're building a large net of them to protect the statue," she continued thoughtfully, "because they've come to the same conclusion Kargöz did, that a spear cast by the sky might be a bolt of lightning. Particularly given this," she concluded, gesturing to the angry storm-clouds above.

They were silent for a time as they considered this. Yîgeke remembered noticing such stakes, though she'd never known what they were for. Now she could recall a storm-cloud gliding over the city back home, and lightning striking near one of the towers, time and again. Something about the memory of that storm struck her as odd. No, it wasn't that. The storm above them now was odd. How did it differ from the ones she recalled?

Everyone seemed to be afraid to ask the next question: what now? Only a few days earlier both they and the Ortheri were trying to work in secret, but now, on the plain below them, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Haehînbór stared up into the storm in open defiance, while an army of Ortheri waited, champing at the bit, to strike them down. Here the Ortheri efforts to stop the Fifth Spear were flagrant; they were growing desperate, perhaps, but their efforts seemed to be unstoppable. Several times, another lightning strike arced from the sky and kissed one of the iron stakes, causing them to flinch or even cry out in the ensuing thunderclap.

One such lightning-stroke, particularly close, brought with it a flash of understanding to Yîgeke. Every time she'd seen such a storm, it had rolled in from the east. She did not know why; perhaps the source of thunderstorms was in the lands east of them, or perhaps something in the shape of the land drove them that way. But this storm, alone of all she'd ever witnessed, was moving from the west.

The same lightning-stroke sparked an idea in Qemik's mind, but unlike Yîgeke, Qemik moved directly from thought to speech. "That's it! We steal one of those stakes and bring it up onto the statue. Plant it there, and it will capture the spear cast from the sky into the statue."

Oyana stared at him in disbelief a moment, which allowed Kargöz to be the one to say, "And how exactly can the six of us overpower a dozen Ortheri to steal a stake, then hold off a hundred more while one of us climbs up a stone statue, in a rainstorm?"

"We only have to buy her a few minutes," Qemik answered excitedly. "We move quickly. They won't be expecting it. We circle to that point there, then dash across, snatching up stakes as we go. Then we charge at those soldiers there, by the right foot. We just have to startle them a few moments and she can climb up onto the foot. Then they won't be able to catch up if they try to follow. They'd be climbing in heavy armor."

"She?" Yîgeke asked, though she was fairly sure she knew what Qemik meant. But no one listened to her question.

"Even if we could," Kargöz objected, "they have spears. And some have bows. She'd be out in the open, unprotected."

"Then we have to keep fighting," Qemik concluded. "Keep them too busy, or too far away. We cannot win that fight, but we don't need to. We only have to buy her a few moments."

"Buy who a few moments?" Yîgeke objected. The idea of climbing up a set of stairs set her slightly ill at ease. Climbing a smooth stone statue, made slick by a thunderstorm, while carrying an iron stake, set her heart to racing. And below her, her friends would be dying to ensure that spears being thrown at her might happen to miss? She couldn't even muster the words to object. She wasn't even sure if she was asking these questions aloud; no one seemed to be noticing them.

"We wouldn't last a dozen heartbeats, let alone long enough for her to reach the arm," Oyana was saying. "If you recall, we tried this plan once before, buying her time to ride into the aurochs herd, and against only a few Ortheri with the element of surprise, and with them not realizing what we were doing, we scarcely managed it. And got put into chains for the effort."

"We have to try!" Qemik shouted, loud enough that a few of the Ortheri tilted their heads, but it didn't matter, because he was now charging out into the clearing at full tilt towards a pile of iron stakes, and the Ortheri who were assembling them.

He might have reached them before the stunned Ortheri could react, if the flowers hadn't been drenched by the storm. His bare feet found little purchase in a sea of sodden buttercups, and he went over backwards, feet flying up into the air, and landed with a thud in a thin puddle, causing a damp thud and a splash.

It was so incongruous that some of the Ortheri broke into laughter. And though she would deny it later, Oyana also let out a small giggle. Just for a moment, before the terrible gravity of the situation came down on her. Already, the Ortheri were staring in their direction. Spears were being leveled, and warriors moving into formation. Oyana decided to suppress the giggle, but it had already fled of its own accord. "Kargöz, see if you can grab him and pull him back to the tree-line. Kumzu, stay with Yîgeke, protect her. Make her run if this goes badly. Ulgî, you and I move to flank to defend him while he does. Quickly!" And she was already moving. Only a heartbeat later everyone else was following her orders, and after a few moments more, spears were being shattered, blood was being spilled in the rain, and there were heavy thumps of bodies striking the hard, damp soil.

Yîgeke was hardly noticing any of it. Her eyes were fixed on the statue. There at the top, in a flicker of lightning, she'd seen movement, and was staring so as not to miss it in the next flash. There! A figure was perched atop a giant stone shoulder. She could make out nothing but a cloak and hood, and an iron stake, being bound to the statue, and then the dark swallowed it. She stared until her eyes ached, longing for another stroke of light, but when it came, she saw only the stake; the figure was gone.

Oyana and Kargöz were grunting a few feet in front of her, dragging a huge shape. Kumzu was shrieking. She felt arms go around her, and numbly she fought them off, but only because she had to see. Who was it? What was it? Lightning might strike again and she wouldn't see! She heard Qemik's voice very nearby, saying something about retreating. It must have been his arms she was flailing against. Where was Ulgî? Who was atop the statue? What were they doing, and to what end?

And as she wondered this, the world opened up, and light poured out of it. She imagined she could see it reaching down, like the hand of a lover coming down from the sky to gently caress a cheek. But the cheek belonged to the Ortheri Rhîs, and the caress was ungentle.

Stone was flying every which way. Scores of Ortheri warriors, who'd been standing just below the statue, were pelted by stones of sizes ranging from a grain of rice to a plough-horse. Crumpled bodies were scattered all around the remains of the statue. There was no sound: the thunderclap, and the shattering of the monument, had taken it away. Yîgeke was now being dragged back into the woods. People were silently screaming.

As sound began to return, she heard the clamoring of the voices of her friends, urging them to escape before the Ortheri could regroup. Behind her, there was a deep roar, which she would later realize was made of the voices of thousands of Haehînbór, many thousands, arrayed haphazardly across the pasturelands, cheering. But all this meant nothing to Yîgeke. All she could see now was that half-glimpsed silhouette of a figure standing atop a statue's shoulder, shrouded in a cloak. All her questions pointed to that figure, now swallowed by the night.