by Lee Duigon
“I have to keep on living,” Reesh thought. “There has to be someone who can understand the mission of the Temple, and believe in it, and live for it. I can’t be the only one!”
Fool that he was! Internally, Reesh sighed. Orth wasn’t just a weakling. He was a parrot. He said what he thought the First Prester wanted to hear. He hadn’t believed in the Temple. His vision was of First Prester Orth, the master of the Temple—that was the only future that had ever interested him. And this Gallgoid—Reesh ground his teeth. If Reesh had to guess—and with this fellow, everything could only be a guess—he would say the thing that most interested Gallgoid was waking up alive tomorrow. If he had to choose between his own skin and the Temple, the Temple would lose every time.
“I’ll have to find true and trusty servants of the Temple among the servants of the Thunder King—no easy task!” Reesh thought. “Maybe there are mardars who might understand. Perhaps the Thunder King himself—”
He didn’t dare put the rest of the thought into words.
CHAPTER 25
Hlah and the Rangers
Getting over the mountains was going to be harder than Hlah had expected. The upper reaches of the Imperial were thick with enemy camps; but now he learned he couldn’t journey up the Chariot River, either. The Heathen were building a road, and there were armies waiting to use it.
He learned those things by talking to refugees. There weren’t many of them. Most of the people had either fled months earlier or else been taken into slavery. The few refugees Hlah encountered had to be chased and cornered before they would talk to an Abnak. Hlah didn’t blame them for that.
“There’s only one way left for us to go,” he told the madman, whom he had to drag along with him. “We can work our way around Oziah’s Wood, and hope the rangers don’t come out and kill me on sight, then struggle up the foothills and climb the mountains where there’s no pass. I could do it, but I’m afraid you can’t. You’ll have to try, though.”
Orth only showed his teeth. He hadn’t told the Abnak his name yet, and he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t interested in getting across the mountain. All he wanted was to escape from himself, and that was impossible.
“You don’t say much, do you?” Hlah said. “I wonder why God moves me to feed you every day. You wouldn’t survive two days on your own. Come on!”
So Hlah passed under the eaves of Oziah’s Wood, along the northern edge of the forest, where none of the Thunder King’s scouts would see him. But he wasn’t there for long before the rangers found him.
An arrow whistled past his ear and slammed into a tree. He knew it would have hit him between the eyes, had the archer been aiming for him. He stopped in his tracks and threw up his hands.
“Don’t shoot—I come in peace!” he cried. “I know my looks are against me, but I’m King Ryons’ man. Come out and talk to me before you kill me.”
The rangers might have answered him with arrows, and he wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, four men with bows came out of hiding. They wore clothes dyed green and grey and brown, and deerskin moccasins that made no noise.
“Here’s an Abnak who speaks our language and dares to come into King Oziah’s Wood. Unusual!” said one. “And who’s this with you? He’s no Abnak.”
Hlah shrugged. “I don’t know what he is. I found him starving in the fens. He’s lost his wits. I took him with me so he wouldn’t die.”
“Even more unusual!” said the ranger.
Hlah explained who he was and where he was going and why. The rangers questioned him closely.
“It’s not likely anyone would make up a story like yours,” said another. “Besides, we’ve heard something of these matters: that they have a king in Obann now, and that he came there with a Heathen army that fought for Obann. And we’ve heard the Temple is no more, although the city itself is safe.”
Orth let out a sharp cry that startled everyone. He beat his breast with a fist and groaned. He clenched his eyes shut, but tears flowed out of them.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked a ranger.
“I don’t know. He’s told me nothing.”
“We won’t kill a man who’s on God’s business,” said the leader of the rangers. “Still, you can’t stay here with us. We’ll guide you through the wood and put you on your way to the hills. After that, let God preserve you if He will.”
Two days they were with the rangers, during which they were conducted swiftly through the wood, to emerge facing the mountains. Orth hardly spoke a single word the whole time. The rangers could see he was a city man: “Tender feet and weak legs,” they said.
Now under grey skies that maybe carried snow, they came out of the wood and looked up at the mountains, a purple rampart stretched across the sky.
“No one ever crosses by this route,” a ranger said.
“That’s why it’s the only way that might be safe,” Hlah answered.
“Do you know why they call this King Oziah’s Wood?”
“I’ve heard the name of King Ozias,” Hlah said, “and that he was the last of Obann’s rightful kings. But I haven’t been taught much of his history.”
“He stopped here on his way out of Obann,” the ranger said, “when they drove him out for the last time. It was here he wrote the last of the Songs. Here he spoke with Penda the prophet, and with the angel of the Lord. His enemies never came in after him: they were afraid. God’s spirit rested on this forest. It kept them out.
“Now the Heathen mass along both rivers. They know we’re here. Someday they might come in and hunt us down—maybe soon, we fear. But so far they haven’t.”
Hlah nodded. “Abnaks have never raided here,” he said. “I never heard the reason why. Maybe God’s spirit is still here.”
The ranger grinned. “Our lives depend on it! There aren’t enough of us to hold back even a small invasion. We pray the angel of the Lord is never far away.”
Orth’s teeth chattered. He shivered from head to toe, but wouldn’t say what troubled him.
With his madman in tow, Hlah bade farewell to the rangers and left the wood. A few miles of withered grassland separated it from the forest that clothed the ankles of the mountains. Whether they could get up beyond the forests, and over the bare rock on the peaks, was all in God’s hands, Hlah thought.
Before they reached the forest and the hills, it began to snow.
CHAPTER 26
How Gurun Met the King
The Blays scouted as close to the town of Hamber as they dared, practically venturing into its streets, to see when the Zamzu would come out in force. Shingis confided to Gurun, “My men fear Zamzu—afraid of being eaten! A hard thing, to stand and fight Zamzu. Much better run away.”
“The whole village can’t run away,” Gurun answered. “What would you do if it was your own village, back home?”
He shrugged. The Blays’ country had never been raided by the Zamzu. But Shingis was an honest man. “Can’t let wives be eaten,” he said. “Better to die fighting.”
Before the Zamzu ever marched out of Hamber, two scouts—a Blay and a young farmer—came running one morning with evil tidings.
“Horsemen, many horsemen, coming from the east!” was their report. “And men on foot, too—too many to count. But they’re not our own militia!”
At this hour of the morning, most of the Blays were off spying on the Zamzu, leaving just five behind to defend the village, along with the villagers themselves. Shingis was at Hamber, and none of the five Blays left spoke Obannese. One of them was Ghichmi, the expert marksman. Gurun sent a man to wake him. As soon as he saw the villagers’ faces, he set about trying to organize a defense, manhandling villagers into position behind their flimsy fence. Loyk helped him round up able-bodied men—and women, too—and see that they all had some kind of weapon in their hands.
“I suppose this is the end!” he said to Gurun. “Even if all the Blays were here, what could we do against a horde of enemies?”
“That is no
question to be asking me!” Gurun said. “We do the best we can—what else?—and pray that God will fight for us.”
“And if He doesn’t?”
“It’s a shame to say a thing like that,” said Gurun.
It didn’t take long to get the defenders mustered to their posts; there weren’t that many of them. Nor did they have long to wait for the first of the horsemen to appear atop the nearest hill.
Gurun took a stand in the middle of the village, where everyone could see her. If they thought she knew how to command them in a battle, they were wrong. But at least she wouldn’t hide.
“They’re coming!” cried a farmer. Some of the defenders put stones in their slings—but how many riders could they hope to stop? Loyk’s knuckles went white as he gripped his scythe and waited. The old man had courage, Gurun thought.
And then Ghichmi yelled something at his fellow Blays, and shoved a villager who was about to let fly with a stone. What could he be doing?
“It’s Osker!” someone shouted. “Osker and that trapper, come back from Obann!”
Gurun moved up to the fence for a closer look. It was true: Tim and the plowman rode out before the other horsemen, and Tim was waving. Gurun went outside the fence to let him see her.
“It’s all right,” he called to her. “The king has come to see you!”
So it was the king, and those were the king’s horsemen and the king’s foot soldiers; and Gurun nearly fainted on the spot. Who was she that a king would come to her? She felt like a child caught in an outrageous lie, for which the punishment would be severe. It was worse than the time she’d told her uncle that her father said she could take the skiff out on the bay alone—when he hadn’t.
She tried to spot the king among his men. He would be tall, and dressed in shining armor, with a gold crown on his head. But there was no one like that anywhere in view.
Nor were the king’s men as she imagined them. Some of the riders were wiry little men with bows and arrows. Others were tall and lean with feathers in their hair. Most of the footmen had shaved heads and tattoos; a few wore wolf’s heads for helmets. What kind of Obannese troops were these?
The villagers dropped their weapons and gathered round her, staring hard. “These are no men of Obann!” Loyk said. Nevertheless, there were Tim and Osker, and they seemed perfectly happy in that company.
“You were right, Gurun—there was a king in Obann,” Tim said. He reined his horse to a halt in front of her. Beside him, Osker the plowman dismounted and stretched like a man still not used to riding.
“Who are all those men, Osker?” Loyk asked.
“They’re some of the Heathen men the king brought with him when he saved the city,” Osker said. “They look like Heathen, but everybody says they aren’t anymore, that they serve God the same as we do. It’s quite a story, if you can find someone to tell it.”
“But where is the king?” said Gurun, still looking for him.
“Why, he’s right there—riding with those little fellows with the bows and arrows,” Tim said. “I guess you can’t see him from here.”
“Well, then, take me out to meet him!” Gurun wouldn’t let the king come to her; it wouldn’t be good manners. She made Tim turn his horse and lead her toward the advancing riders. When they saw her coming, they all stopped.
“Here she is, Your Majesty!” Tim called.
The mounted bowmen parted ranks; and there on a small horse that was still too big for him, Gurun saw not a man, not a mighty warrior, but a boy—a scrawny little boy with a headdress of black feathers (the headdress of a Wallekki chief, if she but knew it). Beside him on his left, on a bigger horse, sat a tall man with a taller headdress, and on his right, one of the little archers.
Was this the king the filgya meant for her to see—this boy? It was as if her littlest brother, runny nose and all, were called a king. And yet Gurun found herself curtseying, island-fashion, as a girl would curtsey to a chief of men, or to her father on her wedding day. What made her do it? She didn’t know. But she said, in spite of her surprise, “Your Highness does me greater honor than I deserve. Welcome, King of Obann!”
Ryons enjoyed getting out of Obann, out from other roofs and walls. At the insistence of the chiefs he went with five hundred picked men—all of the Ghols, who would never leave his side, plus some Wallekki riders under a trusted subchief, a few of the most valiant among the Fazzan, and two hundred Abnaks on foot led by Uduqu. “I’ve never seen the sea,” Uduqu said, “and I’m not even sure there is such a thing. But to see this girl who came over the sea would be the next best thing.”
And now here she was, tall and fair and dressed in a white homespun dress (Loyk’s wife had made it for her), and Ryons had never seen anyone like her before. It was easy to believe she’d come from across the sea. It was almost as if she shone. Ryons didn’t even know what the sea was, not really. Maybe it was something like the stars in heaven. Maybe this girl had come down from a star.
“You wished to see me,” he said, “and I wanted to see you! Now here we are.”
“Sire, this is Gurun, who came here from certain islands on the sea—a place that no one ever heard of before,” said Tim. “Gurun, this is His Majesty King Ryons, King of Obann. And that’s all I know how to say!”
Ryons tried to remember the advice Obst had given him. “Surely God’s hand is in this,” Obst had said. “No one sails the sea. It’s been a thousand years since any man of Obann did so. How a girl could do it is more than I know! But you can be sure that she was sent to you for a reason. She spoke of a king in Obann before you came here—at the very least, she is a prophet. Treat her with respect and honor, and bring her back to the city with you, if you can.”
Some of the villagers had crept after Gurun, close enough to whisper to her. This they were now doing with some urgency. She listened to them for a moment, then turned back to the king.
“Sire,” she said—because that was how Tim had addressed him, and it must be right, “you find us in danger. Not far from here, there are a hundred bandits in a town called Hamber. They are eaters of men. They were once in the Heathen army that was driven from Obann. Zamzu, they are called.”
“Did you say Zamzu?” Out from the ranks of the footmen stepped Uduqu, brandishing the sword of Shogg. “Do you see this sword, maiden? It used to belong to a Zamzu champion, a giant. Now its purpose is to chop down Zamzu wherever they may be. King Ryons is here to protect his people from the likes of them.”
His Obannese was good enough for the villagers to understand him, and they cheered his words.
“Another thing, Sire!” said Gurun. “I have with me twenty men from the country of the Blays. They, too, were in the Heathen army. Now they live here in Jocah’s Creek, in peace. But when they see you, they’ll be afraid.”
“Tell them they have nothing to fear,” Uduqu said. “There’s a pardon for anyone who swears peace to the king of Obann. Thousands of men have been so pardoned. Some of them have gone home, but most have taken service with the king.”
Gurun curtseyed again. Ryons couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Let’s get the tent pitched, Father,” said Chagadai, the captain of the Ghols. “Then you can eat and drink and have a proper talk with this unusually tall young woman.” He spoke to Ryons in Wallekki, which they both understood: few of the countries in the East were unvisited by Wallekki traders. Ghols complained the Obannese language was too barbarous for ordinary men to learn. “I know Teacher Obst thinks she’s a person of great importance. So let’s serve her a nice supper, eh?”
CHAPTER 27
What Angel Saw, But Could Not Tell
This was the day they would emerge from King Oziah’s Wood, Martis said; and he had decided to go to Ninneburky. “It’ll be good for you to be home again,” he told the children. Ellayne rejoiced, but Jack sulked.
He wasn’t allowed to sulk for long. They hadn’t seen Wytt all morning. Now, as they approached the forest’s edge, he suddenly burst out on th
em, chattering excitedly.
“We can’t go on!” Ellayne said: she and Jack understood the Omah’s message. “There are a lot of men out there between the forest and the river, more men than Wytt can count—not that he can count very high. But he thinks it looks bad.”
“Are they like the men who are here in the forest?” Jack asked. Wytt chirped and whistled. “He says they’re different,” Jack explained. “He doesn’t like what he sees.”
“Can I get close enough to see for myself?” Martis asked. “Would he go with me, to show me?” Wytt agreed, and Martis went off with him. Jack wanted to go, too, but Martis said, “Easier for them to spot two of us than one. And if I get captured, maybe the three of you can help me.”
“Two kids and a blind man—some help!” Ellayne said after he was gone. “It’ll be Heathen out there, of course. Right between us and home!”
“They must be planning to come into Oziah’s Wood, after all,” Jack said.
Chillith stood quietly, peering, peering ahead as if he expected to see something, when he could see nothing at all. It got on Jack’s nerves.
“They will come into this forest, and soon,” the Griff said. “The Thunder King desires it. I can feel his desire like a hot breath on the back of my neck.”
“He’ll be sorry if he tries it,” Ellayne said. “God put a blessing on this place. The Thunder King’s men can’t come in.”
“But they will,” said Chillith. “He will defy the God of Obann, to prove himself the stronger god. Stronger than the God who took away my sight.” And he fell silent after saying that.
Martis soon returned. “There’s a fortified camp between the forest and the river,” he said. “I climbed a tree and had a good look. I saw Zephites—easy to recognize them by the horns they wear. They must have been part of the army that tried to capture Ninneburky, but failed. I saw horses with Wallekki riders. There are several hundred men, and it looks to me like more will be coming to join them.”
