Seventh Decimate Page 6

  “Captain?” demanded Prince Bifalt. Instinctively, he feared some calamity.

  But Captain Swalish was not concerned. “A bonfire, Highness,” he replied. “Most of those hovels are empty. They can spare the wood. Maybe the warmth comforts them. Or maybe they cook their food to make it last longer.”

  Risking a quick glance at the Prince, Slack said, “We left no live embers that might cause a blaze.”

  Slack’s assurance, and the Captain’s explanation, did not satisfy Prince Bifalt. He wanted to send one of his men to check on the villagers. But his frustration was mounting every day; it had been made worse by the sight of Bellegerin children starving; and he still had no idea how far he had to go to reach the desert—after which he would have to find his way without even a sketch of a map. He could not afford the time to wait for a rider to go and come back. He needed to keep moving.

  Muttering curses to himself, he led his company onward.

  Now the track straggled to the northeast, leading the company by small increments closer to the river boundary of Amika. On the following day, the Prince passed another hamlet. In every respect, it resembled the habitation he had encountered the previous day; but this one was entirely forsaken. Still the trail drifted northeastward. Studying his map, he marked how far he had to go before his true difficulties began, and how near lay the lands of his foes. He felt a tribe of rats chewing on his vitals, but he could do nothing to expel them.

  Late the next day, however, a place that had once been a village became visible ahead. When he reached it, he found at least twenty people living there, defying the decayed condition of their homes. As a group, they seemed less destitute than the folk of the hamlet two days past, but the difference was slight. The men and women were somewhat better clad, and the children showed fewer lost teeth, fewer bald patches on their scalps, less sunken cheeks. Still, the children might have been made of kindling, their limbs were so thin, their bellies so hollow. Where their eyes were not filled with despair, they held a mute animal greed for food.

  Fortunately, the adults included one old woman, one older man, and one man positively ancient. When Slack asked his leave, Prince Bifalt did not hesitate. Pausing only to instruct Captain Swalish sternly, “Feed them,” he dismounted with Slack and accompanied the former sorcerer.

  Addressing the village’s old ones courteously, kindly, Slack drew the woman and the two men aside. “Good folk,” he began as the Prince listened, “we see your privation is desperate. His Highness Prince Bifalt will spare what he can to feed you. While his men prepare a meal, will you speak with us? We have a question, or perhaps several. Your answers may aid us.”

  The woman chewed her toothless gums for a moment. Then she replied in a voice made querulous by want, “You are lords of this realm. We will answer. We would answer if you did not feed us.”

  To the Prince’s ear, her speech resembled that of the woman who had offered him gratitude in the hamlet. But she was obviously starving: he would not fault her for her accent.

  Slack thanked her, then ventured, “Our question concerns books—or rather, a storehouse of books, a library or repository. Have you heard talk of such a place, perhaps from your fathers, perhaps from your grandfathers? Any word or tale? Any legend?”

  “Books?” the older man snorted. “What use have we for books? Our lives are survival, nothing more. At one time, we fed ourselves. Now we fail at our only task.”

  “But you are not the oldest,” chided the woman. Prince Bifalt heard more reproach in her tone than he expected. “Ambrost is. Perhaps he can answer.” She prodded the ancient’s ribs with one finger. “If his wits have not strayed.”

  Ambrost shook himself. Briefly, he gaped at Slack and the Prince with confusion in his milky eyes. Then he seemed to rally.

  “Books?” he croaked. “Did you say books?”

  “I did, good sir,” replied Slack with more calm than Prince Bifalt could have managed.

  “Great piles of books?” persisted the ancient. “Whole mountains of books?”

  Slack nodded. “Indeed.” His demeanor gave no hint of impatience or excitement.

  After a long moment, Ambrost sighed. “Yes.”

  He lapsed into silence.

  “Remember for us, if you will,” urged Slack, still gently. “What tales have you heard concerning whole mountains of books?”

  Ambrost appeared to consult the dimness of his sight. “Books, you say?” he muttered. “Books and sorcery? Oh, yes.” His tone was sour. “My grandfather told wild tales when I was a lad at his knee. A great storehouse of books against the mountains. A storehouse like one castle piled on top of another to reach the heavens. Sorcerers with unimaginable powers. He told such tales, my grandfather. I was a lad. I listened. Others did not.”

  Now Prince Bifalt felt a suggestion of eagerness; but he remained silent. He could not make his tone as soothing as Slack’s.

  “Wondrous tales,” remarked the former Magister. “I am not surprised they remain in your memory. I would gladly hear them myself.” Then he asked, “Did they suggest where this storehouse might be found?”

  The ancient pursed his lips. His eyes wandered like those of a man trying to trace some recollection to its source. With an air of triumph, he pronounced, “The Repository. The great castle of the sorcerers. Yes.” Abruptly, he flung out his arm, waving indiscriminately northward. “It lies in Amika. Against the mountains. As I said.”

  The Prince’s dismay made his jaws ache with the strain of containing it. In Amika? Amika? Fighting for calm, he said, “Do not be alarmed if I appear distressed. You have told us enough”—the words threatened to choke him—“and I am grateful. Slack will now oversee the cooking. You will have the best meal we can provide. I must consult with my men.”

  He could not say more without vehemence. Wheeling away, he strode toward Captain Swalish and the horses. At his back, he heard Slack express better thanks. Then the former sorcerer hastened to join the preparation of food.

  Prince Bifalt’s black glower warned the Captain to meet him halfway. As they came together, the Prince gripped Swalish’s arm and drew him farther until they were beyond hearing. There he released the Captain, crossed his arms to conceal the trembling of his hands. Without preamble, he growled, “They say the Repository—the great castle of the sorcerers—is in Amika.”

  Captain Swalish stared. “Do you believe them, Highness?”

  The Prince swallowed curses. “The oldest of them heard tales from his grandfather, who may have been ancient himself when he told them. The grandfather may have invented those tales to give himself stature. How can I believe him? Yet they are Bellegerins starved near to death by Amika’s wars. How can I doubt him? He has no cause to lie.”

  Swalish considered the dilemma. He appeared to stretch his mind in unfamiliar ways. “The cause,” he replied slowly, “may be nothing more than a desire to please you. If he did not have an answer, he might have imagined it. Maybe he feared you would take back your offer of food.”

  “I think not,” snorted Prince Bifalt. “Slack assured them they would be fed before he spoke of our search.

  “And if the old man sought only to please or placate me,” he continued with growing exasperation, “why that lie? Did he suppose I would be gratified to hear my quest is hopeless?”

  The Captain looked baffled. “Then, Highness, we must guess whether to trust what he heard. Or what he remembers.”

  Hells! Glaring at everything under the sun, Prince Bifalt commanded, “Summon Slack. We will hear his thoughts.”

  Relieved to be spared responsibility for decisions based on speculation, Captain Swalish turned and shouted to Bartin.

  Bartin addressed Slack. The old soldier gestured commands. The former sorcerer mimed vexation. But he did not refuse. Consigning his preparations to Stolle and Flisk, he came at an older man’s trot to join the Prince.

/>   Briefly, Prince Bifalt explained his dilemma: could he trust what he had heard about the library and its location? Then he asked, “How does this riddle strike you, Slack? I need counsel.”

  Slack made a show of hesitation. He frowned in one direction, then squinted in another, always avoiding the Prince’s gaze. He held his hands with his fingers tangled together as if they echoed a mind twisted by contradictory impulses.

  Speaking like a man who tested each word before he uttered it, he answered, “There is this, Highness. If the library indeed lies in Amika, that might explain how our foes gained access to Hexin Marrow’s book and mastered its secrets before we knew of its existence.”

  Now Prince Bifalt cursed aloud, violently, and with a veteran’s precision. When he had vented his dread and indignation, however, he chose his immediate course. Dismissing Slack, he waited until the man had resumed his cooking. Then he addressed Captain Swalish again.

  “To my eye, Captain,” he said, rigid with restraint, “our trail appears to continue northeast.”

  Swalish nodded. “Evening is near, Highness, and my sight is not what it was. Also that hill”—he indicated the northeastern horizon—“hides what lies beyond it. I can send Flisk to scout the track for a league or two. His eyes are the keenest we have.”

  Prince Bifalt nodded. “Do so.”

  Together, the two men returned to the clamor of the guards and Slack as they gave the villagers a better meal than those poor folk had tasted in many seasons.

  Urged by Captain Swalish, Flisk mounted his steed and rode away. As the youngest of the veterans, he still felt a desire to prove himself among them. Spurring his horse, he soon dropped beyond the rise of the hill.

  Rowels of a different kind goaded Prince Bifalt. While the villagers, hungry as wolves, devoured their meal, he commanded his men to reload the wain. When the pots and skillets had been emptied, the plates and utensils licked clean, and a quantity of water the company could ill afford drunk, the Prince was ready to depart. He only awaited Flisk’s return.

  In his acid mood, he sent Slack to deal with the gratitude of the villagers. He wanted none of it. His mind was full of intimations, none of which seemed clear or credible. Would he find himself forced to dare the lands of his enemies? If so, how? How could he cross the barrier of the river and its gorges? Even if he found a trail that allowed him to cross the Line—him and his men and their horses—how could he take the wain with him? And how could his purpose survive the dangers of Amika?

  How could he determine whether Ambrost had lied?

  However, he had made the first of his decisions. He would not spend the night where he was. No. The needs of the villagers asked too much of him. Soon he would have neither food nor water to sustain his men. When Flisk came back to report that a league beyond the hill the trail branched, one path continuing northeastward, the other tending more to the southeast, Prince Bifalt hailed his train into motion. To Captain Swalish, he announced his intention to make camp at the branching. He would choose his heading on the morrow.

  Ponderous as men bearing the wounded and the dead from a battlefield, the Prince and his company left the village, ascended the gradual slope of the hill, and sank beyond it into the obscure embrace of evening.

  At the branching, they halted. Watches were set. The horses and oxen were tended and tethered. Bedrolls were tossed down from the wain. Rejecting the small tent provided because he was the King’s son, Prince Bifalt set out his bedding under the stars. Although he had no use for astrology, he hoped—contrary to his nature—that the slow wheel of the heavens might guide his thoughts. His blankets he wrapped tightly around him against the night’s cold, but if he slept, he did not know it.

  By his estimation, he was no more than five leagues from the gorges of the Line River, the only barrier between him and his enemies.

  With the dawn, he rose and packed his bedroll. He watched the teamsters rouse themselves, grumbling while they went about their tasks. Captain Swalish reported that the guards on watch had seen nothing to make them uneasy. With more than his usual alacrity, Slack rolled from his bedding and went to feed the men. And still the Prince, who was not accustomed to indecision, doubted himself.

  But he refused his uncertainty. When at last the company was ready to resume its trek, and Captain Swalish asked for orders, Prince Bifalt said only, “The track to the northeast, Captain.”

  Perhaps the terrain closer to the border of Amika, or the Line River itself, would render Ambrost’s assertion moot. The only question then would be, How long should he search for a crossing before he gave up? Before he faced his failure?

  Accompanied by a cacophony of curses from the teamsters, groans and snorting from the oxen, and fragmentary muttering among the guardsmen, the quest lurched into motion.

  Within an hour, Camwish called out that his mount had gone lame. Although he examined his steed with care, he found no treatable injury. The beast was simply lame: it could not bear his weight. And it would not heal without days of rest. With Prince Bifalt’s irate consent and the Captain’s rueful approval, Camwish unburdened his horse of its saddle, tack, and halter, then turned it loose.

  So another hour was lost.

  The company of guards now had eight mounts for ten men, and the boots of the men were poorly made for long treks on foot. However, Prince Bifalt had foreseen this. From the first, he had assumed that a time would come—in the desert if not before—when the horses would no longer be worth the weight of water and fodder they required. At his command, the wain carried a set of sturdy knee-high moccasins for every rifleman. Wearing them, unmounted men could match the pace of the oxen without harming their feet.

  Chewing the inside of his cheek mercilessly, the Prince led his companions forward. To the rhythm of his destrier’s steps, he asked himself, Enter Amika or turn back? Enter or turn? But he had no answer.

  Then, toward noon, Flisk raised a cry that halted the company again. Waving an arm, he pointed back in the direction of the village.

  Despite the distance and the tugging breezes, smoke showed above the horizon.

  Prince Bifalt stared. His thoughts eddied in circles he could not escape. What reason could the villagers have for setting any of their homes ablaze? And the earlier hamlet had done the same. The coincidence was too great. True, the night had been chill—but not cold enough to justify such a large fire. After all, the wood could not be replenished. What possible reason—?

  Hardly daring to acknowledge his alarm, the Prince sent Flisk to scout the way ahead. “Ride hard,” he commanded. “If you sight another village or hamlet, study it until you know if it is inhabited. Do not approach it. Return at speed.”

  At once, Flisk sketched a salute, dug his heels into his mount, and obeyed at a gallop.

  “Highness?” asked Captain Swalish quietly. “What troubles you? Any chance can set a village like that burning. It has been neglected for years. It is tinder.”

  Prince Bifalt said nothing for a moment. Like a man holding his breath, he watched the track where Flisk had ridden out of view. Then he observed, “The speech of those villagers. It had a strange sound. I have not heard it before.”

  While Swalish looked away, unsure how to answer, old Bartin volunteered, “Folk speak that way in the north. When I was a boy—before you were born, Highness—my family lived near the Line. A league or two farther east. We left when I was called to the war. But while we were here, we spoke like those villagers. I did not know we had an accent until we reached the Open Hand.”

  The Prince shook his head. He had spent his whole life in the vicinity of the Hand. He could not argue with Bartin’s explanation. But still, that smoke troubled him—

  Slack came to him with a different question. “As we are already halted, Highness, and must await Flisk’s return, shall I prepare a meal? The beasts need rest, and guardsmen are always hungry.”

  F
or that query, the King’s son had a curt reply. “No. Unpack nothing. Remain ready.”

  A burning village could set the grasses and bracken around it on fire: an obvious danger. Was that what disturbed him? No. How could a blaze reach him at this distance? True, this region had not seen rain for at least a fortnight. But the high grasses seemed lush, the bracken flourished, and the wildflowers were bright with color. He did not believe the overgrown hills and lowlands would take flame.

  Nevertheless, the pressure in his chest expanded as if he were indeed holding his breath.

  In the distance, Flisk reappeared, galloping furiously. Prince Bifalt did not need to hear the man’s shout to understand his haste. At Flick’s back, he saw fresh smoke begin its rise into the cloudless sky.

  The Prince’s world reeled. It veered into a new shape. Wheeling his destrier, he roared at his men.

  “Ambush! We will be attacked!”

  “Highness?” asked Captain Swalish, gaping.

  “The smoke!” retorted the Prince. “Those are signal fires! They mark our progress! Now we are bracketed! The Amikans know where we are!”

  His yell confused the teamsters. Fortunately, their only duty in a fray was to hide under the wain. The riflemen and their Captain understood the Prince better.

  Barking orders, Captain Swalish called his men into formation against the north. They unslung their rifles and steadied their mounts in a protective arc to ward the wain, the oxen, and Slack. Some sighted their guns on the horizon of the nearest hill. Others held their rifles ready while they loosened their sabers, preparing for close combat.

  They were cavalry veterans, trained to fight from horseback. Obliquely, Prince Bifalt wondered whether it might be wiser for his men to dismount and engage on foot, trusting their guns to drive off their attackers while their horses were shielded behind the wain. But he could not be sure that his foes would come from the north. His company might need to change its formation in an instant.