by Lee Duigon
Wytt fled, just out of reach, straight for the tree where the great predator waited. Tempted past the bounds of caution, angered by the noise, the beast sprang from the tree onto the man’s back. The prey screamed as the powerful claws sank into his flesh—a scream that was suddenly cut off as the beast’s fangs drove into the back of his neck, a bite that killed him instantly.
All the others saw what happened. Too shocked and terrified even to try to rescue their comrade, they fled into the woods, roaring in their terror. Even Ysbott ran. He’d never in his life seen anything like this, and it shattered his nerve.
Wytt ran a little ways up a tree and, from the safety of a branch too frail to bear the predator’s weight, looked down and watched.
The hunter was already feeding.
Two of the panicked fools ran blindly into Roshay’s camp, just as the men who were to go back for the carts were saddling their horses. Guards tackled the fugitives and brought them to the baron.
“And who the devil are you?” he demanded. It took some hard shaking and several slaps to get any sense out of them.
“Mercy, lord baron—mercy!” one begged. “We’re poor men from town; we came up for the gold. But there’s a monster in the woods; it’s hunting us!”
“It killed Vonnic,” said the other—“jumped on him from out of a tree and killed him right in front of us. You should have seen the blood!”
“It was a giant cat or something,” said the first. “Not a natural animal, not natural at all. I don’t know what it was: no one ever heard of such a thing. It just jumped out of nowhere.”
“These must be the ones who’ve been making spooky noises in the night,” Kadmel said. “Maybe they killed poor young Willy, too. Give ’em a thrashing and string ’em up.”
“No! No, my lord—it wasn’t us! We never hurt a soul; we swear! It was Tobb; yes, it was Tobb who did that. And he made us do the noises. All we wanted was some of the gold.”
“Martis, see if you can get truth out of them,” Roshay said.
“But we are telling you the truth, my lord! As God’s my witness! It was Tobb; he’s the one. He made us do it!”
“He would’ve cut our throats if we hadn’t,” added the other.
There wasn’t much story to come out. The two men didn’t know who their leader, Tobb, was—just a hunter who’d taken charge of them, led them up the mountain, and bullied them into obedience.
“I think they’re telling the truth. They’re too scared to lie,” Martis said. He had expertise in such matters, and the baron knew it. “It seems there were only ten men in their band, and now it’s down to seven.”
“I wish we could get our hands on Tobb, whoever he is,” said Roshay. Meanwhile, he ordered the two captives placed under guard. He didn’t want to hang anyone in front of his daughter.
But they weren’t going to get their hands on Ysbott. He was already two miles deeper into the woods. He ran down Hrapp the cobbler and smacked some sense into him, and the two of them pulled Gwawl out of a bog where he’d gotten mired up to his hips. He would have died there, if they hadn’t found him. The rest of the band had bolted in several different directions and there was no hope of catching up to them.
“Let them blunder around until they starve,” Ysbott said. “It’ll serve them right for losing their heads.”
“I’m sorry, Tobb—I couldn’t help it!” Hrapp said. “We don’t belong out here. What was that horrible thing that jumped on Vonnic? You said these woods were safe!”
“They are—for ten grown men who stay together.”
“But now there are only three of us,” Gwawl said. “What was that thing that got Vonnic? A lion?”
“That mud you’ve bathed in stinks,” said Ysbott. “A lion! There are no lions in Obann. But we’d better find some place to settle down and get a fire going, if we can.”
“We’re lost,” Gwawl said. Ysbott sneered at him.
“I’m not lost, you half-wit!” he said. “Do as I say, and I won’t let you get lost, either. But if you give me any trouble, I’ll just go away and leave you here.”
They followed him closely as he went off looking for a camping spot, almost treading on his heels.
CHAPTER 28
The Return of the Lions
Ellayne didn’t want to be sent back to Ninneburky.
“Why can’t we stay here with you?” she asked her father. Jack would have liked to stay, too, but he doubted the baron would respond well to wheedling.
“I would be easier in my mind if the children stayed with us, my lord,” said Martis.
To Ellayne’s surprise, her father reconsidered. “Maybe it’s better for you to stay where I can keep an eye on you,” he said. “But you’re not to leave this camp! That goes for all three of you,” he added, including Fnaa. “We have a lot of work to do up here that doesn’t include baby-sitting. If you can’t obey me in this, Ellayne, it’s off to finishing school for you.”
The business of the camp resumed. Two hundred men rode off to fetch carts, and Roshay Bault went back to supervising the work of those who remained. Martis continued to question the prisoners, who now seemed eager to cooperate.
“It was nice of your father to care about me, even though he doesn’t know me,” Fnaa said.
“My father is a great man,” said Ellayne. “He feels responsible for you because you’re our friend—and because you’re just a kid.”
“But we’d better do as he says, this time—all of us,” Jack said. Having been kidnapped once before and carried off to Silvertown and from there all the way to Obann City, he had no desire to repeat the experience.
Helki made his way slowly back to the Golden Pass. The baron would be there by now, he thought: no need to hurry. He stopped to collect what news he could whenever he met a trapper or a hunter. But he was higher up than anyone had cared to plant a settlement, so those encounters were few and far between.
Even so, by now everyone in the hills seemed to know the First Prester was campaigning with the Abnaks. “And they’re doing pretty well for themselves, or so I hear,” a trapper said. “Not that anyone hears much—but it doesn’t look like the Thunder King will be able to come back across the mountains anytime soon.”
“That’s good news,” said Helki. If the Abnaks could drive the Thunder King out of their lands, then other nations might be emboldened to rise against him.
Helki didn’t like to hurry through this country. It was new to him, and he had much to learn. Nevertheless, he thought, Ryons and Obst and all the rest of them were down there, somewhere in the East, “and I reckon I ought to be with them. No telling what might happen to them.”
As he made his way toward the pass, he saw signs that the summer, up here in the high country, was wearing thin: black ink-berries that had been red or green not long ago and some of the leaves already turning yellow on the trees. The days were warm, and even hot; the air was full of insects; birds still fed their chicks; but some of the nights were getting cool. He kept a careful eye on certain kinds of caterpillars whose behavior and color changes might presage an early winter. So far, they showed no signs of it.
All of that aside, he thought, the Abnaks had better hurry up and win their war. Depending on the situation, the arrival of winter would either finish off the Thunder King’s dominion in their country, or else give his forces a breathing space that they might use to good advantage.
As for King Ryons and his little army—“Well,” said Helki to himself, “that’s in God’s hands, and no one else’s.”
As Helki prayed for them, Ryons and his men halted in their march because they saw strange beasts on the grassy plain before them—a dozen of them holding their ground against two thousand men and horses.
“We’ll soon have them out of the way—and some good sport, too,” said Chagadai, drawing an arrow from his quiver. But Obst cried, “Hold! Stand still.”
“What are they?” Ryons wondered, standing up in his stirrups for a better view. The tawny b
easts stood twitching their tails, glaring back at him. “They’re beautiful!” the boy king thought. “Please don’t shoot them,” he said to Chagadai.
“As our father pleases.” The Ghol put away his arrow.
“Send for Tiliqua,” Obst said.
Tiliqua and his Griffs came to the front of the army, the Hosa making way for them.
“Do you know what those are?” Obst said.
Tiliqua looked at them for some moments, then broke into a grin. “This is a marvel!” he said. “If our old songs and rhymes of lore speak truth—why, those are lions! There were lions in this country, in ancient times, long, long ago. Their images are cut into certain rocks, hard to get at; but when I was a little boy, I used to climb up and look at them.
“See that big one, with the shaggy mane? That’s the male, their king. We Griffs wear our hair after the manner of the lion’s mane. The others are his wives and offspring. And it has always been said, among our people, that someday the lions would return. And here they are! Where could they have come from?”
“We have lions in our country, far away,” Xhama said. “Sometimes they kill our cattle.”
“The Wallekki in the south hunt lions,” Shaffur said, “and sometimes the lions hunt them. These must have come up from there. But it’s a long way.”
The maned male let out a low roar, turned, and began to walk away, slowly. The others, with an occasional backward glance at the men, followed. Held back by Obst, the army stood in place until the lions, with great dignity, passed out of sight. But Perkin had a hard time holding on to Baby. The giant bird fidgeted, clacked his beak angrily, and squawked. The lions paid him no heed.
“We ought to rejoice,” said Gurun, “because the lions have given way to us of their own free will. It is a sign that God is with us.”
“Well said!” Obst answered. “For it’s written in the Book of Ika, ‘For our God is a mighty God, a lion among the lesser beasts.’”
“Then I would say this is a good place to camp,” Uduqu said, “seeing as how the lions have left it to us.”
There would be no more big fights, Foxblood said, until the Abnaks came farther down toward the lowlands. There they would meet larger bodies of the Thunder King’s troops and the greater part of his strength in their country.
“But first,” he said to Orth, “there’s something else I’d like you to see.”
Being an intelligent man and having been a scholar all his life, Orth was quickly picking up the rudiments of both the Abnak language and Tribe-talk. “Someday,” he said to Foxblood, “we will have the Holy Scriptures for the Abnaks in their own language—and in all the languages men speak this side of the mountains.”
“All well and good,” said Foxblood, “but come and see this.”
The Abnak camp sprawled all around the ruins of the Fazzans’ fort. As he followed the chief, Orth heard singing and the beat of leather drums. Soon he saw a fire, with a handful of warriors sitting around it in a circle, two of them pounding a rhythm on their drums.
In the midst of them danced a single man—an old man with a white scalp-lock and faded tattoos on his bare chest. As he danced, he sang.
“Can you make out what he’s singing?” Foxblood asked.
Orth listened carefully. “He’s giving thanks for something. He’s rejoicing. But I can’t quite understand his words.”
“He’s giving thanks to God—the Obann God,” said Foxblood. “His voice is cracked with age, and he speaks a southern dialect that must be strange to you. But this is what he says.
“His name is Krahok, of the Mud Turtle clan, and he thanks God because he has been sick, and he expected to die. His firstborn son was killed this spring, fighting against the Thunder King. So he is thanking God for raising him up from his sickness and giving him new strength and letting him live to see the day God came to the Abnaks to fight for them against their enemies.
“He thanks God for making him strong so that he fought well, as if he were young again, when we took the Zephites’ fort. He promises God that he will fight courageously. He thanks God for allowing his son’s wife and children to find refuge in Obann. And finally he thanks God for letting him know that He is God, a mighty God, who will not leave the people to be wiped out by their enemies. This is the song of Krahok, the Mud Turtle.”
To see the old man dance so vigorously, and to hear him praise God with all his heart, brought a tear to Orth’s eye—many tears, in fact.
“You have a tender heart, Et-taa-naa-qiqu,” Foxblood said. “No Abnak would shed tears for this.”
“I can’t help it,” Orth said. “But I weep for joy, not sorrow.”
“It’s because you are so different from us that my people are coming to love you,” Foxblood said. “God must be strong indeed, to have a tender heart like yours. My people are used to gods that have no heart at all.”
“When the mother forsakes her suckling child,” Orth quoted from the Sacred Songs, “then I the Lord will take him in my arms, and he shall live.”
He couldn’t be quite sure of it, but he thought the chief’s eyes had begun to water, too. But that was not something he thought fit to mention.
CHAPTER 29
How Gallgoid Learned to Pray
Angel the hawk liked to stretch her wings and fly for the joy of flying, covering ground in minutes that would take the army all day to traverse. Sometimes she flew so high that Ryons could see her as only an infinitely tiny speck. Sometimes she flew off in this or that direction until he couldn’t see her at all, and stayed away for an hour, or even half a day. But she always came back. Her savage little heart treasured her roost on the boy’s shoulder and loved the very sight of him.
How much can a hawk understand of the affairs of men? Angel knew the men who rode with Ryons were attached to him, as she was. She’d seen battles: Ryons’ men fighting against other men, their enemies. That much she understood well enough.
Lately she’d been seeing some things that made her uneasy. Soon there would be more fighting. Her boy would be in danger. But there was no way she could tell him what she’d seen; he simply couldn’t understand her when she tried. Even Chagadai the Ghol, who taught the king the finer points of hawking and knew more about hawks than any other man in the army, couldn’t understand. “She seems a bit edgy. I don’t know why,” was all he could say.
The king’s great dog, Cavall, understood. Even the big, stupid bird that couldn’t fly, Baby, understood a little. But Cavall couldn’t make the humans understand, no more than Angel could. Frustrated, she grew short-tempered enough to peck Chagadai’s hand when he stretched out a finger to pet her.
“Did you see that, Father? She nipped me, the little devil!”
“Why?” asked Ryons. He was just as obtuse as Chagadai, but Angel would never peck him. It was the sort of thing no decent hawk would ever do.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with her,” said Chagadai. “Something troubles her, but I don’t think she’s sick. If only she could talk, then we’d know.”
Angel tried and tried to tell them, but they couldn’t understand.
They were being followed.
Baroness Vannett expected to have a quiet time, albeit a lonely one, with her husband and children away to the Golden Pass. She thought she might get some things done around the house that couldn’t be done so easily with everybody there. Jack’s room ought to be repainted. Now that her eldest son, Josek, had his own house a few miles upriver, his old clothes ought to be sorted. Floors needed waxing, and so on. On top of all that, she had to see to the day-to-day running of the baron’s logging business. A workman at one of the camps had gotten his foot crushed between two logs and some other duty would have to be found for him, so his family would be provided for. Breaking the news to the man’s wife had not been easy.
So the baroness was hardly ready for it when a forester from King Oziah’s Wood arrived in town, breathless, demanding to see the baron. They brought him to Vannett’s front door.
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“The baron’s many miles away,” she said. “Tell me your tidings.”
“Tidings? I guess you could call it that!” he panted. “It’s a huge mob of Heathen horsemen, thousands of ’em, heading straight for the Chariot River from the northwest. God knows where they came from! They’re probably crossing the river right now. There’s nothing in Oziah’s Wood that they’d be interested in, but I don’t think they’d pass up a tidy little town like Ninneburky. You’ve got walls and all, but I don’t see enough men here to defend the place for long.
“We’ll be all right in the wood, ma’am—but this town has got to be defended!” He ran out of breath and stared at her.
Once upon a time she would have panicked. Now she brought the man into the house and gave him something to eat and sent the groom to fetch the captain in charge of the militia remaining in the town. Her mind raced, but raced efficiently.