The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) (14 page)

After a time, Edwydd let Ryons sit in front of him astride the saddle. It took several minutes for Ryons’ head to clear.

“Feeling better?” the man asked.

Feeling well enough to wish I could get my hands on my knife, Ryons thought; but his hands were tied.

“Please sir, let me go! I never did you any harm.”

“You’ll be all right. Indeed, you’re going to get your wish and go to Obann,” Edwydd said. “There are some men who will want to ask you certain questions. I don’t suppose you’ll know the answers to any of them—you’re just a runaway slave—but we shall see. If they’re satisfied that’s all you are, they’ll let you go. So relax, and be glad you don’t have to walk all the way to Obann.”

Ryons knew Jack and Ellayne, but had only a vague idea of what they’d done and knew nothing of the Temple’s interest in them. All he knew was that they’d gone to Obann themselves, with Martis, for some reason known best to God. It was because of something Jandra said. Like me, he thought.

“Why did you poison my dog?” he said.

“He wouldn’t have let me take you with me. Sorry, but I had to do it. I don’t think he and I would ever have become friends.”

“Why should anyone in Obann want to ask me any questions?” Ryons asked.

“In all honesty, my lad, I don’t know! You’ll find out when we get there. Don’t be afraid, meanwhile. I won’t hurt you unless you try to escape.”

Ryons didn’t like the sound of any of it, and he was wise enough not to put any trust in Edwydd: wise enough, too, not to let his feelings show.

“Do they have slaves in Obann?” he asked.

“A few. But most of the slaves in Obann wind up on the logging crews, upriver, or get sold into the East. Still, it’s possible you might find a place in the city. It’ll be better than anything you’re used to, I daresay.”

Martis could have told him right off that Edwydd was a servant of the Temple and that he was in mortal danger from him. But Ryons had no friend at hand to tell him anything. He missed Cavall.

They rode all day until they came to an abandoned farmstead with a stopped-up well, an empty barn, and a cottage stripped bare of food and clothes and bedding. But it would do for a night’s shelter, Edwydd said.

The man fed Ryons with some dried meat from his saddlebag, gave him a drink of water, and then tied him securely to a bed frame.

“Not very comfortable, I grant you,” he said. “But you can’t expect too much, under the circumstances.”

He laid out his bedroll on the floor, near the bed and between it and the door, and was soon asleep.

Cavall pressed on, and well before midnight the horse’s trail led him to the farmhouse. His nose told him the boy and the man were in the cottage. He saw the horse, unsaddled, hobbled, and tied to a rosebush beside the house. The horse saw him and pricked up its ears; but Cavall wasn’t hunting horses.

He knew from experience that a dog couldn’t open the door to a cottage: a human being had to let you in. He knew the man would not let him in. The best time to attack the man would be the moment he stepped outside. He heard the man snoring in his sleep, so he knew that moment would not be until the morning.

Cavall found another big rosebush at the other corner of the house, opposite where the horse was tethered. He went behind it and lay down. The horse fidgeted, but it didn’t wake the man.

Cavall waited.

That same summer night, Prester Orth and Lord Reesh stood on a rooftop of the Temple, looking out at the uncountable watch fires that surrounded the city. From this distance they looked like all the stars of heaven.
And God made the stars, and set each one in its place, and instructed them in all their motions
, said the Scripture, in the Book of Beginnings.

“Something troubles you, Prester,” said Lord Reesh. “Out with it!”

“Excellency, I suspect you already know what troubles me,” Orth answered.

They were on top of a tower to which only the First Prester had the key. Nevertheless, they spoke in muted murmurs.

“You’re thinking, as I have thought, that we are a long time waiting for the answer to our offer,” Reesh said. “But I don’t think we’ll get one until they’ve entirely despaired of taking Obann by assault.”

Orth shook his head. “They haven’t the siegecraft for it,” he said. “All their attacks have been bloodily repulsed, at little or no cost to us.”

“And you are thinking that if they cannot take the city by force, why should we give it up to them?”

No answer was necessary.

“We enjoy the advantage now,” Lord Reesh said, “but what advantage will we have two years from now, when the food runs out, and the people are weary and disheartened, and we have no more burning pitch to hurl at the enemy machines?

“I don’t know the Thunder King, but I am sure he didn’t send this army here to return to him defeated. He won’t permit it to be beaten. And next spring he will send more armies, with better machines.

“Today this city is like a flower in full bloom. It’s beautiful, but it’s the fate of every flower to wither away and die.”

Orth nodded. History was full of strong-walled cities that fell at last. Unless it was broken up by force, a determined siege would be the death of any city—provided the besiegers didn’t give up.

“What we do, you and I, is for the best,” Reesh said. “What choice do we have? If we do nothing, the city will eventually fall; and then it would be utterly destroyed. This way, it survives. The Temple will survive. That’s all that matters. And then, someday, the Thunder King will die, and his empire will begin to die with him. But the Temple will still be here, ready to reclaim its power.”

“His people say he’s a god,” said Orth.

Reesh laughed coldly.

“There are no gods,” he said. “There is only the Temple.”

Helki’s scouts reported that there were still Obannese garrisons in some of the towns along the river and in the city of Caryllick to the south.

“We could use them,” Helki said to Martis. “Think there’s any chance they might come out and help?”

Martis grinned at him. “Not when they hear we mean to go to Obann!” he said. “Still, it’s worth asking them. Why not give me a few Wallekki as an escort—and we’ll go down to Caryllick as fast as we can and see if we can rouse the garrison?”

“Might as well,” said Helki. So Martis, with half a dozen swift horsemen, galloped off to Caryllick.

Jack and Ellayne missed him at once. He’d been with them since they’d found him lying senseless on the summit of Bell Mountain, with his dark beard turned snow-white.

“Never mind—he’ll be back,” Obst said, “though I don’t think the men in Caryllick will be of any help to us. ‘Put not your trust in marching men or the munitions of war, says King Ozias, but in the name of the Lord.’”

He was still reading the scrolls. They absorbed him all day long, and at night he taught the army.

“What’s in the scroll you’re reading now?” asked Ellayne.

“A history of the future,” said the hermit. “This scroll foretells the rise of Obann’s empire, centuries after Ozias’ time, and lists all the nations it would conquer, all the way out to the Great Lakes. Some are peoples that I never heard of. They’ve either died out or changed their names. But it matches up perfectly with such history as I’ve studied. In Ozias’ own time, Obann’s armies never crossed the mountains. This vision of an empire must have seemed very strange to him.”

“And now those people that the Empire conquered, long ago, are trying to conquer Obann,” Jack said. “Do you think they’ll do it, Obst?”

“I have many scrolls yet to read,” Obst said. “One of them will probably reveal the answer to that question.”

Cavall woke to the first stirrings of noise inside the cottage. He didn’t wake in stages, like a happy house-dog: he woke up all at once.

Indoors, the man was up, moving around. He said something to the boy. The night had passed into the cool grey of the morning, just before sunrise. Cavall prepared himself to act as soon as the man came out. A few birds greeted the new day, and a rabbit hopped across the yard. Most dogs would have chased it, but Cavall remained as still as a statue.

At last the cottage door swung open and the man stepped out. He started to yawn and stretch, but never finished. Cavall burst out from behind the bush, knocked him down, and finished him before he knew what hit him. The horse screamed and tore loose from its tether; but hobbled as it was, it wouldn’t get far.

Cavall stepped over the dead body, into the cottage. The boy was there, trying to hide himself from he knew not what. The dog whined a greeting to him.

Edwydd woke Ryons, untied him, and told him to get ready; they would have a quick bite to eat, and then ride. Stiff and sore, Ryons could hardly move. Edwydd went out to get a breath of air and saddle his horse—and then there was a thunderous roar, and crash, and the horse screaming.

“A lion!” was all Ryons could think. Terrified, he scrambled for a hiding place. He was still trying to find one when he heard the familiar whine of a dog.

“Cavall—you’re alive!” It was hard to believe, but there he was, as big as life. He padded over and sniffed Ryons from head to toe, probably making sure he was all right. Ryons buried his face in the shaggy fur.

“I’m so glad he didn’t kill you! I never thought—but what have you done to him?”

He clutched the scruff of the dog’s neck and went outside with him. They had to step over Edwydd. Ryons had seen men killed in battle, but this made him shudder.

“He shouldn’t have tried to poison you,” he said, patting Cavall’s head. “I suppose he was a bad man, and something bad would’ve happened to me when he brought me to Obann. But I never found out what that was all about.” A man with good intentions didn’t poison a person’s dog and carry him off by force. Any fool knows that, and Ryons was not a fool. “I reckon he was lucky my Ghols didn’t get him,” he added.

What they needed now was food and water. Edwydd’s canteen was still in the cottage, along with his saddlebag. Ryons drank half the water and gave the rest to Cavall. There was some kind of meat jerky in the saddlebag. Ryons ate some, but Cavall wouldn’t. Ryons ate only a little, and left the rest.