The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain)

by Lee Duigon

  “Where are we going?” Jack asked. To see Omah, was the answer that he got. “What’ll we say to any ranger who finds us here in the middle of the night?” he wondered. Wytt didn’t tell him that there were Omah in the woods distracting rangers from this path. Not that he didn’t want Jack to know; but all he could think of at the moment was to lead the children to the edge of the forest as quickly and quietly as possible.

  They had miles to go, and it seemed even farther in the cold and dark. Wytt’s path was more direct and much shorter than any used by the rangers, and in most places too narrow for the children to go side-by-side. Had it not been so much shorter, they never would have reached the forest’s edge by midnight. But it was, and they did, and they were both exhausted.

  “Stay here. Watch and see,” were Wytt’s instructions.

  “I couldn’t go another step, anyhow!” Ellayne gasped.

  They were in an evergreen thicket, looking out on one of the Heathen camps. It was close enough so that they could see a fence of sharp stakes all around it and campfires and lanterns inside the fence. Jack thought it was a good bit too close.

  They were still panting when the underbrush began to rustle and Omah came out all around them. These were Forest Omah, dark-furred, almost invisible at night. They chattered, chirped, and purred, and Wytt went back and forth among them. He was telling them not to be afraid—here was the girl with hair like the rays of the sun. He reminded them that many of them had already seen her from hiding and knew he spoke the truth.

  “What is it about your hair?” Jack whispered. “Every Omah in the world gets all excited over it!”

  Ellayne didn’t know. When they’d first set out on their journey, they had camped for a night among some ancient ruins and Jack had cut her hair to disguise her as a boy. That was how they had met Wytt. He and all the other Omah in that ruined city had gathered up her hair and made a celebration with it, dancing and waving it about. It was something that Wytt had never explained to them because he didn’t know how—something secret, they had come to believe, between the Omah and God, that no human being would ever understand.

  The Forest Omah milled around the children’s ankles like a thousand cats—always clockwise, round and round, like a dance. There might have been a dozen of them, there might have been a thousand: it was too dark to tell. Maybe it went on for an hour; maybe it only seemed like an hour. But at a sudden squeal from Wytt, the Omah all went rushing out onto the plain.

  “What are they going to do?” Ellayne said. “Attack the camp?” Wytt was leading the Omah, so she couldn’t ask him.

  They’d seen Wytt, all by himself, kill a sleeping man, and knew a swarm of Omah could kill many sleeping men. Was that what they were going to do? Even if the camp had sentries, they wouldn’t see the little hairy men crouched down in the tall grass. No fence would keep them out. But how many warriors, out of hundreds, could they possibly kill?

  “I wouldn’t want to be sleeping there tonight,” Jack said.

  Ellayne wished she were sleeping in her own bed in her father’s house under a heap of blankets. The fires flickering in the Heathen camp seemed to taunt her: there was warmth for her freezing hands and feet, but she couldn’t get at it. She could only blow on her hands and stamp her feet. And she didn’t dare make noise doing it. In the stillness of this wintry night, she was afraid the slightest noise would carry to the enemy.

  What were the Omah doing? They’d been gone for hours—minutes really, but it felt like hours—and nothing was happening.

  Jack muffled a sneeze. She glared at him. “If you don’t mind!” she hissed.

  “Sorry. My feet are going numb.”

  “Mine are already gone.”

  “We don’t know the way back to the camp,” he said. “I just thought of that.”

  “Please try to think of something else.”

  Before he could answer her, there was noise—an explosive burst of deep and angry voices in the camp, a mob of men alarmed, enraged. And then the ringing clash of steel on steel and screams: it froze the children in their tracks. It was a noise of battle.

  It was time to go, but neither Jack nor Ellayne had the slightest idea which way to go.

  Then they heard a high-pitched riot of squealing and chirping in the grass, and the host of the Omah came flooding back into the forest. Ellayne yelped when Wytt suddenly jumped into her arms.

  “We kill some,” he reported, “and now they kill each other. They see us, think they see devils.” He made a squeaking noise that was Omah-laughter.

  “They’re killing each other out there?” Jack asked, pointing to the camp. A few of the shelters were on fire now and burning brightly. He thought he could see dark shapes moving in front of the light.

  “Wytt, can you take us back to our camp now?” Ellayne said. “We’re cold.”

  They had to wait. Omah were milling all around them. You could hear a rhythm in their chattering, as if they were rejoicing. It was too dark to see, but Jack supposed each of the little hairy men was brandishing a pointed stick—with blood on it. The eyes and throats of sleeping men—he didn’t like to think of it.

  “Now we go,” Wytt said. Out on the plain, more of the Heathen camp was burning. Horses screamed now, too. At any moment, Jack thought, men would be fleeing from the camp—“straight at us.”

  Wytt guided them. After a time, the celebration of the Forest Omah died away as one by one or two by two they stole back to their nests and burrows. The sky was grey with dawn when Jack and Ellayne laid eyes on the rangers’ camp again. Wytt vanished into the underbrush.

  Everyone was already up and about. Martis saw the children and came running to meet them.

  “Where were you?” he cried. “I was about to beg the rangers to track you down—and I would’ve had to beg because just now they have more important things to do!”

  “Why is everybody so excited?” Jack asked.

  “Because the Abnaks are fighting with the Wallekki and the Zeph. They burned down one of their own camps during the night—we’ve just had word. More scouts are going out to try to find out why that happened.”

  Naturally the rangers had been watching all the Heathen camps, day and night. They would have seen the battle in the camp. But they would’ve been too far away to see the Omah.

  “It was the Omah who did it,” Ellayne said. “We were there; we saw. Wytt led them, and they snuck into the camp. They started the battle somehow. Next thing we knew, the Heathen were killing each other.”

  “They had to see Ellayne before they did it,” Jack said. “That’s why we had to be there. Wytt came and got us. You know how he is.”

  Martis sighed and ground his teeth. “All I know is I’ve had a very bad half-hour worrying about you two! I’ll have more to say about that later. But let’s find Huell and tell him what you saw.”

  “We didn’t see it very well,” Ellayne said. “It was mighty dark out there.”

  “We saw like Chillith sees: we saw without seeing,” Jack said.

  “There are different kinds of darkness,” Martis said. “I think the kind I used to live in was the worst.” But he said no more about that, for the time being.

  CHAPTER 34

  Helki and the Town

  What happened was this.

  Wytt understood much of what he heard men say, and he knew how to make the Forest Omah understand it. He met with the fathers of the Omah, and together they planned to attack the invaders as they slept.

  It would be hard to explain why they so decided. Wytt would not have known how to explain it. But it had to do with Ellayne, and whatever she meant to them—a meaning that was written on their hearts where no words understood by human beings could find it.

  Wytt had overheard the rangers talking about the Abnaks and their woodcraft: so the Omah sought out sleeping Abnaks and killed some of them. It wasn’t long before the camp awoke; and knowing nothing of the Omah, the Abnaks could only believe the dead men had been murdered by the other H
eathen. Those who saw the little hairy Omah scampering away thought they were devils. To avenge their fellows, the Abnaks attacked the Wallekki and the Zeph, and a general fight broke out. The end of it was a burned-out camp, a hundred men killed outright, and the surviving Abnaks marching on to the next camp to bring the battle there. “Treason and witchcraft!” was their cry.

  By mid-morning the rangers knew it was the Abnaks fighting with the other Heathen. This was all on the north side of the forest, but there were already Wallekki riders speeding to bring the tidings to the south-side camps. They would have to ride around the forest. Inside, runners brought the news to all the ranger camps.

  “Are we saved?” Huell wondered. “There’s no love lost between Abnaks and Wallekki. Maybe the whole Heathen army will tear itself apart.”

  Chillith heard him say it and replied, “The heaviest strokes have yet to fall.”

  Helki and his Griffs had crossed to the south bank of the Imperial River and were moving east toward Caristun—or rather, what was left of it. Early in the summer the Heathen attacked it on their way to Obann. The town survived, but much of it had been burnt and ruined. Now refugees had returned to Caristun, trying to rebuild it. They weren’t happy to see Griffs.

  “Peace, peace—we come in the king’s name and in God’s.” Helki stepped out in front of his men to confront a throng of fifty refugees armed with clubs and stones and makeshift spears.

  “Who are you?” their leader demanded.

  “My name is Helki. I come from Lintum Forest.”

  “Helki? Is that Helki the Rod?” a woman cried. “The one they call the Flail of the Lord? Praise God you’ve come in time!”

  Flail of the Lord—he’d first heard that from Jandra’s lips, in the prophetic voice. He didn’t like the name: it made him out to be something grander than he was.

  “If you’re Helki the Rod, what are you doing with those Griffs?” a man said.

  “These men have surrendered to me. They serve King Ryons, as I do,” Helki said. “But what do you mean, I’ve come in time? In time for what?”

  The townspeople stopped brandishing their weapons and gathered around Helki. He didn’t like the way they marveled at him, as if he were an angel come to earth. They muttered about him killing the giant, stared wide-eyed at him. Their tattered clothes and hollow cheeks testified to poverty and hardship. They all tried to speak at once, until the biggest man among them got them to be quiet.

  “It’s like this, sir,” he said. “We’re trying to make this town livable again before the winter comes; but now we see Heathen camps across the river. They’re all over the country between the north bank and Oziah’s Wood. They could cross over any day and burn us out again. And this time, that’d be the finish of us.”

  “But now you’re here—the Giant-killer! Our prayers are answered,” said somebody else. “You won’t let them drive us out.”

  “Oh, fry me!” Helki thought. “A dozen men and a dog—what are we? Maybe in the forest I could do something, but not out here.” But how could he say that to these people?

  “Do you have any stock of food?” he asked.

  An old man grinned at him. “It’s short rations,” he said, “but we aren’t going to starve. Believe it or not, there are a lot of nice, big fish in the river hereabouts, and we catch enough to keep us alive. And we have some onions and turnips stored in the cellars. There aren’t that many of us here—see?”

  “How many?”

  “Two hundred, counting children,” said the leader. “Fifty more or less able-bodied men. Some of the women will fight, if it comes to that. But the town has neither wall nor ditch. If the Heathen come, we don’t know how to keep them off.”

  “And do you think I know?” Helki thought. But he said, “We’ll see what can be done. It’s all in God’s hands.”

  The refugees had repaired some of the least-damaged barns and houses with lumber salvaged from the ruins. Much of Caristun was a forest of charred timbers pitched at crazy angles, but the living quarters seemed adequate. About half of the people now lived in the town hall, and the rest in half a dozen houses and a livery stable.

  They took Helki to the ruins of the docks and bade him look across the Imperial. That country teemed with Heathen warriors, they said.

  “A few of us have been across on boats,” said the leader. “We’ve seen the camps.”

  “Do the Heathen have boats?” Helki asked.

  “We haven’t seen any. They must have crossed over far upriver, where it’s not so wide. But they can always build rafts. If they want to come across, they’ll find a way to do it.”

  “This is a bad place, Giant-slayer,” said Tiliqua—in Griffish, so that the townspeople wouldn’t understand him. “If we stay to help these people, all we can do is die with them.”

  “I reckon it might come to that,” Helki answered. “But let’s try a few other things first.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Gurun and Obst

  Gurun was given her own room in the palace, with a Ghol to stand outside her door to guard her, and a maid to come in and wake her up in the morning and bring her breakfast. The Ghol didn’t speak a word of Obannese and only grinned at her when she tried to speak to him. His name was Kutchuk. The maid was a girl of her own age; Bronna was her name. She lived with her father and mother in the city. The first time she came into the room with a tray, she amazed Gurun by curtseying to her and calling her “my lady.”

  “Why do you call me that, and why do you curtsey?” Gurun said, sitting up in bed—by far the most luxurious bed she’d ever slept in, or even imagined.

  “Why, because the people call you Queen, my lady,” Bronna said.

  “What people? Who says I’m a queen?”

  “Everyone, my lady.”

  “Well, that must come to an end right away,” Gurun said. “I am a plain girl, just like you. In my country there has never been a king or queen.”

  “They said you came across the sea, my lady. No plain girl could do that!”

  Gurun ate her breakfast hurriedly, eager to find someone in authority who would understand—and make it clear to everybody else—that she was nothing more than King Ryons’ guest. All this talk about her being a queen must stop! She was sure God would punish her if she ever started to believe it.

  When she was ready, the maid and the Ghol took her to another room within this enormous building called a palace. There a tall, old man was waiting for her. This was Obst, the king’s teacher. She’d met him last night at supper.

  “Sit down, sit down, be comfortable,” he said. “I was awake all night, looking forward to this meeting. Tell me all about your country, and how you came to Obann.”

  “Where is King Ryons?” Gurun asked.

  “Visiting various places in the city: letting his people see him.”

  “I want to see him, too. I am told the people are calling me a queen, and I am not a queen.”

  The old man smiled. She’d thought him grim, the first time she saw him. But when he smiled, he was warm and wise and sweet.

  “No one knows how that got started,” he said. “People will take notions—who can account for it? Perhaps they think you look like a queen.

  “But to cross the sea! There were seagoing men in ancient times, but there aren’t anymore. It’s been a thousand years since any man of Obann dared to put to sea.”

  “Why is that?” said Gurun. She could hardly imagine anything stranger. “My people live on islands. The sea is how we travel. We couldn’t live without it. Fish, sealskins, seal meat, whales, and whale blubber for fuel in the winter—by God’s providence, our living is the sea. Why should Obann’s people fear it?”

  Obst shook his head. “No one knows,” he said. “It happened in the days of Obann’s ruin, when God’s wrath fell on us. We have no writings from that time: everything was destroyed. It is said that God’s wrath came down from Heaven—and up from the sea. All our ships and all our ports were suddenly destroyed. Since then our
people have feared the sea and will not live in sight of it.”

  They had a long talk. It was pleasant for Gurun to talk about her island, although it made her homesick, too. Obst was most interested in the way the islanders had preserved the Scriptures, and studied them, and knew them—and all without the guidance of the Temple and its presters.

  “I believe that in these days, God wants His people in all lands to do as your people have done,” he said. “I believe that God Himself ordained the destruction of the Temple, because instead of bringing the people into communion with their Lord, it became a separating wall between them and Him. But don’t speak of these things in the streets of this city! Having lost the Temple, the people are afraid.”

  “I have noticed that they will not pray unless somebody leads them,” Gurun said. “In the village where I stopped, they asked me to lead them in their prayers. It wasn’t proper, but I did it. I hope I did no wrong.”

  “Of course not,” Obst said.

  He was also greatly interested in the filgya. He believed it must have been an angel, but Gurun didn’t know about that. She wanted to know how Ryons became king, and Obst told her: how a prophet of the Lord proclaimed him king while he was still a slave, how the power of God converted a Heathen army and made it Ryons’ army, and how lost Scriptures were found. “We believe,” he said, “that Ryons is of the seed of King Ozias himself, miraculously preserved in fulfillment of prophecy.”

  “King Ozias? But he lived so long ago!” Gurun cried.

  “Nevertheless, we believe King Ryons is his descendant in the flesh.”

  Gurun knew that God had promised Ozias that his seed would never fail: that the throne would be reserved for his bloodline forever. But Ryons? It made her head reel to think she’d ridden side by side, and stood hand in hand, with a descendant of that same King Ozias who wrote the Sacred Songs. How could such things be?