The Tale of Oriel (26 page)

Rulgh's light blue eyes glared at him, like sun off ice, briefly, before Rulgh showed his teeth in a smile. “Is not so, Oriel,” he said, and then got up to fetch Oriel more meat and bread, and a bowl of ale. “That man fool,” Rulgh said, pointing at the boy.

“What about me? Why don't you give me any food?” the boy asked Rulgh. “I'm hungry, Oriel, will you give me—why doesn't he give me any?”

“You man fool,” Rulgh said when Oriel pulled at Griff's naked arm, trying to rouse Griff from his stupor to eat.
“Tewkeman.”
Oriel ignored Rulgh.

“Mines?” Rulgh asked the boy.

The boy turned to Oriel. “What is he saying? What does he want? What's he going to do?”

“Do you know where the gold mines are? near Celindon?”

“Not really,” the boy said. “I've heard stories, but like the Kingdom, it's only stories. I've never been—”

“King-dom?” Rulgh asked.

“Stories,” Oriel said. Rulgh didn't understand. Rather than give the Wolfer occasion to be angry, Oriel said, “Away north,” with a wide gesture of his arm. “Over mountains.”

“Ah,” and comprehension shone out of Rulgh's eyes. He said a word Oriel didn't know, but assumed meant Kingdom, and then repeated “Kingdom. You see?” he asked, pointing to his eyes, a mocking smile now on his mouth.

“No,” Oriel said. “Stories,” he said, and waggled his fingers in front of his mouth, to show words, only words. This Rulgh understood.
“Brautel,”
he said, waggling his fingers by his mouth. “Not so.”

Then he turned back to the boy. “Mines?” asked again. The boy shrank back, and only stopped himself from weeping because he was more afraid than miserable. “Gold? Mines?” Rulgh demanded.

“Say yes,” Oriel advised the boy.

“But—”

“Say yes and try to lead him there. He'll kill you if you get it wrong, but I think he'll kill you anyway so you might as well give yourself a chance.”

“Yes!” the boy cried. “But I have to eat first.”

Oriel put that into what he thought was Wolfer words, and Rulgh understood. One of the other Wolfers brought the boy food. After they had eaten, the seven Wolfers and their three captives rose, and walked away up the stony hill. They left behind them the smoking ruins of a farmhouse, inhabited after them only by the dead.

T
HE HEAT OF FIRES, THE
heat of blood, the heat of fear and fighting—Oriel never remembered how many farms they had taken on their way to the gold mines. He was a man of ice, against the heat.

Griff moved beside him like an animal sickening to its death. Half of the time when his glance fell on Oriel, bound nearby, it was as if he had never seen Oriel before.

The boy clung close to Oriel, when Rulgh did not have him at the head of the band of Wolfers, leading them back southward and seaward. Oriel never asked the boy's name.

Warm sunlight, warm rain—it was not always easy to be cold as ice, cruel as ice, in every thought and desire. Always before, Oriel realized, there had been a prize for the winning. The Damall's island, the Saltweller's lands: Those were what he had desired and won, before. Now the prize was life. To live through the day was his highest hope.

What Rulgh must not know was how closely Oriel's strength was bound to Griff's needs. For that reason, Oriel shared what food he was given equally between the nameless boy and Griff. All three shared equally the little they were given, except that Griff ate less than either of the others.

When Rulgh searched Oriel's face, as if to know what was in his mind and heart, Oriel thought if it weren't for Griff he might become a Wolfer. Only Griff held Oriel to the life he had known, and Oriel was not always glad of that. He could become, he thought, a Captain of a Wolfer band, aye, and even one of the foremost Captains, were it not for Griff.

The morning they arrived at the mines, sounds gave them warning that the mining camp lay ahead. The Wolfer band, and its three captives, crept up unobserved, sheltering behind boulders.

There were twenty or more soldiers visible, but only six of the slaves, with iron collars around their necks and red crescents on their cheeks. There were hobbled donkeys and a wagon piled with chunky stones. A yellow flag flying over the doorway into the hillside told Oriel these were Karle's men, and the path that disappeared into the darkness within the hill led to Karle's gold.

Some of the soldiers were gathered into groups, gambling for coins on the fall of the bones, while awaiting their meal, a spitted animal that rotated over the flames as a slave turned the handle of the spit. All the soldiers were armed, but none were wary.

Why should they be armed? Oriel wondered, and then he wondered if—if he were to betray the Wolfers' presence by a warning shout, and were the Wolfers to fail to kill him, and were he to survive the battle that would follow—he wondered if he would thereby gain for himself any fate other than to become one of these slaves. Their beards were ragged, around the scarred cheeks. They moved slowly, as if weak and stupid, like men accustomed to slavery.

Oriel thought that such slavery must be his lot, should he betray his captors.

Because Griff, Oriel thought, would not last a day in the mines. He himself, Oriel thought, would last for several seasons. Whose would be the worse fate he couldn't have said.

The sky overhead was cloudy, under a growing wind. The wind picked up dry earth and blew it in gusts, in circling whirlpools. Even the sound of wind favored the Wolfers. Oriel waited to hear what plan of attack Rulgh would devise. The opening to the mine shaft was a little ways up the hill; if the guards could gain it, like a small doorway it would be an impregnable position. If it were his battle, Oriel would lure the soldiers away from the mine, down into the gully. The armor plates the guards wore would be heavy to carry, so Oriel would tell his men to attack, then seem to retreat in disorder into the hills and then, when the enemy had carried his heavy armor up and down a few hillsides, turn to fight. The difference in numbers—more than three soldiers to each Wolfer—put the Wolfers at great risk.

The risk was so great that Oriel would choose to arm his captives, if he were a Wolfer.

All of these thoughts passed through Oriel's mind in the time it took Rulgh to gather his men around him, and talk urgently to them. At the end of Rulgh's speech, the Wolfers unsheathed their swords and raised them up into the air.

“No,” Oriel said, keeping his voice as quiet as the looming danger permitted. “Rulgh, don't—”

The Wolfers shouted out a great shout, and then another.

Rulgh looked at Oriel.

“Fool,” Oriel said.

“Fruhckman,” Rulgh said, cold-eyed.

Oriel, as cold-eyed as his captor, drew himself up tall. “Not so,” he said, and turned his back.

The Wolfers shouted again and again, as if each shout made them braver, stronger, more ready for battle.

Above the Wolfers' shouts, a horn sounded.

The Wolfers, in a line of seven, scrambled up the hillside to meet the enemy. At the top of the hill they ranged themselves in a line of seven, howling now. Oriel left Griff behind a boulder with the boy and crept up to watch.

The soldiers had drawn back to the mine door and stood ready, behind a barrier of slaves. The slaves knelt, making a wall three kneeling bodies deep in front of their masters. Their hands were manacled, their necks circled with iron; they had no weapons, no defenses.

It was only a brief battle—the Wolfers bloodied their swords on the slaves, giving the soldiers time to reach across the human wall with their spears and longswords. Oriel could see immediately that it was hopeless—

But he admired the blind courage of the Wolfers. He watched one man, his sword hand sliced off, held by the beard while an armored soldier drove a sword into his belly and pulled it up towards his heart: The Wolfer showed no fear, not before pain, not before death, not before his enemy.

The Wolfers were doomed. Oriel turned around, to flee with Griff and if their strength held, and they had any luck, they might make it back to Selby—

Once again the sound of a horn cut through the noisy air. This horn sounded from a distance, and distracted the guards. There was the sound of marching feet, there was a distant calling of voices, there was a cry come up among the soldiers at the mines, “Form up. It's Phillipe's army. Never mind these—” There were the cries of the wounded, and moans, and the sound of the wind. “Get the wagon inside. You, man, pile the bodies here—you heard me, let the dead take the blows for us.”

Rulgh and two of the Wolfers came away on their own feet, and they supported another man whose blood poured down over his face. The soldiers didn't even watch their flight.

Horsemen in armor, two carrying red guidons, rode up onto a hill facing the Wolfers, and stopped there. Behind them the tips of spears carried by marching men became visible.

“Surrender, we would be fools not to surrender!” some of the soldiers at the mines cried loudly, making the argument. “We'll be slaughtered where we stand. There are a hundred of them for sure.”

“But where is Karle's army? Sound the horn again!” another soldier answered. “He swore to protect us. He swore—”

Oriel advised Rulgh: “Go now, if you would live.” He made the sign for danger, then pointed to the mine entrance. He pointed urgently in the opposite direction.

Rulgh reached down and hauled Griff to his feet, then hauled the cringing boy up. The boy struggled, and pulled back, and cried out shrilly. Rulgh roared at him, then ran him through with a sword, then shrugged him off the blade as if he were a loaf of bread. Oriel took the warning and pushed at Griff's back. “Go, Griff, where he leads.”

Griff's blank face showed no response.

Oriel shoved at Griff's shoulders, as hard as he could. “Go now. Follow me. You must.”

Griff obeyed him.

ORIEL COULDN'T REMEMBER—WHEN—IN
what direction Rulgh led them. He couldn't—

The Wolfers ran steadily, even burdened as they were by the injured man. The injured man had received no attention to his wound, but still he forced his feet to rise, and fall, in the slow unvarying pace Rulgh set, and maintained.

Griff stumbled, and when he did Oriel punched him hard between the shoulder blades. Griff's bare back was swollen with red cuts and scratches, and if he had had the strength Oriel would have been sorry to have hit him so roughly on his back.

The line of men moved up hillsides and tumbled clumsily down them. It snaked among trees and around boulders. It splashed across streams without ever bending to refresh its mouth with water.

It was hard to run like that with hands bound in front of him, Oriel noted. It would be hard, also, to run like that supporting a man who could not count on his own strength. But the Wolfers made no complaint.

Sometime in the darkness Rulgh stopped. With groans of relief they all collapsed where they were. The night air was mild. A pale golden glowing in the sky showed where the moon hid behind clouds. They were among trees.

If he had had to run, even walk, for another day, without any rest, Oriel knew—

The Wolfers could have done it. They were not weak as other men were weak. They needed little to eat and drink, needed little rest, less than others. That was their secret strength; and Oriel thought that somehow, in the northern lands where they came from, their fathers must long ago have taken wolf-women as wives, to breed such sons.

Oriel, his legs collapsed beneath him, slept suddenly.

Rulgh's cold eyes looked into Oriel's face, and Rulgh's hand slapped Oriel. Once, across the side of the head, and Oriel's ears rang like bells. Again, on the other side.

Oriel would show no feeling. His head cleared.

“Go,” Rulgh said. “Bring,” he pointed down at Griff, who still slept, where he had fallen in the night.

Oriel could never remember much of the first day, anything of the second night, the second morning—morning and afternoon and night all blended together—he thought he must have been asleep, but he knew he had been awake, and moving.

When the sun was high in an empty sky the band rounded a hill and looked down onto a solitary farmstead. A wooden-sided house, a lean-to beside it, garden behind and fenced yard, and human figures in the garden bent over, working at the soil. Behind, a forested line of hills rose. Beyond that, at the distant edge of the world, a jagged line of white clouds lay along the horizon.

Rulgh approached Oriel, where he leaned against a tree trunk. “Oriel. Come. After.”

Oriel nodded, to show he understood.

“Bring Jorg.”

By the time Oriel realized that Jorg was the wounded man's name, the three Wolfers were bounding down the hillside, their voices raised in a howl, or shout, in a sound that made the hair on Oriel's neck stand up. Their swords were out for the attack. Oriel could have attacked with them. He could have found the strength.