The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) (31 page)

For the Temple was not about prayer, or worshipping God, or studying the Scriptures. No, thought Reesh: “It’s about keeping order in a world of chaos. It’s about steering the progress of the nation in the long, slow, painful climb back to the heights Obann once occupied a thousand years ago.” It was about the rebirth of the Empire and the rediscovery of knowledge lost in its collapse.

“Do any of these others truly understand?” he wondered. “Do they understand that in those days the men of Obann were like gods? Have they contemplated that brooding mass of ruins across the river, the Old City, and imagined it in all its glory? It would be worth any price we have to pay, to see such a city rise again.”

In those days the men of Obann sailed the seas and flew in the air like birds. They spoke to one another across vast distances and destroyed the cities of their enemies in the blinking of an eye.

It was no accident, he thought, that the Temple alone survived the destruction of the Empire. Oh, not the building—that Temple was a mountain of rubbish in the ruins across the river. But the Temple as a living thing, as a brotherhood of men, as a bright, shining idea—that survived. And it would survive this new destruction, too: Lord Reesh had seen to that.

“That is why we’re here tonight,” he thought.

Atop the great beast, Ryons saw the river coming up as the sun went down.

He supposed the animal would swim across the river. Maybe it was tall enough to wade. He had no conception of great rivers like the Imperial, how strong their currents were, how deeply they flowed. All he knew was that the beast would carry him across.

“Cavall—are you still there?” he called. The dog barked, and he was very glad to hear it. But if he knew more about rivers, he would have known there was no way Cavall could swim across.

Ahead, lights began to come on in the city—lights along the walls, lights in a hundred thousand windows, lights everywhere. “Their night must be like day!” he thought. The thought of all those people living there dazzled him.

Instead of heading straight for the city, the beast now veered off to the west. It must know where to cross the river, Ryons thought—how, it was impossible to imagine. Maybe animals just knew the best place to cross a river.

By now, after a whole afternoon, he was much more comfortable on the beast’s broad back, much less afraid of falling off. There was room up here, he thought, for half a dozen boys.

He wondered when the people on the city walls would see him coming and what they’d think of it. “They’ll be afraid,” he thought. “They’ll think it’s something bad.”

He couldn’t help that. The only choice he had was whether to hang on or fall off. Anything else was all God’s doing.

Having a general idea of the range involved, but no clear target in the darkness, the catapult-men on the walls nevertheless flung flights of stones in the direction of the enemy. Gwyll let them go on with it; they were bound to hit somebody. But he gave the archers word to wait until they could see men to shoot at. Arrows ought not to be wasted.

He posted himself atop a fort between the Great North Gate and the Durmurot Gate, surrounded by his aides, sending and receiving messages, but mostly letting the commander of each section do as he thought best. He had faith in his subordinates, and too much meddling from above would make them uncertain in their actions.

As the enemy mass crept nearer to the city walls, he saw them better. As yet they were nothing much more than a black shadow, shot with the light of countless torches, spreading over the plain. He couldn’t make out individual men. But he saw the rams making their slow progress on their heavy wooden wheels, and exulted when a lucky shot set one of them on fire. Burning, its light showed desperate men milling all around it. But the enemy had many rams. A few of them were bound to reach the gates.

“It makes me mad, having to stand and wait for them!” a young subaltern cried.

“Steady on, there,” said Gwyll. “If there’s any panicking to be done, let the Heathen do it.”

“Sorry, General!”

Now the Heathen were close enough to be heard, barbaric war cries in a score of different languages, the total effect thereof being a kind of low and surly growl—like that of a great bear wounded and distressed by arrows, but not yet weakened by them. The vast horde growled, and Lord Gwyll ordered trumpets to be blown in defiance. He ordered all the trumpets blown; and what the enemy would make of that, he didn’t know. But he knew from experience that the horns would hearten the defenders.

What he did not know was that down below the Temple, underground and out of sight, picked men of the Heathen host were filing into the city by way of secret passages. The city fought on, unaware of treachery.

Once again Lord Reesh saw Mardar Kyo face to face.

“Well met, First Prester!” said Kyo. “The time has come for you and your people to leave the city. Your carts are ready and waiting. My men will escort you to them. I’ve had a litter prepared for you.”

“My thanks, Mardar,” Reesh said.

“We’ll meet again tomorrow. I will travel with you all the way to Kara Karram.”

“A long journey for us, Mardar.”

“But a safe one,” said Kyo.

Assisted by a pair of painted savages from a country he had never heard of, Lord Reesh rose from his chair and left the chamber, entering the narrow passageway that led beneath the walls. Orth came after him and then the others, one by one, and then the twenty chests.

“Courage, Excellency!” Gallgoid said. “I must show the mardar the way up into the Temple. I’ll rejoin you as soon as I can.”

Reesh nodded. He didn’t feel like speaking. To embark, at his age, on a journey to the very ends of the earth was a matter to weigh on any man’s spirit. To leave everything behind that he’d known for all his life, worked for, sacrificed for, lived for—it would be a miracle if he lived long enough to see the New Temple in the East. But he would try.

It was crowded in the passageway. Kyo’s men were pouring in, hundreds of them, some of them dressed up as city militia. Reesh’s escorts found a way through the press. It would have been utterly dark but for the many torches carried by the Heathen. The smoke of them fouled the air and made Reesh cough.

He never would have made it to the end of the passage but for his escorts, who supported him and all but carried him to the exit. “It’s strange,” he thought, “that I’ve lived practically all my life in the Temple and I’ve never been here before—and now I’ll never see this place again. I wonder how much more of the Temple there is that I have never seen, and now will never see.”

At last they brought him out into the fresh air. Even the oppressive, muggy air of that night was revivifying, after the smoke-filled passageway. He heard horns blowing on the walls, and the voices of tens of thousands of men shouting all at once. Well, that was to be expected; and it would be worse, much worse, before this night was over.

A litter was waiting, with strong men to carry it. Reesh’s escort helped him into it. He noted with approval that Kyo had furnished it with cushions and curtains. Prester Orth climbed in beside him and drew the curtains shut; and then with a lurch the bearers raised the litter and they were on their way, departing forever from their native city.

Orth sighed. He was sweating profusely, and his shirt was soaked.

“Are you all right, my lord?” he asked.

Reesh nodded. He wished the curtains might be opened to let in more air; on the other hand, he had no wish to see what was happening outside.

“I half expected them to cut our throats by now,” said Orth. “They’ve got what they wanted from us, a way into the city. We have nothing left to give them as a ransom for our lives.”

“We’ve already paid the ransom, Orth,” Reesh said. It amazed him how hard it was to speak. “The Thunder King wants a new Temple, and he needs us for that. Besides, when the food ran out, they would have taken the city anyway. We’ve made the best bargain that we could.”

“Let’s hope they keep their end of it,” Orth said. “But you’re right, Excellency. What else could we have done?”

Just then a bell began to toll. Reesh knew that bell. It was the one in the main tower. It shouldn’t be tolling until another hour from now, as was the custom. But as it kept on tolling, he understood: someone in the Temple had fled to the tower and was sounding an alarm.

Orth reached for the curtains, but Reesh stopped him.

“I’ll not look back—and neither will you, if you’re a man,” he said.

“Excellency, I thought—”

“There’s nothing to see!” Reesh snapped. “We are the New Temple now. The old one is no longer any of our business. Leave those curtains shut.”

When the beast first stepped into the water, Ryons was afraid. The sun had set; it was quickly getting dark; and except when lightning flashed above, he couldn’t see the far bank of the river. During those split seconds of illumination, it seemed dreadfully far away. But the beast went right in, and there was nothing Ryons could do about it. If they both went under the water, he didn’t know how he would be able to hold on. Besides which, he didn’t know how to swim.

Behind him, he heard a splash. It was Cavall jumping in. How the dog could possibly swim all the way across, Ryons didn’t know.

The gigantic beast did not go under. At all times its head, neck, and back remained above the water. Whether it was actually swimming or just walking on the bottom, Ryons couldn’t tell.

“Cavall!” he cried. And Cavall, dripping wet, somehow scrambled aboard the beast’s broad back and teetered forward until he was as close to Ryons as he dared to go. Ryons heard him whine, but didn’t risk turning around. “Good boy!” he said. “But don’t forget to jump off before he climbs out on the other side.” Cavall answered with a subdued bark.

Inky waters swirled and bubbled along both sides as Ryons bent over and peered into the darkness. He couldn’t see whether the beast was being swept downstream by the current, but he could still see the lights of Obann up ahead and to the right. The beast would emerge from the river somewhere to the west of the city. What it would do then, only God knew.

“I could get off, too, just before he reaches land,” the boy thought. But then what?

No—it wouldn’t do. No getting off! He must ride until the ride was over. It was God’s will. He would not get off, but rather take the adventure God had given him. “I haven’t come all this way just to disobey Him now,” he thought.

“But I hope you’re watching!” he added by way of prayer.

The lightning flashed again, and the opposite bank seemed just as far away as ever, barely to be seen.

The first hint Lord Gwyll had of anything amiss was the untimely tolling of the great bell of the Temple. He couldn’t imagine what that might be about—something better left to Lord Reesh, he supposed.

Gwyll had more than enough to do on the walls. The enemy had never before committed such numbers to a direct assault. The plain teemed with solid masses of warriors: there was no estimating how many of them. But without ladders, such a bold attack against the walls was plain suicide; and Gwyll saw no sign of ladders.