The Redemption of Althalus (54 page)

It just wasn’t fair.

Gebhel’s reserves swept down the slope behind the stampeding sheep that had hidden them from Koman, and fell upon Pekhal’s disorganized force.

The brutelike Pekhal stood gaping in absolute astonishment as terrified sheep scrambled over his men and Gebhel’s force came along behind their wooly allies, slaughtering every Regwos in sight.

The outcome was never really in doubt, and after a long animal-like howl of frustration, Pekhal turned, spouting curses like an erupting volcano, and ran back through Khnom’s door to make good his escape, leaving his army to its inevitable fate.

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y - E I G H T

N
ow
that’s
what I’d call a
real
hill!” Sergeant Gebhel said in an awed tone when they crested a knoll and saw Daiwer’s Tower jutting up out of the grassland in the pale moonlight. “Where’s that rock slide you mentioned, Khalor?”

“It’s around on the other side,” Khalor told him. “We might have to set up a defensive perimeter around the base of it, though. You’ve got a lot of men, and the slide’s not very wide.”

“That’s the way we want it, Khalor. I don’t want a broad highway leading up to my position. It won’t take
too
long for my men to reach the top, though. My advance party was supposed to string ropes up the slide, and the rear guard I left in the trenches should be able to conceal the fact that we’ve packed up and left. After what we did to the Ansus yesterday, I’m sure they won’t be expecting our withdrawal. We chewed up most of their infantry behind my trenches, and bit big pieces out of their cavalry. A retreat right after a victory’s
very
unusual. They might not even realize that we’ve pulled out until tomorrow, and it’s going to take them a while to bring in reinforcements. I hate to admit it, Khalor, but this notion of yours is strategically sound.”

“I’m glad you approve.”

“I didn’t say I approved. All I said was that it’s an interesting strategic innovation.”

“Do you think there’s any chance that they’ll just circle around us and march on Keiwon?” Bheid asked as they started down the knoll toward the tower.

“Anything’s possible in a war, I suppose,” Gebhel said, “but it wouldn’t be very likely. Only an idiot moves on and leaves an unfriendly army behind him. If that’s the way they want to do it, though, it’s all right with me. We’ve got reinforcements on the way, so all we really need is time. Kreuter’s cavalry should be here in a few days, and old Chief Delur’s people shouldn’t be far behind. I’m going to just sit tight on top of that silly tower and wait for them. If the enemy takes Keiwon, we’ll just take it back after our reinforcements arrive.”

“Won’t that more or less demolish the entire city?”

“Cities are overrated anyway. It’s not
my
city, so I won’t lose too much sleep if it gets burned to the ground. I’ve been burning cities for fun and profit since I was a boy.” He looked at Khalor then. “What about food and water?”

“That’s one of the things that attracted us to the place, Sergeant Gebhel,” Althalus lied smoothly. “Brother Bheid here had heard about a monastic order of the Wekti religion that was just a trifle fanatic about absolute isolation, and there’s a fairly large cave up on top with a spring at the back of it. As I understand it, they spent about a decade carrying food—wheat, dried fruit, bacon and dried beef, beans, all the usual things—up that rock slide and storing it in the cave. We looked into that cave when we climbed the tower yesterday, and there are a
lot
of storage bins in there.”

“Whatever happened to those monks, anyway?”

Althalus shrugged. “There was an argument about which one of them was going to be the Lord High Whatever of their holy order. It was one of those arguments that started with a lot of shouting and ended up with knives and axes. From what I understand, the dispute was very noisy right at first, but it turned dead quiet after a while.”

“God defend us from religion,” Gebhel said.

“Amen,” Althalus agreed, ignoring the shocked look on Bheid’s face.

“Have you heard anything at all from Dweia?” Bheid quietly asked Althalus as they started the climb up the steep rock slide.

“Not so much as a peep,” Althalus admitted, “and I don’t think it’s very likely that I will. Koman’s out there eavesdropping, and Emmy’s too clever to tell me anything she wants to keep out of his reach.”

“Can’t you hold him off with halves and quarters and thirds the way Leitha can?”

“Not indefinitely. I’m fairly sure Koman’s going to be concentrating on me, because Ghend knows that I’m more or less in charge of things. If I know too much, sooner or later I’ll let something slip.”

“Did she tell you that she was going to keep you in the dark?”

“She didn’t have to. I know Emmy well enough to know the way she thinks. If all it’s going to take to restore Eliar’s sight is enough time for the bruising to heal, he’ll probably be joining us before the day’s out. If she has to make some repairs, it might be longer.” Althalus kept the possibility that Eliar’s blindness might be permanent strictly to himself.

“You’re being very calm about this, Althalus,” Bheid accused.

“Getting excited won’t accomplish very much. Have faith, Brother Bheid. If you believe hard enough, things might even turn out for the best.”

“Would it upset you if I worried just a little?” Bheid asked.

“Not if you can keep it to yourself, it won’t.”

Sergeant Gebhel called a halt after about a half hour on the steep rock slide. “Give me a minute or two to catch my breath, Khalor,” he panted.

“Too much soft living in the trenches, Gebhel?” Kahlor suggested slyly.

“I don’t see
you
running uphill all that fast.”

“It wouldn’t be very polite if I just ran off and left you behind, would it?”

“Did you really want to race to the top, Khalor?”

“Not particularly, no. These ropes your advance party strung up the rock slide
are
making this climb a lot more pleasant—particularly in the dark. Salkan brought Althalus and me up this slide yesterday in broad daylight, and I was blowing hard by the time we reached the top.”

“What’s it like up there?”

“Uninviting, to tell you the truth.”

“I didn’t plan to invite anybody. Where’s this cave with all the food and water inside?”

“On the far side. From the look of things up there, I’d guess that an earthquake or something broke loose a large slab of rock on this side of the tower and it toppled over. That removed the support on this side, and a good part of what used to be on top slid off and followed the slab. That’s what formed this rock slide. Evidently the north side’s more stable. There’s a slope from the top of this slide that runs up to a kind of rocky crag that’s a hundred or so feet higher than the rest of the tower. The cave’s in the face of that crag, right at the top of the slope.”

“If worse came to worst, that cave might turn out to be very useful.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“That isn’t very likely, Khalor,” Gebhel said. “The enemy’s going to have to come up this rock slide to reach us, and I think I feel a few brandnew rock slides in the offing. It’s very hard to concentrate when you’ve got boulders rolling down over the top of you.”

“You’re assuming that you’re going to get all your men up there before Gelta’s cavalry come boiling down from the north,” Khalor reminded him.

“There
is
that, I suppose,” Gebhel conceded.

“Excuse me,” Gher said from a few yards off to the left.

“Brace yourself, Gebhel,” Khalor warned. “That boy’s a positive wellspring of clever ideas.”

“He’s hardly more than a baby, Khalor,” Gebhel snorted.

“That might be what makes his ideas so interesting. His mind isn’t cluttered with preconceptions. Go ahead, Gher.”

“Well, the bad lady’s soldiers all ride horses, don’t they?”

“That’s why they’re called ‘cavalry,’ Gher,” Khalor replied.

“I suppose,” Gher said. “Well,
some
animals that belong to people are used to having fire around—dogs, cats, mostly. But other animals, like horses and cows and sheep, are afraid of fire, and there’s miles and miles of grass growing around this rock pile, isn’t there? The rock pile won’t burn, but the grass probably will, won’t it?”

“It might,” Gebhel conceded, “but only if there’s a strong wind to whip it up. It’s an interesting idea, boy, but I don’t think it’ll work if the weather doesn’t cooperate.”

Gher looked quickly at Althalus, but Althalus shook his head slightly and laid his forefinger to his lips. Then he spoke aloud. “We can discuss this later, gentlemen,” he said. “Shouldn’t we concentrate on climbing right now?”

Sergeant Gebhel sighed, and then he continued going uphill, pulling himself hand over hand up one of the ropes snaking down the jumbled rock slide.

“Where does the water go after it bubbles up in the middle of that pool?” Gebhel asked curiously when Althalus took him to the cave to show him the supplies he’d conjured up the previous day.

“I haven’t the faintest idea, Sergeant. We were a little pressed for time, so I didn’t have the leisure to investigate.”

Gebhel scooped up some of the water in his cupped palm and tasted it. “Sweet,” he noted.

“Isn’t springwater always sweet, Sergeant?” Bheid asked.

“Not really,” Gebhel replied, wiping his hand on his kilt. “There’s a spring near Chief Gweti’s hall that’s got a lot of sulphur mixed with the water, and the silly thing’s so hot that you can’t put your hand in it. This hilltop of yours is looking better and better, Khalor. As soon as my tents get up here, I’ll put my men to work building us an encampment around the mouth of this cave.”

“We’re not exactly planning to set up a permanent residence here, Gebhel,” Khalor protested.

“How much would you care to wager on that? I’m sure Chief Gweti’s going to absolutely
love
your tower, Khalor. It’s got ‘stalemate’ written all over it, and Gweti wiggles like a puppy every time he hears that word.”

By first light, fully a third of Gebhel’s men had reached the top of the rock slide, and they had fanned out to line the edges of the slope leading up to the crag on the north side of the summit. As the light gradually increased, the men who were still strung out on the steep path began to move more rapidly, but it was obvious that it’d be well past noon before they all reached the top.

Bheid returned from a ledge that partially encircled the crag on the north end of the tower where he had gone to keep watch. “We’ve got company coming, Althalus,” he reported quietly. “It’s still not light enough to see how many, but there are definitely horsemen moving around off to the north.”

“So much for the notion that it’d take Gelta a day and a half to miss us,” Althalus said sourly. “She’s probably standing over Koman with a club, and he’s been browsing through Gebhel’s rear guard since mid-night.” Then he wet one of his fingers and raised it, hopefully turning it this way and that. “Nothing,” he said. “There’s not so much as a trace of a breeze. A nice, cheery grass fire along about now might give us enough time to get the rest of Gebhel’s men up the slide before Gelta gets here, but the fire won’t spread without a wind to fan it.” He ground his teeth together and sent a silent cry out to Dweia.
Emmy!
he called.
I need you!

There was no answer.

This is important, Em!
he tried again.
I’m in trouble!

The silence in his mind was oppressive. “She won’t answer,” he said aloud.

“Dweia, you mean?” Bheid asked.

Althalus nodded. “She’s cut me off completely—probably to hide Eliar’s progress from me.”

“Can’t you deal with this without her help?”

“I don’t know the word I need, Bheid. I don’t think the Book ever mentioned the word ‘wind.’ ”

Gher had been standing off to one side. “The Book’s on our side, isn’t it?” he asked.

“We certainly hope so,” Althalus replied.

“Then why would it get all picky about some silly little rule? Isn’t there some word that means ‘grow’ or ‘make it bigger,’ or something like that?”

“I’ve used
‘peta’
sometimes when I was making food or water,” Althalus said dubiously. “I used it fairly often while I was filling that cave with enough food to feed Gebhel’s men. What did you have in mind, Gher?”

“Why not just go over to the edge and huff and puff a few times and then say that word? Won’t the Book sort of understand what it is that you want?”

“I’m not sure that’d work,” Althalus said, frowning.

“You’ll never know until you give it a try, Althalus.”

“It can’t be
that
simple.”

“Try it.”

“Emmy would have told me if
that’s
all it’d take.”

“Try it.”

“I don’t think it’ll work, Gher.”

“
Try
it.”

Althalus dubiously walked over to the sheer brink and drew in a deep breath. Then he blew, much as he would to extinguish a candle, and rather half-heartedly said, “
Peta.
”

Nothing significant happened. “I told you that it wouldn’t work, Gher,” he said.

“It might have, if you’d said it like you meant it, Althalus,” Gher told him. “Do it again, and say the word the right way. The Book needs to know you’re serious about this.”

Althalus looked sharply at Gher as a faint suspicion began to dawn on him. Then he looked out over the grassland below and blew as hard as he could, mingling the word “
peta
” with the sharp exhalation.

Far below, in the pale light of dawn, he saw the grass suddenly flattened as if mashed down by some enormous hand, and a vast surge spread out almost as a wave upon a stormy sea might.

“Told you,” Gher said smugly.

“There’s not even a hint of a breeze, Master Althalus,” the red-haired shepherd objected.

“Trust me, Salkan,” Althalus told him. “You and your boys light the fires. I’ll see to it that there’ll be enough wind to make them spread.”

Salkan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You people aren’t like other people, are you?” he asked. “What I mean is that you can do things that nobody else can do, can’t you?”