The Thunder King (Bell Mountain) by Lee Duigon Read Free Book Online Page B

blood.
    “Oh, shut up!” Ryons snarled at it. For once there was no one else in earshot—no one to pick up Jandra and take care of her. But if he called anyone to come over, they’d see how she was and they’d want to know what prophecies she’d spoken to him. They’d find out about his plan to run away, and stop him.
    “Unless you run away right now!” he muttered to himself.
    The day was hot and sultry, and it wasn’t yet noontime. The men and women working on the castle, in the fields, and building houses for the winter moved like they were half-asleep. The first cicadas of the summertime were singing in the treetops, and no one was paying any attention to him at all. Even his Ghols were lazing away the morning.
    Well, why not? Today was as good a day as any.
    Ryons crept off to his secret hiding place, took up his sack of food and tinderbox and extra clothes, and used all his slave’s stealth to sneak out of the encampment and into the encircling woods.
    The cool, dark shadows swallowed him up without a sound.
     

CHAPTER 8
The Lost King
    It wasn’t long before the men of the bodyguard missed their king and began to look for him. But they weren’t worried.
    “He’s playing with us,” said Chagadai, with a grin. “He’s hiding somewhere, thinking we can’t find him. I used to play that game myself, when I was a boy.”
    “How hard did your father look for you?” joked one of the men.
    Rather than send up an alarm, they searched the castle for him. This took longer than expected; it was a big castle, full of possible hiding places. One of the men found a way into the cellars, an entrance that no one else had yet discovered, and so they had to search underground, too, in the dark. Chagadai had torches fetched and led the search himself. A son of the high steppes, where people lived in felt tents on portable willow frames, he’d never been in such a place before.
    “It stinks down here,” someone complained. “The king wouldn’t hide in a stinking place like this.”
    “Weren’t you ever a boy?” Chagadai snapped. “A boy would love it here.”
    They sloshed and blundered around the cellars until midafternoon, but couldn’t find their king. Nor could the boy be found anywhere in the castle above-ground.
    “Well, now, this won’t do!” said Chagadai, when they were outside again, blinking in the brightness of the summer day. “Why weren’t one of you watching him?” But of course each man had assumed the boy was with someone else. At last Chagadai went to Helki.
    “We can’t find the king,” he said. “He must have stolen off into the forest and got lost. We Ghols are useless in the woods. Your people had better find him.”
    “Gave you the slip, did he?” Helki said. “Well, boys will do that.”
    Helki and some of his woodsmen tried to pick up Ryons’ trail. They soon found Jandra asleep in the shade of a broken wall, her bird standing guard over her. There Helki studied the ground and found the start of Ryons’ trail.
    “This is it. He was here,” he said. “But let’s wake Jandra first.”
    He knelt beside the child, raised her, and gently brushed her hair from her face. The bird rattled its dull purple feathers, but didn’t interfere. It knew Jandra thought of Helki as her daddy and loved him.
    “Wake up, peeper, Daddy wants you,” he said. After a few moments she yawned, opened her eyes, and smiled at him.
    “Daddy want to play?”
    “Not now, sweet. Daddy wants Ryons. Where is he?”
    She looked all around, and frowned. “Ryons go away?” she said.
    “Take her to Abgayle,” Helki ordered one of the young men. “Find Obst; tell him what’s happened. The rest of you, come with me.”
    Settlers said Helki could follow the trail of a butterfly. He tracked Ryons easily enough. The trail led into the forest, away from the encampment. After a while it led into some swampy ground where the seeping water made the spoor difficult to follow.
    “He’s got a four