The outlaw Valari said goodbye to us there and wished us well on our quest.
Crossing the bridge proved to be an exercise in faith. We all dismounted and led our horses across the bridge one by one, the better to distribute our weight across its rotten planks. Even so, Altaru's hoof broke through one of them with a sickening crunch, and it was all I could do to extricate it without my badly startled horse breaking his leg. But Altaru trusted me as much as I trusted him. After that, we picked our way across the rest of the bridge without incident. Master Juwain and Maram, with their lighter sorrels and the packhorses, encountered no problems.
As darkness was coming on, we camped there on moist, low ground near the bridge.
Maram argued for a higher and drier campsite, but I convinced him that anyone pursuing us on horses would make a huge sound of hooves pounding against the drumlike boards of the bridge. This would alert us and allow us precious time either to flee or mount a defense.
And so we ate a joyless dinner in the damp next to the river. It was a cold, uncomfortable night. Sleep brought only torment. The season's first mosquitoes whined in my ear, bit, drew blood. After a time, I gave up slapping them and in exhaustion slipped down into the land of dreams. But there the whining grew only louder and swelled to a dreadful whimpering as of a prelude to a scream. Toward dawn I finally came screaming out of my sleep. Or so I thought. When my mind cleared, I realized that it was not I but Maram who was screaming: it turned out that a harmless garter snake had slithered across his sleeping fur and sent him hopping up from it on all fours like a badly frightened frog.
We were very glad to begin the day's journey. And very glad at last to have planted our feet on Aloniaagsoil, if only the most southern and eastern part of it. It was a land that human beings had deserted many years ago. If any habitation had ever existed on this side of the river, the forest had long since swallowed it up. The oaks and elms through which we passed were more densely clustered than those of Mesh; there were many more maples, too, as well as hickories and moss-covered chestnuts. The undergrowth of bracken and ferns was a thick, green blanket almost smothering the forest floor. It would have been difficult to force our way through it if the forest had proved as trackless as Maram had feared. But the old road leading from the bridge - as on the other side of the river - turned into a track leading northwest through the trees. It seemed that no one except a few wandering animals had used it for a thousand years.
All that day we kept to this track, and to others we found deeper in the woods. As I had intended, we traveled on a fairly straight line toward the gap in the Shoshan Range through which the Nar road passed. Not far from the river, the ground began to rise before us and became drier. We saw no sign of man, and I began to hope that our cut across the wild lands of Anjo had either confused or lost whoever was hunting us. We slept that night at a higher elevation where we saw neither mosquitoes nor snakes.
Our next day's journey took us across several rills and streams flowing down from the mountains toward the Santosh. We had no trouble crossing them. Toward evening we encountered a bear feasting on newberries; we left him alone, and he left us alone. On our third day from the bridge, we entered the Gap in the Morning Mountains, where the land became hilly again. There I had intended to turn toward the Nar Road that cut through the Gap perhaps twenty miles to our north. But the folds of the hills and the only track we could find ran to the northwest. I decided that it wouldn't hurt to keep to these wild woods for another day or two before setting foot on the Nar Road.
In truth, I loved being so far from civilization. Here the trees lifted up their branches toward the sun and breathed their great, green breaths that sweetened the air. Here I felt at once all the wildness of an animal taking my strength from the earth and the silent worship of an angel walking proud and free beneath the stars. It would have been good to wander those woods for many more than a few days. But I had friends to lead out of them and promises to keep. And so on our fifth day in Old Alonia, I began seeking a track or a cut through the hills that would take us to the Nar Road.
'Where are we?' Maram grumbled to me as we made our way beneath the great crowns of the trees high above us. Through their leaves the sun shone like light through thousands of green, glass windows.'Are you sure we're not lost?'
'Yes,' I told him for the hundredth time. 'As sure as the sun itself.'
'I hope you're right. You were sure we wouldn't get lost in the Bog, either.'
'This isn't the Black Bog,' I told him. As Altaru trod over earth nearly overgrown with ferns, 1 looked off at some lilies growing by the side of the track. 'We're only a few miles west of the Gap. We should find the Nar Road only a few miles north of here.'
'We should find it,' Maram agreed. 'But what if we don't?'
'And what if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow?' I countered. 'You can't worry about everything, you know.'
'Can't I? But it's you, with all your talk of men pursuing us, who has set me to worrying. You haven't, ah, sensed any sign of them?'
'Not for a few days.'
'Good, good. You've probably lost them in these dreadful woods. As you've probably lost us.'
'We're not lost,' I told him again.
'No? How do you know?'
An hour later, our track cut across a rocky shelf on the side of the hill. It was one of the few places we had found where trees didn't obstruct our view and we could look out at the land we were crossing. It was a rough, beautiful country we saw, with green-shrouded hills to the north and west. A soft mist, like long gray fingers, had settled down into the folds between them.
'I don't see the road,' Maram said as he stood staring out to the north. 'If it's only a few miles from here, shouldn't we see it?'
'Look,' I said, pointing at a strangely-formed hill near us. After rising at a gentle grade for a few hundred feet, it seemed to drop off abruptly as if cut with cliffs on its north face. At its top, it was barren of trees and all other vegetation except a few stunted grasses. 'If we climb it, we should be able to see the road from there.'
'All right,' Maram grumbled again. 'But I don't like the look of these hills. Didn't Kane warn of hill-men west of the Gap?' Master Juwain came up and sat on his horse looking out at the
misty hills. Then he said, 'I've been through this country before, when I traveled the Nar Road toward Mesh years ago. I met these hill-men that Kane spoke of. They waylaid our party and demanded that we pay a toll.'
'But this is the King's road!' I said, outraged at such robbery. In Mesh - as in all the Nine Kingdoms - the roads are free as the air men breathe. 'No one except King Kiritan has the right to charge tolls on any road through Alonia. And a wise king will never exercise that right.'
'I'm afraid we're far from Tria hire,' Master Juwain said. 'The hill-men do as they please.'
'Well,' I said, 'perhaps we shouldn't cut toward the road just yet. Then we can't be charged for traveling upon it.'
This logic, however, did nothing to encourage Maram. He shook his head at Master Juwain and called out, 'But, sir, this is dreadful news! We don't have gold for tolls!
Why didn't you tell me about these tolls?'
'I didn't want to worry you,' Master Juwain said. 'Now why don't we climb to the top of that hill and see what we can see?'
But Maram, hoping as always to put off potential disasters as long as he could, insisted on first eating a bit of lunch. And so we walked our horses down into the trees where we found a stream that seemed a good site for a rest. We ate a meal of walnuts, cheese and battle biscuits. I even let Maram have a little brandy to inspirit him. And then I led us down into a mist-filled vale giving out onto the barren hill to our north. After riding along a little stream for perhaps half a mile, the skin at the back of my neck began to tingle and burn. I had a sickening sense of being hunted, by whom or what I did not know.
And then, as suddenly as thunder breaking through a storm, the blare of battle horns split the air. TA-ROO, TA-ROO, TA-ROO - the same two notes so
unded again and again as if someone was blowing a trumpet high on the hill before us. I tightened my grip around Altaru's reins and began urging him toward the hill; it was as if the hom -
or something else - were calling me to battle.
'Wait, Val!' Maram called after me. 'What are you doing?' 'Going to see what's happening,' I said simply. 'I hate to know what's happening,' he said. He pointed behind us in the opposite direction. 'Shouldn't we flee, that way, while we still have the chance?'
I listened for a moment to the din shaking the woods, and then to a deeper sound inside me. I said, 'But what if the hill-men have trapped Sar Avador - or some other traveler - on the hill?'
'What if they trap us there? Come, please, while there's still time-!' 'No,' I told him, 'I have to see.'
So saying, I pressed Altaru forward. Maram followed me reluctantly, and Master f uwain followed him trailing the pack horses. We rode along the dale and then through the woods leading up the side of the hill. As if someone had scoured the hill with fire, the trees suddenly ended in a line that curved around the hill's base. There we halted in their shelter to look out and see who was blowing the horn.
'Oh my Lord!' Maram croaked out 'Oh, my Lord!'
A hundred yards from us, ten men were advancing up the hill. They were squat and pale-skinned, nearly naked, with only the rudest covering of animal skins for clothing. They bore long oval shields, most of which had arrows sticking out of them. In their hands they clutched an irregular assortment of weapons: axes and maces and a few short, broad-bladed swords. Their leader - a thick-set and hairy man with daubs of red paint marking his face - paused once to blow a large, blood-spattered horn that looked as if it had been torn from the head of some animal. And then, pointing his sword up the hill, he began advancing again toward his quarry.
This was a single warrior who stood staring down at the men from the top of the hill.
I immediately noted the long, blond hair that spilled from beneath the warrior's conical and pointed helmet; I couldn't help staring at the warrior's double-curved bow and the studded leather armor, for these were the accoutrements of the Sarni, which tribe I couldn't tell. A ring of dead men lay in the stunted grass fifty yards from the warrior farther down the hill. Arrows stuck out of them, too. In all of Ea, there were no archers like the Sarni and no bows that pulled so powerfully as theirs.
But this warrior, I thought, would never pull a bow again because his quiver was empty and he had no more arrows to shoot. All he could do was to stand near his downed horse and wait for the hill-men to advance through the ring of their fallen countrymen and begin the butchery they so obviously intended.
'All right,' Maram murmured at me from behind his tree, 'you've seen what you came to see. Now let's get out of here!'
As quickly as I could, I nudged Altaru over to my pack horse where I untied the great helmet slung over his side. I untied as well the shield that my father had given me and thrust my arm through it. My side still hurt so badly that I could barely hold it. But I scarcely noticed this pain because I had worse wounds to bear.
'What are you doing?' Maram snapped at me. This isn't our business. That's a Sarni warrior, isn't it? A Sarni, Val!'
Master Juwani. agreed with him that the course of action on which I was setting out perhaps wasn't the wisest. But since the Brotherhood teaches showing compassion to the unfortunates of the world, neither did he suggest that we should flee. He just stood there in the trees weighing different stratagems and wondering how the three of us -and one Sarni warrior - could possibly prevail against ten fierce and vengeful hill-men.
I slipped the winged helmet over my head then. I took up my lance and couched it beneath my good arm. How could I explain why I did this? I could hardly explain it to myself. After many miles of being hunted, I couldn't bear the sight of this warrior being hunted and bravely preparing to die. For Master Juwain, compassion was a noble principle to be honored wherever possible; for me it was a terrible pain piercing my heart. For some reason I didn't understand, I found myself opening to this doomed warrior. A proud Sarni he migt be, but something inside him was calling for help, even as a child might call, and hoping that it might miraculously come.
'That man,' I told Maram, 'could have been Sar Avador. He could be my brother -
he could be you.'
And with that, I touched my heels to Altaru's sides and rode out of the trees. I pressed him to a gallop; it was a measure of his immense strength that he quickly achieved this gait driving his hooves into the ground that sloped upward before us. I felt the great muscles of his rump bunching and pushing us into the air. He wheezed and snorted, and I felt his lust for battle. The hill-men had now drawn closer to the warrior, who stood waiting for them with nothing more than a saber and a little leather shield. His ten executioners, with their painted faces and bodies, advanced as a single mass, clumped foolishly close together. Their leader blew his bloody horn again and again to give them courage; they struck their weapons against their wooden shields as they screamed out obscenities and threatened fiendish tortures. This din must have drowned out the sound of Altaru pounding toward them, for they didn't see me until the last moment. But the warrior, looking downhill, did. He somehow guessed that I was charging toward the hill-men and not him; it must have mystified him why a Valari knight would ride to help him. But he left all such wonderings for a later moment. He let out a high-pitched whoop and charged the hill-men even as I lowered my lance and prepared to crash into them.
Just then, however, one of the hill-men turned toward me and let out a cry of dismay.
This alerted the others, who froze wide-eyed in astonishment, not knowing what to do. I might easily have pushed the lance's point through the first man's neck. Altaru's snorting anger, and my own, drove me to do so; the nearness of death touched me with a terrible exhilaration. But then I remembered my vow never to kill anyone again.
And so I raised the lance, and as we swept past the man, I used its steel-shod butt to strike him along the side of his head. He fell stunned to the side of the hill. One of his friends tried to unhorse me with a blow of his mace, but I caught it with my father's shield. Then the infuriated Altaru struck out with his hoof and broke through his shield and shoulder with a sickening crunch. He screamed in agony, even as I bit my lip in an effort not to scream, too.
Through the heat of the battle, I was somehow aware of the Sarni warrior closing with the hill-men's leader and opening his throat with a lightning slash of his saber. I immediately began coughing at the bubbling of blood I felt in my own throat. Then one of the hill-men swung his axe at my back, and only my Godhran forged armor kept it from chopping through my spine. I whirled about in my saddle and struck him in the face with my shield. He stumbled to one knee, and I hesitated for an endless moment as I trembled to spear him with
my lance.
And in that moment, the Sarni warrior cut through to him and ruthlessly finished him as well. A mail bevor fastened to the warrior's helm hid most of his face, but I could see his blue eyes flashing like diamonds even as his saber flashed out and struck off the man's head. His prowess of arms and rare fury - and, I supposed, my own wild charge - had badly dispirited the hill-men. When an arrow came whining suddenly out of the trees below us and buried itself in the ground near one of the hill-men to my right, he pointed downhill at Maram standing by a tree with my hunting bow. And then he cried out, 'They'll kill us all - run for your lives!'
In the panic that followed, the Sarni warrior managed to kill one more of the hill-men before his comrades turned their backs to us and fled down the hill toward the east, where a slight rise in the ground provided some cover against Maram's line of fire. I believe that the warrior might have pursued them to slay a few more if I hadn't slumped off my horse just then.
'No, please - no more killing,' I said as I held my hand palm outward and shook my head. I stood by Altaru, and grasped the pommel of his saddle to keep from falling.
'Who are you, Valari?' the
warrior called to me.
I looked down the hill where the seven surviving men had disappeared into the woods. I looked at Maram and Master Juwain now making their way up the hill toward us. Except for the heavy breath steaming out of Altaru's huge nostrils, and my own labored breathing, the world had grown suddenly quiet.
'My name is Valashu Elahad,' I gasped out. I felt weak and discon-nected from my body, as if my head had been cut off like the hill-man's and spent spinning into space. I pulled off my helm, then, the better to
feel the wind against me. 'And who are you?'
The warrior hesitated a moment as I pressed my hand to my side. I felt the blood soaking through my armor. The battle had reopened the wound there, as well as the deeper wound that would never be healed.
'My name is Atara,' the warrior said, removing his helm as well. 'Atara Manslayer of the Kurmak. Thank you for saving my life.'
I gasped again, but not in pain. 1 stared at the long golden hair flowing down from Atara's head and the soft lines of Atara's golden face. It was now quite clear that Atara was a woman - the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And though our enemies were either dead or dispersed, something inside her still called to me.
'Atara,' I said as if her name were an invocation to the angels who walked the stars,
'you're welcome.'
I suddenly knew that there was much more than a bond of blood between us. I looked into her eyes then, and it was like falling - not; into the nothingness where she had sent the hill-men, but into the sacred fire of two brilliant, blue stars.
Chapter 11
For what seemed forever, Atara held this magical connection of our eyes. Then, with what seemed a great effort of will, she looked away and smiled in embarrassment as if she had seen too much of me -or I of her. She said, 'Please excuse me, there's work to be done.' She walked back and forth across the hill, scanning the tree line for sign that the hill-men might attack again. She looked upon Maram and Master Juwain with scant curiosity, then quickly went about the blood-stained slope cutting her arrows out of the bodies of the fallen men. She used her saber with all the precision of Master Juwain probing a wound with a scalpel.
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