Vault of the Ages

Chapter 4 THE UNDYING LIGHT

Another day went by, a day of restlessly prowling the ruins under the hostile eyes of the witch-folk, and slowly the sun crossed heaven and limned the high, stern towers black against a ruddy western sky. Carl, Tom, and Owl fetched their horses, which had been stabled in an old place of polished marble known as BANK, and began readying themselves for their journey.

“The Lann may have gone away,” said Owl hopefully.

“I’m afraid not,” answered Carl. “They’re scared of the City, but at the same time they know it’s well for them to stop any messages going between the witches and the Dalesmen. They’ll have at least a few men waiting outside to catch us.” He smiled, trying to ignore the coldness of his hands and the tightness in his throat. “But it’s a big woods and a dark night, so with fair luck we can slip by them. And if not—” He slapped his saddlebag. “If not, we may still have a chance.”

“I am guilty,” said Ronwy. “I am guilty of sending you out to your enemies, when you are my guests.”

“You couldn’t help it, sir,” replied Tom quietly. “We know you’re our friend.”

“In the old days,” said Ronwy, “you could have traveled from one end of America to another without fear. Now those few miles you have to go are one long deathtrap. If you get home, Carl—if you become Chief of the Dalesmen—remember that!”

“I will remember,” said Carl.

He tied his pony’s mouth shut so that it could not whinny and betray him; his comrades did the same. Clear and lovely overhead, the first stars winked through a gathering dusk.

“Good-by, Ronwy,” said Carl. “And thank you.”

“The gods go with you,” said the old man.

He stood looking after them until their forms were lost in bush and shadow.

The boys walked, leading their horses. Night thickened until they were groping through a pit of darkness whose walls bulked ragged against the stars. Slowly, stumblingly, they made their way through tumbled wreckage and crackling brush until they stood at the edge of the City and looked out over a dim sweep of forest and meadow. Straining their ears, they could hear only the dry chirp of crickets and rustle of wind-once an owl hooted, once a wildcat screamed—but no sign of the enemy, no trace. Their own breathing seemed loud in the stillness, and Carl thought that surely the Lann must hear the drumbeats of his heart.

“We don’t follow the highway out, do we?” whispered Tom.

“No, you woodenhead—that’d be a giveway,” answered Owl as quietly. “We strike out across country, eh, Carl?”

“Yes,” nodded the Chief’s son. “I think we can ride now, slowly, following the open land but keeping in the shadow of trees.” He hooked one foot in the stirrup and swung into his saddle.

“Let’s go.”

His tautened ears heard the night murmurous around him. The long grass whispered under hoofs, leaves brushed his cheek as he hugged the line of forest, a stone clinked and his muscles knotted with alarm. Slowly—softly—the City was lost behind him, trees closed in, he was back in the wilderness.

The Lann weren’t stupid, he thought. They’d have known their prey would try slipping past them. So unless they had ringed in the whole City—which was hardly possible—they would guard it with a few small bands of men scattered well apart and ranging the territory on a patrol which might or might not happen close enough for a hunter’s keen ears to hear the faint noise of passage. It lay with the gods.

The meadow ended in a wall of forest. Carl urged his pony forward through a line of hedge that snapped and rustled and brought the sweat out cold on his forehead. Beyond, there was gloom in which the high trunks were like pillars holding up a roof of night. The horses stumbled on rough ground, and Carl hoped he could find his directions. It would be a terrible joke if they spent all night circling back to the City.

“Listen!”

Tom’s hissing word brought Carl erect in the saddle, reining in his mount and staring wildly through darkness. Yes—yes—the sound of hoofs, the rattle of iron…. He held back a groan. The Lann!

“Wait a bit,” Carl breathed. “They may pass by.”

The noise grew louder, nearer, and he realized that the patrol would likely pass close enough to hear the horses’ stamping and heavy breathing. Now there was nothing for it but to run.

Leaning over, the pony’s mane rough against his bare arm, he eased off the gagging rope. The animal would need its mouth for gulping air, he thought grimly, and almost smiled when it whickered its relief. “This way,” he said. “Back—out to the meadows—”

“Hey-ah! Who goes there?”

The deep-throated shout rang between the trees. Carl urged his pony to a trot, though branches were whipping his face, and heard the voices of the Lann rise in excitement behind him. Now the hunt began!

Breaking out into the open again, he struck heels against his pony’s ribs and felt the rhythm of gallop under him. Tom and Owl edged their bigger horses alongside his, and for a brief while only the thudding of hoofs broke the night.

Behind, a blot of darkness came out of the woods and became half a dozen riders. Starlight gleamed on helmets and lances, and a horn blew its call as the Lann saw the boys ahead of them. Carl bent low in the saddle and went flying up a long slope of hillside.

Up and over! The swale below was thick with night. Rocks clattered and rang under frantic hoofs, and trees leaped out of nowhere to claw at eyes. The Lann topped the ridge and loomed against the sky, yelling.

Owl’s horse stumbled on a root and went rolling. Catlike, the rider was out of the stirrups and falling clear. “Go on!” he yelled, rising to his knees. “Go on— get away!”

“No!” Tom reined in, brought his horse dancing back, and starlight was dim on his drawn sword. “No— we’ll fight!”

Carl reined his own steed to a plunging halt and turned around. Now it was too late. The Lann were racing down the slope, howling their glee, no chance to escape them.

Unless—

Bending over, Carl groped in his saddlebag. The metal of the thing he sought was cold in his hand as he lifted it free.

The Larin slowed and approached at a walk. Carl saw the flash of eyes and teeth in bearded faces, spiked iron helmets and polished leather breastplates shimmered faintly, lances were

brought to rest. The leader raised his voice: “Do you surrender?”

“No!” yelled Carl. The echoes went ringing and bouncing between the stony heights, no, no, no.

“We come from the City,” Carl shouted as loudly and wrathfully as his lungs could endure. “We come with the black magic of the Doom that wastes the world, the glowing death, nine thousand devils chained and raging to be free. Depart, men of Lann, for we are witches!”

The horsemen waited. Carl heard a breath sucked between teeth in the quiet of night, saw a shield lifted and a charm fingered. But they did not run.

“I hold the glowing death!” screamed Carl. “Your flesh will rot from your bones, your eyes will fall from the sockets, you are dead men already! See, men of Lann, see!”

He aimed the flashlight and whirled the crank. A white beam stabbed forth, picking a savage face out of a night which suddenly seemed blacker, swinging around to another and another. A horse neighed, and a man shouted.

Carl let go the handle, and it whined eerily to silence as the light died. Then he cranked again, holding the beam like a pointed spear, and urged his horse forward. As he advanced, he threw back his head and howled like a wild dog.

A single noise of terror broke from the warriors, splitting the patrol into a crazed scramble of hoofs and bodies scattered in all directions. In moments, the men were lost to sight and sound.

Carl sat for a minute, not daring to believe, and then he began to laugh.

By dawn, the boys had come most of the way. Carl’s flashlight trick would hardly work in the daytime, so as the first dull gray of morning stole into the sky, they dismounted, rubbed down their weary horses, and rolled up in blankets to sleep for a while. But the sun was not far over the horizon before they were on the trail again.

“We’ll be back just about in time for the chores,” grumbled Owl, but the eyes twinkled in his round face.

Tom ran a hand through his fiery hair. “It seems as if we left an age ago,” he said, with a puzzled note in his voice. “We’ve seen and done and learned so much—I hardly know what to believe any longer.” He glanced at Carl. “Tell me, is everything false that they taught us? Are there really no devils or magic or Doom?”

“I don’t know,” said Carl soberly. “I suppose the old stories are true enough as far as they go—only they don’t go far enough, and it’s up to us to find the whole truth. The Doctors, who claim to have kept as much of the old wisdom as is good for men to know, don’t want us to do that; but I think that between the need of the Dalesmen for help against the Lann and this proof in my saddlebag, we can convince the people otherwise.” He yawned and stretched his stiffened muscles. “It’ll be good to reach your father’s place. I could use a hot breakfast!”

They followed the woodland trail through the cool rustling green, and John’s sons spied the landmarks with eager eyes. It was Tom who first sniffed the air and turned back a worried face. “Do you smell smoke?” he asked.

In a short while Carl and Owl sensed it too, the thin bitter reek and a light bluish haze in the air. They clucked to their horses and broke into a weary trot, straining homeward.

Out of the woods, over a rise of ground, and then the dear, broad fields of home—

The farm was burnt.

They sat for a long time, stunned, only slowly grasping the ruin which was here. The outbuildings were smoking heaps from which charred rafters stuck up like fingers pointing at an empty heaven. The house was still burning here and there. Little flames wavered over fallen beams and blowing ash. Smoke stained the cloudless sky, black and ugly, and there was a terrible silence everywhere.

“Father.” It was a whimper in Owl’s throat. “Mother.”

“Come on!” Tom took the lead, whipping his horse ruthlessly to a gallop. The others followed, sobbing without shame.

Carl, less grief-stricken than the brothers, rode about the yard scanning it for signs. The ground was trampled by many hoofs, the pens were broken open and a trail went through the grain fields toward the east. “The Lann,” he said thinly. “A party of Lann warriors came and burned the place and drove off the stock to feed their army.”

Tom and Owl, white-faced, were poking through the smoldering, flickering wreck of the house. They looked up as Carl approached. “No bodies,” said Tom. “We haven’t found any dead.”

“No—” Carl went over to the shed. It had not burned so thoroughly as the rest, and he could see tools lying in the blackened wood. But no sign of the wagon which every farm owned….

“Be glad,” he said, forcing a smile. “See, the wagon’s gone, and there are no dead here. That meant your people fled before the enemy came. They should be on their way to Dalestown now.”

Owl let out a whoop, and Tom managed to laugh. It could have been worse. They dared not

think how much worse.

“Unless the Lann took them captive,” Tom worried.

“No. Why should invaders bother with prisoners?” Carl looked anxiously about the horizon. An evil black smudge to the west showed that another place had also been sacked. “But the Lann did this only lately, last night I suppose. That means they’re still hereabouts. We’d better get moving!”

There was little cover in the cleared farm lands. The boys went slowly down a rutted, dusty road, scanning the land nervously for signs of the enemy. Now and again they passed another gutted place where bodies sprawled in the fields and masterless animals ran loose—but nowhere a living human, in all the wasted marches.

They had eaten their last supplies, and hunger gnawed at them. Carl’s bow brought down a strayed pig, but he would only let them cut a few pieces of meat from it to eat uncooked. A fire could draw enemy attention. They chewed on raw pork and plodded gloomily forward.

Their direction was southwest, toward the great forest which bordered the Dalesmen’s territory. That would be safer to travel through until the last dash across open country to Dalestown, and Carl reasoned that the fleeing border dwellers would have taken the same route. In midafternoon, the boys were glad of their decision. They saw a column of dust far down the road and hastened to a clump of trees. Hiding in the thicket, they saw a troop of Lann warriors riding past.

The stocky men sat their shaggy mounts as if they were part of the animals. Helmets blinked in the sunlight. The polished leather of shields and breastplates gleamed over jagged, fierce-colored paint. Long roweled spurs hung at the heels of fur-trimmed boots. Lances rose and fell in the rhythm of motion. Cloaks and red banners flapped against the green and brown of earth. The harsh, tanned faces were dark with beard and braided hair, eyes roved restlessly, and teeth flashed white at some jest. Spread over the plain, businesslike, warrior harness was barbaric finery—not only the men’s own earrings and bracelets—but plunder from Dale homes, necklaces draped around hairy throats, jeweled rings flashing on sinewy fingers, silken cloth blowing from shoulders and waists.

They rode past, and the noise of them—clash and jingle of iron, squeaking of leather, thud of hoofs, hard, barking laughter—faded into the hot summer stillness. Carl, Tom, and Owl looked at each other with dismay. They saw too plainly that the Lann had struck through this part of the border; that the gathered farmers, if they had even had time to assemble, had been routed by their attack; and that a host was readying itself to fall on Dalestown. Time was shorter than even Chief Ralph had thought—desperately, terribly short. The vision of defeat and slavery was ghastly before Carl’s eyes.