The Glass Bridge (Bell Mountain #7)

by Lee Duigon

  Careful, now, he told himself: mustn’t get overly excited. He forced himself to smile at his prisoners.

  “I’m sure you’re all loyal, law-abiding subjects of Obann,” he said, “who only want to do the right thing for your country. Very well! You came down to find carts and bring them up to the pass: I release you to carry out your mission. Come back up with as many carts as you can find. Understand?”

  When it dawned on the captains that they and their men were to be released unharmed, free to carry out their baron’s orders, they were delighted and amazed. Who would blame them for obeying one of the High Council of the Oligarchy? If it seemed strange to any of them that this high councilor had gathered to himself a host of Heathen warriors—well, had not King Ryons done the same? All they had to do was round up carts and bring them up to the Golden Pass. Why trouble themselves with questions of high politics?

  The first captain saluted. “My lord,” he said, “we understand and will obey! We’ll bring up all the carts we can.”

  After they were released, the boldest of Chutt’s Wallekki chieftains asked, “Why did you let them go? They’ll only make trouble for us later.”

  “I can hardly hope to win back Obann if I start by slaughtering Obannese militia,” Chutt said. “They were too few to do us any harm—much better if they just bring us carts instead. Once we have the gold in our possession, you’ll see. What we cannot conquer, we can buy.”

  One captain, a man named Kerdig, took a trooper aside and ordered him to ride back up the mountain as fast as his horse could carry him.

  “Tell the baron everything,” Kerdig said. “He must be given time to decide what to do, so hurry!”

  “But if it’s a high councilor—”

  “The baron will decide how to deal with him. Now go!”

  CHAPTER 31

  How News Came to the Baron

  Uduqu marched beside Obst, toiling along on tired legs, hard put to keep up with the old man’s long strides.

  Obst no longer knew how old he was, having lost count of the years he’d lived in Lintum Forest as a hermit. Uduqu had formed a habit of studying Obst’s face when Obst wasn’t looking. He was sure some of the deep lines around Obst’s eyes and mouth were filling in with flesh and a few more hairs in his beard were turning black. But that was something Obst didn’t like to talk about.

  “This is going to have to be my last campaign,” Uduqu said. “My legs just can’t stand it anymore. I feel like I’ve hiked to the end of the world and back.

  “I always thought I’d die in a battle, somewhere—a good end for an Abnak. But I find I’m not content with that anymore. Now I want to live long enough to read and write. I want to read the Scriptures, like Ryons does. I was coming along pretty well in Obann, with Ryons’ teacher teaching me. But then we had to leave, and I’ve had no more lessons. And we haven’t brought along any books with us, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to it—if ever. I wanted to be the first Abnak who ever read a book.”

  Obst winced. “Oh, my friend—I’ve let you down!” he cried. “I should have been teaching you myself.”

  “You were busy with a few other things. I’m not complaining.”

  “But I’m sure we can manage something,” Obst said. “A piece of charcoal can always serve you as a pen. Or you could practice on bare ground with the point of your knife. We can resume your lessons this evening, after mealtime.”

  Uduqu usually fell asleep right after eating, sometimes even before the sun went down. “But I’ll stay awake for that,” he said. “All these years, old man, I’ve written the story of my life with axe and scalping knife. But that’s no way to write the Scriptures.”

  “No,” said Obst, “it isn’t.”

  Gallgoid set out alone, on a mule selected more for endurance than for speed, having first appointed one of his agents to act in his place and introducing her to Constan, Jod, and Joah.

  “This is Jilly,” he told them. “She works as a maid in the house of Evrach Hoyl, the wool merchant. She also shops for him and gets around the city. I’ve told all my people to report to her instead of me. She has the sharpest eyes and shrewdest ears in all Obann, and you can rely on her.”

  Prester Jod was gracious; Constan responded only with a nod, but Joah the captain had his doubts.

  “She looks too young for this sort of work,” he said, young, fair-haired, and pretty, he didn’t need to add.

  “You don’t want a spy who looks like a spy,” said Gallgoid. “I’ve trained her myself. She now knows everything I know.” And much that the three of you don’t know, he thought.

  “I’m sure we can place our trust in her,” said Prester Jod. “Besides, the city is quiet now.”

  “We want to make sure it stays that way,” Gallgoid said. There were still many Obannese who wanted to rebuild the Temple, despite First Prester Orth’s insistence that a Temple built by human hands would no longer serve the people’s need—a position with which Prester Jod fully concurred. The burned ruins of the Palace continued to remind people of an old order that had passed away but not yet been replaced.

  “There’s a great deal of uneasiness in this city,” Gallgoid said. “If Lord Chutt puts himself forward as a man to restore the Oligarchy, and all the old ways, there are many who will be disposed to follow him.”

  “But Chutt has gone east, not south,” said Joah.

  “He will come back someday,” Gallgoid said. “Be ready for him.”

  Prester Jod sighed. “The Lord has shaken the earth,” he said, “and many great things have fallen down. We can only put our trust in Him and do our best.”

  Helki the Rod made camp a single day’s journey from the top of the Golden Pass.

  A flight of birds told him there was trouble coming. They weren’t migrating: it was too early for that; they were getting out of the way, heading for some place more likely to be peaceful.

  He knew from the faint smell of smoke that Roshay Bault was camped by the ruins of the golden hall, with many men who needed many cooking-fires. But the birds had come from the west, from Obann’s side of the mountain. The trouble, whatever it was, wasn’t at the baron’s camp.

  Helki kept a watch for crows and eagles. If there was a battle in the offing, they would seek it out. But so far those birds had not appeared.

  “Tomorrow I’ll come a little closer,” Helki said to himself, “and then I’ll hunker down and see what’s what.”

  Thanks to the Thunder King’s road, Vannett’s messenger and Kerdig’s trooper arrived one right after the other, just hours apart.

  “Lord Chutt has a host of Wallekki, Baron, and some Obannese, too—a good three thousand, all told,” Kerdig’s man reported. “He has come for the gold. He’s one of the High Council and says he’s going to take charge up here. He says it’s not lawful for King Ryons to be king.”

  Roshay grimaced. “Of all the High Council, trust Chutt to be the only one still living!”

  “He says the law is on his side, my lord. Is it?”

  “Where was his reverence for the law when he ran away and left the rest of the High Council to die, trying to defend the city?” Roshay’s face reddened. “It was that boy, who is now our king, and the power of God, that saved the city—no one else, and least of all Lord Stinking Vulture Chutt! He wants the gold to set himself up as a tyrant. Well, it might not be as easy as he thinks!”

  “They’re coming right behind me,” said the trooper.

  Which meant, thought Roshay, that they weren’t going to Ninneburky, and his wife and his town were safe.

  “What am I to do?” he said softly. “Surrender to him, just like that? No, by God!” He made the trooper jump. “If Chutt wants this gold, he’ll have to fight for it.” The baron turned and bellowed to his men. “Stop work—now! I want a trench dug across this road and a barricade behind it.”

  The trooper stared at him, wide-eyed. “My lord, there are too many of them! We’ll all be killed.”

  Roshay
seized him by the neck of his mail shirt and shook him. “I don’t allow that kind of talk!” he roared. “Chutt is a coward and a traitor, and we have work to do.” The men were already gathering around him. “Half of you start digging—I’ll show you where—and the rest, cut a lot of stakes and make them sharp. We have all the timber that we’ll ever need, right here. Captains, get these men working!”

  Jack, Ellayne, and Fnaa heard everything. Suddenly everyone was hacking at the earth with swords and spears and axes, or dragging heavy timbers from the ruin. The routine of the camp was shattered. Roshay Bault was everywhere, barking orders, shoving men who weren’t moving fast enough. No one paid any attention to the children. Martis, Trout, and Wytt were off hunting Ysbott.

  “I’ve never seen a battle,” Fnaa said. “Maybe this is a good place for one.”

  “It’s not as much fun as you think,” said Jack, who had seen a battle once—the one that had started with Helki killing the giant. Jack and Ellayne had seen the battle from the top of a cart. Sometimes he still saw it in his dreams.

  “What about Martis?” Ellayne cried. “Someone ought to go and bring him back!”

  But there was no one available to do that.

  Guided by Wytt, Martis and Trout found Ysbott’s camp abandoned. “Only three camped here,” Trout said, as he studied the ground and the remains of a campfire. “They left here yesterday morning, I’d say.”

  Wytt, of course, could track them easily, by scent. It would be hard for Ysbott to go where they couldn’t follow. But now Wytt didn’t want to follow Ysbott, and neither did Trout.

  “There’s something brewing that this little fellow doesn’t like,” Trout said. “I don’t understand his chattering like the kids do, but look—the hair’s standing up along the back of his neck. And it’s standing up on my neck, too! I think we ought to head back to the baron’s camp.”

  Martis nodded. He used to get such feelings in the city. If an enemy were following him secretly on a busy street, Martis would know it, even if he couldn’t see the enemy. So he listened to Trout.

  Besides, Wytt was scolding both of them, noisily, trying to tell them he smelled men and horses, as many as the leaves on the trees, coming from the wrong direction. It maddened him that the humans couldn’t understand him no matter how simply he tried to put it, but he was satisfied when they turned from the camp and headed back up to the pass.

  CHAPTER 32

  The Door of the Sun

  It wasn’t necessary to dig a trench all around the ruins of the hall. That wouldn’t even have been possible. The Thunder King had built around it a high stockade, sealing off the pass except for two great gates, one facing west and one, east. The avalanche had smashed this stockade, creating a jumble of fallen, broken timbers impassable to horses and dangerous for men on foot. Roshay’s men had only to dig in front of where the west gate used to be.

  Behind the trench the militiamen raised an abatis. It wasn’t very high or very deep, but it would do: Chutt’s cavalry wouldn’t be able to charge them. Even so, it would be hard for two hundred men to hold off an attack by thousands.

  “We should’ve brought more archers,” Sergeant Kadmel said.

  “We’ll do our best with what we have,” said Roshay Bault. “Chutt’s no man of war. He’s only good at counting money. And his Wallekki won’t relish a stiff fight against a fortified position.”

  “Once they get a peek at all this gold, they won’t go home without it,” Kadmel said.

  “We’ll make them lose their taste for it, if we can. If worst comes to worst,” the baron said, “we have enough gold to buy our way out of trouble. And by the way, Kadmel, you are now a captain.”

  “Thank you, sir!” Kadmel grinned. “I hope I live to spend my raise in pay.”

  Toward the end of the day Martis and Trout returned, winded and soaked with sweat, but otherwise unharmed. Wytt leaped into Ellayne’s arms and told her enemies were coming.

  “Yes—we know,” Ellayne said. “They’ll be here tomorrow morning, my father says. They won’t find it easy to budge him off this spot!”

  Roshay took Martis aside.

  “Once we see how things are,” he said, “I’d appreciate it if you and Trout would take the children into the woods and make them scarce. I don’t want them caught up in a battle.”

  “We’ll get them back to Ninneburky, Baron. I promise,” Martis said.

  While waiting for King Ryons’ men to come up from Lintum Forest, the baroness had not been idle. She’d sent messengers up and down the river and had collected another hundred fresh militiamen. Meanwhile, scouts from King Oziah’s Wood reported that the invaders had turned east and wouldn’t be coming to Ninneburky, after all.

  That could only mean they were making for the Golden Pass, where her husband was with only a few hundred men. What could he do? Where could he go? But she didn’t give in to panic. She had no time for it, nor would she tolerate it in her cook.

  “Pull yourself together, Lanora!” she said. “The king’s men are coming, our own people are coming, and they all have to be made ready to go and save the baron.”

  “But, my lady, they’ll be too late! Can’t you send some of them now?”

  “It’d be folly to send out a little force that would just be swallowed up—the baron wouldn’t thank me for it!” Vannett said. “We’re better off doing all that we can do and praying to the Lord to do the rest.”

  Lanora went about her kitchen duties sniffling and teary-eyed. Nywed the housemaid, Enith’s grandmother, did all she could to calm her. Nywed’s husband, Master Harfydd, put out calls to his boats to come down the river as fast as they could. “They’ll be another three hundred men,” he told the baroness, “if only we can find arms and armor for them. If not, most of them have axes and other tools that they can fight with.”

  Vannett found a little time to sit with Enith and read Scripture.

  “My grammum says it’s a wonder you’re so brave, Baroness,” the girl said.

  Vannett laughed uneasily. “Me—brave? I certainly don’t feel brave, Enith! But there’s so much to do, so many messages to send out, to say nothing of finding places to stay for all the men who are going to be here soon and seeing that they’ll have enough to eat. There’s just no time to mope.”

  Besides: ever since she and Roshay woke one early morning to hear Ozias’ bell tolling from the summit of Bell Mountain—they’d had no idea what it was until much later; there was no such bell in Ninneburky—Vannett had come unexpectedly into possession of a conviction, or a feeling, that it was all going to be all right. It meant, she believed, that God had taken charge: that her daughter and her daughter’s friend had obeyed God, no matter how difficult and dangerous it was, and that the Lord would remember it. Because the children had obeyed God, there was a blessing on their house. The man who’d been sent out to kill them, Martis, would protect them with his life. More than that, God would protect them. And had He not delivered all of Ninneburky out of the hands of a Zephite army?

  But she couldn’t explain it to Enith, not without revealing the secret of Bell Mountain and Ellayne’s part in certain great events. It wasn’t safe to speak of it. So Martis said, and she believed him.

  “Well, let’s do something that’ll do us good,” she said to Enith. “I’ll read a Sacred Song to you, and you can read one to me. And then we’ll go back about our business.”

  The crows were gathering, Helki noted from his hiding place. Their general flight was up the mountain, west to east, when they weren’t otherwise just going around in circles. Pretty soon, he thought, he’d be seeing eagles, too.

  There was going to be a battle, and at no place more likely than the top of the Golden Pass. “Reckon I’d better move a little closer,” he said to himself. But if there was going to be a full-scale battle, he supposed he’d be able to do more good if no one knew he was anywhere nearby. He put out his fire and began to move toward the pass, exercising all his stealth. Not even the blue jays not
iced him.

  By and by he came close enough to smell smoke, sweat, and the dung of horses, and to hear raised voices and the thump of metal blades on wood, when the wind was right. It sounded like Roshay Bault was working his people hard. “Which means they know an enemy is coming, and they’re getting ready for a fight.” They weren’t going to be taken by surprise, Helki thought.

  What enemy could be coming from the west? Helki never thought it might be a friendly force, coming to join the baron in his labors. The crows were never wrong.

  And then, high up in the sky, much higher than the crows, he saw an eagle circling: slowly, patiently, just keeping an eagle eye on things until the battle had been fought and it was time for eagles to feast on the dead. The eagle wouldn’t be there unless it thought there would be many dead.