The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) (10 page)

“How empty the plain is!” Ellayne said as the day wore on. “It’s hard to believe people ever lived here.”

Wytt jumped up on Ham’s pack and whistled, chattered, and brandished his sharp stick.

“It’s not so empty now,” Jack said. “He smells men around us, half a dozen of them. And they’re close.”

So close, indeed, that they rose up out of the tall grass before Martis could even draw his sword. There were six of them, wiry little men with curly hair, barefoot, clad only in loincloths, with slings in their hands and stones in the slings. They’d smeared their skins with dirt and the juices of crushed plants: otherwise Wytt would have smelled them before they got so close. Two of them had fresh scalps dangling from their loincloths.

“Easy, easy!” Martis said to the children. “These are Attakotts. I don’t speak their language.”

One of the Attakotts spoke to Martis. To Jack it sounded like jabbering, but Martis understood it: it was Tribe-talk. His eyes lit up, he smiled, and his whole body relaxed. He replied in the same language, and they had a conversation. Wytt sat down on top of the pack, no longer alarmed at all.

“We’re safe!” Martis told the children. “These men are ours, scouting for King Ryons’ army. They say the army’s on the move again, heading west. That’s odd! But they’ll take us to Helki, and then we’ll know what it’s all about.”

“Will Obst be there, too?” Ellayne asked. “He’s the only one who’ll be able to read the scrolls.”

“Yes, Obst is with the army. We’ll soon be seeing all our friends. And then Obst will read the scrolls.”

“Which means we’ve done it!” Jack said. “We’ve done the mission God gave us—we’ve found the lost books and brought them back. Our work is over.”

“We thought that once before,” Ellayne reminded him, “and we were wrong.”

While Jack rejoiced, King Ryons was in the middle of his fourth day in the forest, hopelessly lost and out of food, hungry and weary and scared.

He didn’t see what good it did for God to be with him as he wandered around until he starved. But such thoughts fled away when he came unexpectedly upon a clearing with a little cabin in it.

“People! At last!” he said aloud—someone to give him something to eat. He breathed a prayer of thanks, as Obst had taught him, and hurried toward the cabin.

“Hello, hello!” he cried. “Is anybody there?” He made the forest ring with it, and before he arrived at the cabin’s doorstep, an old woman tottered out from the shadows within, leaning on a cane.

If he’d been brought up, like Ellayne, on stories of Abombalbap, he would have been afraid: he would’ve thought the woman was a witch. In those stories there were always witches in the woods, and they cast spells on children, or ate them. This old woman had a long, sharp nose, a mane of crazed white hair, filmy blue eyes, and was clad in a dirty black dress. Her sandaled feet were even dirtier.

“Who’s there?” she said. “Don’t bother to wave—I’m almost blind, can hardly see a thing. Speak up, whoever you are! There’s nothing wrong with my hearing.”

Ryons slowed to a walk. “I’m lost!” he said. “I’ve been lost in the woods for days and days, and I’m hungry.” And because slaves learn early on not to tell the truth if they can help it, he added, out of force of habit, “My name is Gik.” That was what his Wallekki masters called him before Obst named him Ryons.

The old woman cackled. “Gik? That’s not a nice word! What kind of a name is that?”

They were both speaking Tribe-talk, but it seemed the old woman knew at least a few Wallekki words. Maybe she knew more: he would have to be careful.

“Well, what’s your name, then?” Ryons said.

“Me? I’m Mary—although there’s some as calls me Merry Mary. It makes kind of a joke in Obannese. But you don’t want me to call you Gik, do you? Not a kingly little boy like you!”

Kingly? Why had she said that?

“They call me Ryons.”

“That’s better! Why don’t you come in out of the hot sun and sit down?”

He didn’t see what else he could do, so he followed her inside. At least it was cooler, although there wasn’t much to it: a little fireplace, some rude furniture, and a bed tucked away in a corner. He wondered how an old lady could live here all alone.

“Is there anybody else here with you?” he asked.

“Nobody human. Oh, there’s folks here and there who come by now and then and do things for me. And there’s my dog, but he’s out hunting in the woods.”

“So you live here all alone? Aren’t you afraid?”

She laughed. Ryons soon noticed that she laughed a lot, sometimes for no reason he could see.

“Why should I be afraid?” she said. “I’ve been here longer than the bark on the trees. Besides, I’m going to die on the first full moon of autumn. Would you like a bit of cake?”

So she was mad, that was it. The Wallekki believed mad people were touched by the gods, and treated them with great respect—unless they were violent; then they killed them. But usually there was nothing to fear from such a person.

“Yes, please,” Ryons said.

It wasn’t bad cake, and she had plenty of it. Someone who lived a few miles away had given it to her. “I can make my own,” she said, “but it tastes horrible. Tell me—how did you come to be lost, and where are you lost from?”

“I’m lost because I don’t know how to find my way around in a forest. I was a slave with some Wallekki, and I ran away. That’s how I got lost.”

Merry Mary chortled. “Lies, is it?” she said. She threw back her head and guffawed, revealing toothless gums. “Don’t look so surprised! I can always tell when someone’s lying. And who might you be but that same King Ryons that I’ve heard so much about? I’m surprised Helki the Rod didn’t teach you better woodcraft. He must be getting careless.”

“Do you know Helki?” Ryons asked.

“Known him since he was a boy like you. And he knows me—we’re friends. Only now that he has an army and a castle to play with and a king, he doesn’t come around here anymore.”

“I’m trying to go back to him. Do you know the way?”

She chuckled and leaned toward him with her chin resting on her hands and her hands on the cane. Ryons thought she looked like a vulture waiting for something to die. Maybe he ought to be afraid of her, he thought.

“Listen to me, boy!” she said. “I knew you’d be coming to me; I had dreams about it. I have dreams about a lot of people, and they usually come true. Everybody knows it.

“You can’t go back to the castle: that’s what my dream told me. You have to go to Obann and get there as quick as you can. I don’t often have a dream quite like the one you were in. I dreamed I saw the city burning—me, who’s lived in the forest all my life and never seen a city. But I dreamed that you would come to me, and I would send you on to Obann. And I don’t even know where it is!”

She cackled over that, almost falling off her rickety chair. But it chilled Ryons. Had God sent her that dream—or had it just popped into her head because she was crazy? Was God speaking through this mad old lady, as He spoke through Jandra? Obst could have told him “yes”: Scripture spoke of such a time, when God would pour out a spirit of prophecy on those who were lowly and despised—and woe to the proud and mighty ones who wouldn’t listen. But Obst had not gotten around to teaching him about that, and he had no way of knowing that Obann itself was full of such prophets these days.

“I have a dog. His name is Cavall,” Mary said. “He’s very smart, understands every word you say to him. He’ll go with you to protect you. Helki thinks he’s put down all the bandits, but there are still a few of them on the loose. You’ll need Cavall.”

“But he’s yours! And you’re all alone—”

“Pooh! I’ll show you.” Mary pursed her lips and let out a surprisingly loud whistle. A moment later, a big black crow flew in from the doorway and landed on the little wobbly table next to her. She stroked it and fed it some cake crumbs.

“I’m not alone,” she said. “I’ll be just fine: it’s you who’ll be in danger. Anyhow, seeing as I’m going to die in a few months, Cavall won’t have any reason to stay here anymore.”

“But how will I find the way to Obann?” Ryons cried. Things were going too fast for him.

“Ask people for directions! Once you’re out of the woods, everyone you meet will know where Obann is. It’s famous.”

I never should have left the castle, Ryons thought.

It took some doing, but at last Lord Gwyll persuaded his wife to go with Nanny to their eldest son’s country house—and to leave the very next morning.

“She can’t go by herself,” he said, “and Allyk will be glad to see the both of you. You don’t want to see the poor old thing hanged, do you? Let her do her prophesying out in the country, where no one will care.”

To that Rhianna had no answer. There was precious little time to think of an answer. For people were leaving the city, slipping out like rats. Rhianna knew how the High Council worked. They would not give Nanny a second chance; and if the Heathen didn’t stop people leaving the city, the oligarchs would. Everyone would be needed to fight fires.

“My mother told me it’d never be easy to be a soldier’s wife,” Rhianna said, forcing a smile. “It won’t be the first time we’ve been miles apart while you fought battles. But after all these years, it still isn’t easy.”

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Gwyll said.

“And I’ll make our supper,” said his wife.

In another day or two the multitudes of the Heathen would be encamped around Obann. They’d crossed the river yesterday, the whole vast horde of them. They’d captured every boat and barge in Cardigal and made a thousand rafts. Hundreds of warriors drowned, but tens of thousands crossed to the north bank. And Gwyll had just ten thousand men to hold the city—all that could be called up from the provinces.

There would be no marching out to offer battle to that Heathen host, Gwyll thought. Even with bad generalship, the enemy’s numbers would prevail. It galled him to have to sit on the defensive behind the city walls, but there was no other strategy open to him. Obann had water from the river and a two years’ supply of food. If the enemy could maintain a siege longer than that, starvation would do what troops and catapults could not.

Gwyll prayed for a hard winter.

The Temple was among the most ancient buildings in Obann, and by far the biggest. It had been added onto over the centuries: city blocks demolished to make room for expansion, stories built on top of older stories, cellars and tunnels dug in all directions. There were ways into the Temple, and ways out of it, known to few among the living.

Lord Reesh had replaced Martis with a spy named Gallgoid. The man hadn’t killed as many people as Martis had, but he was more well-traveled and better educated, and he knew the ways and byways of the Temple even better than Martis.

Between them Lord Reesh and Gallgoid selected a chamber in the Temple cellars where anything might be done in secrecy, and where a secret tunnel ran under the city walls and into the bowels of the Temple. These were details not included in most plans of the Temple. Reesh doubted there was any set of charts that revealed the whole plan of the Temple.

Now, in the middle of the night, Reesh and his chosen successor, Prester Orth, waited in that chamber. It was a dark and stuffy room, far underground, unrelieved by decoration. Somewhere nearby, water dripped monotonously.

Orth shivered, but not with cold. Reesh had told him the purpose of this night’s work, and his mind was still digesting it.

“If you’re getting squeamish, Prester, you’d better say so,” Lord Reesh said.

“It’s only natural, First Prester,” Orth answered. “You can rely on me.”

“There are times when we must do things that appall us,” Reesh said. “Just remember it’s for the preservation of the Temple. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“Of course, Excellency.”

After what seemed a very long wait, they heard footsteps outside. The door creaked open, and two cloaked and hooded figures entered. The room was lit by a single fitful lamp and another lamp carried by one of the new arrivals.

Gallgoid shook off his hood. He was an unremarkable man, which made him good at what he did. People who saw him every day would be hard put to remember him.