Narasan blinked, and then he started to laugh. “I guess I overlooked that,” he admitted. “I wasn’t alone, though. If I remember correctly, the anchor on your little sloop’s also made of bronze. That should give our little friend here enough for some experimentation, wouldn’t you say?”
4
The steady drizzle continued for the next few days, and Rabbit brought his forge into Zelana’s cave so that he could continue his work with Veltan’s bronze anchor. Things went much faster, he discovered, if he chopped the anchor into chunks instead of trying to melt it down all at once.
The first few bronze arrowheads he produced were not quite heavy enough to satisfy Longbow, so he made his mold larger and then larger again. Once he’d produced one Longbow found satisfactory, he used it to produce clay molds with the help of the village potters. There was quite a bit of trial and error involved, but he finally got the procedure smoothed out, and then he concentrated on making more and more of the hard-baked clay molds. He was certain now that when Narasan’s fleet arrived with all that bronze, he’d be ready. Once he’d produced several arrowheads that Longbow found to be satisfactory, his friend went off to the lodge of his chief. It seemed that Longbow and Old-Bear were very close, and the two of them conferred very often with the scrawny old fellow they called “the shaman.” Rabbit wasn’t exactly sure what the title meant. It seemed to be an odd mixture of religion, healing various illnesses, and tending to wounds and injuries.
Narasan was staying in Zelana’s cave, awaiting the arrival of his fleet, and Sorgan Hook-Beak came by every day so that they could confer. They spent many hours poring over Veltan’s roughly sketched map of the ravine above the village of Lattash while Rabbit was dressing off the bronze arrowheads.
“I wish this had more details,” Narasan complained one morning, pushing the map aside.
Sorgan shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got, so it’ll have to do, won’t it?”
Red-Beard and Longbow escorted their chiefs into the cave about then.
“Ah, Red-Beard,” Narasan said. “You’re just the man we wanted to see.” He reached for the map. “This is a sort of picture of that ravine where we’ll probably meet the enemy. Take a look at it and tell us what you think. Is it anywhere at all close to the real ravine?”
Red-Beard briefly examined the map. “This won’t really help you very much,” he said, handing the map back. “I’ve been involved in a few tribal wars in the past, and war’s very much like hunting—except that the one I’m hunting is also hunting me. You can’t hunt well if you base your decisions on a flat drawing. You need to look at the real ground.”
“It’s buried in snow right now,” Sorgan reminded him.
“Your picture doesn’t show you where the hills and gullies are, how much is covered with trees, or where the steep places are. If you’re going to fight this war up in that ravine, your life could depend on those details.”
“I would listen closely, Sorgan Hook-Beak,” old Chief White-Braid advised in the stiffly formal manner that Longbow had told Rabbit was common among tribal chieftains. “Red-Beard has hunted that ravine since he was but a child, and he knows every tree and rock personally. We must win this war, since the creatures of the Wasteland will show us no mercy if we should lose.”
“That’s blunt enough,” Sorgan replied. “But how can anybody draw a picture that isn’t flat?”
Rabbit set his whetstone aside and carefully ran his thumb across the edge of the arrowhead he’d been sharpening. It was probably sharp enough to shave with, he concluded. The molds he’d made to cast the bronze arrowheads seemed to be working out very well.
Two things seemed to come together in his mind just then. “I think there might be a way to make a picture that isn’t flat, Cap’n,” he said.
“Lumpy ink, maybe?” Sorgan replied in a sarcastic tone of voice.
“Not exactly, Cap’n. Why not use wet clay instead? Red-Beard knows that ravine like the back of his hand, and the potters who helped me make the arrowhead molds told me that there’s a huge clay-bank down by the river that they’ve been using for generations. If they bring basket-loads of that clay here to Lady Zelana’s cave, maybe Red-Beard could make a lumpy picture out of clay somewhere in here out of the rain.”
“What do you think, Red-Beard?” Sorgan asked.
“I don’t know very much about making pots,” Red-Beard said dubiously, “and my fingers are a little thick for fine details, I think.”
“The potters have tools for that,” Rabbit told him. All you’d have to do would be to tell them what shape you want. They can add clay or shave it off until they get it right.”
“Almost like sculpture,” Narasan mused. “It’s got possibilities, Sorgan. Even if it’s not absolutely accurate, it’ll be much better than the rough sketch we’ve been using.”
“It’s worth a try, I guess.” Sorgan agreed. Then he looked at Chief White-Braid. “How much longer is it likely to be until all that snow up in the mountains melts off?” he asked. “My people need to finish the forts they’re building up in the ravine, but they can’t get much work done when they’re hip-deep in snow.”
The silvery-haired old chief looked a bit startled. “How much snow falls in the Land of Maag?” he asked.
“Oh, we get snow, right enough, but nothing like these three-week storms you get here, and our snow usually melts off before the next snowstorm arrives.”
“Ah,” White-Braid said. “That might explain your lack of understanding of certain dangers here in the Land of Dhrall. Winter is old, and he patiently builds his snowbanks in the mountains over many long nights; but spring is young, and she’s sometimes enthusiastic. Her breath is very warm, and the snow which patient old winter laid upon the mountains inch by inch will disappear overnight when she breathes upon it. Melted snow is water, and water yearns to rejoin Mother Sea. It is most unwise to be in one of the ravines when this happens. The river will overflow its banks, and like some huge wave, it will rush on down to the sea, tearing all that stands in its path from the place where it was.”
“I would listen very closely here, Sorgan Hook-Beak,” Longbow’s Chief, Old-Bear, said firmly. “There is much snow in the mountains this year, and when winter’s grip loosens, the water rushing home to the sea will rip rocks away from where they now rest, and it will uproot trees as if they were no more than twigs. No one with any sense lingers in a ravine at this time of year.”