‘They’re going to try swimming instead?’ Padan asked.

Longbow smiled faintly. ‘Not that I’ve seen so far,’ he replied. ‘Apparently they’ve given up the notion of finding some easy way to get up here, so they’ve fallen back to “difficult”.’

‘Oh?’ Padan said. ‘Ladders, maybe?’

Longbow shook his head. ‘Even fanatics wouldn’t be stupid enough to think that would work. It looks like they’ve decided that they need a highway, so they’re building one.’

‘I’m not sure I follow you, Longbow,’ Narasan said.

‘They started quite some distance below the falls,’ Longbow explained, ‘and they’re building a ramp along the side of the west wall of the gorge where the falls are.’

‘Right out in the open?’ Padan demanded. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that even church soldiers could be stupid enough to try something like that when your archers are lining the top of the gorge. They won’t get very far up that side if it’s raining arrows on them every minute of the day.’

‘They’ve come up with a way to keep that particular rainstorm from making their lives difficult,’ Longbow said.

‘Oh?’

‘I think it’s called “a roof, Padan,’ Longbow explained. ‘It appears to be a very nice roof that’s going to keep them from getting wet - or dead. I think a fairly large number of them will reach the top of that ramp when they finish building it. Whether we like it or not, it appears that we will have to deal with two separate enemies up here.’

The Sea Of Gold
1

It was about noon when Longbow decided that it might not be a bad idea to advise Zelana and her brother of the situation and to suggest something in the nature of a conference before their outlander friends started to make decisions that could quite possibly be disastrous.

As he walked on down into the grassy basin that surrounded the huge geyser, he let his mind wander back to that day in the deep forest that had always been his home when Zelana and Eleria had sought him out and persuaded him - or, more accurately, coerced him - into joining them and their family in this ongoing war. That particular day had changed his life forever.

In many ways, Longbow regretted that. Life alone in the forest had been very simple, since nothing had interfered with the hunt, and the hunt had been his sole purpose since the day when Misty-Water had died. He’d known exactly how to hunt down the brainless servants of the Vlagh and kill them, and he’d found great satisfaction in his ongoing retribution.

It was a warm day, and actually rather pleasant as Longbow went on down toward the geyser. Grassland was not really as nice as the forest, certainly, but there was a certain beauty there. Longbow could see much farther here, of course, but he missed the trees and the excitement of the hunt. Wars did kill more of the servants of the Vlagh, even as Eleria had said that it would on that day when he’d first met Zelana and the little girl, but wars were complicated, and they involved large numbers of people moving from this place to that, and endless, and tiresome, discussions and arguments.

That always seemed to come back to him in his dealings with the outlanders. They seemed to enjoy arguing with each other about things that weren’t really significant. A solitary hunter could move faster and reach his goal much sooner than any army in the world could possibly match, probably because there was nobody around to argue with.

‘I’m not really cut out for this,’ Longbow conceded rather ruefully. ‘Maybe I should have given the whole thing just a bit more thought.’

The geyser which was the source of the River Vash was really quite spectacular - something on the order of a large column of water reaching up for nearly a hundred feet before it flared out, almost like a blossoming flower.

Zelana and child Eleria had set up a rather rudimentary camp far enough away from the geyser to avoid the continual spray of water carried by even the slightest breeze. Longbow amended his notion that the place where they spent most of their time could be called ‘a camp’, since it consisted of little more than a crude bed where Eleria slept and a wooden pail half-filled with fruit for her to eat. Zelana, of course, did not need a bed, nor food, for she was complete, and needed nothing.

Eleria came to him with her arms out, as always, and when he picked her up, she said - also as always - ‘kiss-kiss’.

Longbow smiled and then kissed the delightful child.

‘Is it my turn now?’ Zelana asked.

‘All in good time,’ Longbow replied. ‘I thought it might be a good idea for you and your brother Veltan to pay our outlander friends a little visit. Some things have been happening here lately that have disturbed them quite a bit.’

‘Oh?’ Zelana asked.

‘We have what appears to be a second invasion coming up from the south. Sorgan’s cousin Torl told us a rather peculiar story about some things that happened when the armies of the Trogite church landed on the south coast of your brother’s Domain. He said that every time a church soldier mentioned gold, the local farmers all recited a story about a huge amount of gold sand somewhere out in the Wasteland, and as soon as the soldier heard that story, he was driven to dash up this way to gather up as much as he could carry.’

‘I’ve heard about that, Longbow,’ Zelana replied.

‘Right at first, I thought that the Vlagh might have created this hoax as a way to destroy Narasan’s army, but now I’m starting to have second thoughts. Wouldn’t that be just a bit too complicated for the Vlagh?’

‘Not really,’ Zelana replied. ‘There were servants of the Vlagh involved in Kajak’s attempted attack on the Seagull back in the harbor at Kweta, remember?’

‘Yes, but that only involved a few Maags. This time, we’re talking about half a million men - and Kajak had actually seen the gold Sorgan had stacked up in the hold of the Seagull. The only thing the Trogites off to the south have to go on is a rather vague folk tale, and why would that give them any reason to attack Narasan’s army? It just doesn’t make any sense.’

‘Don’t blame me for that, Longbow,’ Zelana replied. ‘Go shout at the Vlagh.’

‘Sorry, Zelana. Irrational things irritate me, that’s all. All I really came here for was to suggest that you and your brother should come by Gunda’s wall and head off any wild ideas Narasan might devise. The notion of being attacked from two directions at the same time is starting to disturb him quite a bit, so we’d better see what we can do to settle him down.’