Vault of the Ages (7 page)

It didn’t take long to spot a woodchuck’s burrow—but was the animal at home? Carl fitted an arrow to his bowstring and lay down to wait. The sun crept westward, his nose itched, flies buzzed maddeningly around his sweat-streaked face, but he crouched like a cat until patience was rewarded. The woodchuck crept from its hole, Carl’s bow twanged, and he slung his prey at his belt. Nice fat one. But it would take more than that to feed ten people. Carl went on his way.

He shot at a squirrel and missed, not feeling too sorry about it, for he liked the impudent red dwarfs. Scrambling along a slope, he met
a porcupine and added it to his bag. The hill went down to a thin, trickling brook which he followed, picking up a small turtle on the way. Mixed food tonight. But not very much yet, even if Tom and Owl were ranging elsewhere…

Hold—what was that, up ahead?

Carl splashed along the brook until it ran off a stony bluff into a broad, quiet pool under the mournful guarding of a willow thicket. The ground about the water hole was muddy with trampling. This was where some worthwhile game drank! Carl didn’t care to wait alone for it after dark. He knew the large difference between courage and foolishness. Next evening he and someone else could return. The caravan wouldn’t be many miles away then, he thought impatiently.

No—wait! Something else—

Carl chuckled to himself as he saw the broad, hard-packed trail running from the pool. A cowpath, but it was the rangy, dangerous herds of woods-running wild cattle which had beaten that road, through the forest. He knew that such trails often ran nearly straight for a score of miles. If this one did, the wagons could follow it, the trek home would become easy and swift, and …

Skirting the pool, he ran down the trail at a long lope to check. What if he didn’t bring back any more game? This news was worth a hungry night. He’d follow the path a mile or two to make sure. The trees flowed past, and evening quiet dropped over the land, muffling all but the calling of birds and the soft thud of his own moccasined feet, running and running.

When he stopped, wiping the sweat from his face and laughing aloud in glee—yes, the trail could easily be used—he grew aware that the shadows were very long. In his excitement he’d gone farther than was wise and now he couldn’t make it back before nightfall.

“Stupid,” he muttered. But there had, after all, not been much choice, and in any case he had little to fear. He started back, walking this time. The sunset air was cool on his face and under his wet shirt. He shivered and hastened his steps.

Night deepened as the sun went under the hills. Shadows ebbed and flowed around him, creeping from the brake, flooding softly between the trees. A single pure star blinked forth, white in the dusk-blue sky over the trail. An owl hooted and a wildcat squalled answer, far off in the woods. Somewhere a deer ran off in terror. It
could be near or far, the leaves played strange tricks with sound, and now the very light was becoming as queer and magical. Carl thought of the godling spirits which were said to haunt the lonely glens. A thin white streamer of mist curled before him, and in spite of his City-strengthened doubts, he muttered a guardian charm.

Willows hung dark against a glooming heaven, the pool was up ahead and fog was smoking out of it to blur the last remnants of sight. Carl picked a slow way through the weeping branches, skirting the white, mysterious glimmer of mist and water.

Something moved in the twilight. Carl stiffened and an icy flash stabbed along his spine. The thing ahead was a deeper blot of darkness, rippling and flowing as if it were a mist-wraith too, but it was big, it was huge, and the last wan light threw back a cold green look of eyes.

Carl backed up, hefting his spear, until he stood in the cow trail again. The beast edged out of the thicket and crouched. Its tail lashed and a growl rumbled in its throat.

A tiger!

There were not many of the huge striped cats this far north, but they were cursed and dreaded as killers of sheep and cattle and sometimes men. To the tribes, there had always been tigers—they had no way of knowing that these were the descendants of animals escaped from zoos in the Doom. This one must have been lying in wait for the herds to come to drink, and was angered by Carl’s disturbance, angry enough, perhaps, to look on him as a meal.

Slowly, hardly daring to move, Carl leaned his spear against the tree at his back. It wouldn’t do much good if the beast charged. He drew out a fistful of arrows, slipped the bow off his shoulder, and strung it with one gasping motion. It was a better weapon.

The tiger snarled, flattening its belly to the ground. The smell of blood from the bag of game at Carl’s waist must have stirred its hunter’s heart. The boy fitted an arrow to the string and drew the bow taut. His pulse roared in his ears.

The tiger crept nearer.

The bow sang, and the tiger screamed and launched itself. Carl sprang aside almost as he shot. The tiger hit the ground where he had been and threshed about, biting at the arrow in its shoulder. Carl picked another arrow off the ground where he had thrown them, drew the bow and let loose. He couldn’t see in the murk if he had hit or not. The tiger staggered to its feet, growling. Before the tawny
thunderbolt could strike again, Carl’s bow had hummed afresh.

The tiger screamed again and turned away. Yelling, Carl groped for another arrow. He fired and missed, but the beast was loping in a three-legged retreat. As Carl sank shaking to the ground, he felt blood hot and wet beneath him.

If the tiger lived, he thought without exultation—he was still too frightened himself for that—it would have a proper respect for mankind.

The thought continued as he resumed his way. It wasn’t the animals which man had to fear. Tiger, bear, snake, even the terrible dog packs could not face human fire and metal. Slowly, as men hewed down the wilderness, its snarling guardians were driven back. Their fight was hopeless.

And in the City, it had began to dawn on him that not even the supernatural, demons and ghosts and the very gods, threatened men. The powers of night and storm, flood and fire and drought and winter, were still a looming terror, but they had been conquered once by the ancients and they could be harnessed again.

No, man’s remorseless and deadly foe was only—himself.

But
that
enemy was old and strong and crafty. It had brought to agonized wreck the godlike civilization of the ancients. Today, in the form of taboo and invading barbarians, it was risen afresh, and seemed all too likely to win.

Overwhelming despair replaced Carl’s fear. Could the children of light ever win? he thought. Must the Dalesmen go down in flame and death before the trampling horses of Lann? Must the last gasp of ancient wisdom rust away in darkness? Could there ever be a victory?

F
OLLOWING
the wild cattle trail, John’s party took only another day and a half to get through the western forest to the point where he had meant to strike east for Dalestown. The wagons lay in the cover of brush at the edge of cultivation, while Tom and Carl rode out to find if the settled lands were still free.

The boys returned jubilantly by sundown. “There’s been no fighting around here,” said Carl. “As far as the people we talked to know, the Lann haven’t gotten farther yet than the northern border.”

“That’s far enough,” said John bleakly. Strain and sorrow had made him gaunt in the last few days. His eyes were hollow and he seldom smiled. But he nodded his unkempt head now. They’d have a safe passage to Dalestown; that was something.

At dawn the caravan stirred, and wagons creaked through long, dew-wet grass until they emerged in open country and found one of the pitted dirt roads of the tribe. There Carl took his leave of them. “You don’t need me any longer,” he said. “There are no enemies here, and the farmers will give you food and shelter. But it will take you perhaps two days to reach the town, and I have news for my father which can scarcely wait.”

“Aye, go then—and thank you, Carl,” said John.

“Father, how about letting me go along?” asked Owl. “It’s just driving from here on, no work—and it’s awful slow!”

A tired, lopsided smile crossed the man’s bearded face. “All right, Jim,” he agreed. “And I daresay Tom would like to follow. I’ll meet you in town, boys.”

The red-haired lad flashed a grin. “Thanks,” he said. “I just want to see people’s faces when Carl shows them that magic light.”

The three friends saddled their horses and trotted swiftly down the road. Before long, the wagons were lost to sight and they rode alone.

The country was fair with hills, and valleys green with ripening crops, tall, windy groves of trees, the metal blink of streams and lakes, and shadows sweeping over the sunlit breadth of land. The farms were many, and wooden fences held the sleek livestock grazing in pastures. Most of the homes were the usual log cabins, larger or smaller depending on the wealth of the man and the size of his family, but some of the richer estates had two-story houses of stone and square-cut timbers. Now and again the travelers passed through a hamlet of four or five buildings—a smithy, a trading post, a water-powered mill, a Doctor’s house—but otherwise the Dales lay open. Smoke rose blue and wing-ragged from chimneys, and farmers hailed the boys as they went past.

Carl noticed that workers in the yards and the fields were almost entirely women, children, and old men. Those of fighting age were marshaled at Dalestown. And even these peaceful stay-at-homes carried spears and axes wherever they went. The shadow of war lay dark over the people.

On rested horses, the ride to town took only a day. In the late afternoon, Carl topped a high ridge and saw his goal in the valley below him.

Not much more than a village as the ancients had reckoned such things, it was still the only real town that the tribe had. Here the folk came to barter and make merry; here the Chief and the High Doctor lived, and the tribesmen met to vote on laws and action; here the four great seasonal feasts were held each year; and here the warriors assembled in time of danger. That was the first thing Carl noticed as his eyes swept the scene: tents and wooden booths clustered about the town to house the men, wagons drawn up and horses grazing in the fields, smoke of cooking fires staining the sky. As he rode down the hill, he caught the harsh reflection of sunlight on naked iron.

A twenty-foot stockade rising out of high banks enclosed Dalestown in four walls. At each corner stood a wooden watchtower, with
catapults and stone-throwing engines mounted just under the roof. In each wall, gates of heavy timber, reinforced with metal, protected the entrances. The town had fought off enemy attacks before. Carl hoped it would not have to do so again.

He and his friends picked a threading way between the camps of the warriors. It was a brawling, lusty sight, with beardless youths and scarred old veterans swarming over the trampled grass. Sitting before their tents, they sharpened weapons and polished armor. Some were gathered about a fire and sang to the strum of a banjo while the evening meal bubbled in a great kettle. Others wrestled, laughed and bragged of what they would do, but Carl saw many who sat quiet and moody, thinking of the defeat in the north and wondering how strong the wild horsemen of Lann were.

The main gate, on the south side, stood open, and a restless traffic swirled back and forth between the armed guards. One of them hailed the Chief’s son: “Hi, there, Carl! So you’re back? I thought the devils in the City would have eaten you.”

“Not yet, Ezzef.” Carl smiled at the young pikeman, gay in red cloak and polished iron cuirass. Ezzef was one of the Chief’s regular guardsmen, who ordinarily existed to keep order in the town. Carl and he had long been friends.

“No, you’re too ornery to make a decent meal.” More soberly, Ezzef came over to stand at Carl’s stirrup and look up into his dusty, sun-darkened face. “Did you make the bargain, Carl? Will the witch-men forge for us?”

“The Chief has to know first. It’s a long story,” said the boy, turning his eyes away. He didn’t want to start panic among the men by rumors of the City people’s refusal, or premature hopes by tales of magic powers.

Ezzef nodded gravely and went back to his post, and Carl began to realize the loneliness of a leader. He couldn’t share his journey with this old comrade—the tribe had to come before any one man—but it was hard. He clicked his tongue, and the pony moved forward again, shoving slowly through the crowds.

Within the stockade, Dalestown was a jumble of wooden houses through which muddy streets wound a narrow way. It had its own wells and cisterns, and Ralph had, several years before, caused others to be made so that fire fighters would always have water close at hand. One bit of ancient wisdom which the Doctors told the people was that filth meant plague, so there were public baths and
the Chief paid men to haul away wastes. But with all those who had crowded in since the first threat of war, that system was in danger of breakdown.

As Carl rode down High Street, between the tall, overhanging walls of buildings gaudily painted under splashes of mud, he saw the same confusion of people he had known and loved all his life. Here, a rich merchant passed by, dressed in furs and gold chains, borne in a litter by four half-naked servants. There, a group of children tumbled and rolled in the dust; a mongrel yapped at their play. Yonder came a housewife, her long skirts lifted above the littered street, a baby strapped into a carrying-cradle on her back. A wandering juggler, his lean body clad in fantastically colored rags, a banjo slung next to his ribs, brushed shoulders with a sober-faced young Doctor in the long blue robe of his order, carrying a bag of magical instruments. Circled by the perpetual bustle, a tall, black-skinned trader in clothes of foreign cut, come from the southern tribes to barter his cotton or fruit or tobacco for the furs and leather of the Dales, was talking to a white-bearded old farmer who stood unmoving in his wooden shoes, puffing a long-stemmed pipe. A bulky guard was warning two drunken warriors to behave themselves; a wagonload of fine timber moved slowly toward some carpenter’s shop; and a horse tamer edged his half-broken mount carefully through the swarm.