The Knight

“Then I’ll be alive to keep my promise. I said I would fight Kulili for you, and I will.”

At that he opened his wings. I had thought that he was big before, but with his wings open he was bigger than any airplane I have ever seen. He took off, and the wind was a hurricane. It blew sand and rocks and fire and us, knocking us down so that we were rolling across level ground as if we were falling down the inside of the Mountain of Fire.

Then he was gone. I looked up, and I could see him high in the sky, and his wings were so big that he looked big even up there. It was a terrible sky, red with dust and lit by the fires below. But up above it, where we see the highest clouds, you could see Aelfrice, beautiful trees and mountains and snow and flowers, and Kulili deep in the cool blue sea.

I could not break the chain that held Pouk to the rock, but I stood on it with both feet and pulled the staple out. If I had not, I do not think that Thunrolf and I could ever have carried him up the cliff and up the inside of the Mountain of Fire.

We almost failed anyway. Sometimes we stopped to rest a little, coughing and choking. We were both so thirsty that we could hardly talk, but I tried to explain to him that the time we had been in the Mountain of Fire might seem like just a few days to us, but it was going to be a lot longer when we got out of it.

“If we get out, Sir Able,” he said, and he picked up Pouk and slung him over his shoulders the way I had carried him, and started climbing again. Pouk’s legs were broken, and sometimes he was conscious and sometimes he was not. Thunrolf could carry him a little, then he would get shaky and I would have to carry him again; but Thunrolf never once asked me to. Not once. After a while I noticed that.

We climbed and climbed. It seemed something was wrong, we could not have climbed down as far as we had climbed up already, and we were noplace near the top. We were no longer in Muspel, but in another world of rock and stone and heat and smoke, one bent around us. I knew that we were going to die, and I could drop Pouk and dying would be faster for him and easier for me. I was too stubborn to do it. That went on so long it seemed like forever. It seemed to me that I had never been anybody’s kid brother in America then, that I had never gone looking for a tree or lived in a hut in the woods with Bold Berthold. That there had never been anything for me, really, but climbing and choking and weariness.

I felt a cool wind. It smelled wrong and tasted wrong, but it was cool and I had burns everywhere, and I had been hot so long I did not notice anymore. I looked up, trying to see where it was coming from and how tough the slope was going to be up above, and I saw stars. I will never forget that, and I can shut my eyes right now and see them again. You do not know what stars are, or how beautiful they can be.

But I do.

Chapter 31. Back To Sea

A brighter, nearer star burned some distance below us—a campfire where the lower stair began. We made our way down to it, moving very slowly and snatching mouthfuls of snow, I carrying Pouk and supporting Thunrolf when he needed it. We were not far from the lowest step when Thunrolf said, “Aud!”

The men sitting around the fire sprang up, and Thunrolf stumbled down the last few steps to hug them, and cried. I laid Pouk near the fire and cut away his breeches, and was very happy to see the broken bones had not poked through the skin. Bold Berthold had warned me about that when I fell out of a tree, saying that when it happened the person generally died.

“This is Aud, my steward,” Thunrolf told me, “and this is Vix, my body servant.” Tears were running down his face. “I have never been happier to see two rogues in my life.”

They had wine and water, and we sat with them, drinking it and coaxing Pouk to drink. He was dizzy and sick, and seemed not to know where he was or who we were.

“It was a year ago this day, Your Lordship,” Aud told Thunrolf, “that you went into the Mountain of Fire. We came tonight to remember.”

Vix said, “We were going back to Seagirt, Your Lordship. Leaving tomorrow. Lord Olof would give us places, but we didn’t want them.”

“So there’s a new lord in the Round Tower.” Thunrolf seemed to speak only to himself. “I don’t care. I don’t care at all. I am out.”

“The king sent him, Your Lordship,” Aud said.

“Then I can go home. We’ll go home.” He shook himself, and drained his cup. “I’m so tired—you’ll have to help me up. Able, too. Sir Able. Help him too. Wilt journey to Seagirt with me, Sir Able? You shall be my chief knight, and my heir. I’ll adopt you.”

I thanked him, but explained that Pouk and I had been on our way to Forcetti to take service with Duke Marder.

“I’m going to sleep here. Cover us, Vix.” With that Thunrolf lay down and shut his eyes, and Vix covered him with his cloak.