The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain) (19 page)

Men sprang up all over. Those who rose up with weapons in their hands went down with arrows in their breasts.

“I’ve got fifty expert archers covering you fellows, so don’t move, if you want to live,” Helki said. “My business is with Latt, man to man—if he is a man, and not a cringing coward. Where are you, Latt? Don’t tell me you’re hiding under a blanket!”

He wasn’t. Latt stood up while all of his men sat down—ugly, squat, his hands balled into huge fists, quivering all over, too angry to be frightened, or just too foolish. Helki towered over him; but if you could have seen them both, you might have been the more afraid of Latt. Helki was a hunter, but this man was a murderer.

“I’m calling you out, Squint-eye,” Helki said. “The rest of you men, you all know the rules. I’ve called him out, and no one else can interfere. Somebody toss your chief a sword or spear, so he can die fighting.”

A man offered Latt a sword, but that only enraged him further. “A spear, you idiot!” he snarled. “I’ll stick him like a pig!” But Latt knew a man with a sword stood no chance against Helki and his rod.

He soon had a spear in his hand, a long spear used for hunting wild boars, and his men hurried to crawl out of the way.

Latt knew what he was doing with a spear, and his rage gave him courage. He would have quickly slain an ordinary man, but Helki was no ordinary man. The rod swept the spear aside, whooshed loudly in a wicked arc, and brought to a swift and sudden end Latt’s long career of lawlessness and murder. The fight didn’t last a minute.

“Anyone else care to try his luck tonight?” Helki waited for a challenge, but no one offered one. He raised his voice louder. “Who’s chief of this outfit now?”

A moment of hesitation; and then, from one man, then another, “You are!” And at last from them all, and not without enthusiasm:

“You are! You are!”

“Burned right I am,” said Helki.

As the army marched, Obst fell into a deep meditation. He could do that and still keep walking. This amazed Ryons, who waited anxiously to catch him if he stumbled.

“What’s he doing?” asked an Abnak warrior who marched along with them, guarding against their escape.

“Shh! He’s walking with God.”

The warrior’s eyebrows went up. “Oh! Shaman stuff.”

“Shows how much you know!” Ryons said. “He’s no shaman. He hasn’t got time for the puny gods that shamans know. His god would just laugh at all that dancing around and screaming that shamans do.”

The plain upon which they marched wasn’t much different from the plains on the east side of the mountains, except for one thing. Not far ahead, and a little to the north, there rose a brown, flat-topped hill. Ryons knew from Obst that it wasn’t a hill at all, but the remains of an ancient city. The plain was dotted with them. God destroyed those cities long ago, Obst said. The men who’d built them and lived in them were wiser and mightier than men today, Obst said: “Wise enough to become fools.”

Before the discussion of shamans could get very far, there was a distraction. A few men were running back and forth, spreading news throughout the army.

“What’s up?” the guard called to the nearest runner, a half-naked Fazzan in a wolf’s-head cap.

“Don’t know—but be ready to make camp. Some of our horsemen just came in, and they were in a big hurry. We might have fighting soon!” And he ran on to spread the word to others.

The chieftains very soon called a halt to the march, and up went the big black tent, a sure sign that they were going to hold a council. Ryons shook Obst out of his reverie.

“We’ve stopped,” Obst said, looking all around and blinking.

“Some scouts came in,” Ryons told him. “I wonder when we’ll find out what it’s all about.”

They didn’t have to wait long. A warrior came to fetch Obst; the chiefs wanted to see him. Ryons went with him.

“This time make them give you a stool so you can sit down,” the boy said. “Don’t act like a slave. They’ll have more respect for you if you don’t.”

“I don’t think about things like that,” Obst said.

“Well, you should. You want them to listen to you, don’t you?”

They found the chieftains with some of the Wallekki scouts standing before them, men drenched with sweat, who’d ridden hard to get there. Ryons found Uduqu and tugged on his arm. “Make them give my master a seat,” he said. “He’s old, and he’s been marching all day.” Uduqu ducked into the crowd and returned with a stool. He planted it before the chieftains, and none of them objected when he maneuvered Obst into it.

“We need the help of your god, old man,” Chief Shaffur said. “Two of these men before us are scouts attached to another army. They scouted for Zephites from the north, who have no horsemen of their own. They’ve deserted the Zeph and come to us with tidings.”

“The Thunder King is angry with us,” Szugetai said. He looked angry himself.

“The mardar who commands the Zeph has commanded them to attack us,” Shaffur said. “He pulled them out of a fight against a city on the river. It seems the Great Man knows what happened to our own mardar. Now he means to punish us. The Zeph move fast. They’ll be here by this time tomorrow.”

“A lot of them will stay here, too—forever,” Chief Spider said.

“What must we do, to be sure of your god’s protection?” Shaffur demanded.

What a time for a theology lesson, Obst thought. How was he to answer? He rose from his stool and held up his palms. “My chieftains,” he said, “there is nothing for you to do but join with me in prayer, here and now. We must submit ourselves to God and ask for His protection.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Who ever heard of a god who doesn’t demand sacrifices!” snapped Szugetai.

“My God doesn’t, warlord,” Obst answered. “There’s nothing you can give Him that He doesn’t already own. What He desires is for you, of your own free will, to confess that you belong to Him.

“So let us pray. I’ll lead you. All you have to do is close your eyes and raise your hands to heaven. Open your hearts to the true God. When I’ve finished saying the prayer, just say, ‘Amen.’”

And so, for the first time ever, the men of a dozen Heathen nations prayed to the true God. Ryons closed his eyes and reached for heaven; and a very strange thing happened to him.

Immediately after all the chieftains said “Amen,” the boy cried out, “My lords! My masters! God has shown me something—I know what He wants us to do!” And Obst’s heart sank; but the chieftains waited on Ryons’ words.

“My masters,” he said, “I’ve heard of these Zephites, and it’s true they have no horsemen. That’s why the Wallekki have to lend them scouts.

“There is a hill up ahead of us, a big one with a flat top. We should go there right away! Let the Abnaks, and all the others who like to fight on foot, line up along the top of the hill where the Zeph can see them. Let a few men with firepots hide in places where the grass is long, down below.

“When the Zephites see you waiting for them on the hilltop, they’ll attack. Set fire to the grass, then. It’s not dry enough to burn well, but the fires will make it look like you’re desperate.

“But let the Wallekki, and Szugetai and his men, and everybody else who fights on horseback, gather on the far side of the hill, where the Zeph won’t see them. Once the battle has started on the slopes, let the horsemen charge out from behind the hill, half of them from the east, half from the west. The Zephites won’t expect it, and you’ll have them—like that!” He clapped his hands together, making Obst flinch.

For a long moment no one said anything. Then Shaffur, with an angry glare, looked to all the other chieftains. “Are we to be schooled in warfare by a child, and a slave?” he said.

But Szugetai barked out a laugh, and smacked his own knees. “It’s a good plan—I like it!” he said. “We’ll catch them going up and coming down.”

“It’ll serve them right for attacking us,” Spider said. “I won’t mind fighting on a hilltop, but just make sure you horsemen come along before we kill them all.”

Shaffur frowned at Ryons. “You say the westmen’s god showed you this, boy—while we were praying?”

“It’s true, warlord. Would I dare to speak, otherwise? You’d kill me if I lied.”

“But why did the god show this to you, and not to him?” Shaffur pointed at Obst.

“Well, He’s my god, too!” Ryons said. And the Abnak chieftains laughed so loud no one else could say anything.

“Did God really show you all those things?” Obst asked, as the army marched toward the hill. “I must warn you, it’s a grave sin to tell lies in His name. He is a God of truth.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Ryons said. “I was praying, like everybody else, and all of a sudden I saw the hill, with men on it waiting to fight; and I saw the horsemen waiting on the other side.”

“What do you mean, you
saw
?”

“What’s the matter? You’re angry.”

“I can’t help it,” Obst said. “You’re too free with your mouth. Bad enough to speak like that to men who might decide to kill us because you’ve annoyed them. But God is greater than man! How can I make you understand?”

“I wasn’t making it up. And it wasn’t a daydream, either. Why don’t you believe me? Why wouldn’t God show me what He wants us to do? And if He didn’t show me those things, who did?”

There was no way to answer that. Obst patted the boy’s shoulder.

“I suppose stranger things than that have happened lately,” he said. “You’ve always believed in me. I’ll try to believe in you.”

Ryons had never seen a battle, only a few duels between young Wallekki men touchy about their honor. The Wallekki liked to recite long poems and sing long songs about great battles, but they seldom managed to arrange one.

So he was excited the next morning, as he waited on the flat hilltop beside Obst among the Abnaks, in the place assigned to Uduqu and his clan. As the sun rose, they could all see the cloud of dust in the north that betokened the coming of the Zeph. On the south side of the hill, men waved banners to signal to the riders that the enemy had been sighted.

When the men of the advancing army could actually be seen, the Abnaks launched into a frightful racket, like a pit-full of wild dogs fighting with demons. It was their way of preparing for a hard fight, Uduqu explained. “We sing out the names of all our ancestors and the names of enemies they killed, so that they’ll know that many of us will soon be joining them.”

He had a stone axe and a javelin, and all the Abnaks had long knives. The Fazzan would fight with spears and leather shields. They howled like wolves—“for religious reasons of their own,” Uduqu said. “The Fazzan are very funny people.”

Obst stood as straight as a spear, praying; his lips moved, but Ryons couldn’t hear the words. The Zeph came on fast, and now Ryons could see they really did look like shaggy bulls on two legs. And then the men in hiding down below set fire to the grass, and the smoke blew into the enemy’s faces, and the battle was joined.

It all turned out just as Ryons had seen it in his mind’s eye, yesterday. Infuriated by the smoke and by the taunts of the men atop the hill, the Zeph swarmed across the plain and up the slope. There were more men there than Ryons had ever seen in his life, more than he thought existed. Old Uduqu shrieked in triumph when he hurled his javelin and hit his mark. He waved his axe over his head and dared the Zephites to come up and get it.

At just the right time, the horsemen charged from around both sides of the hill and took the Zeph in the rear and on the flanks. For them there was no way up the hill, and no way down. By the end of the day, Szugetai had taken the head of the Zephites’ mardar with his own hands, and the few survivors of the great northern host had fled in all directions, leaving the slopes and the flat ground blanketed with dead and wounded. For the Abnaks and the Fazzan had charged down the hill and crushed their enemies.

Going into the dusk, exultation kept the victors on their feet. The Wallekki heaped a vast number of Zeph helmets into a trophy. The chieftains came for Obst and Ryons and set them on litters made of spears and shields, and had men parade them all around the hilltop while the entire army cheered in a dozen different languages.