The Glass Bridge (Bell Mountain #7)

by Lee Duigon

  Helki decided to shift his position to the west, so that when the enemy, whoever it was, came up before the baron’s defenses, he, Helki the Rod, would be behind them.

  Without anyone ordering it so, Ryons’ army slowed the pace of its advance as it drew nearer to the first of the Great Lakes. The lake had many names. The Griffs knew it as the Door of the Sun—“Because the rising sun must pass through it every morning,” Tiliqua explained. “We don’t believe that anymore, but the name has stuck”—so that was what the army called it.

  Uduqu, meanwhile, had an idea. “I’m not much for ideas,” he confided to Obst, “but when I get one, I stay with it.”

  In Obann, studying along with Ryons, he learned the alphabet and how to write his name. One evening, with two more days to go before they were to come within sight of the Door of the Sun, after thinking about it all day on the march, Uduqu took a piece of charcoal and scrawled something on the blade of Shogg’s sword.

  “Now find me someone who can read,” he said to Obst, “but who doesn’t speak a word of Abnak.”

  That someone was a grey-haired Griff named KoOmah, who in his youth went west and served some years in Obann’s army. Uduqu showed him the writing on the sword.

  “Can you read that?”

  “I can,” said KoOmah, “although it makes no sense. It says, ‘Wattaki Uduqu sa,’ whatever that may mean.”

  “Aha! It works!” Grinning, Uduqu sheathed the sword and swatted KoOmah’s shoulder. “It’s Abnak, man! That’s why you don’t understand it. ‘Wattaki Uduqu sa’ means ‘I am Uduqu.’ I can use the letters of Obann to write things in my language!”

  “I could have told you that,” said Obst, smiling. “But I didn’t want to spoil your fun.”

  “But it means that I can write things that other Abnaks can learn to read,” Uduqu said. “Why, I can write my whole life’s story now, without having to learn Obannese, which is a devilish hard language. Not only that—I could write down everything that you’ve been teaching us. That might be more useful than the story of my life. Any man could tell a tale of fights and scalpings and women.”

  “I couldn’t!” Obst said. He ran his fingers through his beard. “I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this,” he said. “Between us, old friend, we could render the Holy Scriptures into Abnak—or any other language spoken by men. What a blessing that would be! If only we live long enough to do it.”

  “I’ll make it my business to stay alive,” said Uduqu. “And you do the same.”

  That, he thought, would get trickier and trickier the farther east they went. Already the broad plains of Griff-land were giving way to lands that rose and dipped. The day’s march up and down these low hills had not been an easy one. Uduqu longed for the forested hills of Abnak country; he’d even be glad to see Carbonek again. He wondered how his people were doing in their war. As long as the Abnaks could keep fighting, he thought, that would mean fewer and fewer warriors available to the Thunder King to bar Ryons’ way to Kara Karram. “But by the time we get there,” he supposed, “they’ll have prepared a hot reception for us.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Treachery Ahead and Behind

  When the door at the top of the cellar stairs opened and two men came down instead of just the one who’d brought him bread and water, Hennen was sure they’d come to kill him. He was in chains with no way to defend himself. “A pretty miserable end for a soldier,” he thought. And he prayed a brief prayer: “Lord, receive my soul! I’ve done my best.”

  “On your feet, General!” said the man who carried the lamp. “We’ve come to turn you loose.”

  Hennen didn’t believe it, but he struggled to his feet: he preferred to die standing up. But the second man produced a key and unlocked his fetters.

  “Where is Chutt?” Hennen asked. It had been quite a few days since Chutt had sent any word to him. How many, he’d lost track.

  “Who knows? And who cares? He’s gone off with his Wallekki bully-boys and left us to deal with an army coming up from Obann. We don’t feel like dealing with it! So if they’ve come for you, they can have you.”

  Why had Chutt left Market City? Where was he going? Hennen asked, but the guards didn’t know.

  “Rumor has it that he’s heard about some gold stashed somewhere and galloped off to get it,” said the man with the keys.

  “You’ll put in a word for us, won’t you, sir?” said the other. “Market City belongs to Obann, and they’re welcome to it. We won’t fight for it.”

  They had to help him up the stairs and then wait for his eyes to get accustomed to the light of day. Hennen insisted on a good meal before he left the building, and the guards gave him one. It was wonderful to eat at a table for a change, seated on a proper chair. The beef stew went down like the food of angels. When he’d finished it, Hennen was able to rise without assistance.

  “There’s a horse waiting for you, General, and your sword and your armor, too. Try not to be too mad at us! It wasn’t our idea to lock you in the cellar. Who could go against Lord Chutt, once he had all those Heathen at his beck and call? Good riddance to him and them!”

  “I think I’m able to ride,” said Hennen. “And then we’ll see about securing this town so Chutt can’t get it back.”

  Ysbott pushed his two men off the road and into the shelter of the trees. At first they didn’t understand why he was doing this and would have resisted, if they’d dared. But soon enough they heard the racket of several thousand armed men on horses, and soon they got glimpses of Chutt and his horde.

  “I never heard them coming!” Gwawl marveled. “How did you know they were coming, Tobb?”

  “I felt it through the soles of my feet, of course,” Ysbott said. Any woodsman would have felt the vibration of thousands of horses’ hooves battering the earth well before he heard it. He might not have known what it was, but he would have known to get out of the way.

  “Who were they?” said Hrapp. He was trembling, Ysbott noticed. Why was it, he wondered, that you just couldn’t find good men anymore?

  “A lot of Wallekki, by the look of the feathers in their hair,” he said, “but with some Obannese mixed in. King Ryons has Wallekki cavalry, but he took them with him when he went east. I don’t know who these could be. That bothers me!”

  That was an understatement. The passage of the cavalry reminded him that he was Ysbott the Snake, outlaw: every man’s hand was against him. Whoever was leading that body of horsemen up the mountain, he had the power to hang Ysbott from the nearest tree, if he so desired.

  Even so, Ysbott’s mind began to work.

  “Come—let’s turn around and follow them. From a safe distance!” he said. “Something’s happening, and I want to know what it is.”

  “Well,” said Gwawl, “but if they catch us—”

  “Will you try to show a little courage, just this once!” Ysbott snapped at him. “Whoever those men were, they’ve come for the gold. They’ll either help Roshay Bault or try to take the gold away from him. I want to see what happens!”

  “Whatever you say, Tobb,” Hrapp said. He wished with all his heart that he’d never left his cobbler’s shop, but didn’t say so.

  “Father, what are you going to do?” Ellayne asked. Night was coming on, but still the men labored at the camp’s defenses.

  “I’m going to try to save our lives—and save the gold for Obann, if I can.” Shirtless, covered with grime, the baron had put in a full day, but Ellayne knew he’d work all night, if necessary. “I want you and Jack and the other boy to be ready to skedaddle out of here with Martis and Trout at the first sign of trouble. Maybe there won’t be any—but we must be ready, if there is.”

  He’d done this before, Ellayne knew, when an army of Zephites attacked Ninneburky and he defended it against fearful odds. There were men here, like Kadmel, who’d been with him in that fight. They had confidence in him.

  “Lord Chutt really is a traitor, then?”

  “I remember how he bought
the votes to be elected to the High Council,” Roshay said. “Lord Gwyll couldn’t stand him, but Lord Ruffin thought they could make use of him. They all said he was a wizard when it came to bringing in the taxes. But no one ever would have thought he had it in him to raise an army. Yes, he’s a traitor. I wish King Ryons and his men were here with us.” And then he went off to get the ditch dug deeper, now by torchlight.

  Wytt was edgy. “He smells a battle coming,” Jack said. “I wish I knew how he knows these things! He thinks we ought to leave right now and not wait till the morning.”

  “It’ll be a hard battle, if there is one,” said Fnaa. “I wouldn’t want to try climbing over those timbers with people throwing stones and poking spears at me.”

  “My father wins his battles!” Ellayne said. But if what that trooper said was true, and there were thousands of Wallekki coming, what chance had Roshay Bault with only two or three hundred men? She didn’t want to be there in the middle of a battle, but she didn’t want to leave her father, either. He might be killed here—a thought too terrible to hold for long.

  “We’ll find paths to take us down the mountain,” Martis said, looking ahead. “They’ll catch us if we try to use the road.”

  “They’ll be sorry if they do,” said Trout. He’d bound his ankle tightly and said he didn’t think it would hold them up. He’d also spent a little time honing the edge of his scalping knife—not that Abnaks ever let their knives get dull.

  Jack feared for his foster-father, but thought it would only make Ellayne feel worse if he said so. But he couldn’t remain entirely silent.

  “There’s always traitors, aren’t there?” he said. “One goes down, and another one pops up somewhere else. Will King Ryons ever be able to be safe on his throne? Or will he have to keep fighting for it until he’s old and grey?”

  “Tomorrow you will see the great water,” Looth told the other chieftains. But Chagadai had bigger news than that. Some of his Ghols had been out since the middle of the night before and had only just come back with tidings.

  “We are being followed,” Chagadai reported. “Something was troubling the king’s hawk, something she saw from high up in the sky. So I sent four riders to see what it was.

  “We are being followed by an army of Zephites, with at least as many men as we have. They’re all on foot, but they’re coming on quickly all the same.”

  “Ungrateful sons of dogs!” said Shaffur, showing his teeth. “This is how they pay us back for letting them go when we had them at our mercy!”

  “And the big men, the Zamzu, are waiting for us at the lake, with a lot of Dahai, too,” Looth said. “We’ll be caught between two armies.”

  “And if we wheel around to attack the Zephites, the Zamzu will take us in the rear!” Shaffur said. “Is there any good ground for us to hold? Anyplace where we might make a stand and live to tell of it?”

  Pitched battles involving large numbers of men had never been the Attakotts’ way. They fought—mostly against the Abnaks—as small raiding parties, mostly from ambush. They wouldn’t think in terms of finding a good defensive position and holding it. But Looth had learned a thing or two about the art of war.

  “There are hills overlooking the water,” he said. “The big men and the Dahai are camped right on the shore with the water at their backs. But I have seen one hill big enough for all of us. If we can get there first, it will be hard to drive us off it.”

  “We’ll still be surrounded,” Shaffur said. “Curse those Zephites for their treachery! But I suppose we’d better make all speed to that hill—and it means we’ll lose any advantage that our strength in horse might give us.” Ryons understood enough to understand that his people were in grave danger. But what else could they do? It was the hill or nothing. He didn’t dare interrupt the deliberations of his chiefs.

  “Praise God that the king’s wise little hawk has warned us,” Xhama said. “At least we won’t be taken by surprise. Nor do I believe that God has led us all the way out here just for the Thunder King to kill us.”

  “We ask too much of God!” Shaffur muttered. Gurun heard it.

  “My lords,” she spoke up, “I know nothing of wars and battles. But I do know that God has brought me to this place farther than any of you. I came from across the sea, and I don’t know how to get back! All I know is that we must go on—by faith, because we cannot see the way. Ask Obst if it is not so.”

  Obst stood up and sighed. “It’s so,” he said. “When the Children of Geb walked on little islands that rose up in the sea and sank again when they’d passed over them, they had only faith to guide them. And God brought them to a wide and pleasant land, which is now Obann and all these countries in the East.

  “What else can we do, but go on? First to Looth’s hill, and there await deliverance. We came here in obedience to the Lord. He won’t desert us now. Let us rest while we can and then make all speed to the hill as soon as it’s light enough for us to travel.”

  All the chiefs murmured their approval. But then Tiliqua shook his head and said, “We never should have trusted the Zeph! I wish you hadn’t healed that chief of theirs, Gurun. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s leading them in person.”

  “If he comes within reach of my sword again,” said Uduqu, “he’ll get a wound that will be very difficult to heal.”

  Gurun said nothing in reply. She couldn’t find it in herself to regret the healing of Jiharr. That had been, after all, a sign that God was with them.

  She exchanged a look with Ryons and knew he felt the same.

  CHAPTER 34

  Blood Money

  When Roshay Bault finally sat down to rest and eat and drink, the children sat with him. The night was well under way, but the captains were still busy shoring up the defenses. “Unless Chutt’s Wallekki got around them somehow,” the baron thought, “we’re as secure as we can be. We’ll see what they’re up to. If they do try to outflank us, it’ll take them some time.” But he worried because that was exactly what he would do if he were Lord Chutt.

  Not wishing to alarm the children, he talked about what a coward Chutt was and how the Wallekki had never been known to have the stomach for a really stiff fight—forgetting that his daughter and Jack had actually seen Wallekki fight and knew how brave they could be.

  But then Fnaa said something that none of the others had thought of yet.

  “I wonder how the Thunder King ever got to have so much gold,” he said. “Vallach Vair was a rich man—my mother and I were slaves in his house—but he never saw so much gold as this. He was crazy for gold, and he’d do just about anything to get more of it. But all the gold he ever had wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket, compared to what’s up here.”

  “The Thunder King must have a lot more gold, though, where this came from,” Ellayne said.

  “How did he get to be so rich, Baron?” asked Jack.

  Roshay had never thought about that, and at first he answered casually, “Well, he must have taken it from all those people he conquered in the East. He must have plundered whole nations and sacked a lot of cities.”

  Had Lord Orth been there, or Obst, he would have said that that made it blood money, and that God had commanded the Children of Geb, long ago, “You shall not take a price for men’s blood.” But Orth wasn’t there, and just for the moment, Roshay had forgotten the law against taking blood money. That would not have surprised Lord Orth. It had been a long time since God’s laws were preached in Obann’s chamber houses.

  “I don’t like to think of it,” Jack said. “When we were with King Ryons’ army, they all talked about the terrible things the Thunder King did to their countries. He killed off their cattle, poisoned their wells—and a lot of other things. That’s why all those different peoples are so afraid of him.”

  To sheathe his great hall in sheets of gold, Roshay thought, must have cost only a fraction of King Thunder’s wealth. Even so, the gold they had up here—how many murders, how many robberies, how many blood crimes had
to be committed to amass it? The baron shook his head.

  “Everyone wants to be rich, Jack,” he said. “I’m considered a rich man, myself. But several generations of my family worked for it! Felling trees, sending God knows how many rafts of lumber down the river to Obann; building docks and saw-mills; and paying a good price to get the best labor, but robbing no one. And yet just a few of these gold sheets would be more wealth than we could have earned in all that time. But at least our hands are clean.”

  “But won’t this gold make them dirty, sir?” Fnaa said. “I’m just a fool of a boy, and I don’t know much. But I wonder if it’d be bad luck to take the Thunder King’s gold.” And that was when the baron remembered the law.