"We will keep looking," Feslund muttered.
He went back to the rail, and Siglind started weeping again.
Darkness fell, and the stars came out. Someone gave us bread and salted meat to eat. I must have fallen asleep finally, because I opened my eyes to find Feslund shaking me by the shoulders. "Into the hold," he said. "I have something to say."
He went down the steps into the hold, and everyone on deck followed him. A couple of flickering lamps shone on the soldiers sitting on crates or sprawled on the floor. There were about twenty of them—all of us that were left, I realized. Some looked somber; some looked scared. Feslund stood in front of them.
"We cannot spend any more time searching for survivors," he said in Latin. "They cannot be found, and we cannot delay. I have told the captain to resume his course towards Urbis."
The soldiers were silent for a moment, but I saw them looking at each other. Finally Escondo spoke. "My lord, many of our friends are still missing. Arminius is missing."
"I am sorry," Feslund replied. "They are very likely dead. We have wasted too much time here. If we don't leave now, news of our expedition will reach the priests, and we will be doomed."
"It is the will of the gods," someone called out, and several others muttered their agreement.
"It has nothing to do with the gods," Feslund retorted. "The storm was just bad luck."
"Bad luck or not, there are too few of us now," Vetorix said. "We cannot hope to take Urbis with twenty men and a couple of girls."
"Nonsense," Feslund said. "We have this weapon—the gant. We are Gallians. We will take Urbis. We will rule Terra. We will avenge King Harald."
I think maybe Feslund expected this to rouse the soldiers, but it didn't. No one cheered. No one agreed with him. No one vowed to avenge King Harald. There was no reaction at all. The soldiers wouldn't even meet his gaze. He stared at them uncertainly for a moment, and then he stormed back up the steps to the deck.
"Arminius would talk some sense into him," Escondo muttered.
"We could be back in Massalia in three days," Sulliger said. "Have the soil of Gallia beneath our feet."
"He is leading us to certain death," a burly soldier I didn't know added. "I don't mind dying, but I'd like my death to mean something."
Suddenly Siglind stood up and began speaking quickly and loudly in Gallic, pointing at soldiers and gesturing to the sky, or maybe just to Feslund up on deck. The soldiers shifted uncomfortably.
I looked at Palta. "She says they must do their duty," Palta murmured. "She says it will be hard, but when has that stopped Gallian soldiers? They must have faith. Yes, the odds are against them, but that will only make their glory greater when they succeed. Our lives are short, and we must spend them doing something important, something that matters. And what could be more important than this? I will come with you. I will die with you, if need be. And if you don't choose to come with me, I will go by myself."
Siglind stopped talking and sat down finally, crossing her arms and looking around at the men. There was silence for a few moments, and then Priscus walked over and knelt before her. He was followed by Sulliger, and Vetorix, and Escondo... and finally every one of the soldiers was on his knees, pledging their loyalty to her. Tears ran down her face. "Pour Gallia," she whispered. For Gallia.
And that was how the decision was made.
Feslund stayed on deck while the rest of us found blankets and pillows and slept in the hold. "I wonder if the gant got wet during the storm," Palta whispered to me.
"Will that make it stop working?"
"I don't know. But it's one more thing to worry about. And Larry?"
"Yes?"
"The water—it doesn't bother me so much now. It has tried twice to destroy me, and I am still alive. Why should I be so afraid of it?"
I squeezed her hand. "That makes me very happy," I said.
And I slept well, despite all that had happened, despite all the threats we faced.
The next day dawned cloudless, and the wind was favorable. Feslund was in good spirits, especially once he found out that he would not have to force the soldiers to obey him. It was clear that he wasn't going to give Siglind any credit for their changed attitude, though. He simply assumed that his message had finally gotten through to them. "We should reach land by sunset," he said. "There is no time to waste. We must complete our preparations. We attack tonight."
Tonight? How could we do it tonight? Many of us were in terrible shape. I was still weak from the ordeal we had undergone the day before, and my head still hurt from when the barrel had struck it. I knew that Palta was in even worse shape than me. Couldn't we take a day to regain our strength? But Feslund wasn't going to delay.
My worries increased as Feslund laid out the details of the plan. The captain knew of a small cove five miles or so from Urbis. The ship would take us there, and sailors would row us ashore. We would travel the rest of the way by foot, under cover of darkness.
I recalled the terrain outside of Urbis—hilly and wooded until you reached the plain in front of it. Good for concealment, but what if we got lost? "How will we find Urbis in the dark?" I asked.
"We will find it," Feslund replied, waving his hand in the air as if this was a trivial problem.
"I think I'll know the way," Vetorix said. "My family has relatives near Urbis. I spent a summer at their farm once."
"You see?" Feslund asked, as if all our problems would be solved that easily.
"Will you be all right?" I asked Palta later.
She shrugged. "I have no choice."
They gave Palta and me a sword and a breastplate. I hadn't expected that. Their regular swords were far too heavy for us to carry on a five-mile trek, so we got short swords—really just long daggers; I felt like a hobbit.
"If we have to use our swords, we're doomed," Priscus muttered.
I was pretty sure he was right.
We waited on deck as the sun sank low in the sky. Just after it set we saw land in the distance.
If we didn't find the cove before the sunlight disappeared, would we have to put down our anchor and wait till the next day? We needed to know where we were. We needed a place for the ship to be safe and out of sight.
And then the clouds rolled in, and the rain started.
Rain would be another problem.
Feslund went over to the ship's captain, a gray-haired man with skin like leather. "Where is the cove?" he demanded. "You said you knew how to find it. Are we lost?"
"We will find it, my lord," the captain replied. "Be patient."
But Feslund was not a patient man. He paced the deck. He glared at the soldiers. He made a fist with his left hand and pounded it into his right palm.
"We need Arminius," Siglind murmured.
But we didn't have Arminius.
We got closer to land. There were trees near the shore, and hills beyond. Where was Roma from here? Where was the river we had sailed down with the fisherman? Palta would probably understand the geography. But it didn't matter; all that mattered was finding our way to Urbis, and Via.
Finally the captain gestured to a break in the trees. "There," he said.
We steered towards the inlet, gliding slowly through the water. The shore was dark—no lamplight, no torches. After a couple of minutes the captain raised a hand. The sailors dropped the anchor. The night was quiet, except for the pinging of the raindrops on the water and the deck.
The sailors quickly lowered the boat and rowed the first group of soldiers to shore.
Palta and I were on the final trip. Being in the boat didn't seem to bother her. Siglind was on the shore to help us get out. Then we stood on the sand and watched the boat row silently back to the ship.
"At last it begins," Siglind murmured.
PART V
Urbis
Chapter 26
Feslund was deep in discussion with Priscus, Escondo, and Vetorix. Finally he broke off the conversation and addressed us all in a low voice.
&
nbsp; "Vetorix will lead us," he said. "We must be silent; we must be vigilant; we must stay together. It is early yet—people may be outside, even in the rain. If we make good progress, we will delay entering the city till later at night. Understood?"
We understood.
We checked our equipment and started off—single-file, in silence. Vetorix and Feslund were in front; Siglind was right behind them; Palta and I were in the middle. My heart was thumping with tension as we headed off through patchy woods. We crossed a narrow, rutted cart-path and then made our way through fields planted high with grain. In the distance we saw a village—a dozen or so cottages, with lights shining in the windows of a few of them. We detoured around the village and kept going. Now the woods were thicker.
Palta seemed to be doing okay. We weren't going fast. Five miles would take us a couple of hours, maybe more if we had to take a lot of detours. The rain had let up a bit, which was a help.
And then we heard a voice. "Quis estis?" Who are you?
A man was peeing in the woods off to our left. His voice was unsteady; he sounded drunk. Why was he there, at night, in the middle of the woods? We never found out. He saw the glint of our swords, perhaps, and started to run. A couple of soldiers took off after him. I lost sight of them, but soon I heard a grunt and a strangled cry, and then silence.
A few moments later the soldiers returned; their swords were dark with blood. I shivered. We set off again.
And then it started to rain harder. Before long we were trudging through a cold, drenching downpour.
I was so sick of water.
After a while we started heading uphill. Had we reached the hills surrounding Urbis? I thought we had been marching for an hour or so, but I could have been wrong.
It seemed to take forever to get to the top of the hill—but I couldn't see the city from the top. Instead, there was just the black outline of another, larger hill. My heart sank. Feslund called a halt, and we rested while Vetorix and another soldier went off to scout this new hill. The rest of us sank down into the mud and leaves. The trees gave us little protection from the rain.
Palta looked exhausted now. She closed her eyes, leaned back against a tree, and let the rain fall onto her head and down her face.
"The rain is good," Feslund said to us. "The more it rains, the harder it will be for the soldiers patrolling the walls to spot us."
No one replied.
Finally Vetorix and the other soldier returned. Feslund stood up, and they spoke quietly to him. "One more hill," he announced, "and then you will see the walls of Urbis!"
If he had expected a cheer from us, he didn't get one, although I was pretty relieved. We all stood up, got back in line, and started walking again.
The next hill was awful. We couldn't find a path, so we ended up scrambling over rocks in the darkness, often tripping and sliding down into the person behind us. Once Palta fell and didn't get up.
"Can you make it?" I asked. "Maybe we can carry you." I remembered the way we had half-dragged, half-carried Affron away from Urbis.
She struggled to her feet. "I can make it," she said. But she looked like she was about to collapse. And then, finally, we reached the top. Feslund raised a hand, and we stopped. Through the trees and the driving rain we could make out the long dark walls of Urbis, dotted with torchlight. Beyond those walls, sitting on a hill at the center of the city, I thought I could make out the temple.
Haec Est Via.
Finally.
The soldiers gazed at the city in silence. Were they excited? Terrified? Or simply exhausted?
Standing next to me, Siglind murmured, "Now we become immortal."
"We rest here," Feslund said after a while. "And then we take this city for Gallia."
We sprawled on the ground again and ate some soggy bread and cheese. Palta leaned against me, and I put my arm around her; she was shivering, and so was I. Now, I thought, it was up to her. I would never be able to find the entrance to the Egorinthine tunnel, the one we had used to escape from Urbis, but I knew that she would have no trouble—even in the dark and the rain. She wouldn't let us down.
She closed her eyes; I closed mine. We fell asleep in the rain.
... until Priscus shook us awake sometime later. "Let's go," he said. "You two, the prince, and me."
We struggled to our feet. Feslund was waiting for us. "First the four of us," he said, "then everyone. Bring us to the entrance to the tunnel."
We made our way down the hill. The rain wasn't quite as strong as it had been. I kept looking at the walls of Urbis to see if I could spot any sentries. If I could see them, they could see us. But I couldn't make out anyone in the darkness.
We were to the left of the main gates. Was that where the tunnel was? When we got near the bottom, Palta started going laterally, further to the left, staying behind trees so we couldn't be spotted. After about twenty minutes she stopped and pointed out onto the plain. "It's there," she said.
"Where?" Feslund demanded. "I don't see anything."
"It's hidden. The priests probably filled in the opening if they discovered that we had used it."
"Well, the weapon will take care of that, won't it?"
"That is the plan," she responded.
"What if they filled in the entire tunnel?"
"They wouldn't bother doing that. It's far too long."
We had explained this to Feslund already. It was clear that he was nervous.
We crouched down and made our way to the spot where Palta said the tunnel ended. It didn't look like much of anything—but I could make out a circle of concrete under a small layer of dirt.
I looked up; I still didn't spot anyone on the parapets.
"We should stand with our backs to the walls to block the light from the gant," Palta said.
We lined up behind the circle of concrete, and Feslund took the gant out from an inner pocket. It was wrapped in a cloth, which he carefully removed.
It shone a very dim blue.
My heart sank.
I looked at Palta. She sighed. "Try it," she said.
Feslund raised the gant and shot at the concrete. Some of it disappeared, but not enough. He tried again. About six inches were gone now. He tried once more; a couple more inches turned to ash. "It's not working!" he said. "How far down does this concrete go?"
"About the height of three men to the floor of the tunnel, I expect," Palta said. And then she added, "Save what's left of the gant's power."
Feslund looked at her in disbelief and despair. "Then what do we do?"
Palta shrugged. "We will have to find another way into Urbis."
Chapter 27
"What do you mean?" Feslund demanded. "What other way is there?"
"There is a postern," she replied. "We could get in through it. But we have to get out of sight and talk about it. This will be far more dangerous than using the tunnel."
Feslund and Priscus both seemed to understand what a postern was; I didn't. "Wouldn't the postern be guarded?" Priscus asked.
"It wasn't when I found it," Palta responded. "But come—we can't talk here."
We retreated back to the hill. A postern, it turned out, was a small concealed gate in the walls around a castle or city. The castle at Lugdunum had one; and so did the walls of Urbis. The gant could probably cut through the hinges or the lock of a gate, Palta pointed out, even if it didn't have the power to cut through twenty feet or so of concrete. But the risk was far greater. We would have to go right up to the wall; and if we managed to get through into Urbis without being noticed, we'd then have to make our way through the city in the open, instead of through an unused tunnel.
And, of course, we would have to fight the guards at the armamentarium with only our swords.
But we didn't seem to have another choice. "We will do it," Feslund said. "We cannot turn back. Lead the way."
"My lord," Priscus said, "isn't it clear that the gods—"
"Do not speak to me again of the gods," Feslund snapped. "Right n
ow, I am your only god. Now let's go."
Priscus looked stunned, but he didn't reply. Once again we moved through the trees until Palta stopped us. "It's straight ahead," she said. "Hidden by those bushes."
Across the plain, I could make out dark bushes by the wall. And above them, at the top of the wall, I saw a sentry walk by. A torch flickered twenty yards away from him. He went past the torch and kept walking.
"Let's go," Feslund said.
I heard thunder in the distance. Rain might help, I thought.
We crept across the open plain to the wall just as the rain started pouring down again. We made our way into the soggy bushes and soon found the gate—a heavy wooden door, really. It was locked. We had a brief discussion, and then Feslund aimed the gant at the lock and shot. The lock glowed white and disappeared, along with a couple of bricks from the wall. We tried opening the door, but it wouldn't budge. So he blasted another hole next to the first one, and then another, until finally enough space opened up for a person to wriggle through.
We can't keep doing this, I thought. We were going to have more doors to get through, more ways we would need to use the gant. And eventually it would stop working.
We ended up in a narrow, musty passage. We shuffled along the passage until we reached the inner door, and Feslund used the gant again to blast a hole in it. Anyone nearby would have seen the flash of white light, I thought. Was anyone nearby?
Feslund looked through the hole. "Trees," he said. "Bushes. No people, no guards. That's good." He turned to Priscus. "Go back and get the men," he ordered. "We've wasted too much time."
"Yes, my lord." Priscus went back along the passage and crawled out through the hole in the outer door.
TERRA (The Portal Series, Book 2) Page 21
