The Way Of The Wilderking Part 14

Aidan concentrated on those words, New Vezey. Something was on the tip of his tongue, but it just wouldn't come.

"So what do you think?" Jasper asked.

Aidan raised his hand for silence. "New Vezey," he mumbled, his eyes closed, "New Vezey ... Vezey ... Vezey ... Vezey ..."

Suddenly, Aidan's eyes popped open, and he raised an index finger. He recited: Oh, Veezo, you is ruint, Covered up in clay.

With choppin' and plowin'

You tore up the ground And now it's washed away.

"What are you talking about?" Jasper asked. His expression showed genuine alarm, as if he thought his brother had gone crazy.

"Dobro's sadballad," Aidan answered. "About Veezo and the magical plow." He repeated the stanza again: Oh, Veezo, you is ruint, Covered up in clay.

With choppin' and plowin'

You tore up the ground And now it's washed away.

"I think that legend might tell what happened here."

Jasper stared at his brother. Yes, he thought, he's finally lost his wits.

Aidan looked up at the band of red clay just below the canyon rim. He rested his fingers horizontally across the bridge of his nose to shield the rest of the canyon wall from his vision. "Pretend there's no canyon here," he told Jasper. "Pretend there's just a clay bank cut into the ground."

Jasper shielded his own vision the way Aidan had and gazed up at the bank.

"Have you ever seen anything that looked like that?" Aidan asked.

"Just looks like a plain old gully when you look at it that way," said Jasper.

"Dobro and I saw one yesterday. A man had plowed a furrow straight down a slope instead of terracing across it."

"Not very smart," Jasper observed.

"That was only four years ago. Four years of rains washing down that slope, and that furrow has become a gully you can't jump across. Every bit of topsoil has washed away, off down the hill somewhere. Topsoil ten feet deep, all the way down to the bedrock, just gone."

"I still don't see what you're getting at," Jasper said.

"Let's say you put a farm-no, not a farm, a whole village-on a spot where that nice red topsoil isn't sitting on bedrock or hardpacked clay but on a layer of sand and loose clay a hundred feet thick." Aidan pointed straight up in the air, where he imagined this village might have once stood. "And let's say there's a farmer whose fields border the village, and he plows his furrows the wrong way-down the slope, not across it.

"When the topsoil is gone from that farmer's field, can you imagine how quickly the sand below it would wash out? You saw how much sand and clay moved through here in a single rainstorm."

Jasper looked as if he was starting to get the picture. "So you're saying this farmer is the Veezo from Dobro's story?"

"No, I'm saying the song isn't about a man named Veezo. It's about a village called New Vezey. It must have gotten garbled through the years. It wasn't a farmer who got swallowed up by the clay. It was a whole village. This gate stone, these timbers, the plow blade didn't wash up. They fell down, just like that pine tree did."

Jasper wasn't yet ready to accept all of Aidan's theory. "It just doesn't make sense, Aidan."

"It makes more sense than any other explanation we've come up with," Aidan insisted. "It explains a lot of the feechies' peculiar ways. Think about how many superst.i.tions Dobro has about this place."

"Time to leave these neighborhoods," Jasper mimicked in his best Dobro voice.

"Exactly," said Aidan. "Probably the worst disaster in the history of feechiedom. A whole village abandoned, then swallowed up by the earth. Even if they don't exactly remember what happened here, you can imagine the superst.i.tions that would grow up around this place."

"Dobro did say the feechies started out as farmers and villagers," Jasper remembered.

Aidan raised both hands to gesture at his surroundings. "And then this happens. No wonder they gave up farming and took to the forest. This is what made them feechiefolk."

"I've just got one more question," said Jasper. "Why would farmers-even bad farmers-try to farm the Clay Wastes?"

Aidan shrugged. "Maybe they weren't Clay Wastes three hundred years ago. Maybe they only became Clay Wastes after the topsoil washed away."

Jasper smiled. "Perhaps it was for the best that the feechies gave up farming. There may not have been any topsoil left on this island by the time the civilizers got here."

Chapter Twenty-Two.

A Skirmish Three weeks after Aidan and Dobro returned from Tambluff, a convoy of Pyrthen ships landed at Middenmarsh and disgorged four legions-twentyfour thousand fighting men. They took the port city without any real resistance and, after leaving a small occupying force behind, began raking eastward toward Tambluff. As they marched, they burned the farms and villages along the Western Road.

It was not a complete surprise, therefore, when Ottis ran up to the washing pool from his guard post at the mouth of the canyon. "Pyrthens!" he called. "Pyrthens! A troop of Pyrthens is headed this way!"

"Are you sure they're Pyrthens?" Errol asked.

"Yes, sir," Ottis answered. "I've seen enough Pyrthens to know them when I see them. Black-andred battle standards. Black armor."

"I suppose you do know a Pyrthen when you see one," said Errol. "How many men?"

"A hundred or so, on horseback."

"A hundred," Errol repeated. "A small cavalry unit."

"Why would they be coming this way?" Brennus asked. "We're twenty leagues off the Western Road."

"They must have heard about rebels holed up in the canyons," Aidan surmised. "They've sent a party to find out whether we're friend or foe."

"I can answer that easily enough," said Errol, instinctively feeling for the sword at his left hip. "How long before they get here, Ottis?"

"A quarter hour at the most," he answered.

Errol began giving orders. "Percy," he said, "you go up the canyon and alert the main camp. We'd rather hide than fight if we can help it, at least until we know what we're up against." He gave Percy a little push in the direction of the camp. "Brennus," he continued, "I want archers on the canyon rim. Fifty here"-he pointed to a stand of trees above them-"and fifty on the north rim. And stay hidden." Brennus sprinted off to do his duty.

Errol pointed to the brushy pine boughs stacked nearby. "Start covering our tracks," he said. "Even if we can't hide the fact that we've been here, we can at least keep the Pyrthens from knowing how many of us there are."

Down the canyon he could see a cloud of dust rising. The Pyrthens would be coming around the bend any minute. "To the caves and crevices," Errol ordered, not quite so loudly. "I don't want to fight unless we have to, not this time. I don't yet want the Pyrthens to know the full extent of our presence here. But if we have to fight-well, I won't make a speech. You know what we're fighting for."

The men looked at Errol. The light of battle shone in his eyes, and he was beautiful. They all knew what Errol meant. If they had to fight, they would fight for Corenwald, even if it didn't feel like Corenwald anymore. The old man loved Corenwald; that was reason enough to love it, even if they had somehow forgotten how to love Corenwald for its own sake.

Silently, dragging pine boughs behind to cover their tracks, the men disappeared into the folds of the canyon walls behind them. Aidan and Dobro hid behind a dirt chimney that stood nearby. Errol and Jasper tucked themselves behind a clay wall that spurred out from the canyon wall.

They could hear the Pyrthens picking their way through the canyon's maze well before they could see them. The Pyrthens were less than fifty strides away when they emerged from behind the nearest turning of the canyon wall. They were all on horseback, except for the man who led them. He was dressed in the rags of a slave. His bushy beard and wild, matted hair created a sharp contrast to the clean-shaven, close-cropped men who trailed behind him in tight formation. He kept his eyes on the ground; any tracker-guide would keep his eyes on the ground, and that was obviously what this man was. But Aidan could tell from the man's shambling, defeated gait that he always looked at the ground. Still-oozing lash marks were visible through the holes in his tattered garment. His frame was broad; he should have been a big man. But hunger had gotten the better of him. He was mostly bone and skin.

Aidan somehow knew that the slave was a Corenwalder, perhaps a sailor captured by Pyrthen pirates or a mercenary captured in one of Pyrth's unending wars. His heart went out to this countryman, forced to betray his own people by leading the enemy to their doorstep.

The s.h.a.ggy, stooping slave stopped near the washing pool. "I have led you to Sinking Canyons," he said. His voice was husky with thirst, but there was no mistaking his Corenwalder accent. "Now, by the general's orders, you're supposed to set me free."

The Pyrthen commander looked over the scene. "You were to lead me to the rebel camp. I don't see any rebels."

"These canyons are vast and complex." The slave spoke with some heat, though he never looked into the face of the commander. "I have no more idea than you do where the rebels are. My orders were to lead you to Sinking Canyons. That is what I have done."

The commander's mailed fist sent the Corenwalder slave sprawling to the ground. He snarled, "I'll say what your orders are, you dog."

The slave stood to his feet. Aidan noticed with great admiration that he didn't even rub the cheek the Pyrthen had struck. "The general," the slave began. "The general's orders-you were to set me free when I had led you to Sinking Canyons. I have served him these three years."

The commander laughed a cruel, mocking laugh. "Did you really think the general would set you free? You? A traitor to your own people?"

"My treachery served the general well enough," said the slave.

The commander shrugged. "That may be. But the general thinks no more highly of you than your people, the ones you betrayed, must think of you. Neither do I, when it comes to it."

"But the general's orders ..." the slave began, a little more hoa.r.s.ely.

"The general's orders were to kill you once we got to Sinking Canyons." From the pleased look on the commander's face, it was obvious he was telling the truth. "One never knows when a traitor will turn again."

Despairing, the Corenwalder fell to his knees as the Pyrthen slid from his horse and unsheathed his sword. "I am betrayed," he moaned.

The Pyrthen raised his sword and spoke. "It is no treachery to betray a traitor."

Before the Pyrthen's sword fell on the slave's wretched neck, the canyon walls echoed with the voice of Errol, bellowing the name of his long-lost son like a war cry: "Ma-a-ay-n-a-a-a-ard!"

The old man appeared from his hiding place and closed on the Pyrthen with his broadsword raised above his head. He brought his weapon down on the seam of the Pyrthen's black armor, where the shoulder plate met the breastplate. Ten Pyrthens were off their horses before Errol freed his blade for a second stroke. A quick, vicious thrust from an officer's sword sent Errol to the ground. Arrows whistling down from the canyon rim felled a dozen hors.e.m.e.n. A second volley of arrows dropped a dozen more Pyrthens before the first wave of Corenwalder swordsmen fell on the enemy, making it impossible for the archers to go on shooting.

The Battle of Sinking Canyons was terrible. The Pyrthens were ruthless and efficient fighters. They hurt and killed their share of Corenwalders. But they were hugely outnumbered by the militiamen who appeared from the canyon's every crack and crevice, like ants boiling out of the hidden holes of an anthill. Corenwalders circling around from the canyon mouth sealed off the invaders' only escape route, but still the Pyrthens wouldn't surrender. Three or four Pyrthens burst through the lines, dodged the archers' arrows, and galloped to safety. The rest spilled their lifeblood on the sands of Sinking Canyons.

Soon after the fighting broke out, Maynard dragged his father to the safety of a small cave. For the slave who had led the Pyrthens to Sinking Canyons was, of course, Maynard, the second of Errol's sons, who had once tried to pa.s.s himself off as the Wilderking in the Feechiefen Swamp. As the battle raged outside, Maynard held his dying father in the cool darkness and wept for the years he had wasted, for the sins he had committed against the father who had traded his own life for the life of a son who betrayed him.

While his life was ebbing away, Errol opened his eyes. When he saw his son, a faint smile flickered across his face. "Maynard," he said. In spite of his weakness, the voice that spoke the name of his son was so strong with love and tenderness it seemed to bear away all the hurt that had pa.s.sed between the two of them. "Maynard, you were never meant to be a slave."

Chapter Twenty-Three.

An End and a Beginning The Pyrthens were coming. Surely they would be coming after those few escaped hors.e.m.e.n returned to the main body of the army. The Pyrthens knew where the rebels were, knew how many they were, and knew that they were enemies.

There was no time to bury the dead with the honors the fighting men would have liked to accord to their fallen brothers. They placed the dead in tunnels-the Corenwalders in one chamber, the Pyrthens in another-and sealed them in.

The Errolsons buried their father in his own grave, out of the canyon in the plain above; they felt sure he would prefer to be buried in more solid ground than that of the canyons. Aidan, Percy, Jasper, and Brennus stood around their father's grave while Aidan offered up a prayer of thanks for their father's life. Maynard hung back a few steps, wanting to honor his father but not sure how welcome he would be among his brothers.

By the time Aidan had finished his prayer, Maynard was crying violent tears. He squatted on the ground, his bony arms folded around his knees, and rocked back and forth on his heels. His hoa.r.s.e wailing echoed across the plain and off the canyon walls a hundred strides away.

Brennus opened his eyes and glared at his brother. "A little late for that, isn't it, Maynard?"

"Brennus ..." Aidan began, reproach in his voice.

"Don't 'Brennus' me, Aidan. Does that howling do any honor to Father? It's no more than the self-pity of a son who broke Father's heart a thousand times over. A son who brought the enemy to our front porch, who betrayed thirty-six hundred men, the least of whom is more worthy than he. The son who was the direct cause of Father's death. No, I don't see how those tears honor Father at all."

Maynard's tears of shame and sorrow flowed all the more. His wailing grew louder, shriller.

"Brennus," said Aidan quietly, "if you wish to honor Father, then love what Father loved."

Brennus stomped off without another word, waving a hand behind him. Percy and Jasper weren't so violent as Brennus in their reactions. But they weren't yet ready to receive Maynard into the bosom of the family either. They, too, wandered off in the direction of the canyons.

Aidan squatted down beside his older brother and put his arm around him until he stopped his wailing. The two of them walked to the rim of the canyon, still not speaking, and sat with their feet dangling from the edge. They watched the daily activities of thirty-five hundred men, below, getting on with their lives. Men were bathing their wounds in the wash pool, starting fires to cook their evening meals, talking in little groups.

To their left, the sun was going down, the brilliant purples and pinks of its dying light magnifying the colors that swirled in the canyon walls.

They sat that way for five minutes or more before Maynard finally spoke. "His love haunted me, you know. All the way across the ocean it haunted me." He watched a pebble bounce down the side of the cliff.

"False love I could handle. Flattery, using people, even being used-I understood all that. That made sense to me. But unconditional love was the last thing I wanted, from Father or anybody else. Because to receive unconditional love is to know somebody loves you more than you deserve to be loved.

"I don't mean Father ever meant to make me feel unworthy. I don't even think he knew he loved me more than I deserved. I just mean a love that intense can't help but make you see your own selfishness.

"So I spent my life trying to prove I deserved more than I was getting. That's why I tried to pa.s.s myself off as the Wilderking. Who's more deserving than a king?

"When that didn't work, I went to Pyrth. I had something they wanted, and I thought they would honor me for it. I could help give them victory over Corenwald, the one kingdom they had never been able to conquer. I could come home a victor, not groveling for Father's forgiveness but making him grovel for mine.

"But the Pyrthens didn't love me. They broke me. They made me a slave, not a general. Then, when it was too late, I understood I needed unconditional love more than I needed anything in the world."

He began to weep again but softly this time, not violently as before. "I was sure I had finally put myself beyond Father's love. But after all those years, after all that hurt, it finally tracked me down. And it saved me."

"He never slackened in his love for you," Aidan said after a long silence. "I can tell you that." He looked down into the canyon, which was now growing dark. "And now he's gone. I can't get my mind around it. It's as if we woke up one morning back home and found that the River Tam was gone. Some things you just figure will always be there."

He waved his hand out over the canyon. "You know, a village used to stand there."