Chapter 15 The Crossroads
They soon came to a part of the field where the corpses were sparser, and after a walk of what seemed to Simone a hundred miles, to a knoll that gave them a view of the plain farther north. Banners moved in the distance, horns were blown, fires burned, and troops moved in lines barely discernable. Clearly, the battle was still going on, though the forces were scattered. Nearer was a half destroyed tent town that she took to be the Farjan camp, now occupied by hundreds of victors, mostly Forestmen, and among them the towering Dramun, unmistakable and imposing. Simone parted from the Pergs without ever having told them who she was, and in another half hour wandered in among the Southerners. She was practically in Dramun’s face before he knew her.
“Simone! Where were you? I’ve had soldiers looking everywhere for you, even among the fallen. You aren’t hurt, are you?”
Simone threw down her shield and helmet and sat on the ground. “Where’re Athlaz and the others?”
Before Dramun could answer, the Forestmen at last saw her and began to jostle one another and cheer hoarsely. Dramun raised her to her feet with a steady claw and called for silence.
“Athlaz—where is he?” she said.
“Gone north, Princess. You see, when we broke into the enemy’s camp, we found the Lusetta Angfetu imprisoned among them. The poor fellow’s been hurt somehow, but he told us everything we needed to know. He really was with your brother and can vouch that the Emperor Clay was alive and well just a few weeks ago. The Farjan army pursued Clay on the west of the mountains, but lost him. They thought he must have come down into Trans-Titan, but no, he must have gone north with the Mangars to their homeland far in the northwest.”
“Where is Athlaz?” Simone said wearily.
“Don’t you see, Simone? It’s no longer rumor. Angfetu is an eyewitness proving that the Emperor can be found. So the Fold has an Emperor again for the first time in five hundred years, and all we have to do is fetch him. We know where to look, too, so it was only a matter of sending those who will search.”
“Curse your mouth, Old Scale Tail! Where is my Thaz?”
Dramun was brought up short, at last taking serious notice of Simone’s reddened, teary face.
“Why gone with them, Princess, and Mald too. A field council was held within this hour, and Athlaz was chosen to lead a small force northward in search of the Emperor. Misar Shill is with them and guarantees their passage through the northern Titans, so they may get on your brother’s trail ahead of the enemy. However, they’ve barely started now, and Athlaz and a few others are hanging behind. He told me he would wait for you at the first crossroads north. He said that if you came before sunset he would still be there to say goodby to you.”
Simone looked across the plain blankly. “Where’s the crossroads?”
“A mile or two, Princess.” Simone took a few steps and stopped. “I’ll never make it; I’m dead on my feet. You know, I didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“Yes, Princess, but Abram has gone to—”
“Abram’s alive?”
“Yes, alive. He’s gone to fetch a wagon, just on the chance you’d come in time. Snart is with him. Misu spotted the only wagon on the field that hasn’t burned, and she’s leading them to it. Ah, here she comes now.”
Misu glided in and landed neatly on Dramun’s outstretched claw.
“Simone!” she cried. “We knew you’d be found. Dramun has told you everything? Good. I want to ask you a great favor, Princess. May I go with the mission to find the Emperor your brother? They’ll need me to scout from the air, you see. Angfetu has volunteered to take my place in your retinue. As soon as his wing heals, he’ll do you good service, I know. May I go?”
Simone gave permission. In a few minutes the promised wagon arrived with Abram at the reins and Snart beside him. As both descended and bowed, she noticed absently that, though Abram was a dirty mess, his nevel was intact on his back. Not a string broken.
Seeing the Ulrig brought back recent and horrible memories. “Snart, is Snag gone?” she asked thickly.
“Yes.” he said simply. “Dead on the field, Princess.”
“He died saving me from the arrows,” she said wretchedly. “I can’t spare him. You and he saved us in the cemetery at home. I—just can’t stand it.”
“Come along,” said Abram, pulling her gently by the wrist. “We have to get you to where you can say goodby to Athlaz. The sun’s going down.”
Simone climbed onto the empty wagon, and the oxen pulled it across the ravaged fields. She stood in the bed, gripping the seat back, and looked all around. At distances near and far, ricks and houses were burning, soldiers were running, and horns still blew. The mopping up was not yet done.
When they neared the crossroads, they saw several Forestmen sitting by the road, and Athlaz leaped up from among them and came running. As Abram halted the oxen, the young man climbed onto the wagon bed, looking dirty and battered but showing no sign of a wound. He took Simone’s hands and looked into her eyes.
“I’m going to bawl,” she said.
“Oh no.” He stroked her cheek. “Not you. The worst is over.”
“Snag’s dead.”
“I know, hell-bat. I’m sorry.”
“And you’re leaving?”
“Just for a while. I can’t marry an empress, but if I bring Clay back, you won’t be one. Just a princess.”
“So that’s why everyone’s started calling me that.”
“You’ll still be high above me, but such a union is perhaps just possible. Still, I won’t go unless you say. Tell me to stay here and I will.”
Simone gripped his hands tighter. “Go,” she said. “They chose you to go.”
“You’ll wait for me at a safe place, at Rinna?”
She nodded.
“You understand that you can’t go? If we can’t find Clay, you’re the Fold’s only hope.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” he said. “I was half crazy with worry. But then I remembered the prophecies about you that are still unfulfilled, and so I knew you’d be all right.”
“I was half crazy for you,” she said.
“Are you sure of me?”
“Yes.”
“Are we promised to one another, Lady?”
“Yes, promised.”
He held her out from him and looked into her face. “Then we’re set. Thoz will take care of the rest. Be blessed. Stay brave.”
He kissed her once and then tore himself away. She watched as he ran down to the road and joined the other men who were waiting for him. Then Abram turned the wagon around and they jolted off southward.
When they returned to the Farjan camp, where Dramun and so many hundreds of Forestmen had been, all had moved on. But Simone told Abram to halt the wagon, and she dropped down to retrieve her helm and shield. This took some little time, even with Snart’s help, for the sun was now below the horizon. They had found her things and were starting back toward the wagon when Snart paused tensely.
“Stay back, Princess. See? Soldiers are by the wagon.”
“So what?” said Simone.
“They don’t smell right. I think it’s the enemy. Very slowly lie down in the grass here.”
“And leave Abram to them?”
But it was too late in any event. They had been seen. A party of at least a dozen men broke off and came running toward them. Simone laid a hand on Snart’s furry foreleg. “I’m too tired to run, but you can. You have my permission.”
“I can’t, Princess. I musn’t.”
“I’m ordering you. You’re my only hope, old friend. Go and get Dramun. Go!”
Snart shuddered once, then leaped off and disappeared into the dusk. With her sword in its sheath and her palms raised, Simone walked forward to meet the Farjans. They seized her, took away her weapons, and dragged her back to the wagon where
Abram was already being held by them.
Enough light remained to show her the disagreeable face of the Farjan leader. He looked her over, paying particular attention to her long hair, which she had not had time to hide under her helmet. He asked her a few questions.
“Men,” he said presently, “what did Captain Lizeez tell us before the battle? Watch for a woman, he said, one that talks funny. She’ll be young and tall and have Sarrs with her, eh? You saw that Sarr fiend run away from her just now. Deary, you’re no Perg, so who are you?”
“She’s my daughter,” Abram lied stoutly.
“And maybe she calls herself an empress?”
“Never, not my girl.”
“Well, deary, what about it?”
“I don’t just call myself the Empress,” said Simone, “I am the Empress. Your Empress.”
“Woooo-eeh! Listen to her!”
Another soldier plucked at the leader’s elbow. “Zeeg, if she’s the one Pyrus wants, it’ll make us all rich.”
“Think I don’t know it? But not if we don’t get clean away. I didn’t lie with my face in the dirt half the day just to get caught at the last minute. Let’s get moving.”
“There’s too many of us, Zeeg. Most’ll have to walk.”
“Well, it won’t be me! Here, tie these two up to the back. Get the wounded up on the wagon and anyone else who’ll fit. I’ll drive. And somebody bring that nevel. We’ll want the bard to sing us a song when we’re free and clear.”
Tied by their wrists to the back of the wagon, Simone and Abram plodded along in the dark. The noise of the wheels masked their conversation from the Farjans.
“We didn’t do so badly, you know,” said Simone. “A whole country saved. That’s pretty good. And the Farjans won’t be invading anyone for a while.”
“Yes, Princess, but I don’t understand about my song.”
“Why you didn’t get to write it? I don’t understand it either, any more than I understand why the prophecies about me failed.”
“Don’t say it, Princess. Thoz never fails.”
“He did this time. Say, when I can’t walk any more, do you think they’ll just let me be dragged?”
He did not answer. The wagon jounced along ahead of them in inky darkness while the stars were slowly covered by a line of clouds from the west.
“Hey, Abram, was Lila ever in a fix like this?”
“Worse, Princess.”
“Well, what did she do?”
“She prayed.”
“How practical!” Simone thought about it. “I don’t think I feel like praying, but if I did, I’d tell Him anything He wanted to know, and be bold about it. I’d tell Him that I’ve done everything that I knew to do, been the best arrow I knew how to be. I don’t need to be ashamed.”
“Of course not, Princess. You’ve done wonderfully. But we ought to pray about our needs, too.”
“Oh. Sleep. I mean, I wouldn’t mind dying if I could just get some sleep afterward.”
In the distance they heard a barking and baying of some canine pack.
“Wild dogs,” said Simone.
“Yes, feeding on the corpses.”
“They’ll probably eat us.”
They were jerked along for another twenty yards while the sound grew nearer and louder.
“Actually, it sounds more like Loopers to me,” Abram said dully.
Simone’s weary mind slowly took this in. Then her eyes opened wide.
Zeeg stopped the wagon and jumped off. “Don’t be afraid men,” he said cheerily. “It’s just a pack of dogs. Make a line and face ’em. Jason, get a spear ready. Kill one of ’em and the rest will turn tail and run. Hey, come back here!”
Several of the men of frailer nerve were dropping back.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“It sounds like thousands of them, Zeeg!”
“Zeeg, here they come!”
From out of the darkness a rush of upright bodies, the faint glimmer of swords and fangs, and a howling of discernable words: “Simo, Simo, Simo-oh-oh-one!”
“Zeeg, they’re not dogs! They’re Sarr-fiends!”
A flight of spears suddenly landed among them, sinking into human flesh with sickening, muffled thuds. Several Farjans fell. The rest backed up, screaming and wailing and, in another moment, broke and ran. In moments Simone and Abram were surrounded waist deep by fawning, yipping, victorious Loopers who cut their bonds and licked at their chafed wrists.
Simone was giddy. “You loves, you perfect, hairy, Loopers! I thought you’d forgotten me. How did you find us?”
“We would never forget you,” said one of them. “We remembered your smell and tracked you all the way from Mount Rinna.”
“When you weren’t at the Palace of Reflections—” began another.
“You mean when you were late getting there,” laughed Simone.
“Yes, Empress. We were told that you wanted us to follow you, so we crossed the Areophar and found Ulrigs expecting us. They said you left word to keep on, so we went with them through the endless tunnels all the way to Rinna. You called us, so we came.”
Simone laid a hand on the speaker’s head. “Roper? Is that Roper?”
“Er, yes, Empress.”
“Why, you fraud! I called for the Loopers of Bibaseel, not you! How in the world did you come to be here?”
“We caught him,” another Looper eagerly volunteered. “He was sneaking down the river, trying to get away, and we nabbed him at Trimmer’s Corner. He said—”
“He said you had to judge him,” another broke in. “So we brought him along.”
“Fol-de-rol,” said Simone, patting one head after another in the dark. “King Korazagel was supposed to judge him. I thought that was all straight.”
“Judge him now!” suggested a Looper, dimwittedly.
“No, no, I’m too sleepy now. I haven’t slept since Saturday night and I think it’s Monday evening. Or is it Tuesday?”
“Up on the wagon!” they said. “Sleep on us, Empress, we’re soft.”
“Oh yes, and clever too, to get yourselves a ride on my wagon.”
They all laughed at this. Then someone took up a cheer. “Sleep for the Empress! Sleep for the Empress, the Empress, the Empress!”
A cold wind blew through the valley after midnight, making Abram shiver as he drove the weary oxen up to the camp of the Forestmen below Rinna. Only one boyish guard was on his feet, and he left a campfire reluctantly to investigate the wagon.
“Who’s there?”
“What’s that? Young Argoz from Leona?”
“Abram the Bard! You are Abram?”
“Most of him, ha-ha. Give me a hand unhitching these oxen, Argoz, and I’ll tell you a story you won’t believe.”
“I’ve heard them all today, oldster. Every man in camp has two stories: what really happened to him and the one he tells. Add ’em all up and we Forestmen alone, without the Pergs, killed all the Farjans three times over.”
“You’re right, boy. Careful with the yoke now, easy, my shoulder’s bad. Ha-ha. Yes, we’ve got enough heroes now, and they can tell their stories, and embroider them, till they’re too old to make themselves heard. But for tonight, how does a love song strike you, a new one?”
“You brought your nevel?” the boy asked enthusiastically.
“It’s in the back. Oh wait, Argoz. Be careful.”
“What in the—?”
“About forty sleeping Loopers, boy, and the Queen of the Fold sleeping on top of them. I told you I had a story.”
“Well—what do you want me to do with them? Is that really Simone?”
“It is, and don’t do anything. Just leave them alone, they’re happy. That’s right, tie the oxen up to the wagon. Good boy. Now come with me. Let’s wake a few of our friends so I can try out a new song on them.”
“You’re too tired, Abram.”
“Not for this.”
Simone woke to the sound of a nevel and Abram’s clear, high voice. She rolled half over among the Loopers and saw through a gap in the side board a campfire and soldiers seated around it. Abram was singing for them.
When the battle was ended, she searched on the field
Where was many a young man’s grim ghost,
But Simone found not Athlaz, the strongest to wield
A sword among all of the host.
But when she comes to the captains, she stands boldly forth
And asks if he lived or he died.
‘Athlaz lives,’ say the captains. ‘and goes to the north
With his Forestmen journeying wide.
He must find the Lost Emperor, whether or no,
And he counsels you here to abide.
He seeks for your brother to rule the Fold.
When he brings him, you’ll be Athlaz’ bride.
But he said, “If she comes ’ere the sun’s in the dell
To the milestone by foot or by ox,
I will tarry to say to my true love farewell.
Bid her hurry, for I must be off.”
She’s too weary to walk, she’s too weary to go,
But a wagon she rides to the stone,
And she waits for him long while the red sun sinks low.
Then comes Athlaz to his Simone.
‘My love, I must leave you and go far away
Over mountain and tillage and brook.
Give your promise that we may be married one day.’
‘I promise, Athlaz, by the Book.
I fear me that never again we will speak
When this nightfall you go from my sight.’
Near the green field of parting, under Rinna’s wan peak,
Simone waits for Athlaz her knight.
‘Pretty ballad,’ Simone thought. ‘But what a wimp he makes me out to be. And he doesn’t seem to bother about the facts; it’s wrong in almost every particular.’ She rolled back over, feeling sleep enveloping her again.
Dramun was at Rinna conferring with several Ulrig generals when the report reached him.
“Found her? Thank Ulrumman. I never should have allowed her to go off practically alone, but I had thought that all danger was over. No one was more surprised than I was when troops of Farjans appeared and drove us back out of their camp. A temporary setback, but it cut us off from the Princess. Well, no more folly, I swear it. From now on, she must be kept away from other humans entirely. She must go south to Ulrig country. Well, what about Athlaz? I’ll tell her he’s dead, or soon will be. And that her brother can’t be found. Anything to persuade her to leave Trans-Titan and go south.”