Wamlak nodded and said nothing.
“Alright,” Aram said. “Same schedule as last night, except for Wamlak. I want him to sleep through. Mallet, you and Aberlon will have the last watch. Wake the rest of us before dawn.”
Before daylight, as the sky grew pink behind them, they were easing through the wooded valley toward the clearing on the slope opposite. Sunup found them in the clearing. Aram distributed the men in the undergrowth on either side of the road to the south. Then he and Wamlak hid themselves in the trees on the north side of the work area and waited.
Within an hour they heard the wagons rumbling up the road along the top of the ridge. They came out of the woods into the clearing and stopped in a line along the bottom. The overseers immediately put the slaves to work, chained together in pairs like before, and the lasher took up his patrol along the roadway at the lower edge of the clearing.
It took most of the morning for the slaves to fell and strip enough trees to load the first pair of wagons then two overseers turned their oxen around and left for the distant butte. Aram waited until the wagons were too far away to hear what happened behind them, and then he touched Wamlak lightly on the arm. Wamlak swallowed and nodded. Aram let the lasher reach the far end of his patrol, turn, and start back. Then he caught Wamlak’s eye, got to his feet and stepped out of the trees onto the road.
“Aim for the biggest part of his body.” He told Wamlak evenly and he took aim. The lasher had not yet seen them. He was looking up the hill at the slaves. Aram’s arrow caught him in the chest just below his chin. Wamlak’s struck a second later in the upper part of the lasher’s left arm.
The lasher grunted in pain and surprise and dropped to one knee, dragging at Aram’s arrow with a clawed hand. The two remaining overseers looked around curiously. Then the lasher looked up and saw Aram and Wamlak standing on the road, drawing their bows back for a second volley. With a roar of anger, the great beast came to his feet, snapped off the shafts of the arrows and charged.
He pounded toward the two men in great long strides, eating up the distance, swinging his sword and his whip. But Aram could already see a black stain spreading quickly down over the beast’s huge chest. His first missile had found something vital.
“Hold steady and let him come,” Aram told Wamlak. “He’s already hurt worse than he knows. Pull your bow back as far as you can and put your arrow right in the thickest part of him.”
Aram pulled the long bow back until the wood groaned and held his fire. When he heard the twang of Wamlak’s bow, he released his own missile. The lasher flicked his whip and partially deflected Wamlak’s arrow but Aram’s caught him high in the chest near where the other had struck and sank deep. Brackish blood spewed from the wound.
The beast grunted and went to his hands and knees, sliding forward in the gravel of the roadway. He struggled to regain his feet but Aram’s two arrows had done considerable damage and his great strength was failing. Deliberately, Aram nocked another arrow and put it near the others. The lasher was mortally wounded and though he scrabbled at the ground with his enormous claws, could not rise.
For a moment, now that the beast’s head was on a level with his own, Aram considered dispatching it with his sword for the effect it would have on the men but thought better of it. He approached the lasher as it continued trying to rise and put a last arrow in its eye. The missile shuddered as it pierced the brain and struck the back of the lasher’s skull. The beast collapsed.
Above the roadway, the overseers had watched the scene in stunned paralysis but now they abandoned their posts in the face of this astounding and terrifying event and fled down the road. Findaen and his men leapt from the undergrowth and felled the two overseers with quick and numerous—albeit clumsy—strokes of their swords.
Aram checked their work and then turned his attention to the slaves. For the most part, the workers, forty-two in all, had dropped their tools and hunkered back in among the trees, fearful and uncertain of the meaning of events. Aram slung his bow over his head and approached them. He stood for a moment and looked them over. The pitiful sight of the thin, frightened men brought back momentary yet painful memories of a life that until now had begun to seem very distant from him in space and time.
“We are free men,” he addressed them in a loud voice. “We answer to our own will and not that of any other.” He pointed to the west through the trees behind them toward the jumbled rocky wilderness of hills that formed the region to the north of Burning Mountain. “We dwell in the wilderness behind you. Your masters have invaded our land and we will not tolerate it. If they continue to destroy our forests, they will all die.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Aram saw Findaen’s eyebrows go up at this astonishing series of statements but the younger man remembered Aram’s admonishment of the night before and remained silent.
“We were once like you,” Aram continued, “slaves to the whims of the servants of Manon. Now we are free. We mean you no harm. Join us and know what it is like to have liberty.”
He fell silent and waited for an answer from the slaves. Most stared at the ground before them, trembling in fear, and refused, or were simply unable, to meet his gaze. Finally, two men stood up, straining against the chains of their fellows who remained on the ground. They stood proudly and looked him in the eye. Aram studied the two. They were a similar pair and looked very much alike, lean and wiry with sandy colored hair, though one was slightly taller.
“We’ll join you.” The taller one said. “My name is Ruben and this is my brother Semet. We were taken prisoner when we were boys—our parents were slain. But we remember freedom. We will join you.”
“Where are you from?” Aram asked. “Where was your home?”
Immediately, Ruben pointed toward the south. “We lived on a farm on the plains near the town of Gerontus which is on the sea. Ten years ago the gray men came with one of the horned beasts. Our village was utterly destroyed. All who resisted them were slain and the young girls taken away and all the boys like us put into chains.”
“When were you brought here?” Aram asked.
“Last year,” Ruben answered. “Before that we were made to work farms to the west near the great marsh.”
Aram motioned for Mallet to join him and he went close to the young men and examined their chains. “Can you break through these by striking them with a sword against a rock?” He asked Mallet.
Mallet nodded slowly. “I think so—but it will probably ruin the sword.”
“We have more.” Aram answered simply. He looked at the two men chained with the brothers. “Stand up.” He ordered and the slaves complied meekly.
While Mallet led the men away to find a flat rock and break the chains, Aram sent Jonwood and Wamlak down the road to watch for the return of the wagons and then he went back and examined the other slaves. They were a frightened-looking lot, thin and threadbare, and it was obvious that most of them had known nothing but slavery for most, if not all, of their lives.
He addressed them in a way he knew they would find familiar. “Stand up,” he said loudly, “and form a line in the open.”
Cautiously, the slaves lined up along the edge of the clearing in front of the standing trees, watching Aram with furtive and fearful eyes. This tall, dark-haired man had slain a lasher—a beast they feared with sound reason. If this man could kill one of their masters, what kind of man must he be? They stood trembling, most of them afraid to meet his gaze.
“I said I would not harm you and I meant it—now or ever. I offer you three choices. Join us in the wilds—go free on your own—or remain in your chains. Which will it be?”
One man, who seemed to be of about middle age—though it was hard to tell—finally looked up and met Aram’s gaze for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper.
“The grim lord has taken our daughters and threatened all of us with pain more terrible than death if we do not do what he wishes. If we disobey him and go with you, we will
never see our daughters again and our wives and children will suffer his terrible wrath. I cannot do this.”
Aram gazed at him in pity and decided that he could not be so cruel as to tell the poor man that his daughters were lost forever, no matter what he did now. He spoke gently.
“Where are you from, my friend?”
The man appeared to be taken aback by Aram’s kindly tone. “We—well, most of us here—are from the land of Bracken, near unto the tower of the grim lord.” Anticipating Aram’s next question, he continued. “We were brought here a year ago. It took many days, in many wagons, and many died.”
Aram nodded in silent commiseration. He had memories of his own concerning such matters. He sighed.
“I understand. Perhaps the day will come when we can free all of your people, including your families. In the meantime, know that we will never harm any of you. Now, are there any others among you that will accept our offer of freedom today?”
None other answered. Aram let the silence stretch out as he watched them. They had been slaves for so long that they couldn’t grasp the fundaments of rebellion, or even decision-making. Gazing upon their pitiable physical state and their mental paralysis, born of generations of servitude, his soul ached within him. Finally he turned and looked at the men from Derosa and indicated the slaves with a wave of his hand.
“This is what is in store for our people, for countless generations, if we don’t win this war.” He turned back to the workers and spoke gently. “Sit, then, and be quiet until our business is finished. Then we will leave you.”
Mallet had succeeded in freeing Ruben and Semet and he brought the two slaves that had been shackled with the brothers back and set them with the others. Dane approached and asked Aram to go with him down to the remaining wagons. He indicated the two pairs of oxen hitched to the wagons.
“These are some pretty fine beasts,” he said. “They haven’t been fed as well as they should have but they’re young and good oxen are hard to come by these days. Is there any way we could take them with us?”
Aram considered. They were a good four or five days from his valley and one or two further from Derosa—and a good portion of the distance was rugged and covered with woods. But the main problem was how easy the animals would be for their enemies to track.
“I don’t know,” he answered Dane honestly. “How valuable are they? What kind of risk are they worth?”
Dane looked at him. “As you saw, lord Aram, most of our farmers work their ground by hand without any beasts at all. These are valuable, and there are four of them. They will make a great difference.”
Aram nodded. “Yes and there are four more coming, which we could take as well. Unhitch these, Dane, and take them into the trees over there”—he pointed to the north side of the clearing—“and secure them until later. Let’s see how things go before we decide.”
He gave instructions for the slaves to be given water—they couldn’t spare any of their food—and then he went down the road to join Jonwood and Wamlak. The two men had positioned themselves on the ridge where the road curved away to the south and went out into the brush of the open ridge. They could see down the road for a good two miles. As Aram approached, Jonwood pointed to the south.
“They’re coming back.”
Just coming into view, rounding a curve in the road below the great black mountain, the wagons of the two overseers were returning. Wamlak glanced sideways at Aram.
“Do we need to kill these men as well?”
Aram met his gaze with cold eyes. “Did you get a good look at those slaves back there, Wamlak? Did you see the state to which men who were once like you and me have been reduced?”
Wamlak nodded silently.
“Alright, then.” Aram indicated the approaching overseers. “These men have had a willing part in that evil. They deserve death. Even at that, however, there is a more important issue here. There is a sound reason why we’re going to leave no one alive but the slaves.
“They’ll tell the story we gave them about us living out in the wilds,” he said and he swept his hand over the rugged, rocky country to the west, “and Manon and his commanders will think they have other enemies besides us. Enemies that, until now, they hadn’t known of. So we can leave no one alive who might suspect otherwise. The way I see it, when the wagons don’t return this evening, someone will come to check—hopefully another lasher, or perhaps a pair of them.
“The more of them we kill, the fewer we’ll face later and the more cautious Manon will be. If they don’t come tonight, we’ll keep the slaves here and wait until morning. As long as they don’t send a large party, we have the advantage on this ground and we need to make as big an impression as possible.”
He looked into the eyes of the two men and waited until he saw that they understood and then he turned toward the clearing. “Let’s join the others and get into position.”
Within an hour, the returning overseers were dead, brought down by arrows from the bows of Aram and Wamlak. Dane spent the rest of the afternoon hitching the oxen together and herding them north into the trees along the ridge top. Aram sent Jonwood and Wamlak back down the road to watch for scouting parties of the enemy and he put the rest of the men, including Ruben and Semet, to work destroying the wagons.
The sun went behind the bulk of Burning Mountain and the day waned away. Finally, just before sunset, Jonwood came hurrying into the clearing to alert Aram.
“Two lashers, my lord. They’re coming on the run.”
“Only two?”
“That’s all we can see. They’re coming straight up the road.”
“How far away?”
Jonwood considered a moment. “They should be here in about twenty minutes.”
“Good.” Aram said. He was pleased. Two was not too many to handle, but was enough, when added to the one they’d already killed, to make a lasting impression on Manon and his local commanders. He gathered the men and led them down the road. He glanced southward. The lashers had covered about half the open distance.
“Same as this morning,” he told the men. “You get into cover on both sides of the road. Wamlak and I will step into view when they’re close enough that we can do some damage. When we’ve wounded them, the rest of you can help, but don’t get close enough to be wounded yourselves. Mallet, you and Aberlon use your pikes.”
He looked around sternly. “Hear me. Don’t any of you get too close to these beasts. Even badly wounded, a lasher can kill a man easily. Hopefully, Wamlak and I can finish them with arrows but if not, Mallet and Aberlon, be ready to help.”
Aram and Wamlak went back up the road toward the clearing, warned the slaves to be silent, sent Ruben and Semet into the woods with the oxen and then hid behind trees to each side of the road. Aram looked across at Wamlak.
“We’ll both aim for the nearest one first then the second—if they come together, the one nearest you first, then the one nearest to me. We want at least one arrow in each of them as quickly as possible.” Wamlak nodded that he understood.
Luck was with them. The lashers sprinted into the woods in unsuspecting haste, angry that they had had to come at all, and one was several yards in front of the other.
“Now.” Aram said firmly. He and Wamlak stepped into the road and drew down on the leading lasher. In the dusk, the lasher was unable to deflect either missile. Surprised and suddenly injured, he stumbled and crashed sideways into the woods. His companion roared in quick fury and charged the two men, brandishing his sword. Aram and Wamlak sent two more arrows at him. Struck hard, the lasher stumbled but came on. Again, they fired. Aram aimed for the head and his arrow found an eye and pierced the creature’s brain. The lasher crumpled, kicking at the rough surface of the road with clawed feet as he died.
Hearing a great commotion from the wood, Aram ran toward where the other lasher had fallen. He found Mallet and Aberlon with their pikes in the fallen beast, straining with their might to keep the giant creature pinned to the earth. Dra
wing his sword, he hacked at the beast’s arms, rendering them useless, then, avoiding its kicking, clawed feet; he drove his sword into its neck and heaved his weight on the hilt until the beast fell still.
There was no time for celebration. The sun, behind the bulk of the mountain, had evidently left the earth, for the sky grew rapidly dark. Aram ordered the men to move the oxen and the slaves north of the clearing into the trees. Then he went down the road for one more look to the south along the darkening road. Nothing moved in the shadowy dusk along the flank of Burning Mountain. He glanced at the sky. It was a clear evening and there would be a moon later.
He rejoined the men and addressed the slaves one last time. “I told you I would grant your freedom. You may go with us or on your own.”
None answered.
“Alright. Line up and move along the road toward your homes. There will be a moon after a while and you should find your way easily enough. If ever you decide to escape you may join us in the wild. Now go.”
Obediently the workers shuffled in their chains across the clearing and onto the road. Aram watched them trudge from sight. Then he turned to the others.
“There won’t be much rest this night. Move the oxen ahead of the men, Dane, in single file along the top of the ridge. I’ll lead and Wamlak and Jonwood can bring up the rear. Let’s go.”
In the deepening night, Aram led them northward through the woods along the top of the ridge. When they came out onto the rocky, brush-covered hills south of the bend in the river that Aram had followed during his escape seven years before, they turned east. An enormous moon came up over the edge of the world and rose into the sky before them.
XXIII
With no trail, the going was rough and moving the oxen was difficult but Aram had also become convinced of their value and considered the trouble and danger inherent in bringing them along to be worth it. By midnight, they had covered a distance of about three miles along the top of ridge. When they found a flat place, Dane tied the oxen in a stand of stout trees and they rested for a few hours until the sky lightened in the east.
Kelven's Riddle: The Mountain at the Middle of the World Page 36
