Bell Mountain (The Bell Mountain Series) (22 page)

For food they had some white mushrooms that Obst said were practically as good as meat, some plump yellow tubers he’d dug up, and a leafy plant he’d plucked out of a pool. His snares had caught nothing. Jack got off one shot with his slingshot at a rabbit, but missed.

“We won’t starve,” Obst said. “We’ll find streams and ponds with fish in them, birds’ nests with eggs, and sooner or later we’ll catch some meat. And there may be trappers or hunters who’ll trade with us.”

Just in case they did meet anyone, Obst took some time to cut Ellayne’s hair shorter—an operation Wytt observed with great interest. This time the hair was too short for him to fashion into ornaments, but he collected handfuls of it and sat quietly for a long time, studying it.

“I wonder what people will think if he comes back with us to Ninneburky,” Ellayne said.

Jack caught the look on Obst’s face and read his thought: he was thinking there might not be a town or people to come back to.

On they climbed, always upward. Sometimes Obst had to use his staff to force a way through thickets. Getting the donkey through wasn’t easy, and the donkey didn’t enjoy it. Pushing against Ham’s hindquarters, Jack found it hard to imagine how King Ozias ever got a big bell up to the top of a mountain.

Late in the morning of their third day in the woods, just after they’d battled through a barricade of high ferns, Obst stopped and held up his hand.

“I smell smoke,” he said.

“Not a forest fire!” Ellayne cried.

“Shh! It’s too damp for a forest fire. Be quiet, and listen.”

Ham smelled the smoke, too; he twitched his ears and wrinkled his snout. Wytt climbed up and stood atop the baggage, sniffing the air.

“Too much smoke for a campfire, and not enough for a wildfire,” Obst said. “Stay well behind me, you two. Be ready to turn and run.”

Jack had his slingshot tucked into his belt and some round stones in his pocket. He gave Ham’s lead to Ellayne and made ready to shoot. Obst led the way slowly, trying to make no noise as he thrust aside the foliage. But anyone could hear them coming, Jack thought.

A little farther and you could see the smoke hanging in the air and hear men talking and moving around.

“Hello!” Obst called. “I come in peace.” He raised his hands and stepped into a clearing. Jack couldn’t see past him. But he could hear someone say, “Steady—it’s just an old man.”

“The Lord defend you!” Obst said. “What’s happened here?”

Jack pressed forward and stood next to Obst, and there stopped short.

This was a camp, but it was all burned out, and there were dead men on the ground, five of them, with blankets over their faces and their feet sticking out. Two men were alive, staring at Obst. They had knives in their hands and pale, frightened faces.

“I have two children with me and a donkey. But please! Who are you, and what happened to these men? Come up, Layne, and let these fellows see all three of us.”

Ellayne came up with Ham and stood beside Jack; he heard her gasp. The two men looked them over.

“I reckon they’re all right, Tom,” said the elder of the two, a grey-haired man with whiskers. To Jack they looked like ordinary woodsmen, the kind of men who often came to Ninneburky with pelts, venison, and wild nuts to sell.

“Did you see anyone else on your way here?” Tom said, his voice high and strained.

“No one,” Obst said.

“You were lucky!”

“Come sit with us,” the older man said. “My name’s Dunnic, and this is my nephew, Tom. We’re trappers, and this is our camp. Or was. These—” he motioned to the dead, “were our friends. Maybe you wouldn’t mind helping us bury them. Then I reckon we might as well head home.”

Jack and Ellayne picked their way around the bodies, careful not to look at them. There were logs and stones to sit on.

“What happened?” Obst asked again when he was seated. Wytt, meanwhile, had disappeared into the underbrush.

“Heathen scouting party,” Dunnic said. “They killed everybody, burned the shelters, and made off with everything. They weren’t raiders, or they would’ve searched for our fur and food caches. Didn’t find those. I think they mostly wanted to move on in a hurry, with no one here left alive. They were in such a hurry that they missed Tom and me.

“I guess they’re looking for unguarded ways over the mountains. Mark my words—come summer, they’ll be swarming all over this country like flies on a dead horse. This time it’s going to be a full-scale war.”

“We hid in a cave,” Tom said. “They went right past us, back and forth. Wanted to cut our throats.”

The uncle squeezed his nephew’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Tom—they’re gone. Why don’t you go down to the hole and fetch the jug of mead? A drink’d do us good.”

Tom nodded, and went off a little ways. Dunnic took another long, careful look at his visitors, then turned to Obst.

“I believe in minding my own business,” he said. “That’s why I’ve always liked it up in these hills. People don’t meddle with each other.

“Still, it’s burned unusual to meet an old man with two kids wandering around up here. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll turn around and hurry back down to the lowlands. As of now, this is a dangerous part of the country.”

“We’re trying to find our way to Bell Mountain,” Obst said.

Dunnic grinned. “Bell Mountain, eh? Well, that won’t be too hard to find. You’re on it.”

While he was on foot, Martis had wanted only to cross the plain by the shortest route. Now that he’d been back on horseback for an hour, he decided to change his plans.

The shortest way to Bell Mountain wasn’t the best way to go. Radiating out from Silvertown were roads and trails the miners used, some of them cut right into the sides of the mountains. There was, of course, no trail to the top of Bell Mountain, but there was one that would get you onto the mountain’s shoulders. Even if he went as far afield as Silvertown, Martis on horseback could easily get up the mountain before an old man and two children on foot. And in Silvertown he’d hear news, if there was any news to be heard. It was the only real town in Obann so far east. It had a chamber house and a prester, with servants, who would do much to oblige the servant of Lord Reesh, the First Prester.

Martis turned due east. Night was falling, but he felt no need of sleep. It was a lovely, clear night with enough of a young moon and starlight to allow him to travel for a few hours longer.

It was good to be in this part of the country again, he thought. He’d last crossed it four years ago on his way to visit the Waal Kota. The mountain air wafting down to the plain was like a bracing drink. The oligarch in charge of these lands never stirred from his townhouse in Obann City, and that bred an independent spirit in the people of the hills. It would be pleasant to enjoy a taste of that again before going up the mountain.

Not for a moment did Martis believe that anyone would find an ancient bell atop the summit of Mount Yul, waiting all these centuries for someone to climb up and ring it. Serious scholars doubted whether such a person as King Ozias had ever really existed. But certainly his bell did not exist! Lord Reesh would have to find some other explanation for his dreams.

Suddenly the horse reared up with a shriek, almost pitching Martis from the saddle.

“Down, you filthy Heathen!” he snarled, tugging the reins to control the startled beast. Then he saw what had startled it.

Striding toward him was the bird.

Its beak gaped hungrily; its long, stout legs ate up the ground between them. Frozen for a moment, Martis managed to turn the horse and kick it into a gallop. It needed little encouraging.

But the bird could gallop, too. Bent low over his horse’s neck, Martis cast a look back, over his shoulder. The great killer was gaining on them, coming on impossibly fast for something so massive. He kicked the horse’s ribs and screamed.

“Go, go, go!”

Bred for speed, Dulayl’s horse laid back its ears and tore across the ground. The wind whistled in Martis’ ears and yanked at his hair and whipped it into his eyes; and slowly they left the bird behind. He kept up the gallop long after they were out of sight of it, and only reined in finally because the horse was near to foundering. He pulled up because he had to, or else kill the horse.

“Whoa, Dulayl!”

His own lungs were nearly as empty as the horse’s. Gasping, with his heart hammering against his breastbone, he painfully sat up straight and peered out across the landscape.

Nothing. They were all alone.

He slid from the saddle and sank to his hands and knees, and was sick. He almost passed out, but the taste of bile in his mouth revived him.

What a fool he was, thinking it was the same bird he’d encountered in the woods. There must be a population of them in this country. And yet the woodsman who’d saved him from the outlaws had never seen one.

Martis’ horse hung its head and panted. Lather covered its hide. He’d have to be rubbed down, and the only cloth Martis had was his blanket. He’d have to cut off a piece and use that. But the horse had saved his life; “it” was now “he,” and from now on his name would be Dulayl.

Weakly, Martis staggered to his feet and brought the blanket out of his pack.

“Well done, Dulayl—well done! Your speed saved us,” he gasped, speaking the language of the Heathen in the dialect of the Waal Kota. The horse briefly nuzzled him. Before rubbing him down, Martis gave him a drink of water.

His hands trembled; his knees were like molten wax. Was the whole country full of killer birds, or was he just fantastically unlucky to have run into two of them? How many more would he meet before one of them killed him? He couldn’t bear the thought of that crushing beak closing on his skull—and couldn’t banish it from his mind, either.

“What shall we do, Dulayl?” he said as he rubbed. “If we stay out in the open, you may be able to outrun the birds. If we venture into the woods on the hills, I fear ambush.”

He sighed and fell silent, wiping the lather off the horse’s hide. He could feel Dulayl’s heart beating under his hands. But at last it slowed to normal, and the horse dipped his head to crop a mouthful of grass.

He was almost done with the rubdown when, at an unguessable distance, he heard a harsh cry.

He froze, and his pulse began to pound again. He stood, stiff and still, listening. Dulayl raised his head and pricked up his ears.

Another cry, from a slightly different direction, answered the first. But they’d both come out of the east. Dulayl shifted his feet nervously.

Martis could not have said how he knew it, but those cries were the voices of the giant birds hunting on the plain.

Did they never sleep? Or did the ones living in the forest hunt by day, and the ones on the plain by night?

They’re hunting me, Martis thought. What if they can sniff out my trail and find me when I finally have to sleep?

He wrung out the piece of blanket and put it away. “Come, Dulayl,” he said. “It’s the hills for us, after all.”

He led the horse until he couldn’t walk, then rode until he couldn’t stay awake in the saddle. It was all he could do to remember to hobble Dulayl. He fell asleep on the ground without a fire, still some unknown distance from the hills. And the birds hunted him all through his dreams.

Helki, too, spent the night on the plain; and Helki, too, saw a giant bird.

It stalked right past him, and looked right at him, and opened its massive beak halfway, as if to warn him not to move. Helki stood his ground, returning the bird’s look. He thought that if he had to, he could break the bird’s leg with his staff. But he very much hoped he wouldn’t have to.

The bird made no move in his direction. Whatever it was hunting, it wasn’t him. He watched until it strode out of sight.

Only then did he become aware that he was trembling from head to toe. He threw his staff in the air and caught it, and yowled at the top of his lungs.

“Whee-aaaah!” The whole night rang with it. “Lord God, you have outdone yourself!”

It wasn’t much of a prayer, but that was how Obst had taught him how to pray and that was how he did it. He didn’t know that proper prayers were only to be made in Assembly under the direction of a prester.

To Helki it was a simple matter: wherever these strange new animals were coming from, it was God who had created them. He knew no better than that, and it was enough for him. God had created him, too—so Obst had taught him—along with everything else in the world. He was overjoyed to see a new creation, and an awesome one at that. A bird that big truly took your breath away.

Far too excited even to try to sleep, Helki made a simple camp for the night, ate and drank beside his fire, and talked to God until he was calm enough to stretch out on the grass and close his eyes.