‘The time of the Horse God is done, is done. The time of all old things is gone, is gone. A new God comes to the people of stone. A new time, a new thing, a new purpose.’
‘A new purpose,’ echoed Daingol and Lain-achor.
It went on, hypnotic, wearying, click of stone, chop of wood, slow, circling dance. The chop of the spear blade stopped, and Thewson began working upon the tree with his knife, detailing the tough wood to his need. The shadowy watchers drew nearer, were seized and brought into the circling dance, one by one, two by two, leaning and shuffling in time with the endless tapping, the chanting, the shouts. Sowsie rose, pressed a stone into the hands of a watcher and drew that one down to join the tap, tap, tap.
High above them the sky paled. Thewson gestured Daingol away, and the brothers began carrying the chips to the fire, casting them into the flames with ponderous, weighty gestures of invocation. Dawn rushed upon them, battered at them with reflected light, and they stood silent, still, heads bent in respect before the giant wooden image which Thewson had made. Before it, Thewson bowed, priestly and potent, booming in a voice like a great drum, ‘So it is commanded, you men of the stone. So each year shall you do before the moon of summer. So shall you take the old God into the deep places of the earth to dream the future of your kind while the new God keeps watch. So shall you go to the old ones in deepest places to inquire of them what purpose the men of the stones shall have. And between the moons of summer, one summer and the next, shall you carve the stones of this mountain and all its ways.’
He turned, blind-eyed, and led them away, leaving the warty men to stare at the great image in frozen silence. They took their horses and led them away through the chasm, quietly, looking back only once to see the dog king staring after them, his face reflecting a kind of cynical awe. They heard the dog king’s voice. ‘So it is commanded. So be it.’
Upon the mountain side they encountered a small group of warty men carrying a goat. Seeing the mounted troop with their weapons gleaming, the warty men dropped their captive and fled into the stones, hooting dismally as they went. Thewson retrieved the goat, putting it across his saddle without comment.
Sowsie said, ‘If they carve that stone, it will keep them busy for a million years. You make a good prophet, Thewson.’
‘Not I,’ he said enigmatically. Then, in response to her puzzled look. ‘It was not I who spoke. I carry messages. I do not know when it is I will need to speak them.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PO-BEE
Days 14-24, Month of Thaw
They lurked within the screen of the forest, skulked from grove to grove across the high slopes of the Savus Mountains, sneaked and hid throughout the following days. Below them, on the wide river plain of the Sals, stinking wagon trains were almost continuous, whipped southward by black robes, leaving a foul smell and deep ruts where they passed. The black robes who drove the wagons south seemed to have no thought of interference. There were no guards with the trains, no outriders, no scouts. Daingol said once that he doubted the drivers would pursue them even if they were seen, but none of them wished to take the chance. Adding to their disquiet was Thewson’s quiet statement that the dog king was following them. ‘Jackal quick in the trees, that one. Easy to kill, but better not. Waos. We wait.’
So they waited. The shadow behind them came no nearer, contenting itself with following them as they went among the trees to the constant accompaniment of jingling harness and creaking wagons down along the river. The Sals gleamed saffron and orange in the light of the rising sun, murmuring gently and offering up fish to Lain-achor, who sneaked down between wagon trains to spear them from the bank, his dagger bound to a peeled sapling. Thewson tried it with his spear, giving up in disgust when the fishes flicked away unharmed. He complained to Jasmine, ‘The water twists my sight.’ She was sorry and combed his hair for him to comfort him, making a long job of it in the evening firelight while the others pretended not to notice.
After seven days of this hiding and creeping, they drew almost even with the white bulk of the Palonhodh which loomed away to the east. Their route drew away from the river, into the hills which bordered Sorgen to the north and thence into the mountains which lay at the southern edge of the Rochagam D’Zunabat. To the west lay the city of Enterling, beyond it the mysteries of Owbel Bay. To the east lay Soolenter and before them the high pass which debouched into a long plateau from which the trail led down to the east along the final cliffs of the Savus Range. There were three days of climbing but no more skulking. The wagons could not climb the pass and were forced far to the west on the easier roads. At last they stared down to the north where the sparkle of the River Nils gleamed among clustered cities and towns. The plain of the Axe King was wide, the mountains at its northern edge barely showing on the horizon. It was interrupted here and there by raised islands, covered with forest, seeming afloat on the great sea of grass.
‘They don’t look natural,’ said Jasmine. ‘They look as though they had been built there.’
Sowsie threw one leg across the horse’s neck, nodded toward the forested hillocks. ‘Some say they were built in the time of Sud-Akwith’s sires. Some say they are burial mounds, built here upon the plain to house the tombs of ancient times, long before Tar-Akwith. It may be some
