island I love, the island of Valka, that was to become a home in which I might find perfect peace and security, happiness and love. But, then, as we first sang the seven hundred and seventy-seven verses of the song, I had only the faintest inkling of what Valka was to become to me in the days ahead.
The song tells of Tom of Vulheim, and Ven Borg nal Ogier, Theirson and Thisi the Fair, and their granddaughter Bibi, old Jeniu, the wise counselor, and his wife, Thuri, who in supporting him supported us all.
And only when Jeniu presented me with the fiat of the whole assembly of Valka, the pitiful remnant of men and women who had formed the assembly in the old Strom’s day, led still by Tharu ti Valkanium, was the double meaning of the song’s title born in on me.
For we had cleared the island of the aragorn. We had killed until the rivers ran red. We had driven them into the sea and watched as their armored forms toppled from the chalk cliff-tops. We had taken the slavers and sent them packing.
And when more slavers came, seeking to scourge the island again and sweep up more human victims for their vile trade, we had met them with a wall of steel and an invincible purpose. We had organized, for I had put all my own experience in these matters at the disposal of the Valkans, and our Jiktars and Hikdars, our Deldars, had led disciplined formations into action. Once again the island was a fair and clean place in which to live and bring up children. And the word spread and the slavers came no more for, as the song triumphantly proclaims, no longer was Valka a supine carcass rotten for plunder. The slavers, with their patents from the court of Vallia, turned aside from Valka and sought easier conquests.
And then — and then I understood what they all meant by the word “fetching.”
For I had fetched the men and women out of the Heart Heights, and I had fetched them weapons, and organization and the understanding that they could triumph if they willed it. And then they fetched me.
Grim Tharu ti Valkanium, sword-girted, robed in the orange of the high assembly, strode the length of the high hall of the fortress of Esser Rarioch, and inclined to me — whereat, I remember, I was moved to anger, and bade him stand up like the man he was, and never cringe — and, with a smile, he said: “And for you, Drak, Strom na Valka, all men will bow. Aye! And joy in it, for it will show the world what we think of our Strom!”
I was astonished.
But they were serious. Everything had been arranged behind my back. I had known nothing. The song does not tell of these circuitous dealings, the messages, the sacks of golden talens dispatched, the complicated resorts to law, and the quoting of precedents. I was the Strom of Valka. The whole island was my fief. Everything upon it, whether living or dead, whether of man or nature, was mine, inalienably mine.
I tried to refuse, and saw the hurt in their eyes. I sat back in my seat and marveled.
This, I felt sure, was no outcome envisaged by the Star Lords or, given that I had completed what poor Alex Hunter had set out to do, the Savanti, either. But I have remarked before of this strange and frightening charisma I possess, unasked, unsought, that serves me sometimes so well and sometimes so ill. Now I could only stand before them all, and humbly take what they offered.
The rapiers leaped, glittering in the torchlight in that great hall.
“Hai, Jikai! Drak, Strom na Valka! Hai, Jikai!”
And so the seven hundred and seventy-eighth verse was added to the song.
The emblem of Valka is the reflex-compound bow, placed horizontally, half drawn and aimed upward. Vertically upon this is a trident, as though about to be shot from the bow. The Valkans are great fisherfolk. Also, up in the rolling hills and wild crags of the Heart Heights that form the broad central massif of the island, they are proficient bowmen, using not the great longbow of Loh and Erthyrdrin but the shorter, stiffer, compound
The song tells of Tom of Vulheim, and Ven Borg nal Ogier, Theirson and Thisi the Fair, and their granddaughter Bibi, old Jeniu, the wise counselor, and his wife, Thuri, who in supporting him supported us all.
And only when Jeniu presented me with the fiat of the whole assembly of Valka, the pitiful remnant of men and women who had formed the assembly in the old Strom’s day, led still by Tharu ti Valkanium, was the double meaning of the song’s title born in on me.
For we had cleared the island of the aragorn. We had killed until the rivers ran red. We had driven them into the sea and watched as their armored forms toppled from the chalk cliff-tops. We had taken the slavers and sent them packing.
And when more slavers came, seeking to scourge the island again and sweep up more human victims for their vile trade, we had met them with a wall of steel and an invincible purpose. We had organized, for I had put all my own experience in these matters at the disposal of the Valkans, and our Jiktars and Hikdars, our Deldars, had led disciplined formations into action. Once again the island was a fair and clean place in which to live and bring up children. And the word spread and the slavers came no more for, as the song triumphantly proclaims, no longer was Valka a supine carcass rotten for plunder. The slavers, with their patents from the court of Vallia, turned aside from Valka and sought easier conquests.
And then — and then I understood what they all meant by the word “fetching.”
For I had fetched the men and women out of the Heart Heights, and I had fetched them weapons, and organization and the understanding that they could triumph if they willed it. And then they fetched me.
Grim Tharu ti Valkanium, sword-girted, robed in the orange of the high assembly, strode the length of the high hall of the fortress of Esser Rarioch, and inclined to me — whereat, I remember, I was moved to anger, and bade him stand up like the man he was, and never cringe — and, with a smile, he said: “And for you, Drak, Strom na Valka, all men will bow. Aye! And joy in it, for it will show the world what we think of our Strom!”
I was astonished.
But they were serious. Everything had been arranged behind my back. I had known nothing. The song does not tell of these circuitous dealings, the messages, the sacks of golden talens dispatched, the complicated resorts to law, and the quoting of precedents. I was the Strom of Valka. The whole island was my fief. Everything upon it, whether living or dead, whether of man or nature, was mine, inalienably mine.
I tried to refuse, and saw the hurt in their eyes. I sat back in my seat and marveled.
This, I felt sure, was no outcome envisaged by the Star Lords or, given that I had completed what poor Alex Hunter had set out to do, the Savanti, either. But I have remarked before of this strange and frightening charisma I possess, unasked, unsought, that serves me sometimes so well and sometimes so ill. Now I could only stand before them all, and humbly take what they offered.
The rapiers leaped, glittering in the torchlight in that great hall.
“Hai, Jikai! Drak, Strom na Valka! Hai, Jikai!”
And so the seven hundred and seventy-eighth verse was added to the song.
The emblem of Valka is the reflex-compound bow, placed horizontally, half drawn and aimed upward. Vertically upon this is a trident, as though about to be shot from the bow. The Valkans are great fisherfolk. Also, up in the rolling hills and wild crags of the Heart Heights that form the broad central massif of the island, they are proficient bowmen, using not the great longbow of Loh and Erthyrdrin but the shorter, stiffer, compound
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