The Glass Bridge (Bell Mountain #7) Read online

  For a time Ysbott feared he might have been struck permanently blind by the flash of light that had erupted from Ellayne’s hand when she overtaxed the power of a witch’s spirit imprisoned in an ancient artifact. The girl herself was a witch, and Ysbott was not likely to forget it. The wound in his cheek, inflicted on him by Wytt with a sharp stick, had finally healed after a very bad infection, leaving his face disfigured by an ugly scar. And his eyes still hurt when he had to venture into the full light of day.

  Although he alone was responsible for all the suffering he’d had, he lived for revenge on the victims who’d escaped him.

  “Make no mistake,” he told his men. “The Thunder King will come again. There’ll be great rewards for those who serve him!”

  He had a mixed band of Obannese outlaws and Heathen fugitives, some fifteen men all told. The baron’s militia hunted them but hadn’t caught them yet. They lived on what they stole from farms and villages, and left a red wake behind them wherever they went.

  At last Martis came home from the hills. He delivered his report at the baron’s dinner table. Ordinarily Jack and Ellayne would have been dismissed, but not anymore. “If you two are going to help me in my work,” Roshay said, “it’s time you started learning what the work entails.” Normally the baroness would have excused herself, but she’d gotten out of that habit. But Lanora the cook was sent home after she’d cleared the table.

  “The Abnaks won’t be able to hold their lands,” Martis said. “They fight hard, but their resistance must be broken very soon. The enemy is pouring troops into their country. He knows that if the Abnak revolt succeeds, there will be many more revolts in other countries. I believe he means to exterminate the Abnaks, and he’ll follow them across the mountains to do it.”

  Roshay frowned. “I could send maybe five hundred good spears to help the Abnaks. A thousand, if I had more time.”

  “Even a thousand would be too few by far,” said Martis. “The enemy has emptied the Zephite lands of fighting men and sent in more from farther east. They’re no match for the Abnaks in the woods, but there are so many of them coming in, it hardly matters. And they’re killing every Abnak they can get their hands on, women and children especially. The Abnaks will have no choice but to retreat across the mountains. If they try to stay in their own territory, they’ll all die.” Martis’ face normally looked a little sad while in repose, but it seemed to Ellayne that these things had truly upset him. She could feel it.

  “The end of the Abnaks!” Vannett said. “Not so long ago, everyone in Obann would have been glad to hear that news.”

  “Until King Thunder finished with the Abnaks and came down after us,” said Martis.

  Ellayne and Jack exchanged a look. Killing women and children, on purpose, was something they’d never heard of. Besides, there were quite a few Abnaks in King Ryons’ army. They’d made friends with some of them and learned they weren’t monsters. They’d seen old Uduqu run to the rescue of Helki when Helki slew the giant and a mob of enemy warriors charged him. Uduqu hadn’t waited for anyone else to come with him. He might easily have been killed.

  “Maybe the king’s chieftains can do something,” Roshay said. “They have at least five thousand men in Lintum Forest. I’ll send a messenger tonight.”

  Martis rested from his journey, sitting on the porch steps with a mug of beer. Ellayne and Jack sat with him, and Wytt came out and chattered at him.

  “What’s he saying?” Martis asked. The children understood the Omah’s natterings as if it were human speech, and Wytt understood them as if they were Omah—a gift they’d received on top of Bell Mountain.

  “He says something’s going to happen, but he doesn’t know what,” Jack said.

  “Something good or something bad?”

  “He doesn’t know,” said Ellayne. “But it’s something in the air. He can feel it.”

  “I can, too,” said Martis, “and I don’t like how it feels.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The Gold of the Golden Pass

  Ryons had a letter from Lord Orth, delivered to the edge of Lintum Forest by a rider on a swift horse and through the forest to him by a pair of his Attakott scouts. No one could enter the forest without their knowing it.

  It took him some time to make out the name on the letter, and then for a moment he forgot he was a king. He felt like a slave who’d come into possession of something that he shouldn’t have and would probably get a whipping for it. It passed soon enough, but then he discovered that he couldn’t read the great lord’s handwriting. He took it to Obst, who said it was a matter for the chieftains. They assembled around their king and his makeshift throne, a piece of carved stone broken off the castle, and Obst read the letter to them. Those who couldn’t yet speak Obannese heard it in their own languages, for Obst had received the gift of tongues. So had Gurun, but Obst was their teacher.

  “To Ryons, King of Obann by the grace of God, from his servant Orth, First Prester by election, greetings,” Obst read.

  “If it please the king, be it known that the Abnak tribes, pressed by a merciless enemy, will soon be forced to enter the king’s lands on the west side of the mountains, or else perish. These marches are sparsely populated, and I propose to His Majesty that he grant the Abnaks leave to come into his lands and live, free of all conditions, by the king’s grace under God. Let the king make this offer freely, before the Abnaks can petition him, as an act of friendship pleasing in the sight of God.

  “’For it is not enough to fight against a common enemy. Our nation of Obann came into being, in ancient times, when many nations joined together under the One God who rules them all and became the Tribes of the Law. It may be that the time has come, under the providence of God, for Abnaks and Obannese to become one people, so that centuries of enmity shall be washed away. Or it may be that the Abnaks, in time, will recover their own lands. But until such a time, let Your Majesty extend his hand to them. Our Lord shall bless him for it.”

  Silence fell, but only for a moment. Chief Buzzard broke it with a throaty laugh.

  “Now that’s what I call clever!” he said. “We gain a whole nation of hard fighters to our side and hardly have to lift a finger for it! This First Prester has a good head on his shoulders.”

  “I don’t think he meant it as an act of cleverness,” said Obst.

  “That doesn’t make it any less clever. And it’s good sense, too. What do you say, King Ryons? I have to say the thought of Abnaks and Obannese as one people amuses me!”

  “There are many nations in this army,” Obst said, “but it’s one army. Still, the decision is yours to make, O King.” He bowed to Ryons.

  He hated it when anyone did that. They were all training him to be a real king, training him all the time. He supposed they had to.

  “I’d rather hear my chiefs speak first,” he said, “all of them. How would I know what to do?” He was still a little bit in awe of these men of war who’d accepted him as their lord. These chiefs were fierce in battle; he’d seen it for himself.

  “Your Majesty is king, and we have learned to be your servants,” Chief Shaffur said. “But if you want my advice, I say it’d be great folly if we wound up having to fight the Thunder King and the Abnaks at the same time. By all means make friends with the Abnaks!”

  Xhama, chief of the Red Regiment of the black Hosa, from a very distant country, agreed. “If we can serve you and God, let the Abnaks do the same. My men and I cannot go home again. It’s too far away. The Thunder King has stolen many people’s homelands, as he’s stolen ours. But now let his loss be our gain. I haven’t forgotten the sight of the Abnaks and the Fazzan, in this our army, storming the walls of Silvertown.”

  None of the chieftains spoke against the plan. Now Ryons himself would have to speak.

  “Well, my lords, it sounds right to me,” he said.

  “Then Your Majesty must issue a proclamation, and it must be carried to the Abnaks,” Obst said. “Let Chief Shaffur write it. He knows
the best words for such things. And let Chief Buzzard choose two or three reliable men to carry it to the Abnaks on their side of the mountains.”

  “I don’t think any of my men know how to read,” said Buzzard, “but they can learn it by heart.”

  Having traveled as swiftly as only he could through wooded lands, Helki stood at last on the road down from the Golden Pass, looking up at the ruins of King Thunder’s golden hall.

  The snow had melted, most of it, and the gold gleamed like fire in the sun. “Someone ought to come up here and bring it down,” he said to himself. “There’s enough gold here to buy up everything between the mountains and the sea!” But the very fact that the gold still lay unplundered proved that no one came here. The site was haunted, people said. “All the more reason for King Ryons’ army to come this way,” he thought—although what some of the lads would do when they saw all that gold lying about for the taking, he didn’t care to guess.

  There were places in Lintum Forest that were said to be haunted—shapeless heaps of rubble that had once been castles where some great but nameless crime had been committed long ago. Omah lived there now, untroubled by the ghosts of men. Human beings stayed away.

  Helki didn’t believe in ghosts and had no qualms about making his camp amid the ruins. Tomorrow he’d go down a little ways on the east side to see if the pass was being guarded. He didn’t expect that it was. Thanks to the Thunder King, or rather to his hosts of slaves, a road ran all the way down into the lowlands on both sides. “That’s what we want,” he thought, “a way to get over before King Thunder knows we’re there.”

  Four or five thousand men invading the Thunder King’s domain—sheer foolishness, Helki thought. “But that’s why no one will expect it.”

  In the shelter of a crumpled wall he got a fire going, and there he spent the night. The wind moaned and wailed as it blew through cracks and crannies in the sprawling ruin. Sometimes it sounded like voices. You could almost make out words, but they would be words you wouldn’t want to hear. And there was a dark cloud, low in the sky, for all the world like a looming head and shoulders of gigantic size. No wonder people stayed away.

  Somewhere under it all lay the bones of the previous Thunder King with a golden mask on his face, and also the remains of Lord Reesh, late First Prester of Obann. If anyone were going to do any haunting, Helki thought, it’d be those two. But wouldn’t it be a fine trick to play on the present Thunder King, to dig up that gold mask and confront his armies with it! They never saw their master’s face; if they ever saw anything of him at all, it’d be the golden mask. The mardars taught them he was a god in human form. But what would the Heathen think if they saw that mask on someone else?

  “Not a bad idea, not bad at all,” thought Helki. But even he couldn’t dig down through that mass of shattered timbers and heavy sheets of gold. You’d need an army of diggers for that, and it might take them all summer. Maybe even longer.

  All the same, he thought, it was an idea worth holding on to.

  Helki wasn’t the only one thinking about the gold of the Golden Pass.

  Gallgoid the spy had been there as the servant of Lord Reesh, escaping after he’d learned there was no Thunder King but only a succession of imposters. He’d fled some days before the avalanche, and on his way down the mountain passed the Griff mardar, Chillith, going up to confront the Thunder King. Ellayne had been guiding him because Chillith was blind, but he’d gotten Gallgoid to bring her down with him. Gallgoid had lost her to Jack and Martis, who were trailing Chillith, and he would have died in the snow if Helki hadn’t saved him.

  Even now King Thunder’s secret was still not widely known in Obann. Ryons’ advisers had decided not to publish the news of Lord Reesh’s treason. Gallgoid would have preferred to shout it from the housetops. “Let the truth be told, for once!” he said. But Obst feared the truth would turn the people entirely against the clergy, and innocent men would suffer.

  The gold was another matter. It ought to be brought down, Gallgoid thought, and converted into coins—coins that might buy off a host of Heathen chiefs wavering in their allegiance to the Thunder King. Gallgoid liked the idea of using the enemy’s gold against him. “Golden spearmen might be of much more use to us than men of flesh and blood,” he thought.

  He discussed the matter secretly with Baron Hennen, general of all King Ryons’ forces in the west.

  “It’d take a lot of men and carts to bring it down,” Hennen said. “And it would be even harder to keep their work a secret. We might be attacked and wiped out before we got the half of it.”

  “The enemy’s armies are busy with the Abnaks.”

  “I don’t have that many men to spare. There are still some fugitives from King Thunder’s army to be rounded up, and towns and villages to be resettled.”

  “You can pick up more men as you go,” said Gallgoid.

  “There’s always the possibility of a plot or an insurrection right here in the city. That’s my chief concern.”

  Gallgoid nodded. Obann was full of men who thought they ought to be ruling it as oligarchs, without a king. In spite of the First Prester’s preaching, there were many who wanted the Temple restored and reestablished as it had always been. There were even a few who wished to pledge themselves to the New Temple in the East, hoping it would mean peace with the Thunder King. Gallgoid’s agents listened to what people were saying in the market squares, the ale houses, and on the street, and reported to him faithfully.

  “Since the burning of the Palace last summer,” he said, “I’ve detected nothing that looks like an active plot against the throne. People are trickling out of the city and not coming back. At least consider my proposal, Baron. Maybe send a hundred men. Baron Bault in Ninneburky may be able to lend you more.”

  “One hundred men? I might be able to send that many. I’ll consider it,” said Hennen. He broke into a grin. “It’s only fitting that King Thunder ought to finance our war against him!”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Great Bridge

  Most of the time when Jandra looked at Obst’s big book, it was only a curiosity to her—a lot of funny markings on a page. She knew she was a prophetess because everybody said so, but she couldn’t have told you what a prophetess was. They called Ryons a king, but that word had very little meaning for her, too. He was just a boy who chased her when she wanted to be chased. She was old enough now to run, and she enjoyed it.

  Whatever had happened to her mother and father was lost to her memory. She was a well-loved little girl who had Abgayle to take care of her, and the scarred old Ghol Chagadai to set her on horseback and walk the horse around for her, and her own toothed bird that followed her everywhere she went—a revolting creature, most people thought, about the size of a large crow, with dirty purple plumage and a long tail like a lizard’s, but covered with stiff feathers. It had claws on its wings and hissed and snapped at people who got too close to Jandra. She loved it as another child might love a playful dog.

  She did understand, in a way, that the grownup people at Carbonek were in awe of her and that she was a very important person. This might have spoiled some children, but it hadn’t spoiled her.

  All she knew was that she sometimes fell asleep in the middle of whatever she was doing. They told her that while she was asleep, she prophesied—whatever that was. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t done that, so she just accepted it.

  Today she was going to meet Lord Orth, a great man who’d come all the way from Obann City to visit Ryons. They’d had to march up to a place in the northern fringes of the forest to meet him. Abgayle bathed her and washed her clothes, and men took turns carrying her piggyback through the forest. The Ghols sang to her from deep down in their throats, and sometimes King Ryons walked with her, hand in hand. All the chiefs were there, too. Jandra’s bird had plenty of people to hiss at.

  Orth gave a talk, with the chiefs and Obst and Gurun in a circle all around him. Jandra liked the look of him—a big, sturd
y man with a black beard shot with grey and a wonderful voice like great wheels rolling. But whatever he was talking about had no meaning for her. She sat on the ground and offered little twigs to her bird, who shook them fiercely and cast them aside. She liked the way he did that.

  She was surprised when Abgayle picked her up and put her in Lord Orth’s arms. He beamed at her.

  “‘Babes and children see what is hidden from you in your foolish wisdom.’ King Ozias spoke those words, preserved for us in Scripture,” Orth said. “But you, my lords and brothers, have not been foolish. You have listened to this little child and done the will of God.” Quietly, Obst repeated his words so that all the chiefs could understand them.

  “You and your people are the Lord’s first fruits among the Heathen. There will be many more to come. The spirit of the Lord goes forth as a conqueror, confined no longer to a Temple in a single city. When you carry His word across the mountains, He will bless you. For He loves you mightily, and in His service you’ll do mighty deeds.”