The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) (8 page)

Jack almost yelped out loud when Wytt suddenly tugged on his sleeve.

“Burn it, Wytt, don’t do that!”

Wytt chattered softly. It was not speech as we know speech, but Jack understood what he was saying: “You’re safe here. The men have already gone back. But they have Ellayne, and White-face.” That was Wytt’s name for Martis.

“What’ll they do to them?” Jack whispered.

“They’ll stop at our camp for the night. They’re glad they killed that man who sat with us.”

“Well, we’re in the worm-can now, all of us,” Jack said. “I don’t know how much you understand about people, Wytt; but this is bad. Those are very bad men. They’ll kill Martis and make Ellayne a slave. And sooner or later—”

Wytt let out a shrill, high-pitched whistle that made Jack clap his hands over his ears. You wouldn’t have thought someone so little could make so big a noise. Wytt went on and on with it.

“What in the world did you do that for?” Jack asked, when he finally stopped. “Do you want those outlaws to find us?” He wished he could see Wytt, but in that hollow under the briars, it was impossible to see anything.

“The men won’t come,” Wytt answered. “But Omah of the woods will come: plenty Omah.”

“I thought all the Omah lived out on the plains, in the ruins.”

“Many Omah in the forest, too. You’ll see,” Wytt said.

“So you were calling them?”

“They will come.”

Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to be trapped in a briar patch with scores of strange Omah; but Wytt hadn’t given him a choice. “When will they come?” he asked.

“When they can.Rest now.”

The outlaws were furious with themselves for letting Jack escape. But after they’d dragged the dead Budric out of the fire and built it back up to a roaring blaze, they began to calm down.

They tied Martis’ wrists behind his back and tied Ellayne’s ankles together. She became ill when one of the outlaws bent over and cut off Budric’s scalp with a knife. He tucked it into his belt while two others tossed the corpse into the underbrush.

“Not a bad night’s work!” said one. “The last of the Bluejays shot down, and two prisoners into the bargain. We’ve earned a drink, lads, and a good night’s sleep.”

“We shouldn’t’ve let the boy get away,” grumbled another.

“Yes, that was too bad,” said the scalp-taker. “But we expected no prisoners, and we’ve got two, so there’s little to complain about.” He sat down next to Martis. “So who are you?” he asked.

“Fugitives from Mount Eagle,” Martis said. “My name is Jace, and I was trying to take my niece and nephew to a town where they’ll be safe. Heathen raiders killed their mother and father: that was my youngest brother, and I came out here to see him. I didn’t know there was a war brewing. The whole family was going to come back with me, but the Heathen found us first. We three escaped; they killed all the others.”

It was a good lie, Ellayne thought.

“Got any money?” asked the scalper.

“Spent it all,” Martis said. Ellayne had money sewn into the lining of her coat, but Martis didn’t know that. She prayed the outlaws wouldn’t search her.

“Oh, well—we’ll get some money when we sell you to the Heathen. Unless I decide to keep the girl myself! Tried to disguise her as a boy, didn’t you?”

“I don’t suppose it’d be any use imploring you to have mercy,” Martis said. A few of the outlaws laughed. Ellayne had no idea men could be like this.

“What do you say, lads?” said the leader. “Should we let ’em go, and then go back to Latt and tell him what we did?”

“You tell him, not me!” said a scar-faced man.

“Sorry, Mister Jace—can’t do it,” the leader said. “But if you and the girl don’t give us any trouble, we won’t make it any harder for you than we have to. My name is Corris, and I’m as good as my word.” This, too, earned a laugh from the others.

One of them produced an earthen jug, popped a cork out of it, took a swallow of its contents, and passed it around. Others had dried meat and nuts in their pouches. Corris let Martis have a drink, but Ellayne wasn’t offered any—not that she wanted anything an outlaw drank.

She was glad Jack got away, but wished he were here. The thought that she might not ever see him again was one she pushed back down, as deep as it would go. And what would happen to him all by himself out there? She felt like crying, but didn’t want to cry in front of these lawless men. She wished her father were here, with the town militia. They’d hang these murderers, and she’d like to see them do it—which made her surprised at herself.

Meanwhile, Martis got to talking with their captors.

“What’s this I hear,” he asked, “about one of your chieftains setting up as King of Lintum Forest? That man you shot mentioned it.”

“That’d be our boss, Latt Squint-eye, the ugliest varmint in the forest,” Corris said. “But also the fiercest, the strongest, and the smartest. He deserves to be a king.”

Martis had already had a brush with some of Latt’s men on his outward journey, before he’d caught up to the children. A few of them had captured him; and he expected to be murdered, for Latt was said to have a strong aversion to the Temple. But a lone man with a staff attacked the whole group, killed a few, put the rest to flight, and rescued Martis. Helki the Rod, that’s what the fellow called himself; Martis remembered now.

He hoped his now-white beard would keep anyone in Latt’s following from recognizing him. He wondered if Helki were still alive. For the time being, none of these outlaws seemed to have noticed the Temple insignia on his collar. Maybe his clothes had deteriorated more than he’d thought.

Martis decided to change the subject.

“A week or so ago,” he asked, “did any of you happen to hear something that sounded like a bell?”

A couple of the outlaws sat up straighter and stopped munching food. One or two had fallen asleep. Corris frowned.

“Aye, we all heard it. Everybody heard it,” he said. “It was just before sunrise. It woke up everyone who was sleeping. It woke up all the birds and made them crazy. It was hours before their noise died down.”

“They say it was a bell on Bell Mountain,” said another outlaw. “Some kind of curse!”

“I couldn’t imagine what it was,” Martis lied. “I thought one of you might know.”

“Nobody knows!” Corris said, and poked Martis in the chest, hard. “No more than anybody knows about all the queer animals that’ve been popping up around these parts the last year or so. Nobody knows a cusset thing.”

“I’ve seen some of those animals,” Martis said. “Gigantic birds, for one.”

“I think they must be coming up from the south,” Corris said. “They’ve got to be coming from somewhere, eh? But why they’ve moved up here, who knows? Maybe something bad, real bad, happened away down south, and the animals had to come north. Nobody knows what happens in the southlands. Nobody goes much farther south than the edge of the forest.”

“They say something bad’s going to happen here, too,” said one of the men.

“It already has!” Corris laughed. “Every Heathen fighting man from the mountains to the lakes is going to come this way, and soon. Just be thankful to Latt they’re going to bypass us in Lintum Forest. There ain’t no army on this earth can hold them back.”

In spite of himself, Jack fell asleep in the briar patch. He woke when the black night gave way to grey predawn, and found himself stiff and sore all over, with his teeth chattering from the cold. For a moment he couldn’t remember what he was doing there; it was as if he’d awakened from an evil dream. But as his eyes took in his surroundings, he realized where he was and that he was all alone. Wytt was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, fine!” he muttered. “What do I do now?”

He could start by crawling out of the briar patch. He emerged into a fog-shrouded grove of ghostly birches, feeling like the only human being left in all the world. For all he knew, he was: God might have taken everyone else, but overlooked him in the briar patch.

Where could he go? He was no woodsman. Eventually the outlaws would get him, or some fierce animal.

But then Wytt called out to him from somewhere in the fog.

“Boy, boy! Be still, be quiet. We are here!”

Leaves rustled. From out of the fog, out of the underbrush, came Wytt with the Forest Omah following.

There were more of them than Jack could count. Wytt’s fur was red, but these were grey, brown, with two or three coal-black ones. Their little eyes glittered. Most of them were even smaller than Wytt, but they all carried sharp little sticks. It would be quite easy to be afraid of them, Jack thought. They came silently, without chittering or chirping, and that made them more menacing. But there was nowhere to run, so Jack stood still.

In the little space in front of the briar patch, there wasn’t room for all of them. Jack couldn’t see them all, but he could sense them: a whole army of them.

“Omah will save Ellayne and White-face,” Wytt said. “Evil men, we kill. You come, too. We are ready.”

“Why do they do this for us, Wytt?”

If the little hairy man had understood a shrug, he would have shrugged. “We do this for you and for Ellayne. This we all know, this we must do. Come, the bad men are sleeping.”

Jack followed the tiny warrior into the fog, making as little noise as possible. The host of Omah made hardly any noise at all.

The camp was much closer than he’d thought. The fire had gone out. Everyone was asleep, even the one sentry who should have been awake but had fallen asleep sitting up.

Jack had only a moment to take it all in. Wytt chirped once, and all the Omah charged the camp.

The men never had a chance. The Omah hit them like a swarm of bees, a river of rats. They stabbed the men’s faces, necks, bare hands. Sharp sticks pierced sleeping eyes.

The stricken men screamed. It was terrible: the whole forest was full of their screams. Their bodies thrashed; Omah went flying, tumbled back to their feet, rushed back into the fray. The stronger men struggled to their feet, and those who didn’t fall down again ran screaming into the woods in all directions.

It was over almost as soon as it started. Two men lay dead, with a third writhing in agony, covered with blood, his eyes stabbed out. A dozen Omah quickly finished him.

Ellayne and Martis, tied up to prevent escape, were sitting up, wide-eyed, ashen-faced, but unharmed, not a scratch. Jack breathed again. They startled when he burst out of cover.

“Jack!” Ellayne cried.

“Did they hurt you?” he said.

“We’re both unharmed,” Martis said. “But how did you accomplish … this?”

“Wytt did it. These are the Omah of the forest. He called them, and they came.”

Wytt would not let them stay there. “Come with us,” was his message, delivered in urgent squeaks and high-pitched barks. “Omah will take you to the big man.”

“We have to go with him,” Jack told Martis. “I think he knows a safe place for us.”

They quickly collected their things, plus a few things the robbers left behind: pouches containing food. They unhobbled Ham and Dulayl. Amazingly, the horse and the donkey hadn’t panicked when the Omah attacked.

“Did you talk to them, Wytt, and tell them not to be afraid?” Jack asked. “Can you make them understand you?”