by Lee Duigon
“What’s that?” he said.
“His name is Wytt. He’ll track for us,” Ellayne said. “You can trust him.”
“It’s true,” Roshay added.
Then the men arrived, eleven of them in shirts of mail, on horseback, armed with spears, and with horses for Herger and the sergeant. Ellayne would have to sit behind a rider, and Wytt, for the time being, would have to go into her sack. He didn’t like it, but he’d had to do it many times before.
“Bring that boy back to us, Kadmel—and Martis, if he’s still alive,” Roshay said. “And don’t let my daughter out of your sight.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Ellayne kissed her father and mother. Vannett stroked her hair and said, “Don’t forget your prayers.” Once upon a time, Ellayne thought, her mother would have been in a panic over anything like this. Certainly she would never have allowed her daughter to go out with the militia.
“I’ll be good, Mother,” Ellayne said.
She went out the front door with the sergeant. It was just about the exact time she usually went to bed.
CHAPTER 5
Jack’s Prayer
As the patrol rode out of Ninneburky, a letter was on its way from Obann to Silvertown. The rider who carried it and his companion had safe-conduct passes signed by Merffin Mord and lies invented by him, in case anyone should stop them, but the letter itself was signed by all the members of the council. The riders made good time and would arrive in Silvertown the next day. They were sworn not to open the letter, but if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to read it. For the letter was in a code to which only Goryk Gillow had the key.
Gallgoid had no copy of this letter, but he was well aware of its content. He could have intercepted it, but had decided to let it go through. As the two riders made camp for the night, Gallgoid sat at his desk, contemplating the message and talking to himself. As an added precaution, he spoke to himself in Wallekki.
“So,” he mused, “will Goryk Gillow come to Obann to be acclaimed First Prester by the council? Is he as big a fool as that?”
Mord had invited Goryk to Obann. It was to be a diplomatic mission, holding out the hope of peace between Obann and the Thunder King. It had crossed Gallgoid’s mind to cause the secret message to be revealed throughout the city. The people might rise up against the traitors. Surely Goryk and the councilors knew that no one but the College of Presters could elect a First Prester! What was their game? The only way to find out, Gallgoid thought, was to wait for Goryk to come to the city, and see what happened next.
“Haste is the luxury of fools,” he said to himself. “Let the people have more time to warm to Lord Orth as First Prester. They might not want a change.”
What the people really wanted, he knew, was the Temple. They passed by the Temple’s ruins every day, but couldn’t imagine it would never rise again. Orth’s vision of a new Temple—one not made by hands, but consisting of nothing but the Holy Scriptures and prayer and faith—was not easily grasped. Such a Temple, the new First Prester taught, would be nothing like its three great predecessors. Unlike them, it could never be destroyed.
“They will come to believe in it,” Preceptor Constan said, the last time Gallgoid asked him about it. “We must continue to teach them from the Scriptures. Their hearts will open to God’s word.”
Meanwhile, thought Gallgoid, the Temple tax was greatly reduced throughout Obann—and that would count for something, too. He supposed he ought to be ashamed for looking at the matter from such a worldly point of view, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Come to Obann, Goryk Gillow,” he whispered. “Come, make friends with the traitors on the council. You’ll be in worse danger than you dream.”
Martis’ first concern was to find the place where they’d been attacked. He quickly realized that the only way he could do that was to get back on the river and try to spot it from a boat. He was sure he would recognize it when he saw it.
Despite his aching head, he spent most of the morning seeking out the nearest settlement, a tiny hamlet tucked into a woodland about a mile from the river. The handful of people living there gave him a decidedly cool reception, until he invoked the baron’s name. Only then did they listen to what he had to say.
“So someone kidnapped the baron’s adopted son, did they?” said the headman. “Well, that’s the kind of thing that happens, these days. The Heathen missed us when they passed through this country on their way to Obann City. But ever since, there’s been a lot of bad characters around. Sometimes we’re glad we have nothing worth stealing.”
That was no understatement. The houses were little more than huts. Some of the people living there now used to live in towns that the Heathen hadn’t missed. But there was one man who had a boat, and when he understood that Martis wanted to go only a little way up the river, he agreed to take him. Early in the afternoon, Martis was on the river again.
“I ain’t landing if those fellows are still there,” the boatman said.
“I won’t ask you to,” said Martis.
“Things have gotten a little better since the baron reorganized the militia. We never had a baron on the river, but already he’s better than the oligarchs. I hope he gets his son back.”
The boatman knew the river as well as Herger knew it. Guided by Martis’ description of the spot where Herger had wanted to make camp, it wasn’t long before they found it.
“That looks like a dead man lying there!” the boatman said.
“It must be the man I stabbed when they attacked us. The others must have just left him lying there.”
“It ain’t decent,” the boatman grumbled. As he paddled closer to the shore, their approach disturbed a pair of ravens feeding on the body. They flew up with caws of protest.
“Mister, I don’t think we ought to come any closer.”
“If the other men were still around,” Martis said, “the ravens wouldn’t be here. We’ll be quite safe.”
There was no sign of Herger’s boat. It must have floated down the river. Cautiously the boatman paddled until the hull scraped a rock. Martis got out and waded ashore, pulling the boat after him. The ravens watched from a nearby tree.
“What are you going to do now?” the boatman asked.
“If I can find the men’s tracks, I’ll follow them.”
“Then I wish you good luck—but this is where I turn back home.”
“If you see any militia,” Martis said, “please tell them about this.”
“That I’ll do, mister. That I’ll gladly do.”
The man paddled away, back down the river. In a moment he was out of sight, around a bend. Martis studied the ground. Eight men were bound to leave tracks, and Martis found them. He followed them to the edge of the wood. There the group had churned up the leaf litter. Here he found a path, and it was obvious that the men had taken it.
“Snatchers, most likely,” Martis thought—men who captured children and lone travelers and sold them to the Heathen. They were always active in the eastern parts of Obann. Helki had driven many outlaws out of Lintum Forest. These men were probably some of them, Martis thought.
He’d lost the little knife he always kept under his belt, but he still had his dagger in its sheath. But his best weapon would be the snatchers’ certainty that they’d killed him by the riverside.
Martis trotted down the path, as far as it would take him, and by sundown found the snatchers’ campsite.
Ysbott stuck to the woods all morning, but by noon he had to turn and cross some open country, taking the shortest route to Silvertown.
Jack had been through some of this country once before, with Obst and Ellayne, on the way to Bell Mountain. Soon they’d be into the wooded foothills. Jack had never been to Silvertown, but he had a rough idea of where it was—Obann’s mining center, perched on the west slope of the mountains. An army of the Thunder King held it; Obann had not yet mustered the strength to force them out.
Jack did his best to slow the men d
own, purposely stumbling, complaining of sore feet, and trying to act like someone who wouldn’t last a day in this wild country by himself. Maybe they’d hold him in contempt and get careless. Maybe he’d get a chance to escape. But one of the men got tired of his act and cuffed him. The next thing that man knew, Ysbott had him by the beard with the point of a long, sharp knife pressed dangerously close to his eye.
“Don’t damage the goods,” said the chief, “or I’ll split your face wide open. I hope that’s clearly understood!”
The man couldn’t nod without jabbing his eye into the knife. “S-s-s-sorry, boss!” he stammered.
“To show your good faith, you may carry this tender-footed king across your shoulders for a while,” Ysbott said. And so Jack had an uncomfortable ride.
Many times in his life he’d been in danger, some of it worse than this, but always there would be Martis to rescue him, or Helki or Wytt. But Martis would never rescue anyone again, and Wytt was back in Ninneburky with Ellayne—and he would never see either of them again. This time there was no one to help him. He missed Ellayne! “I’m not going to get out of this,” he kept on thinking.
He tried to pray as Obst had taught him you could pray, silently. “God can hear your thoughts as clearly as He can hear your words,” Obst said. Jack had seen the old man in a state of communion with God: you could set his clothes on fire, and he wouldn’t know it. Jack had never achieved anything like that, but just now he wished he could.
There was no convincing these men that he was not King Ryons. Ysbott simply didn’t believe him. You could almost laugh at them, Jack thought. They didn’t know there was already one false king—Fnaa, the king’s double, whom Jack and Ellayne had delivered to the city just in time to take the king’s place when Ryons disappeared. The real king now was safe in Lintum Forest with Helki and his army. Jack wondered what would become of Fnaa.
“Never mind Fnaa! What’s going to become of me?”
“Lord God,” he prayed silently, “if you don’t get me out of this, I don’t know who will! Please don’t forget that I climbed Bell Mountain when you told me to and went under the Old Temple to find King Ozias’ Lost Book. Please don’t forget!”
He prayed again and again as he bounced up and down atop the outlaw’s shoulders, and the afternoon wore on, and he was carried farther and farther away from Ninneburky.
CHAPTER 6
The Superstitious Troopers
Having lived and worked on the river all his life, Herger was able to find his way even by night. The road only roughly paralleled the river. Where the bank was heavily wooded, the road might be two or three miles from the water. Herger knew where to leave the road and push through the woods, and before the sun rose, he’d led the patrol directly to the campsite. They would have reached it sooner, but no one wanted to gallop recklessly down a narrow path overhung with heavy branches.
“This is it,” Herger said. Dismounting, he led his horse toward the water. “This is where they jumped us.”
Kadmel halted the patrol. “Everybody stay put,” he said. “We don’t want a lot of boots and horseshoes trampling out whatever tracks there might be. Anyhow, the horses will have to rest before we can go any farther.”
Ellayne had ridden all the way behind a trooper named Aswyll. She’d had no idea that riding horseback could make you so sore—it was like falling down a long flight of stairs and bouncing your bottom off each one. That had never happened when she and Jack used to double up on Martis’ horse, Dulayl.
“Ellayne, let’s see Wytt do his stuff.” Kadmel smiled at her. “And I guess you’ll be glad to get off that horse for a while! Help her down easy, Aswyll. Troop, dismount!”
It took a few moments for Ellayne’s legs to stop wobbling. Then she opened her knapsack, and Wytt jumped out. Although they’d been told what to expect, some of the troopers flinched when they saw him. Some caught their breath, and all of them stared. “Heaven preserve us!” one or two men muttered. Many Obannese have superstitious beliefs about Little People. A few of the troopers stared at Ellayne as if she were a witch.
“We have to find Jack, Wytt,” she said. “This is the place where the bad men got him. See if you can find his scent.”
“Those men are afraid,” Wytt said, looking up at the troopers.
“Never mind them,” Ellayne said.
He scampered all over the ground, stopping here and there to sniff and study. In the feeble predawn light, he must have looked to some of the men like a kind of goblin, or a devil. But their horses ignored him.
Wytt was overjoyed to be out of the sack. He ran to stretch his legs. He knew most of the horses in Ninneburky, and they knew him. But he didn’t like the way that fear came oozing off the horsemen. He would rather not have been seen by them at all. He didn’t like being around so many Big People at once, but he understood the need for it.
To him the scene of Jack’s abduction was as easy to read as a picture book, illustrated with odors instead of colors. Herger, standing close by, gave off a scent of fear that almost drowned out the other scents.
What everyone soon saw, of course, was the dead body lying crumpled on the stony shore. When Ellayne first spotted it, she feared it might be Martis. But Wytt gave it only a brief examination.
He understood that the Girl was anxious about the Boy, and after he’d learned what he wanted to know, he scampered back to Ellayne.
“Men took Boy, but first Whiteface killed that one. Only Boy’s scent is here. They pick him up and take away. Eight men come here, but only seven leave.” To the troopers it sounded only like a lot of chittering and chattering, something like a scolding squirrel. But to Ellayne the meaning was clear.
“No sign of Martis, Wytt?”
“Whiteface never set foot on ground—not here.”
“Which way did they go with Jack?”
“That way.” Wytt pointed with his sharp stick. “That way, into woods. Easy to follow.” And before Ellayne could say another word, he dashed off into the trees. The men shied back from him, like housewives afraid of mice.
“What’s he doing, Ellayne?” Kadmel said.
“Oh, he’s gone off after the villains. I wish he wouldn’t do that!” Ellayne said. She repeated all that Wytt had told her. “He knows we have to stop for rest, but he’s raring to go. He’ll be back.” Times without number in their travels, Wytt raced off alone, and half the time you never knew why. Omah seldom ask for explanations, and even more rarely provide them. “I ought to be used to it by now!” Ellayne thought. But she doubted she would ever get used to it.
“Can that thing really know all that much, just by sniffing around for a few minutes?” asked one of the men. Ellayne glared at him.
“He’s not a thing, and yes, he can know all that,” she answered. “He’s a person, and you’d all do well to remember it. Not a human kind of person—but he’s not an animal. There’s nothing to be afraid of!”
It was embarrassing to them to be told off by a girl. Ellayne wondered how many of them believed the Little People would capture a man while he slept, and drag him down to their underground kingdom and keep him there; and when he finally escaped and came back up, the moment the sun first shone on him, he’d turn to dust. And yet she doubted any of these men had ever seen an Omah all their lives.
“Let’s rest while we can,” the sergeant said. “We may have a lot of hard riding ahead of us today.” And they unsaddled and tied up the horses, unrolled blankets, and caught what sleep they could. Ellayne doubted she would sleep at all, but the river sang a lullaby that closed her eyes before the first pink glint of the sun crept into the sky.
In Lintum Forest, Helki the Rod sat on a fallen tree trunk, talking softly to a little girl with long, fair hair. He had a small frog perched on his outstretched finger; it curled its toes around his finger like a bird roosting on a twig. The frog had been grey a minute ago, but now it was green. The child watched it, fascinated.
“This is what we call a tree frog, Peep
er,” he said, “because it lives in trees and bushes. He’ll eat right out of my hand, if I offer him a bug. If it was going on nighttime, he’d probably sing for us.”
“So pretty!” said the girl.
She was Jandra, God’s prophet: only four years old, guessed Helki. Not old enough to understand that she was a prophet—but God speaking through her had made Ryons king of Obann. Helki had found her wandering alone on the vast plain between the forest and the river, an orphan, and had brought her back to Lintum Forest for safekeeping. She still called him “Daddy.”