The Palace (Bell Mountain Series #6) (6 page)

“So,” he mused, “will Goryk Gillow come to Obann to be acclaimed First Prester by the council? Is he as big a fool as that?”

Mord had invited Goryk to Obann. It was to be a diplomatic mission, holding out the hope of peace between Obann and the Thunder King. It had crossed Gallgoid’s mind to cause the secret message to be revealed throughout the city. The people might rise up against the traitors. Surely Goryk and the councilors knew that no one but the College of Presters could elect a First Prester! What was their game? The only way to find out, Gallgoid thought, was to wait for Goryk to come to the city, and see what happened next.

“Haste is the luxury of fools,” he said to himself. “Let the people have more time to warm to Lord Orth as First Prester. They might not want a change.”

What the people really wanted, he knew, was the Temple. They passed by the Temple’s ruins every day, but couldn’t imagine it would never rise again. Orth’s vision of a new Temple—one not made by hands, but consisting of nothing but the Holy Scriptures and prayer and faith—was not easily grasped. Such a Temple, the new First Prester taught, would be nothing like its three great predecessors. Unlike them, it could never be destroyed.

“They will come to believe in it,” Preceptor Constan said, the last time Gallgoid asked him about it. “We must continue to teach them from the Scriptures. Their hearts will open to God’s word.”

Meanwhile, thought Gallgoid, the Temple tax was greatly reduced throughout Obann—and that would count for something, too. He supposed he ought to be ashamed for looking at the matter from such a worldly point of view, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Come to Obann, Goryk Gillow,” he whispered. “Come, make friends with the traitors on the council. You’ll be in worse danger than you dream.”

Martis’ first concern was to find the place where they’d been attacked. He quickly realized that the only way he could do that was to get back on the river and try to spot it from a boat. He was sure he would recognize it when he saw it.

Despite his aching head, he spent most of the morning seeking out the nearest settlement, a tiny hamlet tucked into a woodland about a mile from the river. The handful of people living there gave him a decidedly cool reception, until he invoked the baron’s name. Only then did they listen to what he had to say.

“So someone kidnapped the baron’s adopted son, did they?” said the headman. “Well, that’s the kind of thing that happens, these days. The Heathen missed us when they passed through this country on their way to Obann City. But ever since, there’s been a lot of bad characters around. Sometimes we’re glad we have nothing worth stealing.”

That was no understatement. The houses were little more than huts. Some of the people living there now used to live in towns that the Heathen hadn’t missed. But there was one man who had a boat, and when he understood that Martis wanted to go only a little way up the river, he agreed to take him. Early in the afternoon, Martis was on the river again.

“I ain’t landing if those fellows are still there,” the boatman said.

“I won’t ask you to,” said Martis.

“Things have gotten a little better since the baron reorganized the militia. We never had a baron on the river, but already he’s better than the oligarchs. I hope he gets his son back.”

The boatman knew the river as well as Herger knew it. Guided by Martis’ description of the spot where Herger had wanted to make camp, it wasn’t long before they found it.

“That looks like a dead man lying there!” the boatman said.

“It must be the man I stabbed when they attacked us. The others must have just left him lying there.”

“It ain’t decent,” the boatman grumbled. As he paddled closer to the shore, their approach disturbed a pair of ravens feeding on the body. They flew up with caws of protest.

“Mister, I don’t think we ought to come any closer.”

“If the other men were still around,” Martis said, “the ravens wouldn’t be here. We’ll be quite safe.”

There was no sign of Herger’s boat. It must have floated down the river. Cautiously the boatman paddled until the hull scraped a rock. Martis got out and waded ashore, pulling the boat after him. The ravens watched from a nearby tree.

“What are you going to do now?” the boatman asked.

“If I can find the men’s tracks, I’ll follow them.”

“Then I wish you good luck—but this is where I turn back home.”

“If you see any militia,” Martis said, “please tell them about this.”

“That I’ll do, mister. That I’ll gladly do.”

The man paddled away, back down the river. In a moment he was out of sight, around a bend. Martis studied the ground. Eight men were bound to leave tracks, and Martis found them. He followed them to the edge of the wood. There the group had churned up the leaf litter. Here he found a path, and it was obvious that the men had taken it.

“Snatchers, most likely,” Martis thought—men who captured children and lone travelers and sold them to the Heathen. They were always active in the eastern parts of Obann. Helki had driven many outlaws out of Lintum Forest. These men were probably some of them, Martis thought.

He’d lost the little knife he always kept under his belt, but he still had his dagger in its sheath. But his best weapon would be the snatchers’ certainty that they’d killed him by the riverside.

Martis trotted down the path, as far as it would take him, and by sundown found the snatchers’ campsite.

Ysbott stuck to the woods all morning, but by noon he had to turn and cross some open country, taking the shortest route to Silvertown.

Jack had been through some of this country once before, with Obst and Ellayne, on the way to Bell Mountain. Soon they’d be into the wooded foothills. Jack had never been to Silvertown, but he had a rough idea of where it was—Obann’s mining center, perched on the west slope of the mountains. An army of the Thunder King held it; Obann had not yet mustered the strength to force them out.

Jack did his best to slow the men down, purposely stumbling, complaining of sore feet, and trying to act like someone who wouldn’t last a day in this wild country by himself. Maybe they’d hold him in contempt and get careless. Maybe he’d get a chance to escape. But one of the men got tired of his act and cuffed him. The next thing that man knew, Ysbott had him by the beard with the point of a long, sharp knife pressed dangerously close to his eye.

“Don’t damage the goods,” said the chief, “or I’ll split your face wide open. I hope that’s clearly understood!”

The man couldn’t nod without jabbing his eye into the knife. “S-s-s-sorry, boss!” he stammered.

“To show your good faith, you may carry this tender-footed king across your shoulders for a while,” Ysbott said. And so Jack had an uncomfortable ride.

Many times in his life he’d been in danger, some of it worse than this, but always there would be Martis to rescue him, or Helki or Wytt. But Martis would never rescue anyone again, and Wytt was back in Ninneburky with Ellayne—and he would never see either of them again. This time there was no one to help him. He missed Ellayne! “I’m not going to get out of this,” he kept on thinking.

He tried to pray as Obst had taught him you could pray, silently. “God can hear your thoughts as clearly as He can hear your words,” Obst said. Jack had seen the old man in a state of communion with God: you could set his clothes on fire, and he wouldn’t know it. Jack had never achieved anything like that, but just now he wished he could.

There was no convincing these men that he was not King Ryons. Ysbott simply didn’t believe him. You could almost laugh at them, Jack thought. They didn’t know there was already one false king—Fnaa, the king’s double, whom Jack and Ellayne had delivered to the city just in time to take the king’s place when Ryons disappeared. The real king now was safe in Lintum Forest with Helki and his army. Jack wondered what would become of Fnaa.

“Never mind Fnaa! What’s going to become of me?”

“Lord God,” he prayed silently, “if you don’t get me out of this, I don’t know who will! Please don’t forget that I climbed Bell Mountain when you told me to and went under the Old Temple to find King Ozias’ Lost Book. Please don’t forget!”

He prayed again and again as he bounced up and down atop the outlaw’s shoulders, and the afternoon wore on, and he was carried farther and farther away from Ninneburky.

CHAPTER 6

The Superstitious Troopers

Having lived and worked on the river all his life, Herger was able to find his way even by night. The road only roughly paralleled the river. Where the bank was heavily wooded, the road might be two or three miles from the water. Herger knew where to leave the road and push through the woods, and before the sun rose, he’d led the patrol directly to the campsite. They would have reached it sooner, but no one wanted to gallop recklessly down a narrow path overhung with heavy branches.

“This is it,” Herger said. Dismounting, he led his horse toward the water. “This is where they jumped us.”

Kadmel halted the patrol. “Everybody stay put,” he said. “We don’t want a lot of boots and horseshoes trampling out whatever tracks there might be. Anyhow, the horses will have to rest before we can go any farther.”

Ellayne had ridden all the way behind a trooper named Aswyll. She’d had no idea that riding horseback could make you so sore—it was like falling down a long flight of stairs and bouncing your bottom off each one. That had never happened when she and Jack used to double up on Martis’ horse, Dulayl.

“Ellayne, let’s see Wytt do his stuff.” Kadmel smiled at her. “And I guess you’ll be glad to get off that horse for a while! Help her down easy, Aswyll. Troop, dismount!”

It took a few moments for Ellayne’s legs to stop wobbling. Then she opened her knapsack, and Wytt jumped out. Although they’d been told what to expect, some of the troopers flinched when they saw him. Some caught their breath, and all of them stared. “Heaven preserve us!” one or two men muttered. Many Obannese have superstitious beliefs about Little People. A few of the troopers stared at Ellayne as if she were a witch.

“We have to find Jack, Wytt,” she said. “This is the place where the bad men got him. See if you can find his scent.”

“Those men are afraid,” Wytt said, looking up at the troopers.

“Never mind them,” Ellayne said.

He scampered all over the ground, stopping here and there to sniff and study. In the feeble predawn light, he must have looked to some of the men like a kind of goblin, or a devil. But their horses ignored him.