The Hero King (14 page)

“I know you think that either you’re crazy or we are,” I told the Ingelses while Aaron was getting the writing supplies. “But I can offer you a refuge from all this. The four of us have to go on toward St. Louis. We’re trying to find my wife’s family. But we can get you to a place of safety before we go on. And maybe we can do something to counteract whatever radiation you’ve been exposed to.”

“More magic?” Charley asked.

I nodded. “We can get you through to Varay. I’ll give you a note to give to Baron Kardeen, the chamberlain. There’s a doctor handy, another wizard, and plenty of everything. It’s a good place, but a bit primitive.”

Charley looked at his wife, spoke to her. “Whether we’re crazy or not, we’ve got to play the cards the way they’re dealt.” She nodded.

Aaron brought me a small notebook and a pen.

“This is going to take a few minutes, so you might as well finish eating,” Aaron said. “Lesh and I have to build a doorway first.”

I just nodded, but the Ingelses exchanged another of those who’s-crazy-here? looks. They went right back to their eating, though. Little Charley had already finished. He shook his head when Lesh asked him if he wanted more.

I started my note to Kardeen, telling him how we had come across the Ingels family and asking him to see that they had what they needed until we got back. I heard pounding behind me. When I looked, Aaron was holding a sapling across two other trees, about seven feet off the ground. Lesh was pounding nails, and I have no idea where
they
came from unless Aaron conjured them up, to hold the cut tree in place against the two that were still in the ground.

“Why is he building a doorway?” Mary Ingels asked.

“We have a magic that lets some of us open a passage between a door in one place and a door in a different place. That’s how we get between Varay and this world, and we do some of our traveling in Varay the same way. He needs a doorway, a
frame
, for the magic.”

I finished the note to Kardeen with a warning that there might be others coming through the same way. I knew I couldn’t ship off everyone we might come across, but I wouldn’t rule out sending some. Varay always needed people.

I folded the paper and started to hand it to Charley, but Lesh was there at my side with a burning candle, to drip wax on the letter so I could put my seal on it. The signet ring. I wasn’t used to that. Every time I saw somebody standing at my side ready to drip wax on paper, it gave me a start.

“Show this to whoever you see first at Castle Basil,” I said while I pressed the ring into the wax. “Tell them to take you to Baron Kardeen. The letter will pretty much stop any questions before you get to him, and he’ll take care of everything afterward.”

“Baron Kardeen,” Charley repeated when he accepted the letter.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Just tell the guard or whoever you meet first that the king gave you the letter,” Lesh said. “The whole family has the rings.”

Charley nodded.

“One thing Varay needs is someone who knows how to build bridges,” I said, smiling. “Nothing very big or fancy maybe, but bridges.”

“Might be nice to get back to practical engineering,” Charley said, looking at his wife. “The only thing I’ve built in the last six years is a barbecue.”

“We’re ready,” Aaron said. The Ingelses and I stood.

“I’ll probably be a few weeks yet before I get back, but don’t worry about anything. It’s a good place.”

“Thank you,” Mary said. “I’d about given up all hope.”

“Hope is very precious,” I said.

“Right over here.” Aaron guided them over to his crude doorway. “I’ll open the passage. You’ll notice a sort of green shimmering in it. That’s a radiation shield. Going through it should also take care of any radiation you’ve picked up.”

He touched both sides of the makeshift doorway, and Castle Basil appeared on the other side—which was almost too much for the adult Ingelses to bear. Charley backed away, almost knocking his wife over in the process. Aaron moved to the side, holding the passage open one-handed.

“It
is
magic,” Charley said, looking first at Aaron and then at me.

“Yes, magic,” I said. “When you step through, turn left. That’ll take you in the direction of the great hall.”

Mary clutched her baby tighter against her. She looked at Aaron and me, then at Lesh and Timon. “I never thought I’d see this,” she said. “I never really believed it.”

“Believed what?” Aaron asked.

“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“No!” Aaron said quickly. “We don’t bring famine or death. We’re not those dudes.” I wasn’t even positive what the reference was supposed to mean.

9
Between the Rivers

After we sent the Ingels family through to Varay, we needed another three and a half days to reach the Ohio River west of the Wabash and find an intact bridge. The ride was uneventful, just the way we wanted it. We avoided people along the way, particularly large groups of people. They always seemed to set off my danger sense. And when we camped each night, Aaron wove his spells around us to make us less visible to anyone who might chance on our campsite.

In all those days, we didn’t hear the sound of a single automobile engine, of any sort of engine. There was no high-speed traffic moving on any of the roads. There were no airplanes in the sky. There was nothing.

Thinking about the way we had sent the Ingelses off to Varay started me grumbling about our lack of foresight. I realized that we could have saved ourselves a lot of bother with packhorses. Aaron could have opened a doorway at mealtimes. We could have kept someone watching for us in Varay, have our food and whatever else we might need ready to hand through.

“We might have trouble finding materials to make a doorway, or finding the time to put one together two or three times a day,” Aaron said, trying to stop my grumbling. “And it’s not the easiest magic in the worlds. I’d as soon not have to strain at it several times a day.”

It was still something I should have thought of in advance, even if we had discarded the idea as impractical.

The bridge we found across the Ohio River was a railroad span that looked as though it had been there for a century or longer. How it managed to survive, I’ll never know, but it had. When we approached the bridge, riding along the tracks, my danger sense started to itch. I saw the old bridge and at first assumed that it was the rickety condition of the span that was causing the alarm, the way the bridge over the Tarn at the edge of Basil Town always worried me.

“We’ll have to take a good, long look at this bridge before we cross,” I said.

We were riding slowly, not pushing our horses at all. It was late afternoon and I didn’t see much difference between camping on one side of the river and camping on the other. Staring at the bridge as we got closer, I didn’t really notice the directional shift in my awareness of danger as quickly as I should have. The peril was on both sides of the railroad tracks,
not
out on the bridge.

Two men stepped out of the bushes. Both were armed with shotguns.

We pulled our horses to a stop.

“Well, lookee here,” one of the men said. “Robin Hood and-his merry men.” The men showed the effects of several days in the wild. Both wore jeans and ragged flannel shirts. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with their guns, though.

“Almost,” I said softly, becoming aware of more points of danger to either side. More armed men, I guessed. A small band of post-holocaust entrepreneurs had set themselves up in business.

I rested both of my hands on the pommel of my saddle, resisting the urge to grab for one of my elf swords and charge forward. I was very careful, anxious not to make any sudden moves before I absolutely had to. We had walked into some sort of trap. In this world, that meant that there were probably more guns in the underbrush, all aimed at us.

Stupid, I told myself. You’re so damned used to the Robin Hood crap that you forgot that guns work here and there are people willing to use them against other people.

And while the Hero magic gives me exceptionally quick reflexes, there was no way I could dodge a volley of gunfire coming from several directions at once. Maybe Aaron could, but Lesh and Timon wouldn’t have a chance. I had to find a better way.

“You folks looking to cross over to Illinois?” the same man asked.

“That’s where we’re heading,” I said, nodding in what I hoped was an agreeable manner. Even the pistol under my shirt wouldn’t be much good against a gang of these thugs.

“This here bridge is the only one left crost the Ohio. Ain’t nothing else ‘tween Louisville and Cairo.”

I doubted
that
. If this wreck had survived, I expected that others had as well. Besides, the chances of the only bridge left happening to be just where we needed it to be were too small to bet on, even at long odds.

“Then I guess we were lucky to hit this one right off,” I said. I felt a tingling on my skin, and just at the threshold of hearing, I could hear Aaron starting a chant. I didn’t know what he was preparing, but I hoped I could stall any violence until he was ready to spring his magic.

“This here being the only bridge left, it’s
valuable,”
the thug doing all the talking said. He seemed to get an extra syllable or two into “valuable.” He was standing ahead of me, to the right. “There’s a toll for crossing it.”

Surprise
. “How much?” I asked.

“That depends on just what you got.” This time, it was the other man on the tracks who spoke.

“I’ll tell you want,” I said, still being careful with my voice. “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.” Maybe they never saw
The Godfather
. Or maybe they just weren’t smart enough to pick up the implicit threat. “If you two and all your little friends in the bushes put down your guns and let us cross peaceably, we’ll let you live to rob other folks who are unlucky enough to stumble on you.”

I guess the easy conversational tone puzzled them. They took a moment to react. And then they just laughed. That was as far as they got.

There was a loud clap of thunder immediately behind the two men who were standing on the tracks blocking our path. Twin bolts of fire—I’d really hate to call it lightning—flashed into the brush on both sides of the tracks. The fire flared with impossible speed, erupting for some thirty feet on either side.

With that sort of distraction, the fight was hardly fair. I spurred my horse forward. Electrum was used to noise and light. He responded perfectly. The instant that the two men on the tracks lost looking to see what the explosive noise behind them was lost them their advantage … and their heads. I drew Dragon’s Death and took one long swipe that finished off both of them.

The men hiding in the bushes were routed by the fires. Not one of them managed to get off a single shot. Three of the five men were on fire, or their clothing was. Lesh, Timon, and I waded into the fray. We let two men who threw down their guns and ran go. The others fell quickly.

Aaron hadn’t moved through the engagement. He didn’t need to. He had done his part.

“We should have thought of this kind of thing,” Aaron said after the fighting ended.

“I should have,” I said. “If I hadn’t lost touch with this world, I would have.”

“Did you hear what that sandy-haired one said when he ran off?”

“No,” I said.

“He yelled, ‘It’s the Four Horsemen.’ “

“Again?” I asked.

“It looks like it,” Aaron agreed.

“Just what are these four horsemen supposed to be?” I asked.

“Agents of death, famine, and pestilence. One of the signs of the End of Everything.”
The End of Everything
. Aaron’s use of the phrase was like a kick in the face.

“My folks were big on the Bible,” he explained. “Used to read it to me every night. Made me start memorizing passages when I was only five. And my grandma was even worse.” He made a face. “I always hated that memorizing and reciting but I was afraid to refuse ‘cause I might get sent to hell.” He looked around. “Looks like we might be getting close to there now.”

“Do we cross the river or camp here tonight, sire?” Lesh asked. He’s never been one for abstract discussions.

“We’ll cross,” I said. “With the fires, we may draw more people. Or the two who ran off may find friends and come back. Let’s collect the guns they dropped and pitch them in the river.”

“There may be others like these at the far end of the bridge,” Lesh said.

“It’s possible, but we won’t be caught napping again if there are,” I said. “I’ll lead the way. Let’s keep some distance between us. This bridge still doesn’t look all that sturdy.”

I’ve never been a real big fan of bridges. One of my vague memories of when I was very little concerns bridges. When the family was traveling anywhere by car, I did a lot of sleeping in the backseat. But all we had to do was find a bridge and I woke instantly, especially those bridges with the metal mesh pavement. Our tires wouldn’t have time to complete two revolutions before I was awake.

This railroad bridge was worse. We had to dismount and walk across, leading our horses, trying to keep them calm when they could see through the bridge down to the river, fifty or sixty feet below us. There was a sort of deck along the sides of the tracks, but between the rails there was just the regular spacing of ties, and all that openness between.

Although there didn’t seem to be any real chance of a train running the line so soon after the nuclear exchange, I kept listening, straining for any hint of a locomotive pulling toward us. We would have been in a sticky situation, unless we happened to be close to one of the two wide spots on the bridge, where the platform stuck out farther, and even there, I wasn’t sure that four people and six horses would fit, or that our horses would be able to stay calm with a train rushing past just inches away. And jumping would hardly be a solution.

Several times, one or another of our horses put a hoof through the old wooden planking that ran alongside the tracks. None of the animals seemed to be seriously injured by their missteps, though.