Vault of the Ages Read Free Page B

hungrily as his new friends.
    John’s wife, Mary, hovered over the boys. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Be careful, Tom, Jim, and—oh, come back to us!”
    “Yes,” rumbled John in his beard. “I shouldn’t let you go, but—the gods go with you.” His rough hand brushed their shoulders and he turned away, blinking.
    The three were too eager to be off to pay much attention. It seemed a long time to Carl before he was riding into the woods, but the mist was still not quite off the ground and dew was shining in the grass.
    “I know the way,” said Tom, “even if I’ve never been there myself. We follow this trail till we get to a brook, then it’s due north across country to one of the old roads, and that’ll take us straight in.”
    “If it’s that easy,” said Carl, “I don’t need a guide.”
    “Oh, yes, you do,” said Owl. “At least, I need the trip.”
    They rode single file down a narrow path. Before long, the forest had closed in on them, brush and fern and high, sun-dappled trees, a red squirrel streaking up a mossy trunk, chatter of birds and murmur of running water—but they were alone, there were no others anywhere,and the great stillness lay like a cloak over all the lesser noises. Carl relaxed in the saddle, listening with half an ear to the excited talk of Tom and Owl, aware of the plod of hoofs and the squeak of leather and the jingle of metal, his nostrils sensing a thousand smells of green growing life. It was a good land here, a broad, fair land of green fields and tall forests and strong people—and by all the gods, the Dalesmen meant to keep it!
    “I know why Father let us go with you,” said Tom. “He is upset about our neighborhood not sending men to Dalestown. He thinks it’s still the wisest thing we’re doing, but he doesn’t really like it.”
    “Nobody likes war,” said Carl shortly.
    “I think the Lann must,” said Owl. “Otherwise, why are they making it against us? We never harmed them.”
    Carl didn’t answer. Indeed, he thought, he was not at all sure of why things were happening or of what really was going on. The world, big and secret, held more in it than the tribes with their unchanging life or the Doctors with their narrow wisdom thought.
    They rode on, and the sun climbed in the sky and the forest slid away behind them and still loomed ahead. The trail faded out near a cold running brook which they forded, and beyond that, the hills climbed steeply, with many open meadows between the trees. They rested at noon, eating the dried meat which John’s sons had taken along, and then mounted again and rode farther.
    The attack came near midafternoon. Carl was riding in the lead, pushing a way through a dense part of the forest, lost in his own thoughts. Their own passage was so noisy that the boys did not hear anything else, and the sudden yell came like a thunderbolt.
    Carl whipped out his sword and dug heels into his pony’s ribs in one unthinking motion. The arrow hummed past his cheek and stuck into a tree. He saw the man who rose out of ambush before him and hewed wildly even as the stranger’s ax chopped at his leg.
    Metal clanged on metal, flaming in a single long sunbeam. The man yelled again, and others came out of the brush and dropped from the limbs of trees. Carl reined in his horse, it reared back and its hoofs slashed at the first attacker. He stumbled backward to escape, and Carl bent low in the saddle and burst into a gallop.
    “This way!” he yelled. “This way, after me! We’ve got to get clear! It’s the Lann!”

CHAPTER 2
The Lost City
    B RANCHES whipped across his face, and Carl flung up an arm to shield his eyes. Forward—a wild scrambling as the Lann warriors broke before his charge—out and away! He burst from the woods into the long grass of a sunlit meadow. Two arrows whistled after him; one grazed his neck, humming like an angry bee. Turning in the saddle, he saw Tom and Owl riding close behind him and the enemy running