The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) (33 page)

There were many other fires now, smaller than the Temple blaze but growing fast. It was too much for the fire-fighting teams. Soon there was no fire-fighting: just panicked people fleeing in all directions. Where buildings huddled close together, the fire jumped from roof to roof, and spread.

Once inside the city, the invaders ceased to be an army and became wild men in a frantic quest for plunder. Many of them had never before been in a city. They expected to see gold and jewels piled up on the streets. When they didn’t see it there, they started looking for it, tearing apart homes and shops, killing anyone who got in their way. The mardars were unable to control them. Invaders quickly got lost in the maze of streets. Small groups, separated from their leaders and from their battalions, wandered all about the city, doing as they pleased.

But outside the walls was nothing but sheer rout and panic.

It was just like in the dreams. Ryons looked down from his high perch, and mobs of Heathen fled before him, mad with terror of the beast.

And the beast pursued them. The men ran as fast as fear could drive them, but the beast’s long strides kept up. Ryons didn’t dare think of what happened to those who stumbled and fell in front of him.

Thousands of armed men, had they kept their heads, could have killed the beast. It came on alone; there was no one to help it or to guard it. The beast, for all its size, was flesh and blood. There were enough men and enough swords to cut it into pieces in a matter of minutes.

But they didn’t even try. With the thunder booming all around them, with the beast bathed in the lurid glow provided by the burning city, their courage ran out of them like water. There was no resistance in them. What they thought was happening to them, Ryons couldn’t imagine.

The beast chased them from the western walls, every last man of them, and then charged the host that was crowded before the North Gate. These men couldn’t have seen what was happening on the west side of the city. Their only thought was to barge through the broken gate before all the good plunder was taken by others.

Then the thousands of survivors from the west crashed into their flank. Maddened by their fear of the beast, they wouldn’t let these men stand in the way of their escape. They began to cut them down. And when those men realized they were being killed by warriors from their own army, they turned and defended themselves—fiercely, with their weapons.

It was a savage battle, mutual slaughter, Heathen butchering Heathen. The mardars couldn’t stop it. They fell like the others. But it was a short battle. When the beast came out from around the corner of the city, and the men on the north side saw it, they too turned to flee. And they hacked at one another in their madness. All the armies of Obann never killed so many.

The beast drove the Heathen from the northern plain. Ryons just hung on. The Heathen saw him riding on the beast and assumed he was a devil, or perhaps one of their forsaken and insulted gods, taking dreadful vengeance on the Thunder King. They could not stand before him.

The beast chased them off the plain, all the way to their own moat, where many fell and were trampled to death by others. They fled into their camps, overthrowing their tents and shelters. Their horses, mules, and oxen panicked at the sight of the beast, broke their bonds, and stampeded off in all directions. The men stampeded with them, seeking safety in the dark of night.

The beast stood at the edge of the moat and bellowed after them, louder than the thunder, louder and more terrible than anything they’d ever heard in all their lives. Its voice pursued them wherever they went. They couldn’t stop running, took no thought of where they were going.

Then, at last, the rain began to fall.

It fell in sheets. On the plain, not a single Heathen warrior remained alive. Their whole camp lay in ruins.

Ryons straightened up and finally turned to look back at the city. Now that the beast had stopped moving, it was safe to do so. Despite the rain, the fire blazed to high heaven.

“Well, we didn’t save the city, after all,” Ryons said. “But at least we chased away the Heathen armies.”

His work was finished. He’d done what God had sent him to do—which left him with the problem of how to get down from the beast, and what to do after he’d solved that problem. The city was burning and everyone had run away. What could he do?

“Ryons, Ryons, Ryons our king!”

From somewhere down below, behind him, men shouted his name. Ryons carefully crawled all the way around so he could see. He almost fell off the beast’s back, executing that maneuver.

It was his Ghols, with Chagadai to lead them, mounted on their horses and wildly waving their bows. And his Wallekki, with Chief Shaffur at their head, came riding after them, chanting his name and saluting with their spears. Behind them came the rest of his army on foot, led by Uduqu with a giant sword, rejoicing.

The beast ignored them. Ryons waved down to them. His heart almost broke with delight—especially when he saw Cavall prancing among the Ghols’ horses as if he’d known them all his life.

Up came Helki with his staff, with Chief Spider and the others. Helki came up close to the beast and grounded his staff.

“Well done, O King—well done!” he said.

“I don’t know how to get down!” Ryons answered. “Has anybody got a ladder?”

The men gasped, and Helki fell back a long step, when the beast suddenly reached back and seized Ryons by his head and shoulders. But it was only to return him, swiftly but gently, to the ground. Cavall came running and reared up to lick his face.

“Everything has come to pass as God’s prophets said it would,” said Shaffur. And the men behind him cried out once again, “His mercy endureth forever!”

Slowly the beast turned, and with a low, rumbling sigh, began to walk. Ryons’ army gave way, but the beast paid them no mind.

“He’s going back to where he came from,” Ryons said, “back to somewhere in the south.” He raised his voice. “Good-bye, good-bye!”

The great beast strode back to the river, swam across, and vanished into the night; and no man ever saw it, or any of its kind, ever again.

Ryons’ men rejoiced. The Ghols fought each other for the chance to kiss his hand. This was horribly embarrassing, and Ryons made them stop. After a while, Helki made them all stop.

“We still have much to do,” he said. “You see the city’s burning. There are people in it whom we ought to save, and probably other people in it whom we’ll have to fight. We ought to assemble before the broken gate, where everyone can see us. And fly your banner, Captain Hennen, so that the people of the city will know we’re friends.”

The rain put out the fires, eventually. Obann’s surviving soldiers, of whom there were yet thousands, when they saw Hennen’s banner on the field, rallied to their officers. They knew the great army of the enemy was gone: many of them saw the beast destroy it. They formed into companies and hunted down the Heathen who were in the city. These put up less of a fight than might have been expected. They knew their army was no more and that they were cut off inside the city of their enemies. They didn’t know their way around, and many of them were killed. Not quite a thousand of them lived to surrender.

The great Temple was a smoking shell. It burned almost until the morning and then fell in on itself. Now it was just heaps of shattered stone.

All the members of the ruling council had been killed, with many of the oligarchs. Lord Gwyll was dead, with all of his top officers. The public buildings, which were the grandest in the city, were looted and wrecked.

Yet many of Obann’s people, to their great surprise, were still alive. Sometime before midnight, Heathen prisoners confessed that men of the Temple had let them into the city. Three presters, all of them innocent, were killed in the streets by rioters before soldiers could restore order.

By morning all the fighting was over; the fires were out; the Heathen killed or taken prisoner; and the people of the city quiet, exhausted, and confused. But for their leaders there was no rest. A delegation of army officers, city magistrates, and merchants, after conferring among themselves, went out to parley with the small army assembled on the field before the Great North Gate.

Obst came down from the hills during the night, driving Nanny’s cart. She was sleeping soundly, and no one had the heart to disturb her. But the chieftains asked Obst to speak for them when they treated with the city.

“Get fine clothes for the king, the best you can find,” he said. “And bring out his ivory stool. Then, my chieftains, put on all your finery.

“The city must accept Ryons as its rightful king, the heir of King Ozias. Everything has changed! The days of the Temple are over, and I don’t see how there can be an oligarchy anymore.”

And so, by sunrise, Ryons was dressed up and seated on an ivory stool with his chiefs and advisors on either hand. “If they are to accept you as a king,” said Obst, “they must first see you as a king.”

“King of all this—me?” Ryons cried. “These clothes don’t even fit!”

Obst patted his shoulder. “You’ll have many loyal friends to help you,” he said, “and God Himself has chosen you. So try to make the best of it.”

The people from the city, its leaders for the time being, came out to see who these men were and what they were doing at Obann, and Obst introduced Ryons to them as their king.

“He is of the seed of King Ozias, raised up to the kingship by the Lord your God, proclaimed by prophets, confirmed by his deeds. It was he who rode the conquering beast last night and drove away from your city and scattered to the four winds the greatest army that the world has ever seen. He is here to claim the kingdom that is his by right and to do as God shall lead him. If you refuse to have him for your king, we shall go away and leave you to your fate, whatever that might be.”

The city men stared at the chieftains in their splendor, and at Helki in his garment of patches, now grievously the worse for wear.

“We don’t understand,” said one of the soldiers, a captain of crossbowmen. “When we saw the banner of our sister city of Caryllick, we came out to you. But who are these men? All Heathen, by the look of them!”

“Heathen no more,” Obst said, “but servants of the Lord, preserved by God through many battles. They came into Obann as your enemies, but now they are your brothers. They have been faithful, brave, and true.”

“But who is that?” said a merchant, pointing at Helki.

“No one in particular!” said Helki.

But another soldier said, “I think I know who he is. He’s the one who slew the giant, isn’t he?”

Helki stared at them. How could they have heard about that, cooped up behind their walls?

“Yes,” said Obst, “he slew the giant with the help of God.”

“Now I know!” said another merchant. “They call him the Flail of the Lord.”

Losing patience, Helki answered, “I’ve been called a lot of things, including that. But let’s have done with all this shilly-shallying!

“Your city is half-ruined, and you’ll all die in the winter if you don’t do something about it now. Your Temple is destroyed; and in case it’s slipped your minds, there are God-knows-how-many tens of thousands of Heathen warriors roaming all around the countryside. That’s going to take a lot of flailing.

“You need a king. We’ve brought you one, the king that God Himself selected for you. Some of you must have seen him last night, riding the great beast and chasing the Thunder King’s army into parts unknown. Just look around you! There are thousands of enemy warriors lying dead all around the city: you can see them everywhere. Did you kill them? We didn’t! Don’t you know a miracle when you see one?”

They would know it when they had to bury the enemy warriors, he thought. No one had counted the dead. Probably no one would. But they had to be a sizeable chunk of the Thunder King’s whole force. There they lay, and it was no opposing army that had killed them.

The delegates from Obann did know a miracle; there was no other way to look at it. One by one, they dropped down to their knees and paid homage to their king.

Chief Spider said, under his breath, “So we come to Obann after all!” His wide shoulders quaked as he suppressed a laugh. “I’m sorry, but I think it’s funny. We should’ve died a hundred times before we got here, but here we are.”

“You won’t think it’s so funny, once the work begins,” Helki answered.

Then the Ghols began singing from deep down in their throats, a song of praise and victory; and the chieftains discussed with the delegates how King Ryons would enter his city.

The night the Temple burned, Chillith’s men rested in a camp some miles from the north bank of the Imperial. Earlier that day they’d crossed the Chariot without incident, but they didn’t go far.

“They’re afraid there might be rangers in Oziah’s Wood,” said Martis, who’d been listening to Chillith’s discussions with his scouts. “More likely it’ll just be loggers and hunters who couldn’t get back to the towns they came from. Still, if they have a leader, and a score to settle with the Heathen, it won’t be safe for the Griffs to come too close to the forest.”

“So they’ll stick close to the river?” Ellayne said. “Close enough to see Ninneburky on the other side?”

“They might.”

“If only my father knew!” she cried. “He’d rescue us.”

“If just one of us could get away and get to Ninneburky—” Jack started to say; but Martis wouldn’t let him finish.

“Don’t even try, Jack,” he said. “The Griffs watch us like hawks, even when we sleep. All their hopes depend on bringing us, alive, to the Thunder King. Chillith might as well kill himself, if he fails; he’d be doing himself a kindness. But if Ellayne’s father has lookouts on the north bank of the river, he may yet have a chance to rescue us.”

It was a quiet camp. The men had toiled hard to cross the river, and they were tired. Ellayne wondered where Wytt was. They last saw him running into the woods, leading the Griffs into their confrontation with the animal their weapons couldn’t kill. Had Wytt followed them from there? But how could he have crossed the river?