Part 37 (2/2)

'But what in the Nine Pits do you want on Bramian?'

'Nothing whatsoever. It is our allies' wants that concern me.'

'Allies?'

'Be silent, lad.'

The way grew steeper yet, and they were forced to slow the horses to a walk. There was a path of sorts, now: a meandering mud track, full of roots and snags and fallen trees. Weird shocks of colour met their eyes: a fleshy orange fungus that seemed to glow in the shadows, a scarlet hummingbird, a metallic-gold moth. Now and then the path left the cover of the forest to skirt clifftops, jutting like grey teeth from the blanketing green. At such moments Pazel looked down on steaming valleys, over lakes and serpentine rivers, and once he saw a ring of standing stones upon a treeless hilltop, and a thread of rising smoke.

But the sounds were a torment. Whistles, hoots and howls: the noise of countless birds and beasts, never seen except as shadows, flickers of movement, hints of wings. Worst of all were the insects. His altered hearing made their whines, drones, chirps and buzzings hideously distinct. When they bit him near his ears he heard the piercing of his skin.

Up they went, hour upon hour. Rain came and went with astonis.h.i.+ng force. When it grew strong enough to blind them Ott would signal a halt, and the horses would stand steaming in the cold spray as the path became a river gus.h.i.+ng about their legs. Pazel covered his ears, deafened. But the downpours were brief, and it seemed that the instant the last drops fell the sun came dappling through.

Once more Pazel's mind became clouded, and he lost all sense of time. One minute he would be clinging to the horse's mane as the animal struggled up some narrow ravine; the next he would be staring at a hairy vine as thick as his arm, only to discover that it was a monstrous centipede, scurrying up a trunk.

At still another moment he found himself listening to the half-hearted daytime hoot of an owl. No one else seemed able to hear the bird, and Pazel could not find it in the canopy overhead. But he heard its mate answer, and a soft flutter of wings. And then (Pazel caught his breath sharply) the first owl spoke in words. Its voice was black and velvety, the voice of a night hunter woken by day.

'I should like to know where they think they're going.'

'You could ask,' said the other, in a higher voice.

'They're savages, my dear fool. They speak no tongue of Bramian.'

The second owl trilled uneasily. 'I do not like this mountain. I can taste sea air, and it frightens me. The sh.o.r.ebirds' talk is always full of fear, wars.h.i.+ps, movements of men. Let us go inland tonight. Where the world is still whole.'

'We will go to the Court of Grethim,' said the first owl. ' The priest will welcome us, and let us hunt in the spice gardens, and perhaps I will read another story from his book of leaves.' The priest will welcome us, and let us hunt in the spice gardens, and perhaps I will read another story from his book of leaves.'

Pazel never told anyone about the woken owls. He had an awful image of Sandor Ott trying to shoot them from the branches. He stopped searching for them with his eyes, and the birds did not speak again.6 Onwards, upwards. At last Pazel's acute hearing diminished, and he began to feel more like himself. Far above them, he thought the texture of the forest changed, as though something immense stood among or behind the trees. Then Drellarek reined in his horse. He pointed up into a nearby tree. A large white monkey dangled there, its back to them, motionless, dead. It was pinned to the trunk by an arrow.

Ott cursed. 'We've startled them,' he said. 'The Leopard People don't just abandon their kills. And blood is yet leaking from that wound. Forward! It is a race now, and we must win.'

He said a soft word to his horse and it charged up the slope, abandoning the trail in favour of a straight line for the summit. Pazel heard the other horses thundering behind.

Suddenly a human voice spoke from the jungle. 'What are they, Uncle?'

Pazel jumped, startling both Ott and the horse.

' They are men like us They are men like us,' replied another, older voice. 'But they are slavers from across the sea. Don't fear them, boy. They will take no slaves today.'

'd.a.m.n you, be still!' growled the spymaster.

'Mr Ott,' said Pazel, struggling to keep his voice low and calm.

'They've found us. They're watching.'

Suddenly Erthalon Ness gave a squeal of terror, pointing a finger at the jungle to their left. Pazel turned and saw them: scores of long-limbed figures, racing through the forest with the swiftness of cats. They wore loincloths only, and their pale yellow bodies were dabbed all over with spots of black. Some of the men carried strange iron hooks, and all had bows over their shoulders.

The riders cried out, and the horses increased their speed. But the footing was terrible now that they were running sidelong to the slope, and more than once Pazel would have been thrown from the saddle if Ott had not held him fast.

'Talk to me, Pathkendle!' he roared.

'Talk?'

'Why do you think you're here here, fool? Use your Gift! Tell me what they're saying!'

Pazel listened. But the men were only shouting things like Fast Fast and and That way That way and and Not the horses! Not the horses!

'Just keep going!' he said to Ott. 'They're only - Wait! d.a.m.n! They're in the trees, Ott! They're going to shoot us from the trees!'

Even as he spoke Alyash howled in pain. A long black arrow quivered in his thigh. Somehow the bosun managed to spur his horse on. Above them, scores of voices cried out, like hounds on the hunt. More arrows whizzed about their ears. Looking back, Pazel saw the trees filled with the spotted men, climbing down head-first from the upper canopy, using the hooks they carried like claws. In a heartbeat they had dropped to the ground.

'Turn!' cried Ott. 'They will drive us into another trap if they can! We must gain the mountaintop!'

Once again they aimed their steeds uphill. The poor creatures were frothing with the effort now, their legs and bellies plastered with mud. But they ran on, and seconds later Ott's fears were confirmed. An even larger band of the Leopard People rose from the underbrush to their right: just where the horses would have carried them in another few strides.

The pursuit was fierce, but not even those born to the forest could run with the speed of horses. Soon only the fastest runners were still giving chase. Pazel heard them shout to one another as they fell behind: Why do the horses obey them?

They enslave horses too.

They're going to the Ma'tathgryl.

They will die.

For ten minutes longer they charged uphill. Then at last the spymaster reined in his mount, and they walked, dazed and stumbling. Chadfallow rode up alongside Ott and Pazel.

'Your savages climbed higher on Droth'ulad than you reckoned with, Ott.'

'They hate us a great deal,' said Ott, grinning wolfishly. 'They take all outsiders for Volpeks, who set snares for their children and make mercenaries out of them, or hawk them to the Flikkermen.'

'Then their hate is warranted,' said Chadfallow, 'since your operations here depend on Volpek supply s.h.i.+ps. Let me extract that arrow, Bosun, before you faint.'

'Pah,' said Alyash. 'We should not stop here. I have lost but little blood.'

'You may before we reach the summit.'

'Look up, Doctor,' said Sandor Ott.

Pazel raised his eyes, and gasped. They stood nearly at the mountain's crest. And looming over them, all but lost in the trees crowding the summit, rose a wall.

It was a clearly a ruin - but such a ruin! Pazel had seen walls as high in the great keeps of Etherhorde and Pol, but those walls lay in the hearts of mighty cities, not lost in the wilderness. And the wall before him ran east and west along the mountain-top until it vanished in the trees. The builders, whoever they were, had not flattened the ridge but carved mammoth, sinuous yellow stones to fit its curves. The effect was of something more alive than constructed.

They drew closer; Pazel arched his neck. High overhead the wall sprouted turrets and towers and vine-laden balconies. Birds flew through gaping windows; orchids flowered in cracks. Yet for a thing so clearly ancient the wall was surprisingly intact.

When they reached the wall Ott turned them east. Chadfallow trailed a hand over the mossy stone. 'In Etherhorde we have one broken column, and a bit of an arch,' he mused.

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