The others joined him, leading their mounts from the sleeping camp. When they were well away, they sprang to the horses’ backs and rode westward.
Chapter 10
VENGEANCE OF THE GODS
The City brooded under a hot, cloudless heaven, without sign of life. But the notion shuddered in Carl that it was a waiting stillness, and he fought to drive the superstition from his mind. “There she is,” said Owl. He sat his horse in the shade of a tree, whose leaves hung unstirring in the breathless quiet, and looked past the wrecked outer buildings to the desolated splendor of the towers.
“And now what do we do?”
Carl wiped the sweat from his face. “We go to the time vault,” he replied as steadily as possible.
“The witch-men won’t be happy about that,” warned Tom.
“Then they’ll have to be unhappy,” snapped Carl.
“We’ve got their Chief on our side, at least.”
Stones rattled as they rode down an empty street. Once a lithe form went bounding across their path, a weasel, and once there was a flock of crows which flew blackly overhead, otherwise nothing but the stillness of dead centuries. In spite of the summer heat, Carl felt a chill tingle. It was hard to keep calm reason when violating the home of the gods. He remembered a saying of Donn’s: “When the gods are angered, their revenge is not always swift death. They often choose the more cruel punishment of unending bad luck.”
But that was wrong, Carl reminded himself. If the idols of the Dalesmen were no more than wood and stone, then only the great God of the ancients could really be alive—and he would be more just than the powers of earth and air and fire.
“Down this street,” he pointed. “We needn’t enter the section where the witches live. The important thing is to hold the time vault.”
Tom nodded. “That’s right. Three of us, between those two high walls leading to it, could stand off an army—for a while.”
It was easy to get lost here, winding between endless heaps of brick and overgrown foundations. Several times Carl had to find a long avenue at whose end he could see the great towers. His woodsman’s eye had noted their relation to the vault when he was last there, and—
“Up ahead!”
Carl reined in at Owl’s shout, and his sword rasped from its sheath. A dozen witch-men stood with bows and spears in front of the horse-skull sign. They were small and scrawny and unarmored, but there was a terrible grimness on their faces.
A noise behind made Carl look around, and he saw another party of the City dwellers coming from around a corner. The boys were in the middle of a street between the roofless, clifflike walls of two giant buildings—trapped! Trapped and taken!
“Let’s get away,” muttered Owl. “If we charge those fellows on horseback—their linell break—”
“Do not move!” The voice was shrill. Carl, who had heard that panicky note in other cries, knew that the speaker was made dangerous by fear. He would kill at the first sign of fight.
And there were many drawn bows and poised spears—
Slowly, with vast care, the boy clashed his sword back into the scabbard. “We come in peace,” he said. “Where is Ronwy?’
“The Chief is on his way.” The man who spoke was sullen, his eyes smoldered on them behind the arrow he held leveled on Carl’s heart. “You will wait.”
“Is this how you treat your guests?” asked Owl.
“You are not guests. You are prisoners. Dismount!”
The boys climbed to the ground and stood glaring at the witch-men. But there was nothing to do, nothing at all.
Someone was pounding a drum, and the muffled thunder echoed from wall to staring wall.
Presently an answer came, beating from far away. The dwellers were summoning others. Carl found a shady spot and sat down. Owl joined him, grinning maliciously. “It’ll get mighty tiring to stand holding a drawn bow,” he remarked.
“Be quiet!” snapped the leader.
Presently Ronwy came, with a troop of armed witch-men after him. The tall old Chief pushed through the lines of his people and hurried to take Carl’s hands in his own. “What have you done?” he cried. “What have you done?”
“Nothing, yet,” said Carl. “We simply rode in, which is against Dale but not City law, and suddenly we were captured.”
There were tears running along Ronwy’s furrowed cheeks. “The men were afraid you’d come prowling back,” he said. “They planted guards near the vault to ambush anyone that came. I couldn’t stop it.”
“If you were a proper Chief,” said the patrol leader, “you wouldn’t have wanted to stop it.”
“Be still!” shouted Ronwy. “I am Chief of the City even now. These boys go with me.”
“They do not,” replied the leader coldly. “They’re our prisoners, and I say kill them before they work further mischief.”
“And bring the wrath of the Dalesmen down on us?”
The leader’s laugh was a harsh bark. “What would the Dalesmen have to say? These young snoops have broken tribal taboo, as you well know. In any case, it isn’t the Dalesmen who matter any longer, it’s the Lann, and they’ll be pleased to get the heads of these fellows.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked Carl. “What have we done to hurt you?”
“You came to enter the vault of devils,” snarled the leader. “Don’t deny that. You headed straight for it. You’d bring down the wrath of the gods on us by your meddling—to say nothing of the Lann. Only your deaths will lift the curse.”
A mumble of agreement came from the ragged, sooty figures that hemmed in the captives.
Ronwy stepped forth, tall and lean and angry. His old voice rolled out with a new power: “If you kill these lads, you’ll have worse than that to face!” he shouted. “I’m still the Chief of the City. I still have loyal followers. Furthermore, I’m the greatest witch in this tribe. The powers of the Doom are in me. I’ll curse you with plague and ruin and the glowing death.”
That brought them shuddering back. But some shook their fists and cried that the gods would protect the pious and that Ronwy’s sorceries were taboo. For a moment it looked as if that milling throng would begin to fight itself—knives were coming out, spears were lowered.
Carl’s hand stole to the haft of his sword. There might be a chance to cut a way out of such a riot and escape.
Ronwy and his rival strode among the men, yelling orders and cuffing heads, and a slow calm grumbled back into the tribe. Argument went hotly on, while the boys listened in the dark knowledge that their own lives hung on the outcome. But even in that desperate moment, Carl had to admire Ronwy. The old Chief had little power under the law, and few who would back him up, but his tongue was swift and subtle. He fought with words like a skilled swordsman with flickering blade, and, in the end, he won a compromise. The prisoners would be held for a while, unharmed, until their fate could be decided; and in no case would they be executed until word had been received whether Ralph—or the Lann—cared to ransom them.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you,” whispered Ronwy. “But I’ll keep trying.”
Carl managed to squeeze the old man’s trembling hand. “You did splendidly, sir,” he answered softly.
Disarmed, the boys were marched to the area of towers. A small ground-floor room in one had been turned into the City jaiclass="underline" a few straw ticks on the floor, a jug of water, a basin, and a door of heavy wooden bars. They were shoved inside. A lock snapped shut as the door thudded closed, and a spearman sat down under a tree to watch them.
“Well,” said Owl after a long silence, “we found a vault of sorts.”