The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain) (21 page)

“I’ve never seen a great city,” Gurun said. “We have none, on our islands—not even villages like this. I will be the first of all our people ever to see a city.”

Yes, the idea of it excited her; but it was more than just the lure of the city. The filgya had told her she must see the king, and now she had. There had to be more to it than that, she thought: “No filgya speaks without good reason. There must be something about this little king, something very important. But I must wait to find out what it is.”

They said he saved the city just as the enemy was about to destroy it. They said prophets of God had named him king. There were prophets in the Scriptures, but those were tales of ancient times. Who, wondered Gurun, would have thought there could be kings and prophets in the present day?

So it was that Gurun rode beside the king when he returned to Obann, and her Blays marched around her, among the king’s Ghols on horseback. It was funny to see them try to talk to one another. As for the king himself, he sat a little taller in the saddle, thinking about the sea, and how it had brought this marvelous creature of a girl to Obann—and to him.

Ordinarily it would be a day’s hard hiking from Oziah’s Wood to the edges of the forests on the foothills. But with his madman in tow, Hlah thought, they would do well to make the trip in two days, maybe three.

He soon began to doubt that estimate, too. The snow didn’t come down hard, but it didn’t let up, either. Not a ray of sunlight peeped through the clouded sky.

There were movements in the grey grass. Ever on the lookout for edible game that he might bring down, Hlah found a few stones suitable for throwing. Sooner or later an animal would show itself. When they came to a place where there were some bare spots in the grass, he stopped.

“Be quiet now, and be still,” he said. “Something tasty might come our way.” Orth made no answer, but he did keep quiet.

First Hlah saw a few birds running, birds with long tails and dirty purple plumage. There was something about them that looked wrong, but he only glimpsed them for a moment, and when he threw a stone, he missed. They vanished back into the grass in the blink of an eye. He wondered if they were like the bird Jandra had—that hissing horror with teeth in its beak and claws on its wings.

Just out of sight, always out of sight, small creatures darted here and there. And then Hlah saw an animal he couldn’t name, although he’d been a hunter all his life. If he had ever seen an alligator, he might have described this as a small alligator covered with untidy black fur and running very fast indeed with a peculiar scuttling motion. But he’d never seen anything remotely like it, and he wouldn’t mind if he never saw it again.

Then, of all things, a fat groundhog burst out of the grass and Hlah had the good luck to knock it over with a stone. He killed it with his tomahawk before it could recover, and held it up triumphantly.

“Look! A fine supper for us tonight!” he said. “We could have asked for nothing better.”

Even a madman would be pleased, he thought; but Orth only stood and stared. He stared so hard that Hlah turned around.

Coming straight at them at a high speed was a bird the size of a horse, with a massive hooked beak gaping open like the gulf of doom. And there was absolutely no chance of escape and nothing to hide behind.

Hlah had heard of these great birds, even seen some at a distance, and he knew that they were lethal. There was nothing he could do but stand his ground, tomahawk in one hand, knife in the other. “So dies Hlah, the son of Spider!” he thought.

But he didn’t die. The bird veered a little and charged right past them, turning only its head to glare and hiss at them as it passed, not even breaking stride. And behind it came a stag and several does. These passed, too, following the giant bird. Hlah turned and watched them go.

“What do you think of that?” he said. “If you asked me, I’d say they were all headed for Oziah’s Wood. Does something chase them there? But I don’t see anything.”

“The prophets said it was the end of days, the day of the Lord’s wrath—but I hanged the prophets. The Lord sent His prophets to us, and we hanged them!” The madman threw back his head and laughed. “The beasts run from the wrath of God. Someone must have told them Oziah’s Wood has a blessing on it. But all blessings are revoked, revoked—hah!”

It was the longest speech Hlah had ever heard him make, but he couldn’t get him to explain it. It took some doing to get Orth moving forward again. All around them, running past them, fled animals and birds in the opposite direction. It kept on snowing. You could now see it on the ground.

“We’ll have to stop early to set up any kind of decent shelter,” Hlah thought. “If it turns into a heavy snow, then God help me”—he meant it as a prayer.

Cavall faced the East and howled. None of Helki’s men saw anything for a dog to howl at, so Cavall’s performance made them all uneasy. Cavall didn’t care about them, and paid them no attention. Snow blew into his face, and he howled. Great evil lay in that direction. It lay heavy on his heart.

Helki knelt beside him.

“You know something we don’t know, don’t you? There’s a good dog—you’d tell me all about it, if you could.” The man ruffled the thick fur between the great hound’s shoulders. Cavall realized the man understood as much as any man could understand. Cavall inched a little closer to him and howled again.

With a harsh cry, Angel flew down and landed on Helki’s shoulder. She hunched up her wings and scrunched her head between them, glaring fiercely. She, too, had things to say, if only she could, Helki thought. Then he noticed the Griffs staring at him.

“Don’t be so superstitious, boys—there’s no witchcraft here,” he said. “These animals are upset. If you look around, you’ll see they’re not the only ones. Birds have been flying east-to-west all day—and when was the last time you saw a squirrel? You can hear them chattering at someone, but not at us. Use your eyes and ears.”

“Our eyes and ears are not like yours, Giant-killer,” said Tiliqua. “You understand the speech of birds and beasts. The soles of your feet see and study the ground even as you walk on it. Probably the snow is speaking to you, too.”

Helki shook his head. “Not today it doesn’t.” He stood up. “But I don’t need the snow to tell me there’s something nasty brewing in the East, and not so far away. We’d better go see what it is.”

That was not at all what the Griffs wanted to do, but they would follow Helki. Angel dug her claws into his shoulder and made an odd purring noise when she saw he meant to turn back the way they’d come. Few men had ever heard that noise—the strongest protest that a hawk could make, short of biting. But she did nip him when he reached up to pet her.

“Don’t want to go that way, do you?” he said. “Well, you’re probably right about it; but stick close to me, and Cavall will protect the both of us.” Helki knew the hawk understood him much better than he could understand her. She settled down into a quiet sulk.

Jack liked snow and snowball fights and sliding downhill on stiffened cowhides. That’s what all the children in Ninneburky would be looking forward to today. But here there was nothing to do but to trudge back into the depths of the forest, away from the edge where the Heathen were encamped. Martis set a brisk pace for the party; it was cold, and no one talked.

Just past noon, three rangers met them.

“We were looking for you,” said their leader.

“And we were looking for you,” Martis said. “There’s an enemy camp by the south edge of the wood, with several hundred warriors in it. Zephites, mostly.”

“We know,” said the ranger. “There’s a bigger camp up on the northern edge. They’ve crossed both the rivers. They mean to come in here and flush us out, but they’re building up their numbers first. Women and children have to move to the center of the wood. That’s why we were looking for you: we were told about these two kids and the blind man. We’ll take them to a safer place. If you want to stay with us and lend a hand in the fighting, when it comes, we’d appreciate it.”

“I’m under a vow to protect these children,” Martis said.

“There are other children in Oziah’s Wood,” said a younger ranger. “Some of us have brought our families here.”

“How many fighting men do you have?”

“In the whole forest, maybe a thousand of us, all told. Not enough!”

The youngest of the three rangers, hardly more than a boy, shook his head. “Why would they go to so much trouble to drive us out of here?” he said. “There’s nothing here for them to take, except our hides. What do they need to do it for?”

Wytt never showed himself to strangers—so Ellayne yelped when he suddenly leaped on top of the pack on Ham’s back and startled everyone with a series of ear-piercing shrieks. The rangers jumped. The leader actually dropped his bow. But he was quick to snatch it up again.

“Stop! It’s all right, he’s with us!” Ellayne held up her hands, terrified that these men would kill Wytt.

“What is that critter?” growled the leader. He’d been scared and he didn’t like it.

“He’s our friend,” Jack said, stepping up beside Ellayne. “Don’t hurt him! He’s telling you to fight—fight hard.”

“But what is he?” the second ranger cried.

“He’s one of the Hairy Ones mentioned in the Scriptures,” Martis said. “Mostly people never see them.”

“He’s an Omah,” Ellayne said, “and he’s telling us that there are Omah in this forest and that they’ll fight for us. He’s already spoken with them, and they’re ready.” And Wytt chattered loudly, brandishing his sharpened stick.

“You mean it speaks?”

“He speaks to us,” Jack said, “and we understand him when he does.”

“You have to believe us!” Ellayne said.

“Why have we never seen anything like him before?” demanded the young ranger. But the eldest put a hand on his shoulder and said, “No one has ever seen everything that’s in the forest, son. Any man who says he has, hasn’t been here very long.”

“Well, they do say God put a blessing on King Oziah’s Wood,” the second ranger said. “Funny kind of blessing, though!”

Chillith nodded, and for the first time spoke.

“He has put a blessing here,” the blind man said. “That is why the Thunder King must send his army here—to defy the God of Obann. He must show himself to be the greater god.”

“Then,” said the eldest ranger with a grin, “this ought to be a fight worth having!”

The new road wound its way up the mountain, turning a journey of weeks into one of days. On either side of the road marched dense, dark forest. Lord Reesh could not imagine the labor required to hack a passage through that forest. It was an achievement worthy of the ancient Empire. “Whatever else he may be,” Reesh thought, “the Thunder King is a man who gets great things done.”

“Do you smell that, my lord?”

Gallgoid startled him by speaking. Between the monotony of trees everywhere you looked, and the rocking motion of the coach, the First Prester had been lulled into something like a trance.

“What are you talking about?” he snapped.

“That smell, my lord.”

Now Reesh noticed it. Quite a nasty smell it was—sweetish, cloying: just a little more, and it would be downright sickening.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I wonder what it is.”

“Dead bodies,” Gallgoid said, “the people who died building the road. No telling how many. It smells like they tried to burn most of them—probably too many at once.”

“You’re a fine one to be getting squeamish over some dead bodies!”

“Can’t help minding the smell. I hope it’s gone, once we get above the tree line.”

“You have tender sensibilities, for an assassin,” Lord Reesh said. “Do you think we can turn back from the course we’ve chosen? Do you think God will reach down from Heaven and pluck us out of the Thunder King’s hand?”

“He’d hardly do that for us,” Gallgoid muttered.

Reesh pretended not to hear it. “I am unlucky in my allies,” he thought, pitying himself. He spent some moments silently cursing Orth. Mardar Kyo interrupted him, spurring his horse up beside the window of the coach.