Vala said, “They’re on the defensive now. If they don’t know it now, they soon will. And that will be good for us. Perhaps. . .”
She was silent for a while. Wolff shot three men as they ran towards a hollow in the hill. He said, “Perhaps what?”
“Our beloved father left a message for us on this island. He told us some of what we have to do if we hope to get within his castle. Apparently, we have to find the gates which lead to him. There are none on this island. He says there is a pair on another island, but he did not say just where. We have to find them by ourselves, so I was thinking. . .”
A roar arose from the abutals, and the front lines rushed the hill. The archers sent a covering fire of at least thirty arrows per volley. Vala and Rintrah cowered behind an idol, as Wolff had told them to do. Much as he hated to expend his power, he was forced to do so. He put the beamer on full and shot over the heads of the front lines.
Smoke arose from vegetation and flesh alike as he described a circle with the white ray. The archers had had to expose themselves to get good shots, and so most fell.
Arrows rattled around Wolff, leaping off the stone idols. One creased his shoulder; another ricocheted off stone and flew between bis legs. Then, there were no more arrows. The abutal in the second ranks, seeing those crumple before them, smelling the fried flesh, wavered. Wolff began on them, and they fled back into the jungle.
“You were thinking?” he said to Vala.
“We could search a thousand years, using this island as our ship, and not find one island that has the gates. Perhaps that is Father’s idea. He would enjoy seeing us in a futile search, enjoy our despair. And the friction and murder that such long association would make inevitable among us. But if we were on an abuta, which would enable us not only to travel faster but to see far more from its altitude . . .”
“It’s a fine idea,” he said. “How do we talk the abutal into letting us accompany them? And what guarantee is there that they would not turn on us the first chance they got?”
“You have forgotten much about your younger sister. How could you, of all who have loved me, not remember how persuasive I can be?”
She stood up and shouted at the seemingly uninhabited jungle. For a while there was no response. She repeated her demands. Presently, an officer walked out from behind a frond. He was a tall well-built man in his early thirties, handsome behind the garish circles on his face. Besides the black chevrons down neck and shoulders, he was decorated with a painted seabird on his chest. This was an iiphtarz, and it indicated a commander of the glider force. Behind him came his wife, clad in a short skirt of red and blue seabird feathers, her red hair coiled on top of her head, her face painted with green and white lozenges, a necklace of fingerbones around her neck, an iiphtarz painted across her breasts, and three concentric circles of crimson, black, and yellow painted around her navel. As was the custom among the abutal, she accompanied her husband in battle. If he died, it was her duty to attack his killers until she slew them or died herself.
The two advanced up the hill until Wolff told them to come no further. Vala began talking, and the man began to smile. His wife, however, watched Vala closely and scowled throughout the conversation.
IV
DUGARNN, THE OFFICER, CAPITULATED ONLY WHEN CERTAIN TERMS had been agreed upon. He refused to leave the island until he had gotten at least part of what the Ilmawir had intended to take when they attacked. Vala did not hesitate to promise him that the defenders’ domestic fowl and animals (sea-rats and small seals) would be his prize of war. Moreover, the abutal could mutilate the corpses of their enemies and scalp them.
The surface-islanders, who called themselves Friiqan, objected when they heard these terms. Wolff told their leaders that if they did not accept, they would find the war continued. And he, Wolff, would take no sides this time. Surlily, they said they would do as he wished. The abutal stripped the villagers of everything they considered valuable.