The Jher, Quentin decided, were a compact race, tending more toward grace than bulk. They possessed smooth, well-formed bodies, lithe rather than muscular—again, like deer. The Jher had so long lived with the deer, they had become like them; it struck Quentin that they even looked like deer, with their large, dark, fathomless eyes, deep as forest pools and as calm.
They wore deerskin clothing, sewn of deer-gut thread with deer-bone needles. They ate venison and burned deer fat in their lamps made from the skulls of deer. The race had become wholly dependent upon the deer for survival and followed them wherever the nimble animals went, running with them through the seasons.
On any of the crudely decorated items of clothing or personal possessions Quentin happened to see were usually pictures of deer, painted, scratched, or carved into the item. Or perhaps a representation of the sun, which they also revered.
And the people had the same quick instincts and lightning reactions as the shy forest creatures. That, coupled with their acute awareness of their surroundings, made them invisible to the loud, clumsy white races who tramped through the forest unaware that there might be other living souls as close as the larch they passed under.
Quentin was engaged in making hand signals with several of the braver Jher children who had gathered around when Durwin rose and shuffled back to where the rest were seated on deerskins in the snow, awaiting the outcome of the parley.
“Hoet says that we are marked for death,” announced Durwin, who quickly realized his blunder by the stricken looks of anguish appearing on his comrades’ faces. “Oh no! Not by the Jher. Oh my! No. Forgive me—I have been trying to piece together the story and did not realize what I was saying.
“Hoet says that we are being followed by Harriers, which we know. However, the Harriers were closer than we had guessed. Last night should have been our last. He said that was the reason they stayed with us through the night, watching, lest the Shoth try to take us. Without our knowing it, we have stumbled very close to their winter village, and they did not want any Shoth coming so close to them.”
“So they protected us through the night, did they?” said Theido. “I am grateful for their aid. But what will happen when we leave here? The Harriers will be waiting for us behind the next big tree we pass.”
“We have discussed that,” replied Durwin. He smiled and inclined his head toward Hoet, who stood a few paces away. Hoet repeated the gesture. “Hoet says he will give us a bodyguard and a guide to lead us away from the Shoth by ways known to them.”
“How many men will go with us?” asked Trenn. His eyes scanned the group for likely conscripts. “Five or six of the bigger men should be adequate, I think.” In his soldier’s brain Trenn had already formed them into a fighting contingent and outfitted them with the helmets, bucklers, and hard leather armor of foot soldiers.
Durwin looked a little confused. “I cannot say how many Hoet intends to send with us.” He turned and went back to where the chief was standing, arms folded, chin resting on his breast. They put their heads together and began discussing again, hands groping as if to pull words out of the air. Finally, Hoet turned and whistled and waved his hand toward a group of men who were standing by the horses, admiring the animals, tack, and gear. A slender young man, not much older than Quentin, came gliding over and presented himself to Hoet, who presented himself to Durwin.
“Here is our bodyguard and guide,” said Durwin, returning with the youth.
“What?” exploded Trenn, flabbergasted. His eyes started out of his head, and his mouth hung open. The young Jher did not seem a fair match even for one of his own people, let alone three blood-lusting Harriers.
“This is Toli,” said Durwin, introducing him to the others. Then he went around the group, saying each person’s name. Toli did not attempt to duplicate the sounds. He merely smiled and nodded politely.
“When do we leave?” asked Theido with a sigh. He, too, had his doubts about the Jher bodyguard. He cast a quick glance overhead to see that the once-clear sky had become overcast while they waited for Durwin and Hoet’s deliberations to run their course.
“Hoet suggests we sleep now. We can leave tonight. He also says not to worry; Toli will show us a secret way past the Wall that he claims the Shoth do not know.”
16
The king sat in darkness in the deep dungeon of Kazakh, Nimrood’s walled mountain keep. Around him lay the scattered pieces of his armor, now rusting in the dank jail’s seeping damp. His once-proud head fell forward dejectedly toward his chest, and his sunken eyes were closed against the disgrace of his surroundings. His long black hair and well-kept beard, once curling with vitality, now hung in limp tangles, filthy, matted, and graying at the edges.
Inwardly he cursed himself for his own stupidity and lack of foresight. So intent had he been upon returning home, so full of good spirits, he had dismissed his men to his commanders and, taking only a small bodyguard of knights, had set off straightaway to catch the last boat before the raging seas of autumn brought an end to the shipping season. They had boarded the ship and had, with some misgivings of the captain, sailed forth upon a sea running to chop and a sky glowering with pent-up fury.
The storm had broken the fourth day out, and the captain had made for the nearest port, the harbor Fallers at the far southern tip of Elsendor. The captain had wisely refused to go farther, so Eskevar and his knights struck out cross-country. A day and a night out, they were attacked. A force of armed men had been waiting to take them as they entered a narrow canyon.
The king and his knights fought valiantly, though greatly out numbered, but at last had been overpowered. They were bound and thrown into wagons and covered with sailcloth and traveled for many days through rocky country. One of the knights, Ronsard, had been able to work free of his bonds and had escaped, recovering his horse and weapons but having to leave behind his king and comrades.
Ronsard had followed the wagons to their destination, a ship with black sails standing off a lonely stretch of coastland, hoping to seize an opportunity to free his companions. But when he espied the dark ships and its stout occupants, he despaired of loosing his friends with his lone sword and turned toward Mensandor with his message for the queen.
The months passed, each day more unbearable than the one before it. King Eskevar refused to surrender to the hopelessness he felt closing around him. At first he had railed against his captor, his mighty voice kindled in righteous rage. The halls and galleries of Kazakh had reverberated with his angry thunder.
Nimrood had paced his chambers, cackling maniacally, his wild eyes kindled with a fierce, unearthly light.
After many weeks of captivity, Nimrood had descended to his dungeon to at last cast his wicked eyes upon his prize. The king had challenged him, had begged for the freedom of his knights, had promised a stunning ransom, had demanded to know the reasons for his kidnapping. To this latter demand he had been told that his brother, Prince Jaspin, had arranged to have him kept comfortably and safely locked away until Jaspin wore the crown.
Nimrood had left then, leaving his miserable prisoner alone with his anger and frustration. The king had seen no other living person since that brief interview.
Eskevar heard the scraping clank of an iron latch lifted and dropped into place again, followed by the squeal of unused hinges. Then he heard the pinging echo of footsteps on the spiraling steps descending to the dungeon. The jailer comes with food, he thought.
Then he saw the flickering light of a torch playing on the rough rock walls of the narrow gallery that led along the row of cells. He listened and waited. From the shuffle he heard in the gallery, he guessed there were more than the jailer alone. A torch was thrust into sight, blinding his clouded eyes with its unwonted brightness. Sharp pains stabbed into his brain as he forced himself to look at the jailer.
Eskevar struggled to his feet uncertainly, coming to tower over the jailer and his two scurvy guards.
“You get back there!” screamed the jailer, thr
usting the torch through the bars of the iron door. The old, rusty door swung open, and the two guards, with lances at the ready, stepped gingerly in. One prodded the king forward with the butt of his lance, and the king tottered like an old man into the gallery. The dripping passageway was so narrow and short he had to hunch himself together, bending low to proceed. For good measure, and to remind the prisoner that he was under guard, the spear would jab him in the back periodically as they made their way to the spiral steps.
Eskevar stumbled twice as they climbed the steps, but caught himself and continued to climb slowly and with great deliberation. He was buying himself some time to restore some part of his strength and allow his eyes to become accustomed to the pale light that grew brighter as they ascended upward out of the dungeon.
At last the king stepped out into fair light again; it seemed to dazzle his deprived senses. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with cool, clean air. He found his head cleared from the confusion he had fallen into of late. He straightened with difficulty and squared his shoulders and raised his head high.
The party was ushered into the great hall where Nimrood sat waiting on his high black throne. “So our prisoner lives still, does he?” hissed the necromancer. “Too bad; our pets will have to wait a little yet for their meat!” He laughed to himself, and Eskevar noticed the huge, ugly head of a tremendous snake leering at him from beneath the throne.
“Set me free or kill me,” said the king. “You shall receive no ransom, and my brother will never sit upon the throne. The regents will never allow it.”
“Perhaps not your regents, proud king. But several of your regents seem to have come under suspicion of certain foul deeds. Two of them are even now locked away in the bowels of Askelon Castle, awaiting their impending fate.”
“You fiend!” shouted the king, dashing forward. One of the guards sought to block his path with lowered lance, but the king grabbed the lance and wrenched it out of the man’s grasp and shoved him back with the butt of his own weapon. He then swung the lance in a wide arc around himself, keeping the jailer and the other guard at a distance. Eskevar lowered the lance and advanced on Nimrood menacingly. The sorcerer raised his arms above his head and shouted an incantation. “Borgat Invendum cei Spensus witso borgatti!”
“Your powers cannot—,” the king started; then something like a leaden net dropped upon his limbs, and he felt his strength leave him. He raised his mighty arm to loft the lance, but the weapon suddenly seemed to weigh as much as the dungeon door. The throw went soft, and the lance skidded weakly upon the stone floor.
“You shall see what my powers can do!” snapped the wizard. “I have been waiting for just this moment. Bind him! Take him to the tower.”
King Eskevar cried out in rage. “Kill me now! If you miss this chance, you will regret it for all eternity, black wizard!”
The guards rushed upon the helpless monarch and bound him in chains. They dragged him out of the hall and to the tower, where he was locked again in a strange room, not a cell, but a high-domed room painted with grotesque shapes and strange inscriptions. No sooner had he entered the room and the door slammed behind him than King Eskevar felt himself overcome with an unnatural urge to sleep.
The heavy vapors of slumber seemed to drift out of the very floor beneath his feet. His head nodded and lolled on his shoulders, eyelids fluttering. His knees buckled, and he crashed to the wooden floor, where he attempted to rise again. The king gained his knees and knelt awkwardly, for his chains would not permit but limited movement.
“You will find the rest here refreshing, I think,” hissed Nimrood. Eskevar jerked his head up to see the sharp, twisted face of his tormentor at the barred slits of the door.
“I curse your bones, Necromancer,” spat the king. But even as he spoke, his tongue went slack in his mouth, and his eyelids fell shut. He tried again to rise, but his legs could not support him, and he dropped senseless to his side, fast asleep.
“Look your last upon the world as a mortal, great king. It is a rare gift I give you. When you awaken, you’ll be one of my own Immortals. Sleep well.”
17
In the four days since they had left the camp of nomadic Jher, Durwin’s party had covered ground at a tremendous rate. They were amazed at the skill and clear thinking of their guide, Toli—none so much as Trenn, who had severely doubted that they would last an hour more in the forest.
But Toli knew the land like his own skin. He knew instinctively when a trail would veer and when to abandon one path and choose another. The forest seemed to hide no secrets from his alert eyes: in fact, this slim, brown young man read it as easily as Durwin read the scrolls he collected in such profusion. Quentin suspected that generations of following the deer had made the Jher more at home in the forest among the wild things than in the world of men. In this he shared the conventional wisdom, for the wary Jher were widely considered a people sinking back into animal ways rather than arising out of them.
But a better guide they could not have found anywhere. And if there had been six like him, the company could not have been safer from discovery by the Harriers. Toli knew when to halt and when to move forward. He varied the times of their travel, never keeping to a determined pattern but moving more like a cunning animal might, though still chiefly at night.
Still, none of them doubted that the Harriers were yet behind them. Toli agreed that until they crossed the Wall there would be no safety. He and Durwin were often in consultation shortly before and after each day’s trek. Durwin began to grow visibly more apprehensive as they neared the great structure.
The ancient architectural wonder had protected the realm of Mensandor for a thousand years from marauders and would-be conquerors. Now it stood as a warning of the strength and determination of the people of Mensandor to live free, for no enemy had dared to cross it with an army in anyone’s memory.
Celbercor’s Wall, as it was known of old, rose to a height of fourscore spans from the rocky, uneven ground to the jagged merlons that formed its battlements. The Wall was wide enough at the top for three knights to ride abreast or a column of men to move along with ease. It spanned a gray, barren stretch of land a hundred leagues in length from the inlet of Malmar, where it jutted out into the water to the sheer rock curtain of Mount Ostenkell in the northernmost Fiskills.
Celbercor’s Wall was intended to separate Askelon from the entire Wilderland regions of the Suthlands, but it had never been finished. Only the northern extremity running south from Malmar’s icy finger to the treacherous Fiskills had been erected, and that at dear cost.
But it stood intact. A staggering achievement: seamless, without gap or breach imposed by the years, raised with such stonecutter’s art that no mortar was used—only stone fitted to stone, interlocked and assembled with exacting precision throughout its whole length.
Quentin had never seen the Wall but had often heard of it in stories. The thought of at last beholding it sent a tingle of excitement to his sandal-clad toes. But Durwin dashed any lighter mood when he announced to the assembled company, “Tonight we will cross the Wall, and most assuredly tonight the Harriers will try to stop us. Toli thinks they are not far behind, and they probably already sense what we are going to attempt. We will be vulnerable once we leave the shelter of the forest.
“The forest will end about a league before the Wall, but there is a valley which runs along our course. We shall enter it and follow as long as we may.”
“What then?” asked Trenn, his soldier’s ethics offended. He considered it a disgrace to slink away by night like cowardly dogs. Yet he did not relish putting his sword to test against three such formidable blades as those of the Harriers.
“What then? Why, Toli will lead us to the Jher’s secret crossing. If we make it, I doubt if the Shoth will pursue us further. It would take them weeks to find a means to cross the Wall without their horses, and months to ride around it.”
“How will we get our horses across?” asked Alinea.
“Yes,” said Theido. “Are we to take our horses or no?”
Durwin called Toli to him, and they spent a few moments together in discussion of this problem. Durwin turned with a grave look upon his face. “He does not know. The Jher do not have horses so have never considered whether it is possible to bring them through. You see, the secret way is not over the Wall, but under it—a tunnel.”
“Blazes!” muttered Trenn. He liked the scheme less and less.
“Is it so bad to continue without the horses?” asked the queen.
“It would be very difficult,” replied Theido.
“Impossible,” put in Trenn.
“Not impossible,” Durwin said. “Remember, Toli and his people live in the Wilderlands. He will show us how to get through them. They travel the land continually.”
“Even so,” put in Theido, “Dekra is still weeks away—longer if we must travel on foot.”
Quentin listened to this talk with a sorrowful feeling. He hated the thought of leaving Balder behind to become prey of wolves—or worse, the Harriers. He turned away and went to the animal he had grown quite attached to in the short time they had been together.
“They say you may be left behind, Balder. I would rather they left me behind,” he sniffed, a tear forming in his eye. “I don’t want to leave you.” He put an arm around the huge animal’s neck and pressed his cheek into the horse’s thick shoulder. Balder nickered softly and swung his head down to nip Quentin on the arm.
“You are fond of this animal.” Quentin turned to see Theido standing near him, reaching up to pat Balder’s white forehead.
“I did not realize it until just now.” He smeared a tear across his cheek with his sleeve.
“It is nothing to be ashamed of. A knight must have a thought for his mount—in battle you are partners. And this sturdy warhorse knows how to protect his rider in a fight, I’ll wager.”
“He will be able to fend for himself, won’t he? When we turn them loose?”
In the Hall of the Dragon King Page 11