The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) (11 page)

They might have come to blows, had not a squat, black-haired chief with black eyes hammered on a round brass shield with the pommel of his dagger. He clattered and clanged until the other chiefs subsided.

“You all know me,” he said. “I am Szugetai, chief of horsemen, from the wide lands far beyond the lakes. My people, the Ghols, breed horses and camels second to none.

“We have come a long, long way, my men and I—farther than any of you. And we haven’t come all this way to argue about a lot of foreign gods.

“No, my comrades—we came to get rich! By all the ghosts of all my ancestors, have you forgotten why this great host was assembled? Have you forgotten why the mardar was going to sacrifice that boy today?

“I don’t care who’s a shaman and who isn’t. We’ve shamans aplenty in our own country, if it comes to that. I care about making war. I care about sacking cities, carrying off cartloads of plunder, and winning great fame that will never die. I care about crossing those mountains, just as we said we would.

“I don’t care if we have to do it without the mardar. What does it matter if he’s dead? We’ve been given a new holy man to take his place.”

It took some moments for those words to sink in. The Abnaks were the first to cheer; they cheered uproariously. Then the others worked out Szugetai’s meaning. One by one, it dawned on them; when it did, they cheered, too.

Ryons looked up at Obst and grinned. “You’ve done well, old man!” he said.

“But what have I done?” Obst said. He wished the chieftains would stop cheering; he couldn’t hear himself think. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, I understand that I’ve just had the best good luck that ever I had in my life,” said Ryons. “You’re the mardar now, and it’s my good luck to be your faithful servant.”

Martis slept, dreaming strange dreams of new cities rising from the old ruins on the plains. They did not look like cities as he knew them. Slender buildings rose to impossible heights, and there were no walls. He startled when Helki woke him.

“Shh!” the big man said. “Don’t wake the bairns. Come outside.”

They crept out of the cave. It was still dark, with a sharp chill in the air.

“You’re a man who knows how to use weapons, I think,” Helki said. Martis nodded. “Well, then, we have some work on hand. Hope you’re not squeamish.”

“No one ever accused me of that,” Martis said. “What’s to do?”

“It’s another one of Squint-eye’s wolf-packs, eight men. They’ve kidnapped a couple of women, wives of honest settlers. They’re holed up in an old stone tower that used to be someplace important. It’s just a ruin now, but still safer for them than camping in the open. I aim to take those women away from them. Want to come?”

Martis smiled, imagining what Lord Reesh would think of this. He wondered what Helki would say if he knew he was enlisting the help of an assassin. He wondered what God would think of it.

“I wouldn’t have thought you needed any help against just eight of them,” he said.

“Best to be careful,” Helki said. “I don’t want to take the chance of the women getting hurt.”

Wytt popped out of the cave and chattered at them. Helki made some unintelligible noises, and the Omah went back in.

“You can speak with him?”

Helki nodded. “More or less. I told him to keep an eye on the kiddies. Come on, let’s go. It’ll be daybreak soon.”

He led the way through the dark woods, Martis following as best he could. For such a massive man, Helki made barely a sound. Martis stepped on twigs that snapped, brushed against leaves that rustled, and stubbed his toe on roots. But Helki seemed to have eyes in his feet.

They crossed a stream from which wisps of vapor were beginning to rise. The sky showed a hint of grey—not that they could see much of it from underneath the trees. A stillness lay over the forest: too early for the morning birds, too late for the callers in the night. Everything in sight was shades of grey.

“How did you know about this?” Martis asked. “Did the Omah bring you tidings?”

“I have them scouting for me now, all around the neighborhood,” Helki said. “Makes it hard for Squint-eye’s men to take me by surprise. But don’t talk. Sound carries far, this hour of the morning.”

How far they hiked, Martis couldn’t tell. They kept on going, and pale light spread over the sky, and subdued colors returned to the forest. Birds began to call. Martis guessed he and Helki had marched at least five miles. Once upon a time it would have been a hardship for him; but he’d gotten used to walking, by now.

Just as Martis resigned himself to hiking on till noon, Helki stopped. He drew Martis close and whispered in his ear.

“The tower’s just ahead,” he said. “The lads haven’t started their breakfast yet, and their fire’s gone out; otherwise, I’d smell smoke. I expect they’re still asleep.

“We’re going to get as close as we can, going as quiet as we can. When I give a holler, we rush right in. Use your knife on every man you can reach. Don’t waste time making sure of a kill. We have to settle them before they hurt the women.”

Helki crept forward in a crouch, quiet as a cat stalking a mouse. Martis followed closely, unable to imitate Helki’s technique; and the little noise he made sounded like a racket to him. When it came to stalking a victim through the city by night, through streets crowded or deserted, Martis had no peer. But here in the forest, he was clumsy.

Overhead, a blue jay scolded them. Helki answered it, making a noise that sounded just like the bird’s. The jay fell silent.

And there, just beyond a last screen of saplings, stood the tower, what was left of it. Once upon a time it must have dominated a clearing, maybe as a stronghold for a sheriff’s woodsmen or a secret place of refuge for a rebel knight. It’s five hundred years old, at least, guessed Martis. The clearing wasn’t much of a clearing anymore, and the tower wasn’t much of a tower. The top half of it was broken off, and all around it lay heaps of hewn stone, green with moss. Over the years, outlaws must have cleared the rubble out of the inside of the tower so they could use what shelter it afforded. The stones that still stood formed a round wall. Even the ruin was as big as an oligarch’s townhouse.

No one stood guard outside. The door was just a wide hole in the wall.

Shifting his grip on his staff, Helki crept across the last few yards to the doorway. Behind him, Martis drew his dagger. This would not be the kind of fight he was used to.

“Now!” roared Helki; he bellowed like a bull.

They charged into the undefended fort. The robbers must have been sleeping. Martis was only a step or two behind Helki, but one of the outlaws was already dead by the time he passed through the doorway.

The space inside was round, with plenty of room for eight men to give a good account of themselves against eight more; but Helki gave them no such opportunity. A man confronted him with a sword; the tip of Helki’s rod shot out and jabbed him in the throat. Down he went, choking.

Martis saw two women tied with cords so they could hardly move. A robber with a knife was reaching for them. Martis launched himself at the man, who didn’t see him coming, and brought him down, landing on top of him. A sharp strike to the head, with the pommel of the dagger, put him out of action.

Martis leaped to his feet, but the fight was already over. All the men were down but two.

“Drop your weapons and yield to me, and I’ll do you no harm,” Helki said. “Or you can fight and die.” He made a threatening gesture with his staff, and a knife and a hatchet fell to the ground. “Up against that wall, face-first, with your hands up high. Don’t move until I tell you to.” The defeated men obeyed. “Friend, would you be so kind as to cut the lasses free of their bonds. Don’t be afraid, goodwives—you’re safe now.”

They were just a couple of peasant women, plain and plainly terrified, faces streaked with tears and leaf mold, homespun dresses in disorder, and their hair in wild disarray.

“Sairy of the Dale, I’m glad to see you,” Helki said. “Have they hurt you?”

“Not yet, God be praised,” said the stouter of the two women, bracing herself not to flinch as Martis cut her bonds. “But they left my Davy lying sore hurt and like to die.”

“I’ll see if I can help him, after we get you to a place of safety.”

Martis cut the last of the ropes and helped the woman to sit. She rubbed her wrists, wiped hair back from her face.

“This is my cousin, Soose, from out by the Eft-pond,” she said, nodding at the other woman, whom Martis was now busy cutting loose.

“You must be Helki the Rod,” said Soose. “I’ve heard of you. But what made you do this for us, and how did you know we were in need of you? But they do say you know everything that happens in the forest, end to end.”

Helki laughed. “Lintum Forest is way too big for that, lass! But yes, I knew you were here, and I knew who brought you here. Now let me finish my business.”

The two men up against the wall trembled, expecting to be killed.

“Turn around, you two,” Helki said. “You both know who I am.”

They nodded.

“You tell your boss, Latt Squint-eye, who wants to call himself the King of Lintum Forest, that the only crown he’ll ever wear will be this.” Helki spun his staff. “I’m a peaceable man, God knows, and I mind my own business. But I’ll be burned if I let him turn this forest upside down.

“Tell him that if he wants to live much longer, he’d best clear out and go live with his Heathen friends. The day he sees my face, that’ll be his last day on this earth. As for the likes of you, I reckon you’d best stop following Latt, because it won’t be healthy. He may have a hundred men, or two hundred, at his beck and call, but they won’t be able to protect him, and they’re apt to get killed trying. Now go, and don’t let me see you again.”

The two outlaws looked at each other, stared once more at Helki, and then scuttled out of the tower. Martis heard them crashing through the underbrush.

“Goodwives, I hope you can walk a ways because we can’t stay here,” Helki said. “I have a place where you can be safe. And after we get there, Sairy, I’ll go for Davy and see if there’s anything I can do for him.”

“What about this one?” Martis said, pointing to the man he’d knocked unconscious.

“Leave him be, we don’t have time for him. You knocked his wits out but good, didn’t you?”

“He’ll thank me for it later, when he sees he’s still alive,” Martis said.

The sudden death of the mardar threw the whole camp into confusion. As there were twelve nations represented in the army, the highest-ranking chiefs of all twelve met in the big black tent to decide what to do next.

The Abnaks placed Obst under their protection, in care of a subchief named Uduqu, who was the father of one of Hooq’s wives, and, as he put it, “fond of the boy as if he was my own.” Uduqu was the proud owner of a conical tent of cowhides sewn together and set over a frame of poles, twice as high and roomy as most of the others. There he kept Obst until the chieftains should summon him into their presence.

Their meeting started in the early afternoon and ran into the night. By then Obst had had an Abnak supper—roasted rabbit, wild onions, and a kind of bread made from acorns. He wondered how they cooked the bitter taste out of the acorns, but Uduqu couldn’t tell him. He’d always had slaves or wives to do his cooking for him.

He was a squat, brawny man covered all over with tattoos and scars, with a rough knot on his forehead where someone had once clubbed him with a stone hatchet, and the wound hadn’t healed neatly. But the man who’d done that was dead.

Having eaten his fill, and with sundown coming on, Uduqu relaxed. He lit the end of a long, brown bean—Obst didn’t know what it was called—and sucked smoke into his mouth, blowing it out in rings. Obst had never seen anyone do such a thing before.

“I don’t know what the big chiefs need to talk about,” Uduqu said. “Either we’re going to cross the mountains, or we aren’t. But chiefs love to talk.”

“Was the mardar your general, or just your priest?” Obst asked.

Uduqu didn’t know what a priest was and had only a hazy notion of the function of a general. “The mardar was the eyes and ears of King Thunder, way out East,” he said, “and his mouthpiece, too. That’s how the Great Man commands his armies and knows if they obey. There’s a mardar with each army, and even though King Thunder is weeks’ and weeks’ journey distant, a mardar can still hear his voice. Don’t ask me how! But you’re a shaman—you must know how those things are done.”

“But I’m not a shaman,” Obst said.

“Tell that to the mardar!” Uduqu laughed at his own joke. “But we won’t shed any tears for him. Truth to tell, you’d have been burned at the stake already, except every man in this camp was scared silly of the mardar; and whether they’ll say so or not, they’re happy to be rid of him.

“But now they don’t know what to think. They’re glad he’s dead, but they’re afraid of what the Great Man will do about it. They’re afraid of you, too, I guess. After all, it was you that killed him.”

Obst shook his head. “Please understand: I haven’t killed anyone. I never have, and I hope I never will. It was God who struck down the mardar. Someday God will strike down King Thunder, too.”

Sitting beside him as his servant, Ryons gasped.

“It’s all true, brave one!” he blurted out. “Obst has been telling me about his god. That was the god’s voice we all heard that was like a great bell ringing in the height of heaven.”

Uduqu blew a puff of smoke at him. “Bah! What do we Abnaks care for the westman’s god? It’s just another god, when all is said and done.”

“Try telling that do the mardar,” Ryons said. Having his own joke turned on him made the subchief roar with laugher, until he coughed. He pressed his smoking bean to the ground to put it out.

“Right pert and sassy for a born slave, aren’t you?” he said. “And to think you were all trussed up on the mardar’s altar, just this morning. There’s not many can say they lived through that. It’s made you bold, boy—bold enough to speak just like an Abnak. I’ll never blame you for that.