Return of the Guardian-King (67 page)
A group of men were coming up that weed-grown lane now, heading straight toward him, their unsteady gaits marking them as recent arrivals. About three-quarters of the way up the slope, a voice commanded them in Kiriathan to stop and settle. Trap was close enough to hear them grumbling about how badly they felt. Some collapsed where they stood, while others broke from the ranks and staggered away as the dry heaves took them. The majority settled without incident and fell immediately to sleep.
The commander, who wore the trappings of a high-ranking nobleman, continued walking with his attending lieutenants up the hill toward Trap. He was a tall, muscular fellow, if somewhat soft looking, with white blond hair that flowed about his shoulders like a cape. He wore a beard similar to Abramm’s and also had two ragged pink scars slashing down the left side of his face. In fact, except for the hair and the soft look, he resembled Abramm a good deal. Deliberately, it would seem.
They were ten strides apart when the Kiriathan looked straight into Trap’s eyes, and the latter’s heart stopped. It was Gillard Kalladorne, false king of Kiriath. Shock turned swiftly to alarm with Trap’s awareness that his own face was clearly visible, the cowl of his cloak useless since he was directly in line with the corridor’s green light. Though he saw no sign of recognition in the other’s eyes, he turned sharply aside to skirt the bowl’s perimeter, waiting for the uproar to begin.
When no one shouted after him, he began to breathe again. Gillard had clearly come through without aid of any drugs, which meant he had to be indwelt by a rhu’ema—but that wouldn’t account for his failure to recognize Trap. Was he just so preoccupied with his own affairs he hadn’t seen what by all rights shouldn’t have been there anyway? Or perhaps it had something to do with the treasure Trap carried in the rucksack on his back. . . ?
Not wanting to test his theories, he continued around the bowl’s perimeter, widening the distance between himself and the Kiriathans as his mind erupted with new questions. What was Gillard—or Makepeace, or whatever the plague his name was now—doing here? Didn’t he have weak bones? Or was that eased when he was made big again? Which was another thing. He looked as big as he’d always been. Yes, Trap had heard the rumors of his restoration, but he’d also seen the wasted waif Gillard had become after his encounter with the morwhol. It had to be rhu’eman magic, which meant the king of Kiriath was unquestionably in the Shadow’s grip now.
North of the corridor’s basin, the land was cluttered with the random remains of an ancient complex of rooms. Walls rose out of the grass, ran along a ways, then ended. Others formed a grid of roofless chambers in which a few soldiers had laid out their bedrolls but which mostly stood empty, perhaps owing to the fact the place was infested with staffid. Beyond it, the terrain stepped up in a series of rocky ledges and steep slopes to the head of a long, low ridge heading north and east.
Having put enough distance between himself and Gillard, and not wanting to stray too far from his objective, Trap turned down a narrow lane back through the ruin toward the corridor, turning into one of the roofless chambers at the last—
And finding his way blocked by the dark form of a man. He looked up into a pair of pale eyes in a face limned with green and sensed the knife flashing low between them more than he saw it. As he twisted backward and blocked the blow, white light flared from their contact, brilliantly illuminating the wall, the big man before him, and two others.
Simultaneously, the corridor in the basin below them stuttered and flared. Cries of alarm issued from the priests surrounding the corridor, all of which brought the combatants to a startled halt. Then a veren shrieked and they fled for cover. The big man grabbed Trap by the shoulder. As they fled for cover, Trap had enough sense not to fight him. He was almost certain these men were Abramm’s—or whoever the newly arrived field commander was.
He was funneled down a narrow passage, then shoved forward on his belly and forced through a crawlway into a hollowed-out chamber not quite tall enough for him to stand up in, and impossible for the bigger man who’d brought him here. They sat in the dust and confronted him.
“Ye’re Terstan, then? From Fannath Rill?” the big man asked him quietly.
“From the queen,” Trap confirmed. “Are you some of Abramm’s men?”
The big man frowned. “Why’d ye think that? Ever’one knows Abramm’s workin’ out t’ the west.”
“No,” Trap said. “We don’t know it’s Abramm for sure. There’ve been many stories. Many imposters.” He paused as a sudden thought hit him. “If he’s out there, though, I have a message for him. From his wife.”
The big man frowned at him, then glanced at one of the others, plainly doubtful.
“We don’t have time fer this,” one of them said.
The big man grimaced. “Gag him and tie him up fer now.”
“No!” Trap said in sudden alarm, aghast to realize if he didn’t destroy the corridor, the queen would not have her distraction. “I need—” Caution stayed his words. He didn’t, in fact, know for sure who these men were. Best not reveal too much, especially not anything about Maddie. “I need to see him now,” Trap said as the men at his back seized him and bound his wrists securely.
“Well, ye’re not gonna,” the big man told him. “Fer all we know ye’re one o’ those that just came through the corridor with ol’ King Makepeace.”
“I’d be in a stupor if that were—” He was cut off as the gag wrapped around his mouth.
“What d’ ya suppose is in that rucksack?” one of the other men asked, plucking at it.
Oh, Eidon, please. Don’t let them open it here
.
“I dunno,” the big man said. “We’ll look later. Put ‘im here between us, where he can’t cause any harm.” He patted Trap’s arm. “If what ye’re sayin’ is true, we’ll let ye go in good time. Fer now, though, we’ve got work t’ do, and ye can’t be interruptin’.”
“Here comes another batch of ’em,” said one of the others as the annoying tingle of the corridor’s power field intensified and the green light flared all around them.
That night, lying between the two men, gagged and bound, Trap endured some of the most frustrating hours of his existence. He had to lift his head back at an uncomfortable angle to see anything, and he spent most of the time with his cheek to the smoke-tainted ground, staring at the small, darkhaired man beside him. And moment by moment his opportunity to destroy the corridor slipped away. He could only pray Maddie and the others had escaped despite the loss of his distraction—and try not to think about the effect his apparent failure would have upon his wife.
At least no one had mentioned looking into his rucksack again, though the thought of that, too, weighed upon him. Now that he’d had time to think, he couldn’t imagine why he had let these men take him. The slimmest promise that they might bring him to Abramm had clouded his mind. Now here he was, completely taken out of action because of something that probably wouldn’t even pan out. He’d compromised the queen’s escape and worse, for eventually someone would open the rucksack. And then . . .
Another thought that didn’t bear pursuing.
From their position on the side of the basin they could see the great throng of robed, bald priests around the corridor, their red robes turned brown in the green light. They had chanted and hummed and moaned all night long, bringing in troop after troop of men, interspersed with yet another catapult or battering ram or load of food—tubers and grain, half cooked by their journey.
Trap dozed in and out of sleep, awakened finally when the corridor’s tooth-gritting buzz softened and lowered its pitch. Looking up, he found the column of emerald light had shrunk, the priests collapsing where they stood. Burly men in dark uniforms carried them away as new priests replaced them, though in a quarter of the original number.
“Looks like they’re finishin’ up,” said the big man. From his conversations with the others, Trap had figured out his name was Rollie. “Prob’bly brought a thousand men through tonight.”
“Aye, but they’re havin’ t’ drug ’em more,” said the small, dark-haired one. “Look how fast they’re fallin’ now after they come through an’ how long it takes ’em to wake up again. The king’s right. Things are breakin’ down.”
Rollie turned Trap over then and freed him of bindings and gag. “Ye want to deliver yer message t’ the king, friend,” he warned, “ye’d best keep silent and move along with us. If ye do anythin’ else, we’ll kill ye where ye stand.”
They stole out of the camp in the same manner as Trap had entered it— they simply walked, four out of a multitude of soldiers. There were so many different races and languages, had anyone stopped them they’d only need claim to be looking for their home company and they’d have been left alone.
Eventually they strode away through the loosely guarded rear line and up the low, rocky rise beyond, the overcast already lightening with the dawn. Once out of sight of the camp, they stopped to discuss whether Trap should be blindfolded—the two subordinates for, Rollie against. “It’ll take too much time to lead him along blind. If he’s lyin’, Abramm’ll deal with him.”
The name spoken sent a tingle up Trap’s spine, for it was the first admission from these men that they were indeed Abramm’s. Not that the man they called Abramm was necessarily the real thing, but Trap was eager to meet him, nevertheless. Maybe tonight hadn’t been as much of a disaster as he’d feared.
From a distance, the Fairiron Plain looked flat as a board, but on foot, especially as it approached the Deveren Rim to the northwest, one learned it abounded with deep, steep-walled channels and rocky outcroppings, many of them riddled with caves. It was here that the harassing army had encamped, virtually unseen until one was in the middle of it.
Abramm—or whoever he was—was not where Rollie expected him to be, but the men he talked to sent him out of the cave that appeared to be their command center and along a second steep-walled gully to a sketchy path switchbacking up a rocky, weed-grown slope. They came out on a broad shelf extending from the slope’s side, forty feet above the plain now.
At the shelf’s far end, one man had squatted to draw in the dust with a stick as a group of others clustered about him, watching. Telling Trap to wait where he was, Rollie strode rapidly across the flat to join the others.
After a moment the man who’d been squatting stood up, head and shoulders taller than the rest with shaggy blond hair, a honey-colored beard, and a plaited crown of white gold resting on his brow. One look and Trap felt the ground lurch beneath his feet. He stared hard at the hawkish profile, the dark brows, those familiar scars, not pink as marks recently made would have been, but white and thin and almost unnoticeable from a distance. He had to admit, the man looked and moved an awful lot like Abramm.
The king spoke to his men for some time, turning toward the plain and the army and the besieged city stretching away from them, gesturing right and left as they discussed their battle plans. Only when that came to an end did Rollie finally approach him. The two spoke at length, presumably about the corridor, but Trap saw the moment he himself was mentioned. The king’s head drew up sharply, and he stepped around the blacksmith to look at Trap.
Then he was striding across the hummocked ground to meet him.
Trap watched him come in a state of shock and lingering disbelief. But when his old friend finally stood before him, and it was well and truly Abramm, who had died in Trap’s heart and now came to life again, all the shock and pain and disbelief fell away like an old skin and he laughed aloud as they embraced.
Oh, Maddie, you were right all along! And soon now, if Eidon
allows, your faith will be rewarded
.
“Is she in Fannath Rill, then?” Abramm asked as they pulled apart.
No need to say whom he meant. “I expect not, if she kept her promise,” Trap said. He explained their plan as his eyes roamed across his friend’s face, noting the lines around his blue eyes and the white hair at his temples, though he was still only thirty-five. He was all lean, hard, chiseled muscle, too, his skin burned dark from months of living in the field, aged by his trials, perhaps, but stronger and more alive than ever.
“Rolland said you have a message for me,” he said when Trap had finished. Behind him, his men had approached curiously, listening in on the conversation. Abramm didn’t seem to mind.
Trap flashed a sheepish grin at Rolland. “No. I just . . . didn’t want him to kill me.” He paused, remembering. “Gillard’s out there, Abramm. With a troop of Kiriathans. More than one troop, probably. I ran into them just after they’d come through the corridor.”
Abramm shrugged. “I’m not surprised. And at least this way all my enemies will be in one place.” He returned to the original topic. “You say Maddie should reach Deveren Dol in three or four days?”
“Barring any unforeseen disasters.” Like Carissa suddenly going into labor. . . .
Don’t think of that!
“Her counselors plan to open the city gates and offer their surrender in three days.”
Abramm nodded. “And what if Belthre’gar attacks first?”
“They’ll hold on that long, at least. They have to. If she doesn’t get away, it’ll all be for naught. . . .” He trailed off.
Abramm gazed now across the plain, thinking. Finally he straightened and said, “You’re right about Belthre’gar’s position deteriorating. His more seasoned soldiers are already starting to desert. He can’t hold out much longer. But at the same time, he’ll have to wait a couple of days for the new arrivals to be recovered enough to fight.”
He turned to Rollie and another man with a pocked face, an eye patch, and a Chesedhan lilt to his speech, asking them about the degree of preparation in some area of a pre-existing plan Trap knew nothing about. When they responded favorably, Abramm made his decision. “We’ll assume the queen’s gotten away clean. I want us ready to attack in three days. See the word is passed.”
As his two commanding officers hurried off, Abramm glanced at his former First Minister. “If he moves before then, we’ll just wait and let him wear out his men before we go wading in.” With a grin, he turned and led the way down the slope.
