Once among the milling, festering mob of city dwellers they could relax a little. It took a while to locate an alley with a delivery wagon and no curious onlookers. Clothahump could not work the spell under the gaze of kibbitzers.
The long, narrow wagon was pulled by a single large lizard. They waited. No one else entered the alley. Eventually the driver emerged from the back entrance of a warren. Clothahump confronted him and while the others kept watch, hastily spelled the unfortunate driver under.
"Climb aboard then, citizens," the driver said obligingly when the wizard had finished. They did so, carefully laying Talea's body on the wagon bed between them.
They were two-thirds of the way to the Pass, the hustle of Cugluch now largely behind them, when the watchful JonTom said cautiously to the driver, "You're not hypnotized, are you? You never were under the spell."
The worker looked back down at him with unreadable compound eyes as hands moved toward weapons. "No, citizen. I have not been magicked, if that is what you mean. Stay your hands." He gestured at the roadway they were traveling. "It would do you only ill, for you are surrounded by my people." Swords and knives remained reluctantly sheathed.
"Where are you taking us, then?" Ror asked nervously. "Why haven't you given the alarm already?"
"As to the first, stranger, I am taking you where you wish to go, to the head of the Troom Pass. I can understand why you wish to go there, though I do not think you will end your journey alive. Yet perhaps you will be fortunate and make it successfully back to your own lands."
"You know what we are, then?" asked a puzzled Jon-Tom.
The driver nodded. "I know that beneath those skins of chitin there are others softer and differently colored."
"But how?"
The driver pointed to the back of the wagon. Mudge looked uncomfortable. "Well now wot the bloody 'ell were I supposed to do? I thought 'is mind had been turned to mush and I 'ad to pee. Didn't think 'e saw anyway, the 'ard-shelled pervert!"
"It does not matter," the driver said.
"Listen, if you're not magicked and you know who and what we are, why are you taking us quietly where we wish to go instead of turning us over to the authorities?" Jon-Tom wanted to know.
"I just told you: it does not matter." The driver made a two-armed gesture indicative of great indifference. "Soon all will die anyway."
"I take it you don't approve of the coming war."
"No, I do not." His antennae quivered with emotion as he spoke. "It is so foolish, the millenia-old expenditure of life and time in hopes of conquest."
"I must say you are the most peculiar Plated person I have ever encountered," said Clothahump.
"My opinions are not widely shared among my own people," the driver admitted. He chucked the reins, and the wagon edged around a line of motionless carts burdened with military supplies. Their wagon continued onward, one set of wheels still on the roadway, the other bouncing over the rocks and mud of the swampy earth.
"But perhaps things will change, given time and sensible thought."
"Not if your armies achieve victory they won't," said Bribbens coldly. "Wouldn't you be happy as the rest if your soldiers win their conquest?"
"No, I would not," the driver replied firmly. "Death and killing never build anything, for all that it may appear otherwise."
"A most enlightened outlook, sir," said Clothahump. "See here, why don't you come with us back to the warmlands?"
"Would I be welcomed?" asked the insect. "Would the other warmlanders understand and sympathize the way you do? Would they greet me as a friend?"
"They would probably, I am distressed to confess," said a somber Caz, "slice you into small chitinous bits."
"You see? I am doomed whichever way I chose. If I went with you I would suffer physically. If I stay, it is my mind that suffers constant agony."
"I can understand your feelings against the war," said Flor, "but that still doesn't explain why you're risking your own neck to help us."
The driver made a shruglike gesture. "I help those who need help. That is my nature. Now I help you. Soon, when the fighting starts, there will be many to help. I do not take sides among the needy. I wish only that such idiocies could be stopped. It seems though that they can only be waited out."
The driver, an ordinary citizen of the Greendowns, was full of surprises. Clothahump had been convinced that there was no divergence of opinion among the Plated Folk. Here was loquacious proof of a crack in that supposed unity of totalitarian thought, a crack that might be exploited later. Assuming, of course, that the forthcoming invasion could be stopped.
Several days later they found themselves leaving the last of the cultivated lowlands. Mist faded behind them, and the friendly silhouettes of the mountains of Zaryt's Teeth became solid.
No wagons plied their trader's wares here, no farmers waded patiently through knee-deep muck. There was only military traffic. According to Clothahump they were already within the outskirts of the Pass.
Military bivouacs extended from hillside to hillside and for miles to east and west. Tens of thousands of insect troops milled quietly, expectantly, on the gravelly plain, waiting for the word to march. From the back of the wagon Jon-Tom and his companions could look out upon an ocean of antennae and eyes and multiple legs. And sharp iron, flashing like a million mirrors in the diffuse light of a winter day.
No one questioned them or eyed the wagon with suspicion until they reached the last lines of troops. Ahead lay only the ancient riverbed of the Troom Pass, a dry chasm of sand and rock which in the previous ten millenia had run more with blood than ever it had with water.
The officer was winged but flightless, slim, limber of body and thought. He noted the wagon and its path, stopped filling out the scroll in his charge, and hurried to pace the vehicle. Its occupants gave every indication of being engaged in reasonable business, but they ought not to have been where they were. The quality of initiative, so lacking in Plated Folk troops, was present in some small amount in this particular individual officer.
He glanced up at the driver, his tone casual and not hostile. "Where are you going, citizen?"
"Delivering supplies to the forward scouts," said Caz quickly.
The officer slackened his pace, walked now behind the wagon as he inspected its occupants. "That is understandable, but I see no supplies. And who is the dead one?" He gestured with claws and antennae at the limp shape of Talea, still encased in her disguise.
"An accident, a most unforgivable brawl in the ranks," Caz informed him.
"Ranks? What ranks? I see no insignia on the body. Nor on any of you."
"We're not regular army," said the driver, much to the relief of the frantic Caz.
"Ah. But such a fatal disturbance should be reported. We cannot tolerate fighting among ourselves, not now, with final victory so soon to come."
Jon-Tom tried to look indifferent as he turned his head to look past the front of the wagon. They were not quite past the front-line troops. Leave us alone, he thought furiously at the persistent officer. Go back to your work and leave this one wagon to itself!
"We already have reported it," said Caz worriedly. "To our own commandant."
"And who might that be?" came the unrelenting, infuriating question.'
"Colonel Puxolix," said the driver.
"I know of no such officer."
"How can one know every officer in the army?"
"Nevertheless, perhaps you had best report the incident to my own command. It never hurts one to be thorough, citizen. And I would still like to see the supplies you are to deliver." He turned as if to signal to several chattering soldiers standing nearby.
"Here's one of 'em!" said Flor. Her sword lopped off the officer's head in the midst of a never-to-be-answered query.
For an instant they froze in readiness, hands on weapons, eyes on the troops nearest the wagon. Yet there was no immediate reaction, no cry of alarm. Flor's move had been so swift and the body had fallen so rapidly tha
t no one had yet noticed.
While their driver did not believe in divine intervention, he had the sense to make the decision his passengers withheld.
"Hiui-criiickk!" he shouted softly, simultaneously snapping his odd whip over the lizard's eyes. The animal surged forward in a galloping waddle. Now soldiers did turn from conversation or eating to stare uncertainly at the fleeing wagon.
The last few troops scrambled out of the wagon's path. There was nothing ahead save rock and promise.
Someone stumbled over the body of the unfortunately curious officer, noted that the head was no longer attached, connected the perfidy with the rapidly shrinking outline of the racing wagon, and finally thought to raise the alarm.
"Here they come, friends." Caz knelt in the wagon, staring back the way they'd come. His eyes picked out individual pursuers where Jon-Tom could detect only a faint rising of dust. "They must have found the body."
"Not enough of a start," said Bribbens tightly. "I'll never see my beloved Slqomaz-ayor-le-WeentIi and its cool green banks again. I regret only not having the opportunity to perish in water."
"Woe unto us," murmured a disconsolate Mudge.
"Woe unto ya, maybe," said the lithe black shape perched on the back of the driver's seat. Pog lifted into the air and sped ahead of the lumbering wagon.
"Send back help!" Jon-Tom yelled to the retreating dot.
"He will do so," Clothahump said patiently, "if his panic does not overwhelm his good sense. I am more concerned that our pursuit may catch us before any such assistance has a chance to be mobilized."
"Can't you make this go any faster?" asked Hor.
"The lanteth is built for pulling heavy loads, not for springing like a zealth over poor ground such as this," said the driver, raising his voice in order to be heard above the rumble of the wheels.
"They're gaining on us," said Jon-Tom. Now the mounted riders coming up behind were close enough so that even he could make out individual shapes. Many of the insects he didn't recognize, but the long, lanky, helmeted Plated Folk resembling giant walking sticks were clear enough. Their huge strides ate up long sections of Pass as they closed on the escapees. Two riders on each long back began to notch arrows into bows.
"The Gate, there's the Gate, by Rerelia's pink purse it is!" Mudge shouted gleefully.
His shout was cut off as he was thrown off his feet. The wagon lurched around a huge boulder in the sand, rose momentarily onto two wheels, but did not-turn over. It slammed back down onto the riverbed with a wooden crunch. Somehow the axles held. The spokes bent but did not snap.
Ahead was the still distant rampart of a massive stone wall. Arrows began to zip like wasps past the wagon. The passengers huddled low on the bed, listening to the occasional thuck as an arrow stuck into the wooden sides.
A moan sounded above them, a silent whisper of departure, and another body joined Talea. It was their iconoclastic, brave driver. He lay limply in the wagon bed, arms trailing and the color already beginning to fade from his ommatidia. Two arrows protruded from his head.
Jon-Tom scrambled desperately into the driver's seat, trying to stay low while arrows whistled nastily around him. The reins lay draped across the front bars of the seat. He reached for them.
They receded. So did the seat. The rolling wagon had struck another boulder and had bounced, sending its occupants flying. It landed ahead of Jon-Tom, on its side. The panicky lizard continued pulling it toward freedom.
Spitting sand and blood, Jon-Tom struggled to his feet. He'd landed on his belly. Duar and staff were still intact. So was he, thanks to the now shattered hard-shelled disguise. As he tried to walk, a loose piece of legging slid down onto his foot. He kicked it aside, began pulling off the other sections of chitin and throwing them away. Deception was no longer of any use.
"Come on, it isn't far!" he yelled to his companions. Caz ran past, then Mudge and Bribbens. The boatman was assisting Clothahump as best he could.
Hor, almost past him, halted when she saw he was running toward the wagon. "Jon-Tom, muerte es muerte. Let it be."
"I'm not leaving without her."
Flor caught up with him, grabbed his arm. "She's dead, Jon-Tom. Be a man. Leave it alone."
He did not stop to answer her. Ignoring the shafts falling around them, he located the spraddled corpse. In an instant he had Talea's body in a fireman's carry across his shoulders. She was so small, hardly seemed to have any weight at all. A surge of strength ran through him, and he ran light-headed toward the wall. It was someone else running, someone else breathing hard.
Only Mudge had a bow, but he couldn't run and use it. It wouldn't matter much in a minute anyway, because their grotesque pursuit was almost on top of them. It would be a matter of swords then, a delaying of the inevitable dying.
A furry shape raced past him. Another followed, and two more. He slowed to a trot, tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes. What he saw renewed his strength more than any vitamins.
A fuzzy wave was fanneling out of a narrow crack in the hundred-foot-high Gate ahead. Squirrels and muskrats, otters and possums, an isolated skunk, and a platoon of vixens charged down the Pass.
The insect riders saw the rush coming and hesitated just long enough to allow the exhausted escapees to blend in with their saviors. There was a brief, intense fight. Then the pursuers, who had counted on no more than overtaking and slaughtering a few renegades, turned and ran for the safety of the Greendowns. Many did not make it, their mounts cut out from under them. The butchery was neat and quick.
Soft paws helped the limping, panting refugees the rest of the way in. A thousand questions were thrown at them, not a few centering on their identity. Some of the rescuers had seen the discarded chitin disguises, and knowledge of that prompted another hundred queries at least.
Clothahump adjusted his filthy spectacles, shook sand from the inside of his shell, and confronted a minor officer who had taken roost on the wizard's obliging shoulders.
"Is Wuckle Three-Stripe of Polastnndu here?"
"Aye, but he's with the Fourth and Fifth Corps," said the Sd-aven. His kilt was yellow, black, and azure, and he wore a |-lhin helmet. Two throwing knives were strapped to his sides I'beneath his wings, and his claws had been sharpened for war.
"What about a general named Aveticus?"
"Closer, in the headquarters tent," said the raven. He brushed at the yellow scarf around his neck, the insignia of an arboreal noncommissioned officer. "You'd like to go there, I take it?"
Clothahump nodded. "Immediately. Tell him it's the mad doomsayers. He'll see us."
The raven nodded. "Will do, sir." He lifted from the wizard's shell and soared over the crest of the Gate.
They marched on through the barely open doorway. JonTom had turned his burden over to a pair of helpful ocelots. The Gate itself, he saw, was at least a yard deep and formed of massive timbers. The stonework of the wall was thirty times as thick, solid rock. The Gate gleamed with fresh sap, a substance Caz identified as a fire-retardant.
The Plated Folk might somehow pierce the Gate, but picks and hatchets would never breech the wall. His confidence rose.
It lifted to near assurance when they emerged from the Pass. Spread out on the ancient nver plain that sloped down from the mountains were thousands of camp fires. The warmlanders had taken Clothahump's warning to heart. They would be ready.
He repositioned his own special burden, taking it back from ttie helpful soldiers. With a grimace he unsnapped the insect head and kicked it aside. Red hair hung limply across his shoulder. He stroked the face, hurriedly pulled his hand away. The skin was numbingly cold.
There were two arrows in her back. Even in death, she had protected him again. But it would be all right, he told himself angrily. Clothahump would revive her, as he'd promised he would. Hadn't he promised? Hadn't he?
They were directed to a large three-comered tent. The banners of a hundred cities flew above it. Squadrons of brightly kilted birds and bats flew in formatio
n overhead, arrowhead outlines full of the flash and silver of weapons. They had their own bivouacs, he noted absently, on the flanks of the mountains or in the forest that rose to the west.
Wuckle Three-Stripe was there, still panting from having ridden through the waiting army to meet them. So was Aveticus, his attitude and eyes as alert and ready as they'd been that day so long ago in the council chambers of Polastrindu. He was heavily armored, and a crimson sash hung from his long neck. Jen-Tom could read his expression well enough: the marten was eager to be at the business of killing.
There were half a dozen other officers. Before the visitors could say anything a massive wolverine resplendent in gold chain mail stepped forward and asked in a voice full of disbelief, "Have ye then truly been to Cugluch?" Rumor then had preceded presence.
"To Cugluch an' back, mate," Mudge admitted pridefully. " Twas an epic journey. One that'll long be spoken of. The bards will not 'ave words enough t' do 'er justice."
"Perhaps," said Aveticus quietly. "I hope there will be bards left to sing of it."
"We bring great news." Clothahump took a seat near the central table. "I am sorry to say that the great magic of the Plated Folk remains as threatening as ever, though not quite as enigmatic.
"However, for the first time in recorded history, we have powerful allies who are not of the warmlands." He did not try to keep the pleasure from his voice. "The Weavers have agreed to fight alongside us!"
Considerable muttering rose from the assembled leadership. Not all of it was pleased.
"I have the word of the Grand Webmistress Oil herself, given to us in person," Clothahump added, dissatisfied with the reaction his announcement produced.
When the import finally penetrated, there were astonished murmurs of delight.
"The Weavers… We canna lose now… Won't be a one of the Plated Bastards left!… Drive them all the way to the end of the Greendowns!"
"That is," said Clothahump cautioningly, "they will fight alongside us if they can get here in time. They have to come across the Teeth."
"Then they will never reach here," said a skeptical officer. "There is no other pass across the Teeth save the Troom."
The Hour of the Gate Page 21