The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) (17 page)

The hall fell dead silent, and now Reesh had to speak. All eyes were raised to him where he sat on his throne on the dais. But he didn’t stand up. His legs wouldn’t bear the effort.

“Learned and beloved brothers,” he said, “we have not been able to confirm whether the ‘bell’ we all heard was indeed King Ozias’ bell on Bell Mountain. I have sent an expedition to investigate. Whether they’ll be able to get to Bell Mountain, with the whole country overrun by Heathen, is in God’s hands, not mine.

“Meanwhile, it remains for this synod to accept or reject the authenticity of this fascicle, as recommended by the authentication committee. Your vote on the matter will be final. As for those who dissent, as Prester Jod appears to do, they must follow the dictates of their own consciences: bearing in mind, of course, that if the synod accepts the verses, they must be preached in all the chamber houses in Obann. But they themselves shall be at liberty to resign their office, if they cannot bring themselves to abide by the decision of the synod.”

“That I can and will do, First Prester,” Jod said. “I shall resign from the synod and from my see with a good will, but I shall never resign from serving God.”

In the end, as expected, the synod accepted the verses, and Reesh accepted Jod’s resignation, along with several others. He kept all their names on file.

In spite of himself, Helki now had a following of half a dozen men, young bucks with a burning desire to rid the forest of outlaws. He could have had quite a few more, but he only took the best. The others stayed at the castle. He would have preferred to have no one with him at all, but that wasn’t possible. If he didn’t lead these young men, they’d only get themselves in trouble.

They knew the location of each of Latt’s camps, the number and quality of men under him, and the paths by which they traveled through the forest. They also knew that Latt was receiving messengers from the Heathen army that was moving west. Helki’s band wanted to capture one of those messengers.

“Never mind that. It’ll only put them on their guard,” Helki said. “They think they own this part of the forest now, and I want them to go on thinking it.”

“But when are we going to do something?” Andrus cried. “I thought we were going to make war!”

“If you just chase a squirrel, boy, you’ll never catch it,” Helki said. “I aim to trap Squint-eye, not have a battle with him. Get rid of him, and his gang will fall apart.”

“Well, then, what are you going to do?” demanded one of the boys. “Walk into his camp one night and just bash in his head?”

Helki grinned. “Something like that!”

There was another Heathen army in Obann, besides the one Obst traveled with. This one came over the mountains in the north and swarmed down the north bank of the Imperial River. That area was poorly defended. Villages and logging camps went up in flames as the Heathen advanced.

These invaders were a people unfamiliar to the folk of Obann, a northern nation called the Zeph, who came from a country beside some great impenetrable swamps that was said to be somewhere “Out East.” No one from Obann had ever been there, in living memory.

The Zephites were fierce warriors who wore shaggy helmets with horns, which made them look like bulls on two legs. They went on foot almost as fast as other men could go on horseback. Those few refugees who had escaped them brought tales of terror: the Zeph were cruel, and gave no quarter.

This concerned the town of Ninneburky, which would surely be attacked, and soon. The Zeph were already on the north bank of the river, so evacuation to Oziah’s Wood was out of the question.

But the chief councilor, Ellayne’s father, was not thinking of evacuation.

Since that day the bell rang on Bell Mountain, Roshay Bault had ceased to fear for his daughter. “I can’t tell you how I know,” he would say, “but I know she’s alive and safe.” He knew it surely as he knew his own name; and Ellayne’s mother knew it, too.

Roshay bent himself single-mindedly to the task of defending his town. He worked the men as hard as they could bear it, strengthening the walls. He had a deep ditch dug around them, in which he planted upward-pointing wooden spikes to impale any attacker who fell in. He made sure every man in the militia had a bow and arrows, and they practiced archery as if their lives depended on it—which of course they did. Foragers scoured the country for supplies. Everybody knew the Zephites were coming, so they worked at a frantic pace, with Roshay personally inspecting everything.

He also placed the local prester under house arrest and installed Ashrof as acting prester in his place.

“Why did you do that?” asked his wife. “It was the Temple itself that ordered Ashrof expelled from the chamber house. It was his fault Ellayne ran off with the carter’s boy after Ashrof filled their heads with foolish stories.”

“Peace, Vannett. We heard the bell, so they weren’t foolish stories. Besides, the prester is a gloomy character, and I’ve heard he was planning to desert the town,” Roshay said. “But Ashrof is a man of God, and he’s the one we need in the chamber house now, praying for us. Would you rather have Ellayne here, with nothing but wooden walls and a few archers between her and the barbarians?”

Vannett nodded. Since the day the bell rang, she and her husband had lost the habit of arguing with each other.

Roshay wished he had the time and manpower to divert the river and make his town an island. But long before that work could have been completed, the Zephites came.

They knew from refugees that the Heathen host was near. Even so, it came as a shock to the man on the watchtower when he saw the teeming horde gathered on the riverbank. Roshay climbed up to see it for himself, and his heart sank.

“There’s an awful lot of them out there, sir,” said the watchman. “I think they might have more men than we have arrows.”

“I very much doubt we’ll have to kill them all,” Roshay answered.

There was nothing to do but man the defenses and watch while the Heathen crossed the river. They had no boats, but each man carried an inflated bladder of some kind to keep him afloat. They locked arms until they had human chains stretching from one bank to another, and along those chains crept the rest of the army until they were all on the south bank, facing Ninneburky. The crossing took up most of the day.

“Too bad we didn’t have enough men to hit ’em while they were doing it,” said a captain of the militia. “Look at ’em down there: they really do look like a herd of wild bulls. Think they’ll try a night attack?”

“Not unless they’re superhuman,” Roshay said. “They must be tired after that crossing. Keep an ordinary watch tonight, but let every man be at his post at first light.”

The next day was the worst day anyone in Ninneburky had ever seen.

When the first hint of dawn crept into the sky, masses of barbarians were already drawn up in a dense ring around the walls. Opposite the main gate, looking south, one man stepped out in front of the host and bellowed at the defenders in a language none of them had ever heard before. It was the mardar, but he was dressed as just another Zephite—helmet, horns, and a shaggy cloak. He raised a beribboned rod and shook it at the town, and those countless men behind him roared. And then they rushed forward, all of them at once.

“Hold your fire, boys—wait till you can make every arrow count!” The officers steadied their men as best they could, but many a hand trembled as its owner fitted arrow to the bow. The Zeph war cry sounded like an earthquake.

They had no ladders, no rams, no catapults. They must not have expected the moat. Some actually fell in, to be impaled on stakes. The rest tried to climb down and avoid the stakes, and then climb up again so they could get at the walls. But the air above them hummed with flying arrows, and there was such a crowd of them that an archer couldn’t miss.

It was very poor generalship on their part, Roshay thought. Nevertheless, for every Zephite that fell, two or three or four kept coming. They seemed to despise death. Heaps of killed and wounded lay in the ditch, but masses of men crawled out of it and attacked the walls with axes. Those who had no axes hurled short spears; and now men of Ninneburky began to drop off the wall.

The gate was the most vulnerable point. Had the Zeph taken time to shape a great log into a ram, they might have forced the gate in spite of the work done to strengthen it. Again and again they assaulted the gate, hacking at it, pushing against it fifty at a time with all their strength, while on the other side, crews of women pulled up heavy carts and pushed them onto their sides against the door.

And just when it seemed to everyone inside the walls that they’d done nothing all their lives but fight, and that they could fight no more, deep-voiced horns sounded somewhere and the Zephites abandoned the attack. They crawled over the bodies in the moat, back to their camp on the riverbank; and few were the arrows that pursued them. Only then did the defenders notice that the sun was setting.

“What’s our damage?” Roshay asked. It was nighttime now, and he and the captains were meeting at his home. He had never been more weary in his life, and his hands smarted with blisters raised and broken by his own bowstring.

“Half the men either dead or too badly hurt to fight tomorrow,” said the senior captain. “The walls are still pretty sound, but the moat’s too full of bodies to be a serious obstacle anymore.”

“And our arrow supply?”

“Looks like we’ll be fighting with spears and clubs tomorrow.”

No one said anything. What was there to say? That’s that, Roshay thought. Ninneburky had fought valiantly and defended itself with skill; but the defenders were too few, the attackers too many. Tomorrow would see the finish of it. My wife and my sons, Roshay thought—but didn’t care to finish that thought.

He heard a knock at his front door, heard Vannett go to answer it. She came into the parlor a moment later, with Ashrof.

“What’s the matter, prester?” Roshay had commandeered the chamber house to be used as a hospital: there must be a problem with the wounded, he thought.