ECHOES OF THE GREAT SONG by David A. Gemmell

Onquer rubbed his thin hands together before the heat. ‘Ice moving, lord?’ he said dumbly.

Tour yourself a drink,’ ordered Questor Ro. With trembling hands Onquer lifted a blue glass decanter and poured spirit into a crystal goblet. Lifting it to his lips he sipped the fiery liquid. He shivered with pleasure.

‘Yes, it is the ice,’ said Questor Ro. ‘It is brittle, and it moves. The pyramid is sixty miles away. Between there and here there are probably thousands of small shifts in the ice. We are like this ship, bobbing upon the bay. Constantly moving while staying in the same place. You understand?’

Onquer drained the drink. ‘Yes, I see, lord. But what can we do?’

‘We need one mobile receiver linked to the others. Thus we can adjust our movement to match the shifts in the ice.’

This will take time, lord. More time than we have allowed.’

‘No, it will not. I will go below to the store rooms and begin to assemble the equipment. You return to the ice with the fresh team, and re-site the receivers. Place them closer together, each no more than ten units apart. Hold to the emanations as best you can. This time do not seek Communion, merely try to read the ebb and flow. How much movement is there, and between which points. You follow?’

‘Yes, lord.’

Then do not delay,’ said Questor Ro, waving his hand towards the door. The exhausted Vagar bowed, then left the room. Questor Ro had all but forgotten him even before the door closed.

Karesh Var had been asked many times what made him a great hunter. Young men were fascinated by his success in killing tuskers. He answered none of their questions. Did they not have eyes to see his skills? Could they not look at the scars he bore – the wicked cut upon his cheekbone, the ragged tear that had lost him half an ear – and realize that, though his youthful recklessness had placed him in many perils, he had survived to learn from his mistakes? The answer was, apparently, no. They watched him, tried . to emulate him, and failed. And men, being what they are, called him lucky. They claimed he was blessed by the gods, and that he carried a secret talisman which drew the tuskers to him. Karesh found it all faintly amusing.

Idly he rubbed at the long vivid scars on his right cheek. A kral’s talons had almost ripped his face away, but he had killed the man-beast with a dagger thrust to its heart. That incident alone had taught him to be wary and ever-patient in the hunt. Death lay waiting everywhere in this icy land. As to his skill with the tuskers, that was born from love, and the endless magic that sprang from love. Though he would never explain that to his followers. Let them learn themselves, he thought. Why would a man give away the secrets that led him to such glory among his people?

Anyway, they would have laughed at the notion.

Karesh Var loved the tuskers, and saw in them all that was good upon the cold earth. They were loyal creatures, fiercely protective of one another. They raised their young with endless patience, and they moved across the land with immense dignity, coupled with a lordly arrogance.

Leaving his twenty men seated around two campfires Karesh Var saddled his pony and rode out along the ridge. From here he could look down on the plain and observe the death ritual. His men were not interested in such spectacles. They had seen them before, the herd forming a protective circle around the dying mammoth, the great bulls pushing their tusks beneath the victim, trying to raise her to her feet. His men found it boring to sit out in the cold until the cow died. Not so Karesh Var.

Two days ago they had hit the herd, three riders moving in fast to taunt the righting bulls, pulling them away from the rear. Then ten men on fast ponies had galloped in on the flanks, shooting their arrows into the victim chosen by Karesh Var. When they wheeled away Karesh Var and four others rode in, plunging their spears into the wounded animal.