The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain) (18 page)

“I want to go to her myself,” said the king. “My Ghols will ride with me, and they’ll keep me safe. I want to go!”

The general frowned. “It might not be so easy for the king to get back into Obann, once he leaves it,” he said.

“Hah! Then back we’ll all go to Lintum Forest, and the fools in this city can look after themselves from now on.” That was the barbarian chief, speaking for the first time. His Obannese was better than the king’s. “It won’t hurt His Majesty to take a little ride, and we might as well find out where we stand with these people. If they won’t want him for their king, he shouldn’t have to be their king. It’ll be their loss.”

“Peace, Uduqu!” Obst said. “Ryons is king of Obann by the will of God.”

“Someone will have to govern the city in the king’s name while he’s gone,” Hennen said.

“The council of chiefs can govern,” Obst said. “It’ll only be for a few days.”

So everything was arranged, and King Ryons was delighted. “He does blossom when he smiles,” Tim thought. “But what will Gurun think of him? She’ll be expecting a big, tall, mighty man.”

The Griffs led Helki straight back to where they’d left Jack, Ellayne, and Martis, and their blinded chief; but of course they were gone by then. The Griffs expected to find their mardar left behind, dead. But they could read the ground almost as well as Helki and could see the others took Chillith with them when they left the camp.

“What do they want with him?” wondered Tiliqua, the son of Thurr. He could think of no reason why Martis wouldn’t have killed Chillith.

“You boys are going to have to learn some new ways of thinking,” Helki said. “It’s wrong to kill a man because he’s helpless, and most of all to do wrong just because you can. Martis and the children will protect that blind man and feed him.”

“That is a very strange way to behave!” said Shalamoc, the son of Thilmoc.

“The true God is merciful, and He wants us to be like Him,” Helki said. “I know it sounds peculiar; but that’s what Obst says, and he’s our teacher, and I reckon he would know.”

“But Chillith was their enemy,” Shalamoc said. “They could have easily killed him, now that he’s blind.”

The Griffs marveled over this lesson in mercy, and Helki marveled over them. Griffs weren’t a savage people; they had no name for cruelty. But then how many Obannese understood mercy, as Obst taught mercy? Helki knew many men in Lintum Forest who didn’t. Meanwhile the Griffs fanned out in all directions, trying to pick up the trail. But Cavall found it first, and before the end of the day, it led to a ford across the Chariot River.

“They’ve gone into King Oziah’s Wood,” Helki said. “Martis must know they’ll be safe there. The rangers will take care of them. The question is, should we go in after them?”

“We can’t!” Tiliqua said. “Everybody knows it’s death to enter that wood. There are ghosts in there who drink men’s blood.”

“Oh, faw! That’s twaddle,” Helki said. “I could go in alone, and it’d be perfectly safe for me. But Oziah’s Wood has never been a hospitable place for Heathen.”

The Griffs begged him to take them back to Obann and present them to the king, so they could receive amnesty and enter the king’s service. It was hard to turn them down. They were frightened of many things, although they would be brave in a fight, and Helki pitied them. There was just time to get back to Obann before the snows, if they hurried, he thought. And Martis and the children would be safe in Oziah’s Wood, as safe as they could be anywhere in the world.

“I promised the king I’d bring his hound back to him,” Helki said, “so I guess we might as well go to Obann. I can’t bring you men into Oziah’s Wood with me: the rangers might fill you full of arrows before they knew they shouldn’t. We might as well stick together.”

The Griffs cheered; but if they’d known what lay in store for them, they probably wouldn’t have.

Lord Reesh anticipated great things from the future, always provided he lived long enough to see them. Thanks to the road that the Thunder King’s slaves had hacked through the woodlands, Reesh began to think he might last to the end of the journey, after all.

Everything was superbly organized, he thought. When Kyo and his men needed fresh horses, the horses were provided. Food, drink, shelter—all were available at regularly spaced outposts along the way. Whatever the mardar needed was his for the asking.

“Men like gods,” Reesh meditated: for the men of the Empire were like gods, and what men were once, they could be again. “A road through the mountains is a very good start indeed!” For they were on the mountains’ skirts now, and climbing, steadily climbing.

“I hadn’t known the road was so far advanced,” Kyo said. “Now I’m sure we’ll be across the mountains before it snows enough to stop us. Someday there will be one road all the way from Kara Karram to Obann—maybe even to the sea.”

“Someday there will be many roads like that,” Reesh said.

When Kyo had spurred his horse ahead of the coach, Reesh caught Gallgoid looking pensive. “Speak your mind!” the First Prester said. “Hide none of your thoughts from me. I can’t teach you if we don’t talk.”

“I was just thinking,” the assassin said slowly, “that things are going to get dicey when the Thunder King dies. Do they really think he won’t? Can they truly believe he’s a god? And what’s going to happen when they find out that he isn’t?”

“What do you think will happen?” Reesh said.

“I think they’ll stop building roads. I think everything the Thunder King built will be torn down.”

Reesh nodded. “So do I! That’s why the new Temple must be firmly established as soon as possible,” he said. “The Temple must do for East and West what it always did for Obann—hold it together. Be the center: the one thing that never changes, even when everything else changes. Only the Temple can keep man moving toward his destiny.”

The cussetest thing about Gallgoid was that you knew he was thinking his own thoughts—and not the thoughts you wanted him to think!—but you couldn’t pry them out of him. Lord Reesh knew that, and it taxed his patience. It made him miss Orth. There was a man who had no secrets—but burn him for a weakling!

“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.

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.