So quickly did the hunters return that Corbett at first suspected that they had run into Ganiks or some other trouble, but such was not the case. All were heavily laden with game, and the old man was ecstatic. “Gin’rul Jay, long’s I lived in theseheanh mountins, an’ thet’s a passul of years too, I ain’t nevuh come fer to see the critters be so thick an’ easy to knock ovuh as they is, naow an’ heanh. A body he’d thank they hadn’ been huntid fer months. An’ not one place could I fin’ where nobody’d been a-diggin’ no roots, neethuh, an’ Ganiks is allus diggin roots, ‘speshly in spring.”
As it developed, they stayed for six days, leaving the valley only when the mules and ponies had grazed it out. But they had mounted a strong, concentric perimeter guard twenty-four hours per day, while Corbett and Johnny or Gumpner and Johnny or Vance and Johnny led out large, far-ranging patrol and hunting parties to north and northeast and northwest, to find not one living Ganik of any sort, nor any trace of recent occupation of two deserted bunch camps and a handful of small farms.
One of the bunch camps was utterly abandoned and fast falling in upon itself, the new plants of spring quickly commencing overgrowth of the untenanted spot that had been some years before, or so Johnny assured them, the camp of his son, Long Willy Kilgore. But the other camp had been both slighted and burned, nor had the progress of seasons and weather and predators been able to entirely erase the traces of a large and hard-fought battle in and around the camp at some time prior to the conflagration. Nor could Old Johnny shed any light on the matter, confessing readily and with much scratching of his hairless scalp that he never before had seen the like.
The abandoned farms presented even more of a puzzle. No one of them seemed to have been subjected to any sort of violence, yet all looked to have been deserted well before harvesttime, for many of last year’s uncollected crops had obviously reseeded themselves and were springing up afresh if a bit randomly. Aside from evidences of neglect and weather damage, all of the farm buildings were structurally sound and most still contained larger and bulkier items of furniture and household effects, only smaller, easily transportable items being missing.
With the sole exception of a few wild-looking chickens— most of which succulent fowl were downed with darts or sling stones and added to the day’s bag—and a single, blat-ting billy goat which proved too elusive and chary for even Old Johnny to dart, no livestock remained anywhere. Nor did any wagon or cart remain on any of the farms, although quite a collection of larger agricultural implements were still in place.
Old Johnny Kilgore opined that “suthin’ dang funny has done gone awn up heanh las’ year,” and Corbett and the rest could only agree. In all of the mountains and valleys there did not seem to be a single Ganik left resident. Nonetheless, the perimeter guards were maintained and the patrol-hunts went on, though the last three days were spent in ranging up the projected line-of-march, locating and marking favorable campsites and suchlike.
It began to rain again during the night before they broke camp and again marched northeast, but it was only a light drizzle and the winds that bore it were seasonally warm and gentle. By midday, it had ceased completely and the sun was beginning to dry up what little moisture had not soaked into the ground or run off into the little streams along the way.
At that time unaware of the network of smaller tracks connecting the three larger north-south traces, Corbett had led those of his last year’s force who had survived the landslide on a grueling cross-country trek from the easternmost track to this one, but with Old Johnny as a guide, such a hellish journey was not necessary this time. A couple of hours into the second day’s march after leaving the valley camp, the bald Ganik had set the column onto a narrow, overgrown track—little more than a game trail in the best of times, from the look of it—meandering eastward.
Due to the condition of the long-unused track and the bulk of some of the pack loads, some work with axe and saber was necessary on the part of the vanguard, but Corbett was quick to note that this clearance did not in any way approach the brutal labor of hacking out a passage where none had previously existed as he and his party had been compelled to do in last year’s cross-country journey. Nor did this year’s passage take the long days that that one had required. They were on the main, easternmost track before dark of the same day they had left the western one.
They camped that night at the junction of the smaller and larger tracks and resumed the march with the dawning of the new day. The midday halt was made just north of a place where a wide but shallow stream crossed the track. A small, brushy island flanked by deeper channels lay just downstream of the ford, and both Corbett and Gumpner were quick to recognize and remember the spot.
“It was here,” Corbett informed Johnny and his officers, “on the island, yonder, that the bulk of what was left of the column found Sergeant Vance with the men and animals he’d led out of the forest fires and the Ganik he’d captured, one Jim-Beau Carter.”
Old Johnny sniffed. “I knowed thet bastid, too. Won’t none them Carters worth a moldy possum turd or a han’ful of rottun peanuts, not fer nuthin’, they won’t.”
“Be that as it may,” Corbett went on, “I know the trail now, from here on, and so does Gumpner. So, Johnny, you and Vance take a squad on ahead and find us a good, well-watered campsite, one near to plenty of graze, if you can. I want to be fairly close to the areas in which we’ll be working, but not too close; there’s no certain way to tell in advance which direction these explosives may throw rocks, and I’d prefer that said rocks not land in our camp.
“All right, then. As soon as the men have finished their coffee and whatall, let’s get cracking. I’d like to excavate what’s still worth it and get back down to Broomtown before autumn makes these mountains really miserable to travel through.”
10
The lid of the simple stone sarcophagus was engraved with but five words: MARTIN—KING OF NEW KVMBRLAND. Behind the coffin, on stone pedestal, stood a lifesize figure that Bili at first took, in the dimness, to be a living man. Carved of well-seasoned hardwood by a past master, then enameled meticulously in fleshtones and finally clothed and equipped and bejeweled, the stunning effigy of King Mahrtuhn I stood in eternal vigil in the splendid crypt which now held his dust and that of his sons, and of his wives and theirs.
From where he stood beside Bili, the voice of King Mahrtuhn II of New Kuhmbuhluhn boomed softly. “Even whilst the Teenéhdjooks and Kleesahks were boring the passages and storerooms through the lower reaches of the mountain, using the blocks of stone thus quarried to build the city and walls, were certain of the most skillful of them all preparing this for the eventuality of my grandfather’s death. Until die he did, no true-man knew of the existence of this crypt.”
The king gestured upward, up into the dark vault above the wavery light of the lamps. “It is fifty feet from where our feet rest to the ceiling of this crypt, and only thirty feet above that is the windswept summit of King’s Rest Mountain, yet so cunningly did those creatures who so loved my royal grandfather carve and handle the stones of this mountain that no earth tremor ever has had the force to damage this, their work. Even the terrible shocks of last year, though they sent boulders plunging down every flank of the mountain and tumbled some of the buildings within the city and even shifted a few of the massive stones of the walls, not a pebble or a grain fell in the crypt. Such was the invaluable skill of the Teenéhdjook.”
The royal tomb was the first of the wonders Bili was shown within King’s Rest Mountain, but far from the last. He saw the ebon sheet of water which was the spring-fed lake, and the catchments and holding basins and dams and copper-lined aqueducts that provided citadel and city with abundant, clear, cold water.