The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain) (25 page)

Martis’ zig-zag course across the plain took him toward the forest only slowly. Because of this, he was able to see Kwana’s smoke signals.

“Two—friends—found—come.” He read the message accurately. “Is that for me?” he wondered. There was only one way to find out. He turned Dulayl and rode back in the direction of the signals. He would lose ground by this, but it couldn’t be helped.

Martis urged his horse to greater speed.

Chapter 29

A Demon in His Pocket

Helki had eleven Griffs who had attached themselves to him after he led them in a desperate battle against a band of Abnaks, and they had all by a miracle survived. At their own insistence they bound themselves to him by complicated oaths, as was the custom of their nation. Tiliqua was the name of their chief man, a tall fellow who managed, in all circumstances, to keep his black hair piled up in a truly impressive coiffure. Under Helki’s direction they were becoming expert woodsmen.

The Griffs came looking for Helki while he was still being hunted by the men from Silvertown. The hunters weren’t expecting anyone to come for Helki, and before they knew it, the Griffs killed half a dozen of them. The survivors lost heart and fled the forest altogether.

“Who were they?” Tiliqua asked when they found Helki.

“All I know is that they were Obannese,” Helki said, “and that they came here just to kill me. Too bad we didn’t take one alive. We might’ve learned something interesting. But what are you men doing here? You’re supposed to be scouting in the south.”

“Your pardon, Chief!” said Tiliqua. “But when you were late for our rendezvous, we feared for you.”

“Anything going on in the south?”

“There is no enemy within a whole day’s journey of Carbonek.” Carbonek was the name given to the village growing up around the ruined castle, after an enchanted place in an ancient story.

Helki nodded. His men patrolled aggressively all around the village. After the first few hangings, outlaws learned to give the place a wide berth. Many of Helki’s men had once been outlaws themselves: they were the most zealous fighters he had.

“Those bushwhackers you chased out of here,” he said, “came into the forest from the east. Either the Thunder King has put a price on my head and they wanted to collect it, or else somebody sent them. They were too many to share any kind of reward that might be put up for me, so I reckon they were carrying out someone’s orders.”

“Let them try!” Tiliqua said, grinning. “They would need a very big army to flush us out of Lintum Forest.”

“That’s what worries me,” said Helki.

In the morning Hwyddo decided to sell his two prisoners to Helki. His brother Culluch agreed, and the man named Hass just shrugged. But the fourth man, Maelghin, strongly disagreed.

“I say cut their throats and bury ’em right here,” he said. “And if they’re really friends of Helki’s, that goes double! What about all our friends that Helki killed?”

“Use your head, Maelghin,” Hwyddo said. “If we kill them and keep it a secret, what kind of revenge is that? But if Helki finds out, he’ll make sure to finish us.”

Ryons saw Perkin turn pale. He’d judged Perkin a brave man: he must not be used to this kind of talk. As a slave among the Wallekki, Ryons had heard worse.

Hass said, “I don’t trust Helki. There’s many a good lad who ain’t alive anymore on account of him. We don’t want to end up the same way, do we?”

Culluch nodded. “He’s got a point there, brother,” he said.

Then Perkin began to whistle—and very loudly, too. Everybody stared at him. He and Ryons had their ankles and wrists tied, so they couldn’t try to get away or to defend themselves. Maybe Perkin’s nerve had cracked, Ryons thought. That whistling sounded crazy.

“Stop that!” Hwyddo said. But Perkin wouldn’t stop, not even when Hwyddo kicked him in the thigh. It wasn’t even a proper tune he whistled, Ryons thought.

And then Baby burst out from the trees, and the great heavy beak snapped shut on Hass, killing him instantly; and Baby lashed out with a heavy taloned foot and felled Culluch. And with a great howl Cavall burst out of the woods right behind the giant bird. Hwyddo and Maelghin took to their heels, but Cavall pulled Maelghin down from behind and savaged him. It was all over in the blink of an eye.

“Your hands, Ryons—hold out your hands!” Ryons obeyed automatically, and Perkin untied his wrists for him, with movements swift and sure. “Now untie mine—if you please, Your Majesty.”

Ryons labored on the knots. Baby had begun to eat a bit of Hass: not something you wanted to look at. Culluch lay whimpering and groaning; he wouldn’t be doing much for a while. Cavall stood over Maelghin, growling, but the man lay perfectly still and silent. Ryons fumbled with the knots and finally loosened them. In a moment Perkin’s hands were free, and then he untied their ankles. He took some time, but not too much, to recover their belongings.

“We don’t dare stay here,” he said. “Hwyddo might come back with more men, and this time they’ll shoot us before we know they’re there.”

But there was something Ryons wanted to know. “How did you teach him to do that?” he cried, pointing to Baby. “He came when you called!”

“Oh, he comes when I whistle to him. But I didn’t know he’d attack those people, although I certainly hoped he would! I know he wouldn’t like anyone to hurt me. Your Majesty, we’ve got to go!”

Ryons called Cavall to his side, praised him and patted him. It wasn’t the first time the great hound had saved him. He held up his arm and whistled for Angel, who swooped down from a tree with a glad shrill cry.

“We’re all here. Now we can go,” said Perkin. He patted Baby, whose head shot up from the remains of Hass, and for a moment his feathers stood up on his neck. He didn’t like being interrupted in his feeding, but when Perkin insisted, he came along.

“What about them?” Ryons asked, looking back to the fallen men. Culluch was still alive, and Maelghin might be.

“They’ll have to manage without us, Sire.”

Not knowing where they were going, they hurried down a path other than the one Hwyddo had chosen. Perkin led the way, but Baby overtook him and stalked on ahead, his great head bobbing back and forth. Cavall stayed close to Ryons’ side, and Angel flitted from tree to tree. Where in the forest they would be, at the end of the day, they had no inkling.

Kwana pointed to a few tiny puffs of smoke sailing in the sky, some indeterminable distance in the east.

“Martis is coming,” he says. “He says we must wait for him. This is a good place for camp, so we stay here.”

The Wallekki were happy because they’d been able to bag an animal something like a deer, and that meant fresh meat for all. It was another one of those strange animals you sometimes saw these days. Instead of hooves like a deer’s, it had three stout, thickly padded toes. None of the men had ever seen anything like it before, but they were hungry enough to expect a good meal out of any creature.

“That’s really Martis sending that message—and you can really read it?” Ellayne marveled.

Kwana nodded. “It says, ‘Coming. Wait,’” he explained. “I think it must be Martis, but soon we know.”

Jack said nothing. He was trying not to think of the face in the disc, that appeared the last time he held it in his hand, but it kept swimming up to the surface of his mind. The cusset thing had blinked at him; and only living things can blink. Somewhere inside that little piece of whatever-it-was existed a living thing. And he had it in his pocket.

Ellayne told him there was a magician in one of the Abombalbap stories who confined a demon to a magic jar and made it his slave. When he spoke a certain word, the demon had to come out and do his bidding. Jack wondered if he had a demon in his pocket, and whether he could get rid of it.

He stole a hard look at Ellayne. She was the one who’d wanted to go to Obann. He would have been just as happy to stay home and play chess with the baron. “All her fault!” he thought. But what would have happened if they hadn’t delivered Fnaa to the city in time to take King Ryons’ place? And it certainly hadn’t been Ellayne’s idea to take the magic-thing from Noma.

What would he do if the demon came out of it and spoke to him? It looked like a woman, but Jack had only seen its face. It might be a serpent from the neck down, or a giant beetle. Once you got involved with magic, anything could happen.

“Which is why there’s no such thing as magic!” whispered an urgent little voice in the back of his mind. “God doesn’t let just anything happen!” But then if magic wasn’t real, why did it say in the Scriptures that it was forbidden to practice magic?

“Watch, Jack!” Ellayne jogged his elbow, snapping him out of his reverie. “Isn’t it interesting?” How she could be so interested in smoke signals at a time like this was unfathomable.

“Sure,” Jack muttered. “Interesting.”

“Well, Martis is coming and I can’t wait to see him,” Ellayne said. “He always knows what to do.”

“He won’t know what to do this time,” Jack answered. “I wonder if you can get rid of magical things by throwing them into the river. Or do they just come back to you?”

She yanked him close and whispered right into his ear, “Shh! Don’t talk about it in front of the men! Haven’t you got any sense at all?”

Sometimes I wonder if I do, Jack thought. But he said, “All right, all right! No need to pinch my arm.”

Chapter 30

How the Army Left the City

Once again King Ryons’ army rode forth, this time to leave the city that they’d come so far, and dared so much, to save. It was a bigger army now, its numbers swelled by some thousand Heathen warriors salvaged from the Thunder King’s vast host that was driven from the city in a panic a year ago. General Hennen’s Obannese spearmen stayed behind as a royal guard, seven hundred of them. But four thousand men, all told, departed from the city.

Once again they raised their voices, singing the anthem of the army in a dozen different languages at once:

“For His mercy endureth forever!”

For these had all converted to belief in God.

Once again, but this time with grief in his heart, Obst rode among the chieftains on a donkey. He’d wanted very badly to remain and supervise the work on the Lost Scrolls; but the chieftains wouldn’t let him.

“You’re our teacher. Your place is with us,” said Shaffur. “Besides, you understand all languages. Our councils would be in ruins without you.”

Nor would Preceptor Constan let him stay.

“The work’s proceeding very smoothly,” Constan said. “Prester Jod has sent us his best scholars from the seminary in Durmurot. But the king may need his Heathen army someday, and you’re the only man who can hold it together for him.”

As the army paraded down Grand Avenue, the people of the city thronged the street, many of them waving and cheering; but not all. Chief Zekelesh, marching beside his men of Fazzan, heard things that made his ears tingle.

“There they go, the murdering Heathen!”

“And good riddance to them, too.”

“I’d rather they stayed. When they come back, they’ll be fighting for the Thunder King.”

They were Heathen no more, they’d murdered no one, and each and every one of them had renounced the Thunder King forever. They’d shed their blood fighting for Obann, and this was the thanks they got. Zekelesh was glad there were but few men among them who could understand Obannese.

He himself couldn’t understand why they were leaving King Ryons among these ungrateful people. But it was the king’s command that they guard the lands between Lintum Forest and the great river. Queen Gurun had explained it to the chieftains.

“There is danger in the East,” she said. “The Thunder King has a great army at Silvertown, and there are traitors at work up and down the river. It will take time to raise and train militia in the provinces. Your swords are of more use there than here.”

That was only good sense, and no one could deny it. And so they paraded out of Obann City: Wallekki on horseback, in all their feathered finery; the Fazzan in their wolf’s-head caps; grim, tattooed Abnaks; long-legged Griffs showing off their elaborate hair-dos; the wiry Ghols of the king’s own bodyguard on their wiry little horses, with their bows of horn; Hawk and his four brothers from the faraway Hosa country, black-skinned, armed with long shields and short spears, like no man had ever before seen in Obann; the Dahai in their checkered kilts; men from countries east of the Great Lakes, whose kind had never crossed over the mountains before; and on the flanks, fleet-footed, half-naked Attakotts with poisoned arrows in their quivers.