Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (42 page)

 
          
“The
digging will not be easy,” said Tepshen.

 
          
“No,”
Brannoc agreed, “but were we to forgo sleep tonight and ride throughout the
morrow we should be at the mound by dusk, with time enough to force our entry.”

 
          
Tepshen
nodded,
then
voiced a thought none had so far dared:
“And after? When the Drott come to find the hole?”

           
Brannoc shrugged.

           
Kedryn said, “Let us worry about
that when the time comes. If we are successful it must surely prove a small
enough problem. If we are not ...”

           
The kyo smiled, briefly and grimly.
Brannoc chuckled. "It would be a sad end, would it not? To defeat a god
and find ourselves given to the blood eagle.”

 
          
“Mayhap
you should not accompany me,” said Kedryn. “Rather, bring me to the mound and
help me enter, then hide or return to the Kingdoms.”

 
          
Tepshen
studied him for a moment, not deigning to speak, then rose.

 
          
“Douse
the fire and let us be gone.”

 
          
“I
would
not.
. . ,” Kedryn protested, interrupted by
Brannoc, who grinned and finished for him, “Leave us behind. I shall hear my
name in a ballad yet.”

 
          
There
was no more to be said and they saddled the horses and packed the remains of
the venison. Kedryn kicked soil over the fire. “Ware noise,” urged Brannoc,
“and take my lead—Drott hospitality is our enemy now.”

 
          
They
rode out a trail so narrow one had perforce to follow the other, Brannoc first,
then Kedryn, Tepshen bringing up the rear, the pack animals strung behind. The
night was clear, moon and stars illuminating their path, the natural debris of
the forest muffling the hoofbeats as the half-breed picked up speed. He brought
them swiftly to a widening of the trail, a round of bare earth circled by
looming beeches, five paths joining, and crossed to follow a slightly wider
avenue.

 
          
Before
long he raised a hand in warning, halting them,
then
motioned to his left, cursing softly as his stallion forced a way through the
encroaching thickets. Behind them a dog barked and Brannoc dismounted, clamping
a hand over his horse’s nostrils as he motioned for his companions to do the
same. The dog barked again, joined by others, and Brannoc threw back his head,
emitting a piercing screech such as a hunting cat would make. The hounds
proceeded to bay and the halfbreed screamed again, as if in challenge, then
mounted and urged the gray to a canter, taking them away from the unseen camp.

 
          
Thrice
more they were forced to circumnavigate groups of Drott and it seemed to Kedryn
that their progress toward the mound was become more evasive then direct. They
left the trails, taking deer paths and whatever routes were available among the
dense timber, riding as swiftly as caution and the undergrowth allowed, and as
the sky grew pearly with the approach of dawn they halted beside a stream.

 
          
The
horses drank thirstily, the stallions irritable, and as the sun broke through the
early mist to spread roseate light across the eastern skyline they mounted
again, Brannoc leading the way along the stream bed.

 
          
They
splashed through the water until the heavens were lit by the rising sun, blue
arching above, and white
clouds,
birdsong loud about
them, then Brannoc quit the stream and struck out across a meadow that revealed
a small herd of the wild forest cattle. The
heifers
lowed protest and the bull bellowed a challenge, lowering the saber-sweep of
his horns and stamping the dew-wet grass. They were gone before he made up his
mind to charge, galloping over the sward into the surrounding trees as the
cattle milled behind them.

 
          
The
terrain began to rise and at
noon
, when they topped a ridge, Brannoc called a
halt to rest the animals and eat. From the crest of the chine they were able to
survey the shallow valley that lay before them. The downslope was thinly
wooded, though the timber grew thick across the bottomland and the farther
slope; columns of smoke rose from the forest to indicate Drott camps. Kedryn
counted thirteen.

 
          
“We
are lucky,” Brannoc murmured. “They favor the northern reaches, so
few camp
here. And Drul’s Mound lies over that far rise.”

 
          
Thirteen
camps—and the concomitant likelihood of wandering hunters—seemed to Kedryn to
lend a euphemistic note to the statement, but the proximity of his goal
inflamed his patience and he fretted to be gone.

 
          
“Soon,”
Brannoc promised, “let the sun take its toll and the camps sleep in the heat,
then we shall be on our way.”

 
          
It
was hard to wait out the noonday warmth, though both Tepshen and Brannoc
stretched on the grass and dozed as

 
          
Kedryn
kept watch, unable to snatch that small opportunity to rest. He was grateful
when the half-breed woke and nudged the kyo, announcing that they might attempt
the crossing.

 
          
“Should
we be spotted,” he warned as they prepared to mount, “ride for the farther
slope and trust in speed to save us. Should we become separated, continue
northward: the site of the Gathering lies directly ahead.”

 
          
Without
further ado he swung astride the gray stallion and urged the beast over the
crest, riding hard and fast for the shelter of the lower timber. Kedryn
followed, nerves tingling in anticipation of encounter, feeling unpleasantly
exposed on the sparsely wooded descent.

 
          
Luck,
or the Lady, was with them, however, and they entered the denser timber
unnoticed, trailing Brannoc as he veered west and then east, cutting a zigzag
route that brought them around the barbarian encampments and onto the summit of
the northern chine.

 
          
The
sun was westering as they topped the ridge and halted, the eastern sky already
darkening into twilight, the moon, fatter now, hanging low and large above the
horizon. A scarp descended before them, shadow pooling where it ended in a wide
valley, vee-shaped, the mouth toward them, to Kedryn immeasurably enticing for
he knew it held Drul’s Mound. He studied the terrain ahead, seeing no sign of
fires, and voiced silent thanks to Brannoc for the half-breed’s knowledge of
the woodlanders and their ways.

 
          
“We
need hide no longer,” Brannoc declared, and they went down the ridge.

 
          
The
moon rose as they entered the valley, patterning the trees with silver light. A
cat screamed and a bull lowed, but they met neither animals nor men as they
urged the tiring horses onward, their own fatigue ignored as excitement gripped
them.

 
          
Then
Brannoc halted, turning in his saddle to smile to Kedryn as he gestured at the
bowl that lay before them.

 
          
It
was located close to the center of the valley, a massive indentation like some
natural amphitheater of gargantuan proportions. Trees stood sentinel watch all
around, though the lip of the bowl was bare, great stumps showing where the
timber had been cut back to accommodate the lodges that would fill the hollow
when the Drott gathered. Grass had made a patchy footing on the earth, though
mostly denuded soil showed, blackened from countless fires and stamped hard by
innumerable feet. At the nub, placed like the hub of a wheel whose spokes would
be the alleyways running between the lodges, sat Drul’s Mound. Its rise was
dark under the moon, the circumference scorched by the fires that had ringed it
over the years, its apex soot-black from the great sacrificial bonfire that
would soon once more be lit. It appeared forbidding, a brooding presence that
defied entry, and Kedryn felt a chill prickle down his spine as he studied it.

 
          
Without
speaking, he heeled his mount forward, going down the slope and across the
floor of the bowl until he sat beneath the shadow of the monticle, staring up
at its smooth surfaces. The dirt that packed the slope looked hard as rock, and
for a moment he wondered how they hoped to broach its solidity, the chill
becoming the icy tingling of despair. Then he touched the talisman and felt its
warmth, the feint vibration against his fingertips, and flung himself from the
saddle, turning to seek the pack horses and their burdens of tools.

 
          
“Eat
first,” advised Tepshen, dismounting beside him. “This will be hard labor.”

 
          
Kedryn
nodded reluctantly and they set to establishing a camp.

           
The horses were stripped of their
loads and tethered among the trees where they might forage for themselves and
find water in a nearby stream. A small fire was built and the dwindling store
of venison spitted over the flames. Brannoc filled their canteens. They ate
hungrily, then, as the moon approached its zenith, took the picks and shovels
Rycol had provided and surveyed the mound.

 
          
“It
was built long and long ago,” Brannoc advised, “after Drul was slain on the
walls of High Fort. It is said the Drott spent a year on its construction,
quarrying stone in the north and transporting dressed blocks here. My guess
would be they raised a dome and they layered it with earth, so the entrance is
likely to be found either at the foot or atop the hummock.”

 
          
They
paced around the mound, finding no indication of any portal.

 
          
“Mayhap
they built it as they do their lodges,” Kedryn surmised. “In which case there
would be something akin to a smoke-hole.”

 
          
“The
apex is as good a place as any to start,” nodded Brannoc.

 
          
They
scrambled up the sides to stand within the great fire-ring. “Here,” Kedryn
decided, driving a spade against the hard-packed earth, and gasping as the blow
reverberated back, jarring his shoulders.

 
          
Tepshen
motioned for him to stand aside and swung a pick. For all his wiry strength his
effort had little impact on the rocklike soil, making no more than a pin’s
prick. Tepshen grunted and swung again. Kedryn tossed the spade aside and took
pick in hand, Brannoc likewise, and they developed a rhythm, each striking in
turn until the night was filled with the steady thudding of their labor, as if
Drul’s Mound was some gigantic drum on which they beat a cadence.

 
          
Soon
they had shed their tunics, and despite the coolness of the night wind their
shirts were damp with sweat. Shoulders and arms, unaccustomed to this labor,
began to ache, and hands more used to wielding swords or holding reins to
blister. But atop the mound the earth gave slow way, and as dawn broke the
beginnings of a hole were formed.

 
          
They
rested, chilled by the cold gray mist that filled the bowl, and fortified
themselves with venison and a tea brewed from the herbs provided by High Fort’s
Sisters, then returned to the excavation. Shovels were needed now, to clear the
rubble of broken earth and pebbles, and then the picks again, the rising sun
revealing a shallow pit little more than a hand’s length deep. For the numb
ache that pervaded his back and shoulders, it seemed to Kedryn little enough,
but he clenched his teeth and set to digging once more, unpleasantly aware that
the burgeoning day brought the Drott a little closer, the movement of the sun
across the sky eating remorselessly into the time he had left.

 
          
Fire
and the passing years had transformed the upper layers of the mound to the
consistency of hard-set mortar and it took the remainder of the day to break
through that crust to the more malleable soil beneath. By then their hands were
wrapped in strips of tom cloth, blisters raised and burst, but as the sun set
and twilight filled the valley the dirt they shoveled out and was darker, more
friable, and the excavation deep enough that Kedryn stood knee-deep within it.
They slept a few hours and commenced to dig, driving the shaft steadily deeper,
two standing inside the hole,
the
third clearing dirt
from the rim.